The wrong question

“The Israelites went up to Bethel and inquired of God. They said, ‘Who of us shall go first to fight against the Benjamites?’ The Lord replied, ‘Judah shall go first.’” Judges 20:18
At the end of the book of Judges we have a somewhat disturbing account, given to us as an example of the kinds of things that were going on in Israel during this time, and also to explain why the tribe of Benjamin was nearly eradicated. A Levite and his concubine were travelling through the region of Benjamin, where they stopped in the town of Gibeah to spend the night, and were taken in by an elderly man. That night the men of the town came clamouring at the door, and so the Levite sent out his concubine to them. They raped her repeatedly and left her for dead. The next morning, when he found her body, he cut her into pieces and sent them throughout all Israel. This enraged the nation, who gathered together as an army to fight against Gibeah. The tribe of Benjamin also came together as an army to fight against Israel.
We see that Israel enquires of God three times during this campaign, as the first two times they suffered heavy casualties (given the relative sizes of the two armies). Let’s look at them:
1) “Who of us shall go first to fight against the Benjamites?” (Judg. 20:18)
2) “Shall we go up again to battle against the Benjamites, our brothers?” (Judg. 20:23)
3) “Shall we go up again to battle with Benjamin our brother, or not?” (Judg. 20:28).
This shows a progression. In asking the first question, the Israelites assumed they were to fight. In the second question, they were asking for confirmation that they were doing the right thing. In the third – which should have been the first question they asked – they admitted the possibility that perhaps it was not right for them to fight against their own people.
Nobody was a winner in this battle. Israel lost 40,000 men, and the tribe of Benjamin was all wiped out except for 600 men (making a casualty count of 25,000 – see Judg. 20:46-47). If only they had dealt with the problem at Gibeah, all this bloodshed could have been avoided.
There are many applications we can draw from this for our own lives. From the Benjamites’ point of view, the moral of the story is to deal with the problem of sin before it destroys you. From the Israelites’ point of view, the lesson is not to be presumptuous. They presumed that the only way to deal with this was to go to war. Similarly we can be easily drawn into heated debate with people. But there is always another way.