Observations:
(1) The Israelites took an oath that they would not allow their daughter to marry a Benjaminite. Immediately they regretted because their oat caused a greater problem, namely, an entire tribe would be disappeared from Israel v.1-3,5-7, 17-18.(2) More ridiculous would be the way they solved the above problem. They found that one group of people, Jabesh Gilead, did not join them in the battle with Benjamin. They killed all their men and married women, but took their young woman to be the wives of the Benjaminites. Then they found that even with the young women from Jabesh Gilead there were not enough for the 600 Benjaminite men. The whole operation was poorly planned v.8-14.
(3) The last resort to find wives for the Benjaminites was based on the loophole of the oat. Israelites allowed the Benjaminites to abduct the women who attended the dancing celebration as their wives v.21. Their fathers and brothers should allow them to do that because they did not voluntarily give '' their daughters to be the Benjamintes wives v.22.
Note:
No name of any leaders were given in the whole chapters. No one tribe/person was mentioned. Only a very general pronoun, "they," was used to describe who made all these decisions.
Conclusion of the book:
21:25 In those days Israel had no king. Each man did what he considered to be right.
Reflections: Do these things happen in your life? Rash decisions that we regret right the way, decisions that did not really solve the issue, decisions that lack planning, decisions that are based on loop-holes of other rules. The Scriptures concluded that those were due to lack of leadership.
Usually, when we mentioned lack of leadership we thought of poor administration or ineffectiveness. The beginning of all their problems followed from the vow they made. Why did they make that kind of vow that causes all the following problems? Or why did they still bother to make vow while they had already turned to worship idols. Making vow was one of the religious rituals. Perhaps, they lacked the real fellowship with God and just kept doing the ritual.
How about us? Do we just keep the Sunday worship or other rituals and lack the real Christian fellowship with God?
Audrey
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