judge
A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...
Ammon
Ammon (; Ammonite language, Ammonite: 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''ʻAmān''; '; ) was an ancient Semitic languages, Semitic-speaking kingdom occupying the east of the Jordan River, between the torrent valleys of Wadi Mujib, Arnon and Jabbok, in present-d ...
ites, and vowed he would give the first thing that came out of his house as a burnt offering to
God
In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
. However, his only child, an unnamed daughter, came out to meet him dancing and playing a tambourine (v. 34). She encourages Jephthah to fulfill his vow (v. 36) but asks for two months to weep for her virginity (v. 38). After this period of time, Jephthah fulfilled his vow and offered his daughter.
One opinion among commentators is that after she mourned for her virginity in light of the Biblical commandment to "be fruitful and multiply", which she would now no longer be able to fulfill, Jephthah killed his daughter in an act of
human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease deity, gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/prie ...
. There is an opposing opinion that Jephthah's daughter was "offered to the Lord" in the same way
Samuel
Samuel is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the biblical judges to the United Kingdom of Israel under Saul, and again in the monarchy's transition from Saul to David. He is venera ...
was offered after birth, and spent the rest of her life in seclusion. This is based on considerations arising from the narrative, such as that weeping for her virginity would make no sense if she were about to die. Commentators holding this view include
David Kimhi
''Cervera Bible'', David Kimhi's Grammar Treatise
David Kimhi (, also Kimchi or Qimḥi) (1160–1235), also known by the Hebrew acronym as the RaDaK () (Rabbi David Kimhi), was a medieval rabbi, biblical commentator, philosopher, and grammarian ...
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a Christian denomination that is an outgrowth of the Bible Student movement founded by Charles Taze Russell in the nineteenth century. The denomination is nontrinitarian, millenarian, and restorationist. Russell co-fou ...
.
Later influence
Jephthah's daughter was not given a central role in many pre-medieval texts: the major exception was the first-century ''Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum'' of " Pseudo-Philo", which devoted an entire chapter to her (and gave her the name of "Seila"). The French scholar
Peter Abelard
Peter Abelard (12 February 1079 – 21 April 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, leading logician, theologian, teacher, musician, composer, and poet. This source has a detailed description of his philosophical work.
In philos ...
(d. 1142) praised Seila in his
lament
A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. Laments can also be expressed in a verbal manner in which participants lament about something ...
''Planctus virginum Israel super filia Jephte''. In a letter to his lover Héloïse d'Argenteuil, Abelard also portrayed Seila as a model for monastic women who devote their whole lives to God. In other medieval Christian texts, Jephthah's daughter was portrayed as a
type
Type may refer to:
Science and technology Computing
* Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc.
* Data type, collection of values used for computations.
* File type
* TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file.
* ...
of
Virgin Mary
Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...
and her death was likened to the Purification of the Virgin.
In the medieval period, some Jewish communities refrained from drinking water from wells and rivers for a few hours at four key times of the year, a custom called the '' tekufah''. In the twelfth century Rabbi Judah the Pious wrote that the ''tekufah'' that fell during the month of Tishre was observed because of Jephthah's daughter.
Jephthah's daughter is called "Adah" by the
Order of the Eastern Star
The Order of the Eastern Star (OES) is a Freemasonry, Masonic List of fraternal auxiliaries and side degrees, appendant Masonic bodies, body open to both men and women. It was established in 1850 by lawyer and educator Rob Morris (Freemason), R ...
and is one of its five heroines, representing obedience to duty.
In the field of Jewish
exegesis
Exegesis ( ; from the Ancient Greek, Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation (philosophy), interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Bible, Biblical works. In modern us ...
, the work titled ''Dirshuni: Contemporary Women's Midrash'' names Jephthah's daughter as "Tannot" (or "Tanot") and appears in various chapters. The name is derived from the verse in Judges 11:40 "for the maidens of Israel to go every year, for four days in the year, and chant dirges ("''tannot''") for the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite."Roded, R. (2015). Jewish and Islamic religious feminist exegesis of the sacred books: Adam, woman and gender. Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, (29), 56-80.
See also
*
List of names for the biblical nameless
Some people who appear to be unnamed in the Bible have been given names in history and traditions.
Hebrew Bible Serpent of Genesis
Revelation 12 is thought to identify the Serpents in the Bible#Eden, serpent with Satan, unlike the pseudepigraph ...