Seeing the column of smoke rising from Gibeah, the Benjamites face the real possibility that their cause was now lost. They see that their only hope of saving themselves is to flee eastward toward the wilderness. But they do not get very far; the battle overtook them.
42 Therefore they turned their backs before the men of Israel in the direction of the wilderness, but the battle overtook them. And those who came out of the cities were destroying them in their midst.