Judges 20:23, commentary and pictures

The verse belongs to the war that followed the crime at Gibeah of Benjamin, the disgraceful murder of the Levite's concubine, when the whole tribe identified itself with the guilty people and the rest of Israel battled against Benjamin their brother and nearly exterminated the tribe. Gibeah itself lies within an hour's walk from Jerusalem. The verse stands in the final chapters of Judges, which show Israel in a low spiritual condition before the call of Samuel the prophet, a record of backsliding and its resulting disgrace and punishment.

In the verse Israel, after suffering defeat, goes up and weeps and mourns before the Lord until evening and seeks His counsel at Bethel, where the ark of the covenant was kept. There they ask whether to go up again to battle against their fellow Israelites, Benjamin their brother, and the Lord tells them to go up against him. That command to go up again led to a second defeat, for Israel was twice repulsed by Benjamin before finally winning on a third attack, so the verse belongs to an account in which the Lord directed a renewed effort after setbacks.

The temporary defeats teach that God may allow His chosen people to face danger and apparent ruin to humble their self-confidence and lead them to seek victory from Him, and that when they turn to Him sincerely, distress can give way to joy and success. As a result of this history the tribe of Benjamin had become least and nearly extinct, and God in divine wisdom chose Israel's king from that tribe to remove all grounds of jealousy among the other tribes.