Judges 11:38

Study note

Setting — Jephthah responds to his daughter’s request by authorizing her departure, sending her away for two months to the mountains with her companions. This occurs immediately after she negotiates the terms of her vow and before her return and the fulfillment of his pledge.

The words — לֵ֔כִי (Le.khi) issues a direct command to “go,” while שְׁנֵי חֳדָשִׁים (shnei chodashim) fixes the duration at exactly “two months.” These terms translate the daughter’s condition into a binding timeline.

The thread — The specified mourning interval mirrors other biblical periods of ritual lament, such as the seven days of mourning for Saul (1 Samuel 31:13) or the forty days of Moses’ fast (Exodus 34:28), though here the timeframe is explicitly tied to a personal vow rather than a national or covenantal event.

Why it lands — The text records a father’s compliance with a daughter’s request and the daughter’s departure to mourn, leaving the reader to confront the tension between human promises and their consequences. It demands attention to the literal weight of spoken vows and the cost of fulfilling them.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.