TRV
Translation
King James Version
And see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.
KJV (with Strong's)
Complete Jewish Bible
and keep watch. If the girls of Shiloh come out to do their dances, then come out of the vineyards, and each of you catch for himself a wife from the Shiloh girls, and go on to the land of Binyamin.
Berean Standard Bible
and watch. When you see the daughters of Shiloh come out to perform their dances, each of you is to come out of the vineyards, catch for himself a wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.
American Standard Version
and see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.
World English Bible Messianic
and see, and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards, and each man catch his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.
Geneva Bible (1599)
And when ye see that the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catche you euery man a wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and goe into the land of Beniamin.
Young's Literal Translation
and have seen, and lo, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances--then ye have gone out from the vineyards, and caught for you each his wife out of the daughters of Shiloh, and gone to the land of Benjamin;
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In the KJVVerse 7,124 of 31,102
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Commentary on Judges 21 verses 16–25
16 ¶ Then the elders of the congregation said, How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?
17 And they said, There must be an inheritance for them that be escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe be not destroyed out of Israel.
18 Howbeit we may not give them wives of our daughters: for the children of Israel have sworn, saying, Cursed be he that giveth a wife to Benjamin.
19 Then they said, Behold, there is a feast of the LORD in Shiloh yearly in a place which is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.
20 Therefore they commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, Go and lie in wait in the vineyards;
21 And see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.
22 And it shall be, when their fathers or their brethren come unto us to complain, that we will say unto them, Be favourable unto them for our sakes: because we reserved not to each man his wife in the war: for ye did not give unto them at this time, that ye should be guilty.
23 And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of them that danced, whom they caught: and they went and returned unto their inheritance, and repaired the cities, and dwelt in them.
24 And the children of Israel departed thence at that time, every man to his tribe and to his family, and they went out from thence every man to his inheritance.
25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
We have here the method that was taken to provide the 200 Benjamites that remained with wives. And, though the tribe was reduced to a small number, they were only in care to provide each man with one wife, not with more under pretence of multiplying them the faster. They may not bestow their daughters upon them, but to save their oath, and yet marry some of their daughters to them, they put them into a way of taking them by surprise, and marrying them, which should be ratified by their parents' consent, ex post facto - afterwards. The less consideration is used before the making of a vow, the more, commonly, there is need of afterwards for the keeping of it.
I. That which gave an opportunity for the doing of this was a public ball at Shiloh, in the fields, at which all the young ladies of that city and the parts adjacent that were so disposed met to dance, in honour of a feast of the Lord then observed, probably the feast of tabernacles (Jdg 21:19), for that feast (bishop Patrick says) was the only season wherein the Jewish virgins were allowed to dance, and that not so much for their own recreation as to express their holy joy, as David when he danced before the ark, otherwise the present melancholy posture of public affairs would have made dancing unseasonable, as Isa 22:12, Isa 22:13. The dancing was very modest and chaste. It was not mixed dancing; no men danced with these daughters of Shiloh, nor did any married women so far forget their gravity as to join with them. However their dancing thus in public made them an easy prey to those that had a design upon them, whence bishop Hall observes that the ambushes of evil spirits carry away many souls from dancing to a fearful desolation.
II. The elders of Israel gave authority to the Benjamites to do this, to lie in wait in the vineyards which surrounded the green they used to dance on, and, when they were in the midst of their sport, to come upon them, and catch every man a wife for himself, and carry them straight away to their own country, Jdg 21:20, Jdg 21:21. They knew that none of their own daughters would be there, so that the parents of these virgins could not be said to give them, for they knew nothing of the matter. A sorry salvo is better than none, to save the breaking of an oath: it were much better to be cautious in making vows, that there be not occasion afterwards, as there was here, to say before the angel that it was an error. Here was a very preposterous way of match-making, when both the mutual affection of the young people and the consent of the parents must be presumed to come after; the case was extraordinary, and may by no means be drawn into a precedent. Over hasty marriages often occasion a leisurely repentance; and what comfort can be expected from a match made either by force or fraud? The virgins of Jabesh-Gilead were taken out of the midst of blood and slaughter, but these of Shiloh out of the midst of mirth and joy; the former had reason to be thankful that they had their lives for a prey, and the latter, it is to be hoped, had no cause to complain, after a while, when they found themselves matched, not to men of broken and desperate fortunes, as they seemed to be, who were lately fetched out of a cave, but to men of the best and largest estates in the nation, as they must needs be when the lot of the whole tribe of Benjamin, which consisted of 45,600 men (Num 26:41), came to be divided again among 600, who had all by survivorship.
III. They undertook to pacify the fathers of these young women. As to the infringement of their paternal authority, they would easily forgive it when they considered to what fair estates their daughters were matched and what mothers in Israel they were likely to be; but the oath they were bound by, not to give their daughters to Benjamites, might perhaps stick with some of them, whose consciences were tender, yet, as to that, this might satisfy them: - 1. That the necessity was urgent (Jdg 21:22): We reserved not to each man his wife, owning now that they did ill to destroy all the women, and desiring to atone for their too rigorous construction of their vow to destroy them by the most favourable construction of their vow not to match with them. "And therefore for our sakes, who were too severe, let them keep what they have got." For, 2. In strictness it was not a breach of their vow; they had sworn not to give them their daughters, but they had not sworn to fetch them back if they were forcibly taken, so that if there was any fault the elders must be responsible, not the parents. And Quod fieri non debuit, factum valet - That which ought not to have been done is yet valid when it is done. The thing was done, and is ratified only by connivance, according to the law, Num 30:4.
Lastly, In the close of all we have, 1. The settling of the tribe of Benjamin again. The few that remained returned to the inheritance of that tribe, Jdg 21:23. And soon after from among them sprang Ehud, who was famous in his generation, the second judge of Israel, Jdg 3:15. 2. The disbanding and dispersing of the army of Israel, Jdg 21:24. They did not set up for a standing army, nor pretend to make any alterations or establishments in the government; but when the affair was over for which they were called together, they quietly departed in God's peace, every man to his family. Public services must not make us think ourselves above our own private affairs and the duty of providing for our own house. 3. A repetition of the cause of these confusions, Jdg 21:25. Though God was their King, every man would be his own master, as if there was no king. Blessed be God for magistracy.
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) — Commentary on the Whole Bible. This section covers verses 16–25. Public domain.
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Ambrose of MilanAD 397
On the Duties of the Clergy 3.19.115
The sentence, further, was that none of the people of the ancestors should give his daughter in marriage to [members of Benjamin’s tribe]. This was confirmed by a solemn oath. But relenting at having laid so hard a sentence on their brothers, they moderated their severity so as to give them in marriage those maidens that had lost their parents, whose fathers had been slain for their sins, or to give them the means of finding a wife by a raid. Because of the villainy of so foul a deed, they who had violated another’s marriage rights were shown to be unworthy to ask for marriage. But for fear that one tribe might perish from the people, they connived at the deceit.
Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.
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SUMMARY
Judges 21:21 encapsulates a desperate and ethically compromised resolution to the near extinction of the tribe of Benjamin, following a devastating civil war. Faced with a self-imposed oath not to provide wives to the surviving Benjaminite men, the Israelite elders orchestrated a plan for the men to abduct women from Shiloh during a festival. This act, while pragmatically ensuring the continuation of a tribal lineage, starkly illuminates the profound moral decay, societal chaos, and human expediency that characterized a period in Israel's history marked by a severe absence of divine wisdom and righteous leadership.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
The passage employs several potent literary devices to convey its grim message. Irony is profoundly evident, as a sacred religious festival at Shiloh, the site of the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, becomes the setting for a mass abduction. This starkly contrasts divine holiness with human depravity and the perversion of justice, revealing the depths of Israel's moral compromise. Juxtaposition is powerfully utilized in the contrast between the innocent, celebratory "dances" of the daughters of Shiloh and the violent, predatory act of the Benjaminite men emerging from the "vineyards." This highlights the sudden, brutal disruption of peace and the exploitation of vulnerability. The narrative also functions as a form of foreshadowing, hinting at the ongoing moral decline and societal chaos that would characterize Israel's future without righteous leadership, ultimately leading to the desperate cry for a king. The entire concluding narrative of Judges, including this verse, serves as a profound didactic warning, illustrating the destructive consequences of a society that abandons God's law and where "every man did that which was right in his own eyes."
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Judges 21:21 is a stark illustration of human desperation and the perilous consequences of attempting to solve problems through human ingenuity rather than divine wisdom. The entire episode underscores the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of Israel during the Judges period, where a society without righteous leadership descended into chaos, violence, and ethical compromise. The tribes, bound by a rash oath and driven by a desire to preserve the twelve-tribe structure, resorted to an act that violated fundamental principles of justice, consent, and the sanctity of marriage. This stands in stark contrast to God's ideal for marriage, established in creation, as a consensual, loving union (as seen in Genesis 2:24). The narrative serves as a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of expediency, the binding nature of oaths, and the ultimate need for a moral compass rooted in God's unchanging character and law.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
The account in Judges 21:21, though set in a distant and morally complex past, offers profound lessons for contemporary believers. It serves as a powerful reminder of the dangers of human-devised solutions when divorced from God's wisdom and guidance. The Israelites, caught between a devastating oath and the desire to preserve their tribal identity, chose a path that was expedient but morally reprehensible. This narrative challenges us to consider our own responses to difficult situations: do we prioritize human logic and convenience, or do we diligently seek God's will, even when it seems counter-intuitive or requires greater faith and sacrifice? The passage also underscores the importance of upholding ethical principles, even in challenging circumstances, recognizing that God's ways are always superior to human expediency. It prompts us to reflect on the nature of true justice, the sanctity of relationships, and the chaos that ensues when a society, or an individual, operates without a firm moral foundation rooted in divine truth, leading to actions that reflect "what is right in their own eyes" rather than God's righteous standards.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Was the abduction of the daughters of Shiloh condoned by God, or was it a righteous act?
Answer: The biblical text does not present the abduction of the daughters of Shiloh as an act condoned or commanded by God. Instead, it is depicted as a desperate, human-devised solution born out of the Israelites' self-imposed dilemma (their rash oath not to give their daughters to Benjamin) and the profound moral decay characteristic of the Judges period. The narrative of Judges, particularly its concluding chapters, consistently portrays Israel's actions as a time when "every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25), indicating a severe lack of divine guidance and a departure from God's covenant laws. God's law consistently upholds justice, consent, and the dignity of individuals, principles that are clearly violated in this act. Therefore, it is best understood as a historical account of human sin and folly, serving as a cautionary tale, not a divine endorsement.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
The chaotic and morally ambiguous events of Judges 21:21, where human solutions to human problems lead to further sin and violence, powerfully foreshadow the ultimate need for a divine King and a perfect solution to humanity's brokenness. The "seizing" of wives in Judges stands in stark contrast to the New Testament's portrayal of Christ's relationship with His Church. While the men of Benjamin "caught" their wives through force, Christ "gave himself up" for His bride, the Church, to make her holy and blameless, presenting her to Himself "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing" (Ephesians 5:25-27). The desperate measures taken by Israel to preserve a tribe highlight the futility of human efforts to establish righteousness and order apart from God's perfect plan. In Christ, we find the true fulfillment of justice and the establishment of a new covenant, where His Spirit enables believers to live according to God's will, rather than doing "what was right in their own eyes" (Jeremiah 31:33). He is the Lamb of God who truly takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), offering a perfect sacrifice that addresses the root of human depravity, unlike the cycle of violence and compromise seen in Judges. The hope for a just and righteous society, hinted at in the longing for a king in Judges, is fully realized in the reign of Christ, the true King who brings order, peace, and ultimate redemption.