The Skeptics Annotated Bible (252 page)

(20.35)
“And the LORD smote Benjamin before Israel: and the children of Israel destroyed of the Benjamites that day twenty and five thousand and an hundred men.”

36 So the children of Benjamin saw that they were smitten: for the men of Israel gave place to the Benjamites, because they trusted unto the liers in wait which they had set beside Gibeah.

37 And the liers in wait hasted, and rushed upon Gibeah;
and the liers in wait
drew themselves along, and
smote all the city with the edge of the sword.

(20.37) The Israelites kill everyone in the city of Gibeah with the edge of the sword.

(20.37)
“And the liers in wait … smote all the city with the edge of the sword.”

38 Now there was an appointed sign between the men of Israel and the liers in wait, that they should make a great flame with smoke rise up out of the city.

39 And when the men of Israel retired in the battle, Benjamin began to smite and kill of the men of Israel about thirty persons: for they said, Surely they are smitten down before us, as in the first battle.

40 But when the flame began to arise up out of the city with a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them, and, behold, the flame of the city ascended up to heaven.

41 And when the men of Israel turned again, the men of Benjamin were amazed: for they saw that evil was come upon them.

42 Therefore they turned their backs before the men of Israel unto the way of the wilderness; but the battle overtook them; and them which came out of the cities they destroyed in the midst of them.

43 Thus they inclosed the Benjamites round about, and chased them, and trode them down with ease over against Gibeah toward the sunrising.

(20.44-46) Another 25,000 Benjamites are killed by the God-assisted Israelites.

44 And
there fell of Benjamin eighteen thousand men;
all these were men of valour.

45 And they turned and fled toward the wilderness unto the rock of Rimmon:
and they gleaned of them in the highways five thousand men
; and pursued hard after them unto Gidom,
and slew two thousand men of them.

(20.44-45)
“There fell of Benjamin eighteen thousand men … and they gleaned of them in the highways five thousand men … and slew two thousand men of them.”

46
So that all which fell that day of Benjamin were twenty and five thousand men
that drew the sword; all these were men of valour.

(20.46)
“So that all which fell that day of Benjamin were twenty and five thousand men.”

47 But six hundred men turned and fled to the wilderness unto the rock Rimmon, and abode in the rock Rimmon four months.

48 And
the men of Israel turned again upon the children of Benjamin, and smote them with the edge of the sword, as well the men of every city, as the beast, and all that came to hand: also they set on fire all the cities that they came to.

(20.48) The Israelites finish their massacre of the Benjamites by killing all the men, animals, and everything they could find in every Benjamite city. Then they burned the cities to the ground. (In this way God helped the Israelites make everything better after the rape and dismemberment of the concubine.)

(20.48)
“The men of Israel turned again upon the children of Benjamin, and smote them with the edge of the sword, as well the men of every city, as the beast, and all that came to hand: also they set on fire all the cities that they came to.”

(21.1-23)
The end of Judges: two genocides and 200 stolen virgins
God’s 57th Killing