士师记 21:22

Chinese NCV (Simplified)

如果她們的父親或是兄弟來與我們爭論，我們就對他們說：‘求你們恩待他們吧，因為我們在戰場上沒有給他們留下女子作妻子，而且這次又不是你們把女兒給他們；若是你們給的，你們就有罪了。’”

Parallel Translations

Chinese Union (Simplified)
他 们 的 父 亲 或 是 弟 兄 若 来 与 我 们 争 竞 ， 我 们 就 说 ： 求 你 们 看 我 们 的 情 面 ， 施 恩 给 这 些 人 ， 因 我 们 在 争 战 的 时 候 没 有 给 他 们 留 下 女 子 为 妻 。 这 也 不 是 你 们 将 子 女 给 他 们 的 ； 若 是 你 们 给 的 ， 就 算 有 罪 。

Contextual Overview

¹⁶ The elders of the Israelites said, "The women of Benjamin have been killed. Where can we get wives for the men of Benjamin who are still alive? ¹⁷ These men must have children to continue their families so a tribe in Israel will not die out. ¹⁸ But we cannot allow our daughters to marry them, because we swore, ‘Anyone who gives a wife to a man of Benjamin is cursed.' ¹⁹ We have an idea! There is a yearly festival of the Lord at Shiloh, which is north of the city of Bethel, east of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem, and south of the city of Lebonah." ²⁰ So the elders told the men of Benjamin, "Go and hide in the vineyards. ²¹ Watch for the young women from Shiloh to come out to join the dancing. Then run out from the vineyards and take one of the young Shiloh women and return to the land of Benjamin. ²² If their fathers or brothers come to us and complain, we will say: ‘Be kind to the men of Benjamin. We did not get wives for Benjamin during the war, and you did not give the women to the men from Benjamin. So you are not guilty.'" ²³ So that is what the Benjaminites did. While the young women were dancing, each man caught one of them, took her away, and married her. Then they went back to the land God had given them and rebuilt their cities and lived there. ²⁴ Then the Israelites went home to their own tribes and family groups, to their own land that God had given them. ²⁵ In those days Israel did not have a king. All the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Be favourable unto them: or, Gratify us in them, Philemon 1:9-12

each man: Judges 21:14, Genesis 1:27, Genesis 7:13, Mark 10:6-8, 1 Corinthians 7:2

give unto: Judges 21:1, Judges 21:7, Judges 21:18, Proverbs 20:25

Cross-References

Genesis 20:2
he told people that his wife Sarah was his sister. Abimelech king of Gerar heard this, so he sent some servants to take her.

Genesis 20:17
Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his servant girls so they could have children.

Genesis 21:2
Sarah became pregnant and gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age. Everything happened at the time God had said it would.

Genesis 21:3
Abraham named his son Isaac, the son Sarah gave birth to.

Genesis 26:26
Abimelech came from Gerar to see Isaac. He brought with him Ahuzzath, who advised him, and Phicol, the commander of his army.

Genesis 26:28
They answered, "Now we know that the Lord is with you. Let us swear an oath to each other. Let us make an agreement with you

Genesis 28:15
I am with you and will protect you everywhere you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

Genesis 30:27
Laban said to him, "If I have pleased you, please stay. I know the Lord has blessed me because of you.

Joshua 3:7
Then the Lord said to Joshua, "Today I will begin to make you great in the opinion of all the Israelites so the people will know I am with you just as I was with Moses.

2 Chronicles 1:1
Solomon, David's son, became a powerful king, because the Lord his God was with him and made him very great.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And it shall be, when their fathers or their brethren come unto us to complain,.... Of this rape of their daughters or sisters, or to bring an action against them, and desire they might be summoned before them, the elders of the people, and be tried and judged according to law for what they had done; or to put them upon going to war with them again for such treatment of them:

that we will say unto them, be favourable unto them for our sakes; for the sake of the elders, who advised them to do what they did; or for the sake of us Israelites, your sake and ours, who were too severe upon them, and prosecuted the war with too much vigour, which made what they have done necessary, or otherwise a tribe must have been lost in Israel:

because we reserved not to each man his wife in the war; either in the war with Benjamin, which they carried on with such wrath and fury as to destroy all the women, so that there were no wives left for the men that remained, which they now repented of; or in the war with Jabeshgilead, they did not reserve enough of the women taken, only four hundred virgins, whereas there were six hundred men: but the first seems best:

for ye did not give unto them at this time, that you should be guilty; the meaning is, that if they had any uneasiness upon their minds about the oath which they had taken, not to give any of their daughters in marriage to Benjamin, they need not be disturbed at that, since they did not "give" them to them, but these "took" them by force; which was the scheme these elders contrived to secure from the violation of the oath. This they proposed to say to quiet them, and make them easy, to which other things might have been added as that these were their brethren, and not strangers they were married to, and not to mean men, but to men of large estates, having the whole inheritance of the tribe of Benjamin devolved upon them; and their daughters would be the original mothers of the posterity of that tribe in succeeding ages.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Ye did not give ... - i. e., they had not broken the oath mentioned in Judges 21:1, so as to be guilty of taking the Lord’s name in vain. They did not give their daughters to Benjamin: the Benjamites had taken them by force. Such casuistry as this condemns the system of oaths, and illustrates the wisdom of our Lord’s precept Matthew 5:33-37.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Judges 21:22. Be favourable unto them — They promise to use their influence with the men of Shiloh to induce them to consent to a connection thus fraudulently obtained, and which the necessity of the case appeared to them to justify.

We reserved not to each man his wife in the war — The reading of the Vulgate is very remarkable: Miseremini eorum, non enim rapuerunt eas jure bellantium atque victorum, sed rogantibus ut acciperent non dedistis, et a vestra parte peccatum est. - "Pardon them, for they have not taken them as victors take captives in war; but when they requested you to give them you did not; therefore the fault is your own." Here it is intimated that application had been made to the people of Shiloh to furnish these two hundred Benjamites with wives, and that they had refused; and it was this refusal that induced the Benjamites to seize and carry them off. Does not St. Jerome, the translator, refer to the history of the rape of the Sabine virgins? See below. Houbigant translates the Hebrew thus: Veniam quaeso illis date; non enim ad bellum duxerant suam quisque uxorem; et nisi eas illis nunc concedetis, delicti rei eritis. - "Pardon them, I beseech you, for they have not each taken his wife to the war; and unless you now give these to them, you will sin." This intimates that, as the Benjamites had not taken their wives with them to the war, where some, if not all, of them might have escaped; and the Israelites found them in the cities, and put them all to the sword; therefore the people of Shiloh should give up those two hundred young women to them for wives; and if they did not, it would be a sin, the circumstances of the case being considered.

Our translation seems to give as a reason to the men of Shiloh why they should pardon this rape, that as they had not permitted the women to live in their war with Benjamin, therefore these men are now destitute; and the concession which they wish them to make may be considered as more of an obligation to the Israelites than to the Benjamites. It is an obscure sentence; and the reader, if not pleased with what is laid down, may endeavour to satisfy himself with others which he may find in different versions and commentators. The Vulgate gives a good sense to the passage; but probably Houbigant comes nearest to the meaning.