(25) Destroyed . . . eighteen thousand men.--This second defeat seems to have been due, like the first, to overweening confidence and carelessness. Thus in two battles the eleven tribes lost 40,000 men--i.e., 13,300 more than the entire Benjamite army, which was only 26,700. Such a hideous massacre can only be accounted for by the supposition that the Benjamite slings did deadly execution from some vantage-ground. Similarly at Crecy "1,200 knights and 30,000 footmen--a number equal to the whole English force--lay dead upon the ground" (Green, 1:419).
17:7-13 Micah thought it was a sign of God's favour to him and his images, that a Levite should come to his door. Thus those who please themselves with their own delusions, if Providence unexpectedly bring any thing to their hands that further them in their evil way, are apt from thence to think that God is pleased with them.
And Benjamin went forth against them out of Gibeah the second day,.... Flushed with the victory they had obtained the day before:
and destroyed down to the ground of the children of Israel again eighteen thousand men, all these drew the sword, were armed men; this, with the 22,000 slain the day preceding, made 40,000; the same number singled out from among them by lot to provide food for them, and is thought by some to be the case Deborah refers to, Judges 5:8 and is what is certainly intended in Hosea 10:9.
and destroyed down to the ground of the children of Israel again eighteen thousand men, all these drew the sword, were armed men; this, with the 22,000 slain the day preceding, made 40,000; the same number singled out from among them by lot to provide food for them, and is thought by some to be the case Deborah refers to, Judges 5:8 and is what is certainly intended in Hosea 10:9.