Benjamin Almost Destroyed
29 Israel set ambushes all around Gibeah. 30 The children of Israel went up against the children of Benjamin on the third day, and set themselves in array against Gibeah, as at other times. 31 The children of Benjamin went out against the people, and were drawn away from the city; and they began to strike and kill of the people as at other times, in the highways, of which one goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah, in the field, about thirty men of Israel. 32 The children of Benjamin said, “They are struck down before us, as at the first.” But the children of Israel said, “Let’s flee, and draw them away from the city to the highways.” 33 All the men of Israel rose up out of their place and set themselves in array at Baal Tamar. Then the ambushers of Israel broke out of their place, even out of Maareh Geba. 34 Ten thousand chosen men out of all Israel came over against Gibeah, and the battle was severe; but they didn’t know that disaster was close to them. 35 Yahweh struck Benjamin before Israel; and the children of Israel destroyed of Benjamin that day twenty-five thousand one hundred men. All these drew the sword. 36 So the children of Benjamin saw that they were struck, for the men of Israel yielded to Benjamin because they trusted the ambushers whom they had set against Gibeah. 37 The ambushers hurried, and rushed on Gibeah; then the ambushers spread out, and struck all the city with the edge of the sword. 38 Now the appointed sign between the men of Israel and the ambushers was that they should make a great cloud of smoke rise up out of the city. 39 The men of Israel turned in the battle, and Benjamin began to strike and kill of the men of Israel about thirty persons; for they said, “Surely they are struck down before us, as in the first battle.” 40 But when the cloud began to arise up out of the city in a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them; and behold, the whole city went up in smoke to the sky. 41 The men of Israel turned, and the men of Benjamin were dismayed; for they saw that disaster had come on them. 42 Therefore they turned their backs before the men of Israel to the way of the wilderness, but the battle followed hard after them; and those who came out of the cities destroyed them in the middle of it. 43 They surrounded the Benjamites, chased them, and trod them down at their resting place, as far as near Gibeah toward the sunrise. 44 Eighteen thousand men of Benjamin fell; all these were men of valor. 45 They turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon. They gleaned five thousand men of them in the highways, and followed hard after them to Gidom, and struck two thousand men of them. 46 So that all who fell that day of Benjamin were twenty-five thousand men who drew the sword. All these were men of valor. 47 But six hundred men turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, and stayed in the rock of Rimmon four months. 48 The men of Israel turned again on the children of Benjamin, and struck them with the edge of the sword—including the entire city, the livestock, and all that they found. Moreover they set all the cities which they found on fire.
The ambush that took Ai takes Gibeah, and the victory runs on past justice into extermination — six hundred men on a rock are all that remain of a tribe.
Israel set ambushes all around Gibeah Judges 20:29.
The third day's tactics are Joshua's at Ai, move for move: the feigned flight, the enemy drawn from the city, the ambush breaking cover, the smoke signal, the turn Joshua 8:15–21. Benjamin reads the retreat as a third victory — they are struck down before us, as at the first Judges 20:32 Judges 20:39 — until the column of smoke rises behind them: the whole city went up in smoke to the sky, and they saw that disaster had come on them Judges 20:40–41.
Yahweh struck Benjamin before Israel Judges 20:35.
The narrator assigns the victory to God — the promised deliverance of the third oracle Judges 20:28 — and gives the arithmetic: twenty-five thousand one hundred of Benjamin fall that day. The chase runs to the wilderness, gleaning fugitives on the highways Judges 20:42–45 — gleaned is a harvest word, used here of killing men.
But six hundred men turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, and stayed in the rock of Rimmon four months.
Six hundred survivors on a crag. And then the verse that turns judgment into annihilation: the men of Israel turned again on the children of Benjamin, and struck them with the edge of the sword — including the entire city, the livestock, and all that they found. Moreover they set all the cities which they found on fire Judges 20:48.
This is the step past every warrant. The assembly's demand had been the guilty men of Gibeah Judges 20:13; what is executed is the destruction of a tribe — its towns, its women, its children, its animals, the treatment reserved for a city gone over to idols Deuteronomy 13:15 applied wholesale to brothers. No oracle commands it; God's word had promised victory, not extermination. The fury that lost forty thousand men in two days does not stop at justice on the third, and the next chapter opens with Israel weeping over what its own zeal has done Judges 21:2–3 — grief for a wound that was self-inflicted twice over, once by Benjamin's solidarity with evil and once by Israel's vengeance outrunning its commission.
held with reason What this mark means