Judges 21:7
How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing we have sworn by the LORD that we will not give them of our daughters to wives? How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing we have sworn by the LORD that we will not give them of our daughters to wives?
The closing chapters of Judges, chapters 17 to 21, record events that occurred in the early part of the period of the judges but are placed out of chronological order after the main story of the book, which ends with chapter 16. Within those closing chapters the question about providing wives for those who remain belongs to the account of the crime of Gibeah and the tribe of Benjamin's identification with its people. It records Israel's dilemma after the men of Benjamin were left without wives, for Israel had sworn by the LORD not to give them daughters as wives, yet Benjamin had to be preserved.
It stands within Israel's sad and pitiful record of transgression, lapsing into idolatry, and backsliding that brings disgrace and punishment. In that record loyalty to tribe is put above rendering justice and conventional hospitality is put above female virtue, a wrong still seen today. That record gives no excuse or leave to do the same and sin with impunity. The men God used for deliverance at that time were the very best material at hand, though sometimes crude and rough as in the case of Samson, and are not set before readers as examples to follow.