Judges 21 · a question people ask
Israel kept its oaths by finding ways around them. Were the oaths, and the ways out, right?
At Mizpah the men of Israel had sworn, "None of us will give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife" (21:1), and they had made a great oath about anyone who didn't come up to the LORD to Mizpah: "He shall surely be put to death" (21:5). After the war both oaths shape what is done. The first is why they ask, "How shall we provide wives for those who remain, since we have sworn by the LORD that we will not give them of our daughters to wives?" (21:7). The second stands behind their question about who didn't come up (21:5, 21:8), and then Jabesh Gilead (21:9-12). For Shiloh, the elders plan what they will say to the fathers: "neither did you give them to them; otherwise you would now be guilty" (21:22). The chapter gives no word from the LORD on the oaths or the plans, and its last verse is "Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes" (21:25). Both readings below agree on those verses. Christians read the oaths and the ways out in two main ways.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Rash oaths, and a way around their words
Those who hold this view read the oaths as rash words that led to more harm. They set them beside "Don’t be rash with your mouth, and don’t let your heart be hasty to utter anything before God" (Ecclesiastes 5:2), and "It is a snare to a man to make a rash dedication, then later to consider his vows" (Proverbs 20:25). They point back to Jephthah, "I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I can’t go back" (11:35), and ahead to Saul's "Cursed is the man who eats any food until it is evening" (1 Samuel 14:24), where the people would not let Jonathan die for it: "So the people rescued Jonathan, so he didn’t die" (1 Samuel 14:45). They read the plan at Shiloh as keeping the oath's word gives (21:18) by having the men of Benjamin take instead (21:21-22), and the book's last verse (21:25) as its word on it all.
Ecclesiastes 5:2 · Proverbs 20:25 · Judges 11:35 · 1 Samuel 14:24 · 1 Samuel 14:45 · Judges 21:18 · Judges 21:21-22 · Judges 21:25
Oaths by the LORD they would not break
Those who hold this view start from how the oath was sworn: "we have sworn by the LORD" (21:7). The Law says of one who "swears an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he shall not break his word" (Numbers 30:2). When Joshua's princes learned that the Gibeonites they had sworn to were their neighbors (Joshua 9:16), they said, "We have sworn to them by the LORD, the God of Israel. Now therefore we may not touch them" (Joshua 9:19). When Saul later put the Gibeonites to death, the LORD said a famine was "for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death" (2 Samuel 21:1), and the text adds that "the children of Israel had sworn to them" (2 Samuel 21:2). A psalm praises "he who keeps an oath even when it hurts" (Psalm 15:4). They read the chapter as showing Israel held between its word by the LORD and a tribe it would not see blotted out (21:17).
Judges 21:7 · Numbers 30:2 · Joshua 9:16 · Joshua 9:19 · 2 Samuel 21:1-2 · Psalm 15:4 · Judges 21:17
The verses
“Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpah, saying, “None of us will give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife.””
“The children of Israel said, “Who is there among all the tribes of Israel who didn’t come up in the assembly to the LORD?” For they had made a great oath concerning him who didn’t come up to the LORD to Mizpah, saying, “He shall surely be put to death.””
“It shall be, when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, that we will say to them, ‘Grant them graciously to us, because we didn’t take for each man his wife in battle, neither did you give them to them; otherwise you would now be guilty.’””
“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.”