Judges 21:1 - Meaning and Application

These verses show the strong zeal the Israelites felt against the evil done at Gibeah, which the tribe of Benjamin had supported. While the tribes were gathering for the public assembly, they bound themselves under a severe curse, called the Cherem, to destroy any city that refused to send its men and representatives (Judges 21:5). They did this because such refusal would show no anger over the crime, no care to keep the nation from God’s judgment, and no respect for the common call to meet.

After they assembled and heard the case, they made another solemn oath, that none of the Israelites then present, or those they represented, would marry their daughters to a Benjamite, if they could help it (Judges 21:1). This was part of the war, not because they meant to wipe out the whole tribe, but because they treated the guilty men of Benjamin much like the devoted nations of Canaan. Those nations were to be destroyed, and Israel was forbidden to marry them. They also judged that men who had been so cruel and shameless toward one of the weaker sex were unfit to marry an Israelite woman.

The Levite’s act of sending out the pieces of his murdered wife’s body likely stirred up their anger very deeply. A picture before the eyes often moves the heart more than a spoken report, even when the report is true and well proved.

We also see the Israelites’ deep sorrow when Benjamin was nearly destroyed. Their anger against Benjamin’s sin had been strong, but their grief after Benjamin’s ruin was just as strong. “They repented for Benjamin their brother” (Judges 21:6, 15). They did not repent of opposing the sin. There is a holy anger against evil, which comes from godly sorrow and leads to salvation (2 Corinthians 7:10-11). But they did regret that they had pushed things farther than justice required.

It would have been enough to destroy those they found in arms. They did not need to kill the farmers, shepherds, women, and children. There can be too much even in doing what is right. We must govern our zeal carefully, so that what begins with good motives does not end in harm. Also, even necessary justice should be carried out with mercy. God does not punish with delight, and people should not either. Strong emotions also create work for repentance, because what we say or do in anger we often wish to undo later.

In a civil war, no side should boast as if it had truly gained. The whole community loses when one part crushes another. Here, a tribe of Israel was cut off, so the nation as a whole was wounded.

The Israelites showed their sorrow in several ways. First, they came to the house of God, because there they brought all their doubts, plans, worries, and griefs. On this occasion there should be no joy or singing, only sorrow, mourning, and cries of grief. They “lifted up their voices and wept sore” (Judges 21:2). They were not mainly grieving the 40,000 they had lost, since those men could be spared from eleven tribes. They were grieving that one whole tribe was almost gone. Their complaint before God was, “There is one tribe lacking” (Judges 21:3).

God had cared for each tribe. Their twelve-tribe number was how they were known. Each tribe had its place in the camp and its own stone on the high priest’s breastplate. Each had received blessings from Jacob and Moses. It would be a deep shame if they lost one of the twelve, especially Benjamin, the youngest, whom their ancestor Jacob had especially loved. Benjamin is gone, and what will become of Jacob? Benjamin has become Benoni, a son of the right hand turned into a son of sorrow.

In this distress they built an altar, not to compete with the altar at the tabernacle, but to join with it. The appointed altar at the tabernacle entrance was not large enough for all the sacrifices they meant to offer. They brought burnt offerings and peace offerings, giving thanks for their victory, asking forgiveness for their foolishness in pursuing it, and seeking God’s favor in their present trouble. Everything that grieves us should bring us to God.

They also made a friendly agreement with the Benjamite refugees hiding in the rock of Rimmon. They sent them a public assurance that they would no longer treat them as enemies, but receive them as brothers (Judges 21:13). When friends fall out, the end should be the renewing of friendship. Even those who have sinned, if they truly repent, must be forgiven and comforted (2 Corinthians 2:7).

Then they took care to provide wives for the Benjamites, so that the tribe might be rebuilt and its ruins repaired. If the men of Israel had been selfish, they might have been glad to see Benjamin die out, because then the land given to that tribe could have passed to the others through lack of heirs. But true Israelites do not try to rise by the ruin of their neighbors. Instead, all their minds were set on finding a way to rebuild Benjamin.

All the women and children of Benjamin had been killed, and the Israelites had sworn not to give their daughters in marriage to any of them. It was also against God’s law for Israel to marry the Canaanites. To force this tribe into such marriages would, in effect, be to send them away to serve other gods.

What should they do to provide wives for the Benjamites? The poor men of Benjamin, hiding in the rock and fearing that their brothers were plotting their ruin, were at the same time being helped. The plan was this.

First, there was a needed act of justice against the city of Jabesh-Gilead, a town in the tribe of Gad, east of the Jordan. When they checked the muster roll, taken earlier in Judges 20:2, they found that no one from that city had answered the public summons (Judges 21:8, Judges 21:9). Before it was even clear who had stayed away, they had already agreed that any city in Israel showing such contempt for public authority and the common good would be under a curse. So Jabesh-Gilead fell under that severe sentence, and it could not be set aside. Those who had spared the Canaanites in many places, even though God had commanded their destruction, could not bring themselves to spare their own brothers, who were under their own oath and curse.

Why did they not now send men to drive the Jebusites out of Jerusalem, from whom the poor Levite had had to leave and go to Gibeah? (Judges 19:11, Judges 19:12). People are often more eager to defend their own authority than God’s. So they sent a detachment of 12,000 men to carry out the judgment on Jabesh-Gilead. Since the whole army had been thought too large for God to give Gibeah into their hands, this time they sent only a small force (Judges 21:10). Their orders were to kill everyone, men, women, and children (Judges 21:11), according to the law that whatever is devoted to destruction by those who have authority over it must be put to death (Leviticus 27:29).

From this, they found a way to supply the Benjamites with wives. When Moses sent the same number of men to punish Midian on the Lord’s behalf, he gave the same order, that the married women should be killed with their husbands, since they were one flesh with them, but that the virgins should be spared alive (Numbers 31:17, Numbers 31:18). That earlier case was enough to justify the same distinction here between a wife and a virgin (Judges 21:11, Judges 21:12). They found 400 marriageable virgins in Jabesh-Gilead, and these were given in marriage to 400 surviving Benjamites (Judges 21:14). Their fathers had not been present when the oath was made not to give their daughters to Benjamites, so they were under no clear obligation to it. And since these women were taken as spoil in war, they were now at the disposal of the victors.

Perhaps this new alliance between Benjamin and Jabesh-Gilead later made Saul, who was a Benjamite, care more about that place (1 Samuel 11:4), even though by then it was inhabited by new families.