Judges 20:15

_AND THE CHILDREN OF BENJAMIN WERE NUMBERED AT THAT TIME OUT OF THE CITIES TWENTY AND SIX THOUSAND MEN THAT DREW SWORD, BESIDE THE INHABITANTS OF GIBEAH, WHICH WERE NUMBERED SEVEN HUNDRED CHOSEN MEN._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

Verse Judges 20:15. _TWENTY AND SIX THOUSAND_] Some copies of the _Septuagint_ have twenty-three thousand, others twenty-five thousand. The _Vulgate_ has this latter number; the _Complutensian_ Polyglot and Josephus have the same....

Comparing the numbers here with those in Numbers 1; Numbers 26, it is seen that in the case both of the Benjamites and the Israelites the numbers are diminished by about one-third, i. e., they appear as about two-thirds only of what they were at the last numbering in the plains of Moab. This diminution seems to indicate disturbed and harassing times. With this agrees the mention of the cities, as containing the whole Benjamite population. The inference is that the open country and unwalled villages were not safe, but that the Benjamites kept the Canaanites in subjection only by dwelling in fortified towns. Judges 20:16 See...

EXPOSITION JUDGES 20:1 WENT OUT, _i.e._ from their several homes to the place of meeting. THE CONGREGATION. The technical term (not, however, found in Samuel and Kings, except in 1 Kings 12:20) for the whole Israelitish people (Exodus 12:3; Exodus 16:1, Exodus 16:2, Exodus 16:9; Le Exodus 4:15;...

AND THE CHILDREN OF BENJAMIN WERE NUMBERED AT THAT TIME OUT OF THE CITIES,.... All that they could muster up, and gather together out of their several cities, were no more man than TWENTY AND SIX THOUSAND MEN THAT DREW THE SWORD able bodied men fit for war, and expert in it: BESIDE THE INHABITANTS OF GIBEAH, WHICH WERE NUMBERED SEVEN HUNDRED CHOSEN MEN young, stout, and strong, and in all but 26,700; and what are these to an army of 400,000 men, or however 360,000 that came up against Gibeah, while 40,000 were employed in getting provisions for them? Josephus g makes the number of the Benjaminites still less, no more than 25,600, led thereunto by an later account, that 25,000 Benjaminites were slain in the third and last battle, and only six hundred escaped to a rock for safety, not considering that 1000 men may well be supposed to be lost in the two first battles; for it would be stra...

CHAPTER 20 THE HORRIBLE WAR _ 1. The Levite's story (Judges 20:1)_ 2. The uprising (Judges 20:8) 3. The slaying of the Israelites (Judges 20:12) 4. Benjamin exterminated except six hundred men (Judges 20:26) This and the concluding chapter bring before us the awful harvest of what had been sown. “For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). They had sown the wind and now reaped the whirlwind. Violence and lawlessness result in the slaying of 40,000 Israelites and 23,000 of the tribe of Benj

JUDGES 20. THE OUTRAGE AVENGED.The congregation (LXX Synagô gç) is a post-exilic term. The words as one man suggest a unity of action such as was not secured till long after the time of the Judges. The assembly of the people of God was a phrase often heard in the second Temple, but not in the days of the Judges. Judges 20:2. Contrast the army mustered against Sisera, 40,000 men strong (Judges 5:8). Judges 20:10. Each of the three clauses means precisely the same thing. Judges 20:15. The figures are in some confusion, the size of the Benjamite force being indicated three times, and each time differently (15, 35, 4

The figures in this account are inconsistent. The entire muster of Benjamites is reckoned here at 26,700; while Judges 20:35_; Judges 20:47_give a total 25,700, and Judges 20:44 a total 25,600. Some mss. of the LXX (cod. A, Luc. etc.), followed by Vulgate, read _twenty and five thousand men_here (see marg.); but this may be merely an attempt to harmonize with the numbers in Judges 20:35_; Judges 20:47_. _seven hundred chosen men_ Repeated in Judges 20:16 an

WHICH WERE NUMBERED SEVEN HUNDRED CHOSEN MEN— It is said in the 46th verse, that there fell of the Benjamites on the third day twenty-five thousand. In the 47th verse, that there remained from the slaughter six hundred, which number makes twenty-five thousand six hundred men; there remained therefore four hundred to make up the twenty-six thousand, besides the Gibeathites: we may suppose these men to have perished in the two battles of the first and second day; for the sacred history does not relate how many fell in the victorious army. For the phrase, _left-handed,_ see the note on chap. Judges 3:15. The excellence of the Benjamites, noted in the next clause, has been remarkable in men of other countries, particularly in the men of the islands anciently called _Baleares,_ where they were bred from children to hit a mark with a stone slung out of a sling, or else to lose their breakfas

_Seven Hundred Left-handed Men Chosen Judges 20:15-16_ 15 And the children of Benjamin were numbered at that time out of the cities twenty and six thousand men that drew sword, beside the inhabitants of Gibeah, which were numbered seven hundred chosen men. 16 Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss. _8._ Did all the men of Benjamin go to battle? Judges 20:15 When the men of Israel were counted before they crossed Jordan into Canaan, there were 45,600 men twenty years of age and over in Benjamin. Earlier there were 35,400 men able to go to war (Numbers, chapter one). Since these men had been subject to attacks from the nations to the east, it is quite possible that their ranks were