And it will be when their fathers or their brothers come to contend with us, that we shall say to them, ‘Be gracious to us concerning them because we did not take for each man of Benjamin a wife in the battle, and you did not give your daughters to them; otherwise you would now be guilty.’”
Judges 21:20 And they commanded the sons of Benjamin, saying, “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards,
Judges 21:21 and watch; and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to take part in the dances, then you shall come out of the vineyards, and each of you shall catch his wife from the daughters of Shiloh and go to the land of Benjamin.
Judges 21:22 And it will be when their fathers or their brothers come to contend with us, that we shall say to them, ‘Be gracious to us concerning them because we did not take for each man of Benjamin a wife in the battle, and you did not give your daughters to them; otherwise you would now be guilty.’”
Judges 21:23 And the sons of Benjamin did so and carried away wives according to their number from those who danced, whom they stole away. And they went and returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the cities and lived in them.
Judges 21:24 Then the sons of Israel went away from there at that time, every man to his tribe and family, and each one of them went out from there to his inheritance.
The verse centers on "fathers", "brothers", "come", "contend", "shall", "gracious", "concerning", and "take". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "fathers" and "brothers", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 21's "and watch and behold if the daughters..." into verse 23's "And the sons of Benjamin did so...", so "fathers" and "brothers" 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 "brothers" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.