Q. Did Jephthah offer up his daughter as a positive burnt sacrifice by death? How could this be permitted when God had said, “Thou shalt not kill”? (See Judg. 11:30-40.)
A. There is nothing in the passage, when rightly understood, to suppose he did. If you read the margin of verse 31, you will find that his vow was made in the alternative. It ran: “Thus it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, ... shall surely be Jehovah’s, or (not “and”) I will offer it up for a burnt offering.” His only daughter met him, and hence her father’s sorrow, knowing that his vow had doomed her to be a virgin for life. He had said, “I will offer, etc., in verse 31, in the alternative of his vow, taking for granted that the first thing which should meet him might be fit for a holocaust or burnt offering. If this word was repeated in verse 39, it might have been supposed that he had offered her up; but it only says, “who did with her according to his vow,” etc. — not, who offered her, etc. The reading of the whole context will show that this is the true explanation, as also her own word, in verse 36, shows the same “Do to me,” etc. — not, Offer me, etc. —as the original language will show to those who can examine it. There is no thought of her death in the passage, but of her life-long virginity — the last thing desired in Israel.
Those who read the original will find an example of the copulative conjunction translated “or” in Exodus 21:15, as in the margin of verse 31, as perhaps in other places also.
Words of Truth 7:100.