What does Judges 20:10 mean?
The verdict has been decided. The leaders of eleven of the twelve tribes of Israel have agreed that the people of the town of Gibeah must be punished for their crimes of rape and murder (Judges 20:1–9). First, they must determine how to maintain supply lines for what might be an extended battle. They decide to set aside ten percent of the fighting men from every tribe. That tenth of the army will be tasked to keep provisions coming until the battle was over.Which men will participate in that effort will be decided by lots: using small objects like dice or tokens to "randomly" make a selection. This was a common technique meant to remove human bias from decision making (Numbers 26:55; Joshua 14:2). It was a particularly common method when intending to leave a choice to God's providence.