The children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of those who danced, whom they carried off: and they went and returned to their inheritance, and built the cities, and lived in them.
The elders of Israel proposed a second plan (Judges 21:19; cf. Judges 21:8-9). It would give the Benjamites wives without causing the Israelites to break the letter of their "wife vow," though it violated a more basic law. The problem with this plan was that it required the forcible kidnapping and raping of 200 women from Shiloh. Undoubtedly, if the elders had sought the Lord’s counsel, He would have given them a better plan. There is no evidence in the text that they did so.