Judges 21:7

7 What are we to do about wives for those who are still living? For we have taken an oath by the Lord that we will not give them our daughters for wives.

Judges 21:7 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 21:7

How shall we do for wives for them that remain
By which it seems, as well as by what is after related, that they knew of the six hundred men hid in the rock Rimmon:

seeing we have sworn by the Lord;
by the Word of the Lord, as the Targum; and such an oath with them was a sacred thing, and to be kept inviolable, even to their own hurt:

that we will not give them of our daughters to wives;
as in ( Judges 21:1 ) and therefore they must either marry among the Heathens, which was forbidden, or they must make void their oath, or the tribe in a little time would be extinct; these were difficulties they knew not how to surmount, and this was the object of their inquiry.

Judges 21:7 In-Context

5 And the children of Israel said, Who is there among all the tribes of Israel, who did not come up to the Lord at the meeting of all Israel? For they had taken a great oath that whoever did not come up to Mizpah to the Lord was to be put to death.

6 And the children of Israel were moved with pity for Benjamin their brother, saying, Today one tribe has been cut off from Israel.

7 What are we to do about wives for those who are still living? For we have taken an oath by the Lord that we will not give them our daughters for wives.

8 And they said, Which one of the tribes of Israel did not come up to Mizpah to the Lord? And it was seen that no one had come from Jabesh-gilead to the meeting.

9 For when the people were numbered, not one man of the people of Jabesh-gilead was present.