"Jephthah's Daughter" (July 20, 2025 Sermon)
/CONTENT WARNING: Domestic Violence
Judges 11:29-40
Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord gave them into his hand. He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the Israelites.
Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah, and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.” She said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites.” And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my companions and I.” “Go,” he said, and he sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never slept with a man. So there arose an Israelite custom that for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
There’s no avoiding it; this is one of the most disturbing and irredeemable stories in all of scripture. It’s one of those stories that leaves us feeling sick when we mutter “Holy Wisdom, Holy Word, Thanks be to God” after it ends. What wisdom? What word? What gratitude can possibly be offered? And which god would approve of such senseless violence? While it may be tempting to focus solely on scripture stories that uplift and comfort us, we have a moral duty to confront the entirety of scripture, including its most horrific parts, and trust that God continues to speak through it. I also believe it’s vital to acknowledge that saying “yes” to scripture isn’t always a faithful response. Sometimes, a faithful response to a difficult text like today’s is to simply say “no.” No, this was wrong. No, God does not endorse this. No, we will not excuse this violence. No, no, no! And so, trusting in God’s Spirit to guide us through the horror of this text, let us begin.
Jephthah was desperate for a win. He was the bastard child of his father's affair with another woman, likely a prostitute. And his half-brothers never let him forget it. In fact, they kicked him out of the family. Disowned, disinherited, and despised, Jephthah fled his family's wrath and settled in a distant land, where he became involved with a band of outlaws. However, some time later, his family started whistling a different tune when the Ammonites waged war against their tribe, and they needed all hands on deck.
Jephthah saw this as a chance to make a comeback. He agreed to return and lead the Israelites to victory, but only if his success would restore his status within the family and grant him political power upon his return. After his family accepted his terms, he headed toward the battlefront. On the way, he made a rash, impulsive decision. He vowed to God that if God granted him victory, he would sacrifice the first thing that greeted him when he returned home. It must be noted here that God did not ask Jephthah to make this vow. Jephthah, and Jephthah alone, was the impetus of this horrific decision. And here’s where things get even more complicated. Some biblical scholars suggest that the translation is unclear about whether Jephthah said he’d sacrifice “whoever” or “whatever” came to greet him. Supporters of “whatever” argue that he expected to see animals like a sheep or a goat. The original NRSV translated the vow as “whoever comes out of the doors,” but the updated NRSVUE translates it as “whatever comes out of the doors.” Either way, you have to ask yourself: Would you make that vow? Advocates for exonerating Jephthah often overlook the fact that it was common for women and girls to greet their husbands and fathers with singing and dancing when they returned from battle. Surely, they argue, Jephthah must have known that it was a possibility that the first thing he would see upon his return would be his daughter.
But the text, at least to me, seems clear: Jephthah’s political ambitions trumped his concern for his family’s welfare. He decided that the ritualistic sacrifice of his only child, his daughter, was a price he was willing to pay to succeed in battle and gain power over those he believed had wronged him. What makes his barbaric vow even more grotesque is that he made it after the text states the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. This raises the question: why didn’t Jephthah trust God to grant him victory without making such a horrific, unprompted promise? Jephthah’s vow was nothing more than theological manipulation to justify violence against women.
Jephthah wins the battle and returns home. As was tradition, the women of the household—or, in this case, the girl of the household since Jephthah’s mother isn’t mentioned—come to greet the men. Jephthah’s daughter, tragically and through no fault of her own, runs toward her father to greet him with love. What happens next is nothing less than victim blaming. “Alas, my daughter!” he exclaims, “You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me.” This is a common refrain for abusers in domestic violence situations. The abuser never takes responsibility or holds themselves accountable; instead, they manipulate the victim and gaslight them into believing that the violence is a punishment of their own making. A faithful reading of this text recognizes this gaslighting for what it is and clearly disavows it.
At this point in the sermon, we will give Jephthah’s daughter a name. Because, as womanist scholar Wilda Gafney points out, her namelessness in this story is, in itself, an act of violence. So, you and I will refer to Jephthah’s daughter as “Niqtelah.” Niqtelah is the name Gafney gives her because it means “she was killed” in Hebrew. After her father cruelly blames her for his actions, I wish she had responded differently. “No, father, this is not of God’s doing! This was your choice, and I refuse to be the collateral damage of your shameless pursuit of power and privilege.” We wish she had stood up for herself. That she would leave her abuser. But those who have experience in situations of domestic violence know that such decisions are much more complicated.
Instead, Niqtelah concedes. She asks for two months to mourn with her friends in the mountains before the thing is done. Then the thing is done. Jephthah kills his daughter. The story ends with the note that, because of this senseless domestic violence, the daughters of Israel would observe four days each year to mourn Niqtelah’s murder as an act of protest against not only Jephthah’s heinous actions but also the violence inflicted on women and girls everywhere.
{Pause} {breathe} {sigh}
And so, neighbors, what do we do with this text of terror? We certainly could bury it, pretend it never happened, and move on with our lives. But burying these stories only perpetuates the very violence that repulses us in the first place. No, the church must wrestle with this story because only by doing so can we, as practitioners of faith, interrupt cycles of violence. Here are a few pastoral observations that I hope honor Niqtelah and the girls, women, and people like her who suffer gender-based acts of violence.
First of all, just because a story is in the Bible does not mean that God endorses the actions of the characters within it. We must pay attention to the divine “No” that comes from God’s voice. I believe that God gave a divine “no” to Jephthah during the gap between making his vow and fulfilling it. I think Jephthah chose not to listen to God’s “no,” but instead listened to the voices in his head telling him that his political power was more important than his daughter’s life.
Secondly, Lynn Japinga suggests that this text of terror results from the collision of bad religion, bad parenting, and bad judgment. But it’s the “bad religion” part of that equation I want to highlight today. Religion can be a beautiful thing—a shared identity and story that unites people and fosters healing and justice in the world. Many kinds of religions have the potential to bring out the best in us and help bend the moral arc of the universe toward justice. However, religion can also spoil and rot. Jephthah chose to manipulate his religion— not God’s!— to gain power and privilege. Where do we see today, here and now, religion being weaponized not to serve neighbors but to dominate, intimidate, and oppress? Christian nationalism twists and distorts religion to shift from a theology of abundance to one of greed. Faith leaders quote scripture to victims of domestic violence to pressure them into staying in abusive relationships. Fundamentalism in many religions, including our own, subjugates the vulnerable among us in pursuit of rigid doctrines that rarely promote justice, love, kindness, or humility. Together, we can use the language of this story to condemn such practices and work together to find a better way.
A final question is this: where was everyone else when all this was happening? The text shows that Niqtelah spent two months with her friends mourning the violence that was about to be inflicted on her. Therefore, it’s fair to assume that the larger community knew what was coming. Where were they? Why didn’t someone pull Jephthah aside and say, “don’t do this!”? Why didn’t anyone come to rescue Niqtelah and take her away from danger? Where were her advocates? To be sure, Jephthah is to blame for the violence done to Niqtelah. But he isn’t the only one who shares the blame. All those who chose to keep silent share the blame as well. This is why we have child protection policies and sexual misconduct policies. This is why myself and every other elder in this church is a mandatory reporter in the state of North Carolina. This is why we must hold each other accountable so that we protect the vulnerable among us.
I’ll conclude with a brief story from yesterday, when I was struggling to complete this sermon. This was a difficult one to write, and I’m sure it’s a tough one to listen to. I was putting the finishing touches in my office upstairs when Winnie, our three-year-old daughter, came to visit me and curled up in my lap. Let me tell you, it’s a bizarre feeling writing a sermon on today’s text while your daughter is in your lap. But, in this case, it was perhaps divinely inspired. Because writing this was a heavy thing, and Winnie brought some much-needed playfulness and levity to my serious task. Winnie came into my office dressed in her ballet leotard, holding a bag of Pirate’s Booty as a snack. She graciously offered to share with me and asked to sit with me. As fate would have it, I was listening to Journey’s classic song “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’” and the famous outro had just begun (“na, na, na, na, na, na” etc.). Winnie started singing the “na-na’s” with me, and we began swaying back and forth. She picked up the melody fairly quickly, and a big grin spread across her face. Then, her older sister, Hazel Grace, entered the room, watched us, and started dancing too. As the song ended, Hazel Grace clapped, and they both crawled into my lap.
I decided then and there to make a vow to God, a different kind of vow. I vowed to God to never use my religion to bring harm to either one of my daughters or anyone else. And I invite you to make that vow with me today. Because that’s a vow I trust God wholeheartedly endorses.
In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s children, say: Amen.