(c) This law, therefore, expressly applied, in its first branch, to Jephthah's case, who had de voted his daughter to the Lord, or opened his mouth unto the Lord, and therefore could not go back ; as he declared in his grief at seeing his daughter, and his only child, coming to meet him with timbrels and dances.
(d) She was, ,therefore, necessarily devoted, but with her own consent, to perpetual virginity, in the service of the tabernacle (Judg. xi:36, 37). And such service was customary ; for in the division of the spoils taken in the first Midianite war, of the whole number of captive virgins, 'the Lord's tribute was thirty-two persons (Num. xxxi :35-4o). This instance appears to be cisive of the nature of her devotement.
(e) Her father's extreme grief on this occa sion, and her requisition of a respite of two months to bewail her virginity, are both perfectly natural ; having no other issue, he could look forward only to the extinction of his name or family; and a state of celibacy, which is reproach ful among women everywhere, was peculiarly so among the Israelites; and was therefore no ordinary sacrifice on her part, who, though she generously gave up, could not but regret the loss of becoming "a mother in Israel." 'And he did with her according to his vow which he had vowed, and she knew no man,' or remained a virgin all her life (Judg. xi :34-40.
(f) There is no precedent of any such sacrifice under the law, in the Old Testament. The case of Isaac, before the law, is irrelevant ; for Isaac was not sacrificed ; and it was only proposed for a trial of Abrahatn's faith. No father, merely by his own authority, could put an offending, much less an innocent, child to death, upon any account, without the sentence of the magistrates (Deut. xxi :18-21), and the consent of the people, as in Jonathan's case.
(g) The Mishna, or traditional law of the Jews, is pointedly against it :—"If a Jew should devote his son or daughter, his man or maid servant, who are Hebrews, the devotement would be void; because no man can devote what is not his own, or of whose life he has not the absolute disposal." (h) That Jephthah could not even have de voted his daughter to celibacy against her will, is evident from the history, and from the high estimation in which she was always held by the daughters of Israel, for her filial duty and her hapless fate, which they celebrated by a regular anniversary commemoration four days in the year (Judg. xi :40).