Judges 20 - Humility Served

Judges 20 erupts in all-out civil war.  It's the tribe of Benjamin versus everyone else.  It's a long chapter full of battles, defeats, stratagems, and lots of bloodshed.  But what can we glean from such an episode?  The first thing I can't help but think is how morally ambiguous all of these latter chapters of Judges are.  From the quasi-religion of Micah to the Levite's questionable actions vis-a-vis his wife's rape and murder to the brutal war fought by all sides, it seems that no one at this time is in the right.  Everyone's motives are self-serving.  There are occasional glimpses of faith and piety, but they are quite rare, and, as in the case of Judges 20, they come only after a hard lesson is learned.  So let's take a closer look.  It seems quite remarkable that a war so lopsided in favor of the united tribes of Israel would be so disastrously won.  The first two battles are won easily by the Benjamites.  It seems that the rest of the Israelites have such an advantage both tactically and spiritually.  But a closer look shows a lot of pride and arrogance on the Israelites' part.  When they first consult the Lord prior to the battle, it's not to see if they should be fighting to begin with, but simply who should be their leader.  They are simply seeking revenge to satisfy their own rage, and they arrogantly believe they are unbeatable.  God teaches them a lesson when they are resoundingly defeated.  They are then defeated a second time and finally they change their attitude:  "Wherefore all the children of Israel came to the house of God, and sat and wept before the Lord: and they fasted that day till the evening, and offered to him holocausts, and victims of peace-offerings" (Judges 20:26).  We finally see humility coming from the Israelites, and they then win the third battle.  The entire chapter is a lesson on the dangers of pride and the importance of humility.  It wasn't that the Benjamites were justified and were being protected by God.  They had theirs coming, and they get it in the end in quite dramatic fashion (in fact, their tribe is almost wiped out completely, just as Sodom and Gomorrah were, and for much the same reason).  But the Israelites had many sins of their own, including what we just saw in the previous chapters with Micah's idol and the tribe of Dan stealing it and making it their own.  It wasn't a black-and-white war, it was a war very much in the gray area.  But in the end the Israelites repent whereas we never see this from the Benjamites.  The situation is a very tense and uneasy one as we approach the end of Judges.  The tribes have lost their way so much so that they've now resorted to war with each other, a new low.