The Story of Jephthah and his Daughter: Then and Now 333 (8,23), one asks oneself whether headship of the people is Jephthah’s to demand or the elders’ to confer. One is reminded of Isa 3, where people defy the divine sovereign, YHWH of hosts, by appointing one of their kindred as their ˆyxq (vv. 6-7). 3. Judg 11,12-28: Jephthah Challenges the Ammonites Jephthah steps forward on behalf of Israel as a whole. In reliance on the might of YHWH the Judge, he challenges the Ammonites in uncompromising tones. On the face of it, leadership has brought the best out of Jephthah; he seems no longer to be a schemer and opportunist. The next episode, however, will show otherwise. 4. Judg 11,29-38: Jephthah’s Vow and its Fulfilment The vow story is very reminiscent of some non-Israelite ones. It has a clear parallel in versions of the tale of Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigeneia in which when his ships face contrary winds or are becalmed he makes a vow which leads to the sacrifice, or narrowly averted sacrifice, of his daughter. Closer still than the Iphigeneia story, because it involves the idea of returning from a journey, whereas the Iphigeneia story is set on the Greeks’ outward journey, is the tale of the offer to Poseidon by Idomeneus, king of Crete, of the first human being to meet him, which turns out to be his son. When he attempts to fulfil his vow, the people of Crete drive him into exile (6). There is a comparable story too about Alexander the Great: an oracle told him to sacrifice the first living thing which he encountered on leaving the city; the first person he met was an ass-driver, but the latter had the presence of mind to save his life by pointing out that the animal had met Alexander first (7). Pausanias also tells of a ruler of Haliartus in Boeotia who slaughtered his son because the priestess of Delphi, when asked how to find water in an arid place, had bidden him kill the first man that he should meet on his return to Haliartus (from his son Lophis sprang up the river Lophis) (8). In the De Fluviis of the Pseudo Plutarch, one finds a story that Maeander sacrificed his son Archelaus, his mother and his sister, they being the first persons to meet him on his return from war after he had vowed to sacrifice the first that came (6) This tradition, however, is not found before c. 400 CE, in Servius, a commentator on the Aeneid. (7) Valerius Maximus, Facta et Dicta Memorabilia, VII, 3, ext. 1. (8) Pausanias, Hellados Periegesis, IX,33,4.