Common misinterpretations treat this verse as a peaceful, divinely sanctioned resolution to the Benjaminite crisis, ignoring the preceding chapters' depiction of brutal civil war, massacres, and ethically dubious wife abductions as desperate measures; others misconstrue it as endorsing vigilantism or tribal self-reliance without accountability, overlooking the refrain throughout Judges that 'there was no king in Israel' and that 'every man did that which was right in his own eyes,' which critiques such anarchy rather than celebrates it.
Judges 21:24
King James Version (1769)
24 And the children of Israel departed thence at that time, every man to his tribe and to his family, and they went out from thence every man to his inheritance.
Judges 21:24 depicts the Israelites dispersing from a national assembly back to their tribal territories, families, and inherited lands after addressing the near-annihilation of the Benjaminite tribe, underscoring the decentralized nature of Israelite society during the judges' era where authority rested with tribes rather than a central ruler, marking a return to everyday life and tribal autonomy amid the book's portrayal of moral and political instability.