We get here a first hint that something is amiss. Rather than inquiring of the Lord directly in order to see who should lead the charge, like they did in Judges 1:1, here they decide to discern God’s will by lot.1 In fact, they do not even intend to ask whether they should go to war. They only want to know how to achieve their, and not his, decision.
9 But now this is what we will do to Gibeah: we will go up against it by lot,