Matthew Henry on Judges 21:1-15
We may observe in these verses,
I. The ardent zeal which the Israelites had expressed against the wickedness of the men of Gibeah, as it was countenanced by the tribe of Benjamin. Occasion is here given to mention two instances of their zeal on this occasion, which we did not meet with before: - 1. While the general convention of the states was gathering together, and was waiting for a full house before they would proceed, they bound themselves with the great execration, which they called the Cherum, utterly to destroy all those cities that should not send in their representatives and their quota of men upon this occasion, or had sentenced those to that curse who should thus refuse (Jdg 21:5…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Judges 21:6
There is one tribe cut off from Israel this day--that is, in danger of becoming extinct; for, as it appears from Jdg 21:7, they had massacred all the women and children of Benjamin, and six hundred men alone survived of the whole tribe. The prospect of such a blank in the catalogue of the twelve tribes, such a gap in the national arrangements, was too painful to contemplate, and immediate measures must be taken to prevent this great catastrophe.
John Gill on 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.
Keil & Delitzsch on Judges 21:1-14
The proposal to find wives for the six hundred Benjaminites who remained was exposed to this difficulty, that the congregation had sworn at Mizpeh (as is supplemented in Jdg 21:1 to the account in Jdg 20:1-9) that no one should give his daughter to a Benjaminite as a wife.
Jdg 21:2-4
After the termination of the war, the people, i.e., the people who had assembled together for the war (see Jdg 21:9), went again to Bethel (see at Jdg 20:18, Jdg 20:26), to weep there for a day before God at the serious loss which the war had brought upon the congregation. Then they uttered this lamentation: "Why, O Lord God of Israel, is this come to pass in Israel, that a tribe is missing to-day from Israel?"…
