Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Judges 21:3 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 3. 3And said, O LORD God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to day one tribe lacking in Israel?
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse voices their question about a missing tribe without yet confessing their own destruction.
Read It With
- Judges 21:1–7
Read Judges 21:1–7 together. This verse voices their question about a missing tribe without yet confessing their own destruction. The Mizpah marriage oath, gathering and prolonged grief at Bethel, question about a missing tribe, altar and offerings, renewed morning lament, extinction diagnosis, and search for wives under the oath form the crisis statement; verse 8 begins the attendance inquiry.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The people grieve a near-extinction they themselves produced yet frame the remedy through male tribal survival and their oath, not through accountability to the women already killed or the autonomy of women still living. Within that movement, voices their question about a missing tribe without yet confessing their own destruction.
Read Judges 21:1–7 together
Why these verses belong together: The Mizpah marriage oath, gathering and prolonged grief at Bethel, question about a missing tribe, altar and offerings, renewed morning lament, extinction diagnosis, and search for wives under the oath form the crisis statement; verse 8 begins the attendance inquiry.
Verse 1. 1 Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpeh, saying, There shall not any of us give his daughter unto Benjamin to wife.
Verse 2. 2 And the people came to the house of God, and abode there till even before God, and lifted up their voices, and wept sore;
Verse 3. 3 And said, O LORD God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to day one tribe lacking in Israel?
Verse 4. 4 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the people rose early, and built there an altar, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.
Verse 5. 5 And the children of Israel said, Who is there among all the tribes of Israel that came not up with the congregation unto the LORD? For they had made a great oath concerning him that came not up to the LORD to Mizpeh, saying, He shall surely be put to death.
Verse 6. 6 And the children of Israel repented them for Benjamin their brother, and said, There is one tribe cut off from Israel this day.
Verse 7. 7 How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing we have sworn by the LORD that we will not give them of our daughters to wives?
What Remains True
Voices their question about a missing tribe without yet confessing their own destruction. Regret without full accountability can search for a workaround that sacrifices new vulnerable people to preserve the decision-makers' honor.
How It Can Shape Life
- Because Judges 21:3 voices their question about a missing tribe without yet confessing their own destruction, name one's own causal role, release harmful commitments, consult affected people, and design repair around their rights rather than institutional survival alone.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Judges 21:1–7 — Israel laments a crisis created by its own oaths and violenceSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Exact location: Judges 21:1–7, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Judges
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, names, clause relationships, repeated terms, wordplays, and translation control.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Judg.xml, 21:1–7
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Judges with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level translation, syntax, textual, poetic, geographical, social, and uncertainty notes.
Exact location: NET Bible Judges PDF, printed pp. 488-489, translation and notes on 21:1–7
Open source ↗