Judges 20:33

_AND ALL THE MEN OF ISRAEL ROSE UP OUT OF THEIR PLACE, AND PUT THEMSELVES IN ARRAY AT BAALTAMAR: AND THE LIERS IN WAIT OF ISRAEL CAME FORTH OUT OF THEIR PLACES, EVEN OUT OF THE MEADOWS OF GIBEAH._ Baal-tamar - a palm grove where Baal was worshipped. The main army of the confederate tribes was drawn up there. OUT OF THE MEADOWS OF GIBEAH - Hebrew, the caves of Gibeah; a hill in which the ambuscades lay hid....

Verse Judges 20:33. _PUT THEMSELVES IN ARRAY AT BAAL-TAMAR_] The Israelites seem to have divided their army into three divisions; one was at Baal-tamar, a second behind the city in ambush, and the third skirmished with the Benjamites _before_ Gibeah....

Baal-tamar is only mentioned here. It took its name from some palm-tree that grew there; perhaps the same as the “palm-tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel” Judges 4:5, the exact locality here indicated, since “the highway” Judges 20:31 along which the Israelites enticed the Benjamites to pursue them, leads straight to Ramah, which lay only a mile beyond the point where the two ways branch off. THE MEADOWS OF GIBEAH - The word rendered “meadow” is only found here. According to its etymology, it ought to mean a “bare open place”, which is particularly unsuitable for an ambush. However, by a change in the vowel-points, without any alteration in the letters, it becomes the common word for “a cavern”....

EXPOSITION JUDGES 20:18 THE HOUSE OF GOD. In this rendering the A.V. follows the Vulgate, which has _in domum Dei, hoc est, in Silo. _But the Septuagint has Βαιθὴλ, and all the ancient authorities, as well as modern commentators, generally agree in rendering it _Bethel. _The reason, which seems a conclusive one, for so doing is that the Hebrew בית אל invariably means Bethel, and that _the house of God _is always expressed in Hebrew by בית האלהים (_beth-ha-elohim_)_. _The conclusion is that at this time the ark of God, with the tabernacle, was at Bethel, which was only seven or eight miles from Shiloh. Bethel would be eight or ten miles from Gibeah, _i.e._ about half way between Shiloh and Gibeah. ASKED COUNSEL. The same phrase as...

AND ALL THE MEN OF ISRAEL ROSE UP OUT OF THEIR PLACE,.... The main body of the army, which fled before Benjamin, when they were come to a proper place, stopped, and rose up out of it, and stood in their own defence: AND PUT THEMSELVES IN ARRAY AT BAALTAMAR; drew up in a line of battle at that place, facing their enemies, in order to engage with them: this place the Targum calls the plains of Jericho, that being the city of palm trees, which Tamar signifies; and so Jarchi interprets it; but these are too far off; it must be some place near Gibeah. Jerom w speaks of a little village in his time in those parts, called Bethamari, and may be thought to be this same place; perhaps in the times of the old Canaanites here was a grove of palm trees, in which Baal was worshipped, from whence it had its name: AND THE LIERS IN WAIT OF ISRAEL CAME FORTH OUT OF THEIR PLACES, EVEN OUT OF THE MEADOWS...

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

MEADOWS. Probably. forest....

_rose up … set themselves in array_ The Israelites had taken up their position opposite Gibeah and then retired northwards (Judges 20:30); now, apparently, after the feigned retreat they take up a second position at a further distance from Gibeah. But this is hardly the natural meaning of the words; _rose up_implies a new action (e.g. Judges 20:19) rather than the repetition of a movement which had already begun. It is in fact difficult to fit Judges 20:33 a into the context. May it then come from the A narrative, and form the sequel of Judges 20:29? This would give us an allusion to the battle, which otherwise is missing from A: after the

_The Defeat of the Benjamites Judges 20:24-48_ 24 And the children of Israel came near against the children of Benjamin the second day, 25 And Benjamin went forth against them out of Gibeah the second day, and destroyed down to the ground of the children of Israel again eighteen thousand men; all these drew the sword. 26 Then all the children of Israel, and all the people, went up, and came unto the house of God, and wept, and sat there before the Lord, and fasted that day until even, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. 27 And the children of Israel inquired of the Lord, (for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days, 28 And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days,) saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother, or shall I cease? And the Lord said,