Judges 21--Wives Provided for the Tribe of Benjamin

Judges 21
English Standard Version

Wives Provided for the Tribe of Benjamin
21 Now the men of Israel had sworn at Mizpah, “No one of us shall give his daughter in marriage to Benjamin.” 2 And the people came to Bethel and sat there till evening before God, and they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. 3 And they said, “O LORD, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel, that today there should be one tribe lacking in Israel?” 4 And the next day the people rose early and built there an altar and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. 5 And the people of Israel said, “Which of all the tribes of Israel did not come up in the assembly to the LORD?” For they had taken a great oath concerning him who did not come up to the LORD to Mizpah, saying, “He shall surely be put to death.” 6 And the people of Israel had compassion for Benjamin their brother and said, “One tribe is cut off from Israel this day. 7 What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since we have sworn by the LORD that we will not give them any of our daughters for wives?”

8 And they said, “What one is there of the tribes of Israel that did not come up to the LORD to Mizpah?” And behold, no one had come to the camp from Jabesh-gilead, to the assembly. 9 For when the people were mustered, behold, not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead was there. 10 So the congregation sent 12,000 of their bravest men there and commanded them, “Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword; also the women and the little ones. 11 This is what you shall do: every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall devote to destruction.” 12 And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with him, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

13 Then the whole congregation sent word to the people of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon and proclaimed peace to them. 14 And Benjamin returned at that time. And they gave them the women whom they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh-gilead, but they were not enough for them. 15 And the people had compassion on Benjamin because the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.

16 Then the elders of the congregation said, “What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?” 17 And they said, “There must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, that a tribe not be blotted out from Israel. 18 Yet we cannot give them wives from our daughters.” For the people of Israel had sworn, “Cursed be he who gives a wife to Benjamin.” 19 So they said, “Behold, there is the yearly feast of the LORD at Shiloh, which is north of Bethel, on the east of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah.” 20 And they commanded the people of Benjamin, saying, “Go and lie in ambush in the vineyards 21 and watch. If the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards and snatch each man his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. 22 And when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, we will say to them, ‘Grant them graciously to us, because we did not take for each man of them his wife in battle, neither did you give them to them, else you would now be guilty.’” 23 And the people of Benjamin did so and took their wives, according to their number, from the dancers whom they carried off. Then they went and returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the towns and lived in them. 24 And the people of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and family, and they went out from there every man to his inheritance.

​25 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

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As mentioned at the end of the last journal article, the Jews had some regret for the decision they made that they would never give any of their daughters in marriage to the tribe of Benjamin because of the sin of Gibeah and how they defended the citizens of Gibeah and had refused to take care of the issue within their borders, allowed other Jews to be attacked in their borders and then went to war with the other Jews when they came to demand justice for the victim.  The Jews knew though that this would mean that the entire tribe of Benjamin would not just be cut off from the covenant, but they would die off and their allotment of land that was supposed to be an eternal covenant to them would no longer have anyone to possess it.  They saw this as a problem as they were not about to make the LORD out to be a liar.

They wept bitterly over the sin of the nation and the need to have a civil war and they offered all kinds of offerings to the LORD for the sin that had been covered up and for the price of peace and restored fellowship between the tribes, but there was some unfinished business related to this war that was fought  for the command had gone out to all the towns to hold council together before the LORD at Mizpah to inquire about how to proceed in the matter and one of the towns refused to come out before the LORD to seek His council.  That is unacceptable to the Jews and they are now going to punish that city and kill two birds with one stone (so to speak).

​They went through the town of Jabesh-gilead to kill every man and every woman who was not a virgin so that they devoted all the inhabitants of the city to destruction except the 400 virgins that they found.  They took these 400 virgins and provided them as wives to the 300 men of Benjamin that remained (of the 26,000 men that came out to fight, 25, 100 were killed and 600 ran into the wilderness leaving only 300 mature men of the tribe).

However, they knew that this would not be enough to keep the tribe going, so they would have to look elsewhere for additional women to give to the tribe of Benjamin.  So they decided to conspire with the tribe of Benjamin against the people of Shiloh (where the Tabernacle was located, so most of these people would probably be Levites, though it was in the land of Ephraim).  They told the men of Benjamin that the inhabitants of Shiloh would be coming out of the city for a feast unto the LORD and that they should wait in ambush to take some of the women of the city of Shiloh for themselves as additional wives.  In this way, they would also somewhat be keeping their vow because they would not give any of their women to the men of Benjamin if the men of Benjamin stole them.  It seems like the men of Shiloh had no idea of this plan and they already though up an a justification for when the men of the city asked why they thought it was okay to offer their daughters up to the tribe of Benjamin.

They were told to be happy because they were only taking a few women that were needed in addition to the 400 virgins that the LORD already provided for them--they did not take a woman from Shiloh for every man.  They were also told that this was their way to keep the men of Shiloh from breaking their vow, for if they had come and asked for their daughters they would not have been able to give them willingly.  It's a convoluted argument and it shows where the hearts of the people are, but in the midst of all this where "every man did what was right in his own eyes" (which is one of the refrains of the book of Judges along with "in those days there was no king in Israel"), God was still faithful to be working His master plan.  He was faithful to His covenant even when His people were so unfaithful and not deserving of it, because the covenant wasn't just about them, but about salvation not only for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles--all the people of the world from all places in all times.

So then we are left with the feeling that things are broken and in desperate for Messiah to come and fix them.  Not only to bring peace, but to bring justice and restore righteousness.  We are left longing for the King of Kings to take His throne when we are done reading the book of Judges and for His Justice to rule and to reign among His people and to go throughout the whole world, but we will have to wait a little longer for that, because it is not time for that to happen yet.  However, it is good and right that this desire is stirred up within us because this is the message of the Prophets to the people--God wants them to stop sinning and for the covenant to be renewed but there is also a message of hope that a better covenant is coming and that one day a better King is coming.  We still look forward to the day of our soon-coming King--the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who will also be the Righteous Judge.

For now though, we will continue to look through the Old and New Testaments of how the LORD used imperfect people to help accomplish His perfect plan.