Shoftim Chapter 20 | The War Between the Israelites and the Tribe of Binyamin

The first verse in our chapter is enough to describe the tragedy of the Book of Shoftim. It’s the only time we see these phrases of unity among the Israelites in the entire book: "All the Israelites marched forth, the entire gathering assembled as one man"  and "Every single man in Israel gathered ... united as one" — the tribes working together as a unified, cohesive people — is within the context of a civil war  against one of their own tribes.

The story of the Levite’s concubine is bizarre. In Chapter 19, we saw that no single side is solely to blame for the horror that occurred; everyone is guilty. And in our chapter, this trend continues. The Israelites go to war based on the one-sided words of the Levite, without verifying them (an absurdity, given that even if they had bothered to check, they would have encountered a tangled and complex story where it’s not clear who is more guilty in the woman's death — the men of Giv'a or the Levite himself), leading to a war in which they nearly wipe out an entire tribe.

A major question in this chapter is how it is possible that the Israelites inquire of the Urim and Tummim and receive the answer from God, "Go up against him," yet still lose. We should note that God’s words through the Urim and Tummim are "Yehuda should lead" and "March up against them"— God does not say that they will win. Dr. Yoshi Fargeon suggests that the Israelites are punished here similarly to the way they sinned: their sin was going to war based on the Levite's words without verifying them. Similarly, God says to them through the Urim and Tummim, "March up against them" — an ambiguous phrase: God says to go and fight but does not say they will win. If they had bothered to inquire further about God's intention, they would not have gone to war. But their haste to act on words without verification is their sin and, in the end, also leads them to punishment in measure for measure.

Harav Medan gave a shiur where he further elaborates on the topic of the Urim and Tummim in our chapter and offers additional answers to the question of whether and how it could be that the Urim and Tummim misled the Israelites.