Before he goes to war, the judge Jephthah swears to sacrifice the first one he meets to the god Yahweh when he returns. To his dismay, it is his own daughter. So he sacrifices her – or does he?
In the Bible, countries or cities and their populations are often personified as the country's (king's) daughter. He owned the land and its people.
It is first and foremost the case with the city of Jerusalem as the capital of Judah (Israel) which is called the Daughter of Jerusalem or the Daughter of Zion [2 Kings 19.21]. But the Bible also mentions the Daughter of Egypt [Jeremiah 46.11], Daughter of Edom [Lamentations 4.21], Daughter of Babylon [Jeremiah 51.33] and more.
It's so obviously symbolism. But in many of the Bible's parables, this mystical symbolism is not so clear. This is not least the case in the Book of Judges from the biblical story of the tribes of Israel's struggles for the right to the land of Canaan. Many of the stories are terrifying and horrific, but they are also often poorly understood. One of them is the story of the judge Jephthah [Judges 11.1-12.7].
The judges of the Bible were local warlords at a time when the Israelites did not yet have a king. Judge Jephthah was chosen as leader of the tribes of Israel in the region of Gilead, east of the Jordan River: ”It was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah … they said to Jephthah, 'Come and be our chief, that we may fight with the children of Ammon.'” [Judges 11.5-6].
Jephthah accepted: ”Then the Spirit of Yahweh came on Jephthah … Jephthah vowed a vow to Yahweh, and said ’If you will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be, that whatever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be Yahweh's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.’” [Judges 11.29-31].
It does not appear why Jephthah felt the need to swear such an expensive oath. But when ”the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah" it meant that from then on it was not Jephthah who acted, but God who acted through him. We are no longer in the world of humans but in the mystical world where gods and spirits ruled. Much more on that in the book ’The King Mystery. Yahweh and the Daughter of Zion.’
”So Jephthah passed over to the children of Ammon to fight against them; and Yahweh delivered them into his hand.” [Judges 11.32]. But: ”Jephthah came to Mizpah to his house; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances: and she was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter.” [Judges 11.34].
Jephthah was horrified when he saw her, but he could not retract his oath. Instead, he blamed his daughter for the fact that he now had to sacrifice her. ”… ’Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are one of those who trouble me … ’” [Judges 11.35].
But she said: ”’… do to me according to that which has proceeded out of your mouth, because Yahweh has taken vengeance for you on your enemies, even on the children of Ammon.’” [Judges 11.36]. The warlord Jephthah's daughter is here, of course, the "Daughter of Gilead", his land and people. He – or the god Yahweh – had put “her” at risk when he agreed to be the leader in the war.
It was, however, not only the Bible's parable-makers who mastered the art of "disguising" families, countries and peoples with personal characteristics and inserting them into a drama. In ancient Greece the poets were experts in this mystical symbolism. The most famous of all Greek poets was Homer (8th century BC), who, with his major works The Iliad and The Odyssey, came to define Greek mythology.
In The Iliad, Homer tells about the Greeks' war against the city-state of Troy. And in The Odyssey, it is about the hero-king Odysseus' dramatic journey home from Troy. Later poets used these legends and myths as a basis for their own stories and interpretations.
The myths told that Prince Paris had come to Greece from the city of Troy, which was located in northwestern Turkey, formerly called Phrygia. The prince abducted the Greek king Menelaus' beautiful wife Helen to Troy. It had to be avenged.
Menelaus' brother King Agamemnon had therefore gathered all the Greek petty kings and their army units into a great fleet. It was now ready for departure at the Greek port city of Aulis, a little north of Athens.[1]
The army wanted to leave, but the gods were hostile, so the wind had died down, and the weather was calm for a long time. It therefore drew up a dangerous confrontation between the army and the leading king. So the gods had to be appeased with a sacrifice.
The Greek poet Euripides (485-406 BC) wrote much later two tragedies on the drama.[2] Here he tells how King Agamemnon was forced to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to the moon goddess Artemis, to get wind so the fleet could sail. King Agamemnon tells: ”In our perplexity, we asked Calchas, the seer, and he answered that we should sacrifice my own child Iphigenia to Artemis, whose home is in this land, and we would sail and sack the Phrygians' capital (the Trojans cfk) if we sacrificed her, but if we did not, these things would not happen.”[3]
It was a terrible act, and King Agamemnon tried to avoid doing it. But the army would revolt if the warriors were sent home without the promised booty. So the king's daughter was brought to Aulis with a false promise that she would marry the hero Achilles.
Euripides tells that when Iphigenia learned the truth about why she had come, she was terrified. Achilles tried to protect her with weapons, but the army demanded that she be sacrificed so that they could gain wind and move on. Then Iphigenia realized that it was right that she was sacrificed for the cause, and she willingly agreed. Just like Jephthah's daughter, she accepted the inevitable.
In the theatrical performance of the tragedy, the sacrifice is not shown, but here a messenger enters the stage and tells Iphigenia's mother Queen Clytemnestra, that he had been to Artemis' sacrificial grove where a miracle had occurred: ”But the priest, seizing his knife, offered up a prayer and was closely scanning the maiden's throat to see where he should strike. It was no slight sorrow filled my heart, as I stood by with bowed head; when there was a sudden miracle! Each one of us distinctly heard the sound of a blow, but none saw the spot where the maiden vanished. The priest cried out, and all the army took up the cry at the sight of a marvel all unlooked for, due to some god's agency, and passing all belief, although it was seen; for there upon the ground lay a deer of immense size, magnificent to see, gasping out her life, with whose blood the altar of the goddess was thoroughly bedewed. ”[4]
The girl suddenly disappeared. Euripides tells in another play that Artemis, at the last moment, had exchanged the girl for a deer and then taken her to the land of the Scythians north of the Black Sea, present-day Ukraine.[5]
King Agamemnon's near-sacrifice of his daughter is reminiscent of the Bible's story of Abraham, who also nearly sacrificed his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. [Genesis 22]. There the boy was exchanged with a ram at the very last minute. It was a symbolic sacrifice.[6] In the Greek drama, however, it was not the king's son, but his daughter, who had to be sacrificed. Here too it was a symbolic sacrifice, because this "daughter" was the king's country and people.
The fact that the king sacrificed his daughter means that he (or the god) put his country and his people at risk to achieve his goal. When King Agamemnon returned home after the war, many years later, his wife had taken a new husband (king), and together they killed him.[7] King Agamemnon had lost his people and his country (his daughter), and now also his life.
Even a few years later, Iphigenia complained about the terrible fate that had befallen her. She was now a priestess at the Temple of Artemis in Tauris (in Ukraine), where the moon goddess had mysteriously brought her, seconds before she was to be sacrificed.
Just as in the Bible, the sacrifice of the king's daughter was, of course, predetermined before it happened, for destiny was always determined in advance.[8] Thinking of her father, King Agamemnon, Iphigenia said: ”For you once vowed to sacrifice to the torch-bearing goddess the most beautiful creature brought forth that year; then your wife, Clytemnestra, bore a child in your house – ascribing the prize of beauty to me –whom you must sacrifice.’”[9]