Judges

Judges 19:1-4

The final chapters of Judges don't reveal any new judges to us.  They show us the culture during a time of lawlessness and apostasy.  They had the Lord to lead them and guide them – He would be their king but they had long since looked away.  The generation that came into the land had all died away.  The next generation chose to get along with the neighbors and take on their gods and idols and ways of worship.  They may have saw themselves as covenant people who worshiped Yahweh, but the evidence is they had mixed these things into a god of their own understanding.  Everyone was just making it up as they went along, doing what they thought was right. 

The scripture speaks of a Levite with no name who had taken a concubine from Bethlehem with no name.  Without the specifics of who they are, they stand as a representative of the culture, a picture of relationships within the land at that time.  A concubine was taken to bear children but wasn't considered with the same status of a wife.  The children were not always recognized as heirs to the father. 

The concubine is said to have 'played the harlot' in the NKJV.  However, the Septuagint says she became angry.  The word is translated many different ways so it is hard to be sure.  It is safe to say there was something that happened to cause a riff between them.  She went home to her father's house and was there for four months.  It took him all this time before he finally went after her to speak kindly and ask her to return home.  A marital breakup was a social disgrace.  For her to have returned home was an embarrassment in the community.  This was at least partially why dad was glad to see him.  The hospitality he showed the Levite was common hospitality.     

Judges 19:5-11

When the Levite prepares to leave, the hospitality is extended.  The hospitality is extended through the 4^th day and night to the fifth day.  The offer then came for them to stay another night but the Levite refused.  This hospitality serves to show what normal hospitality within the culture looked like.  This is the beginning a contrast with to show what had happened to 'normal'. 

The Levite and his concubine departed and ended up near Jebus.  The Jebusites were Canaanites and many believe this settlement was the city that will later be known as Jerusalem.  The Levite's servant isn't mentioned as being with him until he makes the suggestion to lodge at Jebus for the night. 

Judges 19:12-19

The Levite refused to lodge there because they were foreigners.  This could be ethnic bigotry or maybe he would just be out of place.  Also, the cultural expectations of hospitality were probably very different and there was possibly the concern for safety.  He decided they would go on to Gibeah which was four more miles and in the territory of Benjamin. This town would be populated primarily with Jews. 

No one from Gibeah welcomed them to the community.  They ended up in the open square of the city because no one offered them a place to stay.  This was a testimony of failure by the people of Gibeah.  This had to be particularly disappointing after passing up Jebus for what he thought was going to be a better place to stay.

We should note the similarity of this story with the angels that visited Sodom.  It's as though the writer is drawing similarities to Sodom to indicate the condition of this nation where everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. 

An old man came in from the field and noticed them in the square and engaged them.  The Levite told the man he was going to the 'house of the Lord' which would presumably be Shiloh where the Ark was kept and Levites performed religious duties of the law.  The Septuagint changed this to say the man was going to his house.  This may indicate he had a shrine or idol in his home as we've already seen.  He said they had all they needed and would be fine in the town square for the night. 

Judges 19:20-21

We hear the man's urgency to get them out of the open square.  Again, there is a parallel to Sodom as Lot did for the angels.  The old man brought them into his house.  He cared for them and their animals.  This man appeared to have been the only person in the town to provide the normally expected hospitality and care. 

Judges 19:22-26

Gibeah of Benjamin had become like Sodom.  While in safety, comfort and joy, some perverted or wicked men surrounded the house and began to beat on the door.  They called for the old man to give them the Levite so they could have sex with him.  We see the man's response.   The safety and care of this man was his responsibility.  Apparently, he didn't feel the same devotion toward the concubine or his own daughter.  Proper hospitality of the culture would treat the wife as an extension of the man. 

This man, who seemed to be the kindest in town is suddenly looking out for himself and his own honor (doing what is right in his eyes).  It seemed right to him to offer his own daughter to these beasts along with the wife of his visitor.  The offer to 'humble' them is telling them to freely violate these two women as they see fit (whatever is right in their own eyes).  He hoped to appease them so they left the man alone. 

The Levite threw his concubine out the door to them, trading her for his own life.  I guess it was good for him that he went back and got her.  His father-in-law may not be as hospitable on the next visit.  The woman was raped and beaten all night until morning.  She fell at the door of the house in the morning. 

Judges 19:27-30

When everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes in a culture, love grows cold.  You get the sense the man was more relieved to have lived safely through the night than concerned for the safety of his wife.  We are left to speculate if she was dead in the morning or died on the road to the Levite's home.

Upon arrival, the text calmly states that he took a knife and divided her into twelve pieces.  Each tribal territory was sent a piece of her.  This was a grisly invitation to an assembly of the nation. 

Several things that must be noted:

1. The kindness previously shown to her now appears to be self-serving.
   1. This concubine wife appears to be an accessory to his life.
   2. There is no indication the two had become one.  If death was going to separate them, given a choice, his should have been first.
2. He delivered shock value to get a response from a nation that is cold and dead.
   1. The nation was no more cold and dead than him.
   2. The selfish culture he helped perpetrate now offended him.
3. He delivered proof that the story was true.
   1. A man's word must have held little value in a world where you had to send body parts to prove such a thing to be true.
4. He proved that he also did what was right in his own eyes.
   1. He desecrated the body of his wife for his own agenda.
   2. This actually seemed right to him and maybe even classified as a good idea.
   3. This man was outraged at the actions of the men of Gibeah, yet his response is outrageous. 
5. As a man and husband, he had failed to protect his wife. 
   1. The deflection of blame toward the men of Gibeah doesn't remove his own guilt.
   2. He also seems to take no responsibility for himself.
   3. He slept while his wife was being raped and beaten to death.
      1. How did the German church sleep while Jews were being exterminated?
      2. How do Americans sleep while millions of babies are killed? 
6. The tribes were appalled.  No such deed had ever been done.  What deed are they referring to?
   1. The actions of the men of Gibeah perpetrated toward any human are evil.
   2. Are the actions of the Levite better?  Less evil and justified?
7. In a land where God is not respected and revered, there are no moral, ethical or societal boundaries of decency.  Everyone gets to decide for themselves.
   1. If there is no law, who's to say that the men of Gibeah were wrong?
   2. If there is no God, there is no wrong or right.
   3. Each man can decide right or wrong.  Every group of lawless men and women can decide what justice looks like?

Now that we know more about this man, we wonder what caused the initial riff between the Levite and his concubine.  His actions appear very self-serving, cold and without a hint of love.  He is a reflection of the culture that he finds appalling. 

Humans seem to be very good at ignoring the wickedness around them until it touches them.  The wake-up call is then unbearable.  It's as though they stand and wonder when and how things got so bad.  It wasn't because there was no king in the land.  It was because there was no Lord in their heart.  Everyone was the lord of their own life.  When we are throne, we set ourself up to be served and every moment of the day becomes about me.  When king me is disrespected, our expectation is that all the world would be offended as we are.  Suddenly our throne is small.  Our power and authority is a paper tiger.  We begin to see our self for what we are.  I believe this is the moment when there is a fork in the road.  One must get off the throne or respond with such noise or shock as to get the attention of the world.   

Love for self has never been the solution.  From the beginning, when our eyes are lowered to this world, to our desires and wants, it always ends bad.  We must lift our eyes first to the Lord and then to our family, friends and neighbor. 

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. ³⁰ And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment. ³¹ And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." 

(Mark 12:29-31)

It would be naive to believe that everything was fine in the culture until this awful day.  In fact, the message of this passage is to be a general reflection of life in those days.  The story is delivered without names of the characters so we might see it could have been anyone.  This wasn't the first a group of men decided to abuse a visitor.  No, it probably started with a few and spread like an infection as lawlessness does.  At some point, and it doesn't seem to take long, this became normal.   The things we now accept as norm are the result of a nation turning away from God and God's people remaining silent.  It's making its way into the church.  Soon, when the they come to silence the church that partnered with them, there will be no one to speak for them.

Martin Neimoller was a Lutheran pastor in Germany during Hitler's rise to prominence.  Early on he was sympathetic to the Nazi ideas but later recognized what was going on.  As his eyes were opened became vocal and subsequently spent 8 years in a concentration camp.  He was freed from the camp at the end of the ware in 1945.  This poem is the lesson and legacy of his life.

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

The Levite cut his wife into 12 pieces and sent her to all the 12 tribes, creating a national outrage.  The point is that there should have been an outrage long before things got this bad. 

The writer gave us a true crime story that typified the days of the judges.  When a nation isn't united under the headship and leadership of God, then they are left to do what they believe is right.  This will always cause men to descend to the lowest common moral and ethical denominator.  The hope offered is that the nation had a conscience.  It responded to the horror. 

In our nation, we might ask where is the outcry for the victims of our own national and global decline:

• The murder of millions of babies.
• Indoctrinating our children with gender confusion.
• Confusing them with perversion, fables, lies and rewritten history
• Mutilating them so they can never bear children to serve their perverse agenda.

The silence of God's people is deafening.  Will we stand by and see our loved ones sacrificed to a nation that is doing what's right in its own eyes.  Your silence is doing what's right in your eyes.

Hosea 9 is a prophecy against Israel's harlotry.  He used the 'days of Gibeah' as a term to express the darkness, the moral decline and corruption of sin on a culture.

⁸     The watchman of Ephraim is with my God;

But the prophet is a fowler's snare in all his ways—

Enmity in the house of his God.

⁹     They are deeply corrupted,

As in the days of Gibeah.

He will remember their iniquity;

He will punish their sins.  (NKVJ; Hosea 9:8-9, 1982, Thomas Nelson)

© 2015, 2023 Doug Ford, Calvary Chapel Sweetwater