Go and smite: As they had sworn to destroy those who would not assist in the war (Judges 21:5), they determined to destroy the men of Jabesh, and to leave none except the virgins; and to give these to the 600; Benjamites who had escaped to the rock of Rimmon.
The whole account is dreadful. The crime of the men of Gibeah was of the deepest dye; the punishment involving both the guilty and innocent, was extended to the most criminal excess, and their mode of remedying the evil they had occasioned was equally abominable.