Judges 11:36

Jdg 11:36 And she said unto him, My father, [if] thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, [even] of the children of Ammon.

Ver. 36. Do to me according.] A generous virgin this was, and a most morigerous [dutiful] daughter: only she should have admonished her father to advise with the priests about such an unwonted sacrifice; for sometimes both grace and wit are asleep in the holiest and wariest breasts.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jdg 11:36. Do to me according, &c. — Do not for my sake make thyself a transgressor; I freely give my consent to thy vow. Forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance, &c. — What a generous, noble, and pious answer is this of this virgin! It expresses such a noble love for her country, such true piety and filial obedience, as can scarcely be exceeded.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 36. And she said unto him] What a pattern of filial piety and obedience! She was at once obedient, pious, and patriotic. A woman to have no offspring was considered to be in a state of the utmost degradation among the Hebrews; but she is regardless of all this, seeing her father is in safety, and her country delivered.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(36) And she said unto him.—To explain this the LXX. add the words, “I have opened my mouth to the Lord against or concerning thee.” There is, however, no need for the addition. His words would fatally explain themselves, even if he added nothing more.

If thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord.—The needless and incorrect insertion of the if in the English Version a little weakens the noble heroism of her answer.

Do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth.—While Jephthah, living in times of ignorance which “God winked at,” must not be judged for that terrible ignorance of God’s nature which led him to offer a sacrifice which, as Josephus says, was “neither lawful nor acceptable to God,” we may well rejoice in the gleam of sunlight which is flung upon the sacred page by his faithfulness in not going back from his vow, though it were to his own hurt (Psa_15:4), and in the beautiful devotion of his daughter, cheerfully acquiescing in her own sacrifice for the good of her country. Compare the examples of Iphigenia; of Macaria (Pausan. i. 32); of Au-churus, the son of Midas; of Curtius; of the Decii; of Marius offering his daughter for victory over the Cimbri; and of the Romans during more than one national panic. Our modern poets have happily seized this aspect of the event (see Dante, Parad. v. 66):—

“Though the virgins of Salem lament,

Be the judge and the hero unbent;

I have won the great battle for thee,

And my father and country are free.”—Byron.

“When the next moon was rolled into the sky,

Strength came to me that equall’d my desire.

How beautiful a thing it was to die

For God and for my sire! “—Tennyson.

“It was not a human sacrifice in the gross sense of the word, not a slaughter of an unwilling victim, but the willing offering of a devoted heart, to free, as she supposed, her father and her country from a terrible obligation . . . The heroism of father and daughter are to be admired and loved in the midst of the fierce superstition round which it plays like a sunbeam on a stormy sea.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

36. The daughter has her share of the hero’s blood, and a larger share of the heroic temper: ‘My God, my land, my father’! Tennyson, ‘A Dream of Fair Women.’

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he said, go,.... He granted her request at once:

and he sent her away for two months; as she desired:

and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains; for the space of two months: the Jewish commentators make mention of an allegorical exposition of a writer (i) of theirs, who by mountains understands the sanhedrim, to whom she proposed to go, who perhaps might find a way for the loosing of the vow; but it is a question whether there was such a court then in Israel; and had there been one, and either she or her father had applied to it, in this case the priests would have pointed out what was to be done, and especially if the vow had any regard to the sacrifice of his daughter; and even to her virginity, which he had no power to oblige her to; but the literal sense is no doubt to be followed.

(i) Tanchuma.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The touching submission of Jephthah’s daughter to an inevitable fate shows how deeply-rooted at that time was the pagan notion of the propriety of human sacrifice.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; do not for my sake make thyself a transgressor; I freely give my consent to thy vow; wherewith, and with the success of his arms, he had now acquainted her, though it be not here expressed.

Forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies; I am willing to bear my burden, being abundantly satisfied with the great deliverance which God hath given to his people by thy hands.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

36. My father — Her mission and devotion were in the highest degree touching and beautiful.

Forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee — Here was a point of view from which hers would be a sublime and enviable death. It was dying for her father, her country, and her God, inasmuch as her memory would be associated sublimely with one of Israel’s greatest national triumphs.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

My father, etc. See Num_32:2. The touching submission of Jephthah"s daughter to her unnatural and terrible fate, while it reveals a most lovable character, seems also to show that the idea of a human sacrifice was not so strange to her mind as it is to ours. The sacrifice of his eldest son as a burnt offering by the king of Moab, some 300 years later, as related 2Ki_3:27; the intended sacrifices of Iphigenia and of Phrixus in Greek mythology; the sacrifices of children to Moloch, so often spoken of in Scripture; the question in Mic_6:7, "Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" the Phoenician custom mentioned by Sanchoniatho (quoted by Porphyry), of sacrificing to Saturn one of those most dear to them in times of war, pestilence, or drought; the yearly sacrifice at Carthage of a boy chosen by lot ("Sil. Italicus," 4, 765), and many other examples, prove the prevalence of human sacrifices in early times, and in heathen lands. This must be borne in mind in reading the history of Jephthah.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Do to me - Do not for my sake make thyself a transgressor; I freely give my consent to thy vow.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The daughter, observing that the vow had reference to her (as her father in fact had, no doubt, distinctly told her, though the writer has passed this over because he had already given the vow itself in Jdg 11:31), replied, "Do to me as has gone out of thy mouth (i.e., do to me what thou hast vowed), since Jehovah has procured the vengeance upon thine enemies the Ammonites." She then added (Jdg 11:37), "Let this thing be done for me (equivalent to, Let this only be granted me); let me alone two months and I will go," i.e., only give me two months to go, "that I may go down to the mountains (i.e., from Mizpeh, which stood upon an eminence, to the surrounding mountains and their valleys) and bewail my virginity, I and my friends." בּתוּלים does not mean "youth" (נעוּרים), but the condition of virginity (see Lev 21:13). The Kethibh רעיתי is a less common form of רעותי (Keri).

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

has taken vengeance for you against your enemies, the Ammonites

Yahweh has taken vengence for him by defeating his enemies. The meaning of this can be made explicit. AT: "has taken vengeance for you against your enemies, the Ammonites, by defeating them" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

Let this promise be kept for me

This can be stated in an active form. AT: "Keep this promise for me" or "Keep this promise concerning me" (See: Active or Passive)

grieve over my virginity

"weep because I am a virgin" or "cry because I will never be married"

translationWords

vow

Yahweh

avenge

Ammon

virgin

companion

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.