“But now this is the thing which we will do to Gibeah. We will go up against it by lot. And we will take ten men of a hundred, throughout all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred of a thousand, and a thousand out of ten thousand, to fetch provisions for the people, that they may do, when they come to Gibeah of Benjamin, what they deserve, for all the folly that they have wrought in Israel.”
They now described what in their discussions they had unanimously decided on.
“We will go up against it by lot. And we will take ten men of a hundred, throughout all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred of a thousand, and a thousand out of ten thousand, to fetch provisions for the people, that they may do, when they come to Gibeah of Benjamin, what they deserve, for all the folly that they have wrought in Israel.” One tenth of the men of Israel would be conscripted for the task, chosen by lot. They would arm and provision themselves on behalf of the people with the aim of punishing the men of Gibeah as they deserved. This would certainly be the death penalty in view of their crimes.
Many, however, see this as meaning that the tenth would provision the whole army. But that would be difficult as there was no central store of weapons. Each would expect to provide his own. Nor does it explain “go up against it by lot”, which surely refers to the selection of the tenth. It is questionable whether this phrase is to be equated with ‘asking counsel of God' in Judges 20:18. They would then rather have said, ‘we will go up after enquiring of Yahweh'. Thus it suggests that they were only going to use one tenth of their forces, chosen by lot.