Judges 20:34

ten thousand chosen men Apparently the men who had formed the ambush: they now moved from their place of concealment, and posted themselves between the city and the Benjamites, who were chasing the men of Israel, so as to cut off the possibility of retreat.

evil was close upon them lit. was about to touch them; cf. Judges 20:41 evil had touched them. Cf. Joshua 8:14. The recurrence of the words in Judges 20:41 has led to the suggestion (made by Torrey) that Judges 20:35 a once stood after Judges 20:41, and that a scribe, glancing from the similar endings of Judges 20:41; Judges 20:34, accidentally transposed Judges 20:35 a to their present position, where they destroy the natural order of events. The composition of this chapter is so entangled that we may readily assume a disturbance of the text here as in other places (e.g. Judges 20:22 f.).

An alternative reconstruction is proposed by Budde, who assigns the passage to A: -And Israel set liers in wait against Gibeah round about (Judges 20:29), while all the men of Israel rose up out of their place, and set themselves in array at Baal-tamar (Judges 20:33 a). And there came over against Gibeah 10,000 chosen men out of all Israel, and the battle was sore (Judges 20:34 a). Thereupon the liers in wait of Israel brake forth out of their place west of Geba (Judges 20:33 b); but they knew not that evil was close upon them" (Judges 20:34 b); then follow Judges 20:36; Judges 20:36. This gives a fairly lucid order; but it is based upon a rather different treatment of the chapter from that which is being followed.