Judges 20:1-28
Israel’s War with the Benjamites
1 So all the children of Israel came out, from Dan to Beersheba, as well as from the land of Gilead, and the congregation gathered together as one man before the LORD at Mizpah. 2 And the leaders of all the people, all the tribes of Israel, presented themselves in the assembly of the people of God, four hundred thousand foot soldiers who drew the sword. 3 (Now the children of Benjamin heard that the children of Israel had gone up to Mizpah.)
Then the children of Israel said, “Tell us, how did this wicked deed happen?”
4 So the Levite, the husband of the woman who was murdered, answered and said, “My concubine and I went into Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin, to spend the night. 5 And the men of Gibeah rose against me, and surrounded the house at night because of me. They intended to kill me, but instead they ravished my concubine so that she died. 6 So I took hold of my concubine, cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout all the territory of the inheritance of Israel, because they committed lewdness and outrage in Israel. 7 Look! All of you are children of Israel; give your advice and counsel here and now!”
8 So all the people arose as one man, saying, “None of us will go to his tent, nor will any turn back to his house; 9 but now this is the thing which we will do to Gibeah: We will go up against it by lot. 10 We will take ten men out of every hundred throughout all the tribes of Israel, a hundred out of every thousand, and a thousand out of every ten thousand, to make provisions for the people, that when they come to Gibeah in Benjamin, they may repay all the vileness that they have done in Israel.” 11 So all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, united together as one man.
12 Then the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What is this wickedness that has occurred among you? 13 Now therefore, deliver up the men, the perverted men who are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death and remove the evil from Israel!” But the children of Benjamin would not listen to the voice of their brethren, the children of Israel. 14 Instead, the children of Benjamin gathered together from their cities to Gibeah, to go to battle against the children of Israel. 15 And from their cities at that time the children of Benjamin numbered twenty-six thousand men who drew the sword, besides the inhabitants of Gibeah, who numbered seven hundred select men. 16 Among all this people were seven hundred select men who were left-handed; every one could sling a stone at a hair’s breadth and not miss. 17 Now besides Benjamin, the men of Israel numbered four hundred thousand men who drew the sword; all of these were men of war.
18 Then the children of Israel arose and went up to the house of God to inquire of God. They said, “Which of us shall go up first to battle against the children of Benjamin?”
The LORD said, “Judah first!”
19 So the children of Israel rose in the morning and encamped against Gibeah. 20 And the men of Israel went out to battle against Benjamin, and the men of Israel put themselves in battle array to fight against them at Gibeah. 21 Then the children of Benjamin came out of Gibeah, and on that day cut down to the ground twenty-two thousand men of the Israelites. 22 And the people, that is, the men of Israel, encouraged themselves and again formed the battle line at the place where they had put themselves in array on the first day. 23 Then the children of Israel went up and wept before the LORD until evening, and asked counsel of the LORD, saying, “Shall I again draw near for battle against the children of my brother Benjamin?”
And the LORD said, “Go up against him.”
24 So the children of Israel approached the children of Benjamin on the second day. 25 And Benjamin went out against them from Gibeah on the second day, and cut down to the ground eighteen thousand more of the children of Israel; all these drew the sword.
26 Then all the children of Israel, that is, all the people, went up and came to the house of God and wept. They sat there before the LORD and fasted that day until evening; and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD. 27 So the children of Israel inquired of the LORD (the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days, 28 and Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days), saying, “Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of my brother Benjamin, or shall I cease?”
And the LORD said, “Go up, for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hand.”
Here we see the divided tribes of Israel uniting after an attempted homosexual attack in Gibeah of the tribe of Benjamin led to the ravaging of the target’s concubine. They sexually Molested her until she died and left her on the doorstep of the old man protecting the priest’s wife. Then he divided her in pieces and sent her throughout all of Israel to demand an answer to the lewdness and spark outrage in Israel against such worthless perverted ones who dared do such a thing contrary to God’s law as idolatrous followers of the evil one, Belial. The people arose as one united in mind and purpose to raise an army to wipe out that evil. First they asked the Benjamites to hand over the perpetrators, but they refused and set up their own army to defend the evildoers, setting the stage for a battle among God’s people to defend the righteous and stop the ungodly and vile abominable acts of these perverted men. At first, the army of Israel suffered heave losses against their Benjamite brethren. The LORD urged them into battle when they consulted Him but lost many men. The second time they lost more. The third time, they inquired of the LORD if they should stop after they went to the house of God and wept, fasted, and even offered burnt and peace offerings to the LORD. The message came loud and clear, “Go up, for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hand.” They prepared for battle once more to rid the land of the perverse idolatrous and immoral perpetrators, pitting the holiness of the LORD and His will for the nation above the loss of their beloved brothers they found themselves pitted against. The righteousness of God and His people was about to be avenged and upheld at such a cost! We also must deal with sin and not let it go without church discipline, but with the goal of repentance and restoration from sin (Galatians 6:1, 2 Corinthians 2:5, 6-7, James 5:19-20), not annihilation of the sinners, that the body of Christ may be kept pure and holy to be well-pleasing to God. We must therefore rightly divide the sin from the sinner to unite together in bringing repentance and restoration to the sinners among us to conquer their sin and keep the unrepentant workers of ungodly vileness from eating the body from within like (1 Timothy 1:20, 2 Timothy 2:16-17, 1 Corinthians 5:8, 11,12) cancerous gangrene of the spirit and dividing us from Him and the holiness we are called to in conformity to Christ.
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