At 06:05 PM 1/18/2004 -0600 The Fool wrote:
>Judges 11:31 - 40. Virgin Burnt Offering.
I'm glad to know that you put such stock in The Bible to believe everything
you read. If I didn't know better, I'd say that The Fool is becoming a
Christian on us. :-)
30
Jephthah made a vow to the LORD.(2) "If you deliver the Ammonites into my
power," he said,
31
"whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in
triumph from the Ammonites shall belong to the LORD. I shall offer him up
as a holocaust."
32
Jephthah then went on to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the LORD
delivered them into his power,
33
so that he inflicted a severe defeat on them, from Aroer to the approach of
Minnith (twenty cities in all) and as far as Abel-keramin. Thus were the
Ammonites brought into subjection by the Israelites.
34
When Jephthah returned to his house in Mizpah, it was his daughter who came
forth, playing the tambourines and dancing. She was an only child: he had
neither son nor daughter besides her.
35
When he saw her, he rent his garments and said, "Alas, daughter, you have
struck me down and brought calamity upon me. For I have made a vow to the
LORD and I cannot retract."
36
"Father," she replied, "you have made a vow to the LORD. Do with me as you
have vowed, because the LORD has wrought vengeance for you on your enemies
the Ammonites."
37
3 Then she said to her father, "Let me have this favor. Spare me for two
months, that I may go off down the mountains to mourn my virginity with my
companions."
38
"Go," he replied, and sent her away for two months. So she departed with
her companions and mourned her virginity on the mountains.
39
At the end of the two months she returned to her father, who did to her as
he had vowed. She had not been intimate with man. It then became a custom
in Israel
40
for Israelite women to go yearly to mourn the daughter of Jephthah the
Gileadite for four days of the year.
Footnotes
2 [30-40] The text clearly implies that Jephthah vowed a human sacrifice,
according to the custom of his pagan neighbors; cf 2 Kings 3:27. The
inspired author merely records the fact; he does not approve of the action.
3 [37] Mourn my virginity: to bear children was woman's greatest pride; to
be childless was regarded as a great misfortune. Hence Jephthah's daughter
asks permission to mourn the fact that she will be put to death before she
can bear children.
New American Bible Copyright © 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian
Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC.
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John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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