Judges 20:36

A RETROGRESSIVE RECAPITULATION (Judges 20:36-43)

"So the children of Benjamin saw that they were smitten; for the men of Israel gave place to Benjamin, because they trusted unto the liers-in-wait whom they had set against Gibeah. And the liers-in-wait hasted and rushed upon Gibeah; and the liers-in-wait drew themselves along, and smote all the city with the edge of the sword. Now the appointed sign between the men of Israel and the liers-in-wait was, that they should make a great cloud of smoke rise up out of the city. And the men of Israel turned in the battle, and Benjamin began to smite and kill of the men of Israel about thirty persons; for they said, Surely, they are smitten before us, as in the first battle. But when the cloud began to rise up out of the city in a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them; and, behold, the whole of the city went up in smoke to heaven. And the men of Israel turned, and the men of Benjamin were dismayed; for they saw that evil was come upon them. Therefore they turned their backs before the children of Israel unto the way of the wilderness; but the battle followed hard after them; and they that came out of the cities destroyed them in the midst thereof. They inclosed the Benjamites round about, and chased them, and trod them down at their resting place, as far as over against Gibeah toward the sunrising."

It is amazing that a scholar like Strahan would complain about this paragraph, asserting that, "In Judges 20:35 the battle is over; and in Judges 20:36 it begins again"![27] One wonders if he ever read Sir Walter Scott who was a master of the art of retrogression, a literary device, in which there is a recapitulation of an event with the addition of many significant details.

"They that came out of the cities, destroyed them in the midst thereof" (Judges 20:42). According to the marginal reading this means that, "All who came out of the cities, the men of Israel destroyed." Barnes identified the "cities" here as the cities of the Benjamites which were also ruthlessly liquidated by Israel.

"They enclosed the Benjamites round about" (Judges 20:43). The slaughter of the inhabitants of Gibeah and the burning of the city provided the pre-arranged smoke-signal for the Israelites to turn and engage the Benjamites. At the same time, the liers-in-wait were free to press the attack from the direction of Gibeah, thus "surrounding" the whole army of the Benjamites and fighting them on all sides (Judges 20:43).

Armerding explains to us that the RSV avoided the Hebrew word here rendered "inclosed," meaning "surrounded," "On the basis that `surrounded' men are not pursued."[28] But if the RSV translators had read Josephus they could have spared themselves from making such a blunder. Josephus tells us that:

"They were all destroyed except six hundred, which formed themselves into a close body of men, and forced their way through the midst of their enemies, and fled to the neighboring mountains, and, seizing upon them, remained there."[29]

All of the men of Benjamin except that six hundred were destroyed. Not only that, the last verses of the chapter indicate that all of the cities of Benjamin, being then without protection, were put to the sword, men, women and children without mercy. There were not even any women left to marry the remaining six hundred Benjamites, because in their anger, the children of Israel had bound themselves with an oath never to give their daughters in marriage to the sons of Benjamin.