The Bible: Commentary and Controversy

Lastly, in Judges 19, we again encounter the story of the Levite and his concubine, which we referred to in another article. Let’s review. A Levite from Ephraim has a concubine who is unfaithful to him. Wow, what a shock. Anyway, she returns to her home, Bethlehem, and the Levite goes and gets her. (In case you are wondering, as I was, what a concubine actually was in those days, the Oxford dictionary describes it this way: in polygamous societies, a woman who lives with a man but has lower status than his wife or wives. In other words, a second or third or even lower class wife. Wow, no wonder she ran back to her parents.)

The Levite retrieves her, and on the way back to his home they stop for the night in Gibeah with an old man who offers them a place to sleep. While they are eating supper, the “wicked men of the city” start pounding on the door, demanding of the old man: “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.” (Strikingly similar to the Lot and the visiting angels story, but maybe this happened all the time in those days.) The old man cautions them not to do this wicked thing, and offers both his virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine to satisfy their lust. But they wouldn’t listen. So the Levite grabs his concubine and shoves her out the door, whereupon the wicked men grab her and rape and abuse her all night. In the morning she manages to crawl back to the old man’s house and die on the front porch. When the Levite found her there he picked her up, put her on one of his donkeys, and carried her to his home.

Having arrived there, he did what any normal person would do: cut her into twelve parts and sent the pieces “into all areas of Israel.” I assume there was a message attached. After receiving the gory remains, “all Israel gathered before the Lord in Mizpah,” including 400,000 men armed with swords. The Levite tells the assembly his story, but lies about it, saying the wicked men had come to kill him, and took his concubine instead, raping and abusing her until she died. Nothing about him handing her to the gang to save himself.

Anyway, they decide to teach Gibeah a lesson, and seek the support of the Benjamites, who, however, decide instead to fight against their fellow Israelites, perhaps because of provincialism; they lived in towns in and around Gibeah. An imposing crew they were, too: “twenty-six thousand swordsmen from their towns, in addition to seven hundred able young men from those living in Gibeah. Among all these soldiers there were seven hundred select troops who were left-handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.”

Well, somehow this small but expert group manages to kill 22,000 Israelites and send the rest running. So the Israelites ask the Lord if they should go again, and the Lord anwers “Go up against them,” which they do, and lose another 18,000 men. So they regroup and ask again if they should go again against the Benjamins, their fellow Israelites, and the Lord says “Go, for tomorrow I will give them into your hands.”

This time the Israelites set a trap and are able to kill 25,100 Benjamites, all armed with swords, at which point the Benjamites knew they were beaten. (An easy conclusion to come to, since they only had 1,900 men left, and the Israelites still had more than 350,000.) Then the Israelites went into the towns and put everyone to the sword, including the animals, and burned all the towns down except for 600 Benjamites who ran away and hid in a cave.

After all that, the Israelites assembled, mourning the loss of one of their tribes (the Benjamins), but vowing that no Israelite would ever give a daughter in marriage to a member of that tribe. Even though that tribe basically didn’t exist anymore. Then, counting those who had fought with them, they realized no one from Jabesh Gilead had joined them in their fight. Which angered them. So they sent 12,000 troops there and killed every man, woman, child, and animal, except for “every woman who has never slept with a man.”

Then the Israelites sent a peace offering to the remaining Benjamites, who came down from their cave and were given the 400 virgins who had been captured at Jabesh Gilead. But the 400 were not enough for the 600, and the Israelites could not supply any more because of their vow. So they came up with a plan. The Benjamites would hide in the vineyards surrounding Shiloh, and when the young women came to the annual festival of the Lord they would jump out, kidnap them, and carry them away. Which they did. Each man caught one while she was dancing and carried her off to be his wife.

Pretty cool story. Unfaithfulness, rape, abuse, murder, dismemberment, millions of men and women slaughtered, towns burned to the ground, and mass kidnappings with, obviously, hundreds more rapes to follow. All condoned, nay, motivated by the Lord. Problem is this is one of those stories in the bible that actually could have happened the way it’s told, since no heavenly miracles were involved. Although 27,000 troops soundly defeating 400,000 not once but twice is stretching my credulity a little.

I am, however, shocked that we encourage everyone to read this kind of thing, even our young children, because I see no redeeming virtue in it.