Try as he might, he couldn't control God

Jephthah, much like Saul, can display all the signs of success, but because he could not rise above the scars of rejection, he will remain a troubled personality throughout. Opportunistic, he can grasp power although it is not his to have—but truth to tell, also not Israel’s to give. Controlling, he imagines himself capable of manipulating Israel’s God. He plans selfishly and, in one scene that distills his many faults as well as his few virtues, he makes a vow that is emblematic of his incapacity to adjust to life as leader of consequence.—Jack Sasson in Literature as Politics, Politics as Literature, page 420