Judges 20 Bible study: Benjamin my brother

"Then all the children of Israel went out, and the congregation was assembled as one man, from Dan even to Beersheba, with the land of Gilead, to the LORD at Mizpah" (20:1). "From Dan even to Beersheba" is the first time the WEB uses the phrase; it runs from Dan in the north, the city the Danites named in 18:29, to Beersheba in the south. The chiefs of the tribes stood "in the assembly of the people of God, four hundred thousand footmen who drew sword" (20:2). Their first words are a question: "Tell us, how did this wickedness happen?" (20:3) (tap wickedness). The narrator names who answers, "The Levite, the husband of the woman who was murdered" (20:4) (tap murdered), and the Levite gives his account (20:4-7). Then "All the people arose as one man" (20:8), and "all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, knit together as one man" (20:11). The WEB's "as one man" comes three times in this chapter (20:1, 20:8, 20:11) and only once more in Judges, when the LORD told Gideon, "you shall strike the Midianites as one man" (6:16).

Judges 20:13→leads toMatthew 18:17

The tribes sent men through Benjamin: "Now therefore deliver up the men, the wicked fellows who are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death and put away evil from Israel." "But Benjamin would not listen to the voice of their brothers, the children of Israel" (20:13). Jesus taught his disciples, "If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone" (Matthew 18:15), and "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector" (Matthew 18:17). Jesus doesn't cite Judges 20, so setting the two side by side is a reading. Some set them together on one point only: both speak of a brother told of a wrong who refuses to listen, and Jesus gives his disciples the steps to take. Others keep each in its setting: Jesus is teaching his disciples about a brother who sins against them (Matthew 18:15), and his steps end with the assembly and with treating that brother "as a Gentile or a tax collector" (Matthew 18:17), not with war; Judges 20 goes on to war between the tribes, and Jesus says nothing of it. So they don't look from one to the other.

שָׁאַלsha'alsay sha-AL

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "ask, inquire", including "inquire of, consult, deity". Strong's: "to inquire; by implication, to request". Israel asks three times in this chapter. At Bethel they "asked counsel of God" (20:18); then they "asked of the LORD" (20:23); and last, "The children of Israel asked the LORD" (20:27). The book opened with the same verb: "the children of Israel asked of the LORD" (1:1). The Law used it of Eleazar the priest, who "shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before the LORD" (Numbers 27:21); here it is Eleazar's son Phinehas who "stood before" the ark (20:28). The chapter doesn't say how they asked. Judges uses the verb 14 times.