Judges · 25 verses
Judges 21
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
Israel tries to restore a nearly vanished tribe by destroying a town for its unmarried women, then hiding brides in vineyards for a religious festival. The legal knots are tied with admirable speed; the consequences take rather longer.
The tribe that was missingvv. 1–9
Israel had sworn at Mizpah that no daughter would marry a Benjamite. Then the people came to Bethel, wept before God, and discovered the particular difficulty of an oath: Benjamin was now a tribe in danger of disappearing, while the oath still stood neatly in place. A second oath supplied the next question, for anyone absent from the assembly was to die. The absent were found in Jabesh-gilead.
A remedy with rather severe edgesvv. 10–18
The congregation sent twelve thousand valiant men to Jabesh-gilead with orders that men, women, and children should be put to the sword, sparing only four hundred young women who had not had relations with a man. These were brought to the camp at Shiloh in Canaan. The Benjamites, who had been at the rock of Rimmon, received the spared women, though there were not enough. Israel grieved over Benjamin and began searching for another solution, still insisting that its daughters could not be given away. The oath remained impressively intact, while the tribe remained inconveniently short of wives.
The festival in the vineyardsvv. 19–25
The elders found a yearly feast to the LORD in Shiloh, north of Bethel, east of the road to Shechem, and south of Lebonah. The Benjamites were told to hide in the vineyards until the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance, then to catch a wife and return to Benjamin. If the fathers or brothers complained, the elders had a carefully polished answer: no one had actually given his daughter. The Benjamites did as instructed, carried away the women they needed, rebuilt their cities, and settled in them. Israel returned to its tribes and inheritances; the chapter then places its final label on the whole arrangement: “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Judg 21:1Now the men of Israel had sworn an oath at Mizpah, saying, “Not one of us will give his daughter in marriage to a Benjamite.”
Judg 21:2So the people came to Bethel and sat there before God until evening, lifting up their voices and weeping bitterly.
Judg 21:3“Why, O LORD God of Israel,” they cried out, “has this happened in Israel? Today in Israel one tribe is missing!”
Judg 21:4The next day the people got up early, built an altar there, and presented burnt offerings and peace offerings.
Judg 21:5The Israelites asked, “Who among all the tribes of Israel did not come to the assembly before the LORD?” For they had taken a solemn oath that anyone who failed to come up before the LORD at Mizpah would surely be put to death.
Judg 21:6And the Israelites grieved for their brothers, the Benjamites, and said, “Today a tribe is cut off from Israel.
Judg 21:7What should we do about wives for the survivors, since we have sworn by the LORD not to give them our daughters in marriage?”
Judg 21:8So they asked, “Which one of the tribes of Israel failed to come up before the LORD at Mizpah?” And, in fact, no one from Jabesh-gilead had come to the camp for the assembly.
Judg 21:9For when the people were counted, none of the residents of Jabesh-gilead were there.
Judg 21:10So the congregation sent 12,000 of their most valiant men and commanded them: “Go and put to the sword those living in Jabesh-gilead, including women and children.
Judg 21:11This is what you are to do: Devote to destruction every male, as well as every female who has had relations with a man.”
Judg 21:12So they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young women who had not had relations with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.
Judg 21:13Then the whole congregation sent a message of peace to the Benjamites who were at the rock of Rimmon.
Judg 21:14And at that time the Benjamites returned and were given the women who were spared from Jabesh-gilead. But there were not enough women for all of them.
Judg 21:15The people grieved for Benjamin, because the LORD had made a void in the tribes of Israel.
Judg 21:16Then the elders of the congregation said, “What should we do about wives for those who remain, since the women of Benjamin have been destroyed?”
Judg 21:17They added, “There must be heirs for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out.
Judg 21:18But we cannot give them our daughters as wives.” For the Israelites had sworn, “Cursed is he who gives a wife to a Benjamite.”
Judg 21:19“But look,” they said, “there is a yearly feast to the LORD in Shiloh, which is north of Bethel east of the road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah.”
Judg 21:20So they commanded the Benjamites: “Go, hide in the vineyards
Judg 21:21and watch. When you see the daughters of Shiloh come out to perform their dances, each of you is to come out of the vineyards, catch for himself a wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.
Judg 21:22When their fathers or brothers come to us to complain, we will tell them, ‘Do us a favor by helping them, since we did not get wives for each of them in the war. Since you did not actually give them your daughters, you have no guilt.’”
Judg 21:23The Benjamites did as instructed and carried away the number of women they needed from the dancers they caught. They went back to their own inheritance, rebuilt their cities, and settled in them.
Judg 21:24And at that time, each of the Israelites returned from there to his own tribe and clan, each to his own inheritance.
Judg 21:25In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 140 passages were voted onto 21 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 25Deuteronomy 12:8You are not to do as we are doing here today, where everyone does what seems right in his own eyes.
- 25Judges 17:6In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
- 25Proverbs 3:5Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;
- 25Ecclesiastes 11:9Rejoice, O young man, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment.
- 25Proverbs 14:12There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
- 1Judges 20:1Then all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came out, and the congregation assembled as one man before the LORD at Mizpah.
- 42 Samuel 24:25And there he built an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then the LORD answered the prayers on behalf of the land, and the plague upon Israel was halted.
- 5Judges 5:23‘Curse Meroz,’ says the angel of the LORD. ‘Bitterly curse her inhabitants; for they did not come to help the LORD, to help the LORD against the mighty.’
- 13Judges 20:47But 600 men turned and fled into the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, where they stayed four months.
- 13Deuteronomy 20:10When you approach a city to fight against it, you are to make an offer of peace.
- 18Judges 21:1Now the men of Israel had sworn an oath at Mizpah, saying, “Not one of us will give his daughter in marriage to a Benjamite.”
- 21Judges 11:34And when Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child; he had no son or daughter besides her.
- 21Exodus 15:20Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her with tambourines and dancing.
- 23Judges 20:48And 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.
- 25Judges 19:1Now in those days, when there was no king in Israel, a Levite who lived in the remote hill country of Ephraim took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.
- 1Acts 23:12When daylight came, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul.
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