Judges 20:26 - Meaning and Application

Here is a full account of the Israelites’ complete victory over Benjamin in the third battle. The righteous cause finally prevailed, once the leaders corrected what had gone wrong. When a good cause suffers, the fault is often in the way it is handled.

Notice how they won, and how they followed through after winning. In the earlier battles, they relied too much on two things, the rightness of their cause and the size of their army. Both were real advantages, but they leaned on them too much and neglected the duties they now took up in this third attempt.

First, they had been so confident that their cause was right that they thought it was unnecessary to ask God for his presence and blessing. They assumed God would help them, and perhaps even that he owed them his favor because they were fighting for justice. But God showed them that he was under no obligation to prosper their campaign, and that they were the ones indebted to him. He honored them by making them servants of his justice, not the other way around.

Now they came as humble seekers. Before, they had only asked God’s oracle, “Who should go up first?” and “Shall we go up?” But now they pleaded for his favor, fasted, prayed, and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings (Judges 20:26). These offerings were meant to make atonement, which means covering sin and seeking peace with God, and to show their dependence on him. They also expressed their desire for him. We cannot expect God’s presence unless we seek it the way he has appointed. When they were in this frame of heart and truly sought the Lord, he not only told them to go up against Benjamin again, but also promised victory, “Tomorrow I will give them into your hand” (Judges 20:28).

Second, they had also been too sure of their own strength. They thought they did not need a clever plan, a hidden ambush, or any strategy. They expected to win by force alone. But now they saw that some careful planning was needed, as if they were dealing with an enemy greater in number. So they set men in ambush (Judges 20:29), and this worked, just as it had before at Ai (Joshua 8). Such a plan was more likely to succeed after a previous defeat, because the enemy had grown bold and would less easily suspect a fake retreat.

The way they carried out this plan is described in detail. God had already assured them that they would win that day, but that promise did not make them careless. Instead, it stirred every part of the army to action so that they would carry out what God had said.

The main body of Israel’s army faced Gibeah, as before, moving toward the gates (Judges 20:30). The Benjamites, whose main force was stationed there, rushed out and attacked them with great courage. Israel’s troops then fell back quickly, as if fear had overtaken them at the sight of Benjamin. Benjamin was happy to believe that, since their earlier success had made them feel powerful. Israel did suffer some loss in this pretend retreat, with about thirty men cut down in their rear (Judges 20:31, Judges 20:39).

But once the Benjamites had all been drawn out of the city, the ambush took Gibeah (Judges 20:37), signaled the main army (Judges 20:38, Judges 20:40), and the main force turned back on Benjamin at once (Judges 20:41). It seems another large group stationed at Baal Tamar also attacked at the same time (Judges 20:33). So the Benjamites found themselves completely surrounded, which threw them into the deepest panic. Their guilt now made them lose heart, and the higher their hopes had been, the worse their confusion became.

At first the fighting was fierce (Judges 20:34). The Benjamites fought with great anger, but when they realized the trap, they chose flight over fighting. Still, they could not escape. The battle caught up with them, and to make their ruin complete, the men of Israel came out from the cities and joined in the chase, helping to cut them down. Every man’s hand was against them.

There are several lessons in this account. At the start of the battle, the Benjamites thought the day belonged to them: “They are beaten before us” (Judges 20:32, Judges 20:39). God sometimes allows wicked people to rise in success and hope for a time, so that their fall may be more severe. Their joy is brief, and their triumph lasts only a moment. Let no one boast in strength unless there is reason to boast in God.

They were also in danger without knowing it (Judges 20:34). Then, when it was too late to stop it, they saw that disaster had come upon them (Judges 20:41). We do not know what dangers may be near us at any time, but the less people fear them, the more heavily they may fall. Sinners do not want to believe that evil is near, but how terrible it will be when it comes and there is no escape (1 Thessalonians 5:3).

Even though the men of Israel fought well in this battle, the victory is still credited to God: “The Lord struck Benjamin before Israel” (Judges 20:35). The battle belonged to him, and so did the success. When God fights against people, it is easy to trample them down (Judges 20:43, Malachi 4:3).

The victory was then pressed forward and used to carry out judgment on these sinners against their own souls. First, Gibeah itself, that nest of wickedness, was destroyed. The ambush that entered the city by surprise spread through its streets and sections, since all its men of war had foolishly rushed out and left it unprotected. They killed everyone they found, including women and children (Judges 20:37), and burned the city (Judges 20:40). Sin brings ruin on cities.

Second, the army in the field was completely broken, with 18,000 valiant men lying dead on the ground (Judges 20:44). Third, those who escaped from the field were chased down and killed in their flight, to the number of 7,000 (Judges 20:45). No one can outrun God’s judgment. Evil pursues sinners, and it will catch them.

Even those who stayed at home were drawn into the ruin. They let their sword keep cutting down others until the end, not realizing that in the end it would bring bitterness, as Abner later argued when he was leading a Benjaminite army, likely thinking of this very event (2 Samuel 2:25, 2 Samuel 2:26).

They put everyone who was still alive to the sword and burned all the cities (Judges 20:48). So, as far as we can tell, no one from the tribe of Benjamin was left alive except 600 men who hid in the rock of Rimmon and stayed there for four months (Judges 20:47).

It is hard to defend this severity as an act of Israel. The whole tribe of Benjamin was guilty, but does that mean they should have been treated like devoted Canaanites? It happened in the heat of war, and this was the kind of way Israel had often carried out victories. The Israelites were also very angry at the Benjamites because of the slaughter in the previous two battles. Still, those reasons only go a little way toward excusing such harshness.

It is true that they had sworn that anyone who did not come up to Mizpeh would be put to death (Judges 21:5). But if that oath was proper at all, it applied only to the fighting men. The rest of the tribe were not expected to come. Even so, it is easy to justify God’s hand in all this. Benjamin had sinned against him, and God had warned that if his people forgot him, they would perish like the nations before them (Deuteronomy 8:20). Those nations had all been cut off in this way.

This also gives a serious warning about the start of sin. Sin grows like water breaking out of a dam, so it is best to stop it before it spreads, because we do not know where it will end. The eternal ruin of souls will be worse, and more terrible, than all these ruins of a tribe. Hosea speaks of the affair at Gibeah, the town where this outrage began, as the beginning of Israel’s corruption and a pattern for all that followed (Hosea 9:9; Hosea 10:9). He says they had deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah, and that their sin began from those days. He also says that the battle at Gibeah against the children of sin did not, at first, overtake them.