The battle, i.e. the men of battle or war; the abstract for the concrete, as poverty, 2 Kings 24:14, pride, Psalms 36:11, deceit, Proverbs 12:5, dreams, Jeremiah 27:9, election, Romans 11:7, are put for persons that are poor, proud, deceitful, dreamers, elect. Them which came out of the cities they destroyed in the midst of them: so the sense may seem to be this, That the Israelites did not only kill the inhabitants of Gibeah, and all the Benjamites that came into the field against them, six hundred excepted; but in the midst of them, or together with them, they killed also the rest of the Benjamites, who, when they saw their army was wholly destroyed, made haste to flee out of their several cities or towns, that so they might escape the sword, which was coming towards them. But the words may be rendered thus: And them who were of the other cities, to wit, of Benjamin, i.e. who abode in their own cities and did not go up to Gibeah, they destroyed in the midst of them, i.e. in their several cities; or, in the midst of it, i.e. of every city; for so it is said, Judges 20:48, where it is said that they smote the men of every city. But this I submit to the learned.
Related Commentaries of Judges 20:42
Judges 20:42
42 Therefore they turned their backs before the men of Israel unto the way of the wilderness; but the battle overtook them; and them which came out of the cities they destroyed in the midst of them.