Judges 20 

Judges 20:1 All the Israelites from Dan to Beer-sheba and from the land of Gilead came out, and the community gathered as one body to Yahveh at Mizpah.

Judges 20:2 The cornerstones of all the people and all the tribes of Israel presented themselves in the collection of God’s people: four hundred thousand armed foot soldiers.

Judges 20:3 The Benjaminites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah. The Israelites asked, “Tell us, how did this wrong thing happen?”

Judges 20:4 The Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, answered: “I went to Gibeah in Benjamin with my concubine to spend the night.

Judges 20:5 Landowners of Gibeah came to attack me and surrounded the house at night. They intended to kill me, but they raped my concubine, and she died.

Judges 20:6 Then I took my concubine and cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout Israel’s territory because they have committed a wicked outrage in Israel.

Judges 20:7 Notice, all of you are Israelites. Give your judgment and verdict here and now.”

Judges 20:8 Then all the people stood united and said, “None of us will go to his tent or return to his house.

Judges 20:9 Now this is what we will do to Gibeah: we will attack it. By lot

Judges 20:10 we will select ten men out of every hundred from all the tribes of Israel, and one hundred out of every thousand, and one thousand out of every ten thousand to get provisions for the troops when they go to Gibeah in Benjamin to punish them for all the outrage they committed in Israel.”

Judges 20:11 So all the men of Israel gathered united against the city.

Judges 20:12 Then the tribes of Israel sent men throughout the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What is this wrong thing that has happened among you?

Judges 20:13 Hand over those worthless men in Gibeah so we can put them to death and eradicate evil from Israel.” However, the Benjaminites would not listen to their fellow Israelites.

Judges 20:14 Instead, the Benjaminites gathered together from their cities to Gibeah to fight against the Israelites.

Judges 20:15 On that day the Benjaminites mobilized twenty-six thousand armed men from their cities, besides seven hundred tested young men rallied by the inhabitants of Gibeah.

Judges 20:16 There were seven hundred tested young men who were left-handed among all these troops; all could sling a stone at a hair and not fail.

Judges 20:17 The Israelites, apart from Benjamin, mobilized four hundred thousand armed men, every one an experienced warrior.

Judges 20:18 They set out, went to Bethel and inquired of God. The Israelites asked, “Who is to be leading the tribe to fight for us against the Benjaminites?” And Yahveh answered, “Judah will be first.”

Judges 20:19 In the morning, the Israelites set out and camped near Gibeah.

Judges 20:20 The men of Israel went out to fight against Benjamin and took their battle positions against Gibeah.

Judges 20:21 The Benjaminites came out of Gibeah and devastated twenty-two thousand men of Israel on the land that day.

Judges 20:22 But the Israelite troops rallied and again took their battle positions in the same place where they positioned themselves on the first day.

Judges 20:23 They went up, wept before Yahveh until evening, and inquired of him: “Should we again attack our brothers the Benjaminites?” And Yahveh answered: “Fight against them.”

Judges 20:24 On the second day the Israelites advanced against the Benjaminites.

Judges 20:25 That same day the Benjaminites came out from Gibeah to meet them and devastated an additional eighteen thousand Israelites on the land; all were armed.

Judges 20:26 The whole Israelite army went to Bethel where they wept and sat before Yahveh. They fasted that day until evening and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to Yahveh.

Judges 20:27 Then the Israelites inquired of Yahveh. In those days, the ark of the covenant of God was there,

Judges 20:28 and Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, was serving before it. The Israelites asked: “Should we again fight against our brothers, the Benjaminites, or should we stop?” Yahveh answered: “Fight because I will hand them over to you tomorrow.”

Judges 20:29 So Israel set up an ambush around Gibeah.

Judges 20:30 On the third day, the Israelites fought against the Benjaminites and took their battle positions against Gibeah as before.

Judges 20:31 Then the Benjaminites came out against the troops and were drawn away from the city. They began to attack the troops as before, striking down about thirty men of Israel on the highways, one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah through the open country.

Judges 20:32 The Benjaminites said, “We are defeating them as before.” But the Israelites said, “Let’s run and draw them away from the city to the highways.”

Judges 20:33 So all the men of Israel got up from their places and took their battle positions at Baal-tamar, while the Israelites in ambush charged out of their places west of Geba.

Judges 20:34 Then ten thousand tested young men from all Israel made a frontal assault against Gibeah, and the battle was fierce, but the Benjaminites did not know that disaster was about to strike them.

Judges 20:35 Yahveh defeated Benjamin in the presence of Israel, and on that day the Israelites devastated 25,100 men of Benjamin; all were armed.

Judges 20:36 Then the Benjaminites realized they had been defeated. The men of Israel had retreated before Benjamin because they were confident in the ambush they had set against Gibeah.

Judges 20:37 The men in the ambush had rushed quickly against Gibeah; they advanced and struck down the whole city with the sword.

Judges 20:38 The men of Israel had a prearranged signal with the men in ambush: when they sent up a great cloud of smoke from the city,

Judges 20:39 the men of Israel would return to the battle. When Benjamin had begun to strike them down, struck down about thirty men of Israel, they said, “They’re defeated before us, just as they were in the first battle.”

Judges 20:40 But when the column of smoke began to go up from the city, Benjamin looked behind them and noticed the whole town was going up in smoke.

Judges 20:41 Then the men of Israel returned, and the men of Benjamin were terrified when they realized that disaster had struck them.

Judges 20:42 They retreated before the men of Israel toward the wilderness, but the battle overtook them, and those who came out of the cities devastated those between them.

Judges 20:43 They surrounded the Benjaminites, chased them and quickly overtook them near Gibeah toward the east.

Judges 20:44 There were eighteen thousand men who died from Benjamin; all capable men.

Judges 20:45 Then Benjamin turned and ran toward the wilderness to Rimmon Rock, and Israel struck down five thousand men on the highways. They overtook them at Gidom and struck two thousand more dead.

Judges 20:46 All the Benjaminites who died that day were twenty-five thousand armed men; all were capable men.

Judges 20:47 But six hundred men escaped into the wilderness to Rimmon Rock and stayed there four months.

Judges 20:48 The men of Israel turned back against the other Benjaminites and struck them down with their swords – the entire city, the animals, and everything that remained. They also burned all the towns that remained

Judges 20 quotes:

“Chapter 20 describes Israel’s descent into civil war as the bonds of kinship trump the community of statehood. Benjamin refuses to join the rest of Israel in rooting out the evil in their midst, siding instead with its closer kin in Gibeah. The narrative thus offers a test of Israel’s unity, as the events described challenge the very notion of peoplehood under the covenant. This interest in the forms of polity and the tensions between them is typical of the humanist voice of Judges.

Niditch Susan. Judges: A Commentary. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press 2008. p. 201.

Judges 20 links:

civil war
defending the indefensible
devastated
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Wednesday, July 10, 2019

The JUDGES shelf in Jeff’s library