Judges 21:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

JUDGES CHAPTER 21 The people bewail the desolation of Benjamin, Judges 21:1-7. The inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead, for not coming up to this battle, are all destroyed, excepting four hundred damsels, whom the Israelites bestow for wives on the remaining Benjamites, Judges 21:8-15. They advise the rest to seize on the dancing maidens at the feast in Shiloh; and to carry away as many as they had need of Judges 21:16-21. The answer wherewith they should pacify their relations, Judges 21:22. The men of Israel had sworn; in the beginning of this war, after the whole tribe had espoused the quarrel of the men of Gibeah, Judges 21:13,14. They do not (as some suppose) here swear the utter extirpation of the tribe, which fell out beyond their expectation, Judges 21:3,6, but only not to give their daughters to those men who should survive; justly esteeming them for their barbarous villany to be as bad as the worst of heathens, with whom they were forbidden to marry. In this case the Benjamites might have married among themselves, if any of their men and women were left alive.