Composition
Jephtha (HWV 70, 1752) is Handel's last completed oratorio, composed while he was losing his sight - a biographical circumstance that gives the work's meditation on acceptance of divine mystery a quality of personal testimony. Handel noted in his manuscript beside the great chorus "How dark, O Lord, are thy decrees" that he had to stop work because of failing vision; the connection between the chorus's text and his own experience was not lost on him or on those who knew his situation.
Biblical Text
The libretto by Thomas Morell dramatizes Judges 11:29-40: Jephthah's vow to sacrifice "whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me" if God grants victory over the Ammonites, and the tragedy of his daughter emerging first. Handel and Morell made a significant dramatic decision: they added an angel who intervenes to prevent the sacrifice, allowing Jephthah's daughter to be consecrated to God's service rather than killed. This resolution departs from the plain reading of Judges 11 and was probably understood as bringing the narrative into conformity with New Testament theology: God does not desire human sacrifice (Hebrews 10:4: "it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins").
The chorus "How dark, O Lord, are thy decrees, / All hid from mortal sight" is the oratorio's theological center, a confrontation with divine inscrutability that draws on Job's complaint and Paul's "now we see through a glass darkly" (1 Corinthians 13:12). Morell's libretto resolves the theological problem with an angel's intervention; the chorus frames the problem without resolving it, giving the work a depth of theodicy that the ending's relative tidiness cannot entirely dispel.
Creator and Legacy
Jephtha is increasingly recognized as one of Handel's greatest dramatic achievements, its psychological complexity and theological depth superior in many ways to the more popular oratorios. The combination of personal circumstance (Handel going blind) and biblical content (a father facing catastrophic loss) gives the work an autobiographical resonance unique in his output. It influenced subsequent oratorio writing in its willingness to dwell in divine darkness rather than moving quickly to resolution.