That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
Never shall I be led to believe that the leader Jephthah made his vow otherwise than without thought, when he promised to offer to God whatever should meet him at the threshold of his house on his return. For he repented of his vow, as afterwards his daughter came to meet him. He tore his clothes and said, “Alas, my daughter, you have entangled me, you have become a source of trouble for me.” And though with pious fear and reverence he took upon himself the bitter fulfillment of his cruel task, yet he ordered and left to be observed an annual period of grief and mourning for future times. It was a hard vow, but far more bitter was its fulfillment, while he who carried it out had the greatest cause to mourn. Thus it became a rule and a law in Israel from year to year, as it says: “that the daughters of Israel went to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.” I cannot blame the man for holding it necessary to fulfill his vow, but yet it was a wretched necessity ...
It is also sometimes contrary to duty to fulfill a promise or to keep an oath. As was the case with Herod, who swore that whatever was asked he would give to the daughter of Herodias, and so allowed the death of John, that he might not break his word. And what shall I say of Jephthah, who offered up his daughter in sacrifice, she having been the first to meet him as he returned home victorious; whereby he fulfilled the vow which he had made that he would offer to God whatever should meet him first. It would have been better to make no promise at all than to fulfill it in the death of his daughter. - "Duties of the Clergy 1.50.255"
But we rightly ask whether human sacrifices must have foreshadowed future events.… But if this were true, this type of sacrifice would not displease God. But in fact the Scriptures themselves clearly testify that human sacrifices displease him. For when God wanted and commanded all the firstborn to belong to him and to be his, he nonetheless wanted the firstborn of humankind to be redeemed by their parents, so that they would not entrust their firstborn children to God through immolation.…
Now clearly God loves and rewards those sacrifices when a just man endures injustice and struggles for the truth even to the point of death or when he is killed by enemies whom he has offended for righteousness’ sake, as he has returned them good for evil, that is, love instead of hatred.… In imitation of Abel, thousands of martyrs have struggled for the truth to the point of death and have been sacrificed by savage enemies. The Scripture says of them, “God has tested them like gold in a furnace and ...
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 t...
Lament. Hebrew Lethanoth. On this term the solution of this question greatly depends. (Haydock)
Kimchi translates, "to talk with "or "to comfort the daughter of Jephte "as he supposes that the custom subsisted during her life, while she was shut up either near the tabernacle, or in her father's house. (Calmet)
Montanus renders "to speak to. "Junius and the Tigurin version, "to discourse with. "
Thanan certainly is used for "he related "Judges v. 11., yethannu narrentur, or rather narrent; and the construction here seems to require this sense. (Amama)
If this be admitted, the bloody sacrifice is at an end, since the daughters of Israel could not meet to comfort the virgin every year, if she was immolated at the expiration of two months. But if we follow the translation of the Vulgate, Septuagint, and Chaldean, as the Protestants have done, the lamentation might still be viewed in the same light, as tending to condole with the lady, rather than bewail her untimely death, (Haydock) as,...
For Jephthah likewise, when he had promised that the first thing that met him, after a victorious battle, he would sacrifice, fell into the snare of child murder; for his daughter first meeting him, he sacrificed her, and God did not forbid it. And I know, indeed, that many of the unbelievers impugn us of cruelty and inhumanity on account of this sacrifice; but I should say that the concession in the case of this sacrifice was a striking example of providence and clemency; and that it was in care for our race that he did not prevent that sacrifice. For if after that vow and promise he had forbidden the sacrifice, many also who were subsequent to Jephthah, in the expectation that God would not receive their vows, would have increased the number of such vows, and proceeding on their way would have fallen into child murder. But now, by suffering this vow to be actually fulfilled, he put a stop to all such cases in the future. And to show that this is true, after Jephthah’s daughter had be...
