7 Behold, you people of Israel, all of you, give your advice and counsel here."
And all who saw it said, "Such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day; consider it, take counsel, and speak."
And now, if ye will hearken to my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then shall ye be my own possession out of all the peoples -- for all the earth is mine -- and ye shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak to the children of Israel.
Ye are sons of Jehovah your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for a dead person. For thou art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God, and thee hath Jehovah chosen for a people of possession unto himself, out of all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth.
And the men took of their victuals, but they did not inquire at the mouth of Jehovah.
For with good advice shalt thou make thy war; and in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.
It is universally reported [that there is] fornication among you, and such fornication as [is] not even among the nations, so that one should have his father's wife.
not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the avaricious and rapacious, or idolaters, since [then] ye should go out of the world. But now I have written to you, if any one called brother be fornicator, or avaricious, or idolater, or abusive, or a drunkard, or rapacious, not to mix with [him]; with such a one not even to eat. For what have *I* [to do] with judging those outside also? *ye*, do not ye judge them that are within?
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Judges 20
Commentary on Judges 20 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 20
Into the book of the wars of the Lord the story of this chapter must be brought, but it looks as sad and uncomfortable as any article in all that history; for there is nothing in it that looks in the least bright or pleasant but the pious zeal of Israel against the wickedness of the men of Gibeah, which made it on their side a just and holy war; but otherwise the obstinacy of the Benjamites in protecting their criminals, which was the foundation of the war, the vast loss which the Israelites sustained in carrying on the war, and (though the righteous cause was victorious at last) the issuing of the war in the almost utter extirpation of the tribe of Benjamin, make it, from first to last, melancholy. And yet this happened soon after the glorious settlement of Israel in the land of promise, upon which one would have expected every thing to be prosperous and serene. In this chapter we have,
Jdg 20:1-11
Here is,
Jdg 20:12-17
Here is,
Jdg 20:18-25
We have here the defeat of the men of Israel in their first and second battle with the Benjamites.
Jdg 20:26-48
We have here a full account of the complete victory which the Israelites obtained over the Benjamites in the third engagement: the righteous cause was victorious at last, when the managers of it amended what had been amiss; for, when a good cause suffers, it is for want of good management. Observe then how the victory was obtained, and how it was pursued.