Judges21chapter 21

Judges 21:8-9

The way out begins with a roll call rather than with a prayer. The people are numbered, one town is found missing from the assembly, and absence at the muster is the whole charge the text records against it. Jabesh sits east of the Jordan in Gilead, on ground the war against Benjamin never touched.

The people were counted, and Jabesh-gilead was missing. Henry notes that the death sentence for failing to come up to Mizpah was sworn before anyone knew which town it would fall on. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown see a second aim, wives for the survivors.

Judges 21:10-12

The order to “put to the sword those living in Jabesh-gilead” carries the wording of Deuteronomy 13:15, the law for an Israelite city gone after other gods, though here the offence is absence from Mizpah. Sparing the unmarried women follows the Midian rule of Numbers 31:17 and 18, applied to a town of Israel. Verse 12 brings them to Shiloh “in the land of Canaan”, as Joshua 22:9 phrases it.

Barnes gives the Hebrew behind devote to destruction as cherem. Henry grounds the command in Leviticus 27:29, where a person devoted to destruction must surely be put to death. The ban now falls on the men and women of an Israelite town.

Barnes explains that the assembly had moved from Bethel to Shiloh, about ten miles, while the twelve thousand were away at Jabesh-gilead. Shiloh was the usual meeting place of the national assembly. The captives are brought there.

Judges 21:13-14

Peace is sent to the six hundred at “the rock of Rimmon”, where 20:47 says they stayed four months, and the women are handed over. The four hundred do not cover six hundred, and the text says so, “there were not enough women for all of them”. Jabesh returns twice in Saul's story, rescued by him at 1 Samuel 11 and burying his bones at 1 Samuel 31:11 to 13.

Ambrose notes that the women given here had lost their fathers, killed for the offence of their town. Clarke counts two hundred men still without wives. The elders must look for another way.

This is the second time within ten verses that the people grieve for Benjamin, and here the sentence lays the loss on the LORD, who “had made a void in the tribes of Israel”. The same stroke is traced to the LORD at Uzzah's death at 2 Samuel 6:8 and at 1 Chronicles 15:13, and in both places it comes from inside Israel rather than from an enemy.

Judges 21:16-18

Then the elders of the congregation said: The elders add a reason to solve the problem, “There must be heirs for the survivors of Benjamin”, since the land allotted to Benjamin at Joshua 18:11 to 28 would otherwise pass to nobody. Verse 18 gives the oath in its sharpest form, “Cursed is he who gives a wife to a Benjamite”, in the form of Deuteronomy 27. They keep its letter and look for another road.

Ambrose writes that the elders relented toward their brothers of Benjamin and allowed a deceit so that one tribe of Israel would survive. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call the plan a new act of violence. The heirs would hold the land of Benjamin.

The Israelites had sworn that whoever gives a wife to a Benjamite is cursed, and Barnes sets that oath beside Saul's rash oath at 1 Samuel 14:24. He cites Ezekiel 17:15 to 20 for the guilt a broken oath brings. The elders keep their daughters back.

Judges 21:19-21

The feast is fixed by landmarks, “north of Bethel east of the road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah”, more than a local would need. Barnes takes it for one of the three pilgrim feasts, while Gill argues from the title “feast to the LORD” that it was no fair or market. The daughters' dance becomes an ambush from “the vineyards”.

Clarke observes that the vines were in full leaf at each of the great feasts, so the vineyards could hide a man. Matthew Henry calls the scheme a poor expedient for escaping a broken oath, and he draws the lesson of caution in making vows. The elders give the order.

the daughters of Shiloh come out: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown describe the dances as part of the feast to the LORD, held outside the town with the women by themselves. Henry, citing Bishop Patrick, says the yearly feast was the one time the young women of Israel danced. Each Benjamite is told to catch a wife.

Judges 21:22-23

The answer to the fathers is drafted before the raid, and it turns on one word of the oath, since “you did not actually give them your daughters”. Benjamin takes “the number of women they needed”, goes back to “their own inheritance”, and rebuilds the cities burned at 20:48. Barnes sets the scene beside the seizing of the Sabine women at a Roman festival as Livy tells it.

Clarke notes that no part of Benjamin's land was taken from the tribe, so six hundred men now held what many thousands had held before. Matthew Henry traces Ehud, the second judge, to the Benjamites who rebuilt here. The tribe resettles its own cities.

Judges 21:24-25

Each man goes back “to his own tribe and clan, each to his own inheritance”. The closing formula falls a fourth time, at 17:6, 18:1, 19:1 and here, and the two adding “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” open and close this block. King in Israel occurs first in Scripture at 17:6, and the demand for one comes at 1 Samuel 8:5.

Barnes reads the want of a king in Israel as the root of these disorders, with no authority over the tribes to restrain them. Clarke adds that the writer tells what Israel did in those days without approving it. Each man judged what was right.