Jephthah’s vow

Jephthah did not, Edwards argues, slaughter his daughter on an altar. That would have been unlawful, just as offering an unclean animal on the altar was unlawful. What he did was what he could lawfully do, dedicate her to the Lord – just as an unclean animal could be dedicated to holy service. A portion of his full, convincing explanation from Notes on Scripture (160-2) follows:

“The tenor of his vow, if we suppose it to be a lawful vow, did not oblige him to it. He promised that whatsoever come forth of the doors of his house to meet him, should surely be the Lord’s, and he would offer it up for a burnt offering. He was obliged to no more by this vow than only to deal with whatsoever come forth of the doors of his house to meet him, as those things that were holy to the Lord, and by right burnt offerings to God were to be dealt with, by God’s own law and the rules that he had given. Supposing it had been an ass, or some unclean beast had come forth to meet him, as Jephthah did not know but it would, his vow would not have obliged him to have offered it in sacrifice, or actually to have made a burnt offering of it. But he must have dealt with it, as the law of God directed to deal with an unclean beast that was holy to the Lord, and that otherwise must have been actually a burnt offering to the Lord, had it not been for that legal incapacity of the impurity of its nature . . . .

“All living things that were consecrated were to be as it were burnt offerings to God, i.e. they were actually to be offered up a burnt sacrifice, if not of a nature that rendered it incapable of this, and then in that case something else was to be done that God would accept instead of offering it up a burnt sacrifice. The direction we have in Leviticus 27:11–13, ‘And if it be any unclean beast, of which they do not offer a sacrifice unto the Lord, then he shall present the beast before the priest; and the priest shall value it, whether it be good or bad. As thou valuest it, who art the priest, so shall it be. But if he will at all redeem it, then he shall add a fifth part thereunto of thy estimation’; i.e. it should be valued by the priest, and the man should, after it was valued, determine whether he would redeem it, or no. And if not, he was to break his neck if an ass (Exodus 13:12–13); or if other unclean beast, it must be sold according to the priest’s estimation, Leviticus 27:27 (as is elsewhere directed to be done to unclean beasts that were holy to the Lord, Exodus 34:20). But if he would redeem it, if it were an ass, he was to redeem it with a lamb (Exodus 13:12–13); if other unclean beast, he was to add the fifth part to the priest’s estimation, that is, he was to give the value of the beast, and a fifth part more. And if Jephthah had done this in case an unclean beast had met him, he would have done according to his vow. If he had, in such a case, gone about to have offered an unclean beast as a burnt sacrifice, he would dreadfully have provoked God. His vow could be supposed to oblige him to no other than only to deal with the unclean beast that was consecrated, as the law of God directed to deal with it, instead of offering it a burnt offering. And so when it was his daughter that met him, he might do to her according to his vow, without making her a burnt sacrifice, if he did that to her which the law of God directed to be done to a dedicated person, instead of actually making them a burnt sacrifice, by reason of the incapacity which, by the mercy of God, attends a human person to be a burnt sacrifice. For to offer either a man or an unclean beast in sacrifice to God are both mentioned as a great abomination to God, and as what were universally known so to be. Isaiah 66:3, ‘He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood.’ But the more fully to clear up the difficulties that attend this matter, I will particular[ly] observe some things concerning the laws, that related to persons that were consecrated so as to become holy to the Lord.”