Judges 21:18

18 But we can't allow our daughters to marry them, for we Israelites have made this pledge: ‘Let anyone who provides a wife for Benjamin be cursed!'

Judges 21:18 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 21:18

Howbeit, we may not give them wives of our daughters
Though their case was so very necessitous and desperate:

for the children of Israel have sworn, saying, cursed be he that giveth
a wife to Benjamin,
( Judges 21:1 ) and therefore without the violation of their oath could not give any of their daughters in marriage to them: wherefore some other way must be devised to help them.

Judges 21:18 In-Context

16 the community elders said, "What can we do to provide wives for the ones who are left, seeing that the Benjaminite women have been destroyed?

17 There must be a surviving line for those who remain from Benjamin," they continued, "so that a tribe won't be erased from Israel.

18 But we can't allow our daughters to marry them, for we Israelites have made this pledge: ‘Let anyone who provides a wife for Benjamin be cursed!'

19 However," they said, "the annual festival of the LORD is under way in Shiloh, which is north of Bethel, east of the main road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah."

20 So they instructed the Benjaminites, "Go and hide like an ambush in the vineyards