Judges 21

I knew that the results of the last chapter would not be good. Now the Israelites are regretful of their near-total destruction of the Benjamites. Instead of just living with their actions, they make it worse by wiping another whole Israeli city out and taking its virgin girls captive as wives for some of the remaining men. That isn't enough, so they also advise the Benjamites to kidnap the daughters of Shiloh. Frankly I don't understand why either of those groups of girls would be willing to submit to that sort of treatment, nor can I imagine that none of the other Israelites had friends or family in the towns that were wiped out; if you did, why would you allow this to happen? I think there are just a lot of cultural differences between our modern society and theirs, which probably account for many of the seemingly strange behaviors of those times. Women were obviously not treated as equals, and without a central leadership (no human king) we are told that 'each man did what he considered to be right' (verse 25). Anarchy, anyone?