Judges 20:36

36 Then the Benjaminites saw that they had been defeated. The Israelites had given ground to the Benjaminites because they relied on the ambush that they had set around Gibeah.

Judges 20:36 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 20:36

So the children of Benjamin saw that they were smitten
Their forces broken and worsted, many being killed:

for the men of Israel gave place to the Benjaminites;
at first, and made as if they were afraid of them, and so fled before them, which was only to decoy them to a greater distance from the city Gibeah:

because they trusted unto the liers in wait, which they had set beside
Gibeah;
that these would not only enter the city, and burn it, but meet the Benjaminites fleeing back to it, when they should turn upon them and smite them, and so cut off all that remained of them.

Judges 20:36 In-Context

34 Ten thousand specially chosen men from all the Israelites came against Gibeah. The fighting was fierce, and the Benjaminites didn't realize that disaster was almost on them.

35 The LORD wiped out the Benjaminites before Israel. The Israelites slaughtered twenty-five thousand one hundred Benjaminite men that day, all of them armed with swords.

36 Then the Benjaminites saw that they had been defeated. The Israelites had given ground to the Benjaminites because they relied on the ambush that they had set around Gibeah.

37 Indeed, those in the ambush had dashed swiftly into Gibeah and killed all the people in the city with their swords.

38 The plan between the main force of the Israelites and those in the ambush was that when they sent up a big cloud of smoke from the city,