20:26 and wept. This day of weeping, fasting, prayer and offerings, was apparently what God was waiting for. They had gone up to Shiloh and the tabernacle, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept (Judges 20:27) to beseech the Lord for victory, and He answered.

20:28 Phinehas. The fact that Phinehas was still serving as priest at the tabernacle at Shiloh indicates that this distressing series of events occurred quite early, soon after the death of Joshua and the elders that outlived Joshua, during the first anarchistic period in the land of Canaan (Judges 2:7-10). The rapid descent of the new generation of Israelites after Joshua into apostasy, immorality and inter-tribal warfare (illustrated in these last three chapters of the book of Judges) is a doleful commentary on human nature; yet, despite it all, God was still merciful and ready to forgive.