In yesterday's text we were told that the Benjamites did not realize they were being overwhelmed until it was too late: "The fighting was so heavy that the Benjamites did not realize how near their disaster was." Now we continue on beginning at verse 35. "The Lord defeated Benjamin before Israel, and on that day the Israelites struck down 25,100 Benjamites, all armed with swords. Then the Benjamites saw that they were beaten. Now the men of Israel had given way before Benjamin, because they relied on the ambush they had set near Gibeah. Those who had been in ambush made a sudden dash into Gibeah, spread out and put the whole city to the sword." (Judges 20:34b-37) The number of Benjamites struck down is the total number that was calculated at the end of the conflict. They only had 26,700 fighting men assembled at Gibeah to begin with. That number included 26,000 men sent to the city from various areas within the tribe of Benjamin and 700 Gibeahites able to wield a sword. At this point in our narrative the whole 25,100 have not yet perished.
"The Israelites had arranged with the ambush that they should send up a great cloud of smoke from the city, and then the Israelites would counterattack." (Judges 20:38-39a) When the Israelites rushed toward the city for the third time, the Benjamites poured out to drive them back. The Israelites pretended to be driven back so the Benjamites would pursue them, giving an opportunity for the men in ambush to enter the city. These men set a fire so the rest of the army would know they had made it inside. While this is going on, the Benjamites don't realize the entire army of Israel isn't running from them; they think they're winning again. "The Benjamites had begun to inflict casualties on the Israelites (about thirty), and they said, 'We are defeating them as in the first battle.'" (Judges 20:39b)
It isn't until they see the smoke from Gibeah that they realize their error. "But when the column of smoke began to rise from the city, the Benjamites turned and saw the whole city going up in smoke. Then the Israelites counterattacked, and the Benjamites were terrified, because they realized that disaster had come on them. So they fled before the Israelites in the direction of the wilderness, but they could not escape the battle. And the Israelites who came out of the towns cut them down there. They surrounded the Benjamites, chased them and easily overran them in the vicinity of Gibeah on the east. Eighteen thousand Benjamites fell, all of them valiant fighters." (Judges 20:40-44) At this point in the battle 18,000 of the original 26,700 have been killed.
"As they turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, the Israelites cut down five thousand men along the roads. They kept pressing after the Benjamites as far as Gidom and struck down two thousand more." (Judges 20:45) Now their casualties are up to 25,000. "But six hundred of them turned and fled into the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, where they stayed four months. The men of Israel went back to Benjamin and put all the towns to the sword, including the animals and everything else they found. All the towns they came across they set on fire." (Judges 20:47-48)
The author of Judges previously gave us a total of 25,100 men cut down on one day. We have counted up to 25,000 so far and have not been given any details regarding when and where the other 100 were struck down. If 25,100 perished by the sword and 600 fled into the wilderness for four months, only 1,000 of the men called up for this war are still alive at the end of Chapter 20. We don't know how many soldiers the entire tribe of Benjamin had at this time but at the end of the book of Numbers they only had 45,600. If they still had about that many soldiers, they've lost half the able-bodied men of their whole tribe.
The great loss of life among the men of the tribe of Benjamin and among the other tribes of Israel did not have to occur. If the Benjamites had handed over to the authorities the men of Gibeah who participated in the rape and murder of the Levite's wife, only those wicked men would have been put to death. Instead the Israelites lost 22,000 in the first battle, 18,000 in the second battle, and 30 in the third battle. The Benjamites lost 25,100 in the third battle.
Most of the commentaries I consulted in my background study make the statement that the Israelites were wrong in cutting down every man, woman, child, and animal in Gibeah and in the surrounding towns on the day of the third battle. These scholars feel it was done in a spirit of anger and bitterness. We have to consider that the author of Judges relates the story to us in a neutral tone rather than in a negative tone, so we can't say for sure whether the Lord instructed the Israelites to kill Benjamite civilians as well as soldiers. The Lord frequently instructed the Israelites to kill every living soul in the heathen cities they conquered but the Benjamites are not heathens; they are their fellow citizens. The only hint we will be given that the author of Judges deplored the Israelites' actions in today's chapter and in the following chapter is that at the end of Judges 21 he will restate an observation he's made several times before when he's informed us of lawless incidents: "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit."
We could interpret his words to mean, "We had no centralized seat of government. We handled problems as we saw fit at the time. Sometimes we were right. Sometimes we were wrong. We were a law unto ourselves when we had no king on the throne of Israel. The Lord, of course, was meant to be our king, but it's a human failing to find it easier to give allegiance to a human leader that we can see with our eyes than to always live in the fear of the God we cannot see."
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