Judges 20:31
And the children of Benjamin went out against the people, and were drawn away from the city; and they began to smite of the people, and kill, as at other times, in the highways, of which one goeth up to the house of God, and the other to Gibeah in the field, about thirty men of Israel.
The closing last chapters of Judges record Israel's backsliding and low state before the call of Samuel the prophet, including the disgrace and punishment that followed. The conflict there was marked by tribal loyalty taking precedence over justice. It describes what happened at Gibeah of Benjamin after the crime there, the disgraceful murder of the Levite's concubine, when the whole tribe of Benjamin identified with its people. That identification led to a punishing war.
Gibeah lies just past Mizpeh within an hour's walk of Jerusalem. Its name means high, and it stands 2,690 feet above the sea, about 200 feet higher than Jerusalem, commanding a view even beyond the Dead Sea far into the mountains of Moab. The verse belongs to the account of Israel's first two defeats when twice repulsed by the Benjamites. Afterward Israel went up a third time under the Lord's direction and was able to prevail and finally defeat them.
The words house of God in the verse refer to the sanctuary at Shiloh where the Lord's tabernacle stood. It was the place of worship, and this is an example of the book of Judges calling it that. The war over Gibeah nearly exterminated the tribe of Benjamin and left it least among the tribes. Divine wisdom chose Israel's king from this least tribe of Benjamin to remove all grounds of jealousy among the other tribes.
Israel's temporary defeat in this account did not mean its cause would fail. The eventual victory over Benjamin gives hope that a cause oppressed for a time can ultimately triumph.