Judges chapter 21 starting in verse 1. Picking it up in verse 1. Now the men of Israel had sworn at Mizpah, no one of us shall give his daughter in marriage to Benjamin. And the people came to Bethel and sat there till evening before God, and they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. And they said, O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel? But today there should be one tribe lacking in Israel. And the next day the people rose early and built there an altar and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And the people of Israel said, which of all the tribes of Israel did not come to the assembly to the Lord? For they had taken a great oath concerning him who did not come up to the Lord to Mizpah, saying he shall surely be put to death. and the people of Israel had compassion for Benjamin. Sorry. Yeah, and the people of Israel had compassion for Benjamin and their brother and said, one tribe is cut off from Israel this day. What shall we do for wives for those who are left since we had sworn by the Lord that we will not give them any of our daughters for wives? And they said, what one is there of the tribes of Israel that did not come up to the Lord to Mizpah? And behold, no one had come to the camp from Jabesh Gilead to the assembly. For when the people had mustered, behold, Not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead was there. So a congregation sent 12,000 of their bravest men there and commanded them, go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead with the edge of the sword, also the women and little ones. This is what you shall do. Every male and every woman that is laid with a male, you shall devote to destruction. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with him. And they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan. Then the whole congregation sent word to the people of Benjamin, who were at the rock of Ramun, and proclaimed peace to them. And Benjamin returned at that time, and they gave them the women who they had saved alive, the women of Jabesh-Gilead. But they were not enough for them, and the people had compassion on Benjamin, because the Lord had made a breach in the tribes of Israel. Then the elders of the congregation said, What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin? And they said, there must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, that the tribe not be blotted out from Israel. Yet we cannot give them wives from our daughters, for the people of Israel had sworn cursed be he who gives a wife to Benjamin. So they said, behold, there is a yearly feast of the Lord at Shiloh, which is north of Bethel on the east of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, south of Lebanon. And they commanded the people of Benjamin, saying, go and line ambush in the vineyards, and watch if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances. Then come out of the vineyards and snatch each man his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. And when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, we will say to them, grant them graciously to us, because we did not take each man of them his wife in battle, neither did you give them to them, though she would now be guilty. And the people of Benjamin did so and took their wives according to the number from the dancers whom they carried off. Then they went and returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the towns and lived in them. And the people of Israel departed from there. At that time, every man to his tribe and family. And they went out from there. Every man to his inheritance. In those days, there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. That's the ring of God's word. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you for our time in this book. Thank you that you have not left us in darkness, but you have revealed yourself to us. It is my prayer now that you would continue to do so, that we may see Christ in these pages, that your church may be edified, and that most of all, you may be glorified in it. In Christ's name I pray. And amen. Amen. So if we remember last time, a couple of weeks back, I've been out the last two for sickness, but a couple of weeks back, we had been dealing with this silver war, this silver war within Israel. And the reason for that silver war, if you remember, it all started in 19 there with this story of a Levite and his concubine. a concubine who had left him, who had went to her father's house and then was retrieved by the Levite. They then had went into the territory of Benjamin there, and they had not been met with kindness, but they had been met with no hospitality. No one took them in. They were stuck to be in the town square. They were then took in by someone from Ephraim. And then as they were in the house, the men of the city gathered and they sought to do harm to the man. Instead of that, they were offered his concubine. She was put out there and she was treated badly until she died. And because of that, he had cut her up into pieces, 12 pieces it was, sent her through all the inhabitants of Israel. And we talked of last time as that was a picture of Israel being a divided people. a people who was supposed to be united together, the 12 tribes who all come from that same family line, that same lineage, a people who was brought up out of Egypt because the Lord loved them, yet now we find they are divided. And we had talked last time and compared Benjamin to that pagan place of Ai, remember that King Ai, and the same thing had been done to him in Joshua's time. If you remember in Joshua's time, the same thing had happened. That is when they went to battle with Benjamin, remember they went up to ask, inquire for the men who had done this thing, and they had not give the men over, they had not sought justice, they instead come out to war against their own brothers. And so, after some time of fighting back and forth many days, And we had seen last time the children of Israel going before the Lord and questioning why these things were happening. Remember, even with their many, many soldiers, they could not defeat the few of Benjamin. They did not know why this was. And we spoke last time, this was God showing them that does not matter your military capabilities. If the Lord is not with them, they have nothing. And so they could not defeat Benjamin, even though they outnumbered them three to one. And so they went before the Lord. They sought the Lord. They went out and fought again, lost again. Then we seen the whole congregation go up and pray to the Lord. And the Lord had told them what to do. And so they set an ambush man behind the city. They had drawn Benjamin out and then destroyed the city. And Benjamin had been destroyed. We had left off with 600 of them surviving. 600 of them surviving, going to the Rock of Raman there, those cave, we believe to be a cave system there, Rock of Raman there. And we had left off there. We then pick up in our story with this vow. And so we will pick up in 21 in verse one to continue this story of the civil war in Israel. So one through seven, let's read it again together. Now the men of Israel had sworn at Mizpah, no one of us shall give his daughter in marriage to Benjamin. And the people came to Bethel and sat there till evening before God, and they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. And they said, O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel, that today there should be one tribe lacking in Israel? And the next day the people rose early and built an altar and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And the people of Israel said, which of all the tribes of Israel did not come up to the assembly to the Lord, for they had taken a great oath concerning him, do not come up to the Lord to Mizpah, saying he shall surely be put to death. And the people of Israel had compassion for Benjamin, their brother, and said, one tribe is cut off from Israel this day. What shall we do for wives, for those who are left, since we have sworn to the Lord that we will not give them any of our daughters for wives? And so, like I said before, we start off with this vow. The children of Israel had made a vow, seemingly sometime either before or during these battles, that when everything was said and done, they would not give any wives to Benjamin. They would not give any of their daughters to Benjamin for their heinous crimes. They did not see the implications of that being, if all the women are wiped out of Benjamin, which they were, except 600 men, that's all that was left in those cave systems, that that tribe would be gone forever. that tribe would become extinct as it was because they had no women to repopulate that tribe. And so now they're faced with this dilemma. We made a pact to the Lord. We're not told that the Lord told them to make this vow just that they did. It was most likely a rash vow on their part in anger. We will not give any of our women to them. And so now they are stuck between this, these two things. Do they take the curse upon themselves? that they vowed. Most of the time these vows come with self-harm, you know, if I do this, let me die, things like that. We're not told exactly what they vowed, just that they vowed and it was obviously serious because they did not want to break it. And so the question is, will they give wives over to keep Benjamin or will they take this upon themselves? And what we're going to see in this chapter is them trying to manipulate things and getting into gross error to avoid this vow. to avoid these things, to avoid themselves taking this blame. They're not owning up to their own actions and just saying we'll let it be done to us, we'll give them wives so that Israel might go on as 12, but instead they try to move their way around these circumstances by sinning even as Benjamin themselves did in some circumstances. And so that's what we're going to see here. So this causes the people to go and weep before the Lord. They didn't stay there or not. The second day they get up and they sacrifice to the Lord, just as they had done before. Remember they had done this before, but it was over Benjamin. We've seen this in chapter 20. It was over Benjamin defeating them. Remember they went to Benjamin and like Benjamin almost killed a person, a man. And then they went back and said, Lord, why is this thing happening? And they went again and they were defeated again. And as I said before, they went back the second or the third time and everyone went then. And then they sacrificed to the Lord. They wept before the Lord. They seemingly repented of their sin. And we spoke about that last time, the reason for that being. is that everyone in Israel at this time had went away from Yahweh. It wasn't as if it was only Benjamin. It wasn't as if everyone had remained faithful to the covenant, and it was only Benjamin who was doing these things. Everyone had went their own way, had went to false gods, and had went to their own sin. Now we see that this rashfah that they make may indeed wipe out an entire tribe. And their question is this, in verse 3 there, why has this happened? Verse 3 there, and they said, O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel, that today there should be one tribe lacking in Israel? this is their question why has this happened if you remember we had seen this before uh more than a year ago i would say when we were in chapter 6 if you remember chapter 6 with the story of gideon there we'd seen this same thing occur let's see chapter 6 and verse 13 i believe Remember, this is the angel of the Lord. He comes to Gideon. We spoke about the angel of the Lord there. He comes to Gideon. He tells him that the Lord is with him. And Gideon gives him this question. 13. And Gideon said to him, Please, sir, if the Lord is with us, Why then has all this happened to us? And what are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian. So this was Gideon's question as well. It was obvious why the children of Israel had been given into the hand of Midian. Remember, it had been told us that in first one of chapter six, the people of Israel did what was evil on the side of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian. Remember, it was that evil. They had been serving other gods, yet Gideon could not see that. He was so enthroned and for so many generations they had been serving false gods that he did not even know the reason. He did not know why these things had happened. And in the same way, the children of Israel don't even really know why this is happening to Benjamin. They went out to war against them because Benjamin had come out to war against them when they inquired of the man. And this judgment of God had come upon Benjamin nonetheless. But as far as the children of visual thinking, they didn't understand why all these things were occurring. They didn't understand why all these things were happening to them. And it's as if they cannot see, and really they cannot see, this is the blindness of sin upon them, that it is their own sin that has brought them to this place. It is the sin of Benjamin that brought them to being dwindled down to 600 men. It is the sin of the men here and their rash vows that have brought them to this place where they're going to do these things, where they're going to support the kidnapping of these women. All these things is what we have seen in the book of Judges so far. And even now in the last chapter, it has not changed. Nothing has changed. Throughout the entirety of the book, we have seen this cycle. It has went on and on and on and on. And even after this great calamity here, which is the Civil War, which you would think would be a great wake-up to the people, it's not. It's not what we find within our text. Nevertheless, I'm getting ahead of myself Let's continue on here. So they did not know what was going on with them Why Benjamin was being treated in this way 8 through 15 there back in our text And they said What is there of the tribes of Israel that did not come up to the Lord to Mizpah? And behold, no one had come up to the camp from Jabesh-Gilead to the assembly. When the people were mustered, behold, not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead was there. So the congregation sent 12,000 of their bravest men there, accompanied them, and commanded them, go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead with the edge of the sword, also the women and the little ones. That is what you shall do. Every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall devote to destruction. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with him. And they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan. Then the whole congregation sent word to the people of Benjamin, who were at the Rock of Ramah, and proclaimed peace to them. And Benjamin returned at that time, and they gave them the women whom they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh-Gilead. But they were not enough for them. And the people had compassion on Benjamin, because the Lord had made a breach in the tribe of Israel. So we see that this question is brought up in eight through 15 here, and that is, we'd seen it once before, but that who did not show up to help when we had called everyone together, remember this was in the chapter before, when they had called everyone together to go fight against Benjamin? Who would not come up to help? This is something that was punishable a lot of times by death or by, as we'll see, our text we've seen the same thing in chapter 5 if you remember chapter 5 that story of JL there and we have that great song misplaced cursed I believe it is because they did not come to the the help of Deborah and Barack remember this song they sing in chapter 5 we were there a while back Mara's there it is curse Mara says the angel the Lord curses inhabitants thoroughly because they did not come to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. So in the same way, they're asking here, who did not come to aid? Who was trying to be a neutral party? That there is no neutral parties in the issue, either for what is right or either for what is wrong. And so they're going to go and they're going to have war with Jabesh Gilead now. That is all right and good, but what they see in this is an opportunity for themselves. Here's an opportunity for ourselves. This is what we will do. We will not only go and fight against them, or not even go and ask them why they didn't show up, right? They don't go and speak with them at all. They just go and fight against them. And this is why they do it. It's because they will take their women from them, and we will give them to Benjamin. They think, well, two birds, one stone. This is what they're going to do here. Not only are they going to punish them, which they should have been, they should have helped them fight against Benjamin, but they're going to use this opportunity to get out of their own vow. And so what we will do is we will go and we will not only kill them with the edge of the sword, we will not only go and ask them why they did not show up, but we will go kill them and we will take their women and we will give their women to Benjamin. That way, that tribe will not be wiped out. And so they take from there, we were told, 400 virgins. And they killed every woman that had lied with a man. They killed every man that had lied with a man. And they are left with 400 virgins. That's not many whatsoever out of this entire place. That just shows you the depravity even there. All over Israel, this depravity has swept. And I believe if you narrowed down closely into all the tribes, all the tribes would have done things as grievous as Benjamin. The only difference in Benjamin's crime is that the Levite put it on display. He put it on display to all the tribes. This gruesome thing where he chopped up his concubine and sent her around to all the tribes and what this had done is it had rallied the men. It had rallied the men to go and fight. And especially because when they had asked the Levite why this thing happened, do you remember what he had said? They killed her. He basically just said, they took her from me and they had killed her. Right? And so I cut her up and sent her to all the tribes. He had totally took himself out of the equation. He had totally took himself out of the blame. And so they had went against Benjamin with all that might, but we can see it within all of the tribes. And so they get 400 virgins here. And again, we're met with another dilemma. And this is it. 600 men are in the caves there of Remen, and we have 400 women. We have 600 men, we have 400 women. That means that a couple hundred men are going to be very angry. They're going to be very mad. So, after calling peace between them and Benjamin, they go and they declare peace to them at the cave system there. 200 men are left without wives. 200 men are left without wives. So what do you do there? Do you let the vow come upon yourself that you've sworn wrongly? They do not. They double down upon what they have already did. You'll see that in 15 through 25 there. Let's look at it together. 15 through 25. And the people, let's see, 16, there we go. Then the elders of the congregation said, what shall we do for wives for those who are left since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin? And they said, there must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin that a tribe not be bartered out from Israel. We cannot give them wives from our daughters for the people of Israel had sworn, cursed be he who gives a wife to Benjamin. So they said, behold, there's a yearly feast to the Lord at Shiloh. which is north of Bethel on the east, on the east of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem in the south of Laban. And they commanded the people of Benjamin saying, go and line ambush in the vineyards and watch if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards and snatch each man, his wife from the daughters of Shiloh and go to the land of Benjamin. And when their fathers or their brothers come and complain to us, we will say to them, grant them graciously to us because we did not take them each man of them, his wife in battle. Neither did you give them to them as she would now be guilty. And the people of Benjamin did so and took their wives according to their number from the dancers whom they carried off. Then they went and returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the towns and lived in them. And the people of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and family. And they went out from there, every man to his inheritance. In those days, there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Left off with that statement again. And now we have a second plan devised here by the Israelites. Not that they will take the vow upon themselves, just say, well, let me be couraged to give wives. There's none of that. It's simply that there is, to get these 200 women, that there is a feast at Shiloh. There's a feast at Shiloh. A feast that was supposed to be dedicated to the Lord. We can see that in Exodus 23. There was three different feasts going on. Exodus 23. Three different feasts that could be going on at any time. We don't know which one this is. We just know it's one of them. 2314, three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. You should keep the feast of unleavened bread as I commanded you. You should eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abed. For in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty handed. You should keep the feast of harvest of the first fruits of your labor. of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the feast of ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. Three times in the year you in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God." So, this is what was designed by God. Three times in the year for what God had given them, the provisions He had given them in the harvest, they were to go before the Lord and offer these things up to Him, understanding that it is God who gives them all these things. This is what God had said about. And so at that, because it's a feast, we can see just like In the crossing of the Red Sea there, in the song of Moses, the women were dancing there in celebration. You would have the same thing going on. And Israel knew this. The elders of Israel knew this. There would be singing and dancing going on. And so they are told to go and lie in ambush for these women. Some believe that this is the third there, Feast of Tabernacles, I think many commentators call it, because they are able to hide in the vineyards there. So seemingly they're thinking that the vineyards haven't been fully plucked yet so they can actually hide in them. There's so many grapes and such. We don't know, but that may be so. And so they're hiding in the vineyards, and when the women come along, the men of Benjamin will go out and just snatch him aloft and carry her off. Then, if they are confronted by the family, they're simply to tell them, listen, we didn't take them in battle. Right? We didn't treat you like Jabesh Gilead. We didn't come and kill you and then take your daughter or your wife or your sister. We simply just come and took them. Secondly, you yourself did not give them to Benjamin. So this is an opt out for you. You didn't break the vow. You didn't give them, you see? They were stolen. And so this opts you out. This is a way that they can get wives and you do not break the vow. This is what they are told. This is the sinful play that they bring about. And this is how all these men of Israel supposedly escaped this vow. They go and they kidnap these women and they take them for wives, and that's what they do. They take them back to their inheritance. Everyone goes back to his inheritance. The men of Benjamin go back to their cities. They start rebuilding. Everything goes back to the way it was. But there is a big parallel here, if we can just hone down on it, a big parallel here, I believe, with what's happening here and what happened in chapter 19. What happened in chapter 19? We spoke about it in passing back in our texting judges, judges, not team. Give you his crime here. That city of Benjamin, as there were 22 of 19, sorry. As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, worthless fellows, surrounded the house, spitting on the door. And they said to the old man, the master of the house, bring out the man who came into your house that we may know him. And the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, no, my brothers, do not act so wickedly since this man has come into my house. Do not do this vile thing. Behold, here are my virgin daughter and his concubine. Let me bring them out now, violate them, and do to them what seems good to you. But against this man, do not do this outrageous thing." Both instances here, and even what started this war, was men putting themselves before their wives, putting themselves before their daughters, putting themselves before the very people they were supposed to protect And so yet, we see yet again, instead of the men of Israel taking the curse upon themselves, what do they say? Well, the person that will be punished for the Shrash Vow is the women. The person that will be punished for the Shrash Vow is these women that we will steal from the other tribes. And so you can see in that, although Benjamin is gone, 600 of them is all that remains. this sin still infiltrates the camp of Israel. It's still there. It's not as if when they eradicated those men who'd done those horrendous things that all this was done away with. It's still there. The sin that's in these men's hearts of self-preservation is still there. As though it was with the Levite and the man in the house, so is it now. They're the same. Israel is in the same situation it was in before. And this is what you have in a society where the foundations are destroyed. This is what you have in a society where everyone does what is right in his own eyes. You have men who will not stand up for what is right. And you have men who cast their women aside for self-preservation. And that's what we're seeing within the text here. That's what the author in chapter 21 is trying to get across to us, I do believe, is that even though they are gone, this sin still remains within Israel. It's not as if it has been done away with. After this we are told everyone returns home and we are left with this thesis of the book yet again in verse 25. In those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. We have seen this time and time again through the book and that's what I truly believe that all of 21 should be viewed in. This story in 21 is these men of Israel doing what's right in their own eyes, yet again. Thinking they're doing what's right, doing what's wrong. We are told nowhere within the chapter that they wait upon the word from the Lord. They simply go and sacrifice and then say, this is what we will do. By our own hand, we will get out of this harsh vow. This is what they have done. And so this is the book of Judges. Everyone doing what is right in his own eyes. And I truly believe that the book of Judges rings out, has rung out, and will continue to ring out throughout time as this. Will you do what is right in your own eyes? as a person, as a society. Will we do what's right in our own eyes or do what is right by God's law, by God's standards, by what God has revealed to us? Will we live in this anarchy or will we abide by God's law? And so that question rings out to us today. Will we, as people who profess Christ, will we, in our own lives, do what is right to us, or do what God has commanded? And so, because the people had no king, they continue on in this darkness. A very gloomy ending to a book. Very good, that's what I was thinking about this week as I was reading over this. Think about if this was the only book we had. Think about if the Bible was Judges, and we got up and we read Judges every morning, and we read Judges every night, and we always come to chapter 21 and we ended off here. Think of that. No hope. We have ended this book the same way we started it. They are in gloom and despair and it's because of their own sin. Just think of that. Yet, praise be to God that He has not left us in this darkness. God has not left us without a king. God has not left us as we've looked through the book and we never found it. Two years or so, we've been in this book, and I've been saying, we're looking for someone to keep the covenant indefinitely. We never found it within the book, did we? We never did. And if that's all we had, there would be no hope. But that's not all we have. There's more. We go on. And living on the other side of Calvary, we can look back and say, there it is. There's the King. Listen how the Apostle Paul I spoke of this in Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1, the Apostle Paul says here. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son, who was descended from David according to the flesh, and he was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, our Lord. What does Paul say? This is Him who was proclaimed of old, who come to us through this line of David. What's the line of David? It's the King. David's the King. Through His line, this King has come to us, and He has risen from the dead, showing Himself to not only be from that line of David, but to be the very Son of God. He has been gracious to us. God has not left us in this state, though He could have. Though today we could say of ourselves, everyone does what's right in his own eyes, we have no King. God Himself come to us in the man Christ Jesus and established Himself as our King. And He will lead us in righteousness. He will be the light that shines in this dark world that we live in. We do not have to be a part of it anymore. Why do I say this? How many of us take it for granted? We've never had to live in situations like we've seen in the book of Judges. We might have to in the future, I don't know. I pray that we don't, but we might. Christians suffer persecution all over the world. But even through all of that, we are not left to despair. We have hope in Christ who is our King and will be our King through all eternity. He is our King. He is the one who will keep the covenant indefinitely. He is the one who will crush the head of the serpent that was promised in Genesis all that way back. He is the one who did not look to someone else to bear the punishment, but took the punishment upon himself that we owed. You see? a value that these men did not have within our text. And so because of this, we can now be called children of God, no longer having to live in the dark. Pray with me. Father, I thank you that you have showed us these things in your word. I thank you for this study that we are now completing. I thank you that though we fail, you never fail. I thank you that though kings of this earth come and go, they come, they die, they sin, that you have come and you have established a kingdom that will never end. And you have called to us your people and made us a part of it. Thank you for that. Help us to live to your glory. Cross them upright. And amen.