Judges 21 - Summary

Having sworn at Mizpah not to give their daughters to Benjamin, Israel now grieves that a tribe may be extinguished; they discover that Jabesh-gilead sent no representatives to the assembly, so they kill all there except four hundred virgins given to the surviving Benjaminites. When two hundred men still lack wives, the elders devise a plan: at the annual festival at Shiloh, the Benjaminites may seize dancing daughters of Shiloh from the vineyards; if the fathers or brothers protest, they will be told to be gracious since wives were not given and no vow was technically broken. The Benjaminites do so, rebuild their cities, and return to their inheritance; the book closes with the refrain that in those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.