Judges 20:38–46

Now the appointed signal between the men of Israel and the men in ambush was that they would make a great cloud of smoke rise up from the city, whereupon the men of Israel would turn in battle. Now Benjamin had begun to strike and kill about thirty of the men of Israel. For they said, “Surely they are defeated before us, as in the first battle.” But when the cloud began to rise from the city in a column of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them, and there was the whole city going up in smoke to heaven. And when the men of Israel turned back, the men of Benjamin panicked, for they saw that disaster had come upon them. Therefore they turned their backs before the men of Israel in the direction of the wilderness; but the battle overtook them, and whoever came out of the cities they destroyed in their midst. They surrounded the Benjamites, chased them, and easily trampled them down as far as the front of Gibeah toward the east. And eighteen thousand men of Benjamin fell; all these were men of valor. Then they turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon; and they cut down five thousand of them on the highways. Then they pursued them relentlessly up to Gidom, and killed two thousand of them. So all who fell of Benjamin that day were twenty-five thousand men who drew the sword; all these were men of valor.

While the hilly terrain helps the Benjamites by limiting the number of troops they have to fight at the same time, it also limits the number of escape routes. When they see Gibeah on fire behind them, they panic. Panic is the ultimate military nightmare; it’s the key to how the Israelites defeated the Midianites.

Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers—they held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing—and they cried, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!” And every man stood in his place all around the camp; and the whole army ran and cried out and fled. — Judges 7:20–21

A panicked, disorganized retreat turns an army into a bunch of individuals. Each one is easy pickings.

The Benjamite soldiers try to flee to the wilderness (מִדְבָּר, meed-bar). This Hebrew word literally means anything that isn’t a cultivated field. It’s usually translated as “desert” or “wilderness,” but it can mean “forest” if there are enough trees.

So, depending on how much vegetation cover they have, some will do better than others.

This is why the other tribes pursued them relentlessly. Unfortunately, “relentlessly” means they didn’t just want to defeat the Benjamites; they wanted to wipe them out.

That doesn’t make any sense here. Wiping out, say, the Canaanites means they (and their religion) can’t be a problem in the future. The people aren’t the real problem; it’s their religion. Conversely, the war with the tribe of Benjamin isn’t about competing religions; it’s about the people.

This is sin in full bloom. They’re angry over what happened in Gibeah, and the Benjamite decision to go to war rather than enact justice, but their response is just as sinful—if not more so.

These Monday—Friday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay. The Weekend DEEPs are written by Matt Richardson. To subscribe to all the DEEPs click here:

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV stands for the English Standard Version. © Copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NIV stands for The Holy Bible, New International Version®. © Copyright 1973 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved. KJV stands for the King James Version.