Jdg 21: "So the book closes with a dark shadow over the
history of Israel. The cost of the period of anarchy was enormous. The spiritual
depth to which the nation sunk would take many years to recover. The Levite's
dramatic revelation of the murder of his concubine, and his demand for revenge
had stirred the nation of Israel to its depths. A lust for blood seized men as
they gave Benjamin over to slaughter. The land became a smoking ruin. Cities
were overthrown, their inhabitants ruthlessly slain without sense or mercy, and
men made with the desire for violence, marched through the land, putting all to
an indiscriminate slaughter, until the tribe was on the point of extinction. And
then a realisation of what they had done came over the nation. 'The people wept'
(v 2). But in their passion they had bound themselves with oaths that now they
regretted. Thus they set about legally to defeat the solemn promises they had
made, and to provide continuance to the tribe of Benjamin and this led to
further indiscriminate and senseless slaughter. The whole account in its dark
and dreadful detail illustrated the comment of v 25. It was the end of the age,
and we look with pleasure to the reading of the book of Ruth, and the day of the
monarchy. [Likewise] this age of senseless violence... is a precursor to the
glorious revelation of the Gentile Bride and the establishment of the throne of
Vv 1,2: "The punitive campaign against Benjamin was no sooner
concluded than the tribes immediately became very uneasy about the consequences
of their zeal for righteousness. So fully and completely had they done what they
had deemed to be their duty that there was now grave prospect of the complete
disappearance of one of their twelve tribes. For Benjamin was reduced to a mere
handful of men, and how could these continue their families since their brethren
had sworn not to give their daughters in marriage to a tribe of such
"Here is demonstrated the folly of human oaths. Only God, the
Eternal, who knows the end from the beginning, can truly bind Himself by an oath
never to be set aside, for with Him, only, is the wisdom to foresee the
outworking of events. In this incident there is the plainest of all warnings to
those who love government by constitution and minute-book and all the
paraphernalia of the Medes and Persians. Such may be all very well for business
executives, but in a community of the people of God reliance on a cast-iron
adherence to rules and resolutions is a sign of small-mindedness. The fewer the
governing principles of an ecclesia the smaller will be the risk of becoming
fettered hand and foot by chains of one's own fashioning. It was a lesson Israel
should have learned from this experience with Benjamin. It is a lesson the New
Israel has not learned yet" (WJR).
How ironic! It was their own doing.
BUILT AN ALTAR: A pointer that "the house of God" (v 2)
was not Shiloh, for the altar there would not need (re)building. But it is easy
to understand that the ancient holy place at Bethel had fallen into
ANYONE WHO FAILED TO ASSEMBLE BEFORE THE LORD: Cp the
curse on Meroz (Jdg 5:23).
NOT TO GIVE THEM ANY OF OUR DAUGHTERS IN MARRIAGE:
Treating Benjamin like Canaanites: Deu 7:3,4.
"Straining out gnats and swallowing camels": this attack on
Jabesh-gilead was at least as sinful as the initial sin of Gibeah.
Such precise details of location were necessary from time of
Samuel onward, because the Philistines wiped Shiloh off the map (Jer 7:12-15;
THE GIRLS OF SHILOH: They would be mostly from Ephraim.
The other wives of Benjamin were from Manasseh. Thus the descendants of Rachel
come together -- Ephraim and Manasseh with Benjamin.
600 families in an area where there was once 25,000 (Jdg
20:46,47). (This incident was remembered in days of Hosea: Hos 10:9.)