his daughter to wife to a Benjamite, some advised them to have no
regard to what they had sworn, because the oath had not been
taken advisedly and judiciously, but in a passion, and thought
that they should do nothing against God, if they were able to
save a whole tribe which was in danger of perishing; and that
perjury was then a sad and dangerous thing, not when it is done
out of necessity, but when it is done with a wicked intention.
But when the senate were affrighted at the very name of perjury,
a certain person told them that he could show them a way whereby
they might procure the Benjamites wives enough, and yet keep
their oath. They asked him what his proposal was. He said, "That
three times in a year, when we meet in Shiloh, our wives and our
daughters accompany us: let then the Benjamites be allowed to
steal away, and marry such women as they can catch, while we will
neither incite them nor forbid them; and when their parents take
it ill, and desire us to inflict punishment upon them, we will
tell them, that they were themselves the cause of what had
happened, by neglecting to guard their daughters, and that they
ought not to be over angry at the Benjamites, since that anger
was permitted to rise too high already." So the Israelites were
persuaded to follow this advice, and decreed, That the Benjamites
should be allowed thus to steal themselves wives. So when the
festival was coming on, these two hundred Benjamites lay in
ambush before the city, by two and three together, and waited for
the coming of the virgins, in the vineyards and other places
where they could lie concealed. Accordingly the virgins came
along playing, and suspected nothing of what was coming upon
them, and walked after an unguarded manner, so those that laid
scattered in the road, rose up, and caught hold of them: by this
means these Benjamites got them wives, and fell to agriculture,