Judges 21:7

7 What shall we do for wives for the rest that remain? whereas we have sworn by the Lord, not to give them of 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 of all the tribes of Israel, went not up in the congregation to the Lord? for there was a great oath concerning those who went not up to the Lord to Massephath, saying, He shall surely be put to death.

6 And the children of Israel relented toward Benjamin their brother, and said, To-day one tribe is cut off from Israel.

7 What shall we do for wives for the rest that remain? whereas we have sworn by the Lord, not to give them of our daughters for wives.

8 And they said, What one of the tribes of Israel, who went not up to the Lord to Massephath? and, behold, no man came to the camp from Jabis Galaad to the assembly.

9 And the people were numbered, and there was not there a man from the inhabitants of Jabis Galaad.