Judges 11:35

She thinks it an honour to die, not as a sacrifice of atonement for the people's sins (that honour was reserved for Christ only), but as a sacrifice of acknowledgment for the people's mercies.

IN Jephtha case there were good reasons for going back. He had made a rash vow and such things are much better broken than kept. If a man makes a vow to commit a crime, his vow to do so is, in itself, a sin. The carrying out of his vow will be doubly sinful.

Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances--The return of the victors was hailed, as usual, by the joyous acclaim of a female band (1Sa 18:6), the leader of whom was Jephthah's daughter.

IN Jephtha case there were good reasons for going back. He had made a rash vow and such things are much better broken than kept. If a man makes a vow to commit a crime, his vow to do so is, in itself, a sin. The carrying out of his vow will be doubly sinful. If a man's vowing to do a thing made it necessary and right for him to do it, then the whole moral law might be suspended by the mere act of vowing, for a man might vow to steal, to commit adultery, or to murder—and then say—"I was right in all those acts because I vowed to do them." This is self-evidently absurd and to admit such a principle would be to destroy all morality! You have, first of all, no right to promise to do what is wrong. And then, secondly, your promise, which is, in itself, wrong, cannot make a criminal act to be right. If you have come under a rash vow, you must not dare to keep it! You ought to go before God and repent that you have made a vow which involves sin—and as to keeping the sinful vow, that were to add sin to sin! "But," says one, "would it not be sin to break my vow?" I reply, there was great sin in making it and there will probably be some measure of sin connected with your breaking it, for few human actions are perfect. But to keep your evil vow would certainly be sin and you must not commit the greater sin to avoid the lesser which, perhaps, may be involved in the breach of your foolish promise. I think it would have been well if Jephtha, though he had opened his mouth before God, had gone back when it involved, as I think it did, so dreadful a necessity as that of sacrificing his own innocent, only child! His having sworn to do it did not make it right—it was just as wrong. If he really did slay her, it was a horrible action, dramatize or disguise it as you may! He had no right to make the dangerous promise.

Thou hast brought me very low - He was greatly distressed to think that his daughter, who was his only child, should be, in consequence of his vow, prevented from continuing his family in Israel; for it is evident that he had not any other child, for besides her, says the text, he had neither son nor daughter, Jdg 11:34. He might, therefore, well be grieved that thus his family was to become extinct in Israel.