051 The National
Crisis (21:1-24)
This final chapter of the Book of Judges is perhaps the most
perplexing of all the chapters we have studied in Judges. In our last session
we saw that the tribe of Benjamin had been all but obliterated. There was only
a remnant of six hundred men left hiding near the Rimmon Rock. This chapter is
the account of the steps that the other tribes, the Nation of Israel, took to
find a solution to restoring and rebuilding the tribe of Benjamin that they had
just destroyed. What takes place is difficult to categorize, it can be
understood as comic or grotesque or almost anything in between. At the least,
it is a very strange chapter in Bible history. 
Recognizing the Crisis: 21.1-4
Verse 1 provides us with a flashback to the earlier meeting at Mizpah and reveals some new information. The writer informs us that not only did the forces of Israel agree to punish the men of Gibeah “they had all also pledged on oath that none of them would ever give his daughter to a Benjamite man in marriage.” It is ironic that they pledge not to intermarry with one of their own tribes but as we have seen throughout Judges, Israel had little trouble with intermarrying with the Canaanites. Daniel Block suggests that: “The men of Israel do not realize the significance of their action, but in the mind of the narrator this grotesque application of Yahweh’s prohibition on intermarriage with Canaanites (Deut 7:1-5) to their own kinfolks serves as a final acknowledgment of the Canaanization of Israel.”
Once the battle lust has dissipated and the victory secured, Israel comes to the realization that they have almost extinguished the tribe of Benjamin. They recognize that the remnant of Benjamin is all that is left. All of the women of Benjamin have been slaughtered and since the other tribes have sworn not to let the Benjaminites intermarry with their daughters, Benjamin will soon become extinct unless they intermarry with the Canaanites, but then Benjamin will also cease to exist. Either way Benjamin will soon become non-existent. Block points out the ironic fact that in a very bizarre way this is realization of Jacob’s fear for his youngest son Benjamin. “Their father Jacob said to them, ‘You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!!’ (Ge 42.36)”
Verses 2-3 describe the response to this realization by the Israelites. They first assembled again at Bethel where they sat before Yahweh weeping asking “why has this happened to Israel?” Is this weeping a tearful result of their sin against God or is the wailing of mourning over the near loss of a tribe of Israel? Indications would seem to point to the latter case as there is little evidence of repentance or sense of concern for their spiritual well-being. The writer’s use of the generic term for God indicates that he believes that there is little sincerity in their mourning.
Israel’s question is certainly up for interpretation. At its best it is asking for Yahweh to provide them with His perspective for this current state of affairs. Yet a more spiritual people should have been able to understand for themselves what happened. Would Israel have listened if Yahweh gave them the answer to the question “How did this come to pass?” “How did we get to this point?” Yahweh’s answer would likely have been that the reason that one tribe of Israel was almost blotted out, was that Israel, as a people of Yahweh, was no longer. Gibeah was not an isolated incident. What happened in Gibeah was characteristic of the moral rot within all of Israel and if something is not changed quickly all of Israel will be erased from existence just like Benjamin.
Some may understand this questioning as an honest desire to know what Israel should do now, where do they go from here. Israel, then, is seen to be asking the question of “What is Yahweh’s solution to the dilemma in which they find themselves?” At its worst this question could be understood as the opening of the “blame game.” Here Israel is seen as saying that Yahweh has failed them, Yahweh has forgotten that is His job to protect His people from harm. Evading their own responsibility Israel is quick to hold God accountable for their problems.
Whatever you may understand about Israel’s question or their motives, it is God’s response that is paramount, and here God’s silence is deafening. His silence says much and it seems to say “This is your mess, you got yourself into it. Do not blame me.”
Greatly disturbed by Yahweh’s silence, the people rose early in the morning to build an altar and present both burnt and fellowship offerings to Yahweh in the hopes that they can provoke Him to respond to their question. Block makes a point that we should pay particular attention to:
“They construct an altar, and then they offer their whole burnt and peace offerings (as in 20:26) as if nothing has changed since Exodus 24 and as if God is obligated to those who perform perfunctory religious and cultic service. But God does not answer, and the people are thrown back on their resources. The results would be comical if they were not so tragic.”
How many times have you and I followed a similar script in our own lives only to achieve the same results – no answer from God. Like the Israelites, the problem lies not with God but with our motivation.
Responses to the
Crisis (21:5-24)
The remainder of this final chapter raises many questions but the overriding question is: “What is Yahweh’s intention for the tribe of Benjamin?” Does Yahweh want Benjamin preserved or destroyed? Israel responds to the near decimation of Benjamin by trying to find a way that they can provide wives for the remnant of Benjamin without violating their oaths not to give wives to the Benjaminites. They come up with two solutions which are reported in verses 5-14 and 15-24.
The First Solution: 21:5-14
The Israelites, frustrated by Yahweh’s lack of response to tell them what to do, decide to take things into their own hands. Their motivation is that they have almost lost an entire tribe and they are grieving over this loss. Verse 6 gives graphic evidence of Israel’s sense of loss: “Today one tribe is cutoff from Israel.”
The Israelites start to find a solution to this crisis of losing the tribe of Benjamin by recognizing the fact that if they could provide wives for the Benjaminites holed up at Rimmon Rock then perhaps the tribe could be rebuilt. The problem was how to provide Israelite women to these men without violating the vows they took before the battle not to allow their women to marry Benjaminites.
Earlier when the tribes had gathered at Mizpah to decide what to do about Benjamin, we learn that they had agreed to a “solemn oath” that should be imposed upon anyone who had failed to appear before Yahweh at this assembly. This solemn oath was a death sentence on any who failed to gather with them before the Lord. So the question was asked of the Israelites “Did any of the tribes or clans fail to attend the gathering at Mizpah?” Upon review it was found that none of the people from Jabesh-Gilead were present at Mizpah. By not being present at Mizpah, they would not be bound by the oath not to give their daughters to the Benjamites. This could provide a source of Israelite women for the remnant of Benjamin to take as wives.
We are not given a reason why the men of Jabesh-Gilead did not appear in Mizpah but the decision is made to kill all the members of the city except the virgins who had not slept with a man. There is no indication that these people had any opportunity to offer a defense or reason for their absence from Mizpah (v12-13).
How Israel arrived at this solution we will never know. We can only guess that their thinking may have been that because the fathers of the women of Jabesh-Gilead were slain they could not be said to have given their daughters to the Benjaminites. This would mean that Israel did not violate their oath taken at Mizpah. The question remains, how did Israel justify not killing all the residents of Jabesh-Gilead? How did they justify allowing the 400 virgins to live? Unless they understood Nu 31.13-20 as a precedent, they simply resorted to man’s normal method of decision; they did what was arbitrary, opportunistic and practical. The writer gives us no reason why there was an exception made from the requirements of “holy war” for the 400 virgins yet it was a “clever” way of exploiting one oath to circumvent another by the selective application of the law of holy war.” Unfortunately, like many of Israel’s decisions, this action, while perhaps having the appearance of obedience to the law, clearly violates the spirit of the law and is morally questionable.
Israel took the virgins to the camp at Shiloh. Shiloh was the location of the tabernacle and was the religious center of the nation. It would likely have been seen as safe haven by the men of Benjamin and Israel may have felt that the priests could bless their actions taken to prevent a tribe of Israel from disappearing. .
The writer’s description of Shiloh as being “at Shiloh in Canaan” is curious. This is the only time in the Bible that there is a reference to an Israelite city being in Canaan after the “conquest” of the Promised Land. The writer has suggested that the men of Gibeah were like the Sodomites and the Canaanites in the narrative of the Levite and his concubine. The Benjaminites by protecting the Gibeahites are seen in the same light. Now the writer is suggesting that religious center of Israel has become Canaanite. This is indicating that everything that transpires in this chapter is to be understood through a Canaanite “worldview.” The writer is emphasizing that everything that is done at Shiloh in this chapter is “of Canaan.” Block tells us that: “They reflect the same Canaanized disposition as the other actions and attitudes that caused Yahweh to refuse to answer the Israelites’ overtures earlier in this chapter.”‘
After taking the virgins to Shiloh, the Israelites send an offer of peace to the Benjaminites at Rimmon Rock. The Benjaminites, having little choice, accept the peace offered by Israel, return with the Israelite delegation and are given the women to take as wives. In verse 14 we are told what we already knew, there are not enough women to go around. This provides the transition to the second half of the chapter as now Israel needs to come up with an additional solution to the problem of repopulating Benjamin.
The Additional Solution: 21:15-24
. Verses 15-18 remind us of verses 6-7 as the writer again reports how sorry Israel is about what has happened to the tribe of Benjamin. Verse 17 tells us that Israel is still worried about how Benjamin will continue to exist as a tribe if only four hundred of the survivors have wives. They are faced with the problem of finding an additional two hundred wives for these men
Verse 18 repeats the fact the daughters of Israel cannot be given to the men of Benjamin because of the curse Israel put on themselves. Where are they going to find an additional two hundred women? In verses 19-22 we are told the solution that Israel decided on. The solution to the problem is for the two hundred men of Benjamin to kidnap two hundred Israelite women and take them for their wives. If the women are kidnapped then Israel has satisfied the curse in that they did not “give” their daughters to the Benjaminites, the Benjaminites took them. This solves the problem. Israel avoids the consequences of the curse, and Benjamin gets the needed two hundred wives, and will not be blotted out, the twelve tribes of Israel still exist. The bottom line is that to solve their problem they conveniently overlook the legal and moral violations of these actions.
We do not know the particular festival in question. All we know is what the writer tells us. This may be done to continue the idea of the Canaanization of Israel. The Benjaminites were told to hide in the vineyards, and when the girls came out to dance, each of them was grab one of the women and drag them back to Benjamin. The idea of the men hiding in the vineyards may be a hint that the festival was associated with the harvesting of grapes. The women are identified as the “girls of Shiloh” not the “girls of Israel” suggesting that these “girls” were associated with the cultic rituals of Shiloh. The writer has alluded to Shiloh as being Canaanite and so it is not a great stretch to believe that the cultic ritual here is Canaanite and not Israelite.
Dan Block points out, that like much of the Book of Judges, Israel sanction the use of violence against their own daughters. Israel may have felt good about their solution to the problem of the Benjaminites but at what cost to their daughters. If these young women were unaware of what was to transpire, imagine the fear, confusion and fright they must have experienced as they were attacked and either dragged off or at best were witness to their friends and sisters being taken captive and dragged off. In another irony, Israel went to war and nearly wiped out Benjamin for defending those who had taken a woman and gang raped her and maybe even murdered her and yet here they gave their blessing to Benjamin to do almost the same thing.
Lest anyone complain about these actions on behalf of the victims a standard response is developed in verse 22. The response primarily reassures the fathers of the women taken by the Benjaminites that they are not in violation of the oath and that they should let matters lie as this would be good for Benjamin and ultimately good for Israel. This rationalization may have satisfied the letter of the law but it certainly violated the spirit of the law along with transgressing “every standard of morality and decency.” The response is worded in such a way that if one protested too much on behalf of the women they would be easily accused of putting their personal interests ahead the interests of the nation. The actual carrying out of this plan is described in verses 23-24. After effectively carrying out their plan to restore Benjamin, Israel broke camp and returned to their tribes as if all the problems had been properly resolved.
This chapter and Book close with verse 25:
In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.
This is intended as part of the continuing commentary on the events of this chapter along with the events of the Book of Judges. Israel acknowledges no king, human or divine, everyone one is free to do as he sees fit and the result is the Canaanization of Israel and her being cut off from Yahweh. Just like the near destruction of Benjamin, Israel’s separation from God is almost complete.
Conclusions
1) The rape and death of one woman had grown into the death and rape many more. The Women of Benjamin were destroyed because of the actions of their men. Four hundred women of Jabesh-Gilead not only lost their families and homes but they were forcibly taken and made to live with the Benjaminites. Two hundred women were kidnapped, dragged off to Benjamin, and forced to become wives to the Benjaminites. To coin a modern description of this situation, women became collateral damage due to the actions of men. Block quoting another commentator says: “Israelite males have dismembered the corporate bodies of Israelite females. Inasmuch as they have done it to one of the least of women, they have done it unto many.” The writer is not making the argument against patricentrism but rather against patricentrism that is filtered Canaanism. Biblical patricentrism “perceives male headship not as a position of power but one of responsibility, in which the leader sacrifices himself for the well-being of the led.” In the Book of Judges, with the impact of Canaanite influence on the culture “this pattern is reversed. Repeatedly women and children are sacrificed for males.”
2) Israel took whatever steps were necessary to maintain the twelve tribes of Israel but as seen through the words of our writer, Israel was more concerned with the outward signs or physical signs of preserving the nation than they were about saving or maintaining their spiritual relationship with Yahweh. Yet despite the methods used to maintain Benjamin as a viable entity we would be ill-advised to forget those who claim Benjamin as their tribe. Saul the King, Saul who became who became Paul and the apostle to the Gentiles whose impact flows down to our lives today to name two.
3) One looks to a response from God regarding what has taken place in this chapter but His silence continues to be deafening. There are questions on top of questions that we would like answered. Was Yahweh in agreement with all that Israel did to Benjamin? Did Yahweh want Benjamin destroyed? Was it wrong not to completely destroy Benjamin? Should Jabesh-Gilead have been destroyed? What about all of the human machinations that Israel undertook to restore Benjamin, how did God see them? Were they right? What sense did all of this make? “
4) How do we understand the fact that the “future of Israel depends on finding loopholes in the Law?” Like many in the modern world, Israel found itself sympathizing with criminal while overlooking the plight of the victims. What of “righteousness?” In trying to raise up Benjamin, Israel has putdown women and children. Israel has sacrificed the weak and the innocent upon the altar of pragmatism. “The entire nation becomes an accomplice in the defense of Canaanism. What Benjamin did for Gibeah the nation does for Benjamin.” But what of justice?
5) As we have seen throughout the Book of Judges, and in this final episode, there is God’s grace. Despite the actions of Israel, their rationalizations, their pursuit of Canaanite religious and social beliefs, their ignoring of the covenant, Yahweh does not allow or cause their destruction. As Daniel Block observes, it is important that we realize that while “Yahweh cannot allow his people to succumb totally to the Canaanite world . . . the reader must know that his work continues here and generally in human history in spite of, rather than because of, his people. “Judges and the continuing history of the nation that follows it, give testimony to the fact that “God’s people are often their own worst enemy.” It was not Israel’s enemies in the Promised Land that almost destroyed them but the Canaanization of their soul; it was the enemy within that should be feared. But we are not left without hope. We are told and allowed to see that despite everything, God’s purpose will get done! “His kingdom is eternal; his covenant with this people is eternal; his promises are eternal.”
6) Judges is often thought to be a book of heroes. Yet, as we have seen, the problem is that are few if any real heroes. Block draws the conclusion that this is also the case throughout the history of the church and perhaps more so today in the evangelical church in America. The Book of Judges is a mirror of today’s church. All of the ills that we have found in the Book of Judges are reflected in our own churches. Instead of following after our King Jesus Christ, we are doing what is right in our own eyes and calling it religion. If we are failing to make an impact on the world around us, we need only ask ourselves the question “Are we doing what is right in our eyes or are we doing what is right in God’s eyes?”
”May the Lord of the church continue to lavish his mercy upon an undeserving people.”
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