what any one knew respecting the occurrence.
Verses 4-7
Then the Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, described the whole affair. הגּבעה בּעלי, the owners or citizens of Gibeah (see at Jdg 9:2). “Me they intended to kill:” the Levite draws this conclusion from what had happened to his wife; the men of Gibeah had not expressed any such intention in Jdg 19:22. “All the country (lit. field) of the inheritance of Israel,” i.e., all the land of the Israelites. זמּה is applied to the vice of lewdness, as in Lev 18:17, which was to be punished with death. וגו לכם הבוּ, “give yourselves (לכם asdat. comm.) word and counsel here,” i.e., make up your minds and pass sentence (vid., 2Sa 16:20). הלם, here, where you are all assembled together.
Verses 8-10
Then all the people rose up as one man, saying, “We will not any of us go into his tent, neither will we any of us return to his house,” sc., till this crime is punished. The sentence follows in Jdg 20:9 : “This is the thing that we will do,” i.e., this is the way in which we will treat Gibeah: “against it by lot” (sc., we will act). The Syriac gives the sense correctly - We will cast lots upon it; but the lxx quite erroneously supply ἀναβησόμεθα (we will go up); and in accordance with this, many expositors connect the words with Jdg 20:10 in the following sense: “We will choose one man out of every ten by lot, to supply the army with the necessary provision during the expedition.” This is quite a mistake, because in this way a subordinate point, which only comes into consideration in connection with the execution of the sentence, would be made the chief point, and the sentence itself would not be given at all. The words “against it by lot” contain the resolution that was formed concerning the sinful town, and have all the enigmatical brevity of judicial sentences, and are to be explained from the course laid down in the Mosaic law with regard to the Canaanites, who were to be exterminated, and their land divided by lot among the Israelites. Consequently the meaning is simply this: “Let us proceed with the lot against Gibeah,” i.e., let us deal with it as with the towns of the Canaanites, conquer it, lay it in ashes, and distribute its territory by lot. In Jdg 20:10 a subordinate circumstance is mentioned, which was necessary to enable them to carry out the resolution that had been made. As the assembled congregation had determined to keep together for the purpose of carrying on war (Jdg 20:8), it was absolutely necessary that resources should be provided for those who were actively engaged in the war. For this purpose they chose one man in every ten “to fetch provision for the people,” לבואם לעשׁות, “that
