And when their fathers and their brethren shall come, and shall begin to complain against you, and to chide, we will say to them: Have pity on them: for they took them not away as by the right of war or conquest, but when they asked to have them, you gave them not, and the fault was committed on your part.
Judges 21:20 And they commanded the children of Benjamin and said: Go, and lie hid in the vineyards,
Judges 21:21 And when you shall see the daughters of Silo come out, as the custom is, to dance, come ye on a sudden out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife among them, and go into the land of Benjamin.
Judges 21:22 And when their fathers and their brethren shall come, and shall begin to complain against you, and to chide, we will say to them: Have pity on them: for they took them not away as by the right of war or conquest, but when they asked to have them, you gave them not, and the fault was committed on your part.
Judges 21:23 And the children of Benjamin did as they had been commanded: and, according to their number, they carried off for themselves every man his wife of them that were dancing: and they went into their possession, and built up their cities, and dwelt in them.
Judges 21:24 The children of Israel also returned by their tribes, and families, to their dwellings. In those days there was no king in Israel: but every one did that which seemed right to himself.
The verse centers on "fathers", "brethren", "shall", "come", "begin", "complain", and "against". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "fathers" and "brethren", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 21's "And when you shall see the daughters..." into verse 23's "And the children of Benjamin did as...", so "fathers" and "brethren" belong inside that flow. In Judges context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.
A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "fathers" and "brethren" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.