The use of blot out
is a shift from the verb to cut/hack off
in Judges 21:6. This serves to heighten the crisis at hand. For the verb to blot out
describes in the majority of its appearances in the Old Testament the disappearance of the name (Exodus 32:32; Deuteronomy 9:14; Deuteronomy 25:6; Deuteronomy 29:19; 2 Kings 14:27; Psalm 9:6; Psalm 109:13) or the memory (Exodus 17:14 Deuteronomy 25:19) of a person or group. This is the worst fate a person or group could experience, and, in this case, it would permanently leave the nation with eleven tribes instead of twelve.1
17 And they said, “There must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, that a tribe not be blotted out from Israel.