Judges 21:16

‘ Then the elders of the congregation said, ‘How shall we do for wives for those who remain seeing the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?'

Compare Judges 21:7. The Ban had (in their view, but some must have survived) resulted in the killing off of all Benjaminite women. Thus the problem was how to obtain wives for the two hundred still without them. This is the first mention of the elders, as rulers of the tribes as opposed to military chiefs (Judges 20:2), although they must have been present at all major decisions made. Things were returning to normal.