Women of the Bible: Jephthah's daughter

I’m trying to post scripture related to each woman in the Bible, in alphabetical order by name. Not all women are named. For some reason, it occurred to me that I hadn’t included the daughter of Jephthah. The Bible doesn’t name her.

Judges 11:11 Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and chief over them. Jephthah spoke all his words before Yahweh in Mizpah.

12 Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, “What do you have to do with me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?”

29 Then Yahweh’s Spirit came on Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed over to the children of Ammon.

30 Jephthah vowed a vow to Yahweh, and said, “If you will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand, 31 then it shall be, that whatever comes out of 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.”

32 So Jephthah passed over to the children of Ammon to fight against them; and Yahweh delivered them into his hand. 33 He struck them from Aroer until you come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and to Abelcheramim, with a very great slaughter. So the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.

34 Jephthah came to Mizpah to his house; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are one of those who trouble me; for I have opened my mouth to Yahweh, and I can’t go back.”

36 She said to him, “My father, you have opened your mouth to Yahweh; 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.” 37 Then she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me. Leave me alone two months, that I may depart and go down on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my companions.”

38 He said, “Go.” He sent her away for two months; and she departed, she and her companions, and mourned her virginity on the mountains. 39 At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed. She was a virgin. It became a custom in Israel 40 that the daughters of Israel went yearly to celebrate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year. 

This story is one of the hardest to accept, if not the hardest story to accept, in the Bible. Why did Jephthah make this vow in the first place? Who or what did he expect to welcome him home? Why didn't God intervene and send out a calf or something? Note also verse 29. Was this for everything in Jephthah's life, or just as battle leader. We don't know.

The most compelling part of the story, I guess, is that both Jephthah and his daughter accepted the situation and followed through. There's no evidence that either Jephthah or his daughter thought seriously of not carrying out the terms of the vow. They are to be commended for this. The daughter, at least, had firm belief in God, and will be eternally rewarded, I should think. Jephthah is not the only person to make a foolish vow to God. People are doing that even today, no doubt.

I refer you to what commentaries have said about this story, for example what Matthew Henry wrote about it, for more on the story of Jephthah's daughter.