Judges 20:35
And the LORD smote Benjamin before Israel: and the children of Israel destroyed of the Benjamites that day twenty and five thousand and an hundred men: all these drew the sword. And the LORD smote Benjamin before Israel: and the children of Israel destroyed of the Benjamites that day twenty and five thousand and an hundred men: all these drew the sword.
The verse belongs to the closing chapters of Judges, chapters 17-21, which record Israel's backsliding and its resulting disgrace and punishment, as well as God's mercy. Its immediate setting is the crime at Gibeah, the disgraceful murder of the Levite's concubine, and the ensuing conflict with Benjamin, in which the whole tribe identified itself with the people of Gibeah. That conflict nearly resulted in the extermination of the tribe of Benjamin. The last chapters show the low state and low condition into which Israel had fallen before the call of Samuel the prophet, a fearfully checkered time in Israel's history that stands in mighty contrast to the goodness and mercy of God revealed in Christ's miracles and teaching in Luke.
After Israel had twice been defeated and repulsed by the wicked Benjamites, the Lord sent Israel against them again and gave Israel victory, and that day Israel destroyed 25,100 Benjamite men who drew the sword. Benjamin's near destruction in this earlier conflict left it the smallest and nearly extinct tribe by the time Saul was chosen from it, and choosing Israel's king from Benjamin removed grounds for jealousy among the other tribes. Temporary defeat and apparent ruin do not prevent God's people from ultimately succeeding, since hardship can humble their self-confidence and lead them to depend on God for victory.