To Gibeah; we will go up by lot against it— Houbigant renders this more properly, we will draw lots against Gibea.
REFLECTIONS.—Fired with holy zeal against such a crying enormity, the whole congregation assembles in Mizpeh, near Shiloh; that they may not only deliberate, but consult God's mind and will in the matter. Four hundred thousand men, under their captains of hundreds and thousands, furnished with weapons of war, are ready to put in force the sentence which shall be resolved upon. The children of Benjamin alone, though acquainted with the assembling of Israel, and the cause of it, refuse to come up, and determine to protect the delinquents, becoming thereby parties in the crime, ex post facto, by their vindication of it.
1. A solemn examination and deposition is taken from the Levite, and probably the old man and his servant, who were present, Judges 20:3. The circumstances of the story are related and confirmed. Such lewdness and cruelty, especially in Israel, deserved, no doubt, a most severe scourge: he refers himself for this to their wise and vigorous resolutions; as children of Israel, who would wipe off such a defiling stain from among them. Note; (1.) Lewdness in Israel is doubly criminal. (2.) Before we proceed to judgment, the evidence should be clear and distinct. (3.) They who are God's people will at least, by their conduct, testify their abhorrence of the iniquity which may be found among them, and cut off from their communion the wicked person.
2. The fact being indubitable, their resolution is unanimous. They swear never to separate till they have obtained satisfaction; and in order that the army may be supplied in their encampment before Gibeah, forty thousand men are deputed to provide forage and provisions. Note; It is good to be zealously affected in the cause of God, and without delay carry our purposes into action.