After reading chapter 20:
*Unfortunately, we are not done with the story of the Levite and the concubine. After the
Levite sent the pieces of the concubine to all the tribes of Israel, "all" the Israelites assembled before Yahweh in Mizpah. There were 400,000 soldiers armed with swords, another nice round number. Except it wasn't ALL the Israelites; the Benjaminites were not there. And surely the surrounding lands were not completely emptied of Israelites for the time it took the gathering to take place. Remember, these people mostly travelled on foot. Not only that, wasn't assembling before Yahweh supposed to be done in Shiloh?
*At the assembly, the Israelites asked the Levite to tell his story. (The bible calls him a husband but calls the woman a concubine, which is not the same thing as a wife.) The Levite tells the story slightly differently than we read in the last chapter. Now, he says the men of Gibeah were wanting to kill him, instead of have sex with him, but maybe to him that was equivalent to death. He skips over the part where he hands his concubine over to the men and goes straight to the rape. He also neglects to tell how he found her and how he had expected her to just get up off the ground and go home. Instead he says he cut her up and sent the pieces to the tribes of Israel, because of the "lewd and disgraceful" act that had been committed. No mention of how he had allowed it to happen.
*Apparently the assembly cast lots to determine what the will of Yahweh was in this situation. (Verse 9) The men, um Yahweh, decided that ten percent of the soldiers would be responsible for getting provisions for the army. (Which usually meant taking what they needed from the people of the surrounding countryside.) Then the whole army would march on the Benjaminites in Gibeah and give them what they deserved. First, however, they sent men through the tribe of Benjamin, asking them to hand over the perpetrators. They refused. Then the Benjaminites gathered 26,000 swordsman of their own, 700 of them from Gibeah. There were also 700 left handed, stone slinging experts. They could "sling a stone at a hair and not miss."
*Next, before the battle, the Israelites (All 400,000?)went to Bethel to ask God a question. Why couldn't they have asked him the question in Mizpah? It makes more sense when you know that Beth-el means "house of God." This is the place Jacob supposedly had his vision of God on top of a ladder to heaven. Apparently, the ark of the covenant was now in Bethel (verse 27), along with an altar for burnt offerings, which I find confusing. Then what is at Shiloh? And why was such a big deal made of Shiloh earlier in the book of Joshua? Shiloh is where lots were cast "in the presence of Yahweh" to determine the distribution of the promised land. The presence of Yahweh appears to be mobile.
*We are also, told in verse 28, that Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the grandson of Aaron, was the high priest ministering in front of the ark. Either this story takes place out of historical sequence in the book of Judges, or Phineas is a couple of hundred years old. Phineas was alive when Moses was still around back in Numbers 25.
*For what question did the Israelites go to Bethel to ask Yahweh? Why, which tribe gets to fight first, of course. Yahweh picked Judah. Lots again? Or priestly declaration? We will never know. The next morning, positions were taken and the battle began. 22,000 Israelites were mowed down. Next, they simultaneously took up their positions of the day before and went to weep before Yahweh in Bethel. They asked Yahweh if they should keep fighting. He said yes. The next day, the Benjaminites cut down 18,000 Israelites with the sword. The Israelites went crying back to Yahweh. They fasted, made burnt offerings and groveled. They again asked Yahweh if they should keep fighting. He said yes.
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