WIVES FOR THE REMNANT OF BENJAMIN
1. (Judges 21:1) At Mizpah, a curse is laid on anyone who gives their daughter as wives for the tribe of Benjamin
Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpah, saying, "None of us shall give his daughter to Benjamin in marriage."
Some time passed, and the heat of the battle was over. The victorious Israelites had time to think over what had transpired, and they fell into grief over it. They reflected on what the results of their own actions meant for the future of Israel. They repented. Even though it was Benjamin who necessitated this war by their outrageous position of defending the deranged men of Gibeah, who turned to homosexuality and behaved exactly like the heathen of Sodom, perhaps Israel had gone too far.
Now the men of Israel had sworn: Swearing oaths and making vows in God's name is a dangerous undertaking. We moderns like to think otherwise, but we really do not take these oaths and vows all that seriously. But to the ancient, it was unthinkable to violate an oath or vow because the consequence was probably going to be devastating and long lasting. Making a rash oath or vow is a bad idea, and now Israel realized that they had doomed the Benjamites by speaking too quickly with their lips.
As the Israelite force of 400,000 gathered in Mizpah in war council before heading towards Gibeah, they had made a vow which sounded good, but now they were faced with a terrible dilemma. The vow was that no one from any of the eleven tribe coalition would allow his daughter to marry a Benjamite. The problem was that there were 600 men who remained from the tribe of Benjamin. With no women to bear children for them, the Benjamite line would end. As bad as that sounds to us, it was horrific to the mind of the ancient Hebrew. One of Jacob's sons would be cut off from his family line. This would destroy everything.
In tribal society, it is one thing for inter-related tribes to war and kill among themselves in order to punish or achieve dominance. It is quite another story to kill off an entire bloodline. This was usually avoided at all costs.
2. (Judges 21:2-6) Israel realizes that a whole tribe is in danger of extinction
So the people came to Bethel and sat there before God until evening, and lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. They said, "Why, O LORD, God of Israel, has this come about in Israel, so that one tribe should be missing today in Israel?" It came about the next day that the people arose early and built an altar there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.
Then the sons of Israel said, "Who is there among all the tribes of Israel who did not come up in the assembly to the LORD? For they had taken a great oath concerning him who did not come up to the LORD at Mizpah, saying, "He shall surely be put to death." And the sons of Israel were sorry for their brother Benjamin and said, "One tribe is cut off from Israel today."
So the people came to Bethel and sat there before God until evening: When the victorious Israelites realized that the utter demise of Benjamin was a very real possibility, they went before God back up to Bethel. They wept and asked for forgiveness as well as trying to understand why God might allow such a thing to happen.
It came about the next day that the people arose early and built an altar there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings: The sons of Israel offered sacrifices of repentance to God and sought a solution. They absolutely could NOT break their vow of refusing to give Benjamin their daughters for marriage and child bearing. They wondered how they could keep Benjamin from extinction.
B. Solutions to the problem of the foolish oath
1. (Judges 21:7-15) Destroying the city of Jabesh and taking their young women
"What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since we have sworn by the LORD not to give them any of our daughters in marriage?"
And they said, "What one is there of the tribes of Israel who did not come up to the LORD at Mizpah?" And behold, no one had come to the camp from Jabesh-gilead to the assembly. For when the people were numbered, behold, not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead was there. And the congregation sent 12,000 of the valiant warriors there, and commanded them, saying, "Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones. This is the thing that you shall do: you shall utterly destroy every man and every woman who has lain with a man." And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with him: and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.
Then the whole congregation sent word and spoke to the sons of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed peace to them. Benjamin returned at that time, and they gave them the women whom they had kept alive from the women of Jabesh-gilead; yet they were not enough for them. And the people were sorry for Benjamin because the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.
What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since we have sworn by the LORD not to give any of them of our daughters in marriage: Verse seven sums up the problem. The sons of Israel find an answer to the problem in a very convoluted and unexpected way. It starts with Israel's search to find out if any clan of Hebrews had failed to show up to contribute to the war effort.
Jabesh-gilead: It turns out that the people of the city of Jabesh-gilead (meaning the people who lived in the city of Jabesh in the territory of Gilead, east of the Jordan River) did not answer the call. This was in violation of a much earlier and perhaps more fundamental oath: that all of Israel was united under God and the Laws of Moses. They were to act together as one in times of crisis. Jabesh were traitors to God and to Israel. Not only that, at the time of the war council in Mizpah, an oath was sworn in which the punishment for whomever did not participate in the war against Benjamin was death.
And the congregation sent out 12,000 of the valiant warriors: A force of 12,000 men were sent across the Jordan River to take vengeance. Everyone was to die except the girls of childbearing years who were virgins. These girls were to be captured and brought back to Shiloh. It turns out there were 400 of them. This plan accomplished two objectives. First, it executed those of Jabesh who refused to participate in the war with Benjamin. Second, it was to find wives for the remaining 600 men of Benjamin. These virgin girls of Jabesh would provide a good start to remedy the problem.
A point of clarification, the 600 men were NOT all that remained of Benjamin. Some number of elderly and perhaps some infants and very young children remained alive. The key is that these 600 men were those of an age who were able to impregnate women. And the reason that the virgin girls of child bearing age were captured was that by being virgins, it made them desirable as wives. This would give them many years in which to bear as many children as possible.
This is the thing that you shall do: you shall utterly destroy every man and every woman who has lain with a man: In verse eleven, we are told they should "utterly destroy every man and every woman..." What is translated as "utterly destroy" is the Hebrew word herem. Herem is usually translated as "ban". Herem means to destroy something for the purpose of giving it to God. It is a Holy War term. It indicates that since the true commanders of a Holy War is God, then the spoils of war goes to Him alone. But how does one give the spoils of war to God? God receives them in the form of a burnt offering. Thus, the spoils of war must be destroyed and burned. In this way, it is dedicated (banned) to God and at the same time the people cannot partake of it because it has all be destroyed.
So to the Israelites, they saw what they were about to do to the people of Jabesh-gilead as a holy endeavor, and thus for them the killing of the people was under the law of herem. It was holy in their minds because it was carrying out an oath made before God to kill all who refused to participate in the war with Benjamin. Was this a good thing before the LORD? Absolutely not. It was just another case of men making a rash vow, and they would rather follow through with it no matter what the consequences to others might be than not following through and accepting the consequences of their own sin of breaking that rash vow.
And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with him: The 400 virgins of Jabesh were given to the male survivors of Benjamin, but that still left 200 men without wives. What should they do? Well, they came up with another cleaver plan.
2. (Judges 21:16-24) A scheme to give the remaining men of Benjamin an opportunity to take wives
Then the elders of the congregation said, "What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?" They said, "There must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe will not be blotted out from Israel. But we cannot give them wives of our daughters." For the sons of Israel had sword, saying, "Cursed is he who gives a wive to Benjamin."
So they said, "Behold, there is a feast of the LORD from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south side to Lebonah." And they commanded the sons of Benjamin, saying, "Go and lie in wait in the vineyards, and watch; and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to take part in the dances, then you shall come out of the vineyards and each of you shall catch his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. It shall come about, when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, that we shall say to them, 'Give them to us voluntarily, because we did not take for each man of Benjamin a wife in battle, nor did you give them to them, else you would now be guilty.'" The sons of Benjamin did so, and took wives according to their number from those who danced, whom they carried away. And they went and returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the cities and lived in the,. The sons of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and family, and each one of them went out from there to his inheritance.
Behold, there is a feast of the LORD from year to year in Shiloh: There was a festival to the LORD each year in Shiloh, and lots and lots of women went to it. The young girls, especially virgins, participated by dancing in the festival. Some leaders of the Israelites went to the leaders of the 600 remaining Benjamites and told them that if they would go to Shiloh at the festival time and hide, then when the virgins came out to dance, they could pounce on them. The virgins would then be their wives. The Israelites would be sure there was no interference and the men of Benjamin would be free to remove these girls back to the allotted territory of Benjamin.
Now what happens when the fathers and other male family member of these stolen girls come to the leadership of Israel to complain about the theft of their daughters and seek justice? They would be told to do the leadership a favor and just not react. They were to just let it be because it would be the best for all Israel. Moreover, they would not be breaking their vow to God to not give to Benjamin any daughter of Israel because their girls were not given but were kidnapped.
Let me point out something which might go unnoticed, but it is important. The children born to the tribe of Benjamin from here forward were mixed. The 400 women of Gilead were mostly from the tribe of Manasseh, but Gilead also consisted of some populations of Gad and Reuben. The remaining 200 women taken at Shiloh were some combination of members from the other ten tribes. So even though the fathers of the next generation were Benjamites by blood, not one mother of their children were Benjamites.
Israel is not a genealogically pure race with all genes coming from Abraham. Even Jacob, before he went to Egypt, acquired probably the largest portion of his family at Shechem. It happened when this sons went on a raid of revenge for the rape of their sister Dinah, and in the process killed all the males of Shechem. They captured all the females (Genesis 34). In tribal society, those foreign females would rapidly assimilate into their captors' tribe. The women of Shechem were Hivites, not Hebrews. So the family of Jacob was a mixed race very early on.
Then in Egypt, there was a lot of intermarriage, and thus the Torah tells us that a huge number of non-Hebrews (called a mixed multitude) followed Israel on their exodus journey (Exodus 12:38).
Here we see drastic action taken by Israel to save the tribe of Benjamin which resulted in all future Benjamites after the war at Gibeah being of mixed tribal blood of other Israelite tribes. No modern day Hebrew could ever possibly speak of purity of blood lines of his own tribe, let alone going back to Abraham or even Jacob. Rather, the issue is of declared allegiance to the God of Israel.
3. (Judges 21:25) The summary observation of the times of Israel
In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
The final words of the book of Judges ends most appropriately with "everyone did what was right in his own eyes." I pray that we see that just as God was showing Israel that they needed a king, so do we need a king. His name is Jesus. Unfortunately, today we are reliving the time of the Judges. The state of Judeo-Christianity is as it was in the days of Othniel, Deborah and Samson with every man doing what is right in our own heart, doing deeds which seem pious and righteous outwardly and comfortable to us inwardly, but we pay little heed to the actual Word of God.
Final Thoughts
In the time of King Saul, we are going to find an interesting relationship between Saul and the people of Gilead. When Ammon threatened the people of Gilead, they turned to Saul for help (1 Samuel 11:1-11). Later, it would be the men of Gilead who recovered the bodies of Saul and his sons as their corpses hung on the walls of Bethshan (1 Samuel 31:11-13). Saul was of the tribe of Benjamin, and so we see how and why the tribe of Benjamin had a special bond with the people of Gilead. They were closely related by blood and it happened as the aftermath of the war with Benjamin.
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