Ten thousand chosen men. — Though the verse is obscurely expressed, the meaning probably is that this was the number of the ambuscade of picked warriors. If it means that this was the Israelite force left after the slaughter of 40,000, we are not told the number of the ambush.
The battle was sore. — It would be a battle in which the Benjamites were now attacked both in front and rear.
But. — Rather, and.
They knew not that evil was near them — i.e., as we should say, “that the hour of their ruin had come,” or, as the Vulg. has it, quod ex omni parte illis instaret interitus, “that destruction was threatening them on every side.” (Comp. Isaiah 47:10.)