The men of Israel had sworn. Judges 21 An unreasonable oath C. Ness. 1. It was an oath that flowed from rash rage rather than from real zeal. Men must swear in judgment ( Jeremiah 4:2 ), not when transported with passion, as Israel was now against Benjamin; their fiery spirits stood now in more need of a bridle than of a spur. 2. It was an uncharitable oath, as it was against the repairing of a perishing tribe, which the law of charity bound them to support, and not to see it perish out of the land through the want of their helping hand. 3. It appears unlawful, as it crossed the revealed will of God in Jacob's prophetical blessing upon this tribe ( Genesis 49:27 ), and that of Moses also ( Deuteronomy 33:12 ), both which prophecies had been spoiled had this one of the twelve tribes been extinguished. 4. The performance of this unreasonable oath was likewise bloody and barbarous, for by virtue of their oath their blind zeal transported them to destroy many persons in all those cities of Benjamin who had no hand in that foul act of the men of Gibeah. ( C. Ness. ) One tribe lacking One lacking J. Parker, D. D. This inquiry represents the spirit of the whole Bible; that is all that I have to say. It is indeed not so much an inquiry as a wail, a burst of sorrow, a realised disunion, a shattered kinship. Israel was meant to be foursquare — twelve, without flaw, at every point a noble integer. Benjamin is threatened with extinction, Benjamin is not in the house of God, Bethel, a city literally, but a sanctuary spiritually, and Benjamin is outside. Men should not take these facts with indifference. I have no faith in your indifferent piety, in your piety that can allow any man to be outside, and never ask a question about him or send a message to him. That is not Christianity. From the first Benjamin was a little one, having only some thirty or forty thousand fighting men, a figure that went for nothing in the numbering of old Israel, and over a very delicate and difficult question he came into collision with the rest of Israel. He was alone, and after an almost superhuman resistance he was overborne, all but extirpated, and he went away and hid himself some four months in the rock Rimmon, the inviolable rock of the pomegranate, and there he took account of himself. How many am I? Thousands fell and thousands more; eighteen thousand fell, all men of valour, over against Gibeah towards the sun rising, and we are now dwindled into some six hundred men, and nobody cares for us, and nobody seeks us out. Wait a moment. Perhaps at that very time all Israel was saying, "Are we all here? All but Benjamin. And why is Benjamin not here? O Lord God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to-day one tribe lacking in Israel?" But you are eleven! Yes. What of one? What of one? "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and one of them being gone astray, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go alter the one that is lost, until he find it?" Thrice repeated — that is the way of the dear old Scriptures. Whenever the proper name is repeated, the repetition is the sign of concern, solicitude, anxiety. "Martha, Martha"; "Simon, Simon"; "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem" — the same pathos. "O Lord God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to-day one tribe lacking in Israel?" We see from Bethel what we never saw from the battlefield. Until you have seen the world from the house of God you have never seen it. You have never seen man till you have seen him from the Cross. Keep up the Church. That is the specular tower that is the point of vision. Until you have seen the world religiously you have not seen it, you twaddling, tinkering, niggling reformer. Now you can look at this text as a sentiment, as a discipline, as an encouragement. I. A SENTIMENT. Why? Is not this the human aspect of the solicitude of God's heart? In this respect as well as in others is man made after the image and likeness of God. In all such emotion there is a suggestion infinite in scope and tenderness, a suggestion of humility, family completeness, absolute unselfishness, redemption, forgiveness, reconstruction, everlasting joy, the gathered fractions consolidated into an everlasting integer. But you will have that lost man. And Paul, that marvellous compound of Moses and Christ, honouring the majesty of the law as he always did, yet feeling its weakness in the presence of sin, did he not tremble under the same emotion? He says, "I am in continual sorrow." Great heavens! what is the matter? It is not enough for him that the forces of the Gentiles are moving towards the Cross, that from Midian, Ephraim, and Sheba men are rising to show forth the praises of the Lord. Not enough; what more do you want? "I could wish myself accursed; anathema from Christ and my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. My heart's desire and prayer to God is that Israel might be saved. For see how the doves are flocking to the windows! I know, I know: beautiful! Thank God for it, but" — and who is it that speaks thus? — I would know this man. "I am of the seed of Israel." What tribe? Ah, what tribe? Hush! You want music now — not the blare of the organ but the whisper of the harp. "Of the tribe of Benjamin." Why, that is the tribe that is lacking in the text. Yes. Thus history rolls round in ennobled and amplified repetition and variety — evolution unimaginable in vastness and variety. He is of the tribe of Benjamin. In Judges all Israel mourns that Benjamin was lacking. In the Romans Benjamin mourns that all Israel is away. If you have lost your tears, you have lost your Christianity. The Bible varies a good deal in historical and even moral colour, but it never varies in pity, love, and mercy. From the first God loved man with atoning and redeeming love. We want all the genius, all the poetry, all the letters; we want them and welcome them all if they will be servants in the house of God, and help us in the expression of an inexpressible pity — a contradiction in words, a harmony in experience. I challenge you — graciously and lovingly — and I think you will not find one bare place in all the area of the Book. Let us try it. In Eden there is a promise; in the wilderness there is a tabernacle — a mercy-seat. In Genesis there is "a covenant." In Malachi there is "a book of remembrance." In Exodus "the Lord keeps mercy for thousands, and forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin." In Numbers there will be nothing! Yes, in Numbers "the Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression." Why, what more could He do on Calvary? And that in Numbers, which you thought a bare place. In Judges, "the Lord is grieved for the memory of Israel." In Samuel, when the avenging angel had gone forth He recalled the angel, and "let the lifted thunder drop." But Chronicles — they will be all details, annals, and a field for the higher critics rather to pull to pieces. There will be nothing, I think, in the Chronicles. Will there not? In the Chronicles, God says, "If His people will seek His face and turn away from their wicked ways, He will hear them from heaven. He will forgive their sins. He will heal their land." And as for the Psalms. What need we say of them, or of Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or Ezekiel? They are golden with the love of God. In Hosea God heals the backsliding of His people, and loves them freely. Even James, a man without poetry, a church without a spire, wrote his letter to the twelve tribes — twelve. They were scattered abroad — but no scattering can kill the household of faith. Now is it possible for any tribe to be lacking, to become extinct? Where, for example, is the tribe of Dan? It disappeared beyond record in the 1st Chronicles, and is not named in the Apocalypse, but its few thousand members amalgamated with some other tribe, say, with this very tribe of Benjamin. Yet even in the Apocalypse the number of the tribes is twelve, twelve foundations, and twelve gates of twelve pearls. And we may be absentees, but God's house shall be filled. Now that is the text as a sentiment. A great moan, a most tender, passionate, evangelistic feeling. II. THIS HIGH FEELING HAS ALSO A DISCIPLINARY ASPECT, and therefore there is a whole field of complete and ardent loyalty. When Deborah sang her triumphant song she disclosed the sterner aspect of this case. She mentioned the absentees by name, and consigned them to the withered immortality of oblivion. "Why should there?" said that mother heart, "why should there have been one tribe lacking on that day of the battle? Why?" "Reuben remained among the sheepfolds" and listened to the bleatings of his flock when he ought to have answered the call of the trumpet, and helped to repulse the nine hundred chariots of Sisera. "The Lord will have hold of him yet." Why was he lacking on that day? Oh, he was preoccupied; he sent promises, but he remained at home among the flocks when he ought to have been serving with the army. And some are criticising the sermon who ought to be out saving sinners. Oh, these prior engagements, these domestic excuses, these parliament and council and other engagements that prevent our being at the war. And Gilead abode beyond Jordan, and Dan was concealed in ships, and Asher peered from behind the creeks and wondered how the war was going on. Is it not so with you? Do not hinder your fellow-soldiers if you cannot help them. Any fool can do mischief. Stupidity can sneer at enthusiasm, and we may remain away from the battle. Do you think that is going to interfere with the success of these great evangelistic movements and missionary movements? There is another variety, oh, very singular indeed! There is a lacking, or an absence, which affects great indignation because it has not been sent for. Do you know nothing about that? You do! They stand back for a space, that they may see whether they will be missed. You have heard of these men? They say, "We are just waiting to see whether a circular will be sent to us. One has been sent next door, and we are simply waiting to see." You are not! You are grieving the Spirit of God. Now, there was a band in old Israel who tried this trick in three instances, but I think the third was the last. Once Gideon overthrew the Midianites, and held in his one hand the head of Prince Oreb and in his other hand the head of Prince Zeeb. The Ephraimites chided him severely because they were not sent for — they would have been very glad to have held somebody's dead head in their hands. It was the trick of Ephraim. They tried it once upon the son of the harlot of Gilead. Ephraim said to Jephthah, "When thou passedst over to fight against the children of Ammon, why didst thou not call on us to go with thee?" One can be fully valorous the day after the fight, and when all is dead and gone they say, "Why were not we sent fort" And Jephthah was a bold and plain-spoken man — base-born, but he could not help that — but the Spirit of the Lord was in him, and the wrath of the Divine fire burned in his bones, and he said I will tell you. "Ephraim, hear me; I did once send for you, and you did not come. You did not come, and now that you are trying this stale trick upon others I will put an end to you, at least to a considerable extent," and that day he choked the passages of the Jordan with the carcases of forty-two thousand Ephraimites. So there are two kinds of lacking — a lacking that excites pity and emotion and compassion, and a lacking that excites indignation. Find opportunities. Be on the alert for chances. Watch; thou knowest not when the enemy may come, or the Lord. Be faithful. Remember that Christianity is a battlefield as well as a contemplation and doctrine. Is the whole fighting strength of the Church on the field? Are any enjoying delights of civilisation who ought to be taking part in the war? III. Now, we are looking at it as a discipline, BUT WE MAY LOOK AT IT NEXT AND FINALLY AS AN ENCOURAGEMENT. Some are no longer in the battle, yet they are not lacking in the sense of the text. They are not here — they are here. Even the mighty David waxed faint. He was but seventy when he died. When I say "but seventy" do I not speak carelessly? What a seventy! When he tottered under his weakness in one of his closing battles he nearly fell. In one of his closing battles there was a Philistine who had a sword and was pressing the king most heavily, and it was going badly with King David. The Philistine was hard upon him; hard upon him who slew the lion and the bear and the giant of Gath; hard upon him who made Jerusalem rich with the golden shields of Hadad; and the royal captains rushed to falling David and got around him and said, "Thou shalt go out with us no more to the battle, that they quench not the light of Israel," and they stood up as iron might stand, and to the foe they said, "God save the king," and to David they said — they whispered — "You shall not go with us any more to the battle, that they quench not the light of Israel." Henceforth he was to be lacking, yet not lacking. My dear old septuagenarian or octogenarian, or whatever your age may be, no more to the battle. We would not say that to the enemy; but you shall go out to no more wars; you shall still be with us; you shall pray for us and help us in the Council Chamber, and give us the benefit of your rich experience; but no more to the battle. No, my old friends, we still have you, you are with us as reminiscences, examples, memories, inspirations. "I look round my table," says one and says another; "my boys are not with me as they used to be. I miss them. They used to go with me to the village chapel, but they are lacking now. O Lord God of Israel, why is my son lacking? He is taken up with a language I do not understand. I was trained very simply, believingly, in the great redeeming truths of the gospel, but he talks to me now in a language I cannot understand, and he no more sings the old hymns and goes to the dear old house of prayer." Lacking! Have you brought no word for me this morning? Yes, I have a word for you. He may return. He is going through a very difficult process now; you know your son is a very prosperous man, and prosperity takes a good deal of chastening in order to remain pious. But he may return. I will tell you how he may return. He will have a little child, and she will be the delight of his heart, and when she is about five or six she will sicken, and in the deep dark night she will say to him, "Father, give me one long, long kiss," and she will pass away; and he will look round for some of his books. They will have nothing to say to him, and he will alight upon an old, old book, and he will read, "And Jesus called unto Him a little child"; and he will read, "Suffer little children to come unto Me"; and in secret and in darkness he will drop on his knees at the bedside, and angels will say, "Behold he prayeth." Adversity will do what prosperity cannot do. Loss will be gain. So he may return. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Every man did that which was right in his own eyes Confusion and misery through want of orders S. G. Green, D. D. A visitor was once standing at a friend's door. He knocked, and knocked; but there was nobody to open. Perhaps no one was at home? Oh, yes; there was a noise within, which plainly showed that more than one or two or three were there. Again he knocked, and waited; then at last a servant came. "She was very sorry, but she had been with the children who were all quarrelling." This, then, explained the noise. Sounds of crying and anger were now heard from a room upstairs, while a little fellow ran forward to welcome the visitor. "Why, what's the matter?" "Oh, sir, father and mother are both out, and it is so miserable!" "How so?" "Why, we are all left to do as we like; there is nobody to manage us!" This was strange, was it not? Doing "as they liked" seemed to bring nothing but disorder and misery until father came home again! Now, I do not know whether those parents were wise and careful or not, or whether they could have done better with their family than to leave it so. But I know that at one time the people of God, dwelling in the promised land, were left by Him very much as those children were left. This was perhaps partly a punishment for their wilfulness and sin. They had thought they could manage for themselves very well, and now God let them try. Then there was wisdom and kindness, too, in thus showing them that they needed the care and power of a wiser, mightier One than they. ( S. G. Green, D. D. ).

Benson Commentary Judges 21:1 Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpeh, saying, There shall not any of us give his daughter unto Benjamin to wife. Jdg 21:1 . The men of Israel had sworn in Mizpeh — When they first assembled there in the beginning of this war, after the whole tribe had espoused the quarrel of the men of Gibeah. Saying — They do not here swear the utter extirpation of the tribe, which fell out beyond their expectation, but only not to give their daughters to those men who should survive; justly esteeming them for their villany to be as bad as heathen, with whom they were forbidden to marry. Judges 21:2 And the people came to the house of God, and abode there till even before God, and lifted up their voices, and wept sore; Jdg 21:2 . And lift up their voices and wept sore — Some days after their fury was over, and they coolly considered what they had done in the heat of war, their joy and triumph for their victory were turned into mourning and lamentation, for the loss of so many of their brethren. Judges 21:3 And said, O LORD God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to day one tribe lacking in Israel? Jdg 21:3 . Why is this come to pass? — They had no reason to ask the cause, or by what means it came to pass, which they knew too well; but this is a common expression of grief or complaint. Strange! when they uttered this for the loss of the tribe which they imagined must be extinct, because there were no women left to match with the six hundred men who had saved themselves in the rock Rimmon, that they did not pour forth the deepest expressions of sorrow and contrition for their own wickedness, in having been guilty of such inhumanity toward the innocent among the Benjamites, particularly the women and children, who could not be culpable in any degree. Alas! what crimes is human nature capable of! and what need is there of the divine grace to renew and influence the heart of man! Judges 21:4 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the people rose early, and built there an altar, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Jdg 21:4 . The people rose early and built there an altar — It is likely that they erected a new altar upon this present occasion, when such a multitude of sacrifices were to be offered by all the people of Israel, that the ordinary altar was not sufficient to receive them. Thus Solomon did when he dedicated the temple, 1 Kings 8:64 . And, by the direction of God, it was frequently done in other places besides at the house of God. Judges 21:5 And the children of Israel said, Who is there among all the tribes of Israel that came not up with the congregation unto the LORD? For they had made a great oath concerning him that came not up to the LORD to Mizpeh, saying, He shall surely be put to death. Jdg 21:5 . That came not up with the congregation — When summoned to come together under a great penalty upon those who absented themselves. For they had made a great oath — That is, a solemn oath, joined with some terrible execration against the offenders herein. This oath probably was made by the great assembly of their rulers (called the whole congregation) when they summoned the people to Mizpeh, as the other oath (mentioned Jdg 21:1 ) was made after the people were come thither, upon the Benjamites’ refusal to do justice. He shall surely be put to death — Because , by refusing to execute the vengeance due to such malefactors, they were presumed to be guilty of the crime, and therefore liable to the same punishment, as was the case of that city that would not deliver up an idolater, dwelling among them, to justice. Judges 21:6 And the children of Israel repented them for Benjamin their brother, and said, There is one tribe cut off from Israel this day. Judges 21:7 How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing we have sworn by the LORD that we will not give them of our daughters to wives? Judges 21:8 And they said, What one is there of the tribes of Israel that came not up to Mizpeh to the LORD? And, behold, there came none to the camp from Jabeshgilead to the assembly. Judges 21:9 For the people were numbered, and, behold, there were none of the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead there. Judges 21:10 And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the children. Judges 21:11 And this is the thing that ye shall do, Ye shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman that hath lain by man. Jdg 21:11 . Ye shall utterly destroy every male, &c. — Strange infatuation of the human mind! That they should imagine the Divine Majesty would be more honoured and pleased by an action quite contrary to, and abhorrent from, his essential nature and attributes, than if they had implored his pardon for a rash oath, and honoured him by not keeping it! Would to God that this had been the only time that the human race have thought to honour God by acts which are the most hateful to him! The cruel havocs made by religious persecution in different ages and countries have, alas! too fully witnessed how far the mind of man is capable of erring in this respect! O shocking blindness and infatuation! that men should think that the God of love, he who is love itself, can be pleased or honoured by acts of the most barbarous cruelty! As Jabesh-gilead was beyond Jordan, and at a great distance, it is probable the inhabitants thereof had not heard of the vow which the Israelites had made. “But if they had been guilty of neglect and disaffection to the common cause,” as Mr. Scott argues, “they had not assisted the Benjamites: and yet when the people were lamenting the desolations of that tribe, they proceeded to treat those who were far less criminal with equal rigour!” Judges 21:12 And they found among the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead four hundred young virgins, that had known no man by lying with any male: and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan. Jdg 21:12 . They brought them into the camp — If the vow they had made would admit of their sparing the virgins, why could they not also, in consistency with that oath, have spared the other women and children, and innocent persons, and only punished the guilty? But it is evident “that convenience, rather than justice or piety, induced them to spare the virgins, that they might extricate themselves from the difficulties in which their rash oath had involved them.” — Scott. Judges 21:13 And the whole congregation sent some to speak to the children of Benjamin that were in the rock Rimmon, and to call peaceably unto them. Judges 21:14 And Benjamin came again at that time; and they gave them wives which they had saved alive of the women of Jabeshgilead: and yet so they sufficed them not. Judges 21:15 And the people repented them for Benjamin, because that the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel. Jdg 21:15 . The Lord had made a breach, &c. — The Benjamites were the only authors of the sin, but God was the author of the punishment, who employed the Israelites as his executioners to inflict it. They, however, had greatly exceeded their commission, and exercised a severity not enjoined. Judges 21:16 Then the elders of the congregation said, How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing the women are destroyed out of Benjamin? Judges 21:17 And they said, There must be an inheritance for them that be escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe be not destroyed out of Israel. Jdg 21:17 . There must be an inheritance for Benjamin — The words, There must be, are not in the Hebrew, which runs thus: The inheritance of them that are escaped is for Benjamin; that is, the six hundred remaining Benjamites must have that part of the country which was given to the whole tribe by the divine lot for their inheritance; or, the inheritance promised by Jacob and Moses, and given by Joshua to the tribe of Benjamin, doth all of it belong to those few who remain of that tribe, and cannot be possessed by any other tribe; and therefore we are obliged to procure wives for them all, that they may make up this breach, and be capable of possessing and managing all their land; that this tribe and their inheritance may not be confounded with, or swallowed up by, any of the rest. Judges 21:18 Howbeit we may not give them wives of our daughters: for the children of Israel have sworn, saying, Cursed be he that giveth a wife to Benjamin. Judges 21:19 Then they said, Behold, there is a feast of the LORD in Shiloh yearly in a place which is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah. Jdg 21:19 . A feast — Probably it was the feast of tabernacles, which they celebrated with more than ordinary joy. And that feast was the only season at which the Jewish virgins were allowed to dance. But even this was not mixed dancing. No men danced with these daughters of Shiloh. Nor did the married women so forget their gravity as to join with them. However, their dancing thus in public made them an easy prey: whence Bishop Hall observes, “The ambushes of evil spirits carry away many souls from dancing to a fearful desolation.” Judges 21:20 Therefore they commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, Go and lie in wait in the vineyards; Judges 21:21 And see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. Jdg 21:21 . Daughters of Shiloh — By whom we may understand not those only who were born or settled inhabitants there, but all those who were come thither upon this occasion, and for a time sojourned there: for although only the males were obliged to go up to the three solemn feasts, yet the women had liberty to go, and those who were most devout did usually go. Vineyards — Which were near to the green where they danced. Catch — Take them away by force, which they might the better do, because the women danced by themselves. Thus they thought they kept their oath, because they did not give them wives, but only suffered them to take them, and to keep them when they had taken them. But, alas! what better was this than a mere evasion of it, and at the same time an authorizing of fraud, violence, and the marriage of children without the consent of their parents? Which last particular, if it might have been dispensed with, there was no need of this scheme, for the Benjamites could easily have found themselves wives, without the Israelites giving them their daughters. Judges 21:22 And it shall be, when their fathers or their brethren come unto us to complain, that we will say unto them, Be favourable unto them for our sakes: because we reserved not to each man his wife in the war: for ye did not give unto them at this time, that ye should be guilty. Judges 21:23 And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of them that danced, whom they caught: and they went and returned unto their inheritance, and repaired the cities, and dwelt in them. Jdg 21:23 . They took them wives according to their number — That is, each man took his wife. By which we may see, they had no very favourable opinion of polygamy, because they did not allow it in this case, when it might seem most necessary for the reparation of a lost tribe. And repaired the cities — By degrees, increasing their buildings as their number increased. Judges 21:24 And the children of Israel departed thence at that time, every man to his tribe and to his family, and they went out from thence every man to his inheritance. Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Jdg 21:25 . In those days there was no king in Israel — There were elders, ( Jdg 21:16 ,) who had some authority, and there was a high-priest, ( Jdg 20:28 ,) but there was no supreme governor, such as Moses and Joshua were, and after them the judges, and none that had power sufficient to punish public wrongs, whoredoms, and idolatries, and thereby check the progress of vice and profanenness, and keep the people in order. “The sacred writer,” says Dr. Dodd, “no doubt, repeats this observation to account for the disorders and enormities mentioned in the four preceding chapters; which exhibit a most depraved state of things;” every man doing what was right in his own eyes — Or, following his own corrupt passions and inclinations. “It is a natural inference from hence, that men ought to be extremely thankful for lawful authority: and, if they would preserve their felicity, ought to be zealous to support that authority, as well as to discourage all licentious approaches toward its dissolution. The Persians have a custom which justifies this reflection. When any of their kings die, they suffer the people to do as they please for five days, that by the disorders then committed, they may see the necessity of legal government, and learn submission to it. In general, the four chapters which finish this book show us to what a degree the Israelites were degenerated in the short space from the death of Caleb to the election of his younger brother to be their judge: we discover the true cause of the chastisements wherewith God punished them from time to time, though he delivered them from their enemies, under whose yoke they must infallibly have fallen, if God had not beheld them with compassion, and raised them up judges to save them from ruin. We just remark, in conclusion, that it would be unreasonable to draw any inference from the tumultuous and irregular actions of a tribe or people, to the lessening of the authority of the writer of any history. The writer of the present book ought rather to be admired for the impartiality with which he relates facts so little to the credit of his nation.” Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Judges 21:1 Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpeh, saying, There shall not any of us give his daughter unto Benjamin to wife. ; Jdg 20:1-48 ; Jdg 21:1-25 FROM JUSTICE TO WILD REVENGE Jdg 19:1-30 ; Jdg 20:1-48 ; Jdg 21:1-25 THESE last chapters describe a general and vehement outburst of moral indignation throughout Israel, recorded for various reasons. A vile thing is done in one of the towns of Benjamin and the fact is published in all the tribes. The doers of it are defended by their clan and fearful punishment is wrought upon them, not without suffering to the entire people. Like the incidents narrated in the chapters immediately preceding, these must have occurred at an early stage in the period of the judges, and they afford another illustration of the peril of imperfect government, the need for a vigorous administration of justice over the land. The crime and the volcanic vengeance belong to a time when there was "no king in Israel" and, despite occasional appeals to the oracle, "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." In this we have one clue to the purpose of the history. The crime of Gibeah brought under our notice here connects itself with that of Sodom and represents a phase of immorality which, indigenous to Canaan, mixed its putrid current with Hebrew life. There are traces of the same horrible impurity in the Judah of Rehoboam and Asa; and in the story of Josiah’s reign we are horrified to read of "houses of Sodomites that were in the house of the Lord, where the women, wove hangings for the Asherah." With such lurid historical light on the subject we can easily understand the revival of this warning lesson from the past of Israel and the fulness of detail with which the incidents are recorded. A crime originally that of the off-scourings of Gibeah became practically the sin of a whole tribe, and the war that ensued sets in a clear light the zeal for domestic purity which was a feature in every religious revival and, at length, in the life of the Hebrew people. It may be asked how, while polygamy was practised among the Israelites, the sin of Gibeah could rouse such indignation and awaken the signal vengeance of the united tribes. The answer is to be found partly in the singular and dreadful device which the indignant husband used in making the deed known. The ghastly symbols of outrage told the tale in a way that was fitted to stir the blood of the whole country. Everywhere the hideous thing was made vivid and a sense of utmost atrocity was kindled as the dissevered members were borne from town to town. It is easy to see that womanhood must have been stirred to the fieriest indignation, and manhood was bound to follow. What woman could be safe in Gibeah where such things were done? And was Gibeah to go unpunished? If so, every Hebrew city might become the haunt of miscreants. Further there is the fact that the woman so foully murdered, though a concubine, was the concubine of a Levite. The measure of sacredness with which the Levites were invested gave to this crime, frightful enough in any view, the colour of sacrilege. How degenerate were the people of Gibeah when a servant of the altar could be treated with such foul indignity and driven to so extraordinary an appeal for justice? There could be no blessing on the tribes if they allowed the doers or condoners of this thing to go unpunished. Every Levite throughout the land must have taken up the cry. From Bethel and other sanctuaries the call for vengeance would spread and echo till the nation was roused. Thus, in part at least, we can explain the vehemence of feeling which drew together the whole fighting force of the tribes. The doubt will yet remain whether there could have been so much purity of life or respect for purity as to sustain the public indignation. Some may say, Is there not here a sufficient reason for questioning the veracity of the narrative? First, however, let it be remembered that often where morals are far from reaching the level of pure monogamic life distinctions between right and wrong are sharply drawn. Acquaintance with phases of modern life that are most painful to the mind sensitively pure reveals a fixed code which none may infringe without bringing upon themselves reprobation, perhaps more vehement than in a higher social grade visits the breach of a higher law. It is the fact that concubinage has its unwritten acknowledgment and protecting customs. There is marriage that is only a name; there is concubinage that gives the woman more rights than one who is married. Against the immorality and the gross evils of cohabitation is to be set this unwritten law. And arguing from popular feeling in our great cities we reach the conclusion that in ancient Israel where concubinage prevailed there was a wide and keen feeling as to the rights of concubines and the necessity of upholding them. Many women must have been in this relation, below those who could count themselves legally married, and all the more that the concubine occupied a place inferior to that of the lawful wife would popular opinion take up her cause and demand the punishment of those who did her wrong. And here we are led to a point which demands clear statement and recognition. It has been too readily supposed that polygamy is always a result of moral decline and indicates a low state of domestic purity. It may, in truth, be a rude step of progress. Has it been sufficiently noted that in those countries in which the name of the mother, not of the father, descended to the children the reason may be found in universal or almost universal unchastity? In Egypt at one time the law gave to women, especially to mothers, peculiar rights; but to praise Egyptian civilisation for this reason and hold up its treatment of women as an example to the nineteenth century is an extraordinary venture. The Israelites, however lax, were doubtless in advance of the society of Thebes. Among the Canaanites the moral degradation of women, whatever freedom may have gone with it, was so terrible that the Hebrew with his two or three wives and concubines but with a morality otherwise severe, must have represented a new and holier social order as well as a new and holier religion. It is therefore not incredible, but appears simply in accordance with the instincts and customs proper to the Hebrew people, that the sin of Gibeah should provoke overwhelming indignation. There is no pretence of purity, no hypocritical anger. The feeling is sound and real. Perhaps in no other matter of a moral kind would there have been such intense and unanimous exasperation. A point of justice or of belief would not have so moved the tribes. The better self of Israel appears, asserting its claim and power. And the miscreants of Gibeah representing the lower self, verily an unclean spirit, are detested and denounced on every hand. The time was that of fresh feeling, unwarped by those customs which in the guise of civilisation and refinement afterwards corrupted the nation. And we may see the prophetic or hortatory use of the narrative for an after age in which doings as vile as those at Gibeah were sanctioned by the court and protected even by religious leaders. It would be hoped by the sacred historian that this tale of the fierce indignation of the tribes might rouse afresh the same moral feeling. He would fain stir a careless people and their priests by the exhibition of this tumultuous vengeance. Nor can we say that the necessity for the impressive lesson has ceased. In the heart of our large cities vices as vile as those of Gibeah are heard muttering in the nightfall, life as abandoned lurks and festers, creating a social gangrene. Recognise, then, in these chapters a truth for all time boldly drawn out-the great truth as to moral reform and national purity. Law will not cure moral evils; a statute book the purest and noblest will not save. Those who by the impulse of the Spirit gathered the various traditions of Israel’s life knew well that on a living conscience in men everything depended, and they at least indicate the further truth which many of ourselves have not grasped, that the early and rude workings of conscience, producing stormy and terrible results, are a necessary stage of development. As there must be energy before there can be noble energy, so there must be moral vigour, it may be rude, violent, ignorant, a stream rushing out of barbarian hills, sweeping with most appalling vehemence, before there can be spiritual life patient, calm, and holy. Law is a product, not a cause; it is not the code we make that will perserve us but the God-given conscience that informs the code and ever goes before it a pillar of fire, at times flashing vivid lightning. Even Christian law cannot save a people if it be merely a series of injunctions. Nothing will do but the mind of Christ in every man and woman continually inspiring and directing life. The reformer who thinks that a statute or regulation will end some sin or evil custom is in sad error. Say the decree he contends for is enacted; but have the consciences of those against whom it is made been quickened? If not, the law merely expresses a popular mood, and the life of the whole community will not be permanently raised in tone. The church finds here a perpetual mission of influence. Her doctrine is but half her message. From the doctrine as from an eternal fount must go life-giving moral heat in every range, and the Spirit is ever with her to make the world like a fire. Her duty is wide as righteousness, great as man’s destiny; it is never ended, for each generation comes in a new hour with new needs. The church, say some, is finishing its work; it is doomed to be one of the broken moulds of life. But the church that is the instructor of conscience and kindles the flame of righteousness has a mission to the ages. We are far yet from that day of the Lord when all the people shall be prophets; and until then how can the world live without the church? It would be a body without a soul. Conscience the oracle of life, conscience working badly rather than held in chains of mere rule without spontaneity and inspiration, moral energy widespread, personal, and keen, however rude-here is one of the notes of the sacred writer; and another note, no less distinct, is the assertion of moral intolerance. It has not occurred to this prophetic annalist that endurance of evil has any curative power. He is a Hebrew, full of indignation against the vile and false, and he demands a heat of moral force in his people. Foul things are done at the court and even in the temple; there is a depraving indifference to purity, a loose notion (very similar to the idea of our day), that all the sides of life should have free play and that the heathen had much to teach Israel. The whole of the narrative before us is infused with a righteous protest against evil, a holy plea for intolerance of sin. Will men refuse instruction and persist in making themselves one with bestiality and outrage? Then judgment must deal with them on the ground they have chosen to occupy, and until they repent the conscience of the race must repudiate them together with their sin. Along with a keenly burning conscience there goes this necessity of moral intolerance. Charity is good, but not always in place; and brotherhood itself demands at times strong uncompromising judgment of the evildoer. How else among men of weak wills and wavering hearts can righteousness vindicate and enforce itself as the eternal reality of life? Compassion is strong only when it is linked to unfaltering declarations; mercy is divine only when it turns a front of mail to wickedness and flashes lightning at proud wrong, Any other kind of charity is but a new offence-the sinner pardoning sin. Now the people of Gibeah were not all vile. The wretches whose crime called for judgment were but the rabble of the town. And we can see that the tribes when they gathered in indignation were made serious by the thought that the righteous might be punished with the wicked. We are told that they went up to the sanctuary and asked counsel of the Lord whether they should attack the convicted city. There was a full muster of the fighting men, their blood at fever heat, yet they would not advance without an oracle. It was an appeal to heavenly justice and demands notice as a striking feature of the whole terrible series of events. For an hour there is silence in the camp till a higher voice shall speak. But what is the issue? The oracle decrees an immediate attack on Gibeah in the face of all Benjamin, which has shown the temper of heathenism by refusing to give up the criminals. Once and again there is trial of battle which ends in defeat of the allied tribes. The wrong triumphs; the people have to return humbled and weeping to the Sacred Presence and sit fasting and disconsolate before the Lord. Not without the suffering of the entire community is a great evil to be purged from a land. It is easy to execute a murderer, to imprison a felon. But the spirit of the murderer, of the felon, is widely diffused, and that has to be cast out. In the great moral struggle year after year the better have not only the openly vile but all who are tainted, all who are weak in soul, loose in habit, secretly sympathetic with the vile, arrayed against them. There is a sacrifice of the good before the evil are overcome. In vicarious suffering many must pay the penalty of crimes not their own ere the wide-reaching wickedness can be seen in its demonic power and struck down as the cruel enemy of the people. When an assault is made on some vile custom the sardonic laugh is heard of those who find their profit and their pleasure in it. They feel their power. They know the wide sympathy with them spread secretly through the land. Once and again the feeble attempt of the good is repelled. With sad hearts, with impoverished means, those who led the crusade retire baffled and weary. Has their method been unintelligent? There very possibly lies the cause of its failure. Or, perhaps, it has been, though nominally inspired by an oracle, all too human, weak through human pride. Not till they gain with new and deeper devotion to the glory of God, with more humility and faith, a clearer view of the battleground and a better ordering of the war shall defeat be changed into victory. And may it not be that the assault on moral evils of our day, in which multitudes are professedly engaged, in which also many have spent substance and life, shall fail till there is a true humiliation of the armies of God before Him, a new consecration to higher and more spiritual ends? Human virtue has ever to be jealous of itself, the reformer may so easily become a Pharisee. The tide turned and there came another danger, that which waits on ebullitions of popular feeling. A crowd roused to anger is hard to control, and the tribes having once tasted vengeance did not cease till Benjamin was almost exterminated. The slaughter extended not only to the fighting men, but to women and children. The six hundred who fled to the rock fort of Rimmon appear as the only survivors of the clan. Justice overshot its mark and for one evil made another. Those who had most fiercely used the sword viewed the result with horror and amazement, for a tribe was lacking in Israel. Nor was this the end of slaughter. Next for the sake of Benjamin the sword was drawn and the men of Jabesh-gilead were butchered. It has to be noticed that the oracle is not made responsible for this horrible process of evil. The people came of their own accord to the decision which annihilated Jabesh-gilead. But they gave it a pious colour; religion and cruelty went together, sacrifices to Jehovah and this frightful outbreak of demonism. It is one of the dark chapters of human history. For the sake of an oath and an idea death was dealt remorselessly. No voice suggested that the people of Jabesh may have been more cautious than the rest, not less faithful to the law of God. The others were resolved to appear to themselves to have been right in almost annihilating Benjamin; and the town which had not joined in the work of destruction must be punished. The warning conveyed here is intensely keen. It is that men, made doubtful by the issue of their actions whether they have done wisely, may fly to the resolution to justify themselves and may do so even at the expense of justice; that a nation may pass from the right way to the wrong and then, having sunk to extraordinary baseness and malignity, may turn writhing and self-condemned to add cruelty to cruelty in the attempt to still the upbraidings of conscience. It is that men in the heat of passion which began with resentment against evil may strike at those who have not joined in their errors as well as those who truly deserve reprobation. We stand, nations and individuals, in constant danger of dreadful extremes, a kind of insanity hurrying us on when the blood is heated by strong emotion. Blindly attempting to do right we do evil, and again having done the evil, we blindly strive to remedy it by doing more. In times of moral darkness and chaotic social conditions, when men are guided by a few rude principles, things are done that afterwards appal themselves, and yet may become an example for future outbreaks. During the fury of their Revolution the French people, with some watchwords of the true ring as liberty, fraternity, turned hither and thither, now in terror, now panting after dimly seen justice or hope, and it was always from blood to blood. We understand the juncture in ancient Israel and realise the excitement and the rage of a self-jealous people, when we read the modern tales of surging ferocity in which men appear now hounding the shouting crowd to vengeance, then shuddering on the scaffold. In private life the story has an application against wild and violent methods of self-vindication. Many a man, hurried on by a just anger against one who has done him wrong, sees to his horror after a sharp blow is struck that he has broken a life and thrown a brother bleeding to the dust. One wrong thing has been done perhaps more in haste than vileness of purpose, and retribution, hasty, ill-considered, leaves the moral question tenfold more confused. When all is reckoned we find it impossible to say where the right is, where the wrong. Passing to the final expedient adopted by the chiefs of Israel to rectify their error-the rape of the women at Shiloh-we see only to how pitiful a pass moral blundering brings those who fall into it: other moral teaching there is none. We might at first be disposed to say that there was extraordinary want of reverence for religious order and engagements when the men of Benjamin were invited to make a sacred festival the occasion of taking what the other tribes had solemnly vowed not to give. But the festival at Shiloh must have been far more of a merry making than of a sacred assembly. It needs to be recognised that many gatherings even in honour of Jehovah were mainly, like those of Canaanite worship, for hilarity and feasting. There was probably no great incongruity between the occasion and the plot. But the scenes certainly change in the course of this narrative with extraordinary swiftness. Fierce indignation is followed by pity, weeping for defeat by tears for too complete a victory. Horrible bloodshed wastes the cities and in a month there is dancing in the plain of Shiloh not ten miles from the field of battle. Chaotic indeed are the morality and the history; but it is the disorder of social life in its early stages, with the vehemence and tenderness, the ferocity and laughter of a nation’s youth. And, all along, the Book of Judges bears the stamp of veracity as a series of records because these very features are to be seen-this tumult, this undisciplined vehemence in feeling and act. Were we told here of decorous solemn progress at slow march, every army going forth with some stereotyped invocation of the Lord of Hosts, every leader a man of conventional piety supported by a blameless priesthood and orderly sacrifices, we should have had no evidence of truth. The traditions preserved here, whoever collected them, are singularly free from that idyllic colour which an imaginative writer would have endeavoured to give. At the last, accordingly, the book we have been reading stands a real piece of history, proving itself over every kind of suspicion a true record of a people chosen and guided to a destiny greater than any other race of man has known. A people understanding its call and responding with eagerness at every point? Nay. The worm is in the heart of Israel as of every other nation, The carnal attracts, and malignant cries overbear the divine still voice; the air of Canaan breathes in every page, and we need to recollect that we are viewing the turbulent upper waters of the nation and the faith. But the working of God is plain; the divine thoughts we believed Israel to have in trust for the world are truly with it from the first, though darkened by altars of Baal and of Ashtoreth. The Word and Covenant of Jehovah are vital facts of the supernatural which surrounds that poor struggling erring Hebrew flock. Theocracy is a divine fact in a larger sense than has ever been attached to the word. Inspiration too is no dream, for the history is charged with intimations of the spiritual order. The light of the unrealised end flashes on spear and altar, and in the frequent roll of the storm the voice of the Eternal is heard declaring righteousness and truth. No story this to praise a dynasty or magnify a conquering nation or support a priesthood. Nothing so faithful, so true to heaven and to human nature could be done from that motive. We have here an imperishable chapter in the Book of God. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.