increasing the number of the Lord's people, or a hope that the Messiah might spring from them : and this was a peculiarly heavy calamity to her, because she was the only child of Jeph- thah"; and her doom cut her off from all prospect of raising up a seed who should inherit his honours, and follow his ex- ample. Therefore it was proper that there should be a public kind of mourning observed, not only in honour of her who thus freely sacrificed all her prospects in life, but in honour of Jephthah also, who in this instance exercised most eminent self-denial, and might be considered as almost dead.
Next observe the language in which is recorded his perform- ance of his vow : " Her father did with her according to his vow which he had vowed : and she knew no man." Why is this latter circumstance mentioned, but to shew wherein the accomplishment of the vow consisted ? Is it not strange that this should be mentioned so often, and her death be never once noticed, if indeed she was put to death ? But, if she was only doomed to a state of perpetual virginity, the reason of the ex- pression is clear enough.
In addition to all this, observe the language in which the commemoration of the event is mentioned : " It was a custom in Israel, that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the davighter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year." If she was dead, there was scarcely any adequate reason for the daughters of Israel to go four times a year to one particular place to lament her ; for they might as well have lamented her at home : but if she was alive, and secluded from company all the rest of the year, there was reason enough why they should visit her then. But the word which we translate to lament, is in the margin of the Bible translated to talk with : and this assigns the true reason of those stated convocations : her female friends went to condole ivith her on the occasion, and to do her honour. Even the manner in which she is mentioned in this passage seems to bespeak her a living person ; they went to talk with " the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite." Had she been offered in sacrifice to God, there would probably have been something more descriptive of her character ; but, if she was still living, this is the only description of her that we should expect to find.]
But there is yet a third source from whence we may derive arguments in confirmation of this point. We have noticed the vow in reference both to the making, and the execution of it : let us now proceed to notice, 3. The honour God put upon it — [In consequence of this vow, " God delivered the Am- monites into the hands" of Jephthah^. But would God have
u ver. 34. ^ ver. 32, 33.
JEPHTHAIl's VOW. 59
272.]
sanctioned in tliis manner a gross act of deliberate murder? Would not this have been the very way to deceive his people, and to make them think that he was pleased with such offerings as the heathen presented unto Moloch ? And when in future ages he punished his people for offering human sacrifices, might they not justly have pleaded, that he in tliis instance had both approved and rewarded them ?
Again : St. Paul, in his catalogue of eminent believers, par- ticularly mentions Jephthah, and with an express reference to this event. Jephthah had shewn his faith by looking to God for victory, and by going forth against the Ammonites in an assiu-ed dependence upon him, as the protector of Israel, and the rewarder of all that trust in him : and this act of his is a subject of high commendation with God himself. Now I ask. Would this act have been so commended, if it had been ushered in with such an impious vow, and been followed by such a deliberate murder ? But if the vow imported only that what- soever met him first at his return should be consecrated to God, and if, in consequence of that vow, he did with such steady self-denial proceed to the performance of it, then is God's approbation easily accounted for, even whilst we con- demn the indefiniteness and rashness with which the vow was made.