Judges 21:13-25 - Everyone did as they saw fit

21:13-22

The six hundred escapees of Benjamin were still at the rock of Rimmon, and Israel now sent a peace offering to them. The Benjamites return and are given the four hundred virgins. However, this still left them about two hundred short. This greatly troubled the Israelites, and they were hampered by their earlier oath. So they come up with the most ridiculous solution. There was an annual festival at Shiloh. So they tell the wifeless Benjamites to hide in the vineyards and then to each grab one of the young women as they came out to join in the dancing. They declare that the fathers of the captured women would not be held to have broken the oath. This is an example of the stupidity we can get ourselves into when we make stupid rules. Israel had in effect given these young women to the Benjamites, breaking their own oath.

21:23-25

So the not-so-cunning plan was carried out, and everyone went home to their tribes and clans. The sorry book closes with the refrain of the book, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit”. We may look at the time of the kings and see that most of the time things were not much better. But Israel needed a king, one king, the Lord Himself. We live in an age when “everyone does as they see fit”, and we are reaping the consequences of that.