Judges 21:17

Jdg 21:17 And they said, [There must be] an inheritance for them that be escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe be not destroyed out of Israel.

Ver. 17. There must be an inheritance for them that be escaped.] Else our state will be dismembered. But why was not this thought of before now? Anger is an evil counsellor; and cannot do, but it must over do. Wherefore,

“ Vince animos, iramque tuam. ”

That a tribe be not destroyed.] St Paul and many other good men were afterwards of this tribe. The whole "twelve tribes served God instantly day and night." {Act 26:7}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jdg 21:17. There must be an inheritance for Benjamin — The words, There must be, are not in the Hebrew, which runs thus: The inheritance of them that are escaped is for Benjamin; that is, the six hundred remaining Benjamites must have that part of the country which was given to the whole tribe by the divine lot for their inheritance; or, the inheritance promised by Jacob and Moses, and given by Joshua to the tribe of Benjamin, doth all of it belong to those few who remain of that tribe, and cannot be possessed by any other tribe; and therefore we are obliged to procure wives for them all, that they may make up this breach, and be capable of possessing and managing all their land; that this tribe and their inheritance may not be confounded with, or swallowed up by, any of the rest.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Benjamin must be reserved to have the twelfth portion in the inheritance of Jacob.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

There must be an inheritance for them that be escaped of Benjamin--As they were the only rightful owners of the territory, provision must be made for transmitting it to their legitimate heirs, and a new act of violence was meditated (Jdg 21:19); the opportunity for which was afforded by the approaching festival--a feast generally supposed to be the feast of tabernacles. This, like the other annual feasts, was held in Shiloh, and its celebration was attended with more social hilarity and holiday rejoicings than the other feasts.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(17) There must be an inheritance.—Rather, possession of the remnant shall be for Benjamin—i.e., We will leave untouched their land and possessions. “We give you leave to take the whole land of Benjamin to yourselves” (Jos. Antt. v. 3, § 12).

That a tribe be not destroyed.—Benjamin never quite recovered this crushing blow. Even though it furnished the second judge (Ehud) and the first king (Saul) to Israel, and was advantageously situated, and was often honoured by the residence of Samuel, it became a mere satellite to the more powerful tribe of Judah. Perhaps in the quiescence and permanence derived from the close association with its powerful neighbour we see in part the fulfilment of the blessing in Deu_33:12.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17. There must be an inheritance … of Benjamin] The Hebr. has only An inheritance of the escaped for (or of) Benjamin, which yields no sense, and suggests corruption in the text. The problem is, how to prevent Benjamin from becoming extinct; if the survivors are not to die with no descendants to hand on their race and restore the fortunes of the tribe, wives must be found for them; but since the Israelites have sworn not to give them wives, some way out of the difficulty must be devised. With an inconsiderable change in the Hebr., giving the sentence an interrogative force, it is possible to obtain a meaning which suits the context: How shall a remnant be left over for Benjamin, and a tribe not be blotted out from Israel, (Jdg_21:18) seeing we cannot give them wives of our daughters? The correction is supported by some mss. of the LXX; a remnant here means a number sufficient to carry on the succession; we, i.e. the Israelites, is emphatic.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And they said, there must be an inheritance for them that be escaped Benjamin,.... The escaped are the six hundred men in the rock Rimmon; four hundred of them were supplied with wives, the other two wanted; and as there was an inheritance divided by lot to the tribe of Benjamin, to that tribe and to that only it belonged, and they must have it and no other; it now of right devolved on these six hundred men, and them only, and therefore provision must be made to increase their number, that they may occupy the inheritance they have a right to, rebuild their cities, till their land, cultivate their vineyards and oliveyards, and enjoy all the advantages of their possessions:

that a tribe be not destroyed out of Israel; but the full number of the tribes be preserved, and their inheritances belonging to them, according to the predictions of Jacob and Moses, and the assignment of them by lot unto them by Joshua.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

And we, &c. Hebrew, "and they said: an inheritance for those Benjamites who have escaped, that a tribe," &c. They wished to repair the breach as fast as possible, so that each of the 600 may have a wife.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The inheritance promised by Jacob and Moses, and given by Joshua to the tribe of Benjamin, doth all of it belong to those few which remain of that tribe, and cannot be possessed by any other tribe; and therefore we are obliged to procure wives for them all, that they may make up this breach, and be capable of possessing and managing all their land, that this tribe and their inheritance may not be confounded with or swallowed up by any of the rest. Heb. the inheritance (to wit, belonging to the whole tribe of Benjamin) is or belongs

to them that be escaped of Benjamin.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

There must be an inheritance for them that be escaped of Benjamin. The passage is difficult to construe and to explain. If the words There must be are properly supplied in the A.V, the sense will come out more clearly if we take the word inheritance to mean rather succession, which is the idea contained in the root. There must be a succession for the escaped of Benjamin, i.e. there must be heirs to succeed, and therefore we must find wives for them. The word peleytah without the article can hardly mean the remnant, as has been proposed, but must be defined by being taken with Benjamin.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

An inheritance - The inheritance promised by Jacob and Moses, and given by Joshua to the tribe of Benjamin, doth all of it belong to those few who remain of that tribe, and cannot be possessed by any other tribe; and therefore we are obliged to procure wives for them all, that they may make up this breach, and be capable of possessing and managing all their land: that this tribe, and their inheritance may not be confounded with, or swallowed up by any of the rest.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Still Benjamin must be preserved as a tribe. The elders therefore said, "Possession of the saved shall be for Benjamin," i.e., the tribe-land of Benjamin shall remain an independent possession for the Benjaminites who have escaped the massacre, so that a tribe may not be destroyed out of Israel. It was necessary therefore, that they should take steps to help the remaining Benjaminites to wives. The other tribes could not give them their daughters, on account of the oath which has already been mentioned in Jdg 21:1 and Jdg 21:7 and is repeated here (Jdg 21:18). Consequently there was hardly any other course open, than to let the Benjaminites seize upon wives for themselves. And the elders lent them a helping hand by offering them this advice, that at the next yearly festival at Shiloh, at which the daughters of Shiloh carried on dances in the open air (outside the town), they should seize upon wives for themselves from among these daughters, and promising them that when the thing was accomplished they would adjust it peaceably (Jdg 21:19-22). The "feast of Jehovah," which the Israelites kept from year to year, was one of the three great annual festivals, probably one which lasted seven days, either the passover or the feast of tabernacles-most likely the former, as the dances of the daughters of Shiloh were apparently an imitation of the dances of the Israelitish women at the Red Sea under the superintendence of Miriam (Exo 15:20). The minute description of the situation of Shiloh (Jdg 21:19), viz., "to the north of Bethel, on the east of the road which rises from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah" (the present village of Lubban, on the north-west of Seilun: see Rob. Pal. iii. p. 89), serves to throw light upon the scene which follows, i.e., to show how the situation of Shiloh was peculiarly fitted for the carrying out of the advice given to the Benjaminites; since, as soon as they had issued from their hiding-places in the vineyards at Shiloh, and seized upon the dancing virgins, they could easily escape into their own land by the neighbouring high-road which led from Bethel to Shechem, without being arrested by the citizens of Shiloh.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

The survivors must inherit the ancestral property The tribe's ancestral property remains unclaimed; let us devise a plan whereby they may father children, so that the property will fall into the possession of the remaining survivors, and a tribe will not be obliterated from Yisroel.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.