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?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(16) How shall we do . . .?—They want to keep their vow in the letter, while they break it in the spirit. The sense of the binding nature of the “ban” was intensely strong (Exodus 20:7; Ezekiel 17:18-19), but, as is so often the case among rude and ignorant people, they fancied that it was sufficient to keep it literally, while in effect they violated it. Similarly in Herodotus (iv. 154), Themison having sworn to throw Phronima into the sea—the intention having been that she should be drowned—feels himself bound to throw her into the sea, but has her drawn out of it again. Their want of moral enlightenment revealed itself in this way, and still more in having ever taken this horrible oath, which involved the butchery of innocent men, and of still more innocent women and children. In point of fact, the cherem often broke down under the strain which it placed on men’s best feelings (1Samuel 14:45) as well as on their lower temptations. The guilt of breaking a guilty vow is only the original guilt of ever having made it. What the Israelites should have done was not to bathe their hands in more rivers of fraternal blood, but to pray to God to forgive the brutal vehemence which disgraced a cause originally righteous, and to have allowed the remnant of the Benjamites to intermarry with them once more. As it was, they were led by ignorance and rashness into several vows which could not be fulfilled without horrible cruelty and bloodshed, and the fulfilment of which they after all casuistically evaded, and that at the cost of still more bloodshed. As all these events took place under the guidance of Phinehas, they give us a high estimate indeed of the zeal which was his noblest characteristic (Psalm 106:30), yet a very low estimate of his state of spiritual insight; and clearly to such a man the fulfilment of Jephthah’s cherem by sacrificing his daughter (see Note on Judges 11:39) would have seemed as nothing compared to the extermination of tribes and of cities, involving the shedding of rivers of innocent blood. But why should we suppose that the grandson of Aaron, in such times as these—when all was anarchy, idolatry, and restlessness, against which he either did not strive or strove most ineffectually—should stand on so much higher a level than his schismatical and semi-idolatrous cousin, the wandering grandson of Moses?

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:7-13 Micah thought it was a sign of God's favour to him and his images, that a Levite should come to his door. Thus those who please themselves with their own delusions, if Providence unexpectedly bring any thing to their hands that further them in their evil way, are apt from thence to think that God is pleased with them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

To Shiloh - Whither, as the usual place of meeting for the national assembly, the Israelites had moved from Bethel (a distance of about 10 miles), during the expedition of the 12,000 to Jabesh-Gilead.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Jud 21:16-21. The Elders Consult How to Find Wives for Those That Were Left.

16. the elders of the congregation said, How shall we do for wives for them that remain—Though the young women of Jabesh-gilead had been carefully spared, the supply was found inadequate, and some other expedient must be resorted to.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

For them that remain; for the two hundred who are yet unprovided of wives.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then the elders of the congregation said.... This being the case, that there were not wives enough for them, they were obliged to consult again, and consider of another expedient to provide for them; and this motion came from the elders of the people, not only in years, but in office:

how shall we do for wives for them that remain: the other two hundred, who had none:

seeing the women are destroyed out of Benjamin? and so no wives to be had there; and as for the Israelites which came to Mizpeh, who were of all the tribes of Israel, they had solemnly sworn that they would not give any of their daughters to them, and therefore it was a very difficult thing to provide wives for them.

Geneva Study Bible

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?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

16. the elders of the congregation] See on Jdg 20:1, and cf. Leviticus 4:15. That this half of the verse does not belong to the old story is further shewn by the reference to wives for the Benjamites who had not secured any of the 400 virgins from Jabesh; like the last words of Jdg 21:14; Jdg 21:16 a is a harmonizing addition. 16b may well continue Jdg 21:15 and belong to A.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 16. - Seeing the women. It is rather more in accordance with the Hebrew style to take the words as the narrator's explanation of the question, What shall we do? They said this because all the women of Benjamin had been destroyed. Judges 21:16

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Of the six hundred Benjaminites who had escaped, there still remained two hundred to be provided with wives. To these the congregation gave permission to take wives by force at a festival at Shiloh. The account of this is once more introduced, with a description of the anxiety felt by the congregation for the continuance of the tribe of Benjamin. Judges 21:15, Judges 21:16, and Judges 21:18 are only a repetition of Judges 21:6 and Judges 21:7, with a slight change of expression. The "breach (perez) in the tribes of Israel" had arisen from the almost complete extermination of Benjamin. "For out of Benjamin is (every) woman destroyed," viz., by the ruthless slaughter of the whole of the people of that tribe (Judges 20:48). Consequently the Benjaminites who were still unmarried could not find any wives in their own tribe. The fact that four hundred of the Benjaminites who remained were already provided with wives is not noticed here, because it has been stated just before, and of course none of them could give up their own wives to others.