Why kidnap to acquire a wife (Judges 21:21)?
Judges 21:20 And they commanded the people of Benjamin, saying, "Go and lie in ambush in the vineyards 21 and watch. If the daughters of Shiloh come out to a dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards and snatch each man his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.
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Paula Fether
Constable's Notes are excellent on this issue: https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dcc/judges-21.html. Basically, as summarized at the end: "Judges 19-21 gives us the ugliest story in the Bible. The key to it is that, at every stage, men were acting on the basis of what was right in their own eyes. As far as the men of Gibeah were concerned, rape was all right. To the farmer and the Levite in the house, homosexual rape was unthinkable, but other rape was acceptable. The men of Benjamin thought it was right to overlook sin and to defend evil men. To Israel, revenge and retaliation would be justified, and to solve their problems about marriage for the Benjamites, the massacre of innocent people and kidnapping could be condoned. "The interesting thing is that none of this had anything [?] to do with idolatry or Baal worship. It began with individuals ignoring the law of God, doing what was right in their own eyes, and it led a whole nation into moral collapse." [Note: Inrig, p. 289.] The Israelites needed no judge or king to lead them into apostasy or battle. They did both on their own."
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