Jepthah's Daughter: What can we learn?

[Beethoven]

The story about Jepthah’s daughter (Judges) I find as rather odd. Certainly, God did not ask Jepthah to sacrifice his daugher – God was tacit on the matter at hand.

But what value is there in this scripture? Did this really happen?

Seems to me, Jepthah was faithful (to a fault?), but not a very bright man. He could have specified a holocaust that was not human – indeed he expected to see an animal when he first arrived home.

Did any of the church fathers or doctors of the church pen a treatment on this matter?

• Beethoven

 

[SunnaB16]

1. Don`t make rash promises!

King Horrid (not a typo) did the same thing with Salome.

1. If the promise leads to evil consequences, don`t make it worse by keeping it: ie bail out! Then, seek forgiveness from God for your folly.

 

[Zooey]

The whole book of Judges is one story after another of people doing foolish and wicked things, with no thought as to the morality of anything.
Judges is the story of what happens when people, instead of following God, “do what is right in [their] own eyes”.
Rather like what goes on in the world today, in fact…

 

[rcjones]

The judges were judges because they alone trusted God in Israel and put Israel to shame by that trust. As such they foreshadow Christ whose life puts us to shame by living a perfect life, trusting the Father, in the face of the same temptations we face.

The life of Christ was the light… and the light is the condemnation John 1-3

God used the strange circumstances in the narratives in judges to paint pictures of Christ hidden in the language of sensus plenior.

The story of Jepthah tells the story of Christ even ending with a reference to three days in the grave, and taking the Eucharist in remembrance of him. You can see hints of those without unpacking it word for word, but the picture becomes clear when the effort is put to it to unpack it.