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Reply to "Abraham & Isaac vs. Jephthah & his daughter"

quote:
Accordingly, when that time was over, he sacrificed his daughter as a burnt-offering,

That is not Biblical. That is someone's else's interpretation.


Adam Clarke's Commentary[11] has an exposition of the issues at stake in this passage and contends that the vow Jephthah made was not as rash as it sounds.

"Verse 31. Shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering.] The text is (Hebrew letters follow) hlw[ whytyl[hw hwhyl hyhw vehayah layhovah, vehaalithihu olah; the translation of which, according to the most accurate Hebrew scholars, is this: I will consecrate it to the Lord, or I will offer it for a burnt-offering; that is, "If it be a thing fit for a burnt-offering, it shall be made one; if fit for the service of God, it shall be consecrated to him." That conditions of this kind must have been implied in the vow, is evident enough; to have been made without them, it must have been the vow of a heathen, or a madman. If a dog had met him, this could not have been made a burnt-offering; and if his neighbour or friend's wife, son, or daughter, &c., had been returning from a visit to his family, his vow gave him no right over them. Besides, human sacrifices were ever an abomination to the Lord; and this was one of the grand reasons why God drove out the Canaanites, &c., because they offered their sons and daughters to Molech in the fire, i.e., made burnt-offerings of them, as is generally supposed."

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