Judges 21:16 - Meaning and Application

Here we are told how the 200 Benjamites who were left were given wives. The tribe had been cut down to a very small number, but the people were careful to give each man only one wife, not more, even under the excuse of helping the tribe grow faster. They could not openly give them their daughters without breaking their oath, yet they still found a way to let them take wives by surprise, with the parents later giving approval after the fact.

The less thought people give before making a vow, the more careful they often must be afterward to keep it. What opened the door for this plan was a public dance at Shiloh, in the fields, where the young women of that city and nearby places gathered for a feast of the Lord, likely the Feast of Tabernacles (Judges 21:19). Bishop Patrick says this feast was the only time Jewish virgins were allowed to dance, and even then it was more an act of holy joy than mere amusement, like David dancing before the ark. In those days, public sorrow made dancing out of place, as in (Isaiah 22:12-13).

The dance itself was modest and chaste. It was not mixed dancing, with men joining the women, and no married women forgot their dignity to take part. Even so, their public dancing made them easy targets for those with harmful plans. Bishop Hall notes that evil spirits often use such settings to lead many souls from dancing into ruin.

The elders of Israel gave the Benjamites permission to lie in wait in the vineyards around the open space where the women danced. Then, when the women were in the middle of their joy, the Benjamites were to rush in, seize a wife for each man, and carry her off to their own land (Judges 21:20-21). They knew none of their own daughters would be there, so the parents could not truly be said to have given them, since they knew nothing about it. This was a poor excuse, but it was thought better than none if it kept them from breaking their oath.

It would have been far better to be careful before making vows, so there would be no need later to say before the angel that it was a mistake. This was a very backward way to make marriages, where both the young people’s affection and the parents’ consent had to be assumed afterward. The case was unusual, and it should not be treated as a rule for ordinary life. Hasty marriages often bring slow repentance, and no lasting comfort should be expected from a match made by force or trickery.

The virgins of Jabesh-Gilead were taken from the middle of bloodshed, but these women of Shiloh were taken from the middle of joy. The first group had reason to thank God that they kept their lives, while the second, it is hoped, later found no cause to complain. They were joined not to men who seemed ruined and desperate, like those recently brought out of a cave, but to men who, when Benjamin’s land was divided among only 600 survivors, must have had the largest shares of property in the nation. The tribe had once numbered 45,600 men (Numbers 26:41).

The elders then worked to calm the fathers of these young women. Any offense against a father’s authority would likely be forgiven when they thought about the good estates their daughters were marrying into, and the fact that their daughters would become mothers in Israel. Some tender consciences might still struggle with the oath not to give their daughters to Benjamites, but the elders could answer that the need was urgent (Judges 21:22). They admitted they had failed to reserve wives for each man, and now they wanted to soften their earlier severity by a more generous reading of their oath. In effect they were saying, “For our sake, since we were too harsh, let these men keep what they have gotten.”

Strictly speaking, they had not broken their oath. They had sworn not to give their daughters, but not to bring them back if they were taken by force. If there was blame, it rested on the elders, not on the fathers. As the saying goes, what should not have been done is still accepted once it has been done. The matter was allowed to stand through silence, in keeping with the law (Numbers 30:4).

At the end, Benjamin was settled again. The few who remained returned to their tribal land (Judges 21:23). Soon after, Ehud was born among them, who became the second judge of Israel and a notable man in his time (Judges 3:15). Then Israel’s army was dismissed and scattered (Judges 21:24). They did not turn themselves into a standing army or try to make new rules for the nation. Once the matter that had called them together was finished, they quietly went home, each man to his family.

Public work should not make us forget our private duties or the need to care for our own household. The chapter ends by repeating the root cause of all these troubles (Judges 21:25). Though God was their King, each man wanted to be his own master, as if no king existed. Praise God for civil rulers.