Judges20chapter 20

Judges 20:1-2

The words as one man fall three times in this chapter, at verses 1, 8 and 11, and elsewhere in Judges only at 6:16, where God promises Gideon that Midian will be smitten as one man. Deborah's song had to name the tribes that stayed home, Reuben at 5:16, Dan and Asher at 5:17, and Meroz cursed at 5:23 for coming not to the help of the Lord. The one muster in this book that arrives whole is the one raised against a tribe of Israel. The place is Mizpeh, and 21:1 and 21:5 record the two oaths sworn there.

Judges 20:3-5

Benjamin hears where Israel has gathered and sends nobody, so eleven tribes hear a charge against the twelfth in its absence. The Levite retells chapter 19 in his own words and it differs at two points. He says the men of Gibeah thought to have slain him, where 19:22 records them demanding the man of the house, and he says nothing of 19:25, where he took his concubine and brought her forth to them himself. Both accounts stand in the book as written, and the narrator sets his speech down without comment.

Judges 20:6-7

Chapter 19 said twelve pieces sent into all the coasts of Israel, and here he says he sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance. Folly in Israel is a set phrase and it falls four times in the King James text, at Genesis 34:7 of Dinah, at Deuteronomy 22:21 in the law, at Joshua 7:15 of Achan, and here. Genesis 34 is the nearest of them, where an outrage on one woman ends in the sack of a city by her brothers. His last word asks the tribes for their advice and counsel, so the assembly is invited to judge.

Judges 20:8-11

The assembly binds itself by oath before it enquires of God at all, and the oath at verse 8 keeps every man from his own house until the matter is finished. Verse 9 assigns the assault by lot, the method Numbers 26:55 and Joshua 15:1 used to divide the land, and verse 10 sets aside one man in ten to carry provisions, which is the only supply arrangement described in Judges. A second oath sworn at this same Mizpeh is recorded at 21:1, that no man would give his daughter to Benjamin, and chapter 21 spends itself working around it.

Judges 20:12-13

And the tribes of Israel sent men: The demand is worded out of the law. Put away evil from Israel appears in the King James text at Deuteronomy 22:22 and here and nowhere else, and children of Belial first occurs at Deuteronomy 13:13, of a city that had gone after other gods. That chapter of Deuteronomy lays the sword and the fire on such a city, which is what verse 48 finally carries out. Benjamin would not hearken to the voice of their brethren, and by holding back the men of Gibeah the tribe takes the crime as its own.

Judges 20:14-16

Twenty and six thousand from the cities and seven hundred from Gibeah answer the muster, and readings differ over whether the seven hundred slingers of verse 16 are those same seven hundred counted again. Lefthanded occurs twice in the whole King James text, at 3:15 of Ehud the Benjamite and here of these seven hundred, so both times it is said of this tribe. First Chronicles 12:2 says the Benjamites of Saul's kindred used the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows. Commentators set that beside the name Jacob gave the boy at Genesis 35:18, which is read as son of the right hand.

Judges 20:17

Four hundred thousand men that drew sword, against the six hundred thousand and a thousand seven hundred and thirty numbered at Numbers 26:51 on the plains of Moab. Benjamin fields twenty and six thousand and seven hundred where Numbers 26:41 counted forty and five thousand and six hundred. The figures in these books are read in more than one way, some taking them at face value and some reading the word rendered thousand as a clan or a unit, and Clarke and Keil weigh them without closing the question.

Judges 20:18

The question is the book's own opening question asked again. Judges 1:1 had Israel ask who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, and the answer was Judah shall go up. Here the same form of question gets the same answer, Judah shall go up first, and it sends the leading tribe against Benjamin. The house of God at verses 18, 26 and 31 stands for Bethel in the Hebrew, and verse 31 has a highway going up to it, so a place is meant.

Judges 20:19-21

Israel goes up with an answer from God and loses twenty and two thousand men in a day. The text gives no reason for the defeat. Henry and Gill read the four hundred thousand as trusting their own numbers, and Keil notes that the question asked at verse 18 was which tribe should lead rather than whether to fight at all. The chapter states the outcome and leaves the cause where it found it.

Judges 20:22-23

The second enquiry adds weeping before the Lord until even, and it adds a word the first did not use. Benjamin my brother falls at verse 23 and again at verse 28, and 21:6 has Israel repenting for Benjamin their brother. The answer is Go up against him, which grants leave and promises nothing.

Judges 20:24-25

Eighteen thousand fall on the second day. Forty thousand men of Israel are dead across the two days before the record counts a single Benjamite killed, and both days followed an answer from God. Barnes and Keil observe that Israel came to the field certain of the outcome, and the chapter lets the two defeats stand without explaining them.

Judges 20:26-28

The third approach adds fasting, burnt offerings and peace offerings, and it is the first time in the chapter that Israel brings anything besides a question. The ark of the covenant is at Bethel and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron stands before it, the man of Numbers 25:7 and Joshua 22:13, one generation from Aaron. That places these events near the beginning of the period, though chapters 17 to 21 sit at the end of the book, so the closing chapters are an appendix rather than the last thing that happened. The answer given now carries a promise the first two lacked, to morrow I will deliver them into thine hand.

Judges 20:29-31

The third day is fought by the plan that took Ai. Joshua 8 set an ambush behind the city, drew the defenders out by a feigned retreat, fired the town and used the smoke as the signal, and every one of those parts stands in verses 29 to 40. Verse 31 shows the bait taking hold, since Benjamin came out as at other times and killed about thirty men in the highways.

Judges 20:32-34

Benjamin reads the third day by the first two and says they are smitten down before us, as at the first. The flight is ordered rather than real, and verse 34 says they knew not that evil was near them, which is Joshua 8:14 in different English, where the king of Ai wist not that there were liers in ambush against him. Verse 41 turns the same words over, and they saw that evil was come upon them.

Judges 20:35-36

The narrator gives the outcome to God rather than to the ambush, and the sentence the Lord smote Benjamin before Israel stands before the tactics are described. Then the account doubles back. Keil and Barnes read verses 36 to 46 as a fuller telling of the same battle rather than a further engagement, which is why the men of Israel give place at verse 36 after Benjamin has already been said to fall at verse 35.

Judges 20:37-38

The men in ambush take Gibeah while the field army is still retreating, and the city is put to the edge of the sword. The appointed sign is a great flame with smoke rising out of the city, which is the arrangement of Joshua 8:19 and 8:20 down to the detail. Israel fights its own tribe by the method it was given for a Canaanite town.

Judges 20:39-41

Verse 40 says the flame of the city ascended up to heaven, and Joshua 8:20 says the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, which is the same clause with one word changed. Benjamin looks behind, as the men of Ai looked behind them in that verse, and what verse 41 says they saw answers what verse 34 said they knew not. The men of Benjamin were amazed, and the retreating army turns.

Judges 20:42-44

The flight runs toward the wilderness and the battle overtakes it, and men coming out of the other Benjamite cities are destroyed in the middle of the pursuit. Eighteen thousand fall here, the same figure Israel lost on the second day. They are called men of valour at verse 44 and again at verse 46, a title this book gives to the dead of Moab at 3:29 and to the Danite spies at 18:2.

Judges 20:45-46

The verb used of the pursuit in the highways is the harvest word for gleaning, and Gideon uses the same figure of Ephraim at 8:2. The numbers of the chapter do not add straight. Verse 15 musters twenty and six thousand beside seven hundred of Gibeah, verse 35 counts twenty and five thousand and an hundred fallen, verse 46 gives the round twenty and five thousand, and verse 47 has six hundred escape. Keil and Clarke work the remainder differently, one by treating the hundred as falling outside the round figure and the other by taking the seven hundred of verse 16 as already counted at verse 15, and the difference is left open.

Judges 20:47

Six hundred men at the rock Rimmon are what is left of a tribe, and 21:6 says there is one tribe cut off from Israel this day. Chapter 21 exists to find wives for these six hundred, and every later Benjamite descends from them. Saul calls his tribe the smallest of the tribes of Israel at First Samuel 9:21, and Paul names the same tribe as his own at Romans 11:1 and Philippians 3:5.

Judges 20:48

The last verse turns the army on the rest of Benjamin, the men of every city, the beast and the cities themselves, which is the sentence Deuteronomy 13:15 and 13:16 lay on an Israelite city gone after other gods. Israel cited that law at verse 13 and carries it out here on a whole tribe rather than on the men of Gibeah it had asked for. Hosea remembers this stretch twice, at 9:9 as the days of Gibeah and at 10:9 as the point from which Israel sinned, so the prophets read these chapters as the low mark of the period. The text records what was done and leaves the reader with it.