Judge of Israel during six years (Judges 12:7); conqueror of the Ammonites. According to Judges 11:1, he was a Gileadite, son of Gilead and a harlot. Driven from his father's house by his father's legitimate sons, he settled in the land of Tob as chief of a band of freebooters (Judges 11:3). On the occasion of the war with the Ammonites, Jephthah's aid was sought by the elders of Gilead and obtained on the condition that they would accept him as their chief; and he was accordingly solemnly invested with authority at Mizpah (Judges 11:4-11). Before taking the field, Jephthah resorted to diplomacy, sending an embassy to the King of Ammon. This failing, Jephthah attacked and completely defeated him, taking from him twenty cities (Judges 11:12-33).
The most prominent act in Jephthah's life was his vow to sacrifice to Yhwh whatsoever came first out of his house to meet him if he should return victorious. His vow fell upon his only daughter, who came out to meet him dancing to the sound of timbrels. Jephthah, having given her a respite of two months, consummated his vow. After this it became the custom for the daughters of Israel to lament four days in every year the death of Jephthah's daughter (Judges 11:34-40). After the war a quarrel broke out between Jephthah and the Ephraimites, who reproached him for not having called them to take part. Having seized the fords of the Jordan, Jephthah required every fugitive who attempted to cross to pronounce the word "shibboleth." Those who betrayed their Ephraimite origin by saying "sibboleth" were put to death; in this manner 42,000 Ephraimites fell (Judges 12:1-6).
Jephthah is represented by the Rabbis as an insignificant person. That vain men gathered about him (Judges 11:3) was an illustration of the proverb that a sterile date-palm associates with fruitless trees (B. Ḳ. 92b). His name being mentioned in connection with Samuel's (1 Samuel 12:11) shows that even the most insignificant man, when appointed to a position of importance,must be treated by his contemporaries as if his character were equal to his office (R. H. 25b). He is classed with the fools who do not distinguish between vows (Eccl. R. 4:7); he was one of the three men (Ta'an. 4a), or according to other authorities one of the four men (Gen. R. 60:3), who made imprudent vows, but he was the only one who had occasion to deplore his imprudence. According to some commentators, among whom were Ḳimḥi and Levi b. Gershom, Jephthah only kept his daughter in seclusion. But in Targ. Yer. to Judges 11:39 and the Midrash it is taken for granted that Jephthah immolated his daughter on the altar, which is regarded as a criminal act; for he might have applied to Phinehas to absolve him from his vow. But Jephthah was proud: "I, a judge of Israel, will not humiliate myself to my inferior." Neither was Phinehas, the high priest, willing to go to Jephthah. Both were punished: Jephthah died by an unnatural decaying of his body; fragments of flesh fell from his bones at intervals, and were buried where they fell, so that his body was distributed in many places (comp. Judges 12:7, Hebr.). Phinehas was abandoned by the Holy Spirit (Gen. R. c.).
The Rabbis concluded also that Jephthah was an ignorant man, else he would have known that a vow of that kind is not valid; according to R. Johanan, Jephthah had merely to pay a certain sum to the sacred treasury of the Temple in order to be freed from the vow; according to R. Simeon ben Laḳish, he was free even without such a payment (Gen. R. c.; comp. Lev. R. 37:3). According to Tan., Beḥuḳḳotai, 7, and Midrash Haggadah to Leviticus 27:2, even when Jephthah made the vow God was irritated against him: "What will Jephthah do if an unclean animal comes out to meet him?" Later, when he was on the point of immolating his daughter, she inquired, "Is it written in the Torah that human beings should be brought as burnt offerings?" He replied, "My daughter, my vow was, 'whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house.'" She answered, "But Jacob, too, vowed that he would give to Yhwh the tenth part of all that Yhwh gave him (Genesis 28:22); did he sacrifice any of his sons?" But Jephthah remained inflexible. His daughter then declared that she would go herself to the Sanhedrin to consult them about the vow, and for this purpose asked her father for a delay of two months (comp. Judges 11:37). The Sanhedrin, however, could not absolve her father from the vow, for God made them forget the Law in order that Jephthah should be punished for having put to death 42,000 Ephraimites (Judges 12:6).
The story of Jephthah (Judges 10:17-12:7) does not, in the opinion of most critics, consist of a uniform account. The following four views are held respecting it: