But, as no pious man would have made such a vow, so, if Jephthah had made it, the latv itself had jyrovided a ransom for her. We have before said, that vows were encouraged under the law ; and 2^ersons, as well as things, might be devoted to God. But if either persons, or things, were devoted to him, the law permitted that a valuation should be made of the devoted thing or person, and that the money should be regarded as a ransom for it, or an offering be presented in its stead. If a human being were devoted, the estimation should vary accord- ing to the sex and age of the person : but if it were a beast, then the offerer should give in addition one fifth more than the estimated value as the price of its redemption ™. When the enemies of God and their cities or possessions were, as accursed things, devoted to destruction, they were not to be redeemed at all : they were accursed of God himself, as the Amalekites and Canaanites were, and were therefore not to be spared" : and Saul, in sparing Agag, whom God had devoted to destruc- tion, sinned as much as if he had murdered one whom God had ordered to be spared". Now, if we call to mind how
i Exod. XX. 13. ^ Deut. xii. 31.
1 Exod. xxi. 20. "> Lev. xxvii. 2—13.
" Lev. xxvii. 29. « 1 Sam. xv. 3, 9, 22, 23, 32, 33.
eminently conversant Jephthah was with the history of Israel, so as to be able to refute all the claims of the king of Ammon?, we can feel no doubt but that he was well acquainted with the law that prescribed the mode in which devoted things were to be redeemed : indeed his vow was evidently founded on the know- ledge of that law : for if a dog had met him first, he would never have dared to offer that in sacrifice to God : conse- quently he would never have made his vow so indefinitely, if he had not known that the law admitted of an exchange, in case the devoted thing should be improper to be offered.
But supposing that he was ignorant of this law, were the high-priest and all the priests in the kingdom ignorant of it ? and, when the execution of the vow was postponed for two months, and great lamentation was made all that time through- out the kingdom on account of the vow, was there no person in all Israel who once thovight of this law ? If but one person had thought of it, would he not have been very glad to mention it? and would not the mention of it have been most acceptable to Jephthah, when it wovild have put an immediate end to all his mourning and lamentation ? Would he not have been glad enough to pay thirty shekels, about SI. 85. Qd., the sum pre- scribed by the law, to save the life of his daughter ? But it may be said, that this was a period of gross darkness ; and that idolatry with all its horrid rites prevailed to a great extent 'J. To this I answer, that though idolatry had recently prevailed, this was a time of singular reformation ; for the people had put away the strange gods from among them, and served the Lord"": " and in such a state of mind, considering what obligations they felt to Jephthah, even if they had not thought of this law, they would have interposed to rescue his innocent daughter from destruction; just as the people, at a later period of their his- tory, rescued Jonathan from the hands of Saul, when the sentence, to which his father's oath had doomed him, was just ready to be executed ^
These arguments, we grant, would have no weight against an express declaration of Holy Writ : but it is no-where said, that such a vow as doomed her to death was ever made. On the contrary we affirm, that the terms tised hij Jephthah do not imply any such thing. The word that is translated And, is not unfrequently used in a disjunctive sense, and should be translated Or. In many places it must of necessity be trans- lated Or, and actually is so translated in our Bible*: and in the margin of our Biljles it is so translated in the very passage before us. Thus translated, the words of Jephthah involve no difficulty : he says, Whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my