The Story of Benjamin's Kids Wives

Judges 21:1-25

During a school trip to the zoo, Beth saw some condors in a big cage. She felt sad for the birds, but her teacher told her that it was better for the birds to be caged up than for them to become completely extinct.
Beth didn't quite understand this, so that afternoon she asked her mother about it. "Mother," she said, "it seems sad to lock up animals when there are only a few left. Why not let them be free for their last days on earth?"
"Sometimes God wants us to do things which seem cruel so that we can ensure that things don't die out," said Beth's mother. "There's a Bible story about that; let me tell it to you."
And this is the story she told:
One day, after the Israelites had killed most of the people who were in Benjamin's family, all the Israelite men got together and made a promise. "None of us will ever let his daughter marry one of Benjamin's kids," they swore.
This caused some problems. A lot of people complained to God that Benjamin's kids weren't going to be able to have kids of their own because they couldn't find wives.
The next day, the people got up early and built an alter to burn things on. Then they had a big meeting. At the meeting they decided that anyone who hadn't shown up would be killed.
At the meeting, the Israelites felt bad for Benjamin's family. "What are we going to do about getting wives for Benjamin's family since we've all promised not to let them marry our daughters?"
Well, it turned out that nobody from Jabesh-gilead came to the big meeting, so the Israelites sent twelve thousand men to kill them. The soldiers killed all the men in Jabesh-gilead as well as all the children and all the women who had ever had a penis put in them. All that was left when they were done was four hundred young women who had never had a penis put in them, and they brought these women to a place called Shiloh in Canaan.
When this was done, the Israelites sent someone to talk to Benjamin's kids who were living in a rock called Rimmon. Benjamin's kids came out and got the women who had not been killed at Jabesh-gilead to use as wives, but there weren't enough to go around.
The Israelites felt bad for Benjamin's kids so the oldest ones said, "What are we going to do about getting wives for the rest of them, since we killed all their women?"
"We've got to give them something," they answered, "or they will disappear. We can't let them marry our daughters because we promised that they couldn't."
"I know," they said, "there's a big party in Shiloh every year. Let's tell Benjamin's kids to hide in the vineyard and see which girls of Shiloh come out to dance. Then they can grab them while they are dancing and take them home for wives. When the girls' fathers and brothers come to us to complain, we can say, 'Be nice to them for us, because we weren't able to capture enough wives for them during the war. You didn't give them anything, so don't complain."
Benjamin's kids caught plenty of wives at the party and went home to rebuild their cities.
Back then Israel didn't have a king, so people pretty much just did what they thought they should do.

Beth thought about this for a moment. "So the Israelites killed all those people and kidnapped all those women just to make sure that Benjamin's kids wouldn't get extinct?" she said. "That's pretty heroic."
"Indeed it is," said her mother.
Then Beth smiled and hugged her mother. All her questions had been answered.