Judges 21:7

7 How can we get wives for those who are left? We have sworn by God not to give any of our daughters to them in marriage."

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 Then the Israelites said, "Who from all the tribes of Israel didn't show up as we gathered in the presence of God?" For they had all taken a sacred oath that anyone who had not gathered in the presence of God at Mizpah had to be put to death.

6 But the People of Israel were feeling sorry for Benjamin, their brothers. They said, "Today, one tribe is cut off from Israel.

7 How can we get wives for those who are left? We have sworn by God not to give any of our daughters to them in marriage."

8 They said, "Which one of the tribes of Israel didn't gather before God at Mizpah?"

9 When they took a roll call of the people, not a single person from Jabesh Gilead was there.