GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
JUDGES 19:27-30
27 When her master got up in the morning, he opened the door of the house and went out to set out on his journey. There lay the woman, his concubine, fallen at the doorway of the house with her hands on the threshold. 28 He said to her, “Get up. Let’s go.” But there was no answer. So the man put her body on his donkey and set out for home.
The woman’s suffering on that seemingly endless night must have been indescribable. God’s plan for women is that they will be cherished by their husbands; honored and respected; and that they will be the key element to the family, the universal building block of all human civilization. In the Old Testament Hebrew faith, women had a position of honor and a published corpus of human rights (given by God through Moses) that women of no other nation on earth possessed. In the New Testament, this was carried to a whole new level and soaring dimension as God proclaimed his love equally for all his children, men and women alike: “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters,” says the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:18). And Paul says simply and clearly: “Love your wives just as Christ loved the Church” (Ephesians 5:25).
For the nations surrounding Israel, this was not the case. Women had an inferior status that is put on display here in this chapter. When the old man tried to do something about the bestial gang at the door (the “sons of worthlessness”), he committed a crime that seems unthinkable to us, breaking the all-important bond of parent and child. He offered to give up his virgin daughter, his helpless child (whatever her age) so that his guest would not be abused. In the same way, the Levite, to save his own skin, shoved his concubine—his wife, to our understanding—into the crowd. Our author has spared us a description of her screams, but they still echo in our thoughts.
Both of these men failed in their duties as men, one a father and the other a husband. This was what God had warned Israel about when they entered Canaan; this was why the Lord God had commanded them to wipe out the Canaanites and their practices. “Otherwise,” he said, “they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 20:18).
Well, now the men of Gibeah—men from the tribe of Benjamin—had sinned in the most detestable of ways, but this Ephraimite old man and this Levite husband had been drawn into sin as well. And the Levite’s concubine suffered horrifying agony and death as a result.
The Levite’s cold manner is also shocking, rasping out “Get up, let’s get going” as if she had fallen asleep on the couch. The drama of the moment is shown in the detail that she died with her hands on the threshold—the only refuge she had; and she clung to it as she died, but the door did not open. This is the kind of refuge the devil offers to anyone who falls into his trap. His lies promise all kinds of things; enlightenment, free choice, openness and a whole catalogue of free-sounding joys and pleasures like the constitution of a new nation while the ink is still wet. But the devil’s door has no compassion; no pity; no mercy, and no real freedom at all. The devil’s door is mislabeled “choice” because he doesn’t want us know that it’s the door to his own eternal prison, and he only wants company there. Moses warned us that Satan chose the form of a serpent to tempt Eve (Genesis 3:1), cold, relentless, merciless, attacking the weak and the unsuspecting. And the door—whatever door he promises to his victims—will always be shut.
29 When he arrived at his house, he took a knife and taking firm hold of her corpse he cut his concubine into twelve parts, one part after another, and then sent her into each of the tribes of Israel. 30 Everyone who saw it said, “Nothing like this has ever happened or has been seen since the day the Israelites came up out of the land of Egypt until now. Think about this! Take counsel about it and respond!”
We must remember that this man was a Levite, and as such, cutting up a creature into sections was part of his job. For example, God commanded Moses, “Cut the ram into pieces (netah, sections) and wash the inner parts and legs, putting them with the head and other pieces” (Exodus 29:17; Lev. 1:6; 1:12; 8:20). So this is what he did with the body of his concubine, cutting it into pieces (natah) and sending the pieces in a grisly mailing to the twelve tribes.
The response was the same throughout eleven of the tribes. How could this have happened!
We already know the answer. Our author has told us: “In those days Israel had no king. Everyone did whatever seemed right in his own eyes” (17:6). Everyone. That meant that God’s own people, his covenant people, his circumcised people who knew the sacrifices and who knew the promises, were turning away from God. “Everyone” was turning away from God, some a little more, some a little less, and some all the way back to Sodom, but they were all turning away.
What sets us apart from them? We are God’s people, too. We are not children of the old covenant; we are not the sons of circumcision. We are children of the new covenant, of the New Testament. God has shown his care for us in new ways, in wonderful ways. Now we are all baptized, men and women alike. Now we are all given the gospel of forgiveness with the knowledge of what Jesus actually accomplished in history on our behalf. But we’re still sinners. Someone could describe any one of us as “children of worthlessness.” Some might sin like the men of Gibeah, and some might sin in still worse ways. And God’s response? God’s response is prefaced by the prayer of Jesus interceding on our behalf. Jesus cuts in: “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:34). And Jesus prayed: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one” (John 17:15). And Jesus still prays: “I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them” (John 17:26). This is Jesus, our ascended Jesus, sitting at the right hand of the Father, and praying for us. Our response to this disturbing passage of Judges is not to judge the sinners we see here, but to turn to God and pray that he would forgive our own sins. And as we do this, remember that Jesus himself prays for you; prays with you to the same heavenly Father. Don’t throw away your prayer time on petty concerns. Get right to it: the condition of your soul. In Jesus, you have pardon, and forgiveness, and peace.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota