Judges 20

Judges 20 is the twentieth chapter of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, but modern scholars view it as part of the Deuteronomistic History, which spans in the books of Deuteronomy to 2 Kings, attributed to nationalistic and devotedly Yahwistic writers during the time of the reformer Judean king Josiah in 7th century BCE. This chapter records the war between the tribe of Benjamin and the other eleven tribes of Israel, belonging to a section comprising Judges 17 to 21.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is divided into 48 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis, Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis.
Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint include Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus.

Analysis

Double Introduction and Double Conclusion

to 21 contain the "Double Conclusion" of the Book of Judges and form a type of inclusio together with their counterpart, the "Double Introduction", in chapters 1 to 3:6 as in the following structure of the whole book:
There are similar parallels between the double introduction and the double conclusion as the following:

Introduction 1	Conclusion 2
The Israelites asked the, saying, "Who will be the first to go up and fight for us against the Canaanites?" The answered, "Judah is to go…."	The Israelites... inquired of God... "Who of us shall go first to fight against the Benjaminites?" The replied, "Judah…."
The story of how Othniel got his wife	The story of how the remainder of the Benjaminites got their wives
The Benjaminites fail to drive out the Jebusites from Jebus	A Levite carefully avoiding the Jebusites in Jebus suffers terrible outrage in Gibeah of Benjamin
Bochim: God's covenant; Israel's unlawful covenants with the Canaanites; Israel weeping before the angel of YHWH	Bethel: the ark of the covenant of God; Israel weeps and fasts before the
Introduction 2	Conclusion 1
The degeneration of the generations after the death of Joshua ; God leaves certain nations "to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the 's commands, which he had given… through Moses"	A mother dedicates silver to the Lord for her son to make an idol; That son makes one of his own sons a priest in his idolatrous shrine, then replaces him with a Levite. That Levite is Moses' grandson. He and his sons become priests at Dan's shrine

The entire double conclusion is connected by the four-time repetition of a unique statement: twice in full at the beginning and the end of the double conclusion and twice in the center of the section as follows:
It also contains internal links:
Both sections end with a reference to Shiloh.

The Bethlehem Trilogy

Three sections of the Hebrew Bible — Judges 17–18, Judges 19–21, Ruth 1–4 — form a trilogy with a link to the city Bethlehem of Judah and characterized by the repetitive unique statement:
as in the following chart:

Judges 17–18	Judges 19–20	Ruth 1–4
A Levite of Bethlehem	A Levite of Ephraim who took as his maiden a concubine from Bethlehem	A movement from a Moabite to David in Bethlehem
Left to seek employment	Received his concubine from Bethlehem to which she had fled	A man left Bethlehem, but unlike the other two stories does not ultimately deface the town, but enhances its name
Came to a young man of Ephraim	Returned to Ephraim by way of Gibeah of Benjamin	Bethlehem became the subtle setting for the birthplace of King David
Served as a private chaplain in Micah's illicit chapel	Set upon by evil men who brutalized her and left her for dead
Hired by the tribe of Dan as a priest and relocated in Laish	Her husband related the event to all of Israel
Established a cult center which continually caused God's people to stumble	They attacked the tribe of Benjamin almost annihilating it
The Levite was Jonathan the son of Gershom and the grandson of Moses	Repopulated Benjamin with women from Shiloh and Jabesh Gilead for the 600 surviving men of Benjamin
	Jabesh-Gilead was the home of Saul's ancestors
	Reflects badly on Benjamin and by implication Saul—Saul's ancestors humiliated and disgraced a Bethlehemite
	Bethlehem suffered at the hands of Benjaminites

Chapters 19 to 21

The section comprising Judges 19:1-21:25 has a chiastic structure of five episodes as follows:
The rape of the daughters of Shiloh is the ironic counterpoint to the rape of the Levite's concubine, with the "daughter" motif linking the two stories, and the women becoming 'doorways leading into and out of war, sources of contention and reconciliation'.

Preparation for war (20:1–11)

This chapter records the detailed process of a civil war that pits the pan-Israelite unity against a tribal unity. It also wrestles with the execution of a 'ban" whether Israel should eliminate a whole tribe to root out evil in its own midst as required in Deuteronomy 13:12-18. As stated in Deuteronomy 13:14, an investigation must first be undertaken before the Israel confederation can declare war against alleged miscreants. The tribe of Benjamin did not send any representative to the gathering, although they have heard about the event. The Levite was called to testify about the crime committed against his concubine, but as a sole witness he heightened the evil deed of the Gibeahites, while omitting his cowardly sacrifice of her. There was a unity of the tribes and a single-mindedness in rooting out the evil in their midst, that vengeance was to be directed to the entire city of Gibeah, because of the evildoers in their midst, just as the action against a breaker of covenant would be extended to their families and townsmen.

Verse 1

"From Dan … to Beersheba": Dan was located in the far north of the land, while Beersheba was in the far south, so the phrase denotes all the Israel territory of the land of Canaan.
"The land of Gilead" was located on the eastern side of the Jordan River.
"Mizpeh": the name of several Israelite towns; this most likely refers to Mizpah in Benjamin, identified with modern "Tell-en-Nasbeh", about north of Jerusalem.
Benjaminite War (20:12–48)

The war between the tribe of Benjamin against the other tribes of Israel consists of three battles with similar structure of reports in this chapter. The focus is on how the people of Israel would gradually humble themselves before YHWH, so that the goals of Israel and YHWH would coincide.
The battle report structure, especially for the first battle in chapter 20, is similar to that in chapter 1 as follows:
;The battle in Judges 1

Preinquiry Actions
*
Israelites Inquiry
*"Who will be the first to go up and fight for us against the Canaanites?"
Yahweh's Response
*"Judah is to go; I have given the land into their hands"
Result
*Men of Judah make a deal with the Simeonites but victories come over the bulk of Canaanites

; The battles in Judges 20
; First battle

Preinquiry Actions
*Make plans against Gibeah and threaten city
Israelites Inquiry
*"Who of us shall go first to fight against the Benjaminites?"
Yahweh's Response
*"Judah shall go first"
Result
*Israelites attack Gibeah en masse, are defeated severely by Benjaminites

; Second battle

Preinquiry Actions
*Israelites encourage one another and again take up their positions
*Israelites weep before Yahweh
Israelites Inquiry
*"Shall we go up again to battle against the Benjaminites, our brothers?"
Yahweh's Response
*"Go up against them" - no promise of victory
Result
*Israelites attack en masse, are defeated severely by Benjaminites

; Third battle

Preinquiry Actions
*Israelites—all the people—weep fast, and present sacrifices
Israelites Inquiry
*Inquiry through Phinehas, the high priest, "Shall we go up again to battle with Benjamin our brother or not?"
Yahweh's Response
*"Go, for tomorrow I will give them into your hands"
Result
*Israelites set ambush and herem Benjaminites—except for 600 men.

The battle accounts appear to end, but because 600 Benjaminites escape, the finale of the battle is not technically a full imposition of the ban, which, in the Books of Deuteronomy and Joshua, is described as the killing of all human enemies.

Verses 26–28

"House of God": the first assumption of the place is "Bethel", but Vulgate has in verse 18 "house of God, which is in Silo", which is in accordance to Joshua 18:1 where the tabernacle of the congregation was formally pitched at Shiloh and Joshua 22:12 that Phinehas the son of Eleazar was the high priest there, whereas there is no hint anywhere of the city of Bethel or any other place having been the location of the ark before being captured by the Philistines.
"Phinehas": mentioned in Numbers 25:7–13; Joshua 22.