Image: The Sacrifice of Jephthah's Daughter, by William Blake
A long forgotten four-day women’s grief ritual was once held each year in Canaan. Probably during the hottest days of the year. Not much is known about this ritual relic that is referenced in today’s chapter of Judges. It’s connected to the life and death of a young woman whose name was not recorded. She is both victim and heroine - a princess destined by cruel fate to be sacrificed in order to save her fathers’ kingdom.
It begins with a crisis. The aftermath of the brief royal reign of Avimelech leaves turmoil behind in Israel. The next judge, Yiftach, or Jephta, is a reluctant hero, a rejected outsider who becomes their new leader, swiftly nominated, not by Adonai, after a fierce negotiation with the elders.
The people recruit him as a fighter but he demands to be in charge of both military and political affairs. And he comes with grudges, as an illegitimate son of an anonymous sex worker and a man of Gilead, from the territory of the tribe of Menashe, east of the Jordan river. His tribesmen kicked him out over status and inheritance stuff but when the war with the Ammonites across the Jordan grew fierce they asked him back, to take over, relying on his reputation as a powerful gang leader.
Yiftach’s first task is a long message communicated to the Ammonite King, stating Israel’s divine-mandated territorial claims going back centuries, to Moses. He mocks their God (and gets it wrong - addressing Chemosh the God of Moab instead of Milkom, the Lord of Amon.) Then he prepares for war. But he must be very worried - because he makes a double vow with Adonai - bartering his own life for the life of another.
It will end up being his only child, his daughter whose name was forgotten.
The story of Jephta’s daughter has gotten a lot of attention over time. It’s both a condemnation of child sacrifice and femicide, and also the tacit confirmation of the multiple woeful ways in which we sacrifice, abuse, objectify or nullify our children, our future, and humanity. It’s a dark and inconclusive story containing all the violence of misogynistic patriarchal power culture as well as the earlier layers that sing out loud women’s voice, protesting the abuse, protecting the people, with brave leadership and spiritual strength.
This story is also one of the intersections of myths and traumas, surfaced secrets, partially revealed glimpses of ancient hurts and traditions, herstories and mysteries.
On his way to battle Yiftach makes this fatal deal with God - he’ll win and come home safely - and in return, who or whatever will emerge first from his home to greet him back -- will be chosen and sacrificed to Adonai as a burnt offering.
Adonai keeps his part of the deal. The war is won by Yiftach, and the winner heads home:
וַיָּבֹ֨א יִפְתָּ֣ח הַמִּצְפָּה֮ אֶל־בֵּיתוֹ֒ וְהִנֵּ֤ה בִתּוֹ֙ יֹצֵ֣את לִקְרָאת֔וֹ בְּתֻפִּ֖ים וּבִמְחֹל֑וֹת וְרַק֙ הִ֣יא יְחִידָ֔ה אֵֽין־ל֥וֹ מִמֶּ֛נּוּ בֵּ֖ן אוֹ־בַֽת׃
When Jephthah arrived at his home in Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him, with timbrel and dance.
She was an only child; he had no other son or daughter.
He tears his clothes in grief but is bound by his word. She asks for two months reprieve to go weep for her virginity, far in the hills with her girlfriends.
In Greek mythology, King Idomeneus of Crete, mid storm at sea during the Trojan wars, He promised the God Poseidon that he would sacrifice the first living thing he saw when he returned home if the great God of the Sea would save his ship and crew. The first living being to greet him upon his safe return is his son, whom Idomeneus sacrificed. It ends badly.
Another famous Greek myth echoes this motif. Agamemnon, the leader of the army fighting Troy, sacrifices his daughter Iphigeneia to appease the gods and let the fleet set sail. In some versions, Iphigeneia dies, but in others, she is saved by Artemis the Goddess and then becomes her priestess. Both versions may apply to the fate of Yiftah’s daughter, which may be more complex than the cursory, common reading.
Chapter 11 ends with an enigma. Two months after weeping in the hills with her friends, Yiftah’s daughter returns to him and he ‘completes the vow’. But scholars are curious - why the excessive repeat of the lamenting for her virginity - and not her life? Some say that the vow was not to kill her as a sacrifice but instead to offer her up as a priestess, in service of the sacred temple, and not as a womb producing heirs in the family. This possible ending echoes the version in which Iphigeneia becomes the priestess of Artemis.
It’s also connected to the chapter’s last verse with its peculiar mention of the traditional four days each year in which the women keen and weep for Yiftach’s daughter:
יָמִ֗ימָה תֵּלַ֙כְנָה֙ בְּנ֣וֹת יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לְתַנּ֕וֹת לְבַת־יִפְתָּ֖ח הַגִּלְעָדִ֑י אַרְבַּ֥עַת יָמִ֖ים בַּשָּׁנָֽה׃
Since the earliest days, the maidens of Israel go each and every year, for four days, to chant dirges for the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
Could this ritual be linked to the known summer holiday in which the women weep for Tammuz, the God of Vegetation who dies and resurrects in spring? Part of those rituals were about public mourning, keening and mourning for the sacrifice of Inana, or Ishtar, the Queen and Goddess who sacrifices herself, again and again, for her people’s wellbeing.
These grief rituals, particularly associated with women are even recorded in the words of the Prophet Ezekiel.
Through a bold, creative, Feminist-theological lens, Israeli scholar Rivka Lubitch wrote this reflection a few years ago, reclaiming the verb used in this chapter ‘Tanot’ -‘to lament’ as the missing name of this daughter.
“The Shekhinah (the Feminine Divine) said to Jephthah’s daughter: Jephthah had no progeny from you, and on earth they don’t know that a woman has a name of her own, even without having a son or daughter. Sit with me in heaven, and weep for this. On earth they call you “Jephthah’s daughter,” and I will call you “Tanot.”
And why was she called “Tanot”? Because it is written, And so since long ago, the daughters of Israel go to wail (letanot) for the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days a year (Judg 11:40). And they said, Tanot does not mean wailing but is the name of Jephthah’s daughter. And what does she do? She sits in heaven and listens to the stories of the earthly daughters of Israel, and then sits by the Shekhinah and bewails their sorrows in Her ear, prays for them and pleads their righteousness.”
And as the next chapter in Judges will reveal, there will be, sadly, thanks to her father’s leadership, much more to cry about, above and below.
Judith meets Judges! How does the lesser known heroine of Hanukkah echo the bloody tales of this book? Find out at our next free and open zoom conversation on December 15th 1-2pm ET. Join Rabbi Amichai to explore further what the Book of Judges has to teach us today about leadership and loyalty, faith and fanatics, history and myth - just in time for the winter holiday season.
Bring your questions from previous chapters!
https://labshul.org/event/929-below-the-bible-belt-monthly-wrap-up-with-rabbi-amichai-4/
Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections: Join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible, with daily reflections, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. January 2022-July 2025
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