Each man caught one and carried her off to be his wife. (Judges 21:23)In Part One, we read how a heinous crime was punished with an apparent death sentence for an entire tribe of Israel. When we closed, Benjamin had been reduced to 600 men, their wives and families butchered, and the rest of Israel determined they would not give those surviving men wives with which to continue their family line.
As the reality of the situation hit them, and they had a chance to think a little clearer (how much clearer, I'm not sure), they hatched a plan. Jabesh Gilead had not shown up to support their action against Benjamin, so that city became the new target. It's men, women and children were killed, and only its young unmarried women were spared. Those 400 women were given to the men of Benjamin as wives.
Problem: There were still 200 Benjamites who needed wives. No one could make this up. The Israelites realized that Shiloh was having a festival in which the young women went out to the fields. They determined to look the other way, while the remaining Benjamites captured a woman. This gives a whole different meaning to Hi ho the derry o, the farmer takes a wife.
There were a lot of death sentences handed down that day, but at least not for Benjamin as a tribe.
Talk about bad begetting worse. I can't even imagine what this would've been like for the families of the captured women - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers never had it like this... and then what is the inheritance for Benjamin, I wonder, with an entire generation raised by mothers who were bitter, alienated and grief-stricken?
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