Jephthah the Gileadite made a vow before battle: whatever came out of his house first to greet him upon his victorious return would be offered as a sacrifice to God. He crushed the Ammonites. But when he came home, his daughter Seelah ran out first, dancing with timbrels at the head of all the women.
According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, Jephthah tore his garments and cried out: "Who will put my heart and my flesh on the scale to weigh them? You have grieved me beyond measure." But Seelah's response was remarkable. She did not beg for her life. She reminded her father that one of the patriarchs had been willing to offer his own son, and both the offerer and the offered were accepted by God. "Do to me as you have spoken," she said.
She asked for only one thing: two months of freedom to mourn her virginity on the mountains. Seelah's lament was extraordinary. "The trees of the field shall weep for me," she declared. "The wild beasts shall mourn for me. I do not grieve for my death. The one thing I fear is that my offering will not be accepted, that my death will have been for nothing."
She went to the sages of her people, but they answered her nothing. She climbed Mount Tlag, and there God spoke in the night, saying He had closed the mouths of the sages so that Jephthah's vow would be fulfilled, and Seelah's soul would be accepted. When the two months ended, Jephthah fulfilled his vow. The chronicle records that the Israelites established a custom of mourning Seelah for four days every year, lamenting the daughter who faced death with more courage than the warriors who had won the battle.