The Levite and His Concubine

 

In my last two posts, we saw the spiritual decline of the nation of Israel as evidenced by Micah hiring a Levite to be his own personal priest in a home shrine he had for his idols.  Next, the Danites robbed Micah’s house, taking his idols, ephod, and hiring his Levite to be their priest.  They killed the inhabitants of Laish, rebuilt the city, and named it Dan after their father.  They then set up Micah’s image, and this became a centralized place of idolatry in the nation of Israel that lasted until the Assyrian captivity.  Moral decline always follows a spiritual decline, and that is clearly demonstrated in these last few chapters of Judges.  The author begins this next section by again reminding us that there was no king in Israel.  Instead of having God as their king, they rejected Him for idols and their own sinful pleasures.

There was another Levite dwelling in the remote mountains of Ephraim who had taken a concubine out of Bethlehem Judah.  A concubine was a second-class wife who was only guaranteed food, clothing, and marital privileges, and generally would not receive any inheritance.  It was a practice allowed by God in the Old Testament times, but never his perfect will for marriage and family life.  The Levite was following the worldly practices of the day.  Well, this concubine committed adultery and prostitution, and then returned to her father’s house in Bethlehem.  After four months, the Levite decided to go after her in order to kindly talk her into coming back home again.  When he and his servant got there, she brought them into her father’s house, and her father convinced them to stay there three days.  On the fourth day, they rose up early to depart, but, as was common in that culture, the Levite’s father-in-law talked him into sitting down for a meal.  After this, the man stood up to go, but his father-in-law urged him to stay another night.  The next morning, his father-in-law again invited him to stay for a meal, and they stayed until the afternoon.  However, when he invited him to stay another night, the Levite would not.  So, the Levite, his concubine, and his servant headed back toward the Levite’s home.

It was evening when they were near Jerusalem, and the Levites servant urged him to lodge there, but the Levite didn’t want to lodge with foreigners.  So, they continued on in order to lodge in one of the cities that belonged to the tribe of Benjamin.  The sun was going down when they entered into Gibeah.  No one would take them into their houses to stay the night, so they decided to sleep in the open city square.  Then there came an old man from his work in the field, who was also from Mount Ephraim, and saw them in the city square.  He asked them where they were going and where they were from, and the Levite told him and explained their predicament.  The old man, probably glad to see people from his part of the country, told them, “Peace be with you! However, let all your needs be my responsibility; only do not spend the night in the open square.”  So, they decided to stay with him.

As they were enjoying themselves over a meal, the men of the city surrounded the house and began beating on the door.  They told the old man to bring out the man who came to his house that they may have sex with him.  If we are familiar with Genesis, we should recognize this scene from when the angels came to stay with Lot in Sodom.  Like Lot, the old man went out to them and begged them to not do so wickedly.  He then offered his own virgin daughter and the Levites concubine to humble and abuse them, but they did not want to accept his offer.  It is amazing how a man could do this with his own daughter or a man could do this to his own wife.  In Lot’s case the two angels struck the men with blindness, but there were no angels this time to protect the old man and the Levite from making such a horrible mistake.  So, the Levite took his concubine and gave her to them, and they raped and abused her all night long until the dawn.  When the Levite arose to leave in the morning, he found her fallen at the door with her hands on the threshold, and as though he didn’t know what had just happened the previous night, told her to get up because it was time to leave.  When she didn’t answer (for she was dead), he put her on his donkey and headed home.

When he arrived at home, he took a knife, cut her into twelve pieces, and sent them to all the twelve tribes of Israel.  When the children of Israel saw it they said, “No such deed has been done or seen from the day that the children of Israel came up from the land of Egypt until this day. Consider it, confer, and speak up!”  In other words, we need to speak up and spread the word so something can be done about this.  Once the news spread, the whole nation gathered together before the Lord at Mizpah as one man to see what they should do.

No doubt, this was an amazingly horrific and sickening scene.  It is unfortunate that this is what it took to offend their consciences, but it was yet another testament of how bad things really were.  We may solace ourselves that this is not common place in our country, but a trip to our southern border reveals quite the opposite (see here and here).  This is all because our federal government has deliberately tied the hands of border patrol agents so they cannot prevent these things from happening.  We have American cities and states allowing crime to go unchecked, and even our federal government is allowing some of the worse crime imaginable to cross our borders.  We are becoming a lawless society just like they were in Judges.  In some ways they were more righteous than we are.  At least the whole nation came together as one man to put a stop to this; many in our country tend to try to ignore that nine-year-old girls are being gang-raped near the border.  It’s gut-wrenching to think people would do this to a little girl.  We need to consider it, come together to pray what can be done, and speak out against this horrible wickedness.  God have mercy on us.  In the remainder of the chapter we will see how the nation of Israel responds to this atrocity.

 

 

The Levite and His Concubine Continued

 

In my last post, we saw the horrific scene of the Levite’s concubine who was raped and killed by the Benjamites.  The Levite then cut up the dead body of his concubine into twelve pieces and sent it to all the tribes of Israel.  The nation of Israel was so outraged that they all gathered together as one man before the Lord at Mizpeh to find out what they should do.  There were the rulers of all the tribes, along with 400 thousand footmen present, minus the tribe of Benjamin.  They asked the Levite to explain this wickedness that had happened.  The Levite rehearsed the events to them, and told them to give their advice and counsel.  The people arose as one man, and stated they would not return home until they had repaid Gibeah for what they had done.  They were spiritually and morally depraved, but it appears they had enough fear of God left to remember what the Lord had done to Sodom and Gomorrah.

 

Civil War in Israel

 

They sent men throughout the tribe of Benjamin to demand they deliver up the perverted men of Gibeah, so that they could put them to death and remove the evil from the nation of Israel.  However, the Benjamites came to Gibeah in order to go to battle against the children of Israel.  Amazing! Rather than siding with the rest of the nation and the victims of this heinous crime, they sided with the offenders who brutally raped and murdered a woman.  This is another indicator of a society who has turned its back on God: they defend the offender rather than the victim.  Solomon would later write, “Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, But such as keep the law contend with them.” (Proverbs 28:4) And, “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.” (Proverbs 29:18) Those who defend wickedness are wicked themselves, and they are wicked because they have forsaken the word of God.  The answer is not to defend the guilty party or even to keep silent, but to rebuke them as the Scriptures teach.  The more we love the Lord and His word, the more we will hate sin and be willing to rebuke those who are arrogantly walking in it.  If you are bothered by what I am saying, search the Scriptures:  You will find a principle throughout them, law to the proud, and grace to the humble.  These men were wicked, and they were proud of it.

There were 26,000 of them, plus another 700 from Gibeah itself.  We are told that among the Benjamites there were 700 of them that could sling a stone at a hair’s breadth and not miss.  It was these men against 400 thousand men from the rest of the children of Israel.  It would seem as though it should have been an easy battle, but the enemy, although very wrong, can be fierce at times.  The rest of the nation was rightly incensed over what had happened, but they were not exactly righteous themselves.  The Lord had some humbling He wanted to do in them as well.

The children of Israel went up to the house of God (the tabernacle) to inquire of God.  This was a wise move on their part: it’s always a good idea to seek the Lord’s will, even if we know the cause is right.  They wanted to know who should go up first to battle, and the Lord told them that Judah should.  So, in the morning they encamped against Gibeah, and went to battle against Benjamin there.  The Benjamites came out and killed 22,000 men of the children of Israel, not a very good first day.  Then the children of Israel went up and wept before the Lord until evening.  They again asked the Lord, “Shall I again draw near for battle against the children of my brother Benjamin?”  Considering what had just happened, I believe this again was a valid thing to ask.  Notice too, how they added, “my brother,” when referring to Benjamin.  Sometimes in our outrage over some circumstance, we can forget who we are fighting against, and we can become cruel and merciless.  In this case they were fighting against family.  Our righteous indignation needs to be tempered with mercy, especially if they are fellow believers.  Justice can be served without becoming vengeful, for vengeance belongs to God.

Well, the Lord told them to go out to battle again, and they encouraged themselves, setting the battle in the same place.  Benjamin came out and killed another 18,000 soldiers of the children of Israel.  Thus far, the children of Israel have lost 40,000 soldiers, while Benjamin is not reported to have lost a man.  If they had lost anyone, it was not enough to be considered worth recording.  At this point, many of us would be wondering what is going on.  Why has the Lord told them to go up twice, only to allow them to be beaten severely both times?  I think the answer lies in the next few verses.  They went back up to the house of God, wept before the Lord, fasted, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.  Now they were getting somewhere.  These two days of defeat had humbled them to a place of repentance.  David Guzek writes, “God used this to humble the whole nation. They had to understand that the horror of the crime at Gibeah was not merely the result of the sin of one group of men, or one city, or even one tribe. The whole nation had to be humbled because they first thought that the sin problem was only in Benjamin.  Israel had to see that that nation as a whole had a sin problem.”  Oh, how true this is for us as well.  We can become so outraged at others’ sins, yet we can neglect our own that may be just as bad or worse.  This is why Jesus would later say, “Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.  And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye?  Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:1-5) Notice, Jesus did not say not to remove a speck out of our brother’s eye, but to remove the plank out of our own eye first.  We must first deal with our own sin before we can see clearly enough to help our brother or sister deal with theirs.  I believe this is what the Lord was accomplishing in the children of Israel.  The tribe of Benjamin (Gibeah in particular) was undeniably guilty, but they were to blame as well.  They asked the Lord if they should go up to battle again, or should they cease?  The Lord said, “Go up, for tomorrow I will deliver them into your hand.”

The next day they went to battle, but this time they used a different strategy, a strategy very similar to that of Joshua at the battle of Ai.  They set men in ambush all around Gibeah, and waited for the Benjamites to be drawn out of the city.  The rest of the men went up to battle against Benjamin as before, and acted as if they were retreating.  Benjamin went out after them, leaving the city behind.  At this point, the men of ambush rushed upon the city, killed the inhabitants, and set the city on fire.  They had previously agreed to a sign that when they set the city on fire, Israel would turn back upon the tribe of Benjamin in battle.  When Benjamin saw Gibeah on fire, they panicked and fled toward the wilderness.  However, Israel overtook them.  They killed every man and beast that came out of the cities of Benjamin, and they set the cities they came to on fire.  In total they killed 25,100 men.  However, 600 men of Benjamin escaped and fled to the rock of Rimmon, and they stayed there four months.  This was a brutal battle for both sides, as civil war often is.  It was a war that was justifiable from the standpoint of the children of Israel, but after it was all over, it began to sink in what they had done.  They had almost wiped out an entire tribe of the nation of Israel.  This is what sin always does, especially sin that has gone unchecked for a long time.  It brings death and destruction to relationships, families, Churches, and eventually physical and spiritual death.

 

Six Hundred Brides for Six Hundred Brothers

 

After this the men of Israel returned back to the house of God and wept before the Lord.  They were grieved that nearly an entire tribe had been wiped out in Israel.  Again, there were only 600 men left, and those men did not have wives.  Previously at Mizpah, they had sworn an oath before the Lord that they would not give any of their daughters to Benjamin as wives, and they had also sworn that whoever did not come up before the Lord at Mizpah would be put to death.  You can understand their sentiment in wanting to stamp out this evil, but they had gone overboard in swearing these oaths.  They had gotten themselves into a bit of a predicament, for now they had to find some way around them to keep the tribe of Benjamin alive without “breaking” the oaths.  This is the problem with swearing oaths: often times they are made in haste, and consequently are not made with good judgment.  This is why Jesus would later say not to swear at all, but to let our “yes” be yes, and our “no” be no. (Mat 5:33-37) Well, turns out that no one from Jabesh Gilead had come up to appear before the Lord, so they sent 12,000 men to go strike the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead with the sword.  They killed everyone except the young women who were virgins, and there were 400 of them.  Next, they sent for the 600 men at the rock of Rimmon, made peace with them, and gave the 400 virgins to them to be their wives.

Problem was, this still left a deficit, so they had to figure out a way to get another 200 wives for the remaining Benjamites.  So, there was an annual feast in Shiloh in which the young women came out to dance.  They instructed the 200 men of Benjamin to hide in the vineyards, and when the young women came out to dance, to each capture a wife for himself.  They told them that when the girls’ fathers complained, they would explain things to them.  They somehow reasoned that if the girls were kidnapped, they and their fathers would not be held accountable for the oath.  The men of Benjamin did so, and every man caught a wife.  Then everyone returned to their own inheritance, and Benjamin rebuilt their cities and dwelt in them.

Well, this wasn’t exactly a happy ending to a bad story.  It was a string of bad decisions, the subsequent ones trying to undo the consequences of the previous ones.  Most of us have probably seen the movie “Seven Brides for Seven brothers,” in which the brothers do a similar thing by kidnapping several towns women to be their brides.  It’s a light-hearted movie that turns out in the end, but in reality, this was a pretty serious situation.  Imagine being the parents of those young girls who were kidnapped at Shiloh, and the rest of the nation telling you to just let it slide (it’s because of the oath you know), or even worse, seeing your families killed and being taken captive to be a wife.  The author ends the book by reminding us that there was no king in Israel, and that everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

This account is a good reminder to us that the spiritual decline of a person or society always precedes their moral decline, and the solution to both is humility and repentance before God.  The parallels between this account and our own nation, I believe, are easy to see.  We have become a nation that embraces and promotes sin, and it has already caused a significant amount of civil unrest.  If this continues, this civil unrest will only grow, and we may see conflicts like that in the last few chapters of Judges.

As bad as things were, all was not lost.  Just like He always does, God was still at work, and He was working through a certain family in Bethlehem.  If we recall the story, a woman named Naomi lost her husband and both sons in the land of Moab.  She eventually returned to Bethlehem with one of her daughters-in-law, Ruth, who married Boaz of the tribe of Judah.  It is here that the Lord begins to narrow His focus on this particular family, for it would be this family and its descendants that would be the line of the Messiah.  The apostle Paul wrote in Romans, “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 5:20-21) The Lord is always at work, even in the darkest of times, and ultimately, He is working to bring men and women to Jesus Christ, the only access to God the Father and the grace of God.  It doesn’t matter what we have done; no sin is too big for God’s grace, if we will only humble ourselves before Him and acknowledge our sin.  This is true for us as individuals, and it is true for our nation.  There is no evidence that this family was aware of God’s plans to bring the Messiah through them, but as they trusted Him, the Lord revealed His plans through David, who would be the nation of Israel’s second king.  In the next post, we will get into 1 Samuel, and be introduced to a man named Elkanah, from Mount Efraim, and his wife Hannah.