And the children of Benjamin did so; they took enough wives for their number from those who danced, whom they caught. Then they went and returned to their inheritance, and they rebuilt the cities and dwelt in them. (Judges 21:23)

Wife Catchers

In the closing days of the period of the Judges over Israel, there was war with the Benjamites. The children of God were fighting against their fellow brethren of the Lord. When the battle was over, twenty-five thousand men of valor from Benjamin died. The men of Israel were remorseful to destroy so many of the Benjamites. Without men to produce a continual seed line, the tribe of Benjamin could disappear. After appealing to the Lord for guidance, the elders of the people devised an unusual plan.

The first plan involved sending twelve thousand of their most valiant men to fight against the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead. They were to kill all the males and the women who were not virgins. When the fighting was over, they found four hundred young virgins who had not known a man intimately. Unfortunately, there were not enough women for the tribe of Benjamin. It seemed Benjamin would not survive as a tribe.

A second plan was put into action by the elders of the congregation. There was a yearly feast of the Lord in Shiloh. The Benjamites were told to hide in the vineyards and watch. When the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance, the Benjamites are instructed to catch a wife for himself and take her to the land of Benjamin. The daughters came out of the city, and the Benjamite men caught themselves a wife and took her back to their homeland. They rebuilt their cities, and life returned to normal.

“Wife catching” was an unusual courting ritual. The tragedy of Jabesh Gilead was those who died in the fighting and the four hundred taken from their homes and families. When the daughters danced outside the city of Shiloh, they were captured by men hiding in the vineyards and taken back as their wives. Many families suddenly lost their daughters without warning. It was a sad story for so many people.

There are many twists in the story of Israel, and the period of the Judges was when there was no king, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Finding wives for the Benjamites came as the result of an internal war pitting brother against brother, Hebrew killing Hebrew, and the people of God trying to destroy one another. The men of Gibeah, a town of Benjamin, committed a terrible outrage on the concubine of a Levite, raping her to death. At the war’s end, only six hundred men remained in Benjamin.

The story of ‘wife catching’ illustrates the failing of the wisdom of man when they seek after the wickedness of the world. There was no king in the land, leaving everyone to do as they desired. This ended in a disastrous war with tens of thousands of lives lost. Families were destroyed as their daughters were kidnapped and given away as wives. The wisdom of man always ends in disaster. Israel is left as an example of what happens when men do not follow the plan of God.