The worst part of this whole operation is that it is led by the elders of God’s people. Their instructions to the Benjamites amount to no less than co-scheming in a series of crimes to be committed against their own people. Such crimes would hardly have ever occurred without the instigation of these leaders of Israel. But that reality apparently did not bother them; they are a law unto themselves, instead of fulfilling their responsibility to uphold the law of God.1
20 And they commanded the people of Benjamin, saying, “Go and lie in ambush in the vineyards