Back to Question of the Week Back to Archives Q: Given that the story of Abraham and Isaac rules out human sacrifice, what is it that I am missing in Judges 11; in particular Jephthah?  It appears that human sacrifice is acceptable in this case.  I have been reading on this and the suggestion I found most acceptable is that the Jephthah story was taken from another culture and 'adjusted' to fit the times and that the 'editor' missed this.  (I find that a little hard to believe as if it is obvious to me it certainly should have been obvious to someone much more familiar with it.) Anyway, I just don't understand.   Thanks, David
		A: Hi David, the Reb agrees, this is one heck of a problematic Bible story. Let's quote the relevant verses in full so people know what we're talking about: And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD: "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering." Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon. When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break." "My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request," she said. "Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry." "You may go," he said. And he let her go for two months. She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin. From this comes the Israelite custom that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite. (Judges 11:30-40) Wow, what an intense and disturbing story! You are absolutely correct to sense that offering one's child in the service of an impulsive vow- or for any other reason, actually- goes against Torah ethics and law. Compare this story to Leviticus 18: 21: Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech [a pagan deity], for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. Other relevant passages include Deuteronomy 12:31 and 18:10. There are other stories in the Bible which tell of human sacrifices, such as the evil king Ahaz in 2 Kings 3, but the text is much more explicit in its condemnation in those places- what really disturbs us about the story of Jeptha is not that he did something stupid and evil, but that the Bible doesn't explicitly SAY that what he did was stupid and evil. My sense is that the Bible does offer him as a negative example- don't make foolish vows, and don't hold fast to your vows if they entail great evil- but for some reason, we aren't told that in so many words. However, what the Bible omits, the ancient rabbis include- they do, in fact, explicitly condemn him for being stupid and impulsive. One midrash even says that when he sacrificed his daughter, the Holy Presence cried out in anguish at how a leader of Israel so misapplied Torah law. Another midrash calls Jeptha "no more learned than a block of sycomore wood." (Both of these are found in the English Sefer HaAggadah, the famous anthology of midrashim compiled by Hayim Bialik.) Regarding the comparison with Abraham and Isaac, well, that opens up a whole can of worms, because we can debate for a hundred years the question of God's exact intent. Did God ever really intend for Abraham to sacrifice his son? As you point out, a plausible reading of the story is that God's intent was to teach Abraham precisely NOT to sacrifice his children. In that case, the two stories - Genesis 22 and Judges 11- are complementary, not contradictory. NJL
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