Was Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter to God in Judges 11:29-40 legitimate? Isn’t child sacrifice forbidden? Why would God accept a sacrifice of a girl from a man if he is against child sacrifice?
Judges 11:30 (NLT) And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. He said, “If you give me victory over the Ammonites, 31 I will give to the Lord whatever comes out of my house to meet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
Judges 11:34 When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter came out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. She was his one and only child; he had no other sons or daughters. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish. “Oh, my daughter!” he cried out. “You have completely destroyed me! You’ve brought disaster on me! For I have made a vow to the Lord, and I cannot take it back.” 36 And she said, “Father, if you have made a vow to the Lord, you must do to me what you have vowed, for the Lord has given you a great victory over your enemies, the Ammonites. 37 But first let me do this one thing: Let me go up and roam in the hills and weep with my friends for two months, because I will die a virgin.”
The first thing to note is that the recording of a specific action or behavior in the Bible does not necessarily endorse the action itself. Plenty of stories in the Bible, a lot of which are in the book of Judges itself, involve heinous and despicable acts by humans. A man sacrificing his daughter to God is a tragedy, and child sacrifice was forbidden in scripture (Lev 18:21 and 20:2-4) because this is what the pagan nations around Israel did.
God never required human sacrifices for sin in the Law of Moses, only animals. Regarding the dedication of children to the Lord, girls were never to be dedicated in this manner, only firstborn males (Exodus 13:11-16, Numbers 3:40-51). The firstborn of all clean animals were sacrificed. For unclean animals, they could be killed outside the camp (unclean animals don’t belong on the altar) or substituted with a clean animal. Humans, however, were never to be killed and had to be substituted with a clean animal, just like how Abraham substituted Isaac with a ram. Substitution for humans was always God’s intent, and this points to Jesus, the only sinless human, being substituted for our sins.
Also, if you pay attention, Jephthah said in Judges 11:30, ” I will give to the Lord whatever comes out of my house to meet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.” His intent was probably money and livestock, not his daughter, but he made a reckless oath. Now he could have asked God if he could substitute her. It is also possible that God would have let him replace her with some other living thing in his household based on the principle of firstborn dedication. It’s also possible the answer could have been no, because his oath said, “whatever comes out of my house to meet me.” We don’t know because Jephthah didn’t ask; he just assumed he was bound to his oath, so he had to do it. Based on the idea that God always asked for humans to be substituted, and the fact that God used the penal substitution atonement system to save humanity through Jesus Christ, I believe Jephthah could have asked for substitution, and God would have shown him mercy.
This story serves as a cautionary tale about making reckless promises. This is why Jesus said in Matthew 5:33-37, not to swear oaths anymore, and to let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no’. The moral of the story is not to make reckless oaths, but if you do, ask God for mercy, and He will forgive you (1 John 1:9, Hebrews 4:16).