The interpretation timeline

Judg 21:1

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

Judg 21:1 · Douay-Rheims
“Now the children of Israel had also sworn in Maspha, saying: None of us shall give of his daughters to the children of Benjamin to wife.”
Patristic before A.D. 750
397
A.D.
Ambrose of Milan Patristic
A.D. 339–397
“What regard for virtue our forefathers had to avenge by a war the wrongs of one woman which had been brought on her by her violation at the hands of profligate men! No, when the people were conquered, they vowed that they would not give their daughters in marriage to the tribe of Benjamin! That tribe had remained without hope of posterity, had they not received leave of necessity to use deceit. And this permission does not seem to fail in giving fitting punishment for violation, since they were only allowed to enter on a union by a rape, and not through the sacrament of marriage. And indeed it was right that they who had broken another's intercourse should themselves lose their marriage rites.”
Source
397
A.D.
Ambrose of Milan Patristic
A.D. 339–397
“And an oath was taken that no one would give his daughter to a man of that tribe in marriage, so that all chance of repairing the name was abolished.”
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.