Judges 21:23

23 The Benjaminites did so; they took wives for each of them from the dancers whom they abducted. Then they went and returned to their territory, and rebuilt the towns, and lived in them.

Judges 21:23 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 21:23

And the children of Benjamin did so
Went and laid wait in the vineyards, and when the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance, they rushed upon them:

and took them wives according to their number;
two hundred of them, each man a wife, and no more; for though polygamy was in use in those times, and if at any time necessary, and could be excused, it might seem now; yet it was not indulged to, neither by the elders, nor by the children of Benjamin:

of them that danced whom they caught;
the rape of the Sabine virgins by Romulus, at the arena plays and shows, mentioned by various authors F8, and the carrying off of fifteen Spartan virgins from the dances by Aristomenes the Messenian F9, are sometimes observed as parallel cases to this, and justified by it, particularly that of Romulus F11:

and they went and returned unto their inheritance;
the six hundred Benjaminites, with their wives, returned to their own tribe, which was their inheritance by lot; and these, being the only survivors, had a right to the whole:

and repaired the cities, and dwelt in them:
in process of time they rebuilt the cities the Israelites had burnt in the late war, and repeopled them as their posterity increased. And the Jewish writers say, that in later times they were allowed to marry with other tribes as before, since the oath only bound those present at Mizpeh; for they observe, that it ran only,

there shall not any of us
not any of our sons; they might give wives to Benjamin, and so in time they became numerous again.


FOOTNOTES:

F8 Liv. Hist. l. 1. p. 7, 8. Flor Hist. Rom. l. 1. c. 1. Aurel. Victor. de Vir Illustr. c. 2. Valer. Maxim. l. 1. c. 4.
F9 Hierop adv. Jovinian. l. 1. fol. 17. B, C.
F11 Vid. Albericum Gentil. de armis Roman l. 2. p. 114.

Judges 21:23 In-Context

21 and watch; when the young women of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards and each of you carry off a wife for himself from the young women of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.
22 Then if their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, we will say to them, "Be generous and allow us to have them; because we did not capture in battle a wife for each man. But neither did you incur guilt by giving your daughters to them.' "
23 The Benjaminites did so; they took wives for each of them from the dancers whom they abducted. Then they went and returned to their territory, and rebuilt the towns, and lived in them.
24 So the Israelites departed from there at that time by tribes and families, and they went out from there to their own territories.
25 In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.