Judges 21:11

11 “This is what you are to do,” they said. “Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin.”

Judges 21:11 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 21:11

And this is the thing that ye shall do
Which they gave them in charge to execute:

ye shall utterly destroy every male;
without any reserve, young or old, married or unmarried:

and every woman that hath lain by man;
whether lawfully or unlawfully, in a married or unmarried state.

Judges 21:11 In-Context

9 For after they counted all the people, no one from Jabesh-gilead was present.

10 So the assembly sent 12,000 of their best warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children.

11 “This is what you are to do,” they said. “Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin.”

12 Among the residents of Jabesh-gilead they found 400 young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.

13 The Israelite assembly sent a peace delegation to the remaining people of Benjamin who were living at the rock of Rimmon.

Footnotes

• [a]. The Hebrew term used here refers to the complete consecration of things or people to the, either by destroying them or by giving them as an offering.