‘ So that all who fell that day of Benjamin were twenty five eleph men that drew the sword. All these were men of valour.'
Compare Judges 20:35. Twenty five of the twenty six military units were destroyed in battle and pursuit. The remaining unit was presumably destroyed defending Gibeah, or possibly in the previous battles.
The twenty five eleph is made up of eighteen eleph destroyed in the battle and the initial flight, the five eleph who were gleaned in the highways and the two eleph destroyed at Gidom. The remaining unit and the seven hundred men from Gibeah were destroyed in the first two battles or the defence of Gibeah, or were partly among the six hundred who reached Rimmon. None of the figures are literally exact, they are all round numbers intended to indicate scale rather than exact quantity. And if eleph means military unit or clan or family this is even more sure.