Judges 20:40
But when the flame began to arise up out of the city with a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them, and, behold, the flame of the city ascended up to heaven. But when the flame began to arise up out of the city with a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them, and, behold, the flame of the city ascended up to heaven.
The verse stands in the closing chapters of Judges that portray the low condition into which Israel had fallen before the call of Samuel the prophet. Within those chapters it belongs to the account of the crime and murder of the Levite's concubine at Gibeah. The whole tribe of Benjamin identified itself with that crime at Gibeah. The outrage over the murder nearly led to the extermination of the tribe of Benjamin.
The verse belongs to the point in that conflict where Israel gained its eventual victory over Benjamin after suffering two humiliating defeats. The account shows that a cause may suffer apparent destruction for a time and still end in victory. That lesson gave confidence that the reformers' cause in Scotland would ultimately triumph.