Jepthah

Jepthah, one of the judges of Israel, was a base-born son of Gilead, and at his father's death was driven out from any share in his father's inheritance by the legitimate sons. He was a leader of freebooters on the border-land of Ammon until recalled by the Gileadite elders to head them in their attempt to throw off the yoke of Ammon. He collected his warriors from all parts of Gilead and Manasseh, and before the battle made his unhappy vow to offer up for a burnt-offering the first thing that came forth from the doors of his house on his return. The Ammonites were defeated with great slaughter, and twenty of their cities taken, but as the triumphant conqueror drew near his house at Mizpah there came forth to meet him a procession of maidens with dances and timbrels, and first among them his daughter and only child. The high-spirited maiden asked only for two months in which to bewail her hapless fate with her companions among her native mountains, and then returned to her father, and 'he did unto her his vow.' Jepthah had next to subdue the tribe of Ephraim, envious of his glory, and this he did effectively, cutting off thousands of the fugitives at the fords of Jordan, where they were identified as Ephraimites by their inability to pronounce the word Shibboleth. Jepthah judged Israel for six years, and died. Many theologians have found it difficult to believe that one of the heroes of faith of Hebrews, chap. xi., should have offered a human sacrifice, and have taken refuge in Joseph Kimchi's suggestion that the conditions of the vow were satisfied by a sentence of perpetual virginity; but this is to take a dishonest liberty with the plain meaning of the passage. The story of Jepthah's daughter is closely paralleled by that of Iphigenia in Greek mythology, and both are grouped together by Tennyson in his splendid poem, The Dream of Fair Women.