Judgeschapter 20
48 verses · Samuel, by tradition · 11th century BC · History
And Israel set liers in wait round about Gibeah.
Introduction
Samuel, by tradition, History, Judges Overview.
This chapter was written for Israelites who knew that one of their own tribes had once nearly been wiped out, and tradition gives the book to Samuel. It follows the summons of the last chapter to an assembly of the whole nation and a war within it. It asks what justice looks like when a people has no king to judge between its tribes. Listen for the questions Israel puts to God before each battle and the answers it receives. Notice the word the tribes use for Benjamin as they fight it. The numbers of the fallen are large, and the chapter lets them stand.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who had seen a tribe of their own nearly erased
- What
- An account of the assembly at Mizpah, Benjamin's refusal to give up the men of Gibeah, and the three days of war that nearly destroyed the tribe.
- Where
- The assembly at Mizpah, the fighting around Gibeah in Benjamin, and Bethel where the ark stood.
- When
- About 1350 BC, early in the judges period, since Phinehas the grandson of Aaron served before the ark.
- Why
- To show Israel punishing the crime at Gibeah, and to show the cost when a nation with no king turns on one of its own tribes.
Historical context
The account belongs to the whole nation. Eleven tribes muster and the twelfth is charged in its absence, and the Levite of chapter 19 gives his own telling of the crime at verses 4 to 7.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The time is early in the period, and verse 28 fixes it. Phinehas son of Eleazar son of Aaron is serving before the ark, so the war falls within living memory of the wilderness.
The places are three. Mizpah in Benjamin is where the tribes gather and swear. Gibeah is where the fighting turns. Bethel is where the ark stood at this time, and verse 31 has a highway going up to it, so a place is meant rather than a phrase.
The occasion is a demand refused. Israel asks Benjamin to hand over the men of Gibeah, Benjamin will not, and by holding them back the tribe takes the crime as its own.
A first hearer knew the law the demand was worded from. Deuteronomy 13 deals with an Israelite city drawn away to other gods, and it lays the sword and the fire on such a city, which is the sentence verse 48 finally carries out. He also knew the battle of Ai from Joshua 8. He would have recognised the ambush, the feigned retreat and the smoke signal of verses 29 to 40 as the plan that took a Canaanite town, used here on a town of Israel.
Significance
The one muster in this book that arrives whole is this one, and it is raised against a brother. Deborah's song had to name the tribes that stayed home, and nobody stays home here.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
Two answers from God are followed by two defeats, and forty thousand Israelites fall before a single Benjamite is counted. The account gives no reason for either loss, and a hearer was left with that.
The word brother enters at the second enquiry and stays. Israel goes on calling Benjamin its brother while destroying it.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi reads the war on Benjamin as a war Israel entered carrying its own guilt. On the first two defeats he says the cause lay behind the assembly rather than in it: "They were punished because they were not equally vengeful over the incident of the figure of Michah", pointing back to the two chapters before this one, where it "had already taken place", and citing Sanhedrin 103b (Rashi on Judges 20:21:1, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY). On the first inquiry he observes what Israel asked and what it left out, saying that they asked who should go up first and left the question of victory aside until later, when the answer came with a promise attached (Rashi on Judges 20:18:1, same edition). On the muster he follows the Targum in reading the phrase for those who stood at the head of the people as the heads of the whole people, and on the tribe called to answer for Gibeah he explains that the ten clans of Benjamin were counted as ten families, so that twelve tribes came from Rachel (Rashi on Judges 20:2:1 and 20:12:1, same edition). On the seven hundred slingers he takes the description of their right hands as a shrivelling, so that the hand could not be used, comparing the verb to the shutting of a well's mouth (Rashi on Judges 20:16:1, same edition). On the Levite's own account he glosses the charge as intent, "They intended to murder me" (Rashi on Judges 20:5:1, same edition). Radak, Malbim and Metzudat David comment across the chapter and the corpus holds no English version of them here, so they stand as citations: Radak on Judges 20:1:1, Radak on Judges 20:7:1, Radak on Judges 20:15:1, Radak on Judges 20:26:1, Malbim on Judges 20:17:1, Metzudat David on Judges 20:8:1, Metzudat David on Judges 20:23:1 and Metzudat David on Judges 20:27:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus records thirty-three rabbinic locators on this chapter, twenty-six of them Midrash and seven Talmud, each a locator without text. The call for counsel draws Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 1:13:1, Midrash Tehillim 1:11, Sifrei Devarim 13:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 802:1. The gathering of Israel as one man draws Chagigah 26a:10, Niddah 34a:1, Ein Yaakov, Khagigah 3:3 and Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Yelamdeinu, Last Composition from Midrash Yelamdenu 35. The demand sent to the tribe draws Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayetze 65, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayetzei 20:2, Ruth Rabbah 4:1 and Ruth Rabbah (Lerner) 4:1:1, and the refusal to hand the men over draws Otzar Midrashim, Keri & K'tiv, Introduction 3 and Otzar Midrashim, Keri & K'tiv, Midrash Keri V'lo Ketiv 3. The left-handed slingers draw Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayishlach 27, Kohelet Rabbah 7:20:1, Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 5:16:4, Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 31:39:2 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 31:39:3. The inquiries at Bethel draw Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 687:2, Jerusalem Talmud Yoma 7:3:7 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 776:13, and the third inquiry with Phinehas before the ark draws Yoma 73b:6, Shevuot 35b:15, Ein Yaakov, Yoma 7:9, Ein Yaakov, Shevuot 4:9, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yoma 7:9, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Shevuot 4:5 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 776:12. The ambush and the signal draw Ruth Rabbah 2:9, Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, Introductions to Tractates of the Mishnah, Rosh HaShanah 79 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 30:8:1, and the end of the fighting draws Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 1:1:8. The rabbis teach in these places, and this site reports them as their teaching rather than as a rule of the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Judges 20:2:1, 20:5:1, 20:12:1, 20:16:1, 20:18:1 and 20:21:1, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Judges 20:1:1, 20:7:1, 20:15:1 and 20:26:1, cited only, no English version in the corpus; Malbim, Malbim on Judges 20:17:1, cited only; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Judges 20:8:1, 20:23:1 and 20:27:1, cited only.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
All Israel gathers as one man at Mizpah
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, of Gideon against Midian. Deborah’s song had to name the tribes that stayed home at 5:16 and 5:17 and curse Meroz at 5:23. The one muster in this book that arrives whole is raised against a tribe of Israel, at Mizpah.
Judges 20:1
“The “congregation” is the technical term for the whole community of the Israelite people. Its occurrence here is an indication of the early date of these transactions. From Dan to Beer-sheba - We cannot safely infer from this expression that the settlement of Dan, recorded in Judg. 18 had taken place at this time. It only proves that in the writer’s time, from Dan to Beer-sheba was a proverbial expression for all Israel (compare the marginal reference).”
The Hebrew for leaders is pinnoth, the corners, and Clarke explains that the chiefs held the people together as cornerstones hold a wall. Barnes gives the same sense, the corner stones. Clarke adds that the Septuagint calls this assembly of God's people an ekklesia, a church.
Judges 20:2
“The chief of all the people - The corners פנות pinnoth; for as the corner-stones are the strength of the walls, so are the chiefs the strength of the people. Hence Christ is called the chief corner-stone. In the assembly of the people of God - The Septuagint translate, And all the tribes of Israel stood up before the face of the Lord, εν εκκλησιᾳ του λαου του Θεου, in the Church of the people of God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
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 says “They intended to kill me”, where 19:22 records the men demanding to have relations with him, and he omits 19:25, where he sent his concubine out to them himself. Both accounts stand in the book as written, and the narrator sets his speech down without comment.
Judges 20:3
“Tell us, how was this wickedness? - They had heard before, by the messengers he sent with the fragments of his wife’s body; but they wish to hear it, in full council, from himself.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The Levite gives the assembly his own account of the night at Gibeah. Henry notes that the law required more than one witness. He judges that the servant and the old man also spoke before the assembly.
The Levite drops the name wicked men that the narrator gave the men of Gibeah at 19:22, as Gill notes. Henry takes his plain words as restraint before the assembly. He tells her death in three words.
Judges 20:5
“And the men of Gibeah rose against me,.... Not all of them, but some that dwelt in that city; he forbears giving them the character they justly deserved, sons of Belial.”
Judges 20:6-7
Chapter 19 said twelve pieces were sent throughout Israel, and here he says “throughout the land of Israel’s inheritance”. The charge of “a lewd and disgraceful act in Israel” is a set phrase, said of Dinah at Genesis 34:7, in the law at Deuteronomy 22:21 and of Achan at Joshua 7:15. His last words, “give your advice and verdict here and now”, invite the assembly to judge.
The Levite appeals to the whole assembly as Israelites and asks for a decision on the spot. Wesley reads the appeal as a charge to a people in covenant with the holy God, bound to punish such a deed. Henry notes that the answer comes at once.
Judges 20:7
“The resolution they came to hereupon, which was that, being now together, they would not disperse till they had seen vengeance taken upon this wicked city, which was the reproach and scandal of their nation. Their zeal against the lewdness that was committed.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Judges 20:8-11
The assembly binds itself before it asks God anything, vowing “Not one of us will return to his tent or to his house”. Verse 9 assigns the assault by lot, as Numbers 26:55 and Joshua 15:1 divided the land, and verse 10 sets aside ten men in a hundred for provisions, the only supply arrangement in Judges. A second oath sworn at Mizpah stands at 21:1.
Judges 20:8
“We will not any of us go to his tent - We will have satisfaction for this wickedness before we return home.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 20:8
“They bound themselves not to break up and disperse until they had punished the wickedness of Gibeah.”
Barnes ties the lot to verse 18. There God is asked which tribe goes up first, and Barnes adds that the ground at Gibeah could hold only part of the army. Gill reads the plan as a demand for justice, backed by force if Gibeah refused.
Judges 20:9
“By lot - To determine who should go up first Jdg 20:18. The shape of the ground probably made it impossible for the whole force to operate at once; and the question of spoil would have something to do with the arrangement. (Compare 1Sa 30:22-25.)”
Barnes counts the men set aside for provisions at forty thousand, one in ten of the army. Henry explains that the tenth kept the rest from scattering to find food. In Clarke's reading they expected a long fight.
Judges 20:10
“Ten men of a hundred - Expecting that they might have a long contest, they provide suttlers for the camp; and it is probable that they chose these tenths by lot.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Gill counts the men of Israel united against the city at three hundred sixty thousand, once the forty thousand sent for provisions are set aside. Henry calls the tribes' unity their strength.
Judges 20:11
“So all the men of Israel were gathered against the city,.... Of Gibeah, even 360,000 men: knit together as one man; went heart and hand together, united in their sentiments and resolutions, determining to have justice done, or lose their lives in this cause: according to the Jews (e), this was on the twenty third of Shebet, which answers to part of January and part of February, on which day a fast was kept on this account. (e) Schulchan Aruch, par. 1. c. 580. sect. 2.”
Judges 20:12-13
And the tribes of Israel sent men: The demand to “purge Israel of this evil” is worded out of the law at Deuteronomy 22:22, and Deuteronomy 13:13 speaks of wicked men who lead a city after other gods. That chapter lays sword and fire on such a city, as verse 48 carries out. Benjamin “refused to heed the voice of their fellow Israelites”, and so takes the crime of Gibeah as its own.
Judges 20:12
“And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribes of Benjamin,.... Meaning the families of Benjamin; for as sometimes a tribe is called a family, Jos 7:17 so a family is called a tribe; and there were ten families in the tribe of Benjamin, according to the number of his sons, the fathers of these families.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 20:12
“All methods of accommodation must be used before we go to war or go to law. The demand was like that of Joab's to Abel, 2 Sam. xx. "Only deliver up the traitor, and we will lay down our arms." On these terms, and no other, God will be at peace with us, that we part with our sins, that we mortify and crucify our lusts, and then all shall be well; his anger will be turned away.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Israel asks Benjamin to hand over the wicked men of Gibeah and no others. Clarke calls the terms fair. Henry sets beside it Joab's demand at Abel in 2 Samuel 20, where handing over one traitor would end a siege.
Judges 20:13
“Deliver us the men - Nothing could be fairer than this. They wish only to make the murderers answerable for their guilt. Benjamin would not hearken - Thus making their whole tribe partakers of the guilt of the men of Gibeah. By not delivering up those bad men, they in effect said: “We will stand by them in what they have done, and would have acted the same part had we been present.” This proves that the whole tribe was excessively depraved.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 20:14-16
Benjamin musters “26,000 swordsmen” beside “700 select men of Gibeah”, and readings differ over whether the 700 slingers of verse 16 are the same men counted again. In the Berean, left-handed is said only of Ehud the Benjamite at 3:15 and of these men. Commentators set First Chronicles 12:2, where Saul’s kinsmen use both hands, beside the name Benjamin at Genesis 35:18, read as son of the right hand.
Clarke reports that some Septuagint copies number the Benjamite swordsmen at 23,000 and others at 25,000, the figure of the Vulgate and Josephus. He takes 25,000 as the true reading. On that reading every man of Benjamin fell except the 600 who fled.
Judges 20:15
“Comparing the numbers here with those in Num. 1; 26, it is seen that in the case both of the Benjamites and the Israelites the numbers are diminished by about one-third, i. e., they appear as about two-thirds only of what they were at the last numbering in the plains of Moab. This diminution seems to indicate disturbed and harassing times. With this agrees the mention of the cities, as containing the whole Benjamite population.”
The Hebrew behind without missing is the common verb for sin, and Clarke draws from it that to sin is to miss the mark. Each of the 700 select left-handers could sling a stone at a hair, and the verb pictures a stone that finds its mark. The Septuagint keeps that sense.
Judges 20:16
“Left-handed - They were ambidexters - could use the right hand and the left with equal ease and effect. See the note on Jdg 3:15. Could sling stones at a hair - and not miss - ולא יחטא velo yachati, and not sin: και ουκ εξαμαρτανοντες; Sept. Here we have the true import of the term sin; it signifies simply to miss the mark, and is well translated in the New Testament by ἁμαρτανω, from α, negative, and μαρπτω, to hit the mark.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 20:16
“The Hebrew sling was probably similar to that of the Egyptian, consisting of a leather thong, broad in the middle, with a loop at one end, by which it was firmly held with the hand; the other end terminated in a lash, which was let slip when the stone was thrown.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Israel apart from Benjamin mobilized “400,000 swordsmen”, against the 601,730 numbered at Numbers 26:51 on the plains of Moab, and Benjamin fields 26,700 where Numbers 26:41 counted 45,600. 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. Clarke and Keil weigh them without closing the question.
Judges 20:17
“And the men of Israel, beside Benjamin,.... Who did not join them in this affair, but opposed them: were numbered four hundred thousand men that drew sword: see Jdg 20:9. all these were men of war; inured to it, skilful and courageous.”
Two defeats, and weeping before the ark
The question repeats the book’s opening, where at Judges 1:1 Israel asked who would go up first against the Canaanites and was told Judah. Here the answer is again “Judah will be first”, sending the leading tribe against a brother. The King James renders Bethel at verses 18, 26 and 31 as the house of God, but verse 31 has a road up to it, so a place is meant.
Judges 20:18
“Went up to the house of God - Some think that a deputation was sent from Shiloh, where Phinehas the high priest was, to inquire, not concerning the expediency of the war, nor of its success, but which of the tribes should begin the attack. Having so much right on their side, they had no doubt of the justice of their cause. Having such a superiority of numbers, they had no doubt of success. See the note on Jdg 20:1. And the Lord said, Judah - But he did not say that they should conquer.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 20:19-21
Israel goes up with an answer from God, and the Benjamites “cut down 22,000 Israelites on the battlefield that day”. The text gives no reason for the defeat, though Henry reads the 400,000 as trusting their own numbers and Keil notes that verse 18 asked only which tribe should lead. The chapter states the outcome and leaves the cause where it found it.
Judges 20:19
“And the children of Israel rose up in the morning,.... After they had had counsel at Shiloh, and which perhaps was by a deputation sent thither: and encamped against Gibeah: formed a camp near Gibeah of 360,000 men, enough to have stormed and taken that city at once, one would think.”
Israel's battle line faces the whole army of Benjamin, gathered from its cities to defend Gibeah, as Gill notes. Gill judges the Israelite camp large enough to take the city in a single assault. The first day begins.
Judges 20:20
“And the men of Israel went out to battle against Benjamin,.... From the place where they were encamped: and the men of Israel put themselves in array to fight against them at Gibeah; not only against the inhabitants of Gibeah, but the children of Benjamin, that came to the defence of them; they formed, themselves in a line of battle, and prepared for an action.”
Barnes explains why the Benjamites came out of Gibeah and won: the city stood on a hill, the men of Benjamin fought from above, and those on the walls could strike Israel with sling stones. Henry notes that no prisoners were taken.
Judges 20:21
“Gibeah, being on a hill, was difficult of access to an attacking army, and gave great advantage to the defenders, who fought from higher ground, and probably defended a narrow pass, while their companions on the walls could gall the assailants with their slingstones.”
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.
Henry reads the question, asked with weeping before the LORD, as a readiness to stop fighting their brothers if God so ordered. The LORD says to go up. Henry reads Benjamin as a diseased member of the body that had to be cut off.
Judges 20:23
“Go up against him - It appears most evident that the Israelites did not seek the protection of God. They trusted in the goodness of their cause and in the multitude of their army. God humbled them, and delivered them into the hands of their enemies, and showed them that the race was not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
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 20:24
“And the children of Israel came near,.... To the city of Gibeah, drew nigh to battle: against the children of Benjamin the second day; for the two battles were fought two days successively.”
Matthew Henry and Gill both observe that the dead of the two days equal the number set aside by lot to carry provisions. The two losses together make forty thousand. Gill reports that some take Deborah's line at 5:8 as a memory of this defeat.
Judges 20:25
“And Benjamin went forth against them out of Gibeah the second day,.... Flushed with the victory they had obtained the day before: and destroyed down to the ground of the children of Israel again eighteen thousand men, all these drew the sword, were armed men; this, with the 22,000 slain the day preceding, made 40,000; the same number singled out from among them by lot to provide food for them, and is thought by some to be the case Deborah refers to, Jdg 5:8 and is what is certainly intended in Hos 10:9.”
Judges 20:26-28
The third approach adds fasting, burnt offerings and peace offerings, and the ark stands at Bethel with “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron” serving before it. One generation from Aaron places these events early in the period, so chapters 17 to 21 are an appendix. Only now does the answer carry a promise, “Fight, for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hand”.
Judges 20:26
“And wept - Had they humbled themselves, fasted, and prayed, and offered sacrifices at first, they had not been discomfited. And fasted that day until even - This is the first place where fasting is mentioned as a religious ceremony, or as a means of obtaining help from God. And in this case, and many since, it has been powerfully effectual. At present it is but little used; a strong proof that self-denial is wearing out of fashion.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Gill notes that the Targum renders this inquiry as made by the Word of the LORD, the same wording it uses at verse 18. Barnes holds that the ark had been brought to Bethel for the assembly at Mizpah nearby, and Gill places it at Shiloh. The ark's location is read two ways.
Judges 20:27
“And the children of Israel inquired of the Lord,.... By the Word of the Lord, as the Targum, and which has the same expression in Jdg 20:18 for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days; in Shiloh, where the tabernacle was.”
Gill reckons that if these events followed Samson, Phinehas would have been over three hundred years old. Barnes dates them within twenty years of Joshua's death. Clarke agrees that they took place shortly after Joshua died, since this is the Phinehas of Numbers 25:7.
Judges 20:28
“Phinehas, the son of Eleazar - This was the same Phinehas who is mentioned Num 25:7, and consequently these transactions must have taken place shortly after the death of Joshua.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ambush at Gibeah; Benjamin nearly erased
Judges 20:29-31
The third day is fought by the plan that took Ai at Joshua 8, with an ambush behind the city, a feigned retreat, the town set on fire and the smoke as the signal. Every one of those parts stands in verses 29 to 40. Verse 31 shows the bait taking hold, as Benjamin came out “killing about thirty men of Israel in the fields and on the roads”.
Judges 20:29
“And Israel set liers in wait round about Gibeah. For though they were assured of success and victory, yet they thought proper to make use of means: and though their numbers were very great, they had recourse to art and stratagem, and set an ambush in divers places, much in like manner as Israel did for the men of Ai; the two cases being pretty much similar; this ambush was set in the night, as Josephus says (s), (s) Ut supra, (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 2.) sect. 11.”
Gill counts this third day from the second battle, allowing time for the weeping, fasting and offerings of verse 26. Wesley reads the force arrayed here as one detachment, sent to open the fight and then feign a flight. The rest waited in position.
Judges 20:30
“And the children of Israel went up against the children of Benjamin on the third day,.... Not the day following the second battle, since it would take more time to go to Shiloh, and fast and offer sacrifices there, but on the third day from the second battle: and put themselves in array against Gibeah, as at other times; as they had done on the first and second days of battle.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 20:30
“The children of Israel - That is, a considerable part of them, who were ordered to give the first onset, and then to counterfeit flight, to draw the Benjamites forth from their strong-hold.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
were drawn away from the city: Leaving the city costs the Benjamites the walls that had given their slingers the advantage in the first two battles, a point Clarke makes on verse 32. Ambrose calls the Israelite withdrawal a pretext. About thirty Israelites fall in the open.
Judges 20:31
“To the house of God - “To Bethel,” as in the margin. On “Gibeah in the field,” see Jos 18:24 note.”
Judges 20:32-34
Benjamin reads the third day by the first two and says “We are defeating them as before”. The flight is ordered, and verse 34 says “the Benjamites did not realize that disaster was upon them”, as Joshua 8:14 says the king of Ai did not know an ambush was set against him. Verse 41 turns the same words over when Benjamin realizes that disaster has come.
Judges 20:32
“Let us - draw them from the city - They had two reasons for this: 1. They had placed an ambuscade behind Gibeah, which was to enter and burn the city as soon as the Benjamites had left it. 2. It would seem that the slingers, by being within the city and its fortifications, had great advantage against the Israelites by their slings, whom they could not annoy with their swords, unless they got them to the plain country.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Baal-tamar appears only here, and Barnes takes its name from a palm tree, which he tentatively links to the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the ambush's hiding place as the caves of Gibeah. Clarke counts three Israelite divisions.
Judges 20:33
“Baal-tamar is only mentioned here. It took its name from some palm-tree that grew there; perhaps the same as the “palm-tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel” Jdg 4:5, the exact locality here indicated, since “the highway” Jdg 20:31 along which the Israelites enticed the Benjamites to pursue them, leads straight to Ramah, which lay only a mile beyond the point where the two ways branch off. The meadows of Gibeah - The word rendered “meadow” is only found here. According to its etymology, it ought to mean a “bare open place”, which is particularly unsuitable for an ambush.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 20:33
“Baal-tamar--a palm-grove, where Baal was worshipped. The main army of the confederate tribes was drawn up there. out of the meadows of Gibeah--Hebrew, "the caves of Gibeah"; a hill in which the ambuscades lay hid.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Wesley takes the ten thousand as picked men drawn from the main body at Baal-tamar, sent straight at Gibeah while the ambush struck from the other side. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown count them as a third force, distinct from both the ambush and the army. Gibeah is now attacked from two sides.
Judges 20:34
“Chosen men - Selected out of the main body, which was at Baal-tamar; and these were to march directly to Gibeah on the one side, whilst the liers in wait stormed it on the other side, and whilst the great body of the army laboured to intercept the Benjamites, who having pursued the Israelites that pretended to flee, now endeavoured to retreat to Gibeah.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Judges 20:35-36
The narrator gives the outcome to God before the tactics are described, saying “The LORD defeated Benjamin in the presence of Israel”. Then the account doubles back. Keil and Barnes read verses 36 to 46 as a fuller telling of the same battle, so Israel “had retreated before Benjamin” at verse 36 after Benjamin fell at verse 35.
Judges 20:35
“Twenty and five thousand and a hundred - As the Benjamites consisted only of twenty-six thousand and seven hundred slingers; or, as the Vulgate, Septuagint, and others read, twenty-five thousand, which is most probably the true reading; then the whole of the Benjamites were cut to pieces, except six hundred men, who we are informed fled to the rock Rimmon, where they fortified themselves.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The men of Israel give ground, trusting the ambush to do its work. Wesley, Gill and Clarke all observe that Israel, though promised victory at verse 28, still laid its plans with care. Promise and stratagem work together in this battle.
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.
The Targum reads the arranged signal as an appointed time, and Gill notes that Kimchi and Abarbinel take it the same way. On either reading the smoke from the city told the army when to turn. The plan depended on timing.
Judges 20:38
“Now there was an appointed sign between the men of Israel and the liers in wait,.... Or an appointed time (z) as the Targum; so Kimchi and Abarbinel.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 20:38
“Now there was an appointed sign - From this verse to the end of the chapter we have the details of the same operations which are mentioned, in a general way, in the preceding part of the chapter.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 20:39-41
Verse 40 echoes Joshua 8:20, where the men of Ai looked back and saw the smoke of their city rising into the sky. Benjamin likewise “looked behind them and saw the whole city going up in smoke”, and verse 41 says they “realized that disaster had come upon them”, answering verse 34, where they did not realize it. The men of Benjamin “were terrified”, and the retreating army turns.
Judges 20:39
“And when the men of Israel retired in the battle,.... Which is before expressed by their fleeing, and giving place to the Benjaminites, and was only an artifice of theirs, to draw them off from the city: Benjamin began to smite and kill of the men of Israel about thirty persons; which was done in the highways leading to Shiloh and Gibeah in the field, Jdg 20:31. for they said, surely they are smitten down before us as in the first battle; when the greater number of the Israelites were slain by them.”
Gill describes the ambush firing the town so that the column rose high enough to be seen from far off. Ambrose writes that the flames revealed a city already taken. Gibeah burns behind them.
Judges 20:40
“But when the flame began to arise up out of the city with a pillar of smoke,.... Fire being set to it by the liers in wait, who had entered it, and who made a large fire, which caused a vast pillar of flame and smoke to arise, which might be seen a great way off: the Benjamites looked behind them; perhaps at hearing the blowing of the trumpet, and the long sound of that: and, behold, the flame of the city ascended up to heaven; went upwards, and reached to a great height.”
Henry observes that the men of Benjamin realized the disaster only when it was upon them and too late to turn it back. Ambrose writes that they believed themselves surrounded and fled before the attack behind them reached them. The battle turns here.
Judges 20:41
“Their spirits broken, they faced the enemy. The men of Benjamin who thought they were shut in and surrounded, even before they were invaded from the rear, began scattering and fleeing to the desert, while Israel pressed after with doubled force and pursued them as they wandered in rout. About twenty-five thousand were slain, therefore, that is, almost all the men of Benjamin except six hundred who seized a fortification on a rough cliff and by virtue of its situation and with the help of nature and partly through fear were a terror to their victors.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · LETTER 33patristic
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 20:42
“The way of the wilderness - i. e., the wilderness which extended from Jericho to the hills of Bethel. Them which came out of the cities - These must be the Benjamites Jdg 20:15. Hence, “in the midst of them” must mean “in their own cities”, where they severally fled for refuge, but failed to find shelter Jdg 20:48. Anathoth, Alemath, Ramah, Ataroth, Geba, Michmash, Ai, Bethel, Migron, etc., would probably be the cities meant, all lying east and north of Gibeah.”
Gill pictures the army of Israel posted in several places, with men coming out of the cities to join the pursuit, so the Benjamites were surrounded on every side. Barnes hears a song in the verse. He calls the word rendered easily very obscure.
Judges 20:43
“The language and construction of this verse is poetical; it seems to be an extract from a song, and to describe, in the language of poetry, the same event which the preceding verse described in that of prose. With ease - Or “rest” Num 10:33; Psa 95:11. The expression is very obscure. The margin takes it as the name of a place.”
Gill reads the eighteen thousand as those killed between the turn of the battle and the ground east of Gibeah, before the five thousand and two thousand of verse 45. He grants them valour for facing a far larger army three times. Verse 46 gives the sum.
Judges 20:44
“And there fell of Benjamin eighteen thousand men,.... Just the number they had slain of Israel in the second battle. This is the number of them that were slain when Israel turned upon them, and by that time they got to the east of Gibeah; afterwards 5000 more were slain on the highways, and 2000 near Gidom, as after related: all these were men of valour; as appears by three times facing and engaging with the army of Israel, so vastly superior to them, and twice beating them.”
Judges 20:45-46
The Hebrew verb for cutting men down on the roads is the harvest word for gleaning, which Gideon uses of Ephraim at 8:2. The numbers do not add straight, with 26,700 mustered at verse 15, 25,100 fallen at verse 35, “25,000” at verse 46 and 600 escaped at verse 47. Keil and Clarke differ, one setting the 100 outside the round figure and the other counting the 700 twice.
Judges 20:45
“And they turned and fled toward the wilderness, unto the rock of Rimmon,.... Which signifies pomegranate; perhaps it was in the form of one, and may be the same as in 1Sa 14:2 where Saul is said to be under a pomegranate tree, or under Rimmon, the rock Rimmon, for that is said to be near Gibeah, as this was.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 20:45
“Rimmon - A village named “Rummon”, situated on the summit of a conical chalky hill, still exists, and forms a remarkable object in the landscape, visible in all directions. It lies 15 miles north of Jerusalem. It is a different place from Rimmon in the south of Judah Jos 15:32, and Remmon in Zebulon Jos 19:13. Gidom, mentioned nowhere else, was evidently close to Rimmon.”
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown and Wesley take twenty-five thousand as a round figure for the third day alone. Barnes finds eleven hundred of the tribe's muster unaccounted for, which he assigns to the first two days of fighting and to rounding. The count is rounded.
Judges 20:46
“In Jdg 20:35 the number given is 25,100. Jdg 20:44-46 give the details of the loss on that day: 18,000, 5,000, and 2,000; in all 25,000. But as the Benjamites numbered 26,700 men Jdg 20:15, and 600 escaped to the rock of Rimmon, it is clear that 1,100 are unaccounted for, partly from no account being taken of those who fell in the battles of the two first days, partly from the use of round numbers, or from some other cause.”
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 20:47
“At Gibeah also, now a complete ruin, she stopped for a little while remembering its sin, and the cutting of the concubine into pieces, and how in spite of all this three hundred men of the tribe of Benjamin were saved that in after days Paul might be called a Benjamite.”
Jerome · written before 420 · LETTER 108.8patristic
The army turns on “the other Benjamites”, putting cities and animals to the sword and burning the towns, the sentence Deuteronomy 13:15 and 13:16 lay on a city gone after other gods. Israel cited that law at verse 13 and carries it out on a whole tribe rather than the men of Gibeah. Hosea recalls the days of Gibeah at 9:9 and 10:9 as the low mark of the period.
Judges 20:48
“They treated Benjamin as devoted to utter destruction, as Jericho had been Jos 6:17, Jos 6:21, and the whole tribe was all but actually extirpated. We see in the punishment inflicted the same ferocity which marked both the crime and the Levite’s mode of requiring vengeance.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 20:48
“If this seem harsh and bloody, either it may be ascribed to military fury; or perhaps it may be partly justified, from that command of God in a parallel case, Deut. xiii, 15, and from that solemn oath by which they had devoted to death all that came not up to Mizpeh, chap. xxi, 5, which none of the Benjamites did.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: A battle narrative in three days, with a second fuller telling of the third day at verses 36 to 46, fought by the method of Joshua 8 and worded from the law of Deuteronomy 13, as Keil and Delitzsch classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| As one man | The words 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 struck 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. The one muster in this book that arrives whole is the one raised against a tribe of Israel.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1708 to 1710, on Judges 20:1. | Judges 20:1, Judges 20:8, Judges 20:11 |
| Who shall go up first | The book's opening question is asked again here. Israel asked at Judges 1:1 who should go up first against the Canaanites, and the answer was Judah. At verse 18 the same form of question gets the same answer, and it sends the leading tribe against Benjamin. Three enquiries are made, at verses 18, 23 and 26, and only the third carries a promise.Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, on Judges 20:18. | Judges 1:1, Judges 20:18, Judges 20:23, Judges 20:26, Judges 20:28 |
| Benjamin my brother | The word brother enters at the second enquiry. Phinehas asks at verse 23 whether to go out again against Benjamin his brother, and the same word stands at verse 28 and again at 21:6, where Israel grieves for Benjamin their brother. The enquiry changes its vocabulary before the outcome changes.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, on Judges 20:23. | Judges 20:23, Judges 20:28, Judges 21:6 |
| The plan that took Ai | The third day is fought by the method of Joshua 8: an ambush set behind the city, the defenders drawn out by a feigned retreat, the town fired, and the smoke used as the signal. Verse 34 says they did not know that disaster was near them, which is Joshua 8:14 in other words, and verse 41 turns the same words over. Verse 40 says the flame of the city went up to heaven, where Joshua 8:20 says the smoke of the city went up to heaven. Israel fights its own tribe by the method it was given for a Canaanite town.Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, on Judges 20:29 to 41. | Judges 20:29, Judges 20:34, Judges 20:38, Judges 20:40, Judges 20:41 |
| The law quoted and then enlarged | The demand at verse 13 is worded out of the law. The phrase about putting away evil from Israel stands at Deuteronomy 22:22, and the term used of the men of Gibeah first occurs at Deuteronomy 13:13, of a city that had gone after other gods. Deuteronomy 13:15 and 13:16 lay the sword and the fire on such a city, and verse 48 carries that sentence out on a whole tribe rather than on the men Israel had asked for.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Judges 20:13. | Judges 20:13, Judges 20:48 |
The structure
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
Four parts. The muster at Mizpah and the charge at verses 1 to 17. The three days at verses 18 to 35. The second telling of the third day at verses 36 to 46. The six hundred at the rock of Rimmon and the sentence on the tribe at verses 47 and 48.
The narrator gives the outcome to God rather than to the ambush. The sentence that the LORD struck Benjamin down before Israel stands at verse 35, before the tactics are described, and then the account doubles back. Albert Barnes and Keil and Delitzsch read verses 36 to 46 as a fuller telling of the same battle rather than a further engagement. That is why Israel gives ground at verse 36 after Benjamin has already been said to fall at verse 35.
The left hand of Benjamin
The term rendered left-handed occurs twice in the King James text of Judges, at 3:15 of Ehud the Benjamite and at verse 16 here of the seven hundred slingers. Both times it is said of this tribe. The Benjamites of Saul's kindred used the right hand and the left in slinging stones and shooting arrows, which 1 Chronicles 12:2 records. Commentators set that beside the name Jacob gave the boy at Genesis 35:18, read as son of the right hand.
The method of the muster
The assembly binds itself by oath at verse 8 before it enquires of God at all, and the oath 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. 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 Mizpah is recorded at 21:1, and chapter 21 spends itself working around it.
Where the chapter reaches
Six hundred men at the rock of Rimmon are what is left of the tribe, and 21:6 says one tribe was cut off from Israel that day. Every later Benjamite descends from them. Saul calls his tribe the smallest of the tribes of Israel at 1 Samuel 9:21, and Paul names the same tribe as his own at Romans 11:1 and Philippians 3:5.
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.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, on Judges 20:36; Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges: An Integrated Reading, 1987, and the NICOT commentary, 2012; carried as a proposed structure in the site's Judges dossier and Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, on Judges 20:29 to 46.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Ambrose of Milan, LETTER 33; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.