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Jehovah could have either vowed or actually offered a human sacrificed - not to speak
of the sacrifice being that of his own and only child. Such sacrifices were the most
abhorrent and opposed to the whole spirit and letter of the Law of God (Leviticus 18:21;
20:2-5; Deuteronomy 12:31; 18:10), nor do we find any mention of them till the reigns
of the wicked Ahaz and Manasseh. Not even Jezebel had ventured to introduce them;
and we know what thrill of horror ran through the onlookers, when the heathen king of
Moab offered his son an expiatory sacrifice on the walls of his capital (2 Kings 3:26,
etc.). But the difficulty becomes well-nigh insuperable, when we find the name of
Jephthah recorded in the New Testament among the heroes of the faith. Surely, no one
guilty of such a crime could have found a place there! Still, these are considerations
which, though most important, are outside the narrative itself, and in any truthful
investigation the latter should, in the first place, be studied by itself.
(^299) The Hebrew expression is bethulim. If it meant maiden age it would probably, as
Keil remarks, have been neurim (comp. Leviticus 21:13).
(^300) In general, the Mishnah condemns in unmeasured terms female asceticism (Sotah iii.
4). But in the Talmud (Sotah 22a) one instance at least is recorded with special praise,
in which a virgin wholly devoted herself to prayer. See Cassel in Herzog's Encylco. 6 p.
475, note.12 Shibboleth means stream, which the Ephraimites pronounced Sibboleth.
(^301) The Bethlehem here spoken of is, of course, not that in Judah, but that in Zebulon
(Joshua 19:15). The situation of Ajalon, the modern Salem, quite in the north of
Zebulon, and of Pirathon in Ephraim, the modern Ferata, six miles west of Nablus, has
been ascertained.
(^302) The ordinary Nazarite vow was only for a period. But the later Rabbis distinguish
between the ordinary Nazarite and the "Samson" or life-Nazarite. See my Temple: its
Ministry and Service at the time of Christp. 328.
(^303) We have purposely adopted this rendering.
(^304) Comp. Cassel, p. 122.
(^305) Thomson, The Land and the Book, vol. 2 p. 361.
(^306) The conjunction of the two in the text (Judges 13:5) indicates that they were to be
regarded as cause and effect.
(^307) The name has been variously interpreted. By the Rabbis it is rendered "sunlike," in
allusion to Psalm 84:11. Others render it "mighty,", "daring," or "he who lays waste."
(^)