Judges 21

Judges 21:1-15

Their zeal for the destruction of Benjamin was scarce so great, as their anguish is when their wounds is now subsided. What increases their grief is, at Mizeh they bound themselves by a solemn excetation, not only to destroy every city who should neglect their summons, but also never to give their daughters in marriage to a Benjamin: so that having flun all the women, and by their oath being unable to give them others, whilst it was forbidden them to marry with the nations around them, though the fix hundred men have escaped, the tribe is in danger of being extinct. Note, (1.) True zeal may be carried too far. (2.) When our spirits are exasperated, we too often speak and do, what in conder moments we with unsaid and undone. On this mournful occasion,

1. They wept before God in bitterness of food. More affected with Benjamin’s difficulties, than plucked with their own victory, they spread their complaints before the fanciary, and offer up their sacrifices in such abundance, that they built a temporary altar for that service. Note, (1.) Our distresses should drive us to God. (2.) Under all our griefs the blood of atonement will afford us relief. (3.) They who pour out their complaints to the God of all grace, will usually find a way to extricate themselves from their difficulties.

2. The method they took to prevent the ruin of the tribe. On reviewing the troops, the men of Jabeft-gilead are found abson. As bound by their oath, they immediately deach twelve thousand of their moft valiant troops, to fmote men, women, and children, except such as had not known man: there are to be referred for their distressed brethren. Having performed this service to the utter ruin of Jabeft-gilead, they returned with four hundred young virgins to the camp in Shiloh. Messengers had now been dispatched to the men who remained in the rock Rimmon: they, glad to embrace the offer of peace, come down to their brethren, and thankfully receive the wives provided for them, though there yet remained a great deficiency. Note, (1.) The quarrels of brethren are usually bitter, and seldom end thus in bands of firmer friendship. (2.) They who make calls now, have only themselves to blame for the difficulties in which they are involved.

3. ¶ 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? 17. And they said, ’there may be an inheritance for them that be escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe be not destroyed out of Israel. 18. Howbeit, we may not give them wives of our daughters: for ’the children of Israel have sworn, saying, Curled be he that giveth a wife to Benjamin. 19. Then they said, Behold, ’there is a fealt of the LORD in Shiloh? yearly in a place which is on the north side of Beth-el, on the east side of the high-way that goeth up from Beth-el to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah. 20. Therefore they commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, Go, and lie in wait in the vineyards: 21. And fee, 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. 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 fakes: because we referred not to each man his wife in the war: for ye did not give unto them at this time, that you should be guilty. 23. And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives according to their num-

Beth-el, and and He, Sime of the witty. Num., 1. 17. Oust Isaiah 18. Heb. Beth-el, the lying with man Heb. Oustthe virgin. Chap. 22. Heb. Pthem peace. P. Jaenai. Ja. 12, 23. Heb. found they are for them. Heb. Here compellant on us for them. Col. 11, 12. Before Chord 1496. 1 Chap. xx. 4f.

ber, of them that danced, whom they caught; and they went and returned unto their inheritance, and repaired the cities, and dwelt in them. 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. 25. In those days there was no king in Israel: ’every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Judges 21:16-25

We have here the expedient used to provide wives for the remaining two hundred men of Benjamin, without violation of their oaths. A bad shift ’tis true, but better than none.

1. At one of the annual feasts, probably the feast of tabernacles, the daughters of Shiloh use to meet in a place at some distance from the city, to rejoice before the Lord, as David afterwards did, with sacred music and dancing. It was not a mixed company, or lewd assembly: all men were excluded, which made the following scheme more easily put in execution. Next, They who plead scripture to countenance the modern mixed assemblies, neither consider the manner nor the end of the precedents they quote.

2. The elders advise the two hundred men to lie in wait

near the place where this solemnity was kept, and, when the virgins came thither, to rush in, and take each a wife, and retire; promising to be their advocates with the enraged fathers of the damsels, whose oath was not broken, because they were forcibly taken; and who need not think their daughters ill disposed of, when among these few survivors the whole inheritance of Benjamin now must be divided. Next, (1.) One rash step draws on a train of bad consequences. Had they been more considerate in their vow, they had not been reduced to such a disagreeable expedient. (2.) Though a stolen match is both sinful before God, and unjust towards man, parents must not be implacable in their resentments, but receive their children into favour again.

3. The men of Benjamin followed the advice, and succeeded; and thus the survivors of the tribe are again settled, and in a way to repair its desolations. The children of Israel disband; every man returns to his inheritance; and it is again repeated, that there was no king in Israel, as the cause of all the evil and confusions related in the foregoing chapters. Next, Next to a good ministry, we have reason to esteem magistracy among the chief of earthly blessings; and if we know our own mercies, we have much reason to be thankful, that there is not only a king in England, but such a king.

THE

Judges 21:20-48

But ‘for hundred men turned and fled to the wilderness unto the rock Rimmon, and abode in the rock Rimmon four months. 48. And the men of Israel turned again upon the children of Benjamin, and fmote them with the edge of the sword, ‘as well the men of every city, as the kraft, and all that came to hand: also they let on fire all the cities that they came to.

Confounded at thofe repeated strokes, the whole congregation affi- mble before the Lord at Shiloh.

1. In deep affliction they compa’s God’s altar, humbling their fouls under the fenfe of conscious guilt, and crying for pardon and help from him, who alone can live either holy, or foul from ruin. They offer sacrifices of atonement, and peace-offerings; and having now rejected every vain confidence, and required of God, not only whether they should go up, but whether they should succeed, God gives them affurance of victory, and hide them draw near to the battle. Note, (1.) When in true humiliation the foul is brought low before God, the end of its sufferings is near. (2.) It is by the one great sacrifice along, the dinner can hope for the favour and patience of God.

2. On divine warrant they now draw near to the battle, and with a faccels equal to their moft fanguine wishes. Having contrived an ambush near Gibeah, as at Ai, the army advances; but when the Benjamites come forth, they retire precipitately. The Benjamites, concluding they were fmitten as before, eagerly purfur, and about thirty men are then in the retreat. But now the men of Gibeah and Benjamin being at a distance, the ambush and the defenctivs city is feared and burnt. At the fight of the afcending fender, the feared given, the men of Israel face about at Baal-tamar; the battle is renewed; the Benjamites look back, and too late defenctivs the evil which had overtaken them. They are attacked in front and rear at once, routed with cofe, and, hemmed in as they are, flight is vain. Eighteen thousand are flun on the spot, five thousand in the pursuit, and two thousand at Gidom, a place they had fled to, or where they made a fraud. Theft, with perhaps a hundred left to guard the city, amount to twenty-five thousand one hundred; and left than one thousand could feare have fallen in the former battles. Thus the very name of Benjamin had been blotted out, if fix hundred men had not escaped to the rock Rimmon; for in their best, or for their oath take in Mizeh, they fell upon the cities, burnt them, flew men, women, and children, and every living creature, as they had done by the devoted Canazantes, and left the land swept as with the beism of destruction. Note, (1.) What desfactions fin makes on the earth? (2.) It is vain to fight where God is our foe, or to fly when he pursues. (3.) When God awakes to judgment in the last day, not a finner shall escape; no rock can then hide, no mountain cover him.

C H A P. XXI.

Here is, 1. The lamentation which Israel made for Benjamin, ver. 1—4, 6, 15. 2. The men of Jabeft-gilead are flun, for not joining against Benjamin, and their daughters given to the fix hundred men, that a tribe might not perish, ver. 5, 7—14. 3. These not suffering, the daughters of Shiloh are feared, ver. 10—25.

1. NOW ’the men of Israel had sworn in Mizeh, saying, There shall not any of us give his daughter unto Benjamin to wife. 2. And ’the people came to the house of God, and abode there till even before God, and lift up their voices, and wept fore. 3. And said, O LORD God of Israel,’ why is this come to pafs in Israel, that there should be to-day one tribe lacking in Israel? 4. And it came to pafs on the morrow, that the people rose early, and ‘built there an altar, and offered burnt-offerings, and peace-offerings. 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 Mizeh, saying, ‘He shall surely be put to death. 6. And the children of Israel repented them for Benjamin their brother, and said, There is one tribe cut off from Israel this day: 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? 8. And they said, What one is there of the tribes of Israel, that came not up to Mizeh to the LORD? And behold, there came none to the camp from Jabeft-gilead to the assembly. 9. For the people were numbered,

and behold, there were none of the inhabitants of Jabeft-gilead there. 10. And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand 1 men of the valiants, and commanded them, saying, Go, and fmote the inhabitants of Jabeft-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the children. 11. And this at the thing that ye shall do, ‘ye shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman that ye hath lien by man. 12. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabeft-gilead, four hundred 2 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 Canaz. 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. 14. And Benjamin came again at that time; and they gave them wives which they had saved alive of the women of Jabeft-gilead: and yet so they fudied them not. 15. And the people repented them for Benjamin, because that the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.