No King in Israel (51)

Hebrew language and law distinguish between that which a man dedicated to God and that which he devoted. Both involved setting something apart, but the latter was set apart irrevocably. If a man devoted some object to the Lord, it became “most holy” or “consecrated”, set apart such that he could not buy it back for his ordinary (profane, common) use. The word for that is ḥāram, from ḥērem, meaning “cursed”. In the context of war or when under the sentence of capital punishment, the same term is variously translated “completely destroy”, “utterly destroy” or, my personal favorite, “devote to destruction”.

That word appears here in verse 11 in association with the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead, who refused to come to Mizpah and fight on behalf of Israel against Benjamin.

III. Two Historical Vignettes from the Period (continued)

b. Benjamin becomes Sodom (continued)

Judges 21:8-12 — The Massacre at Jabesh-gilead

“And they said, ‘What one is there of the tribes of Israel that did not come up to the Lord to Mizpah?’ And behold, no one had come to the camp from Jabesh-gilead, to the assembly. For when the people were mustered, behold, not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead was there. So the congregation sent 12,000 of their bravest men there and commanded them, ‘Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword; also the women and the little ones. This is what you shall do: every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall devote to destruction.’ And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with him, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.”

No Survivors

Like the offering declared ḥāram, a person or persons declared ḥāram had no means to escape death. We would say ḥāram means annihilation. It refers to a sacred act. Once you brought God into it with a solemn vow or curse, there was no getting rid of his claims on that person or persons. In the context of war, the first reference to the policy is in Numbers 21, where the Canaanite king of Arad attacked Israel and took captives. Israel vowed a vow before the Lord at that time devoting that king and his kingdom to destruction. Under ḥāram, men, women and children were all devoted to destruction. Nobody escaped. Ironically, the kingdoms of Sihon and Og, two kings of the area called Gilead, were both devoted to destruction. Now, Israel applied the same extermination policy against fellow Israelites living in the former domain of those kings.

By the word of the Lord, Moses put the promised land of Canaan under the “no survivors” policy in the time of Joshua, the intent being to leave behind no trace of idolatrous, murderous Canaanite society. God had given the various nations within the borders of Canaan 400 years to repent and give up their child sacrifices. They did not, and God determined to remove every trace of Canaanite culture from the face of the earth. We all know how that turned out: it didn’t happen. Israel failed to execute. But God’s original intent was to purify that land and to keep Israel from idolatry.

One Good Massacre Deserves Another

You really can’t make this stuff up. Having bound themselves before God with a couple of imprudent oaths, the men of Israel first massacred the Benjamites, depleting their fighting men to one forty-fourth of their original number and killing all their women and children. The remaining 600 found safety at the rock of Rimmon. Now, Israel proposed to rectify the unfortunate results of one massacre with a second, this one at Jabesh-gilead.

Benjamin was not devoted to destruction. The oath Israel had taken was less formal, in that it cursed any man who gave his daughter to a Benjamite in marriage. Israel behaved like it was prosecuting a war of total annihilation — its army killed Benjamin’s women, children and aged — but had Israel declared Benjamin truly ḥāram, it would have been obligated to destroy the last 600 Benjamites at the rock of Rimmon, exterminating a tribe from the nation. The word does not appear in chapter 20.

Even this foray against Jabesh-gilead was a qualified ḥāram rather than the real deal. It left 400 young virgins alive.

Jabesh-gilead Before

Gilead was on the east side of the Jordan, which had marked Israel’s original eastern border. However, Moses grudgingly allowed the tribes of Reuben, Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh to settle there on the condition that they help their brothers take possession of the land west of the Jordan. Perhaps Israel still considered this vow binding on the inhabitants of Gilead at the time Israel gathered at Mizpah. If so, it would explain the qualified ḥāram against Jabesh.

Jabesh was a city in the tribal territory of Manasseh in Gilead. Today it’s in northwest Jordan. There were other Jabeshes in Israel, so Jabesh-gilead distinguishes this one, just as Ramoth-gilead designates the city of Ramoth in the territory of Gilead. “Jabesh” means dry. Presumably it was. We do not know its exact location. This is the first time in scripture the compound name for the city is used.

Jabesh-gilead After

Transjordan Israelites, presumably also from Manasseh, resettled the city of Jabesh some time after this speedy war of extermination. But this is not the last time the Old Testament writers connect the city of Jabesh with the tribe of Benjamin.

Early in Saul’s reign, the Ammonites came up against Jabesh-gilead and agreed to make a treaty with its inhabitants provided they could gouge out all their right eyes to disgrace them. Saul, a Benjamite from Gibeah, under the influence of the Spirit of God, came to the aid of Jabesh and led the Israelite army to destroy the army of the Ammonites so comprehensively that no two soldiers were left together, earning the gratitude of its citizens.

That gratitude was no temporary impulse. Many years later, when Saul died in battle on Mount Gilboa, the Philistines decapitated his body and displayed it with those of his sons on the wall of Beth-shan. Upon hearing the bad news of their deliverer’s humiliation, the valiant men of Jabesh-gilead traveled all night to retrieve the bodies and bring them back to Jabesh to be cremated, then buried their bones and fasted in mourning seven days. David blessed them for it.

Some stories that start badly end well, or at least better than they started.

Judges 21:13-15 — Just a Few Women Short

“Then the whole congregation sent word to the people of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon and proclaimed peace to them. And Benjamin returned at that time. And they gave them the women whom they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh-gilead, but they were not enough for them. And the people had compassion on Benjamin because the Lord had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.”

As mentioned, Benjamin was not under a formal declaration of ḥāram, or else no peace would have been possible. They received the 400 virgins from Jabesh-gilead, but that only solved two-thirds of the problem. There were still 200 Benjamites without wives. Perhaps the virgins of Jabesh-gilead were all extraordinarily beautiful. More likely, in the middle of an existential crisis, nobody is inclined to be too fussy.

It’s hard to miss that the writer of this chapter of Judges attributes the breach in the tribes of Israel to the Lord. On one level, this is very much the case: without the Lord’s help, Israel’s overwhelming victory over Benjamin on the third day of battle would have been impossible. They were doing very poorly before the burnt offerings, peace offerings and humble prayer. On another level, the near-extermination of Benjamin was the consequence of a series of rash vows and imprudent decision-making.

It would be interesting to know how things might have gone had Israel approached the crisis of Gibeah in humble supplication to the Lord from the very beginning, seeking his will before ever deciding how to proceed. The sad reality is that once we set our own fleshly plans in motion, we can’t generally go back to square one and start over. We never know what lies at the end of roads we do not go down.