1And all the Israelites went out, and the community assembled as one man from Dan to Beersheba in the land of Gilead before the LORD at Mizpah. 2And all the leaders of the people, all the tribes of Israel in the assembly of God’s people, took their stance, four hundred thousand sword-wielding foot soldiers. 3And the Benjaminites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah. And the Israelites said, “Speak! How did this evil come about?” 4And the Levite man, husband of the murdered woman, answered and said, “I came with my concubine to Gibeah to spend the night. 5And the notables of Gibeah rose against me and surrounded the house upon me at night. Me they thought to kill, and my concubine they raped, and she died. 6And I seized my concubine and cut her up and sent her through all the lands of Israel’s estate, for they did a foul and scurrilous thing in Israel. 7Look, you are all Israelites. Offer a word of counsel here.” 8And the whole people rose as one man, saying, “We will not go each to his tent and we will not turn aside each to his home! 9And now, this is the thing we shall do to Gibeah: we shall go up against it by lot. 10And we shall take ten men out of a hundred from all the tribes of Israel and a hundred out of a thousand and a thousand out of ten thousand to take provisions for the troops, to do for those coming to Benjamin’s Gibeah, according to all the scurrilous thing they did in Israel.” 11And all the men of Israel gathered at the town, joined as one man. 12And the tribes of Israel sent throughout the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What is this evil that has come about among you? 13And now, give over the worthless men who are in Gibeah that we may put them to death and root out the evil from Israel.” But the Benjaminites did not want to heed the voice of their Israelite brothers. 14And the Benjaminites gathered from the towns at Gibeah to go out to battle with the Israelites. 15And the Benjaminites from the towns mustered on that day twenty-six thousand sword-wielding men, besides the inhabitants of Gibeah who mustered seven hundred picked men. 16From all these troops there were seven hundred picked men, left-handers; every one of them could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. 17And the men of Israel, except for Benjamin, mustered four hundred thousand sword-wielding men, every one of them a man of war. 18And they arose and went up to Bethel and inquired of God, and the Israelites said, “Who shall go up first for us in battle with the Benjaminites?” and the LORD said, “Judah first.” 19And the Israelites arose in the morning and encamped against Gibeah. 20And the men of Israel went out to battle with Benjamin, and the men of Israel were arrayed for battle with them at Gibeah. 21And the Benjaminites sallied forth from Gibeah, and they laid waste among Israel on that day twenty-two thousand men. 22And the troops of the men of Israel summoned their strength and once again were arrayed for battle in the place where they had been arrayed on the first day. 23And the Israelites went up and wept before the LORD till evening, and they inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I once again join battle with my Benjaminite brother?” And the LORD said, “Go up against him.” 24And the Israelites drew near to the Benjaminites on the second day. 25And Benjamin sallied forth to meet them from Gibeah on the second day, and they laid waste among the Israelites another eighteen thousand men, all of them sword-wielding. 26And the Israelites and all the troops went up and came to Bethel and wept, and they sat there before the LORD and fasted on that day till evening, and they offered up burnt offerings and well-being sacrifices before the LORD. 27And the Israelites inquired of the LORD—and in those days the Ark of God’s Covenant was there, 28and Phineas son of Eleazar son of Aaron was in attendance before Him in those days—saying, “Shall I once again sally forth in battle with my Benjaminite brother or shall I leave off?” And the LORD said, “Go up, for tomorrow I shall give him into your hand.” 29And Israel placed ambushers round about Gibeah. 30And the Israelites went up against the Benjaminites on the third day and were arrayed against Gibeah as on the times before. 31And the Benjaminites sallied forth to meet the troops, they were drawn away from the town, and they began to strike down from the troops, as on the times before, on the highways, one going up to Bethel and one to Gibeah, about thirty men of Israel. 32And the Benjaminites thought, “They are routed before us as before.” But the Israelites had said, “Let us flee and draw them away from the town to the highways.” 33And all the men of Israel had arisen from their place and were arrayed in Baal-Tamar, and the Israelite ambush was emerging from its place west of Gibeah. 34And ten thousand picked men from all Israel came opposite Gibeah, and the battle was fierce, but the Benjaminites did not know that harm was about to touch them. 35And the LORD routed Benjamin before Israel, and the Israelites laid waste among Benjamin on that day twenty-five thousand one hundred men, all of them sword-wielding. 36And the Benjaminites saw that they were routed. And the men of Israel gave ground before Benjamin, for they trusted the ambush that they had set for Gibeah. 37And the ambushers rushed out and assaulted Gibeah, and the ambushers drew together and struck the whole town with the edge of the sword. 38And the time that had been set for the men of Israel with the ambushers was when they sent up a column of smoke from the town, 39the men of Israel were to turn round in the battle. And Benjamin had begun to strike down among the men of Israel about thirty men, for they thought, “Why, he is surely routed before us as in the first battle.” 40And the column began to go up from the town, a pillar of smoke, and Benjamin turned around to its rear and, look, the entire town had gone up in smoke to the heavens. 41And the men of Israel turned round, and the men of Benjamin panicked, for they saw that harm had touched them. 42And they turned from before the men of Israel to the wilderness road, but the battle overtook both them and the ones from the town. They were laying waste to them within it. 43They had encircled Benjamin, pursued him to Menuhah, led him to a point over against Gibeah from the east. 44And eighteen thousand men of Benjamin fell, all of them valiant men. 45And they turned and fled to the wilderness to the Rock of Rimmon, but they picked off five thousand men of them on the highways, and they overtook them at Gidom and struck down two thousand men of them. 46And all those who fell of Benjamin on that day came to twenty-five thousand sword-wielding men, all of them valiant men. 47And six hundred men turned and fled to the wilderness to the Rock of Rimmon and stayed at the Rock of Rimmon four months. 48And the men of Israel had turned back against the Benjaminites, and they struck them by the edge of the sword from the town, from man to beast, whatever was there. All the towns, too, that were there they set on fire.
CHAPTER 20 NOTES
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1. as one man. This phrase recurs in the story, emphasizing the solidarity of the eleven tribes in their opposition to Benjamin.
2. four hundred thousand sword-wielding foot soldiers. Although military numbers in all these stories are exaggerated, this figure is especially fantastic. At no time in the history of ancient Israel could the nation have deployed this large an army.
4. husband of the murdered woman. Only now does the narrative spell out that the night-long gang-rape is tantamount to murder.
I came with my concubine. The Hebrew uses “I came” in the singular, followed by a second grammatical subject of the verb “my concubine,” a form that indicates that the first subject of the verb is primary. The Levite remains true to character, making the woman ancillary to himself.
5. Me they thought to kill. In fact, the men of Gibeah sought to have sex with him, a detail the Levite prefers not to mention, substituting for it a purported direct threat to his life.
and my concubine they raped. He says nothing about the fact that he himself thrust her out the door into the hands of the rapists.
6. I seized my concubine and cut her up. He has already said that she died, but this way of putting it creates the macabre impression of his cutting up the person, not the corpse.
7. Offer a word of counsel here. Obviously, the word he assumes his tale will elicit is a resolution of vengeance.
10. ten men out of a hundred. Though it seems evident that 10 percent of the assembled troops are to provide logistical support to the warriors, the wording—ten out of a hundred, a hundred out of a thousand, a thousand out of ten thousand—is a bit confusing.
for those coming to Benjamin’s Gibeah. The translation follows the reading in the Septuagint. The Masoretic Text looks garbled here: “for their coming.”
12. the tribe of Benjamin. The received text shows, illogically, a plural, “tribes,” but both the Septuagint and the Vulgate have a singular noun.
13. But the Benjaminites did not want to heed the voice of their Israelite brothers. The Israelites at first sought to punish only the perpetrators of the murderous sex crime. The refusal of the Benjaminites to hand them over then sets the stage for the bloody civil war.
14. gathered from the towns. These would have to be the sundry towns besides Gibeah that were in the tribal territory of Benjamin.
15. twenty-six thousand sword-wielding men. There is an unresolved discrepancy between this number and verse 35, where the total number of Benjaminite fighting men is given as 25,100.
16. left-handers. This might have been a genetic trait common among the Benjaminites, or they might have trained themselves to use their left hand in combat, like the great tennis player Rafael Nadal. One recalls that the Benjaminite Ehud used his left-handed prowess to take Eglon by surprise.
every one of them could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. Thus the Benjaminites, although vastly outnumbered, are formidable warriors. The large casualties they inflict on the first two days of battle may be because they can accurately strike their enemies from a distance, with a weapon that has a greater range than a spear and can be deployed more mobilely than a bow.
18. inquired of God. It was standard procedure throughout the ancient Near East to inquire of an oracle before battle.
Judah first. The oracle is extremely terse, and it offers no guidance as to how to conduct the battle.
21. laid waste. This is an unusual idiom for killing enemies in battle (the literal sense is: “waste to the ground”). It is possible that the usage, repeated several times in the story, is intended to evoke an association of cutting off progeny because it is precisely the idiom used to describe Onan’s practice of coitus interruptus (Genesis 38:9). The question of progeny and the survival of Benjamin becomes urgent in the next chapter.
23. Go up against him. Again, the oracle offers no counsel or prediction about the battle.
27. in those days the Ark of God’s Covenant was there. This clause and the next, which runs through the first half of verse 28, are an editorial interpolation intended to explain to a later audience why the Israelites had come to Bethel to inquire of the oracle.
28. Go up, for tomorrow I shall give him into your hand. Following the familiar folktale pattern of three repetitions with a reversal the third time, God now assures the Israelites that this time they will be victorious. Some interpreters see a contradiction between God’s granting the victory and its achievement through a military stratagem—the ambush and the false retreat—but this account is actually in keeping with the system of dual causation one often finds in biblical narrative: events are attributed to divine intervention but are implemented by human initiative.
31. the highways. Unlike derekh, which is any kind of road or way, these mesilot are paved roads.
about thirty men. In this third battle, the casualties they inflict before they are trapped and overwhelmed are insignificant.
37. the ambushers drew together and struck the whole town with the edge of the sword. The stratagem used here to capture and destroy the town is identical with the one deployed by the Israelite forces against Ai in Joshua 8. Many scholars think that the writer in Joshua drew on this story.
38. the time that had been set for the men of Israel with the ambushers was when they sent up a column of smoke. In the parallel episode in Joshua, it is Joshua who gives the signal by raising his javelin, as Moses raised his staff against Amalek. Here we have the more likely military device of a signal fire. The Masoretic Text has an anomalous word herev (“much”?) after “the ambushers,” but this is in all likelihood a dittography for haʾorev, “the ambushers,” and so it has been deleted in the translation.
39. And Benjamin had begun to strike down among the men of Israel about thirty men. This duplicates verse 31 and may reflect an editorial glitch.
41. they saw that harm had touched them. They now realize that they are caught in a pincer move between the ambushers and the main Israelite force.
42. They were laying waste to them within it. The wording of the Hebrew is somewhat crabbed, and this trait is reflected in the translation.
47. six hundred men . . . stayed at the Rock of Rimmon. It seems unlikely that this wilderness crag was either impregnable or invisible to the pursuing army, so the Israelites may have made a decision to spare some remnant of the Benjaminite fighting men.
48. they struck them by the edge of the sword from the town, from man to beast. This formulation would seem to suggest that Gibeah and the other Benjaminite towns were put under the ban, the ḥerem. For the phrase “from man to beast,” the translation, following some manuscripts and two ancient versions, reads mimetim (literally, “from people”) rather than the Masoretic metom (“unwounded spot”).