I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Judges 20-21.

    Yesterday we read about the incident of the Levite and his concubine, including where he sent pieces of her body with a message to each of the Twelve tribes. Eleven of the tribes gathered at Mizpah, even those from east of the Jordan River, but the tribe of Benjamin did not join them. Rather than join with the rest of Israel to hold the men of Gibeah accountable for their misbehavior, the tribe of Benjamin chose to defend their kinsmen. On the other side, the rest of Israel allowed their anger over this situation to overwhelm all other thought processes. When the tribe of Benjamin refused to turn over the men responsible for the crime, the rest of Israel vowed to not arrange a marriage between their daughters and the men of Benjamin. In addition, they swore that anyone who did not join in their attack on Benjamin to bring the men of Gibeah to justice must die. As with most civil wars, the death toll was horrible. However, numbers won out and the tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out. Once their anger had cooled the men of Israel regretted and sought to make amends.
    In the heat of the moment, both sides made serious mistakes. The men of Benjamin chose not to hold the men of Gibeah accountable because they were their relatives (and perhaps because they had failed to hold them accountable before it blew up and involved the entire nation). The men of the rest of the tribes allowed their anger to override sound judgment and a measured response. All of this came about because “all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” We need to allow ourselves to be held accountable by others.