Judges 21:1-25

Judes 21. Benjamin Saved from Extinction. Two versions of this story have been editorially combined. The second is evidently the older. It was stated that the children of Israel came together as one man (Judges 20:1; Judges 20:11), but it now appears that Jabesh-gilead, the city that was so loyal to Saul the Benjamite (1 Samuel 11:1 f; 1 Samuel 31:11 f., 2 Samuel 2:5 f; 2 Samuel 21:12 f.), did not send a single man to fight against Benjamin. For this sin, all the inhabitants are devoted, except the maidens, who are given, willing or unwilling, to the Benjamite remnant. The second version (Judges 21:16) is quite independent of the first, and entirely different in spirit. It is unquestionably very ancient, and the glimpse which it gives of an autumn feast of Yahweh at Shiloh, when young maidens performed choral dances in the vineyards, is full of interest. The Benjamite marriage by capture strongly resembles the famous rape of the Sabine women (Livy, i. 9).

Judges 21:22. Text uncertain. For complain unto us read strive with you (LXX). With an emended text Judges 21:22 b may run, Be gracious to them, for if ye had given them (your daughters) unto them, you would surely now be guilty. The rest of the verse, Because. battle, is an editorial attempt to join the early Shiloh story to the late Jabesh-gilead one.