An interesting question. The Bible account strongly suggests that he was but our brothers, loving their heroes to be pure and white, mount a defence in Insight on the Scriptures, volume II, to suggest that he was not illegitimate. Unfortunately it does not appear to be an entirely sound defence built, as it is, upon two statements that have no scriptural basis. Firstly it is stated that 'His mother had been (italics theirs) a prostitute prior to her marriage as a secondary wife to Gilead'. Secondly 'Moreover, he offered a sacrifice to God at the tabernacle'. So was he born on the wrong side of the blanket or not? What does the Bible actually say? Let us start in verse 1 of Judges chapter 11.
1 Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior; he was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead was Jephthah’s father. 2 But Gilead’s wife also bore him sons. When the sons of his wife grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him: “You will have no inheritance in our father’s household, for you are the son of another woman.
Here, it seems quite clear that there was something ‘different’ about Jephthah. Gilead had one wife who was not the mother of this son. His mother was a prostitute and his half-brothers knew this. They were not about to share their inheritance with a bastard. As the firstborn Jephthah would have been entitled to a double portion – even more of a reason to disinherit him. The second-born (i.e. the legitimate firstborn) would be pushed up the rankings and he would then receive the double portion for himself. Insight says that Gilead must have married the prostitute beforehand and she thereby became a secondary wife. If this were true, would it be fair for the Bible account to announce to all and sundry that she had been a prostitute if that was a ‘profession’ that she had renounced prior to the marriage? Would it be fair to cast aspersions upon Gilead himself, suggesting, by the way it has been written, that he might have been a man of loose morals? Jehovah is a god of forgiveness to repentant miscreants so why would he drag up the past unnecessarily? A more accurate narrative would have been for the Bible to say that this wife ‘had been’ a prostitute if only to provide a little context for verse 2. Even that would have been more information than was strictly necessary. It doesn’t say that – it says ‘he was the son of a prostitute’. Insight also makes a comparison with Rahab. Rahab, famously, was a prostitute in Jericho. She displayed faith and obedience, was saved from the destruction of her hometown, became a worshipper of Jehovah, married Salmon, gave birth to Boaz and became an heiress of Jesus Christ himself. In this account the knowledge of her ‘profession’ was important. The spies entered Jericho and went to the house of a prostitute. Why? One certainly hopes that it was not for the satisfaction of carnal desire. They were spies, operating covertly in enemy territory, and they recognised that men going to a house of ill repute would not raise any eyebrows amongst deeply immoral Canaanites. They would not be drawing attention to themselves. The prostitution was an explanatory part of the account, and so too is it here in Jephthah’s case. The next point made is that Jephthah became the accepted leader of the Gileadites. In verse 7, in talking to the Gileadite elders, Jephthah notes that it was they who drove him out of his father’s house. Clearly these elders and his half-brothers are to some extent the same people. So the question is raised – why would they invite back the man they had gone to great pains to banish? Jephthah had fled from them. Clearly it had not been an amicable parting. The answer is found in verses 1 and 4. The Ammonites were fighting against Israel and Jephthah was a ‘mighty warrior’. When push comes to shove, all politicians favour expediency over lofty principles.
Insight then states that he offered a sacrifice to God at the tabernacle, citing Judges 11:30, 31. What does that say?
30 Then Jephthah made a vow to Jehovah and said: “If you give the Ammonites into my hand, 31 then whoever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites will become Jehovah’s, and I will offer that one up as a burnt offering.”
Where does it say that this vow was made at the tabernacle? It doesn’t. Why? Simply because the law stated at Deuteronomy 23:2 says that no illegitimate son may come into the congregation of Jehovah. He wasn’t allowed to go to the tent of worship. But he didn’t need to. The first vow in the Bible was made by Jacob, recorded in Genesis chapter 28. At that time there was no place of worship. The law, however, defined and regulated the making of vows. If a person went to the tabernacle or, latterly the temple, to make a vow, an accompanying sacrifice was required (Lev 22, Num 15, Ps 66:13). There doesn’t appear to be a prohibition of vow making away from the tabernacle. Today we too have the choice of making vows. We are not expected to go to a specific location if we wish to avail ourselves of such a privilege. His vow was between himself and Jehovah, possibly with his fighting men as witnesses. Verse 29 suggests that the vow was made en-route to the Ammonites having passed through Mizpah, heading east and nowhere near Shiloh. His daughter might well have known about this vow given her calm response to her father’s anguished garment-ripping as he returned home to find his one-and-only singing and dancing across the lawn towards him. And why did he say ‘as a burnt offering’? Simply because he was not allowed to go to Shiloh and make an actual burnt offering with assistance from the priests. This was the best that he could offer. Who did he expect to emerge from his house upon his return? The law forbade contact with unclean animals so Israelites would not have kept pets as we do today. Unless he had sheep in the house with the ability to open doors, it was always going to be a human – maybe his butler, a maid or other domestic servant. Or was he secretly hoping that it would be the ‘trouble and strife’? His exclusion from the tabernacle meant that he could not make an actual burnt offering so to dedicate a member of his household to perpetual service at that centre of worship was a grand and noble gesture. He didn’t expect it to be his daughter. The fact that verse 40 tells us that the young women of Israel would visit her ‘from year to year’ clearly informs us that she remained alive and well.
Finally, paragraph 2 on page 28 of Insight starts ‘When Jephthah brought his daughter to the sanctuary… and undoubtedly [did certain things]…’. Again, none of this is stated in the Bible account. Verse 39 says that ‘he carried out the vow he had made regarding her’. What does this mean? He might have sent her off in the same way that he said ‘go’ to her when she headed off for her earlier trip to the mountains. He might have accompanied her all the way to the city of Shiloh without actually approaching the tabernacle. How he carried out the vow is unspecified and so to state that he brought his daughter to the sanctuary and offered burnt sacrifices seems to be adding to the account what isn’t there.
It is also interesting to note that the prohibition recorded at Deuteronomy 23 applied to the descendants ‘to the tenth generation’. It is logical to assume that because of this vow he had no descendants so the ‘curse’ of his father’s wild oats came to an end. Jephthah will always be remembered as a man of action motivated by faith and love for his god, not as the father of a family inhibited by the actions of an ancestor.
Should we be disturbed by honestly examining Bible accounts and coming to slightly different conclusions to others? Not at all! Reading and meditating upon Bible accounts is always instructive and can never be wrong. Actually, this revised view of the account can be very encouraging. Jephthah’s legitimacy was something over which he had no control. Yet he is recorded in the Bible as a man of faith. There are 47 verses recounting his deeds of judging and, in Hebrews chapter 11, the author includes him in his list of men of faith. Jehovah used him in a mighty way despite the limitations placed upon him by his father’s waywardness. Many in Jehovah’s organisation today have backgrounds that are less than ideal. Jehovah does not hold this against them. He is willing to accept anyone whose heart is complete toward him and who serves him in an acceptable way. This is true regardless of one’s ethnic, social or educational background, or of one’s previous religious, commercial, political or sexual practices. Peter perceived, as recorded in Acts chapter 10, ‘that God is not partial but in every nation the man who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him’.