Judges — Chapter 11

Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man, the son of a harlot. Lapide: born in disgrace, expelled by his brothers, yet chosen by God. He is a type (typus) of Christ in eight ways enumerated by S. Augustine: (1) \"Jephthah\" means \"he who opens\" — Christ is the Door (John 10); (2) cast out by brothers as Christ by the Jews; (3) lived in exile in the land of Tob (goodness), as Christ went to heavenly life; (4) gathered the poor and outcasts around him, as Christ gathered publicans and sinners; (5) recalled by his own people, as Christ by the Gentiles; (6) vowed before battle, as Christ prayed in the Garden; (7) offered his daughter, as Christ offered His flesh; (8) Israel mourns the daughter annually, as Christians mourn the Passion each Holy Week.

Jephthah speaks all his words \"before the Lord in Maspha.\" Lapide: four senses — publicly before the people; before God as witness; before the High Priest and Ephod; before the altar. All great undertakings should begin before God, invoking Him as witness and aid. Jephthah's model: the leader must be accountable before God before he is accountable before men.

The Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah. The Spirit of fortitude and zeal poured into him for the great enterprise. Lapide: the divine vocation to a great work is authenticated by this interior impulse, which is distinct from, though ordered to, the formal authority of office.

Jephthah's vow: \"Whatsoever shall first come forth of the doors of my house when I return in peace, I will offer it as a holocaust to the Lord.\" First opinion (SS. Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Thomas): the vow was impious and rash — human sacrifice is forbidden by natural and divine law, and Jephthah sinned in making it. Second opinion (Anselm, Serarius): he acted under impulse of the Holy Spirit, which explains his place among the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. Third and middle opinion (which Lapide calls \"most probable\"): the vow was in itself illicit, but Jephthah is excused in whole or in part by invincible ignorance and sincere religious zeal, it being a rude age without prophets to correct him. Lapide: the Apostle praises his faith, not his vow.

My daughter, thou hast deceived me; thou art thyself deceived. Lapide: \"deceived\" = \"thou hast prostrated my hopes.\" The lament of Jephthah is genuine paternal love in extremis. His grief, however, does not lead him to break his vow — he is praised by Lapide for this constancy, though the act itself remains morally problematic.

The daughter replies: \"Father, if thou hast opened thy mouth to the Lord, do to me whatsoever thou hast promised.\" Lapide, citing S. Ambrose at length: the daughter's obedience, patriotic courage, and alacrity are extraordinary. She could have resisted and freed her father from his vow, but preferred to die rather than see her father violate his oath to God. She is compared to Isaac. Her acceptance is \"not the obedience of a slave but the sacrifice of a virgin dedicated to God.\"

She asks two months to mourn her virginity in the mountains. Lapide: she mourned not virginity as such (for virginity is now, since Christ, supremely honourable), but the untimely end of her youth without posterity, which in that era was considered a sorrow. The threnode (lament) preserved by Philo Biblicus is quoted.

He did to her as he had vowed, who knew no man. Lapide: against the Rabbis (who say the father commuted her death to perpetual religious celibacy), the common Patristic interpretation holds that Jephthah's daughter was actually sacrificed and burned as a holocaust, as the text says \"he did as he had vowed.\" Cited: Theodoretus, Augustine, Bede, Procopius, Rupertus, Abulensis, Thomas, Jerome, Chrysostom, Origen, Tertullian. The daughter's soul was received in beatitude, having not vowed herself but merely consented to her father's vow for the sake of God and country.

The daughters of Israel went every year to lament the daughter of Jephthah. Anagogically (S. Augustine): this signifies our own passage through mortification and death to blessed immortality. Tropologically: each soul must offer its own \"daughter\" — its concupiscences and passions — to God by mortification. The annual lamentation prefigures the Church's annual mourning of Christ's Passion in Holy Week.