22 And when their fathers or their brothers come and make trouble, you are to say to them, Give them to us as an act of grace; for we did not take them as wives for ourselves in war; and if you yourselves had given them to us you would have been responsible for the broken oath.
Now the men of Israel had taken an oath in Mizpah, saying, Not one of us will give his daughter as a wife to Benjamin.
Seeing that we may not give them our daughters as wives? For the children of Israel had taken an oath, saying, Cursed is he who gives a wife to Benjamin.
On the same day Noah, with Shem, Ham, and Japheth, his sons, and his wife and his sons' wives, went into the ark;
What are we to do about wives for those who are still living? For we have taken an oath by the Lord that we will not give them our daughters for wives.
It is a danger to a man to say without thought, It is holy, and, after taking his oaths, to be questioning if it is necessary to keep them.
But from the first, male and female made he them. For this cause will a man go away from his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; And the two will become one flesh; so that they are no longer two, but one flesh.
Still, because of love, in place of an order, I make a request to you, I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner of Christ Jesus: My request is for my child Onesimus, the child of my chains, Who in the past was of no profit to you, but now is of profit to you and to me: Whom I have sent back to you, him who is my very heart:
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Judges 21
Commentary on Judges 21 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 21
The ruins of the tribe of Benjamin we read of in the foregoing chapter; now here we have,
Jdg 21:1-15
We may observe in these verses,
Jdg 21:16-25
We have here the method that was taken to provide the 200 Benjamites that remained with wives. And, though the tribe was reduced to a small number, they were only in care to provide each man with one wife, not with more under pretence of multiplying them the faster. They may not bestow their daughters upon them, but to save their oath, and yet marry some of their daughters to them, they put them into a way of taking them by surprise, and marrying them, which should be ratified by their parents' consent, ex post facto-afterwards. The less consideration is used before the making of a vow, the more, commonly, there is need of afterwards for the keeping of it.
Lastly, In the close of all we have,