That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.
All Commentaries on Judges 11:40 Go To Judges 11
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
As regards to the fact that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to God as a whole burnt offering, these are the facts: he had vowed that if he were to obtain the victory, he would offer as a whole burnt offering whoever would come out of his house and meet him; because he had vowed this and won the battle and his daughter had been the one to meet him first, he fulfilled his vow. This event has become a great and rather difficult question to settle both for some who investigate the matter with piety and genuinely seek to know what this passage means and for some who out of ignorant impiety oppose the Holy Scriptures and call this a horrible misdeed that the God of the law and prophets would have delighted in sacrifices, yes, even human sacrifices. First let us reply to their calumnies by noting that the whole burnt offerings of cattle did not delight the God of the law and the prophets—or as I prefer to say, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What pleased God about those sacrifices was that they were full of meaning and a foreshadowing of future things. We, however, have the very substance which was foreshadowed by these sacrifices that he wished to commend to us. Moreover, there was also a very pertinent reason why those sacrifices have been changed so that they no longer are commanded but even forbidden: it is so that we may not think that God is pleased by such sacrifices according to some carnal passion.
