The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Civil War against Benjamin
Judges 20:18–48 — Civil War against Benjamin. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
18The Israelites set out, went up to Bethel, and inquired of God, “Who of us shall go up first to fight against the Benjamites?” “Judah will be first,” the LORD replied.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
bə·nê yiś·rā·’êl way·yā·qu·mū way·ya·‘ă·lū ḇêṯ- ’êl way·yiš·’ă·lū ḇê·lō·hîm way·yō·mə·rū mî lā·nū ya·‘ă·leh- ḇat·tə·ḥil·lāh lam·mil·ḥā·māh ‘im- bə·nê ḇin·yā·min yə·hū·ḏāh ḇat·tə·ḥil·lāh Yah·weh way·yō·mer
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-rose-up, the-sons-of-Israel, and-they-went-up Beth-El, and-they-asked in-God, and-they-said: “Who for-us shall-go-up in-the-beginning to-the-battle with the-sons-of-Benjamin?” And-said YHWH: “Judah in-the-beginning.”
Where the English smooths the original
This consultation at Shiloh was right. But they ought to have done it at the commencement of their proceedings.
Nor yet do they seek to God for his help by prayer, and fasting, and sacrifice, as in all reason they ought to have done; but were confident of success, because of their great numbers, and righteous cause.
This is remarkable as indicating that the Urim and Thummim were something more than a pair of lots, and that the questions with which God was consulted by its means were other than those which admitted a mere positive or negative answer.Ellicott's inference about the Urim and Thummim is an argument from this verse, not an independent datum; the mechanism of the oracle is nowhere described in Scripture.
19The next morning the Israelites set out and camped near Gibeah.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
bab·bō·qer ḇə·nê- yiś·rā·’êl way·yā·qū·mū way·ya·ḥă·nū ‘al- hag·giḇ·‘āh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-rose-up, the-sons-of-Israel, in-the-morning, and-they-encamped upon Gibeah.
Where the English smooths the original
It seems from these words that Judah only led the van, as we now speak, and stood in the front of the battle, to make the first assault; but that all the rest went up with them.
formed a camp near Gibeah of 360,000 men, enough to have stormed and taken that city at once, one would think.Gill's arithmetic assumes the census figures of vv. 2 and 15 are literal; several of the commentators in this unit treat the round numbers as a known difficulty.
20And the men of Israel went out to fight against Benjamin and took up their battle positions at Gibeah.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’îš yiś·rā·’êl way·yê·ṣê lam·mil·ḥā·māh ‘im- bin·yā·min ’îš- yiś·rā·’êl mil·ḥā·māh ’el- way·ya·‘ar·ḵū ’it·tām hag·giḇ·‘āh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-went-out the-man-of-Israel to-the-battle with Benjamin; and-arrayed-themselves with-them, the-man-of-Israel, for-battle at Gibeah.
Where the English smooths the original
As soon as the Israelites had posted themselves at Gibeah in battle array (מלחמה ערך, to put in a row, or arrange the war or conflict, i.e., to put themselves in battle array
From B; repeating the substance of Jdg 20:19 (from A). The words went out … set the battle in array against them occur in Genesis 14:8 , a document probably not earlier than the exile.Cambridge is working with the documentary source-criticism of its day (narratives “A” and “B”); the exilic dating asserted here is a scholarly hypothesis of the 1880s, not a datum of the text, and readers should weigh it as such.
21And the Benjamites came out of Gibeah and cut down 22,000 Israelites on the battlefield that day.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḇə·nê- ḇin·yā·min way·yê·ṣə·’ū min- hag·giḇ·‘āh way·yaš·ḥî·ṯū šə·na·yim wə·‘eś·rîm ’e·lep̄ ’îš ḇə·yiś·rā·’êl ’ā·rə·ṣāh ha·hū bay·yō·wm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-came-out the-sons-of-Benjamin from the-Gibeah, and-they-brought-to-ruin in-Israel on-that day two and-twenty thousand man — earthward.
Where the English smooths the original
This immense slaughter shows the extraordinary fierceness of the battle. The Benjamite force must have nearly killed a man apiece.
Since they were engaged in so good a cause, and God himself bid them go up, it may seem strange that they should receive such a defeat. But it is to be observed, he only bid them go, but did not promise them success.
Several Jewish, writers (q) think this was on account of their idolatry, that though they were very zealous to revenge corporeal adultery in the case of the Levite's concubine, and to remove such iniquity from Israel; yet were not zealous to revenge and put away spiritual adultery or idolatry in the case of the Danites, who had set up the image of Micah, and so had spread idolatry not only in their own tribe, but throughout Israel; and therefore God took this opportunity to avenge his own quarrel, and rebuke them for their sin; and now did Benjamin raven as a wolf, according to Jacob's prophecyGill is reporting rabbinic opinion (Sanhedrin 103b, Pirke Eliezer 28, Rashi, Kimchi), not the text's own stated reason; the narrative never names Micah's idolatry as the cause of the defeat.
22But the Israelite army took courage and again took their battle positions in the same place where they had arrayed themselves on the first day.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’îš yiś·rā·’êl hā·‘ām way·yiṯ·ḥaz·zêq way·yō·si·p̄ū mil·ḥā·māh la·‘ă·rōḵ bam·mā·qō·wm ’ă·šer- ‘ā·rə·ḵū šām hā·ri·šō·wn bay·yō·wm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-strengthened-himself the-people, the-man-of-Israel, and-they-added to-array battle in-the-place where they-arrayed there on-the-day the-first.
Where the English smooths the original
Notwithstanding this terrible overthrow, the people strengthened themselves, and prepared again for battle, "at the same place" where they had made ready on the first day, "seeking out of pure vainglory to wipe out the stains and the disgrace which their previous defeat had brought upon themThe inner quotation is K&D citing the Berleburg Bible; the charge of “pure vainglory” is that commentary's verdict, not a statement of the text.
though they lost so many men, they did not flee before the children of Benjamin, but stood their ground; nor were they so superstitious as to fancy the place unlucky
23They went up and wept before the LORD until evening, inquiring of Him, “Should we again draw near for battle against our brothers the Benjamites?” And the LORD answered, “Go up against them.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḇə·nê- yiś·rā·’êl way·ya·‘ă·lū way·yiḇ·kū lip̄·nê- Yah·weh ‘aḏ- hā·‘e·reḇ way·yiš·’ă·lū Yah·weh lê·mōr ha·’ō·w·sîp̄ lā·ḡe·šeṯ lam·mil·ḥā·māh ‘im- ’ā·ḥî bə·nê ḇin·yā·min Yah·weh way·yō·mer ‘ă·lū ’ê·lāw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-went-up, the-sons-of-Israel, and-they-wept before-the-face-of YHWH until the-evening, and-they-asked in-YHWH, saying: “Shall-I-add to-draw-near to-the-battle with the-sons-of-Benjamin, my-brother?” And-said YHWH: “Go-up against-him.”
Where the English smooths the original
The words “my brother” show a sort of compunction, an uneasy sense that possibly, in spite of the first answer by Urim, God did not approve of a fratricidal war.
God answers to their question; but as they did not desire his assistance and success, so he doth not promise it.
Not so much for their sins, as for their defeat and loss. My brother — They impute their ill success, not to their own sins, but to their taking up arms against their brethren.
24On the second day the Israelites advanced against the Benjamites.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
haš·šê·nî bay·yō·wm ḇə·nê- yiś·rā·’êl way·yiq·rə·ḇū ’el- bə·nê ḇin·yā·min
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-drew-near the-sons-of-Israel unto the-sons-of-Benjamin on-the-day the-second.
Where the English smooths the original
This does not mean the day after the first battle. One full day at least—the day of supplication—must have intervened between the two battles.
is not the day following the first engagement, as if the battles had been fought upon two successive days, but the second day of actual fighting, which took place some days after the first, for the inquiry was made at Bethel as to the will of God between the two engagements.
25That same day the Benjamites came out against them from Gibeah and cut down another 18,000 Israelites, all of them armed with swords.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
bay·yō·wm haš·šê·nî ḇin·yā·min way·yê·ṣê liq·rā·ṯām min- hag·giḇ·‘āh way·yaš·ḥî·ṯū ‘ō·wḏ šə·mō·naṯ ‘ā·śār ’e·lep̄ ’îš ḇiḇ·nê yiś·rā·’êl ’ā·rə·ṣāh kāl- ’êl·leh šō·lə·p̄ê ḥā·reḇ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-went-out Benjamin to-meet-them from the-Gibeah on-the-day the-second, and-they-brought-to-ruin among-the-sons-of-Israel again eighteen thousand man — earthward; all-these drawers-of sword.
Where the English smooths the original
Thus in two battles the eleven tribes lost 40,000 men— i.e., 13,300 more than the entire Benjamite army, which was only 26,700.
this, with the 22,000 slain the day preceding, made 40,000; the same number singled out from among them by lot to provide food for them, and is thought by some to be the case Deborah refers to, Judges 5:8 and is what is certainly intended in Hosea 10:9Gill's confidence that Hosea 10:9 (“from the days of Gibeah”) refers to this event is a traditional reading, not a stated citation; Hosea names Gibeah but not this battle.
26Then the Israelites, all the people, went up to Bethel, where they sat weeping before the LORD. That day they fasted until evening and presented burnt offerings and peace offerings to the LORD.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḵāl bə·nê yiś·rā·’êl wə·ḵāl hā·‘ām way·ya·‘ă·lū way·yā·ḇō·’ū ḇêṯ- ’êl šām way·yê·šə·ḇū way·yiḇ·kū lip̄·nê Yah·weh ha·hū ḇay·yō·wm- way·yā·ṣū·mū ‘aḏ- hā·‘ā·reḇ way·ya·‘ă·lū ‘ō·lō·wṯ ū·šə·lā·mîm lip̄·nê Yah·weh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-went-up all-the-sons-of-Israel and-all-the-people, and-they-came Beth-El, and-they-wept, and-they-sat there before-the-face-of YHWH, and-they-fasted on-that day until the-evening, and-they-caused-to-go-up burnt-offerings and-peace-offerings before-the-face-of YHWH.
Where the English smooths the original
The former were burnt entire, and therefore could not be used for food; of the latter, only a part was consumed, and the rest might be eaten by the worshippers. The distinction between the two was that the burnt offerings typified absolute self-dedication, whereas the peace offerings were mainly eucharistic.
but rather in the state of mind with which they had entered upon the war, their strong self-consciousness, and great confidence in their own might and power.
Not until the Israelites have made their peace with God ( Jdg 20:23 ; Jdg 20:26 ) are they to be allowed to win a victory.
27And the Israelites inquired of the LORD. (In those days the ark of the covenant of God was there,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḇə·nê- yiś·rā·’êl way·yiš·’ă·lū Yah·weh hā·hêm bay·yā·mîm ’ă·rō·wn bə·rîṯ hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm wə·šām
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-asked the-sons-of-Israel in-YHWH — and-there the-ark-of the-covenant of-the-God in-those the-days —
Where the English smooths the original
A most important statement, defining the time of these occurrences, within the lifetime of Phinehas, and also giving a strong intimation that the writer of these words lived after the tabernacle had been removed from Shiloh and its neighbourhood to Jerusalem.Pulpit's inference about the writer's date is an argument from the phrase “in those days,” not a statement of the text; the same commentary concedes a few lines later that no other passage places the ark at Bethel.
It is clear, however, that the nation had been thoroughly and beneficially humiliated by these two terrible reverses, and that their approach to Jehovah on this occasion was far more solemn and devout than it had been at first.
28and Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, served before it.) The Israelites asked, “Should we again go out to battle against our brothers the Benjamites, or should we stop?” The LORD answered, “Fight, for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hand.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·p̄î·nə·ḥās ben- ’el·‘ā·zār ben- ’a·hă·rōn ‘ō·mêḏ lə·p̄ā·nāw bay·yā·mîm hā·hêm lê·mōr ha·’ō·w·sip̄ ‘ō·wḏ lā·ṣêṯ lam·mil·ḥā·māh ‘im- ’ā·ḥî bə·nê- ḇin·yā·min ’im- ’eḥ·dāl Yah·weh way·yō·mer ‘ă·lū kî mā·ḥār ’et·tə·nen·nū ḇə·yā·ḏe·ḵā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-Phinehas son-of-Eleazar son-of-Aaron was-standing before-his-face in-those the-days — saying: “Shall-I-add yet to-go-out to-the-battle with the-sons-of-Benjamin, my-brother, or shall-I-cease?” And-said YHWH: “Go-up, for tomorrow I-will-give-him into-thy-hand.”
Where the English smooths the original
This is the first promise of success. The people needed to be taught that even in a religious war they could by no means rely on their own strength.
now, when they had sought God after the due order, and truly humbled themselves for their sins, he gives them a full and satisfactory answer to their desires.
At first they only asked what tribe should first go up, presuming that the war ought to be made; and the second time, only whether God would have them renew the fight. But now they ask whether they should proceed in the war or desist altogether.
29So Israel set up an ambush around Gibeah.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
yiś·rā·’êl way·yā·śem ’ō·rə·ḇîm ’el- sā·ḇîḇ hag·giḇ·‘āh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-set Israel lurkers against the-Gibeah, round-about.
Where the English smooths the original
Though they were assured of the success by a particular and absolute promise, yet they do not neglect the use of means; as well knowing that the certainty of God’s purposes or promises doth not excuse, but rather require man’s diligent use of all fit means for the accomplishment of them.
For though they were assured of success and victory, yet they thought proper to make use of means: and though their numbers were very great, they had recourse to art and stratagem, and set an ambush in divers places, much in like manner as Israel did for the men of Ai
30On the third day the Israelites went up against the Benjamites and arrayed themselves against Gibeah as they had done before.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
haš·šə·lî·šî bay·yō·wm ḇə·nê- yiś·rā·’êl way·ya·‘ă·lū ’el- bə·nê ḇin·yā·min way·ya·‘ar·ḵū ’el- hag·giḇ·‘āh kə·p̄a·‘am bə·p̄ā·‘am
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-went-up the-sons-of-Israel unto the-sons-of-Benjamin on-the-day the-third, and-they-arrayed-themselves against the-Gibeah as-time in-time.
Where the English smooths the original
The account of the battle becomes exceedingly confused. It seems to be rounded off at Jdg 20:35 in the usual way, with a statement of the result and numbers slain; but in Jdg 20:36 ff. we find the battle still in progress, and we go through the various incidents again.Cambridge attributes the confusion to combined sources plus editorial glosses; K&D, in this same brief, answers that the repetition is normal Hebrew narrative order (result first, details after). Both readings are reproduced in this unit.
On the third day, to wit, after the second battle; for the first day after it they spent in perplexing thoughts, and going up to the house of the Lord; the second, in fasting and prayer there; and this third, in the fight.
31The Benjamites came out against them and were drawn away from the city. They began to attack the people as before, killing about thirty men of Israel in the fields and on the roads, one of which led up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḇə·nê- ḇin·yā·min way·yê·ṣə·’ū liq·raṯ hā·‘ām hā·nə·tə·qū min- hā·‘îr way·yā·ḥêl·lū lə·hak·kō·wṯ mê·hā·‘ām kə·p̄a·‘am bə·p̄a·‘am ḥă·lā·lîm kiš·lō·šîm ’îš bə·yiś·rā·’êl baś·śā·ḏeh bam·sil·lō·wṯ ’a·ḥaṯ ’ă·šer ‘ō·lāh ḇêṯ- ’êl wə·’a·ḥaṯ giḇ·‘ā·ṯāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-came-out the-sons-of-Benjamin to-meet the-people — they-were-torn-loose from the-city — and-they-began to-strike from-the-people pierced-ones as-time in-time, in-the-highways, of-which one goes-up Beth-El and-one Gibeah-ward, in-the-field: about thirty man in-Israel.
Where the English smooths the original
It means, apparently, that when some of the Israelites had been wounded with slings, the Benjamites began to rush on them, for the purpose of killing them, and they feigned flight along two highways, of which one led to Bethel, and the other to a place which, to distinguish it from Gibeah, seems to have been called “Gibeah in the field.” In this feigned flight thirty Israelites were killed.
cannot be right, for the Israelites were retreating towards the N., away from Gibeah; the general direction of the two roads must be the same. For Gibeah , therefore, read Gibeon ; at a short distance beyond Tell el-Fûl the road branches northwards to Beitîn (= Beth-el) and N.W. to el-Jib (= Gibeon), 3 m. N.W. of Tell el-Fûl.This is a proposed emendation (Gibeah → Gibeon), not a manuscript reading; Ellicott and Pulpit instead keep the text and identify the second road's destination as a distinct “Gibeah in the field,” probably Jeba.
32“We are defeating them as before,” said the Benjamites. But the Israelites said, “Let us retreat and draw them away from the city onto the roads.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
nig·gā·p̄îm hêm lə·p̄ā·nê·nū kə·ḇā·ri·šō·nāh way·yō·mə·rū bə·nê ḇin·yā·min ū·ḇə·nê yiś·rā·’êl ’ā·mə·rū nā·nū·sāh ū·nə·ṯaq·qə·nu·hū min- hā·‘îr ’el- ham·sil·lō·wṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said the-sons-of-Benjamin: “Smitten are-they before-our-face as-at-the-first.” But-the-sons-of-Israel said: “Let-us-flee, and-we-will-tear-him-loose from the-city unto the-highways.”
Where the English smooths the original
This would have the double effect of allowing the ambuscade to cut off their retreat, and of dividing their forces at the point where the roads branched off.
The Benjamites pursued recklessly, because they thought the fight was going as on the two previous days; the Israelites fled in order to draw them to the highways, and so to enable the ambushment to get between the Benjamite army and the city.
33So all the men of Israel got up from their places and arrayed themselves at Baal-tamar, and the Israelites in ambush charged from their positions west of Gibeah.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḵōl ’îš yiś·rā·’êl qā·mū mim·mə·qō·w·mōw way·ya·‘ar·ḵū bə·ḇa·‘al tā·mār yiś·rā·’êl wə·’ō·rêḇ mê·ḡî·aḥ mim·mə·qō·mōw mim·ma·‘ă·rêh- ḡā·ḇa‘
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-all the-man-of-Israel rose-up from-his-place and-arrayed-themselves at-Baal-Tamar; and-the-lurker of-Israel was-gushing-forth from-his-place, from-Maareh-Geba.
Where the English smooths the original
or it means that when the Israelites in their pretended rout had got as far as Baal-tamar (“Lord of the Palm”) they saw the appointed smoke-signal of the ambuscade, and at that point rallied against their pursuers.
Baal-tamar—a palm-grove, where Baal was worshipped. The main army of the confederate tribes was drawn up there. out of the meadows of Gibeah—Hebrew, "the caves of Gibeah"; a hill in which the ambuscades lay hid.JFB's “the caves of Gibeah” follows the Syriac/Arabic understanding of maʻăreh; K&D and Barnes read the same word as open, treeless ground. The Hebrew does not decide it.
The objection raised to this, viz., that a naked level country was not a place for an ambush, has no force, as there is no necessity to understand the words as signifying that the treeless country formed the actual hiding-place of the ambush; but the simple meaning is, that when the men broke from their hiding-place, they came from the treeless land towards the town.
34Then 10,000 select men from all Israel made a frontal assault against Gibeah, and the battle was fierce. But the Benjamites did not realize that disaster was upon them.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
‘ă·śe·reṯ ’ă·lā·p̄îm bā·ḥūr ’îš mik·kāl yiś·rā·’êl min·ne·ḡeḏ way·yā·ḇō·’ū lag·giḇ·‘āh wə·ham·mil·ḥā·māh kā·ḇê·ḏāh wə·hêm lō yā·ḏə·‘ū kî- hā·rā·‘āh nō·ḡa·‘aṯ ‘ă·lê·hem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-came from-in-front-of Gibeah ten thousand chosen man out-of-all-Israel, and-the-battle was-heavy; and-they knew not that touching upon-them was-the-evil.
Where the English smooths the original
they were so puffed up with their former successes, that they were insensible of their danger.
as we should say, “that the hour of their ruin had come,” or, as the Vulg. has it, quod ex omni parte illis instaret interitus
They did not know that God's judgment was at hand to destroy them.
35The LORD defeated Benjamin in the presence of Israel, and on that day the Israelites slaughtered 25,100 Benjamites, all armed with swords.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
Yah·weh ’eṯ- way·yig·gōp̄ bin·yā·min lip̄·nê yiś·rā·’êl ha·hū bay·yō·wm ḇə·nê yiś·rā·’êl way·yaš·ḥî·ṯū ‘eś·rîm wa·ḥă·miš·šāh ’e·lep̄ ū·mê·’āh ’îš bə·ḇin·yā·min kāl- ’êl·leh šō·lêp̄ ḥā·reḇ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-YHWH smote Benjamin before-the-face-of Israel; and-the-sons-of-Israel brought-to-ruin in-Benjamin on-that day twenty and-five thousand and-a-hundred man — all-these drawer-of sword.
Where the English smooths the original
for notwithstanding all the art and stratagem they used, their numbers and their valour, victory was of the Lord, and to him it is ascribed
This later source B, it is to be noted, ascribes the victory to the direct interference of Jehovah; cf. 2 Chronicles 13:15 ; 2 Chronicles 14:12 , where the same verb smote occurs.The “source B” framing is Cambridge's documentary hypothesis; the observation about the verb and its parallels in 2 Chronicles stands on its own regardless of that analysis.
they have overlooked this peculiarity in the Hebrew mode of writing history, viz., that the generally result of any occurrence is given as early as possible, and then the details follow afterwardsFrom K&D's footnote answering De Wette and Bertheau; it is a direct rebuttal of the source-critical reading quoted above from Cambridge.
36Then the Benjamites realized they had been defeated. Now the men of Israel had retreated before Benjamin because they were relying on the ambush they had set against Gibeah.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḇə·nê- ḇin·yā·min way·yir·’ū kî nig·gā·p̄ū ’îš- yiś·rā·’êl way·yit·tə·nū mā·qō·wm lə·ḇin·yā·min kî ḇā·ṭə·ḥū ’el- hā·’ō·rêḇ ’ă·šer śā·mū ’el- hag·giḇ·‘āh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-saw the-sons-of-Benjamin that they-were-smitten; and-the-man-of-Israel gave place to-Benjamin, because they-trusted unto the-lurker which they-had-set against the-Gibeah.
Where the English smooths the original
and made as if they were afraid of them, and so fled before them, which was only to decoy them to a greater distance from the city Gibeah
and the man of Israel vacated the field before Benjamin (מקום נתן, to give place by falling back and flying), because they relied upon the ambush which they had placed against Gibeah.
37The men in ambush rushed suddenly against Gibeah; they advanced and put the whole city to the sword.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·hā·’ō·rêḇ way·yip̄·šə·ṭū hê·ḥî·šū ’el- hag·giḇ·‘āh hā·’ō·rêḇ way·yim·šōḵ way·yaḵ ’eṯ- kāl- hā·‘îr lə·p̄î- ḥā·reḇ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-lurker hastened and-spread-out against the-Gibeah; and-drew-himself-on the-lurker, and-smote all the-city to-the-mouth-of the-sword.
Where the English smooths the original
whereas before they lay close and contracted into a narrow compass, now they spread themselves, and marched in rank and file, as armies do.
But the massacre of the inhabitants anticipates the signal; the destruction of the city does not begin till the smoke is seen to rise.Cambridge treats the tension as evidence of a gloss; K&D and Ellicott instead read vv. 36-41 as a recapitulation in which strict chronology is not intended.
38The men of Israel had arranged a signal with the men in ambush: When they sent up a great cloud of smoke from the city,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
lə·’îš yiś·rā·’êl hā·yāh wə·ham·mō·w·‘êḏ ‘im- hā·’ō·rêḇ lə·ha·‘ă·lō·w·ṯām he·reḇ maś·’aṯ he·‘ā·šān min- hā·‘îr
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-appointed-thing was for-the-man-of-Israel with the-lurker: “Make-much to-cause-to-go-up a-rising of-the-smoke from the-city.”
Where the English smooths the original
But the flash of a sword would not be seen at such a distance, and the word gives no good sense.
set it on fire, and cause the fire to burn fiercely, that there might be a large ascent of flame and smoke to be seen afar off; which, when the men of Israel saw, they would know the city was taken.
39the men of Israel would turn in the battle. When the Benjamites had begun to strike them down, killing about thirty men of Israel, they said, “They are defeated before us as in the first battle.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’îš- yiś·rā·’êl way·ya·hă·p̄ōḵ bam·mil·ḥā·māh ū·ḇin·yā·min hê·ḥêl lə·hak·kō·wṯ ḥă·lā·lîm kiš·lō·šîm ’îš kî bə·’îš- yiś·rā·’êl ’ā·mə·rū ’aḵ hū nig·gō·wp̄ nig·gāp̄ lə·p̄ā·nê·nū hā·ri·šō·nāh kam·mil·ḥā·māh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-turned the-man-of-Israel in-the-battle — and-Benjamin had-begun to-strike pierced-ones among-the-man-of-Israel, about thirty man, for they-said: “Surely smitten, smitten is-he before-our-face, as-in-the-battle the-first.”
Where the English smooths the original
40But when the column of smoke began to go up from the city, the Benjamites looked behind them and saw the whole city going up in smoke.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ham·maś·’êṯ ‘am·mūḏ ‘ā·šān hê·ḥêl·lāh la·‘ă·lō·wṯ min- hā·‘îr bin·yā·min way·yi·p̄en ’a·ḥă·rāw wə·hin·nêh ḵə·lîl- hā·‘îr ‘ā·lāh haš·šā·mā·yə·māh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-rising began to-go-up from the-city — a-pillar of-smoke; and-turned Benjamin behind-him, and-behold! went-up the-whole-of the-city heaven-ward.
Where the English smooths the original
It is likely the Israelites shouted when they turned about to fall upon the Benjamites, which made them look back to see what unexpected supplies they had received. Then they saw their city on fire, which, with the sudden turning of the Israelites from flight to attack them, quite put them in confusion.
Literally, the whole of the city —i.e., the universal conflagration—a very powerful expression.
Cf. Deuteronomy 13:16 ‘and thou shalt burn the city with fire as a whole offering unto Jehovah thy God’; but perhaps the word is hardly intended to bear its technical sense of holocaust here.Cambridge itself hedges the technical sense; the thread on the ban-law above keeps that hedge rather than pressing the sacrificial reading further than the commentary will go.
41Then the men of Israel turned back on them, and the men of Benjamin were terrified when they realized that disaster had come upon them.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’îš yiś·rā·’êl hā·p̄aḵ ’îš bin·yā·min way·yib·bā·hêl kî rā·’āh kî- hā·rā·‘āh nā·ḡə·‘āh ‘ā·lāw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-man-of-Israel turned, and-terrified was the-man-of-Benjamin, for he-saw that the-evil had-touched upon-him.
Where the English smooths the original
at this strange and sudden change of things, at the sight of the flame of their city behind them, and at the Israelites turning back to fight them, when they thought themselves sure of victory, as at other times
because of their great disappointment, and the present danger wherewith they were surrounded on every side.
An archaism in English, for bewildered ; cf. St Mark 10:32 , 1 Peter 3:6 (AV., contrast RV.).A lexical note on the AV's English, not on the Hebrew; it explains why older versions read “amazed” where BSB has “terrified.”
42So they fled before the men of Israel toward the wilderness, but the battle overtook them, and the men coming out of the cities struck them down there.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yip̄·nū lip̄·nê ’îš yiś·rā·’êl ’el- de·reḵ ham·miḏ·bār wə·ham·mil·ḥā·māh hiḏ·bî·qā·ṯə·hū wa·’ă·šer mê·he·‘ā·rîm maš·ḥî·ṯîm ’ō·w·ṯōw bə·ṯō·w·ḵōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-turned before-the-face-of the-man-of-Israel unto the-way-of the-wilderness, but-the-battle clave-to him; and-those-out-of the-cities were-bringing-to-ruin him in-the-midst-of-it.
Where the English smooths the original
The first thought of fugitives in Eastern Palestine was to get to one of the fords of the Jordan
This is a very obscure passage, and is very variously explained. Those which came out of the cities must be the same as are so described in ver. 15, and designates the Benjamites who were not inhabitants of Gibeah. The simplest way, therefore, to understand the passage is to render it without reference to the accents: "And the battle overtook him and those that were from the cities ( i.e. the men of Gibeah and the rest of the Benjamites), destroying him (the whole Benjamite army) in the midst of him," i.e. going right into the midst of them, and destroying right and left.Pulpit reaches its rendering by reading “without reference to the accents,” i.e. against the Masoretic punctuation; that is a deliberate editorial choice, and other commentators here divide the clause differently.
The battle, i.e. the men of battle or war; the abstract for the concrete
43They surrounded the Benjamites, pursued them, and easily overtook them in the vicinity of Gibeah on the east.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kit·tə·rū ’eṯ- bin·yā·min hir·ḏî·p̄u·hū mə·nū·ḥāh hiḏ·rî·ḵu·hū ‘aḏ nō·ḵaḥ hag·giḇ·‘āh mim·miz·raḥ- šā·meš
Literal — word-for-word from the original
They-encircled Benjamin; they-pursued-him; at-Menuchah they-trod-him-down as-far-as opposite Gibeah, toward-the-rising-of-the-sun.
Where the English smooths the original
The language and construction of this verse is poetical; it seems to be an extract from a song, and to describe, in the language of poetry, the same event which the preceding verse described in that of prose.
They inclosed seems to refer to the stratagem by which the Benjamites were surrounded by the ambush in their rear and the Israelites in front. Then came the pursuit - "they chased them;" then the massacre - "they trod them down." The three verbs describe the three stages of the battle.
they enclosed (hedged round) Benjamin, pursued him; at the place of rest they trod him down to before Gibeah eastwards.
44And 18,000 Benjamites fell, all men of valor.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šə·mō·nāh- ‘ā·śār ’e·lep̄ mib·bin·yā·min ’îš ’eṯ- way·yip·pə·lū kāl- ’êl·leh ’an·šê- ḥā·yil
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-fell of-Benjamin eighteen thousand man — all-these men-of-valor.
Where the English smooths the original
A metaphor from those who gather grapes or corn so cleanly and fully that they leave no relics for those who come after them.Benson's entry covers vv. 44-45 together; the gleaning metaphor he explains belongs strictly to v. 45.
as appears by three times facing and engaging with the army of Israel, so vastly superior to them, and twice beating them.
45Then the Benjamites turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, and Israel cut down 5,000 men on the roads. And they overtook them at Gidom and struck down 2,000 more.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yip̄·nū way·yā·nu·sū ham·miḏ·bā·rāh ’el- se·la‘ hā·rim·mō·wn way·‘ō·lə·lu·hū ḥă·mê·šeṯ ’ă·lā·p̄îm ’îš bam·sil·lō·wṯ way·yaḏ·bî·qū ’a·ḥă·rāw ‘aḏ- giḏ·‘ōm way·yak·kū mim·men·nū ’al·pa·yim ’îš
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-turned and-fled wilderness-ward unto the-rock-of Rimmon; and-they-gleaned of-him in-the-highways five thousand man; and-they-clave after-him as-far-as Gidom, and-they-struck of-him two-thousand man.
Where the English smooths the original
to have a gleaning of the battle, i.e., to smite or slay, as it were, as a gleaning of the principal battle
This Rimmon is a steep conical hill of white limestone (Robinson, 1:440), not far from Gibeah, and fifteen miles north of Jerusalem, six miles east of Bethel (“towards the sun-rising”). It is still called Rimmon.Ellicott follows Robinson's identification (Rummon, NE of Bethel); Pulpit records a rival proposal, the cave at Wady er-Rummon near Geba. Both are modern identifications, not data from the text.
46That day 25,000 Benjamite swordsmen fell, all men of valor.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ha·hū ’eṯ- bay·yō·wm ḵāl way·hî ‘eś·rîm wa·ḥă·miš·šāh ’e·lep̄ mib·bin·yā·min šō·lêp̄ ḥe·reḇ ’îš han·nō·p̄ə·lîm kāl- ’êl·leh ’an·šê- ḥā·yil
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-it-was: all the-fallen of-Benjamin — twenty and-five thousand man drawing sword, on-that day — all-these men-of-valor.
Where the English smooths the original
But as the Benjamites numbered 26,700 men Judges 20:15 , and 600 escaped to the rock of Rimmon, it is clear that 1,100 are unaccounted for, partly from no account being taken of those who fell in the battles of the two first days, partly from the use of round numbers, or from some other cause.
but here only the great number is expressed, the less being omitted, as inconsiderable; which way of numbering is frequent in Scripture, as Judges 11:26 2 Samuel 5:5 , and in other authors, and in vulgar use; as when they are called the seventy interpreters, who in truth and exactness were seventy-two.
47But 600 men turned and fled into the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, where they stayed four months.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šêš mê·’ō·wṯ ’îš way·yip̄·nū way·yā·nu·sū ham·miḏ·bā·rāh ’el- se·la‘ hā·rim·mō·wn way·yê·šə·ḇū bə·se·la‘ rim·mō·wn ’ar·bā·‘āh ḥo·ḏā·šîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-turned and-fled wilderness-ward unto the-rock-of Rimmon six hundred man; and-they-dwelt at-the-rock-of Rimmon four months.
Where the English smooths the original
There are two proposed identifications of this place. One makes it the same as Rummon , "a village perched on the summit of a conical chalky hill," "rising on the south side to a height of several hundred feet from the Wady Muti-yah," and defended on the west side "by a cross valley of great depth," which lies three miles east of Bethel, and seven miles northeast of Gibeah (Tulell el-Ful), and is situated in the wilderness between the highlands of Benjamin and the Jordan. This is advocated by Robinson ('Biblical Researches,' 1:440), by Mr. Grove in the 'Dictionary of the Bible,' and by Lt. Conder ('Quart. State. for July 1880,' P. 173). The other is advocated by Mr. W. F. Birch ('Pal. Expl., Quart. State. for April 1880'). This identifies it with the Wady er-Rummon , discovered by Mr. Rawnsley, where there is a vast cave, Mugharet el Jai , about a mile and a half from Geba, capable, according to the local tradition, of holding 600 men, and used to the present day by the villagers as a place of refuge from the government persecutions
turned out of the highway or common road, and being swift of foot, got to a wilderness; what wilderness is not certain: unto the rock Rimmon, and abode in the rock Rimmon four months; very probably in a cave of that rock, which might be large enough to hold such a number
it is still further related, that 500 men reached the rock Rimmon, and dwelt there four monthsFlagged: K&D as printed in this source reads “500 men,” where the Hebrew of v. 47 and every other commentator here read six hundred — almost certainly a slip in the text or its English translation. The cross-reference to Judges 21:13 is sound.
48And the men of Israel turned back against the other Benjamites and put to the sword all the cities, including the animals and everything else they found. And they burned down all the cities in their path.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’îš yiś·rā·’êl šā·ḇū ’el- bə·nê ḇin·yā·min way·yak·kūm lə·p̄î- ḥe·reḇ mə·ṯōm mê·‘îr bə·hê·māh ‘aḏ ‘aḏ- kāl- han·nim·ṣā gam šil·lə·ḥū ḇā·’êš kāl- he·‘ā·rîm han·nim·ṣā·’ō·wṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-man-of-Israel turned-back unto the-sons-of-Benjamin and-smote-them to-the-mouth-of the-sword — from-city, men unto cattle, unto all that-was-found; also all the-cities that-were-found they-sent-out in-the-fire.
Where the English smooths the original
The dreadful meaning which lies beyond these short and simple words is the absolute extermination of a whole tribe of Israel, MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN, CITIES AND CATTLE, with the exception of 600 fugitives.
But this was certainly a most inhuman barbarity, expressly contrary to the laws of God, which had forbidden the innocent to be punished with the guilty
If this seem harsh and bloody, either it may be ascribed to military fury; or rather, it may be justified; partly, from that high guilt brought upon the whole tribe, in which it is no wonder if their infants sufferedPoole is attempting a justification from the ban-laws and from the oath of Judges 21:5; Benson, quoted above, refuses that defence from Deuteronomy 24:16. The two are set side by side here deliberately — this unit does not adjudicate between them, and the text itself passes no verdict on v. 48.
This frightful vengeance, extending from Gibeah to the whole territory of Benjamin, was executed under the impetuous impulse of highly excited passions.JFB goes on to call the Israelites “the agents of inflicting the righteous retributions of God”; that theological verdict is JFB's own and is not stated in the chapter, which reports v. 48 without comment.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
⚙ The unit opens with an inquiry that is formally correct and materially hollow. Israel goes up to Beth-El, וַיִּשְׁאֲל֣וּ בֵאלֹהִים֒ — “and they asked in Elohim” — and the question is only who goes up in the beginning. Poole states the charge exactly: “they do not ask whether they should go against them, or no … nor yet do they seek to God for his help by prayer, and fasting, and sacrifice.” Benson repeats it almost word for word, and JFB adds the military consequence: “the vast number of volunteers formed an excessive and unwieldy force, unfit for strenuous and united action against a small, compact, and well-directed army.” The answer, Judah in the beginning, is the answer of Judges 1:2, and Gill notes why Judah fits: first standard about the tabernacle, first in the wilderness marches, first against the Canaanites. ⚙ That is the wound in this movement. The formula of the holy war against Canaan is being run, intact, against a tribe of Israel — and Pulpit says so without flinching: “In following this precedent the Israelites put the men of Gibeah on the footing of the Canaanite inhabitants of the land.” Then וַיַּשְׁחִ֨יתוּ, the verb Pulpit identifies with the destroying angel of Exodus 12:23, is turned around and used of Benjamin against Israel: twenty-two thousand, earthward.
⚙ Verse 22 is one Hebrew clause of self-diagnosis: וַיִּתְחַזֵּ֥ק, the people strengthened themselves — Hitpael, reflexive. K&D, quoting the Berleburg Bible, calls the motive “pure vainglory to wipe out the stains and the disgrace which their previous defeat had brought upon them,” and Ellicott notes the Vulgate's addition, “trusting in their courage and numbers.” Gill sees something better in the same verse: they held the field, and “nor were they so superstitious as to fancy the place unlucky.” Both can be true; the text gives strength without repentance. The second inquiry is a real advance — they now weep, and inquire of YHWH, and call Benjamin אָחִ֑י, my brother. Ellicott hears in that word “a sort of compunction, an uneasy sense that possibly, in spite of the first answer by Urim, God did not approve of a fratricidal war.” Poole hears what is still missing, and reads God's four-word reply as measured to the question: “as they did not desire his assistance and success, so he doth not promise it.” Eighteen thousand more fall. ⚙ Forty thousand of the avengers are dead, and Ellicott's arithmetic makes the horror plain: thirteen thousand more than Benjamin's entire army.
⚙ Everything the first two inquiries lacked arrives at once in v. 26, and the verbs stack: they went up, they came, they sat, they wept, they fasted until evening, and they caused to go up burnt offerings and peace offerings. Pulpit notes that sitting “on the ground, was the attitude of grief and mourning”; Ellicott distinguishes the sacrifices — the burnt offering “burnt entire,” typifying “absolute self-dedication,” the peace offering “mainly eucharistic” — while K&D insists that here the shelamim “are not thank-offerings, but supplicatory offerings, presented to implore the gracious assistance of God.” K&D also states the sin precisely and, ⚙ to this tool's reading, rightly: it “did not consist in the fact that they had begun the war itself … but rather in the state of mind with which they had entered upon the war.” Now the narrator tells us what has been true all along — the ark of the covenant was there, and Phinehas son of Eleazar son of Aaron was עֹמֵ֣ד, standing, before it. Ellicott calls the note “an important note of time,” fixing this whole chapter early, near the death of Joshua, and adds the terrible irony of the age: the grandson of Moses serves an image in Judges 18, the grandson of Aaron serves the ark here. Only now does the third question include the words אִם־אֶחְדָּ֑ל, “or shall I cease?” — and only now does the answer carry a promise: tomorrow I will give him into thy hand. Barnes: “now, for the first time, the promise is added.”
⚙ Assured of victory, Israel sets an ambush — and every commentator in this brief reaches for Ai. Ellicott: “This exceedingly simple and primitive stratagem had also been successful against Ai (Joshua 8:4) and against Shechem (Judges 9:43).” Barnes: “The stratagem described is exactly that by which Joshua took Ai.” Poole draws the doctrine out: “the certainty of God’s purposes or promises doth not excuse, but rather require man’s diligent use of all fit means.” The Hebrew of the battle is a tangle, and the commentators say so: Cambridge, “the account of the battle becomes exceedingly confused”; K&D answers that this is simply the Hebrew habit of stating the result first and the details after, and that the critics “have overlooked this peculiarity in the Hebrew mode of writing history.” ⚙ What the vocabulary does, whoever arranged it, is exquisite. Benjamin is הָנְתְּק֖וּ — torn loose from the city, a Hofal, something done to them. They begin to strike down חֲלָלִ֜ים, “pierced ones,” with a verb (châlal, “to begin”) spelled from the same root as the noun: they begin by piercing. The ambush מֵגִ֥יחַ — gushes out, a verb used elsewhere of the sea bursting from the womb (Job 38:8), as Cambridge observes. And then the signal: הַמּוֹעֵ֗ד, the appointed thing, the very word for the tent of meeting and the appointed feasts, is here a column of smoke; עַמּ֣וּד עָשָׁ֑ן, a pillar of smoke, rises over a city of Israel while Benjamin looks behind him and sees כְלִיל־הָעִ֖יר — the whole of the city going up heavenward. Cambridge catches the word: kâlîyl is the term of Deuteronomy 13:16, a city burnt “as a whole offering unto Jehovah thy God.” Ellicott calls the phrase “a very powerful expression”; ⚙ it is more than that. The verb that carried the burnt offerings up in v. 26 carries the city up here.
⚙ The last movement is written in the language of harvest and hunting. They encircled Benjamin (כִּתְּר֤וּ), they pursued, they trod him down; Barnes judges v. 43 “poetical … an extract from a song,” and Pulpit hears in the missing conjunctions “the stately march of the original,” three verbs for three stages. Then וַיְעֹֽלְלֻ֙הוּ֙: they gleaned five thousand men on the roads. Benson: “A metaphor from those who gather grapes or corn so cleanly and fully that they leave no relics for those who come after them”; K&D points to Jeremiah 6:9 for the same figure. Six hundred reach the rock of Rimmon and stay four months. And then v. 48, which no commentator here softens. Ellicott: “The dreadful meaning which lies beyond these short and simple words is the absolute extermination of a whole tribe of Israel, MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN, CITIES AND CATTLE, with the exception of 600 fugitives.” Poole tries a justification from the ḥerem laws and the oath of Judges 21:5; Benson refuses it — “this was certainly a most inhuman barbarity, expressly contrary to the laws of God, which had forbidden the innocent to be punished with the guilty, Deuteronomy 24:16.” K&D states the fact without excusing it: “they did the same to the Benjaminites as to the Canaanites who were put under the ban, carrying out the ban with the strictest severity.” Barnes names the family resemblance that runs through the whole account: “We see in the punishment inflicted the same ferocity which marked both the crime and the Levite's mode of requiring vengeance.”
⚙ Read under Scripture alone, this chapter is not first a story about Benjamin's sin; it is a story about what a righteous cause does to men who never ask God whether they are righteous. Three times Israel inquires, and the three questions are a descent: who goes first? — shall I go again? — shall I go, or shall I cease? Only the third question puts the outcome in God's hands, and only the third receives a promise. Twice God says “go up” and lets them lose, because the words “go up” were all they asked for. That is a terrifying mercy: God gives exactly what is requested, and the shortfall of the request is the whole judgment. ⚙ The moral centre is one word, אָחִ֑י — my brother, singular, spoken to God twice by an army of four hundred thousand. They knew. Their own prayer convicts them, and Poole and Benson both press the beam and the mote: a nation carrying Micah's idols in its own tents has come to burn a town for an atrocity. The victory, when it comes, is real — וַיִּגֹּ֨ף יְהוָ֥ה, “and YHWH smote Benjamin” — and it is also the moment the story loses control of itself, because a war authorized by God is finished by men who go on to put every city, every woman, every child and every beast of a brother tribe to the mouth of the sword, and are left in chapter 21 weeping over the hole they have torn in Israel. ⚙ The sober application is not that zeal is wrong, but that zeal which never asks God about itself will always overshoot into the thing it was avenging. Israel came to purge an outrage against one woman and ended by committing a greater one against thousands. Test this reading; it is the tool's, not the Word's.
Not Scripture but this tool's own line, offered to be tested: they asked God who should go first, and never asked whether they should go at all — and He answered exactly the question they asked.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
Gibeah and Benjamin dominate the vocabulary of this unit, and the Verifier's strongest links outside Judges run to Hosea 5:8, where the prophet sounds the alarm over the same pair: גִּבְעָה and בִּנְיָמִין. ⚙ The link is a shared place and tribe under judgment, not a quotation; nothing in Hosea 5 cites this battle. Gill, however, reports the traditional reading that Hosea 10:9 (“from the days of Gibeah”) is “certainly intended” of this very slaughter — that confidence is his, not the text's, and is recorded here as a commentator's judgment. Isaiah 10:29 likewise puts Gibeah on the Assyrian's road (three occurrences of H1390 in the Verifier's count for that verse).
Hosea 5:8 · Isaiah 10:29 · Hosea 10:9
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H1390 Gibʻâh (in 41 vv) and H1144 Binyâmîyn (in 160 vv) with Hosea 5:8; H1390 three times in Isaiah 10:29. Both are proper nouns of moderate frequency — a real verbal contact but not rare enough to carry a quotation claim, so the tier is thematic. Hosea 10:9 is added on Gill's attestation only, not on a Verifier basis.
The Verifier pairs this unit with 1 Samuel 13:2, 1 Samuel 13:15 and 1 Samuel 14:16 — the Gibeah of Saul, garrisoned by the same tribe whose fighting men are annihilated here, and in 13:2 named alongside Beth-El, the place of Israel's three inquiries. ⚙ Israel's first king is drawn from the six hundred survivors' tribe and rules from the rebuilt town Israel burned; and in 1 Samuel 14:2 Saul himself sits under a pomegranate (rimmon) with six hundred men — the same number and the same word as the fugitives of v. 47. Gill notes that coincidence explicitly. The link is pattern and place, not quotation.
1 Samuel 13:2 · 1 Samuel 13:15 · 1 Samuel 14:16 · 1 Samuel 14:2
basis: Verifier: shared H1008 Bêyth-ʼÊl (in 64 vv), H1144 Binyâmîyn (in 160 vv), H1390 Gibʻâh (in 41 vv) with 1 Samuel 13:2; same Benjamin/Gibeah pair with 13:15 and 14:16. The 1 Samuel 14:2 rimmon/six-hundred observation is Gill's, not Verifier-computed, and is offered as a resonance only.
Every commentator in this unit reaches for Joshua 8 independently: Ellicott (“had also been successful against Ai”), Barnes (“exactly that by which Joshua took Ai”), JFB (“similar to that employed in the capture of Ai”), Gill (“the two cases being pretty much similar”), and Cambridge, who compares Joshua 8:4–8 and notes at v. 40 that “it almost seems as if the account of the capture of Ai by a similar stratagem had influenced the present narrative.” The elements match in order: liers in wait set round the city, a pretended rout drawing the defenders out, the city taken and fired, smoke as the signal, the fleeing army turning. ⚙ The theological sting is that the Canaanite-conquest template is executed against a tribe of Israel — and Judges 20:48 completes it by carrying out the ḥerem.
Joshua 8:4-8 · Joshua 8:19-20 · Joshua 8:24-25 · Judges 9:43
basis: NOT a Verifier-computed lexeme link — the Joshua 8 pair was not in the candidate set and no shared Strong's basis is claimed here. The recorded basis is the stratagem sequence itself (ambush · feigned flight · city fired · smoke signal · turn), independently named as the same manoeuvre by Ellicott, Barnes, JFB, Gill and Cambridge.
The Verifier's highest-scoring non-Judges link is 1 Kings 7:36, sharing מַעֲרֵה (maʻăreh, H4629) — a lexeme it finds in only two verses in the whole Hebrew Bible. ⚙ Rarity alone would argue a verbal tier; honesty forbids it. The word here is effectively a hapax whose sense is disputed: Ellicott reports “the word maareh, rendered ‘meadows,’ occurs nowhere else,” that the LXX gave up and transliterated it as a name (Maraagabe), that Codex A and the Vulgate read “west of Gibeah” (a one-letter change to maʻărab), and that Syriac and Arabic read “cave.” Barnes: by a change of vowel-points “it becomes the common word for ‘a cavern’.” Cambridge calls the received form “probably a mistake.” K&D defends “a naked region destitute of wood.” The shared lexeme is therefore a shared uncertainty, and carries no thematic freight between a battlefield and Solomon's laver-panels.
1 Kings 7:36
basis: Verifier: shared H4629 maʻăreh (in only 2 vv) — genuinely rare, but the reading is contested in this very verse (LXX transliterates; LXX-A, Vulgate and Cambridge read maʻărab, “west”; Syriac/Arabic read “cave”; Barnes allows “cavern” by revocalization). Flagged rather than tiered verbal: the lexical identity may be an artifact of the Masoretic pointing.
At v. 40 Benjamin looks back and sees כְלִיל־הָעִ֖יר go up heavenward. Cambridge flags the word against Deuteronomy 13:16 — “thou shalt burn the city with fire as a whole offering unto Jehovah thy God” — while cautioning that “perhaps the word is hardly intended to bear its technical sense of holocaust here.” Verse 48 then completes the Deuteronomic formula: Cambridge notes that the phrase behind “the men of every city” (literally “the city of men”) is “only found again in Deuteronomy 2:34; Deuteronomy 3:6, and there, as here, in connexion with devoting a city or people to destruction,” and K&D compares those same verses for the pointing mᵉthîm. Poole appeals to Deuteronomy 13:15 to justify the slaughter; Benson appeals to Deuteronomy 24:16 to condemn it. ⚙ Both laws are in the same Torah, and the chapter does not adjudicate between them.
Deuteronomy 13:15-16 · Deuteronomy 2:34 · Deuteronomy 3:6 · Deuteronomy 24:16
basis: Not Verifier-computed (Deuteronomy was not in the candidate set); the recorded basis is Cambridge's and K&D's explicit lexical citations — kâlîyl (H3632) against Deuteronomy 13:16, and the “city of men” phrase against Deuteronomy 2:34 and 3:6 — plus Poole's and Benson's opposed appeals to Deuteronomy 13:15 and 24:16.
Two commentators in this unit answer the question “why did God let them lose?” with the same Gospel text, unprompted. Poole: “they should have pulled the beam out of their own eye, before they attempted to take that out of their brother Benjamin’s eye; which because they did not, God doth it for them.” Benson repeats the figure almost verbatim and adds, “these tribes had many and great sins reigning among themselves, and they should not have proceeded to so great a work with polluted hands.” ⚙ The link is a reading, not a citation: Matthew 7:3-5 does not quote Judges, and no shared Strong's number is possible across the Testaments. What the pairing supplies is the moral grammar of the two defeats — and the Lord's phrase for the man being corrected is exactly the one Israel keeps using at Beth-El, thy brother.
Matthew 7:3-5 · Galatians 5:15 · Romans 2:1
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew): shared Strong's numbers are impossible in principle, so no verbal tier is available and none is claimed. The recorded basis is the figure itself, applied to this passage independently by Poole and Benson, together with the shared vocabulary of “brother” (H251 ʼâch here, ἀδελφός there) in both.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The one word God speaks in v. 18 is Judah, and Gill grounds the choice in the tribe's standing order: first standard about the tabernacle, first in the wilderness marches, first against the Canaanites in Judges 1:2. ⚙ The pattern is the book's own and the Pentateuch's before it — when Israel must go up, Judah goes up in the beginning. That precedence is not military; it is the sceptre's (Genesis 49:10), and the New Testament names its end in the Lion of the tribe of Judah who alone is worthy to open the scroll. ⚙ The unbearable note here is that Judah leads Israel into a fratricide and is twice beaten. The tribe of the King is put at the head of a war it cannot win, and the pattern waits for a Judah who goes up first and does not lose — and who wins by being pierced rather than by piercing.
Judges 1:1-2 · Genesis 49:10 · Revelation 5:5 · Hebrews 7:14
Nothing changes until v. 26, and what changes is sacrifice. Ellicott distinguishes the two rites: the burnt offering, “burnt entire, and therefore could not be used for food,” typifying “absolute self-dedication”; the peace offering, of which “only a part was consumed, and the rest might be eaten by the worshippers,” and which was “mainly eucharistic.” K&D corrects the second in this context — supplicatory offerings “presented to implore the gracious assistance of God, and to commemorate the enjoyment of fellowship with the Lord, through the sacrificial meal.” Cambridge: “Not until the Israelites have made their peace with God are they to be allowed to win a victory.” ⚙ The order in this chapter is therefore doctrine: whole self-dedication and a blood-bought peace come before the word “tomorrow I will give him into thy hand.” The apostolic reading of the whole sacrificial system takes both rites to their end in one offering — a body given once for all, and peace made by the blood of the cross — so that the promise Israel could not obtain by numbers is received by those who come through the sacrifice.
Leviticus 1:3-9 · Hebrews 10:10-14 · Colossians 1:20 · Ephesians 2:14-16
Twenty-five thousand fall; six hundred turn and flee to סֶ֣לַע הָֽרִמּ֔וֹן, the rock of Rimmon, and there they remain four months (v. 47). Ellicott notes the hill is real and honeycombed — “there are four large caverns in the hill” — and Gill and Pulpit both press that they were sheltered in the rock. ⚙ Without that remnant there is no tribe of Benjamin, no Saul, no Mordecai, and no man who could write “I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.” The chapter that comes closest to erasing a tribe of Israel is the chapter that preserves, by six hundred men in a rock, the tribe from which the apostle to the Gentiles came — and Paul cites his own Benjamite descent precisely as proof that God has not cast away His people. ⚙ This is the tool's own figural reading: the text says nothing of Paul, and the four months are simply the interval until Judges 21:13. It is offered as a pattern of God preserving a remnant when judgment has otherwise run to the end, not as an allegory the chapter intends.
Judges 20:47 · Romans 11:1 · Philippians 3:5 · 1 Samuel 9:1-2
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
Text. Base text BSB (CC0) with the Berean interlinear, Strong's numbers and parsing supplied in the brief; all Hebrew forms and parses above are taken from it, including its word-index ordering, which follows the interlinear's alignment rather than strict Masoretic sequence. The literal renderings reconstruct normal Hebrew clause order (verb-first for wayyiqtol), so a rendering may run in a different order from the numbered words beneath it.
Beth-El or Shiloh. The commentators are genuinely divided and both sides are reproduced above. For Beth-El: Ellicott (“Beth El cannot mean ‘house of God,’ which is always either Beth ha-Elohim or Beth Adonai”), Pulpit, Barnes, K&D. For Shiloh: Benson, Poole, Gill, Geneva, following the Vulgate's in domo Dei, hoc est, in Silo. Pulpit's note on v. 27 is the fullest statement of the difficulty, and it concedes that “there is no hint anywhere of Bethel or any other place having been the resting-place of the ark before it fell into the hands of the Philistines.” ⚙ No synthesis above settles the question.
Numbers. v. 35 gives 25,100 and v. 46 gives 25,000; vv. 44–45 itemize 18,000 + 5,000 + 2,000. Against the 26,700 of v. 15 and the 600 survivors, roughly 1,100 Benjamites are unaccounted for. Barnes, Poole, JFB, Benson and Gill all notice this and explain it by round numbers and by losses in the first two engagements; Ellicott proposes instead that v. 15's total is wrong. Cambridge regards the figures throughout the chapter as “prodigious.” ⚙ No reconciliation is asserted here.
Disputed words. v. 33 maʻăreh (see the thread above) — versions and commentators divide between “bare place,” “west of,” “cave,” and a proper name. v. 38 הֶ֕רֶב — K&D reads an imperative of râbâh (“multiply, to cause smoke to ascend”) and defends the suffix as a mixed construction; Cambridge and LXX-A, Syriac and Vulgate delete it; some MSS and LXX read chereb, “sword,” which Ellicott rejects because “the flash of a sword would not be seen at such a distance.” v. 43 mᵉnûwchâh — “with ease” (AV/BSB), “at the place of rest” (K&D, as accusative of place), or a place-name Menuchah/Noua (LXX, Poole, Barnes as an option); Cambridge thinks the text corrupt. v. 48 מְתֹם֙ — Ellicott and K&D both hold it is wrongly pointed for mᵉthîm, “men.”
Sources. Eleven authors are supplied for this unit; ten are quoted. Matthew Henry is not quoted anywhere above: the Henry entry served for every verse of this chapter in the source set is a block on Judges 17:7-13 (Micah and his images), evidently misaligned in the underlying commentary feed, and quoting it here would attribute to Henry a comment he did not make on this passage. Cambridge Bible works throughout with a source-critical “A / B” analysis and with proposed emendations (Gibeon for Gibeah in v. 31; gid‘âm for Gidom in v. 45); these are recorded as that commentary's positions, not as findings. K&D's note on v. 47 as printed in this source reads “500 men reached the rock Rimmon” where the Hebrew and every other witness here read 600 — flagged above on the voice itself as a probable slip in the text or its translation.
Thread bases. The Verifier's candidate list for this unit is dominated by the proper nouns Binyâmîyn (160 vv) and Gibʻâh (41 vv), which establish real but common verbal contact. No thread above is tiered “verbal / quotation,” because no rare shared lexeme and no explicit New Testament citation of this passage was found; where a link rests on a commentator's citation rather than a computed lexeme, the badge says so.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)