The numbers here and in Judges 20:25 are again prodigious: the Benjamites, without losing a man themselves (as is implied in Judges 20:35; Judges 20:44), kill 40,000 Israelites in the two battles. Why this loss on the Israelite side? Probably the narrator considered that even the champions of the divine justice were not free from blame; they had not begun the holy war with due religious observances. Or, if Judges 20:18 is nota later addition, because they had consulted the oracle merely to enquire which tribe should go up first.

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