‘ And they commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, ‘Go and lie in wait in the vineyards. And watch, and behold if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then you come out of the vineyards and you catch every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh and go to the land of Benjamin.'
There is no mention of God's approval to this plan which would no doubt have been sadly lacking. It demonstrates that leaders of peoples do not change over millenniums. They consider that in times of emergency they can behave in ways that decent men would decry. It is difficult to think of words to describe leaders who recommend abduction by force of innocent girls. But they had forced themselves into a corner and now they were trying to find a way out of it.
The problem was that it had to be done in such a way as to be evident that no one had given his daughter to the Benjaminites. But if the elders were not doing that, what were they doing? They were fathers of their tribes. It was a legal fiddle.
The plan was simple. The Benjaminites were now present at the feast having been restored to the covenant and the tribal confederacy. And every year at the feast of Tabernacles the girls of Shiloh would go out for the celebrations in the vineyards where they would dance in the dances. There they would be only partially protected. What could happen with all the tribes of Israel gathered there at a feast of Yahweh? And no one would take much notice of ‘lovers' seizing their girlfriends and carrying them off. But once the Benjaminites had succeeded they had to immediately leave the feast and make for Benjaminite territory just over the border. It was abduction by force without any regard for the girls or their families.