Why did God accept a human sacrifice?

Question

Judges 11:29 to 39

Why did God accept this human burnt offering? Why would anyone (Jephthah) make a promise to God to sacrifice the first thing that would come out of the door of his house to meet him? What did he expect to come out besides a human?

I believe it is quite literal. What was done was exactly what was vowed. I don't see any reason why "burnt offering" would be used to mean anything else. (Just my opinion) :)

Just as the Bible clearly states that God does not accept them, it also clearly states "A burnt offering" was made.

Be easy on me guys, I mean no harm - just trying to understand ;)

Answer 1

That was Jephthahs doing. Not the Lords. I am sure the devil manipulated the whole thing.

When later Israel passed their children through the fire to the devils. This grieved Gods heart. God had not thought for them to do this. So? Also in the case of Jephthah.

Abraham is the only one who God asked. His Isaac, Son of Promise. But this was God, because Gods plan is always that God will provide the sacrifice. No other sacrifice will do. Other innocent children cannot raise from the dead because they have sinned somewhere. Only Jesus, The Lamb of God since the foundation, was with out sin. So sin couldn't keep Him in the Grave. So He raised from the dead.

I don't believe God accepted this human sacrifice. Japhetha said he would offer 'it' up for a burnt sacrifice. I guess he thought the chickens would come through the door first. He should have known that his daughter wasn't a 'whatever' or an 'it' but a 'she' & a 'whoever'.

But then she was his only child. So? I believe the devil was in it to mess up the victory & the message.

There is power of life & death in the tongue. We reap what we sow. This is what came out of Jephthahs mouth. He reaped the conscequences.


Then there is the possiblity that he was talked to from the High Priests & his daughter just remained a virgin all her life & had no children.

Answer 2

The Bible clearly states that human sacrifice is forbidden. Jephthah lived in a time when pagans made human sacrifices not a uncommon practice in that time. Not to excuse what Jephthah vowed.

The Bible does not say God accepted his sacrifice but Jephthah did make a very foolish vow to God sometimes God allows things to happen and people suffer because of their own foolish choices and that seems to be the case with Jephthah he made a foolish vow to God and was allowed to follow through with it. God does not want our promises he was obedience this very day.

Jephthah did this to himself. There are always consequences for your actions and words.

Answer 3

Actually, the consensus of the Rabbis is that the LORD did not accept this. Instead, Jephthah is roundly condemned as an impulsive idiot who was too stupid to even consult the priests on the matter. The Targum of Jonathan, for example, states "And he fulfilled the vow which he had vowed upon her; and she knew no man: and it was made a statute in Israel, that no man should offer his son or his daughter for a burnt-offering, as did Jephthah the Gileadite, who did not consult Phinehas the priest; for if he had consulted Phinehas the priest, he would have redeemed her with money."

However, some Rabbis maintained that Jephthah instead had his daughter consecrated as a perpetual virgin, thus exterminating his entire family line (he had no other children) as a sacrifice.

Answer 4

Malachi 3: 6 it says " I am the LORD I change not", and James 1:17 says " Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, whith whom is no variableness neither shaeow of turning". Meaning that God does not change. Deuteronomy 18:10 says "There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his som or his daughter to pass through the fire", (meaning offering them as a sacrifice). also Jeremiah 32:35 says "And they built the high places of Baals, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin."
In those two scriptures it shows that God does not want any to offer their children as sccrifices, that it is an abomination to him, a sin. And James and Malachi says He does not change. So why would he allow Jephthah to offer his daughter to him as a burnt offering. Isn't it reasonable to believe that that statement could mean something else. Notice at Judges 11:36 that his daughter was willing to go along with her fathers promise to God, all she asked was two months to bewail her verginity. In Isreal women thought it a curse not to have children. They wanted to be married and have lots of children, but for Jephthah's daughter that was not to be she was given to God as a sacrifice, meaning she would not be married and so would not have children. She was a gift to God. Not a burnt offering. It was a sacrifice to her and father since she was his only child, and he would not have anyone to carry on his name. The 40th verse says that every year the daughters of Jerusalem would go and commend her for sacrifice to God.

Answer 5

The Bible doesn't say God asked for, wanted, condoned or accepted that sacrifice. In fact, Jephthah only ruled 6 years. The next ruler also sent his daughters away and took foreign wives for his sons which was against what God had warned. This accounts are simply a recording of history and not what God has accepted or commanded. You might say that they had left God's commands and were doing what was right in their eyes, like America today.

Answer 6

God knew who would come out of the house. He also knows that human death is not the end. It is like sleep. His daughter was obviously one who followed God because she willingly gave up her life. Death for her was not the end of her. It was only the end of her suffering on earth. Once the resurrection happens she will be in heaven, and God will wipe every tear from her eyes.

God allowed this because he was testing Jephthah's faith. God also knew that this type of death was not the worst thing that could happen to her. Because of her faith, she will live again in a better place.

EDIT: Jephthah DID offer her as a BURNT OFFERING! Read the whole thing. He did as he vowed. He vowed her as a burnt offering.

Answer 7

We do not know that God accepted it. And what he did was contrary to Jewish law. Since the stopping of the sacrifice of Issac human sacrifice had been forbidden by God in the Jewish Law. He was practicing the customs of the Ammonites (although the transcriber of the verse got the name of their god wrong. he prescribed it as the name of the Moabites god) he was attempting to defeat.

This is also a similar to the story in 2 Kings where we see the rejection of the child sacrifice during the batle with the Moabs and God's wrath expand to Israel.

Answer 8

Jephthah vow was an invalid vow and his daughter was not obligated to fulfill it, nor could he have followed through with it (the Temple Priests would not allow it).

So what did occur and why was it so devastating? Jephthah wanted to keep the vow, regardless of its validity. His daughter wanted to honor her father and do what he wanted. So the daughter pledged her life to the service of God only, in other words, she never married. This was devastating to Jephthah as it meant that his ancestral property would end up passing to another family as he would have no heirs.

There was no human sacrifice.

Answer 9

Perhaps you're confused about what God will have and will not have. See Ps 40:6; Ps 51:16; Hos 6:6; Mt 9:13; Mt 12:7; Heb 10 to note God will not have sacrifice, with the not part of such being not then, not now, not ever. Selah.

The GRACE of our Lord Jesus Christ with you all. Amen.

Answer 10

God didn't. What God accepted was the erroneous practices of the primitve people who thought God wanted that. He is all merciful, all knowing, and all loving. Such a Wise Parent; the One and Only True God, knows the developments of the eartly ones. What a stupid promise, eh? Such things stand as a testimony to the contrast of where they were at in those days vs. the maturing growth and development of human beings in today's times.