provide such as remained with wives, without violating the oath that none of them would give them their own daughters as wives, - formed the two factors which determined the course to be adopted by the congregation. After the statement of these two circumstances, the question of Jdg 21:5, “Who is the one (only one) of the tribes of Israel which,” etc., is resumed and answered: “Behold, there came no one into the camp from Jabesh in Gilead, into the assembly.” שׁבטי is used in Jdg 21:8, Jdg 21:5, in a more general sense, as denoting not merely the tribes as such, but the several subdivisions of the tribes.
Verse 9
In order, however, to confirm the correctness of this answer, which might possibly have been founded upon a superficial and erroneous observation, the whole of the (assembled) people were mustered, and not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh was found there (in the national assembly at Bethel). The situation of Jabesh in Gilead has not yet been ascertained. This town was closely besieged by the Ammonite Nahash, and was relieved by Saul (1Sa 11:1.), on which account the inhabitants afterwards showed themselves grateful to Saul (1Sa 31:8.). Josephus calls Jabesh the metropolis of Gilead (Ant. vi. 5, 1). According to the Onom. (s. v. Jabis), it was six Roman miles from Pella, upon the top of a mountain towards Gerasa. Robinson (Bibl. Res. p. 320) supposes it to be the ruins of ed Deir in the Wady Jabes.
Verses 10-12
To punish this unlawful conduct, the congregation sent 12,000 brave fighting men against Jabesh, with orders to smite the inhabitants of the town with the edge of the sword, together with their wives, and children, but also with the more precise instructions (Jdg 21:11), “to ban all the men, and women who had known the lying with man” (i.e., to slay them as exposed to death, which implied, on the other hand, that virgins who had not lain with any man should be spared). The fighting men found 400 such virgins in Jabesh, and brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan. אותם (Jdg 21:12) refers to the virgins, the masculine being used as the more common genus in the place of the feminine. Shiloh, with the additional clause “in the land of Canaan,” which was occasioned by the antithesis Jabesh in Gilead, as in Jos 21:2; Jos 22:9, was the usual meeting-place of the congregation, on account of its being the seat of the tabernacle. The representatives of the congregation had moved thither, after the deliberations concerning Jabesh, which were still connected with the war against Benjamin, were concluded.
Verses 13-14
The congregation then sent to call the Benjaminites, who had taken refuge
