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Judges 20:46-48

Yesterday we ended with all the other tribes of Israel demanding justice from the tribe of Benjamin for the death of the Levite’s concubine.

Now, the Levite didn’t really tell the entire story about how he was the one who gave her up to the gang to save his own skin. I think he had a bit more responsibility to take in this entire situation than he did. Would it have made a difference, I don’t have a clue, here’s what happens next.

These eleven tribes decide the tribe of Benjamin must pay for this atrocity. So they raise an army and go to Benjamin, demand that the tribe hand over the guilty parties. And that is probably the right thing to do – hand over the guilty parties. But, true to the philosophy of relativism, the tribe of Benjamin basically say who are the other tribes to tell us our people acted wrongly? So they go to war, and it’s a devastating, bloody civil war. After three days of fighting, sixty-five thousand people die before the tribe of Benjamin is defeated. Judges 20:46–48 (NIV) gives us a little glimpse into how this civil war ended.

Judges 20:46-48 (NIV) On that day twenty-five thousand Benjamite swordsmen fell, all of them valiant fighters. 47 But six hundred of them turned and fled into the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, where they stayed four months. 48 The men of Israel went back to Benjamin and put all the towns to the sword, including the animals and everything else they found. All the towns they came across they set on fire.

Seriously…the tribe of Benjamin is going to defend what happened, regardless of the entire circumstance. It still seems like the tribe of Benjamin could have avoided – along with all of Israel – this terrible bloody civil war – regardless of what the gang did wrong. The criminals should have been handed over.

If you continue to read the next chapter, you will see it’s not over yet. In the aftermath of the war another problem emerges. The other 11 tribes of Israel are feeling guilty about basically wiping out the tribe of Benjamin. Oh – there were 600 men who ran off to save their lives, but the other tribes went back and made certain that everyone else including the livestock was dead.

And to top it off, if they are going to rectify their wrong, the other 11 tribes need to come up with wives for the tribe of Benjamin to re-populate. The problem is, the other 11 tribes took an oath not to give any of their daughters to them.

So, here’s what the other tribes do, they raid a city untouched by the war and kill everyone except the virgin girls, whom they cart off to become the wives for the 600 men of the tribe of Benjamin. It still isn’t enough – they only come up with 400. So they snatch even more young women from one of the other tribes which is having some sort of celebration. That way the tribe would be able to save face and say they didn’t give their daughters to Benjamin, instead that the daughters were kidnapped and stolen.

This is a completely broken society. The people of God have fallen victim to civil war. Then, when they realize the error of their ways, they resort to murder and human trafficking to “fix” the problem they created.

The very last words of Judges are, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (21:25) It is both an ending and an introduction: Welcome to the world in which everyone does what they think is right.