Judges 21

Earlier, at Mizpah, the men of Israel had made a promise under oath. They said, "Not one of us will let his daughter marry a man from the tribe of Benjamin."

1Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpeh, saying, There shall not any of us give his daughter unto Benjamin to wife.

NoteMizpah was a town used as a national gathering place for the tribes. This oath was sworn there before the events of chapters 19–20, in which the other tribes went to war against the tribe of Benjamin and almost destroyed it; only six hundred Benjamite men survived, and they were still in hiding at the rock of Rimmon. This chapter picks up from there.

2So the people came to Bethel and sat there before God until evening. They cried out loud and wept bitterly.

2And the people came to the house of God, and abode there till even before God, and lifted up their voices, and wept sore;

NoteWhere the plain rendering says "Bethel," the King James says "the house of God." That is not a building: the Hebrew place name Bethel literally means "house of God," and the King James translators turned the name into English here rather than leaving it as a name.

3They said, "LORD, God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel? Today one whole tribe is missing from Israel."

3And said, O LORD God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to day one tribe lacking in Israel?

4The next day the people got up early. They built an altar there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on it.

4And it came to pass on the morrow, that the people rose early, and built there an altar, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.

NoteAn altar was a raised stone platform on which animals and food were burned as gifts to God. In a burnt offering the whole animal was burned and nothing was eaten; in a peace (or fellowship) offering only part was burned and the rest was eaten by the worshipers as a shared meal, usually to mark a resolved dispute or a restored relationship.

5Then the Israelites asked, "Which of all the tribes of Israel did not come to the assembly before the LORD?" They had sworn a solemn oath that anyone who failed to come up to the LORD at Mizpah would be put to death.

5And the children of Israel said, Who is there among all the tribes of Israel that came not up with the congregation unto the LORD? For they had made a great oath concerning him that came not up to the LORD to Mizpeh, saying, He shall surely be put to death.

NoteThis is a second, separate oath from the one in verse 1, also sworn at Mizpah: any clan that failed to show up for the muster would be executed. "Came not up" means failed to appear when the tribes were called out, not merely arrived late.

6The Israelites were full of grief over Benjamin, their brother tribe. They said, "Today one tribe has been cut off from Israel.

6And the children of Israel repented them for Benjamin their brother, and said, There is one tribe cut off from Israel this day.

NoteIn 1611 English, "repented them for Benjamin" meant they were grieved and sorry about what had happened to Benjamin. It does not mean repentance from sin. The same wording appears in verse 15.

7What will we do about wives for the men who are left? We have sworn by the LORD that we will not give them our daughters to marry."

7How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing we have sworn by the LORD that we will not give them of our daughters to wives?

8So they asked, "Which of the tribes of Israel did not come up to the LORD at Mizpah?" It turned out that no one from Jabesh-gilead had come to the camp for the assembly.

8And they said, What one is there of the tribes of Israel that came not up to Mizpeh to the LORD? And, behold, there came none to the camp from Jabeshgilead to the assembly.

NoteJabesh-gilead was an Israelite town in Gilead, the territory east of the Jordan River. Being far from the assembly point, it had sent no one.

9For when the people were counted, not one person from Jabesh-gilead was there.

9For the people were numbered, and, behold, there were none of the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead there.

Note"The people were numbered" refers to a roll call of the assembled fighting men, clan by clan, which is how the absence was detected.

10So the assembly sent twelve thousand of their bravest fighting men there. They ordered them, "Go and kill the people living in Jabesh-gilead with the sword, including the women and the children.

10And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the children.

11This is what you are to do: kill every male, and every woman who has slept with a man."

11And this is the thing that ye shall do, Ye shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman that hath lain by man.

NoteThe Hebrew term behind "utterly destroy" describes putting a captured place under a ban: everything in it is handed over to God by being destroyed rather than taken as plunder. The unmarried young women are the deliberate exception here, because they are the point of the raid.

12Among the people of Jabesh-gilead they found four hundred young women who had never slept with a man. They brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

12And they found among the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead four hundred young virgins, that had known no man by lying with any male: and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

NoteShiloh was the town where Israel's tent-sanctuary stood at this period, making it the central place of worship. "In the land of Canaan" distinguishes it from territory east of the Jordan, such as Jabesh-gilead.

13Then the whole assembly sent messengers to the men of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon, to offer them peace.

13And the whole congregation sent some to speak to the children of Benjamin that were in the rock Rimmon, and to call peaceably unto them.

NoteThe rock of Rimmon was a crag or cliff where the six hundred surviving men of Benjamin had taken refuge and stayed for four months after the war (see 20:47).

14So the men of Benjamin came back at that time. Israel gave them the women from Jabesh-gilead who had been kept alive. But there were still not enough women for all of them.

14And Benjamin came again at that time; and they gave them wives which they had saved alive of the women of Jabeshgilead: and yet so they sufficed them not.

NoteThe arithmetic is the problem: six hundred surviving Benjamite men and only four hundred women, leaving two hundred men without wives. That shortfall drives the rest of the chapter.

15The people were full of grief over Benjamin, because the LORD had made a gap in the tribes of Israel.

15And the people repented them for Benjamin, because that the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.

Note"Made a breach" uses the image of a gap smashed in a wall, a hole in the structure of the twelve tribes where Benjamin used to be.

16Then the elders of the assembly said, "What will we do about wives for the men who are left, since the women of Benjamin have been killed?"

16Then the elders of the congregation said, How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?

17They said, "The survivors of Benjamin must have heirs to keep their land, so that a tribe is not wiped out of Israel.

17And they said, There must be an inheritance for them that be escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe be not destroyed out of Israel.

NoteEach tribe held a permanent allotted territory that passed from father to son. Without sons to inherit, Benjamin's land would be absorbed by its neighbors and the tribe would cease to exist as a unit, which is why heirs, not just survival, are the stated concern.

18But we cannot give them our own daughters as wives." For the Israelites had sworn, "A curse on anyone who gives a wife to a man of Benjamin."

18Howbeit we may not give them wives of our daughters: for the children of Israel have sworn, saying, Cursed be he that giveth a wife to Benjamin.

NoteAn oath sworn in the LORD's name, especially one framed as a self-curse ("cursed be he who..."), was regarded as binding and not something that could simply be canceled. Hence the search for a way around its exact wording rather than a decision to ignore it.

19Then they said, "Look, there is a yearly feast to the LORD at Shiloh. It is north of Bethel, east of the road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah."

19Then they said, Behold, there is a feast of the LORD in Shiloh yearly in a place which is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.

NoteOne of the yearly harvest festivals, held at the sanctuary town of Shiloh. The vineyards and the young women's dances point to a vintage celebration, at the time of the grape harvest. The unusually detailed directions suggest Shiloh was no longer a well-known place by the time this was written down.

20So they gave these orders to the men of Benjamin: "Go and hide in the vineyards and wait.

20Therefore they commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, Go and lie in wait in the vineyards;

21Watch, and when the young women of Shiloh come out to join the dances, run out of the vineyards. Each of you grab a wife for yourself from the young women of Shiloh, and go back to the land of Benjamin.

21And see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.

NoteSeizing a bride rather than negotiating with her father was a recognized, if irregular, way of obtaining a wife in the ancient world. Here it is a device: the men take the women themselves, so no father has "given" his daughter.

22When their fathers or brothers come to us to complain, we will say to them, 'Be kind to these men for our sake. We did not get a wife for each of them in the war. And you did not actually give your daughters to them, so you are not guilty of breaking the oath.'"

22And it shall be, when their fathers or their brethren come unto us to complain, that we will say unto them, Be favourable unto them for our sakes: because we reserved not to each man his wife in the war: for ye did not give unto them at this time, that ye should be guilty.

NoteThis is the loophole. The oath in verse 1 forbade fathers to give their daughters to Benjamites; if the women were taken by force, no father gave anything, so technically no one broke the oath and incurred its curse. The Hebrew of the middle of this verse is difficult and its exact sense is disputed; the plea is roughly that the Benjamites could not obtain wives in the war, so the fathers should let the matter stand.

23The men of Benjamin did this. They caught the number of women they needed from the dancers and took them as wives. Then they went back to their own land, rebuilt their towns, and lived in them.

23And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of them that danced, whom they caught: and they went and returned unto their inheritance, and repaired the cities, and dwelt in them.

24At that time the Israelites left there, each man going back to his own tribe and family, each one to his own land.

24And the children of Israel departed thence at that time, every man to his tribe and to his family, and they went out from thence every man to his inheritance.

25In those days Israel had no king. Everyone did whatever seemed right to him.

25In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

NoteThis sentence is a refrain that runs through the last chapters of Judges (also at 17:6, 18:1 and 19:1) and closes the book. "Right in his own eyes" means each person decided for himself what was right, with no central authority to answer to.