The Pulpit Commentary — Judges — Section 190

Where I The naturctl answer to be given is, trict fully concur in this identification of At Bethel ; for Bethel is the only .Place that Gibeah-in-the-field with Jeba. hcte been ne.med. But it is not m accord- Ver. 32.-And the children of Benjamin, ance with the other intimcttions given us &c. This verse is parenthetical, being ex- concerning the tabernacle, that Bethel should planatory of the conduct of both parties. bo its reeting-plctee under the high priest- The Benjamites pursued recklessly, because hood of Phinehas. In Joeh. xviii. 1 we they thought the fight was going as on the lmva the forme.l pitching of the tabernacle of two previous days ; the Israelites fled in order the congrege.tion e.t Shiloh ; in Josh. x.xii. 12 to draw them to the highways, and so to we find it there, and Phinehas the son of enable the ambushment to get between the Ele~~ar the J(riest b_efore it ; in 1 _Sam. i. Benje.mite army and the city. 3 ; 11. 14 ; m. 21 ; 1v. 3, we find 1t settled Ver. 33.-Roae up ont of their place. The there till taken by the Philistines ; and in narrative is singularly obscure and broken, Pa. lxxviii. 60 we find Shiloh described as and difficult to follow. But the meaning the a bode of the tabernacle till its eapture seems to be, that when the Israelite army had by the Philistines, and there is no hint any- reached Ba.al-tamar in their flight, they sud- where of Bethel or any other place having denly etopped and formed to give battle to been the resting-place of the ark before it fell the pursuing Benjamites. And at the same into the hands of the Philistines. Neither, time the liers in wait came ont from their again, is the explanntion of some comment- ambnshment and placed themselves in the ators, that the words the ark . . . was there rear of the Benje.mites on the direct road to in those days implies " that the ark of the Gibeah. Baa.1-tame.r, a place of palm trees. covenant was onlytempomrily at Bethel," at The site has not been identified, but may all satisfactory. In those days has naturally possibly, or probably, be the same as the a much wider and broader application, like palm tree of Deborah, between Ramah and the expression (eh. xvii. 6 ; xvi ii. 1), In Bethel (eh. iv. 5). The meadows of Gibeah, those days there was no king in Israel, and Hebrew, Maareh-Geba, may very likely have contrasts the time of Phinehas and the been, as the Septuagint takes it, a proper judges with the times of the monarchy, when name, denoting some locality outside Gibeah the ark and the high priest were at J eru- (here called Geba} where the ambush was salem. Unless, therefore, we understand concealed. The meaning of the word maareh Bethel in vers. 18, 26, 31 to mean the house is thought to be e. bare tract of ground with- of God, which seems quite impossible, we out trees-something like a heath or common. must interpret the word there to mean Shiloh, It may have had pits, or deep depressions, and suppose that the writer took no count where the nmbush would be hid both from of the temporary removal to Bethel for the the city itself e.nd from the high road, or convenience of consultation, but considered other facilities for coucenlment. that it was at Shiloh in one sense, though Ver. 34.-Againet Gibeah, i. e. against momentarily it was a. few miles off. Pos- the army of Gibeah. The sense seems to be sibly too in the fuller narrative, of which we that the 10,000 Israelites who had been flee- have here the abridgment, the name of Shi- ing before Benjamin, and drawing them away loh was mentioned as that to which there from the city, now faced them, and com- referred. menced a resolute attack upon them, which Ver. 29.-Set liers in wait. Made wiser at first the Benjamites, not knowing of the by misfortune, they now act cautiously. ambushment in their rear met with equal resolution, so that "the battle was sore." But Ver. 30.-Ae at other times, or, this time the result, the details of which are given at as the other tim1JS (see the same phrase, ver. length in vers. 36-46, was that 25,100 Ben- 31, eh. xvi. 20; Numb. xxiv. 20). jamites fell that day (see ver. 46). Ver. 31.-The houee of God. Here mani- Vers. 36-41.-The children of Benjamin festly Bethel, as in the margin. Gibeah in saw that they were smitten. Not of course the field. The A. V. is the natural render- after 25,000 of them had been smitten, but at ing of the Hebrew words, which imply a that period of the battle more fully described Gibeah in the field different from Gibeah, in vers. 40, 41, when the Benjamites, looking ns the Septuagint seems to have understood behind them, saw Gibeah in flames, and im- them (I'a/3ad Iv ayp'!'). It is n ho.ppy con- mediately broke and fled towards the wilder- jecture, borne out by the existing roads, ness. In the latter half of this verse and in that this Gibeah-in-the-field is the same as the following verses to ver. 41 the writer reca- Geba, now Jeba. Indeed it is almost impos- pitulates all the preceding circumstances, some sible to conceive how the pursuers, coming of which have been already mentioned, which out of Gibeah, could be described ns coming led to the particular incident mentioned in to two highways, of which one led to Bethel the beginning of the verse, that " Benjamin and the other to the very place they had snw the.t they were smitten ; " viz., the come from. The latest explorers of the dis- I feigned flight of the Israelites, the seizing  204 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. [CH. XX. 18--48.