Judges 21

Wives for the Remnant of Benjamin

1Now the Israelites had sworn at Mizpah, “None of us will give his daughter in marriage to a Benjamite.” 2The people went to Bethel and sat there before God until evening, lifting their voices in bitter weeping. 3“Yahweh, God of Israel,” they said, “why has this happened in Israel, that today one tribe should be missing from Israel?” 4The next day the people rose early, built an altar there, and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. 5Then the Israelites asked, “Who among all the tribes of Israel did not come up in the assembly to Yahweh?” For they had taken a solemn oath that anyone who failed to come up to Yahweh at Mizpah would surely be put to death. 6The Israelites grieved for their brother Benjamin, saying, “Today one tribe has been cut off from Israel. 7What can we do to provide wives for those who remain, since we have sworn by Yahweh not to give them any of our daughters in marriage?” 8Then they asked, “Which one of the tribes of Israel did not come up to Yahweh at Mizpah?” And they discovered that no one from Jabesh-gilead had come to the camp, to the assembly. 9When the roll was called, not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead was there. 10So the community sent twelve thousand of their fighting men there, with orders: “Go and put the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead to the sword, including the women and children. 11This is what you are to do: devote to destruction every male, and every woman who has slept with a man.” 12Among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead they found four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, in the land of Canaan. 13Then the whole community sent word to the Benjamites at the rock of Rimmon, offering them peace. 14So the Benjamites returned at that time, and the Israelites gave them the women of Jabesh-gilead they had spared, but there were not enough for all of them.

The Daughters of Shiloh

15The people grieved for Benjamin, because Yahweh had made a gap in the tribes of Israel. 16The elders of the community said, “What can we do to provide wives for the rest, since the women of Benjamin have been wiped out?” 17Then they said, “The survivors of Benjamin must have heirs, so that a tribe of Israel is not blotted out. 18But we cannot give them our own daughters as wives,” for the Israelites had sworn, “Cursed is anyone who gives a wife to Benjamin.” 19Then they said, “Look — there is a yearly festival of Yahweh in Shiloh, on the north side of Bethel, east of the road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah.” 20So they instructed the Benjamites: “Go and hide in the vineyards, 21and watch. When the young women of Shiloh come out to dance in the celebration, come out from the vineyards, and each of you seize a wife from among the young women of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. 22When their fathers or brothers come to complain to us, we will say to them, ‘Be generous with them for our sake, since we did not get wives for all of them in the war. And since you did not actually give the women to them, you are not guilty.’” 23So that is what the Benjamites did. They took wives for each of them from among the dancers they carried off. Then they went back to their own inheritance, rebuilt their towns, and settled in them. 24At that time the Israelites also left that place, each to his own tribe and clan, each returning to his own inheritance. 25In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.