GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
JUDGES 19:1-8
In chapters 19 and 20, we find out about another outrage in Israel. This time, an entire community in Benjamin becomes involved in a cruel gang rape which ends with the brutal death of a woman. The incident escalates into a war which nearly annihilates the tribe of Benjamin, and gives us some gruesome background to the situation in Benjamin prior to the choosing of Saul as the first king of Israel.
Outrage in Benjamin
19 In those days when Israel had no king, a Levite staying in a remote part of the hill country of Ephraim took a concubine for himself from Bethlehem in Judah. 2 But she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah.
Our inspired author adds another appendix to the book, as if to say, “Speaking of Levites from Ephraim connected to Bethlehem, there was the story of a Levite and his concubine.” A concubine (pilegesh) was a secondary wife, married after a man’s first wife and with a subordinate status. Concubines are also referred to as “rival wives” (Leviticus 18:18; 1 Samuel 1:6-7). Strictly speaking, concubines or multiple wives were forbidden by the sixth commandment, but a great many Old Testament patriarchs took second wives or multiple wives like men from the pagan nations around them. In such cases, God is clear that he hates divorce as well (Malachi 2:16), so once a man fell into the sin of polygamy, he found that he was stuck into between two sins.
Another sin is illustrated here; another sin against marriage. The concubine was unfaithful to her husband. That much is clear from the word zanah “to fornicate; be a prostitute” or to be unfaithful to one’s spouse. However, it’s not clear that she actually committed a sexual sin (actual adultery would have been punished by death, Leviticus 20:10, but attention to the Law of Moses was more than a little lax in those days). Some translations like the Revised Standard Version have “she became angry and went away.” Robert Boling writes, “It is strange that a woman would become a prostitute and then run home” (Anchor Bible, Judges p. 274). More probably, she simply deserted him. Boling says that since “Israelite law did not allow for divorce by the wife, she became an adulteress by walking out on him. This is the reverse of Samson’s predicament in 15:1-3” (p. 274). The Scriptural grounds for divorce is unfaithfulness (Matthew 5:32), whether a sexual sin or desertion.
After she had been there for four months, 3 her husband followed her down to persuade her to come back. He had his servant with him and two donkeys. So she brought him into her father’s house, and when her father saw him, he gladly welcomed him. 4 His father-in-law, the girl’s father, urged him to stay, and he stayed with him for three days. They ate, drank, and spent the nights there. 5 On the fourth day, they got up early in the morning and prepared to go, but the girl’s father said to his son-in-law, “Eat something to keep up your strength and after that you can go.” 6 So the two of them sat down and ate and drank together. Then the girl’s father said to the man, “Please stay tonight and enjoy yourself.” 7 The man got up to go, but his father-in-law persuaded him, and so he stayed and spent the night there again. 8 He got up early in the morning of the fifth day to leave, but the girl’s father said to him, “Please build up your strength.” So they waited until late afternoon and the two of them ate together.
Anyone who has read this story before will not mind the delay, as we sit with these men for three, four and five whole days. The father was happy that his daughter was getting her husband back. The two men go through an almost daily ritual: “Time to go.” “Oh, not before you have something to eat.” Then they eat, and drink… and a new day dawns.
This superabundance of hospitality shows what people were like in Bethlehem. The girl’s father was a man who would have made even the noble Boaz seem a little rough around the corners. Since we don’t know when the Ruth and Boaz story took place, it might be that this incident was taking place while that story was unfolding! He is generous and hospitable, and with none of Laban’s ulterior motives (Genesis 29:25-27). This Bethlehemite hospitality is also given as a contrast to what was coming Gibeah.
As things turn out, the Levite would have been better off if he had either gone as planned earlier in the day, or waited until morning. But now their lives would be endangered by the corrupt sinfulness they would encounter north of Jerusalem. Here is a grim shadow of what our Savior would face, arrested late on the fifth day by enemies from within Israel. What incalculable mercy is displayed by our God in Christ! Even for such sins as those shown here in this book, and by those wicked fools who betrayed and crucified him—all sins of all mankind were covered by his innocent blood on the cross. John the Baptist said it the most simply: “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). This is the message we need to keep sharing with the world: Despite our wretched sinfulness, God has had mercy on us. He has atoned for every one of our sins, and by faith, the merits of his sacrifice become our very own. The treasury of Jesus’ sacrificial suffering and death is so vast and so incredibly rich that any of us—all of us—can tap into it without it ever even seeming to be depleted. His grace is mightier than the thunder of the great waters. His mercy is mightier than the breakers of the sea (Psalm 93:4). His love and compassion are infinite; beyond counting, beyond estimating, and inexhaustible. Don’t hesitate! Claim Christ for your very own. In him you have everlasting life.
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