# Jephthah’s victory and his daughter

Conquest & Judges · Draft · BSB

Content revision: 36b8bf72bfa08653 · No editorial review date recorded

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Date: After the diplomatic exchange · Jephthah’s return to Mizpah

The Spirit of the LORD comes upon Jephthah before he makes a vow promising a burnt offering if he returns victorious. He defeats Ammon, but his only child comes out to greet him. After she mourns with her companions, the account says he does to her as he vowed.

The vow is Jephthah’s own initiative, not a command from God or a stated condition for receiving the Spirit. The wording of the vow and its fulfillment must be faced alongside the law’s rejection of child sacrifice. The account remembers the daughter’s loss, not an exemplary bargain.

## Primary Scripture

[Judges 11:29–40 (BSB)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges%2011%3A29%E2%80%9340&version=BSB)

11:29 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh, then through Mizpah of Gilead. And from there he advanced against the Ammonites.

11:30 Jephthah made this vow to the LORD: “If indeed You will deliver the Ammonites into my hand,

11:31 then whatever comes out the door of my house to greet me on my triumphant return from the Ammonites will belong to the LORD, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.”

11:32 So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the LORD delivered them into his hand.

11:33 With a great blow he devastated twenty cities from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the Israelites.

11:34 And when Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child; he had no son or daughter besides her.

11:35 As soon as Jephthah saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “No! Not my daughter! You have brought me to my knees! You have brought great misery upon me, for I have given my word to the LORD and cannot take it back.”

11:36 “My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me as you have said, for the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites.”

11:37 She also said to her father, “Let me do this one thing: Let me wander for two months through the mountains with my friends and mourn my virginity.”

11:38 “Go,” he said. And he sent her away for two months. So she left with her friends and mourned her virginity upon the mountains.

11:39 After two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she had never had relations with a man. So it has become a custom in Israel

11:40 that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

## Related Scripture

[Deuteronomy 12:29–31 · teaching](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2012%3A29%E2%80%9331&version=BSB)

Moses explicitly rejects burning sons and daughters as worship.

[Deuteronomy 23:21–23 · teaching](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2023%3A21%E2%80%9323&version=BSB)

Moses’ teaching about vows does not authorize an act prohibited elsewhere in the law.

## Location evidence

Only the wider Gilead setting is shaded. The exact home, battlefield and mountains where the daughter mourned are not established.

Event map marker: Approximate region; \[longitude, latitude\] = \[35.8, 32.22\]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.

Gilead: Approximate region. Coordinates \[longitude, latitude\]: \[35.8, 32.22\]. Classification source: editorial.

Illustrative regional extent: \[\[35.6,31.95\],\[36.1,32.55\]\]; not a measured confidence interval.

[Biblical setting · Judges 10:3-11:40](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges%2010:3-11:40&version=BSB)

[OpenBible · possible locations / region](https://www.openbible.info/geo/ancient/ae73b90/gilead-1)

[Biblical setting · Judges 10:3-11:40](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges%2010:3-11:40&version=BSB)

[OpenBible · possible locations / region](https://www.openbible.info/geo/ancient/ae73b90/gilead-1)

## For the class

What does the sequence reveal about the difference between God’s gift and Jephthah’s attempt to secure it?

## Interpretation and reuse

Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.

Record source: editorial (content/authored/conquest-judges.json)

Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.

Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm

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