Year 1, Day 280: Judges 19

An Interesting Chapter To Be Sure

Okay, I’ve got to confess.  Judges 19 is one of the weirdest chapters in the Bible.  If you were reading this chapter and asking yourself what it was that you found yourself reading today, let me be clear: No, it is not you.  This is a very unusual chapter filled with an unusual story.  However, do note how similar the story – especially the part regarding Gibeah’s crime – resembles the story of Lot in Sodom.

So what can we make of this Levite, his concubine, his journey to his father-in-law, the journey to Gibeah, the rape and death of the woman, and then the brutal act of cutting the women up into twelve pieces?  Can we make anything Christian out of this story?

On Marriage

Well, we can learn a few things.  First, notice that the Bible is clear on the relationship between the Levite and his significant other.  The Bible calls her a concubine, yet elsewhere it calls the woman’s father the Levite’s father-in-law.  So this is not just some extra-marital affair.  This is an arrangement that in some ways looks like a marriage but in other ways looks nothing like a marriage.  It is a relationship where full commitment is neither extended nor received from the Levite or his concubine.  This is a point that is greatly illustrated by the fact that the Levite thrusts his concubine out of the house to be raped!

So I believe here we have a Levite that has an improper understanding of marriage.  This Levite is not interested in showing love but legality.  The woman is a concubine (not an endearing term of love at all!) while the concubine’s father is a father-in-law (a very legalistic and politically correct term!).  Oh, how far the Hebrew people have fallen in their relationship with their God when the people who were supposed to be part of the theologically “elite” were unable to walk in His ways and model love even within marriage and in-law relationships.  The Levite was all about the law, and not at all about love.

You might argue that the Levite shows love when he goes after his concubine in order to “speak kindly to her.”  You might also argue that the Levite has every right to be distant in his love towards an unfaithful (the Hebrew word can actually mean adulterous) woman.  I cannot deny these claims outright, but it makes me wonder what kind of faithful relationship can exist in the relationship if the spouse is always the concubine and never the wife.  In fact, I think we can truly see the Levite’s heart when he finds his concubine at the threshold of the door in Gibeah.  There is no love or compassion.  There is simply a command, “Get up; let’s go.”  I will not be so quick to excuse the Levite in his part of the relationship.

We should be careful that we don’t become like this Levite.  We, too, can become legalistic in our faith where we end up going through the motions and putting up appearances without consideration for things like grace, love, and mercy.  Hopefully we don’t go to the extreme of the Levite; but I don’t think we need to go that far and still be in danger of sinning against God’s ways.

On Society

We can also learn something about society from the people of Gibeah.  The Levite desires to go to this town because it belongs to the tribe of Benjamin.  He expects to receive a Hebrew welcome.  He expects to be treated with the moral code of hospitality.  Of course, we know that he does not.  We know that the men of Gibeah are looking for a homosexual encounter and they settle for raping and killing a woman instead.

These are people who should have known better.  If these are people who belonged to Benjamin, these are people who should have been interested in God’s ways.  They should have known love, mercy, and hospitality.  They should have known the stories of the exodus and how God heard their cry for mercy in Egypt.  But they don’t.  God gave them the Promised Land, but they have corrupted it with their own desires and their own ways. 

We cannot assume that people are who we think they are.  We cannot assume that just because someone’s parents or grandparents knew the ways of the Lord and lived them that the person knows them and lives them.  On the flipside, neither can we assume that because someone’s parents did not know God that the person doesn’t know God, either!  That is an important point to remember in life, especially since it helps us focus on the positive and not the negative in people.

Internal and External Expectation

Finally, I do find it interesting that this Levite – who had little morality in his own marriage – expected others to have morality.  After all, he passes up staying with the Jebusites to get to Gibeah!  But if anyone should have known God’s ways in the story, it should be the Levite.  But he doesn’t live out his marriage according to God’s design.  He offers his concubine as an offering to the people of Gibeah – an inexcusable act in my opinion.  Yet he expects the people of Gibeah to live up to a moral code in hospitality.

I find this point much in line with Jesus’ teaching about seeing the log in our own eye before looking to the speck in the eye of a brother.  See Matthew 7:1-6.  How quick are we to expect things of others when we ourselves are not living up to the standard?  How quick are we to criticize others when we ourselves are guilty?  Should this Levite have not been more concerned with his own issue regarding the treatment of his significant other than making sure the whole of the Hebrew people know the sin of Gibeah?

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