TEXT [Commentary]

3.   Israel provides wives for Benjamin (21:1-25)

1 The Israelites had vowed at Mizpah, “We will never give our daughters in marriage to a man from the tribe of Benjamin.” 2 Now the people went to Bethel and sat in the presence of God until evening, weeping loudly and bitterly. 3 “O LORD, God of Israel,” they cried out, “why has this happened in Israel? Now one of our tribes is missing from Israel!”

4 Early the next morning the people built an altar and presented their burnt offerings and peace offerings on it. 5 Then they said, “Who among the tribes of Israel did not join us at Mizpah when we held our assembly in the presence of the LORD?” At that time they had taken a solemn oath in the LORD’s presence, vowing that anyone who refused to come would be put to death.

6 The Israelites felt sorry for their brother Benjamin and said, “Today one of the tribes of Israel has been cut off. 7 How can we find wives for the few who remain, since we have sworn by the LORD not to give them our daughters in marriage?”

8 So they asked, “Who among the tribes of Israel did not join us at Mizpah when we assembled in the presence of the LORD?” And they discovered that no one from Jabesh-gilead had attended the assembly. 9 For after they counted all the people, no one from Jabesh-gilead was present.

10 So the assembly sent 12,000 of their best warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. 11 “This is what you are to do,” they said. “Completely destroy[*] all the males and every woman who is not a virgin.” 12 Among the residents of Jabesh-gilead they found 400 young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.

13 The Israelite assembly sent a peace delegation to the remaining people of Benjamin who were living at the rock of Rimmon. 14 Then the men of Benjamin returned to their homes, and the 400 women of Jabesh-gilead who had been spared were given to them as wives. But there were not enough women for all of them.

15 The people felt sorry for Benjamin because the LORD had made this gap among the tribes of Israel. 16 So the elders of the assembly asked, “How can we find wives for the few who remain, since the women of the tribe of Benjamin are dead? 17 There must be heirs for the survivors so that an entire tribe of Israel is not wiped out. 18 But we cannot give them our own daughters in marriage because we have sworn with a solemn oath that anyone who does this will fall under God’s curse.”

19 Then they thought of the annual festival of the LORD held in Shiloh, south of Lebonah and north of Bethel, along the east side of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem. 20 They told the men of Benjamin who still needed wives, “Go and hide in the vineyards. 21 When you see the young women of Shiloh come out for their dances, rush out from the vineyards, and each of you can take one of them home to the land of Benjamin to be your wife! 22 And when their fathers and brothers come to us in protest, we will tell them, ‘Please be sympathetic. Let them have your daughters, for we didn’t find wives for all of them when we destroyed Jabesh-gilead. And you are not guilty of breaking the vow since you did not actually give your daughters to them in marriage.’”

23 So the men of Benjamin did as they were told. Each man caught one of the women as she danced in the celebration and carried her off to be his wife. They returned to their own land, and they rebuilt their towns and lived in them.

24 Then the people of Israel departed by tribes and families, and they returned to their own homes.

25 In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.

NOTES

21:1 The Israelites had vowed at Mizpah. The story now mentions a fact about the Mizpah convocation (20:1-17) that was not reported in the original narrative. That a vow provides the pressure for the final act of Judges underscores the theme that “everyone did what was right in his own eyes,” since vows were completely voluntary. The Israelites, in the rash zeal inspired by the Levite’s unexamined, unconfirmed testimony, undertook a vow that would lead to carnage. The resonance with Jephthah’s rash vow (11:30-31) is unmistakable.

We will never give our daughters in marriage to a man from the tribe of Benjamin. Presumably the purpose of this vow was to deny the Benjaminites wives, even though this entire final chapter will detail their efforts to provide wives, without having to be responsible themselves for any marriages to Benjaminites. Ironically, the Israelites who, according to 3:5-6, readily intermarried with Canaanites, had vowed not to intermarry with another Israelite tribe (Block 1999:569). Sociologists suggest that in many cultures, relationships among men—economic and social—were created and sustained principally by the exchange of women. To terminate this exchange would deprive those communities of those beneficial relationships (Niditch 2008:208-209). While this “traffic in women” likely often took the form of mutually agreeable marriages in which male leaders mediated appropriate relationships, the women in ch 21 are voiceless victims, used to alleviate the conflict of men who had unwisely broken off that traffic with another group. And a costly, tragic traffic it turns out to be.

21:2 Now the people went to Bethel. Just as Dan (later, a royal sanctuary for the northern kingdom) dominated the story in chs 17–18, so Bethel, the other site that became a royal shrine in the northern kingdom, imposes itself on chs 19–21, recapitulating its role in the book’s introduction (1:22-26; 2:1-5).

weeping loudly and bitterly. In Judges, weeping accompanies ritual activity at Bethel. The Israelites wept at Bethel (called Bokim in 2:1-5) after hearing the divine rebuke for their compromise of the conquest mandate. The Israelites wept again at Bethel after hard losses before the Benjaminite forces (20:23, 26). Block rightly notes that no tears are shed here over Israel’s sins or spiritual condition (1999:570).

21:3 “O LORD, God of Israel,” they cried out, “why has this happened in Israel?” The question baffles all sense. The Israelites themselves have perpetrated the very situation they lament, taking every step deliberately, sometimes claiming divine approval for their actions. Though they cried to God, no answer was forthcoming. Yahweh had fallen silent, despite Israel’s obsessive religious fervor (Boling 1975:291).

one of our tribes is missing from Israel! “Missing” translates the Niphal of paqad [TH6485, ZH7212], a verb with a broad semantic range. Here the point is not simply that a tribe is missing, but rather that they are missed (i.e., their absence is noticed and felt; cf. NIDOTTE 3.657-663).

21:4 Early the next morning the people built an altar. Having just offered sacrifices at Bethel (20:26), their construction of an altar seems strange. After entering the land, Israel was not to construct altars anywhere they wished (Deut 12) but only at the site where Yahweh placed his name. Even the more liberal law in Exod 20:24 only allowed construction of an altar where Yahweh commemorated his name. More importantly, the law in Deut 12:5-9 explicitly contrasts the stable location of the sanctuary after the settlement with the prior practice, described as “each doing what was right in his own eyes,” the identical formulation found in 17:6 and 21:25, the only other places this idiom appears in this form. The author has already identified Shiloh as the valid sanctuary in contrast with Dan (18:31), and now the only explicit link to Deuteronomy’s centralization law in Judges comes at this climactic moment to delegitimize the Bethel practice.

presented their burnt offerings and peace offerings on it. As with 20:26, the Israelites conspicuously omit sin or guilt offerings from their illegitimate worship.

21:5 Then they said. There is no sign that God has given any guidance. The Israelites’ manipulation of the mechanisms of their religion finally brought them to a point where they must simply make up a course of action.

Who among the tribes of Israel did not join us at Mizpah? Apparently failing to find an answer after appealing to God, the people hunt for anyone who neglected to attend the solemn tribal assembly (Niditch 2008:209). The narrator’s description of the assembly in 20:1-11 stresses that all Israel, all the tribes, elders, and people were in fact represented, but ironically, it ends up that those who were most needed to help Israel out of the jam in which they have placed themselves are those who neglected the great assembly at Mizpah!

they had taken a solemn oath in the LORD’s presence, vowing that anyone who refused to come would be put to death. This was a second voluntary oath that seemed like a good idea at the time and was not reported in ch 20. This oath and the one reported in 21:1 control the episodes that follow. The assembly in ch 20 emerges more and more as a horrible mistake since one vow taken there must be employed to negate the effects of the other vow taken on the same occasion.

21:6 The Israelites felt sorry. The two vignettes with which the book closes each begin with reference to Israel’s pity on Benjamin (21:15). This pity, following so hard on their uncontrolled rage and ungoverned destruction of the self-same tribe, points to their utter moral and spiritual cluelessness. Though utterly self-centered, they could not see their fatally contradicted state. Thus, they experienced remorse, not repentance.

cut off. The verb gada‘ [TH1438, ZH1548] also forms the basis of the name Gideon, offering a possible resonance with another story in the book since the verb itself appears nowhere else in the book (Block 1999:572). The term is more forceful than merely “cut off”; it is better rendered with “lopped off, chopped off” (Burney 1920:489).

21:7 How can we find wives for the few who remain, since we have sworn by the LORD not to give them our daughters in marriage? The same question follows the Israelite’s second expression of pity (21:16), which also goes on to cite the “not my daughter!” vow (21:17-18).

21:8 Jabesh-gilead. Apart from this story, the town figures centrally and exclusively in the story of Saul, thus continuing the author’s habit of linking decadent Israel in various subtle ways to the kingship of Saul (Burney 1920:490; cf. 1 Sam 11; 31:11-13). Jabesh-gilead lay somewhere along the Wadi el-Yabis, which empties from the east into the Jordan River about two miles south of the Sea of Galilee. Tell Maqlub, up the wadi, about six miles east of the Jordan, possesses Iron Age I remains and is a likely site for Jabesh-gilead. Ancient roads, like modern ones, crossed the wadi at this strategic location (ABD 3.594-595).

21:9 For after they counted all the people, no one from Jabesh-gilead was present. This detail, the roll call of the assembly, did not appear in ch 20, adding to the impression of unfolding, unforeseen consequences issuing from a series of impulsive and imprudent actions taken at that assembly. Moreover, given the utterly improper and illegitimate nature of that assembly, perhaps the citizens of Jabesh-gilead sat out the meeting because they wanted nothing to do with the hasty rage contemplated there. Their dissident position would inspire resentment by those who attended and participated in the travesty of tribal justice perpetrated in ch 20. The supreme irony resides in the fact that, having not attended the assembly, the men of Jabesh-gilead had likewise not taken the oath, and so were perfectly free to give their daughters to the men of Benjamin had a proper series of marriage negotiations taken place. Some negotiation might have provided a suitable explanation for their absence, allowing for a more humane outcome. Such was not on the minds of the Israelite leaders.

21:10 So the assembly sent 12,000 of their best warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. The casual manner in which the extermination of Israelite men, wives, mothers, sons, and daughters is ordered takes a step past the haste and rage of ch 20. At least there divine moral standards could be cited as a pretext for their unwarranted and unsanctioned war. But the death order for Jabesh-gilead derives from an arbitrary vow impulsively taken by the nation.

21:11 Completely destroy. Only twice in Judges does the author use verbs from this root (kh-r-m [TH2763, ZH3049]), traditionally translated “put to the ban, totally destroy.” In fact, the verb denotes essentially the total devotion of something to Yahweh such that it can be used for no other purpose. While this radical consignment to Yahweh often takes the form of destruction, it need not always imply it. Total devotion is the key. Here, however, it carries the meaning of utter destruction even though all signs of devotion to Yahweh are absent! Rather than proving that the word simply means “totally destroy,” the usage here points to the complete separation of the institution of kherem from any vital recognition of Yahweh. The victims are exterminated, but no dimension of devotion to Yahweh appears.

all the males and every woman who is not a virgin. The delicacy of the word choice should not prevent the reader from realizing that they are talking about the wholesale slaughter of Israelite women and men of all ages, whose only crime was their absence from an assembly that should not have occurred at all and that bore only bitter fruit.

21:12 young virgins who had never slept with a man. The text piles up the phrases by which female virginity may be indicated: “virgin” (bethulah [TH1330, ZH1435]), “who had not known a man,” (’asher lo’ yada‘ah ’ish [TH3045, ZH3359]) and “to the bed of a male,” which translates lemishkab zakar [TH4904, ZH5435]. The term “bed” derives its potential for sexual nuance from the use of the verb shakab [TH7901, ZH8886] (to lie) as a polite idiom for sexual intercourse (cf. Num 31:17-18, 35). The term appears also in prohibitions of homosexual activity in which “the bed of a woman” carries the sense “the way one lies with a woman” (Lev 18:22; 20:13). The focus on these virgins links this story to that of Jephthah and his daughter, another virgin (bethulah) who had not “known a man” and whose life changed irrevocably because of a vow that never should have been made by the dominant man in her life (11:37-40).

the camp at Shiloh. The setting unaccountably shifts from Bethel (21:2) to Shiloh. However awkward for the plot’s flow, the shift foreshadows the action at the end of the chapter, which occurs at Shiloh. More importantly, the author held up Shiloh as the legitimate alternative to Dan in 18:31. This note cast a shadow over the references to Bethel, and indeed, all other sacred sites in chs 19–20. With every other sacred institution of Israel now stained by the self-willed, arrogant actions of the Israelites—the assembly, the oracle, the Ark, Phinehas, warfare traditions, even Moses (cf. 18:30)—the author now shows the careening nation’s sights fixing on the last bastion of orthodoxy, Shiloh.

in the land of Canaan. This description of Shiloh’s location is puzzling if Shiloh were already an Israelite sanctuary, which the book does indeed assume. “Land of Canaan” might have been the proper name of the region in political speech, but could also simply refer to the land west of the Jordan (Burney 1920:491). The reference cannot be to the Shiloh region still being a “Canaanite enclave” (Cundall 1968:212) since archaeological evidence strongly points to it being a center for many new Israelite villages (see note on 21:19). Reference to Canaan is infrequent in Judges, clustering principally in the first chapter, where it appears 17 times. The mention of Canaan here might form an inclusio. More likely, by labeling the environs of Shiloh as “in the land of Canaan,” the author might intend a biting satire: Israel is little different from Canaan, and the difference might be to Canaan’s favor (Boling 1975:293; Block 1999:576-577).

21:13 the remaining people of Benjamin. “People” should be “men” or simply “Benjaminites” since the story turns on the absence of Benjaminite women.

21:14 the 400 women . . . were given to them as wives. To slaughter a young woman’s family and capture her, drag her to another place, then force her to marry a man she has never met, might not be as appalling a fate as the one suffered by the concubine in ch 19, but it certainly entails a monstrous violation. The women, still grieving their slaughtered parents, brothers and sisters, and other relatives, were stripped of all familial identity only to face a compulsory marriage. The alacrity with which the Israelites dispose of these young women’s past and future comes remarkably close in spirit to the coldness of the Levite, equally unmoved by his concubine’s suffering.

there were not enough women for all of them. A shortage of victims only obstructs the Israelites for a moment. Following the pattern of the story, every “solution” creates a problem, and here the extermination of Jabesh-gilead still did not provide enough wives for all the Benjaminites, leading to the final plan that will carry the willful moral arrogance of the Israelites right onto their most hallowed ground, the home of the ­Tabernacle, Shiloh.

21:15 The people felt sorry for Benjamin. The final episode is launched by a second fit of Israelite pity for Benjamin. Given the appalling results of their first pity-motivated plan, the reader truly fears what might happen next. The Benjaminites, originally set up as the bad guys, are now the only persons for whom the Israelites seem to feel sorry.

the LORD had made this gap. Amazingly, the crisis resulted wholly from the Israelites “doing what was right in their own eyes.” Nevertheless, the author either attributed the events to Yahweh’s action, or he was reflecting the perceptions of the Israelites, who had already implicitly blamed Yahweh for the near extermination of the Benjaminites, though it resulted from their military campaign and overzealous vows (Block 1999:573).

21:16 the women of the tribe of Benjamin are dead. The killing of the women appears especially heinous. Deuteronomy had even protected the mother bird from the hunter when a bird’s nest falls to the ground (Deut 22:6-7), but Israel heedlessly slaughtered all the women of Benjamin, and many more at Jabesh-gilead. “Dead” translates nishmedah [TH8045, ZH9012], “are destroyed, wiped out.” More tellingly, by adopting a passive form instead of saying, “whom we destroyed,” the elders engage in exactly the kind of evasive narration that characterized the Levite in 20:4-7.

21:17 heirs. Heb., yerushah [TH3425, ZH3772]; it seems to refer to the thing possessed, referring in other places to the Transjordan territory, which is the possession of Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh (Josh 1:15; 12:6-7), or to the lands possessed by the Edomites and Moabites (Deut 2:5, 9, 19; 3:20). The term might indeed mean “hereditary possession,” but still denotes the thing possessed, not the possessors, so that “heirs” should be corrected (Soggin 1981:299). The crisis intertwines two distinct issues. Without wives, the remaining men of Benjamin have no offspring and the tribe vanishes. Since Yahweh had given Israel the land as a grant to the tribes and families of Israel, the loss of a whole tribe would throw their allotment into limbo. The elders here are concerned to protect the actual territory that was the hereditary possession of Benjamin. In the OT, land tenure is the idiom and currency of divine and human faithfulness. Preserving an orderly title-history maintained the integrity of Yahweh’s promise, underlining the tragedy of an entire tribe’s annihilation—something perhaps the Israelites should have considered in their assembly and especially in their rampage of 20:48.

the survivors. Saul, a Benjaminite, would likely have been a descendant of one of these survivors (Block 1999:574, n. 379). And therefore, in his line, would likely have been a matriarch from Jabesh-gilead.

so that an entire tribe of Israel is not wiped out. In the name of not wiping out the Benjaminites, whom they actually had planned to wipe out, the Israelites had wiped out another whole community. The contrast between their solicitude for Benjamin and their callous disregard for the lives of their other fellow Israelites bounds on the obscene.

21:18 But we cannot give them our own daughters in marriage because we have sworn with a solemn oath that anyone who does this will fall under God’s curse. The author repeatedly drives home that the very fate from which they swore to save their own daughters, they were perfectly happy to impose on other peoples’ daughters.

21:19 Then they thought of the . . . festival of the LORD. The Hebrew only says “Right now the (pilgrim) feast of Yahweh [is happening] in Shiloh every day.” The term for festival/feast (khag [TH2282, ZH2504]) signifies a pilgrim festival to which Israelites traveled, as opposed to local festivals. It is cognate to the Arabic term hajj, which denotes the pilgrimage to Mecca. The term also suggests a processional or circular-dance, which fits the story here as the woman process or dance in the vineyards. Some scholars think the term’s etymology suggests a rotating or annual feast, which is plausible. It is the regular term indicating the annual feasts of the Israelite liturgical calendar (NIDOTTE 2.20-21). Other considerations (below) suggest the feast in question was the Festival of Booths/Tabernacles. The elders here appear to think of the festival suddenly, which suggests perhaps they had not been in the habit of attending it or did not even know exactly what it was about (Boling 1975:293; Block 1999:580).

annual. The expression miyyamim yamimah [TH3117, ZH3427] (from days to days) appears only four other times in the OT. Two, as here, designate the festival in Shiloh (1 Sam 1:3; 2:19). Elsewhere in Judges it occurs only in 11:40, forming yet another tie between these women and Jephthah’s daughter, all victims of vows.

Shiloh, south of Lebonah and north of Bethel, along the east side of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem. The author precisely locates Shiloh east of the watershed ridge road north of Bethel, where today sits the 7.5-acre site of Seilun at the north end of a fertile, well-watered valley. The Bible nowhere tells how Shiloh came into Israelite possession. Joshua 18:1 reports that Israelites set up the tent of meeting at Shiloh, which served as the administrative center for the distribution of the remaining land. According to Josh 22:19, 29, this was the only legitimate altar in Israel, being the only one “in front of the Tabernacle”—hence, the controversy over the Transjordan altar. Subsequent narratives report an annual festival of Yahweh celebrated there (1 Sam 1–2). Both 21:19-21 and 1 Sam 1:13-14 link wine with this festival. The only festival related to vineyards known from the Pentateuch was the Festival of Tabernacles, which occurred after the ingathering of corn, new wine, and oil. This festival specifically mandates rejoicing and celebration and more alcohol consumption than usual (Lev 23:33-44; Deut 16:13-15; cf. Deut 14:22-27; De Vaux 1965:496). The Ark was taken from Shiloh into battle before being captured by the Philistines, who probably destroyed Shiloh at that time (c. 1050 BC). The Bible mentions Shiloh as an occupied site only once afterwards, in 1 Kgs 14:4. The archaeology of Shiloh fits the biblical narrative well. A Canaanite religious center in the Late Bronze Age, Shiloh was abandoned c. 1350 BC until its reoccupation and reconstruction c. 1150 BC. Though surrounded by numerous new villages based on mixed agriculture and pastoralism, characterized by the excavator as proto-Israelite, Shiloh evidences no routine residential functions, but was an administrative and distributional center. A large east–west-oriented rectangular area showing signs of leveling and smoothing with tools has provoked speculation that the Tabernacle, perhaps within an enclosure, was placed here. The site suffered destruction by burning c. 1050 BC and shows only scanty occupation afterwards (ABD 5.1069-1072).

21:20 They told. Lit., “they commanded” (tsawah [TH6680, ZH7422]).

hide in the vineyards. The term “hide” (’arab [TH693, ZH741]) is the term for “ambush,” used for the Israelite stratagem to lure Benjamin into a vulnerable position (20:29, 33, 36, 37, 38), and used of the Philistines waiting to trap Samson (16:2, 9, 12). It also recollects the ambushes set in the conclusion of the Abimelech story (9:25, 32, 34, 43). The final chapter thus resonates with other entrapments in the book, contributing to its climactic effect.

21:21 When you see. The particle hinneh [TH2009, ZH2180], often mistranslated as “behold!” or some other exclamation, connotes immediacy, either in time, space, or reasoning. Here it should be understood to mean “as soon as you see,” suggesting the men needed to be on the watch to seize their moment and their woman.

the young women of Shiloh. These were not likely residents, since Shiloh does not appear to be a normal city where Israelites resided (see note on 21:19). Rather, these women were far from home, enjoying the high festivities of the Festival of Tabernacles, for which rejoicing was prescribed. The express identification of the women of Jabesh-gilead as virgins (21:12) and the author’s stress on the virginity of Jephthah’s daughter (11:38-39) indicates a concern to make this point when it matters. That the text says nothing about the virginity of the “daughters of Shiloh” is therefore noteworthy.

the vineyards. A festival connected with bringing in the vintage appears also in the Abimelech story (9:27). A vineyard also provides the scene for Samson’s ambush by the lion (14:5-9). Ancient literature presents several stories of mass abductions of women for the purpose of coerced marriages (Soggin 1981:304-305).

take one. The word appears elsewhere in the OT only in Ps 10:9, where it alludes to the way a lion seizes (khatap [TH2414, ZH2642]) its prey. The word ’arab [TH693, ZH741] (cf. 21:20) occurs with it in Ps 10:9. In the Aramaic of the Targums, the term refers to violent seizure (NIDOTTE 2.106).

to be your wife! Like the maidens of Jabesh-gilead, these women were forced into marriages with men whom they had not chosen, nor whom their families had chosen for them. While their trauma might not equal that of the Jabesh-gileadite women, nor that of the violated concubine, their futures had been wrested from them by force. Whether or not the present passage implies rape, it certainly was violation.

21:22 when their fathers and brothers come to us. The honor of the women will be a matter of concern for their fathers and brothers, unlike the previous 400 women who no longer had fathers and brothers to care for their honor. Genesis 34 illustrates how serious brothers in tribal societies could be about the honor of their sister. Following the seduction of their sister Dinah by Shechem, her brothers Levi and Simeon massacred Shechem and all the men of his town—all because Hamor had “defiled their sister.” Thus, the leaders of Israel needed a plan to assuage the wrath of these fathers and brothers.

protest. The term rib [TH7378, ZH8189]) speaks of more than mere protest or complaint, regularly implying a lawsuit or sharp dispute (Soggin 1981:299). Other than the most obvious source of their protest, the lack of bride-wealth given for the women could add a deeper dimension of offense, as the laws of captive brides suggest (cf. Exod 22:16-17; Deut 22:28-29; Matthews 2004:199-200). Bride-wealth was not a commercial “price” paid for a woman, but was an expression of the bond between the two families created by the marriage. Among pastoralists, as the woman bore children in her new family, the sheep, goats, or cattle given to the girl’s family likewise reproduced in a continuing, reciprocal tie. Often the original animals were returned after they had given birth, removing altogether the aspect of purchase. In most cultures, a woman for whom no bride-wealth was given was shamed, along with her family, and might even be the very definition of “concubine,” which returns to the beginning of this story in ch 19. The deed done here violated not only the girls and their families, but the whole institution of marriage.

Please be sympathetic. Lit., “have mercy.” Mercy is the one quality utterly absent from the entire tale.

Let them have your daughters, for we didn’t find wives for all of them when we destroyed Jabesh-gilead. And you are not guilty of breaking the vow since you did not actually give your daughters to them in marriage. Given the circumstances, this bit of casuistic reasoning again seems painfully disconnected from the alarming realities conveyed in the story. In fact, a strain of Pharisaism runs through the entire chapter. Fresh from the bloodiest engagements of the book, the Israelites and their leaders applied their minds to evading the technical obligations of conflicting oaths while the bodies of the slain stack up like cordwood. Worse, Lev 5:4-6 and Lev 27:13, 31, etc. reveal that Yahweh’s covenant included a recognition that people would indeed make rash, unwise oaths, and made provision for release and redemption (Younger 2002:384-385). Redemption, however, seemed the last thing on the minds of the elders. Instead, by alluding to the battle, the leaders possibly issued a vague threat to the girls’ families, while simultaneously offering them a way to evade any guilt for breaching the vow. When all else fails, they fall back on intimidation and casuistry.

21:24 the people of Israel departed by tribes and families, and they returned to their own homes. The serenity of the ending creates such a powerful sense of dissociated affect that the reader is shocked. From an all-night gang rape, to dismemberment, to the slaughter of a town and a regional rampage, the Israelites had moved to another war of annihilation, the defilement of a sanctuary, and the shaming of families from all over Israel at the pilgrim festival—and the story now simply reports that everyone went home and got back to their lives, setting up the author’s final summary (21:25), repeated from 17:6.

COMMENTARY [Text]

The first paragraph (21:1-5) occupies the central unit in a five-part structure as analyzed by Younger (2002:347), here modified slightly:

A. 19:1-30. Rape and Dismemberment of the Woman (Problem)

B.   20:1-48. Destruction of Gibeah and Benjamin (Solution)

C.   21:1-5. No Wives for Benjamin—Extinction Looms (Problem)

B’.   21:6-14. Destruction of Jabesh-gilead (Solution 1)

A’.   21:15-25. Seizure of the Shilonite Virgins (Solution 2)

This paragraph, revealing a detail about the previous account that was so far unknown, unfolds more complications resulting from the Israelite action of chapter 20. The Levite and the violated woman have vanished from the story.

The concluding chapter of Judges unfolds the final, climactic outrages that mark this era. Israel’s most sacred traditions and institutions swirl into the dark vortex of the nation’s arrogant, self-centered repudiation of any standard of right beyond that which they chose for themselves. Beyond the service of false gods, like pagans, the Israelites began to serve a godlessness in which religious traditions merely provided validation for their own willfulness. When this corruption reached Shiloh, it invaded the very heart of Israel’s identity as Yahweh’s people.

The story in many ways is agonizingly monotonous. The Israelites easily pass from one crime to the next in a crescendo of atrocities, each perpetrated more readily than the last. The first act required at least a show of legitimacy, and so in chapter 20 the Israelites made a show of process, though without any reality. Their outrage led them to impulsively annihilate Gibeah and torch all of Benjamin. But chapter 21 recounts how the Israelites, well past their rage and feeling remorse for Benjamin’s decimation, calmly and easily decreed utter annihilation, a godless kherem [TH2764, ZH3051], against an Israelite town for the most trivial of reasons: its people’s absence from the warped convocation of chapter 20, in which their choices, rituals, and vows only accelerated the atrocities. By the end of the story, the reader can think of no misdeed this community could not perpetrate, no human feeling it would not trample.

The monotony of the story is only exceeded by its insanity. The painful ironies of their behavior, so obvious to the reader, are totally invisible to the Israelites and their elders. Fixated on providing wives for Benjamin, procuring peace among warring men by trafficking in women, every other good is jettisoned and every evil embraced. Another town goes up in flames. More screams and blood, more weeping and grief. Now, instead of one woman violated to save the skin of one coldhearted Levite, 400 women have their lives and families ripped from them, socially dismembered, as they are handed over in order to preserve the lineage of 600 men who put their lives at risk to defend a town full of rapists. To supply wives for the remaining 200 men, young women are violated amid their celebrations at a sacred festival at Shiloh. The most serious of sins, committed only under the pressure of the strongest of passions, often become quite easy once the human heart has become inured to the defilement.

Jeremiah described this mind-numbing, blinding power of sin vividly in Jeremiah 2:20-25. Using the analogy of a wife who becomes wayward, then turns to prostitution, Jeremiah describes how Judah at first sinned by choice, but then experienced a dark transformation of character, a choice vine that suddenly degenerated into wild stock. This degeneration of character imprints an indelible stain on the nature of the person or community, which Jeremiah compared to dirty hands that never come clean no matter how harshly they are washed. The encroaching bondage of sin becomes clearer as the people deny ever having abandoned Yahweh (Jer 2:23), even though the prophet points to their obvious chaotic, disordered behavior, which resembles the lust-crazed, erratic movements of a she-camel in heat. A wholly disordered self emerges in which the people now become unable even to see the obvious harm caused by their conduct as they descend into bondage (Jer 2:24), culminating in a peculiar mix of flippancy and despair (Jer 2:25). In the same vein, the Israelites, after the chain of horrors burns out, simply all go home and resume their lives. Living in their rebuilt cities, enjoying their farms, and going about normal life. Did they ever think of the cost in slaughter and mayhem of their pastoral tranquility? Did a Benjaminite man ever look across the kitchen fire at his wife, a daughter of Jabesh-gilead, and wonder what genuine covenantal love in marriage would feel like? Even after life seems “back to normal,” if the normalcy has come at the cost of righteousness and covenant love, everyone will be wearing a mask, with dead eyes peering through the eyeholes.

The problem of Israel, as diagnosed by the author of Judges, is not simply doing evil in Yahweh’s eyes, but the deeper idolatry of self in which they do what is right in their own eyes. From this dark center, this black hole at the core of human nature, all pain and evil issue. Ascribing all the horrors and insanity of chapters 17–21 to kinglessness not only argues for the need for a king, it powerfully defines what the role of the king must be. All that the community has failed to become, manifested so poignantly in these chapters, becomes God’s agenda for his chosen king. Kings in Israel were not called to exercise power, create opulent palaces, temples, and capital cities, but to stand as guardians of Yahweh’s covenant, upholding the spirit and letter of his moral law. Just as Adam was to tend and guard the garden, the king was to tend and protect the covenant people. The king was to uphold the case of the helpless and vulnerable in society. Deuteronomy 17:14-20 clearly sets this standard for kingship. The king is not to accumulate all the trappings of power that mark the rulers of other nations: military resources (horses), sexual excess (multiplied wives), and wealth. The king’s first obligation is to be a student of the law of Yahweh, to live in the fear of Yahweh, and lead as a humble servant of Yahweh with a heart not exalted above his brothers and sisters. Such a king thus has a task distinct from the one confronted by Israel’s judges. The judges delivered Israel from its enemies, but the king’s highest calling might have been to deliver Israel from itself.

As Israel’s history progressed, king after king failed to deliver on the hope of sinful, arrogant human hearts bowing to divine rule. The king was supposed to embody the divine word in the Scriptures, which he was commissioned to copy and study. Surely Israel began to ask whether such a king would ever, in fact, sit on the throne in Jerusalem. Indeed, Israel’s story had far to go before the day a King would come who was, in fact, the embodiment in flesh of Yahweh’s total word to humanity. This King would do what none of his predecessors could. He would enter the citadel of human arrogance and self-imploded sinfulness and break its power, restoring humans, as individuals and as transformed communities, to righteousness, integrity, and holiness. This King, Jesus Christ, would accomplish his work not by applying escalating levels of coercion, as the men in this final story of Judges did, but by assuming the place occupied by the victims in these final chapters, most of whom were women. He would be tortured, beaten, mocked, and abused through a long night of agony culminating in his death. Unlike the victims of chapters 19–21, this king would have the power to resist, but he would choose the place of the victim, the servant. In his suffering and death (over which he would be victorious by entrusting himself to his Father), he would shatter the bondage of sinful arrogance that grips the human heart. From the radiant center of redeemed human nature, true community, justice, peace, and redemption could extend to all of creation.

For the Christian believer, the King has come, not to save us from our external, political enemies by acts of coercive power, but to save us from ourselves, by his sacrificial redeeming love. For the author and original readers of Judges, however, that was a hero story yet to be told.