As
improbable as it sounds with the numbers in the respective armies, the first
time the Israelites went up against the Benjamites, they suffered 22,000
casualties (Judges 20:22). While tactics are important, a lot of warfare comes
down to numbers. With the numbers the Israelites have, they shouldn’t have had
any trouble squashing the Benjamites. Somebody screwed up. However, we don’t
have any kind of record of the actual battle to determine what went down aside
from splitting up their forces as “Judah shall go up first” against the
Benjamites (Judges 20:18).
But
throughout this section of the chapter, something curious is happening. Thus
far in the story, there’s been no mention of God. Suddenly, however, the
Israelites are inquiring of God and receiving answers. I bring this up because
there is no prophet. God has no direct spokesman like in so much of the rest of
the Bible. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Moses all had direct contact with
God, having conversations. Joseph had dreams, but Israel has been without a
prophet since Joshua. And the book of Judges in particular has been light on
connecting up with God.
Frankly,
I’m dubious. I know, I know. We have to use what the text says, and I intend to
do that. At first, the text doesn’t tell us how they inquired of God. It just
gives a broadly “they inquired of the Lord,” and that’s not how God has
operated in the past. God has preferred direct, personal contact with a
representative of the population. Now, it’s not our nameless Levite priest. In
fact, he’s dropped out of the story altogether. We won’t see him again.
Instead, in
verse 28 we see that it is Phineas, Aaron’s grandson is more or less
responsible, but not because there was a direct conversation, but because “the
ark of the Covenant of God was there in those days and Phineas son of Eleazar,
son of Aauron, ministered before it in those days)” (20:27-28).
This is in
the days before the great temple that Solomon built, so they still relied on
the Tabernacle they were instructed to build by Moses. The ark of the covenant
was within this tabernacle in the Holy of Holies, an inner chamber that could
only be entered by the high priest. This is the place where the high priest
would go to receive inspiration from God, but we’re in brand new territory,
here, where the high priest receives the same kind of conversations as the prophets.
I don’t entirely buy it.
See, the
instructions that God is relating are very terse, basic, and even self-serving
to the Israelites. We’ll tackle them in order. The first answer is “Judah shall
go up first.” Well, the fact of the matter is that the tribe of Judah is, by
far, the largest of the tribes, so would suffer the least from any losses.
They’d also be the most likely to take out the Benjamites on their own. We
certainly wouldn’t see the Ephraimites running in to be first as they were one
of the smallest tribes.
Second, in
response to “Shall we again draw near to battle against our kinsfolk the
Benjaminites” God’s reply is “Go up against them.” Not exactly the responses
from God we’re used to. Very seldom is it an either/or situation. God usually
contacts his prophets when he wants them to do something specific. This kind of
answer is just . . . not in character.
The third
answer has the same feel. It’s a terse, “Go up, for tomorrow I will give them
into your hand.” That’s it! I swear. God is not heard from again in this story,
and there’s quite a bit of it left.
When God
needs to punish people, there’s typically a long speech involved. There are
reasons given, and a method by which he will exact that punishment. With Cain
it was personal. The Tower of Babel he
confused the languages, but not before telling us at length as to why.
With Egypt, well, I haven’t gotten there, yet, but he and Moses talk long and
often about what will happen to Egypt and why. This just doesn’t fit.
So, in my
mind, this isn’t a direct conversation with God. It might be the impressions
that Phineas got from communing with the ark of the covenant, but this doesn’t
fit the characterization of a conversation with God, especially not this
tersely. I’m not sure God is actually present in this story. I will grant you
that He should be. This starts off exactly like Sodom and Gomorrah, but we are
way past the part where any kind of divine intervention should have taken
place. My feeling is that the asking of God is a justification for making war
on the Benjamites and later declaring “The Lord defeated Benjamin before
Israel” (Judges 20:35).
I don’t
have definitive proof of this, but the words attributed to God don’t fit the
character of God as we’ve come to know Him. This isn’t the strongest case I’ve
ever built, but I believe it fits the circumstances. All of Judges shows a
distinct lack of God’s character in what is a spiraling descent of Israel, and
this story is the end of that spiral.