Judges 20

Translated from the Hebrew of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Tap a verse to see why it reads as it does. Tap a small letter to read its footnote.

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The tribes gather at Mizpah

¹Then all the Israelites came out, from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead, and the congregation gathered as one before the LORD at Mizpah. ²The leaders of the whole people, of all the tribes of Israel, took their places in the assembly of the people of God: 400,000 foot soldiers armed with swords.

³The Benjaminites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah. Then the Israelites said, “Tell us how this evil thing happened.” ⁴The Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, answered, “My concubine and I came to Gibeah in Benjamin to spend the night. ⁵The men of Gibeah rose against me and surrounded the house at night to get me. They meant to kill me. They raped my concubine, and she died. ⁶So I took my concubine, cut her into pieces, and sent them throughout the whole land Israel had inherited, because they had done a shameful and outrageous thing in Israel. ⁷Now all of you, the Israelites, give your advice and decide what to do here.” ⁸All the people rose up as one and said, “None of us will go home to his tent. Not one of us will return to his house. ⁹This is what we will do to Gibeah: we will go up against it as the lot decides. ¹⁰We will take ten men out of every 100 from all the tribes of Israel, 100 out of every 1,000, and 1,000 out of every 10,000, to bring food for the army. Then, when the army comes to Gibeah in Benjamin, it can repay them for all the outrage they committed in Israel.” ¹¹So all the men of Israel gathered against the city, united as one.

Benjamin refuses to hand over the men of Gibeah

¹²The tribes of Israel sent men through the whole tribe of Benjamin to say, “What is this evil thing that has been done among you? ¹³Now hand over those worthless men in Gibeah, so that we can put them to death and remove this evil from Israel.” But the Benjaminites would not listen to their brothers, the Israelites. ¹⁴Instead the Benjaminites came together from their towns to Gibeah, to go out and fight against the Israelites. ¹⁵That day the Benjaminites called up from their towns 26,000 men armed with swords, besides the people of Gibeah, who called up 700 chosen men. ¹⁶Among all these soldiers were 700 picked men who fought left-handed, each able to sling a stone at a hair without missing.

¹⁷The men of Israel, not counting Benjamin, called up 400,000 men armed with swords, all of them experienced fighters. ¹⁸The Israelites set out and went up to Bethel, and they asked God, “Which of us should go up first to fight against the Benjaminites?” The LORD answered, “Judah is to go first.” ¹⁹The next morning the Israelites set out and camped facing Gibeah.

War against Benjamin

²⁰The men of Israel went out to fight Benjamin and drew up their battle lines against them at Gibeah. ²¹Then the Benjaminites came out of Gibeah and cut down 22,000 men of Israel on the battlefield that day. ²²But the army, the men of Israel, took courage and again drew up their battle lines in the same place where they had drawn them up on the first day. ²³The Israelites went up and wept before the LORD until evening, and they asked the LORD, “Should we again go into battle against our brothers the Benjaminites?” The LORD answered, “Go up against them.”

²⁴So the Israelites advanced against the Benjaminites on the second day. ²⁵Benjamin came out of Gibeah to meet them on the second day and again cut down 18,000 of the Israelites on the battlefield, all of them armed with swords. ²⁶Then all the Israelites, the whole army, went up to Bethel. They sat there weeping before the LORD, and they fasted that day until evening and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD. ²⁷And the Israelites asked the LORD. The ark of the covenant of God was kept there in those days, ²⁸and Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, served before it. They asked, “Should we go out again to fight against our brothers the Benjaminites, or should we stop?” The LORD answered, “Go up, for tomorrow I will hand them over to you.” ²⁹So Israel set men in ambush all around Gibeah.

³⁰On the third day the Israelites went up against the Benjaminites and drew up their battle lines against Gibeah as they had done before. ³¹The Benjaminites came out to meet the army and were drawn away from the town. As before, they began to strike down some of the troops on the roads, one leading up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah, in the open country. They killed about thirty men of Israel. ³²The Benjaminites said, “They are being beaten by us as they were before.” But the Israelites had said, “Let us run away and draw them out from the town onto the roads.” ³³All the men of Israel rose up from where they were and drew up their battle lines at Baal-tamar, while the men of Israel in ambush burst out from their position west of Geba. ³⁴Then 10,000 chosen men from all Israel came against Gibeah, and the fighting was fierce. The Benjaminites did not realize that disaster was about to strike them.

Benjamin is defeated

³⁵The LORD defeated Benjamin before Israel, and that day the Israelites cut down 25,100 men of Benjamin, all of them armed with swords. ³⁶Then the Benjaminites saw that they were beaten. The men of Israel had given ground to Benjamin, because they were counting on the ambush they had set against Gibeah. ³⁷The men in ambush moved quickly and rushed into Gibeah. They spread out and struck down the whole town with the sword. ³⁸The men of Israel had agreed on a signal with the men in ambush: they were to send up a great cloud of smoke from the town. ³⁹Then the men of Israel turned around in the battle. Benjamin had already started cutting down the men of Israel and had killed about thirty of them, and they said, “They are surely beaten by us, as in the first battle.” ⁴⁰But when the signal began to rise from the town in a column of smoke, the Benjaminites looked behind them, and there was the whole town going up in smoke to the sky. ⁴¹Then the men of Israel turned to fight, and the men of Benjamin were terrified, because they saw that disaster had come upon them. ⁴²So they turned and fled from the men of Israel toward the wilderness, but they could not escape the fighting, and those who came out of the towns cut them down in the middle of it. ⁴³They surrounded the Benjaminites and chased them, and they trampled them down at Menuhah, as far as the area east of Gibeah. ⁴⁴Of Benjamin 18,000 men fell, all of them brave warriors. ⁴⁵Then they turned and ran toward the wilderness, to the rock of Rimmon. The Israelites picked off 5,000 men along the roads, and they kept after them as far as Gidom and killed 2,000 more. ⁴⁶So in all 25,000 men of Benjamin who were armed with swords fell that day, all of them brave warriors. ⁴⁷But 600 men turned and escaped into the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, and they stayed there four months. ⁴⁸Then the men of Israel turned back against the Benjaminites and struck them down with the sword, from the people of the towns to the animals, everything they found. They also set on fire every town they came to.