Crisis Averted, for Now

Judges 21 (CSB)

1 The men of Israel had sworn an oath at Mizpah: “None of us will give his daughter to a Benjaminite in marriage.” 2 So the people went to Bethel and sat there before God until evening. They wept loudly and bitterly, 3 and cried out, “Why, Lord God of Israel, has it occurred that one tribe is missing in Israel today?” 4 The next day the people got up early, built an altar there, and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings.

Verse 1 sets the stage for what is about to happen - think of verse one like the beginning of a TV show and they say, “Previously on…”, then they recap what happened up to this point.

While not a full recap it is a piece of previous information that we didn’t have that we need to know going forward.

Just in case let’s do a full recap - a levite stayed overnight in the town of Gibeah and the men of the town came to take him and sexually abuse him - instead he gave them his concubine whom they abused all night and the abuse was so prolific she died - the Levite then took the concubine and cut her into 12 pieces sending a piece to each tribe - the good news is that most of Israel saw this as an abomination and the decision was made to deal with the offending tribe, Benjamin - there were several battles ultimately resulting in 11 tribes almost wiping out the tribe of Benjamin.

Now lets insert this new bit of info - as they were discussing how to deal with the tribe of Benjamin and oath was made to no longer intermarry with the men of Benjamin.

The reason for the decision is that by their actions the Benjaminites have proven they are more Canaanite than Jewish so just like the tribes of Isreal were not supposed to intermarry with the pagan tribes around them, the tribe of Benjamin is now counted as a pagan people.

Now the battle is over, the anger of the moment has passed and the people take a pause to examine the reality of what has just occured.

On the plus side, they went to God to plead their case.

The realization that one of the tribes is all but completely gone from Israel and it was at the hand of their fellow Israelites.

Their cry however is reminiscent of Adam’s statement to God - Adam said “The woman YOU gave me…” and here Israel is asking how did GOD allow this to happen - they were blaming God, forget all the disobedience that has gotten them to this point.

God did not answer them - they were persistent and came back the next day but now they try to get God’s attention through ritual observance.

How many in the world do this? When things are bad they go to church, pray or maybe even pick up and dust off their Bible…

God still doesn’t answer them BTW.

5 The Israelites asked, “Who of all the tribes of Israel didn’t come to the Lord with the assembly?” For a great oath had been taken that anyone who had not come to the Lord at Mizpah would certainly be put to death. 6 But the Israelites had compassion on their brothers, the Benjaminites, and said, “Today a tribe has been cut off from Israel. 7 What should we do about wives for the survivors? We’ve sworn to the Lord not to give them any of our daughters as wives.” 8 They asked, “Which city among the tribes of Israel didn’t come to the Lord at Mizpah?” It turned out that no one from Jabesh-gilead had come to the camp and the assembly. 9 For when the roll was called, no men were there from the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead. 10 The congregation sent twelve thousand brave warriors there and commanded them, “Go and kill the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the sword, including women and dependents. 11 This is what you should do: Completely destroy every male, as well as every woman who has gone to bed with a man.” 12 They found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins, who had not been intimate with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan. 13 The whole congregation sent a message of peace to the Benjaminites who were at Rimmon Rock. 14 Benjamin returned at that time, and Israel gave them the women they had kept alive from Jabesh-gilead. But there were not enough for them.

Further post battle reflection takes place.

In this section they realize there is another oath they had taken that takes precedence over the loss of a tribe.

Any tribe/city that was not represented when they gathered was supposed suffer the same fate as the Benjaminites. There is one city - Jabesh-gilead, who did not join their fellow Israelites.

So they have a plan - keep in mind, God has not spoken to them so they came up with this on their own.

They will honor their oath and kill the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead but they will also use something Moses did in Numbers 31:17-18

Numbers 31:17–18 CSB

17 So now, kill every male among the dependents and kill every woman who has gone to bed with a man, 18 but keep alive for yourselves all the young females who have not gone to bed with a man.

So they will save the tribe of Benjamin by giving them virgins from a town who refused to join in the fight against the tribe of Benjamin - I guess the thought is: they are bad because they didn’t fight, the Benjaminites are bad because they allowed this abomination to take place among the people of Israel - so its not intermarriage if both are bad to start with.

It was almost perfect, almost. The math didn’t add up - there were 400 female virgins but 600 hundred male Benjaminites - this leaves 200 men without a woman

15 The people had compassion on Benjamin, because the Lord had made this gap in the tribes of Israel. 16 The elders of the congregation said, “What should we do about wives for those who are left, since the women of Benjamin have been destroyed?” 17 They said, “There must be heirs for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out. 18 But we can’t give them our daughters as wives.” For the Israelites had sworn, “Anyone who gives a wife to a Benjaminite is cursed.” 19 They also said, “Look, there’s an annual festival to the Lord in Shiloh, which is north of Bethel, east of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah.” 20 Then they commanded the Benjaminites, “Go and hide in the vineyards. 21 Watch, and when you see the young women of Shiloh come out to perform the dances, each of you leave the vineyards and catch a wife for yourself from the young women of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. 22 When their fathers or brothers come to us and protest, we will tell them, ‘Show favor to them, since we did not get enough wives for each of them in the battle. You didn’t actually give the women to them, so you are not guilty of breaking your oath.’ ” 23 The Benjaminites did this and took the number of women they needed from the dancers they caught. They went back to their own inheritance, rebuilt their cities, and lived in them. 24 At that time, each of the Israelites returned from there to his own tribe and family. Each returned from there to his own inheritance.

Apparently the plan to give the virgins to the tribe of Benjamin was formulated prior to knowing how many their were in the city.

The people were worried about losing an entire tribe - they said the “Lord made this gap” - again blaming God for the mess they were in and the use of the word “gap” usually indicates the people believed it was a judgment from God.

They knew they couldn’t give their wives to the remaining Benjaminites so they hatched a plan.

It is funny how people can justify any action if they try.

So here is the plan - we won’t give away our females but we will let you take them. By doing this we can avoid being accused of giving our women away. Sure their families will protest but we will smooth it out with them.

Keep in mind - God still has not responded to them so this is all on them.

Here we are at the end of Judges and they haven’t learned anything - they did not wait for God, they schemed to solve a problem, they lied, they kidnapped, and the whole time they thought, “No problem, we technically haven’t disobeyed the letter of the oath.”

25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever seemed right to him.

In conclusion - nothing has changed, the people need a leader and they are doing whatever they feel like.