Scripture quotations on this page are from the World English Bible (public domain), shown in quotation marks; all commentary is written by Scripture Trove. Source: Judges 21 · Commentary
In chapter 20, Israel nearly annihilated Benjamin, with only six hundred men remaining, hiding at the Rock of Rimmon. This chapter records Israel's three attempts to "restore" Benjamin: first, regretting and weeping (why is one tribe missing from Israel?), then using two violent methods to find wives for the six hundred survivors—slaughtering Jabesh Gilead and abducting women from Shiloh. The entire book of Judges concludes with its final sentence: "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes."
Appendix 2: The finale of moral collapse (chapters 19-21). Chapter 19 is about atrocity, chapter 20 is about excessive punishment, and chapter 21 is about "remedy": but the methods of remedy are more disturbing than the problem itself. Israel used new violence to fix old violence, and new oaths to resolve dilemmas caused by old oaths.
This chapter has 25 verses, divided into four sections:
Israel's Three "Remedies"（结构图示）
Core Message of the Chapter: When humans use human methods to solve problems that only God can solve, "restoration" is often more terrifying than "destruction." Israel's three "remedies"—weeping, slaughtering a city, and abducting wives—never once sought God's counsel; they were all products of human wisdom and violence. The book concludes with "there was no king," pointing not to an earthly monarch, but to Israel's need for a true King to end the chaos of "every man doing what was right in his own eyes."
21:25 "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes."
Judges 21:25（World English Bible）
So Judges ends, not in triumph, not in peace, but with a suffocating commentary: "every man did that which was right in his own eyes."
Looking back at these three chapters, 19-21: a Levite's selfishness, a city's depravity, a tribe's stubbornness, a nation's fury, and then endless "remedies": slaughtering a city, kidnapping, sophistry. At every step, someone felt they were doing the right thing. The Levite felt pushing his concubine out the door was "protecting himself," Israel felt exterminating a tribe was "executing justice," and the elders felt abducting wives was "preserving the tribe." When everyone only sees their own reasons and no one sees God's will, "justice" becomes a cover for violence.
But God did not abandon Israel. After Judges comes Ruth, a foreign woman who demonstrated loyalty and love amidst the ruins of Israel ("Your God is my God"), and Ruth's descendant was King David. God's restoration was not through greater military might, but through the faith of a quiet gleaner.
This is our comfort: even in the darkest era of "every man doing what was right in his own eyes," God is secretly preparing a path of grace, from Ruth to David, and from David to Christ.
Israel's two oaths (no intermarriage, death for absentees) backed them into a corner. Have you ever made a rash promise and then found yourself in an impossible situation? How do you balance faithfulness and wisdom?
The elders of Israel circumvented their oath by saying, "You didn't give them to them; they seized them." In your life or church, have you seen "technically compliant" practices used to mask substantive injustice?
Judges ends with "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." In this current era of "every man doing what was right in his own eyes," how do you allow God to be King in your life, rather than just "doing what is right in your own eyes"?
Chapter 21 is the most somber conclusion to the entire book. The Israelites wept bitterly because Benjamin was almost annihilated, yet they did not truly examine how they had reached this point. While weeping before God, they continued to solve the dilemmas they created with oaths, massacres, and the abduction of wives. The women of Jabesh-gilead and the dancing women of Shiloh were not decision-makers in the war, yet they were treated as material to mend the gap in the tribe. The text does not praise these solutions as clever, but rather accuses a community that, having lost reverence, allows even remorse to continue harming the vulnerable.
"Everyone did what was right in their own eyes" reaches its culmination here: everyone was looking for loopholes, everyone was upholding their oaths, their reputation, and the survival of their tribe, yet no one asked whether these women were protected, whether they had dignity, or whether they were treated as people created by God. The book of Judges ends in this uncomfortable way to make readers long for a different kind of governance: not strongman politics, not religious excuses, but a king who can protect people with justice and mercy. The book of Ruth immediately opens in the same era, showing us that covenant love still exists in the darkness, but the last page of Judges must first make us admit: a society unrestrained by God's word will sacrifice people to its own schemes.
Section Focus: From the victory of war to its consequences, Israel finds itself trapped by its own oaths.
21:1 "Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpah, saying, “None of us will give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife.”"
Judges 21:1（World English Bible）
When was this oath made? The text says "in Mizpah": that is, when the whole assembly gathered in 20:1. In the pre-war fervor, Israel not only decided to punish Gibeah but also added a "marriage sanction": cutting off intermarriage with Benjamin. In ancient Near Eastern society, this was equivalent to a complete economic and social blockade; without intermarriage, there would be no alliances, no trade, no diplomatic relations. Oaths were irrevocable in Israelite culture (Numbers 30:2 "He shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth"); this meant that even if they regretted it afterward, they could not directly revoke this oath. Israel, in its anger, created a legal trap and then fell into it themselves.
21:2-3 "The people came to Bethel, and sat there until evening before God, and lifted up their voices, and wept severely. They said, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel, that there should be one tribe lacking in Israel today?”"
Judges 21:2-3（World English Bible）
Israel wept in Bethel; this is the fourth time Israel wept in the book of Judges (2:4 Bochim, 20:23 before the second battle, 20:26 before the third battle, 21:2 after the war). But the nature of this weeping is different: the previous times were weeping in the face of enemies or difficulties; this time it was weeping in the face of consequences they themselves created. They asked God "why has this come to pass in Israel, that there should be one tribe lacking": this question is surprising: you yourselves almost annihilated Benjamin, how can you turn around and ask God "why"? This mentality of "doing something but unwilling to acknowledge the consequences" is the core irony of the entire chapter. They attributed the consequences of their excessive punishment to fate or even God, instead of reflecting on their own actions.
21:4-5 "On the next day, the people rose early, and built an altar there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. The children of Israel said, “Who is there among all the tribes of Israel who didn’t come up in the assembly to Yahweh?” For they had made a great oath concerning him who didn’t come up to Yahweh to Mizpah, saying, “He shall surely be put to death.”"
Judges 21:4-5（World English Bible）
Israel offered sacrifices in Bethel, but note that they did not ask God what to do. The actions after the sacrifice were entirely human schemes. They found another oath: "whoever didn’t come up to Mizpah shall surely be put to death": this meant that absentees also had to be put to death. The two oaths, superimposed, gave Israel a "legal" solution: find the towns that didn't come, kill the inhabitants, and leave the virgins for the Benjamites. This logic was "observing the oath" in form, but in essence, it was using one massacre to mend the consequences of another massacre. The detail "built an altar" is also noteworthy; they built a new altar in Bethel, rather than offering sacrifices at the altar before the ark of the covenant. This might suggest that their religious practices had deviated from the orthodox sacrificial system, becoming a tool to "endorse" their own plans.
21:6-7 "The children of Israel grieved for Benjamin their brother, and said, “There is one tribe cut off from Israel today. How shall we provide wives for those who remain, since we have sworn by Yahweh that we will not give them of our daughters to wives?”"
Judges 21:6-7（World English Bible）
"grieved for Benjamin their brother": The Hebrew word וַיִּנָּחֲמוּ (vayyinnachamu, "they pitied, regretted"). The question is: what did they regret? Not regretting the massacre of women and children throughout Benjamin (20:48), but regretting that the oath cut off the path to intermarriage. Their pain was not a moral reflection, but a functional anxiety: what to do if a tribe is gone? This "regret" lacked true repentance; they did not confess their sin, did not admit that their excessive killing was wrong, but were only thinking "how to clean up the mess." "sworn by Yahweh": They attributed the binding force of the oath to God, but did not ask if God approved of this oath. Humans bound themselves in God's name, then blamed God for binding them.
Section Focus: Israel's "solution" was more violent than the problem itself.
21:8-9 "They said, “What one is there of the tribes of Israel who didn’t come up to Yahweh to Mizpah?” Behold, no one came from Jabesh Gilead to the camp to the assembly. For when the people were counted, behold, there were none of the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead there."
Judges 21:8-9（World English Bible）
Jabesh-gilead (יָבֵשׁ גִּלְעָד, yavesh gil'ad) was located east of the Jordan River, a town of the tribe of Gad. It did not participate in the Mizpah assembly for unknown reasons, possibly due to its remote location or disagreement with the legitimacy of the civil war. In Israel's logic, absence was equivalent to betrayal. But note an ironic foreshadowing: Jabesh-gilead would later form a deep alliance with Saul of the tribe of Benjamin in 1 Samuel 11. Saul rescued Jabesh-gilead from the Ammonites, and Jabesh-gilead risked their lives to retrieve his body after Saul's death (1 Samuel 31:11-13). The violence in chapter 21, far from destroying the connection between the two groups, actually created a deeper symbiotic relationship in history.
21:10-12 "The congregation sent twelve thousand of the most valiant men there, and commanded them, saying, “Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones. This is the thing that you shall do: you shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman who has lain with a man.” They found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead four hundred young virgins, who had not known man by lying with him; and they brought them to the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan."
Judges 21:10-12（World English Bible）
Twelve thousand men, almost equal to the strength of Israel's army in a single battle during the entire Benjamin war, were sent to deal with an undefended city. "strike... with the women and the little ones": This is again the language of the extermination order (cherem), but this time the target was not the criminals of Benjamin, nor even Israel's enemies, but Israel's own town, condemned for not attending a meeting. "only leave young virgins": The selection criteria starkly exposed the nature of this entire operation: not for justice, not for punishment, but purely to acquire female resources. Four hundred young women lost their entire families overnight—parents, brothers, married sisters all killed—and were then distributed as a "solution" to the surviving Benjamites who had just been almost annihilated. These women had no choice, no voice; their grief and trauma are completely unmentioned in the narrative, just like the concubine in chapter 19. Women in this story are consistently objects to be disposed of, not people to be listened to.
Section Focus: Superficial reconciliation, actual insufficiency.
21:13-14 "The whole congregation sent and spoke to the children of Benjamin who were in the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed peace to them. Benjamin returned at that time; and they gave them the women whom they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh Gilead. There still weren’t enough for them."
Judges 21:13-14（World English Bible）
"proclaimed peace": Israel proactively sought peace with the six hundred survivors at the rock of Rimmon. This is a dramatic reversal: a few days earlier they had pursued the Benjamites until only six hundred remained, and now they sent people to appease them and bring them back. The Benjamites "returned": the six hundred remnants, who had been hiding in caves for four months, accepted "peace" from those who had once pursued them. Did they have a choice? Their towns had been burned (20:48), all the women and children of their tribe had been killed, and continuing to hide would only lead to death. Four hundred women from Jabesh Gilead were distributed among six hundred men, leaving a deficit of two hundred. Israel "remedied" half, but the other half remained a gap.
21:15 "The people grieved for Benjamin, because Yahweh had made a breach in the tribes of Israel."
Judges 21:15（World English Bible）
The narrator again uses "because Yahweh had made a breach in the tribes of Israel": this statement shifts the blame to God. But readers know that the loss of a tribe was not God's doing; it was caused by Israel's own excessive slaughter. The narrator is satirizing Israel's blame-shifting mentality: people make mistakes, attribute the consequences to God, and then use more mistakes to "fix" them. This narrative technique appears repeatedly in the appendix of Judges; the narrator never directly judges, but simply lets the facts speak for themselves.
Section Focus: The elders of Israel use legal loopholes to justify abduction.
21:16-18 "Then the elders of the congregation said, “How shall we provide wives for those who remain, since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?” They said, “There must be an inheritance for those who are escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe not be blotted out from Israel. However we may not give them wives of our daughters, for the children of Israel had sworn, saying, ‘Cursed is he who gives a wife to Benjamin.’”"
Judges 21:16-18（World English Bible）
The elders' dilemma was self-made: they could neither violate their oath (marrying their daughters to Benjamin) nor watch a tribe perish. So they began to look for legal loopholes: since "giving" daughters to Benjamin was forbidden, what if the Benjamites "took" them themselves? This sophistical distinction between "active giving" and "passive taking" allowed the oath to be literally unbroken, but substantively completely undermined. "There must be an inheritance for those who are escaped of Benjamin": the elders acknowledged that Benjamin, as a tribe of Israel, could not disappear, because this involved the distribution of the promised land to the twelve tribes by God (Josh 18:11-28). Destroying a tribe would be denying God's promise, a theological consequence they dared not bear. Thus, "restoring the tribe" became a priority, but the means of restoration was more violence.
21:19-21 "They said, “Behold, there is a feast of Yahweh from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.” They commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards, and see, and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards, and each man catch his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin."
Judges 21:19-21（World English Bible）
The elders devised a precise abduction plan: using the annual feast of Yahweh in Shiloh (possibly the harvest festival or Sukkot), they instructed the Benjamites to lie in wait in the vineyards and abduct the women of Shiloh when they came out to dance. Note every detail of this plan: ① They precisely described the geographical location ("on the north of Bethel, on the south of Lebonah"), which was not improvised but surveyed; ② They chose a religious festival, a time meant for worshipping God, but used it as a cover for abduction; ③ They used language like "each man of you catch his wife," packaging forced abduction as a reasonable distribution. This scene forms an unsettling mirror image with the Gibeah atrocity in chapter 19: chapter 19 involved a group of thugs abducting and abusing a woman, while chapter 21 involved the elders of Israel organizing and planning the abduction of women as wives, the only difference being that the latter was cloaked in "legality." The entire book begins with a crisis sparked by a woman being violently taken, and ends with two hundred women being violently taken; violence was not eliminated, but institutionalized.
21:22 "It shall be, when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, that we will say to them, ‘Grant them graciously to us, because we didn’t take for each man his wife in battle, neither did you give them to them, otherwise you would now be guilty.’”"
Judges 21:22（World English Bible）
This passage reveals the entire sophistical logic: the elders anticipated that the people of Shiloh would protest and prepared their talking points in advance: "you didn't give them to them (so the oath wasn't violated), they took them (so you are not guilty)." This is a complete mockery of justice. A group of law-making elders, after creating an impossible legal dilemma for themselves, chose to resolve it by helping others circumvent the law. They even adopted a tone of pity: "Grant them graciously to us," as if the abducted women and their families should feel sympathy for Benjamin's plight. Not a single word in the entire passage mentions the feelings of the abducted women. In the eyes of the elders of Israel, women were merely tools for the survival of the tribe; their will, fears, and sorrows were not considered.
21:23-24 "The children of Benjamin did so, and took wives for themselves, according to their number, of those who danced, whom they carried off. They went and returned to their inheritance, built the cities, and lived in them. The children of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and to his family, and they each went out from there to his own inheritance."
Judges 21:23-24（World English Bible）
"The children of Benjamin did so": the plan was executed. Two hundred women of Shiloh were abducted during a festival of worship and became wives of strangers. "built the cities and lived in them": the tribe of Benjamin barely survived, but at what cost? Jabesh Gilead was destroyed, four hundred young women lost their entire families; two hundred women of Shiloh were forcibly abducted, a total of six hundred innocent women's lives were completely rewritten, all to maintain the numerical integrity of the twelve tribes. "The children of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and to his family, and they went out from there every man to his inheritance": this calm ending conceals immense trauma. Everyone went home as if nothing had happened. But in the narrator's writing, this appearance of "normal" recovery is precisely the deepest accusation; violence was absorbed, accepted, and "normalized."
21:25 "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes."
Judges 21:25（World English Bible）
This is the last sentence of Judges, and the final version of the four-time recurring commentary framework in the entire book (17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25). "no king" not only refers to the absence of a human political leader, but also that Israel did not truly let Yahweh be king. God was Israel's King (1 Sam 8:7), but Israel did not obey Him, did not inquire of Him, and did not act according to His law, which is why "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." "did that which was right in his own eyes" (הַיָּשָׁר בְּעֵינָיו, hayashar be-ei-nav literally "each person did what was right in their own eyes"): everyone thought they were right: the Levite felt he was a victim, Israel felt it was the enforcer, Benjamin felt it was oppressed, and the elders felt they were mediators. Everyone was "doing what was right in their own eyes": the result was the entire disaster of chapters 19-21. This sentence also points to the future, when Israel would welcome kings like Saul and David, but human kings were not the ultimate answer (the kingdom eventually split). The true answer lies in the more distant future: a king who would completely obey God's will, not "do what was right in his own eyes," but "do what was right in God's eyes": this is the unfinished hope Judges leaves for the canon.
| Hebrew | Transliteration | WEB | Meaning and Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| וַיִּנָּחֲמוּ | vayyinnachamu | repented | 21:6/15, shares the same root נחם as God's "repented" (Genesis 6:6), but Israel's repentance lacks true remorse |
| יָבֵשׁ גִּלְעָד | Yavesh Gil'ad | Jabesh Gilead | A town east of the Jordan River; later formed a deep alliance with Saul/Benjamin (1 Samuel 11, 31:11-13) |
| הַיָּשָׁר בְּעֵינָיו | hayyashar be'einav | did what was right in his own eyes | Literally "did what was right in his eyes," the concluding phrase of the entire book in 21:25; contrasts with Deuteronomy 12:8 |
| חֹל | chol | feast | 21:19 "the feast of Yahweh" (חַג) in Shiloh, one of the annual pilgrimage festivals |
(For the structure diagram, see Chapter Guide · Paragraph Structure.)
Commonality: None of the three times did they ask God how to solve the problem
Contrast: The method of restoration in the Book of Ruth
Method: Boaz publicly exercised the right of a kinsman-redeemer at the city gate
Result: Lawful marriage, family continuity, Davidic royal line
Difference: Grace within God's legal framework vs. human violent expediency
Ring Composition, Women as Objects of Violence: Chapter 19 begins this crisis with a woman being pushed out the door and gang-raped to death; Chapter 21 ends this crisis with six hundred women being forcibly abducted and distributed as wives. The narrator places the victimization of women at both ends of the three-chapter narrative, making it impossible for readers to ignore: Israel's "righteous actions" were built from beginning to end on violence against women. First, the disregard for one woman ignited the war, and finally, six hundred women were used as pawns to clean up the mess.
Fourfold Progression of "No King": 17:6 "There was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Micah's idol) → 18:1 "There was no king in Israel" (Danite migration) → 19:1 "There was no king in Israel" (Levite and his concubine) → 21:25 "There was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (end of the book). The first and last instances use the full form, while the middle two use an abbreviated form, creating an A-B-B-A chiastic structure. The book begins its appendix with this theme and ends the entire book with this theme, framing chapters 17-21 as the ultimate case study of the "no king" era.
Ironic Layers of "Repentance": Judges 21:6 and 21:15 both state that Israel "repented." However, the narrator allows readers to see that this "repentance" never touched the true moral core. They regretted the functional consequence (a missing tribe), not the moral error (excessive slaughter). Their "repentance" only led to more violence (slaughter of the city, kidnapping), rather than true remorse and restitution. This contrasts with God's "repentance" (נחם, nacham): In Genesis 6:6, God "repented" that he had made man, but his response was grace within judgment (leaving Noah); Israel's "repentance," however, only led to more judgment.
Irrevocability of Oaths: In ancient Near Eastern cultures, oaths sworn in the name of a deity could not be violated, and oath-breakers would suffer divine curses. Israel's oath "that we will not give any of our daughters to Benjamin as wives" was sworn in the name of Yahweh (21:1), and according to Numbers 30:2, it could not be revoked. However, the law also had provisions for "sin offerings" (Leviticus 5:4-6), allowing people to atone for rash oaths. The elders of Israel did not take the path of a sin offering, which would have required admitting their rashness in swearing the oath, and they were unwilling to do so. So they chose a sophistical route of "not violating the letter, but emptying the spirit."
Cultural Parallels of Festival Abduction Marriages: Roman legend tells of the "Rape of the Sabine Women." After Romulus founded Rome, lacking women, he invited the neighboring Sabines to a festival, then seized their women as wives. The abduction at Shiloh in Judges 21 bears striking structural similarities to this legend: both occurred during a festival, both were premeditated collective actions, and both aimed to solve the group's survival problem. The difference is that the Roman legend was later glorified as a founding narrative, while the narrator of Judges refuses to glorify it, using a calm pen to portray violence as simply violence, without dressing it in heroic garb.
Bridge from Judges to Ruth: Judges ends in darkness: "There was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes." But the arrangement of the Hebrew Bible places Ruth immediately after Judges (Ruth 1:1 "In the days when the judges judged"). Ruth reveals another side of the same era: the loyalty of a Moabite woman to her Israelite mother-in-law, and the adherence of an Israelite man (Boaz) to law and grace. Ruth proves that even in an era when "every man did that which was right in his own eyes," some still chose to do what was right in God's eyes. And Ruth's great-grandson was David, Israel's first truly "king after God's own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14).
"No King" Points to Whom? The editor of Judges (likely from the time of Samuel or the early monarchy) uses "no king" to imply that Israel needed a monarchy. But subsequent books of Kings show that human kings were not the answer; after Solomon, the kingdom split, and both the northern and southern kingdoms eventually fell. The ultimate answer to "no king" is not in Samuel, nor in Kings, but in the Gospels: Jesus is the true King. He does not "do what is right in his own eyes," but "only does what he sees the Father doing" (John 5:19). The dark ending of Judges is not a period, but an ellipsis waiting to be filled.
| Old Testament Passage | New Testament Quote/Echo | Related Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| 21:25 "Every man did that which was right in his own eyes" | Romans 1:21-25 Depravity of the human heart: "Because, knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God" | The moral collapse in Judges is a historical footnote to Romans 1's "given over" judgment |
| 21:1 Rash oath | Matthew 5:33-37 Jesus on oaths: "But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’" | Jesus fundamentally negates the necessity of an oath culture |
| 21:25 "There was no king" | John 18:37 Pilate asks Jesus, "Are you a king then?" | The King awaited in Judges stands before the cross: but his kingdom is not of this world |
| Cycle of violence throughout the book | Ephesians 2:14-16 Christ "broke down the middle wall of partition... having abolished in his flesh the hostility" | The end of the spiral of violence is not greater violence, but self-sacrifice on the cross |
| Character | Role/Position | Chapter Behavior | Theological Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elders of Israel | Decision-makers/Sophists | Regret → Slaughter → Devise abduction → Prepare rhetoric | Human wisdom, without God's guidance, creates greater disaster |
| Survivors of Benjamin | 600 remaining soldiers | Hid for four months → Accepted reconciliation → Accepted abducted women → Rebuilt | Victims became another kind of perpetrator |
| Jabesh-Gilead | Absent city | Did not participate in the Mizpah assembly | Absence does not equal guilt; another victim of collective punishment |
| Women of Shiloh | Abducted/Silent | Danced during the festival and were seized as wives | The last victims of the entire book: violence from beginning to end consistently targets women |
| Theme | Presentation in this Chapter | Canonical Extension |
|---|---|---|
| The Binding of Oaths | Two rash oaths (no intermarriage + execute absentees) created an impossible dilemma | Ecclesiastes 5:2 "Do not be rash with your mouth"; Jesus in Matthew 5:34 "Don’t swear at all" |
| Human Repair vs. God's Repair | Israel used slaughter and abduction to repair the tribe: no inquiry of God throughout | God's repair is through grace, not violence: see Boaz's lawful redemption in the book of Ruth |
| Meaning of "No King" | Not just a lack of political leader, but a lack of obedience to God | 1 Samuel 8:7 God said: "They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me" |
| Women's Situation in the Cycle of Violence | From the concubine in chapter 19 to the six hundred women in chapter 21: they are consistently objects of disposal | Galatians 3:28 "in Christ there is neither male nor female": the New Testament points to true restoration of dignity |