Judges 19 is a bizarre, sick and disgusting story. I guarantee you, it is not taught in Sunday school nor is it the subject of any sermons. And yes the trigger warning is real. This is the kind of thing that people who have experienced sexual assault or other violent trauma might want to be careful about. But it's in the Bible, which if you believe is the divinely inspired, inerrant word of God, then God must want us to read it. You'll have to figure out why. I do have a few comments along the way.
19 In those days Israel had no king.
Now a Levite who lived in a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim took a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. 2 But she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her parents’ home in Bethlehem, Judah. After she had been there four months, 3 her husband went to her to persuade her to return. He had with him his servant and two donkeys. She took him into her parents’ home, and when her father saw him, he gladly welcomed him. 4 His father-in-law, the woman’s father, prevailed on him to stay; so he remained with him three days, eating and drinking, and sleeping there.
You will note the persistent confusion as to whether this woman is the Levite's concubine, or his wife. Her status seems to slip back and forth. In any case, nobody in this story has a name.
5 On the fourth day they got up early and he prepared to leave, but the woman’s father said to his son-in-law, “Refresh yourself with something to eat; then you can go.” 6 So the two of them sat down to eat and drink together. Afterward the woman’s father said, “Please stay tonight and enjoy yourself.” 7 And when the man got up to go, his father-in-law persuaded him, so he stayed there that night. 8 On the morning of the fifth day, when he rose to go, the woman’s father said, “Refresh yourself. Wait till afternoon!” So the two of them ate together.
9 Then when the man, with his concubine and his servant, got up to leave, his father-in-law, the woman’s father, said, “Now look, it’s almost evening. Spend the night here; the day is nearly over. Stay and enjoy yourself. Early tomorrow morning you can get up and be on your way home.” 10 But, unwilling to stay another night, the man left and went toward Jebus (that is, Jerusalem), with his two saddled donkeys and his concubine.
Why this long and tedious story about how long they stayed with the woman's father? It has no evident point.
11 When they were near Jebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, “Come, let’s stop at this city of the Jebusites and spend the night.”
12 His master replied, “No. We won’t go into any city whose people are not Israelites. We will go on to Gibeah.” 13 He added, “Come, let’s try to reach Gibeah or Ramah and spend the night in one of those places.” 14 So they went on, and the sun set as they neared Gibeah in Benjamin. 15 There they stopped to spend the night. They went and sat in the city square, but no one took them in for the night.
16 That evening an old man from the hill country of Ephraim, who was living in Gibeah (the inhabitants of the place were Benjamites), came in from his work in the fields. 17 When he looked and saw the traveler in the city square, the old man asked, “Where are you going? Where did you come from?”
18 He answered, “We are on our way from Bethlehem in Judah to a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim where I live. I have been to Bethlehem in Judah and now I am going to the house of the Lord.[a] No one has taken me in for the night. 19 We have both straw and fodder for our donkeys and bread and wine for ourselves your servants—me, the woman and the young man with us. We don’t need anything.”
20 “You are welcome at my house,” the old man said. “Let me supply whatever you need. Only don’t spend the night in the square.” 21 So he took him into his house and fed his donkeys. After they had washed their feet, they had something to eat and drink.
22 While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.”
23 The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this outrageous thing. 24 Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But as for this man, don’t do such an outrageous thing.”
This is a retelling of the story of Lot in Sodom in Genesis 19. When the men of the city surround the house and demand to rape your male guest, the Biblically correct thing to do is to offer them young women instead.
25 But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. 26 At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.
27 When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in 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. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.
The implication seems to be that she is dead but it isn't explicit.
29 When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel. 30 Everyone who saw it was saying to one another, “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Just imagine! We must do something! So speak up!”
I trust he sent a note of explanation along with the rotting body parts.
Footnotes
- Judges 19:18 Hebrew, Vulgate, Syriac and Targum; Septuagint going home
4 comments:
OMG. Speechless.
I’m assuming people avoid having their children bar- and bar-mitzvahed on days which would include this parshat.
So was the shit husband/concubine owner/whatever supposed to be somehow righteous because he wouldn’t stay with Jebusites—but instead sought to spend the night around Israelites, who must somehow be better—except that they surround the house and demand to rape the inhabitants? The point of the story (which truly is disgusting and repulsive) seems to be that the Israelites had become as horrible as the non-Jews. Then, at the end of the tale, the seed is supposedly planted in the reader’s mind that there is hope for redemption because some upstanding citizens are saying, “Hey, we have to do something about this! We’ve never heard of anything like this happening here!” The implication is that the man was trying to avoid just such an incident, but not even avoiding the “goyim” could prevent such utter depravity because the Israelites had sunk so low. Then, the sociopath sends body parts to all 12 tribes because he is such a good man and intends this act as a warning to turn away from the depravity into which they have sunk. This is completely fucked up. And as usual, the woman is nothing, property, an afterthought, a thing.
As we'll see in the next chapter, this is a setup for a beat down of the Benjamites. My guess is that there was a civil war and this is vistors' propaganda to justify it. They evidently recycled the story of Lot in Sodom for the purpose.
Whatever the so-called justification for the story, it’s seriously fucked up. Just a clear illustration that no matter how many thousands of years we go back, it’s like Robin Williams said: “If we can’t fuck it, we’ll kill it.” That is the basest part of the male mindset, Testosterone.
Personally, I would call them Benjaminites.
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