Judges 20:17
And the men of Israel, beside Benjamin, were numbered four hundred thousand men that drew sword: all these were men of war. And the men of Israel, beside Benjamin, were numbered four hundred thousand men that drew sword: all these were men of war.
Judges 20:17 stands in the closing chapters and records of Judges, which describe Israel's backsliding and its disgrace and punishment, the low and fearfully checkered condition into which Israel had fallen before the call of Samuel the prophet. It belongs to the account of the crime at Gibeah, the murder of the Levite's concubine, with which the whole tribe of Benjamin identified itself by siding with the offenders. That outrage led to a war in which the tribe of Benjamin was nearly exterminated.
Apart from Benjamin, the men of Israel were numbered at four hundred thousand men that drew sword, all experienced men of war. Benjamin is thus presented as the least tribe and as nearly extinct, set over against that great numbered host of the rest of Israel. God deliberately chose Israel's king from this small tribe so the other tribes would have no grounds for jealousy.
This history of low condition stands in mighty contrast to God's great goodness and mercy revealed in the miracles and teaching of Jesus.