Judges | Chapter 19


Judges 19

“How did we get here?”

  1. Intro.
  2. Vs. 1-12 Canaanization of Israel
  3. Vs. 13-26 New Sodom
  4. Vs. 27-30 As in the days of Gibeah

Intro.

The last three chapters in the book of Judges is one of the most disgusting and disturbing sections in the entire Bible. After reading these chapters I prayed, “Lord, I know that this scripture just like every other scripture is “given by Your inspiration” and it is “profitable” for teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in right living, so here’s my heart have at it!” I know that the Holy Spirit didn’t place this passage of scripture to loosen my lusts or shock my sensibilities, He put it here to teach me His truths that will transform my heart. Samuel on the eve of governmental change takes them back to a time when the nation rallied together in moral outrage at what a small group of Benjamites in the town of Gibeah had done. There was a draft organized and 400,000 men went to war against 26,700 of their brothers, in what was one of the darkest times in the nations past. But why does the Spirit of God prompt Samuel to write this story? What is the message the Spirit is trying to tell the people of Samuel’s time? If we have any hope of application in our lives over this disgusting and gross immorality pinned in the next three chapters, we have to first answer those questions.

  • In the last story Samuel brought them back to the introduction of “Designer Faith”. This was picked up by the Danites who passed on this “life of ease” to not only their own tribe but succeeding generations until they ceased to exist. Samuel’s point is what Paul spoke of in Galatians 5:9 “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” On the eve of adopting a change in government, Samuel says, “Examine your heart! Have you allowed your heart to adopt your own brand of faith?” Folks, it doesn’t matter what form of government or king you have over you outwardly if you aren’t submitted to the KING of KINGS inwardly. 
  • Now in chapters 19-21 Samuel takes up the natural consequences of “Designer Faith”; moral “depravity and darkness”. The 19th chapter gives us the background or the event that brought about the national outrage. The 20th chapter outlines for us the nation’s response and the 21st chapter finishes the trilogy with how that reaction affected the nation as a whole. Jesus said in Mark 9:50 “Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another.” The anger generated at the immorality of a few never seemed to cause an examine of the sin of the whole.     

That reminds me of an incident that happened in 1977 where two 747’s collided on a little airstrip in the Canary Islands resulting in 575 casualties. The cause of this tragedy was that the major airport had been shut down diverting all air traffic to a much smaller airport. It was a foggy day and the departing planes were taxing out onto the runway instead of waiting for clearance from the control tower. The departing pilot simply never saw the incoming plane; he did what was right in his own eyes. Even though every pilot is taught not to trust their eyes but rather do what the control tower tells them to do, especially when you can’t see due to poor visibility. The control tower has special information that the pilots don’t and with this better information they are best able to guide the pilots and their passengers safely to their destination. Saints, we are living in a thick moral fog where all the old landmarks are no longer visible to most in society, people are doing what is right in their own eyes, flying by the seat of their pants. There is no wonder we are seeing the moral wrecks upon the landscape.  


Vs. 1-12 Canaanization of Israel

Vs. 1-2 Samuel lets his readers know that at the root of the actions that he was about to speak of was that the nation was not submitted to the authority of God. Every man was doing what was right in their own eyes.

              Recently on the back of a car I saw two bumper stickers that illustrated what Samuel must have felt. The first was the Christian symbol and the words “I love Jesus” the 2nd was the insignia of the restaurant chain “Hooters” and the phrase that said “Hooter girls love me!” The driver of the car was “Doing what was right in his own eyes” and apparently oblivious to the moral contradiction he was proclaiming. His brand of “Designer Faith” was next to his “depravity” and he had no problem being a driving billboard proclaiming it. I suspect that what enabled him to do so was that he was able to compartmentalize his life between the “Sacred” and the “Secular”. He was living in a fantasy world of no binding “moral absolutes”. Folks, our entire physical universe is governed by absolutes like gravity and if you try to bend them or break them you will lose every time, the same is true morally. What we are spirituality will be visible albeit not necessarily on the back of our cars, but nonetheless it will be visible. 

In 1944 some German high command designed a counterintelligence organization to disrupt the American war machine behind enemy lines. Their plan was simple; train  3,000 men to act like American service men. They smoked the same brand of cigarettes wore the same clothes, drove in captured jeeps, they even had fake papers, pictures and letters from home. For some time they wreaked havoc as no one was aware of them because they looked just like the real thing. Eventually the U.S. got wise and made the border checks much more difficult than just possessing the right papers and GIs began to ask questions not on the German script. One such occurrence happened as two of the fake 2 lieutenant soldiers drove up to a check point and handed the private papers. He asked about their military training and they claimed that had trained at Fort Hood. So the private asked, “Have you ever been to Texas?”, to which they both replied NO! They were captured on the spot as Fort Hood is in Texas! Sometime things aren’t as they appear on the service and you got to dig a little deeper.  There several surprises in this story:

  1. First is the fact that a Levite would have a concubine and along with this that this young lady would be one. According to Ex. 21:7-11, Deut. 21:10-14 and Gen. 25:1-6 a concubine was a legal wife who was only guaranteed food, clothing and marital privileges. If she bore children they would not be entitled to any inheritance. The practice of taking a concubine was a pagan practice that the people were already entrenched in which is why though allowed it was restricted in Old Testament. The Lord and was clearly against this as Jesus spoke of in Matthew 19:4-6 and Paul admonished in 1Ti. 3:2. Typically a young lady was forced to take a position as a concubine because she was from a poor family who couldn’t provide a dowry but based upon verse 4-8 her father was not poor as he was well off enough to supply provision for a 5 day party for his son in law. 
  2. Second we are told that she “played the harlot against him” but neither the Vulgate, Septuagint, Targum, nor Josephus, understand the word in this passage to imply any act of infidelity on the woman’s part. This should be interpreted that “she was alienated from him, or angry with him and left him” The text bears  witness of this as had she had been a prostitute, or involved in adultery, it is not likely that her father would have taken her in or that the Levite would have gone after her and spoken kindly, (literally “to speak to her heart”) for her to return.

Vs. 3-10 It was four months until the Levite realized that she wasn’t coming home and set out to convince her that he cared for her and wanted her to return. Now call me old fashion men but if it takes you four months before you go and try to make up with your spouse I think we have found the problem! It was one big happy reunion to start with as the family gets reacquainted having a big party. And the woman’s father was delighted to see her legal husband and seems to take his side as he throws a party that lasted 3 days celebrating their reunion. There was lots of food and drink which extended the party 2 more days to hang out with his son in law. But on the 5th day the Levite couldn’t be persuaded to stay any longer and took his leave.


Vs. 13-26 New Sodom

Vs. 12-26 The late start at mid-day on the 5th set in motion the events that followed as after 6 miles it began to get dark and the servant wanted to stay in the Canaanite city of Jebus (Jerusalem). Ironically the Levite rejected that idea because it was a pagan city and he was convinced that it wouldn’t be safe there. Instead they opted to Gibeah a Benjamite city four more miles ahead and they arrived as the sun was setting. They made their way to the center of town and waited for hospitality to be granted them by the residence of the city as this was the Eastern custom but not one Benjamite offered them a place to stay. They were prepared to bed down out in the open city until a fellow Ephraimite came in from working the fields and offered them to stay with him and begged them not to stay in the open square. You wonder if the Levite was concerned at the older man’s insistence of not staying in the square. 

As they were enjoying the hospitality there came a group of Benjamites pounding on the door and the Hebrew indicates that there was an increasingly loud pounding on the door. They demanded that he send out the man that they may know him carnally as they were engaged in behavior that was contrary to nature having heard of a “new man” in town wanted him. We cannot miss Samuels’s intent to draw a parallel to the events of Genesis 19 and Lot’s encounter in Sodom. Gibeah had become like Sodom, a city so perverted that God wiped it off the face of the earth.

            The 24th verse is as repulsive, the acts of the men who knocked at the door and the suggestion of the host to take his virgin daughter and the man’s mistress and “do to them as they please” then he says, “but do not do such a vile thing!” To this Levite and his host his concubine is more property than person, perhaps a reason she left in the first place? They demonstrates their care by tossing her out the door to be raped by this mob to save their own skin. The gross immorality spoken here is more than homosexuality it was the immorality of the Levite who had a legal mistress that he sacrificed to save his skin allowing the men to sexually abused her all night.


Vs. 27-30 As in the days of Gibeah

Vs. 27-30 It appears that this quieted the crowd and he was able to get a good night’s sleep and didn’t bother to look for her until morning where he discovered her body by the door only to say, “Get up and let’s go”. So wicked was this action that Centuries later, Israel still remembered this crime at Gibeah, and used it as an example of wickedness saying, “They are deeply corrupted, as in the days of Gibeah (Mic. 9:9). . . . O Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah (Mic. 10:9). The first part of the story ends with the Levite throwing her lifeless body on his donkey like garbage taking her home and cutting her into pieces the way he would have prepared a lamb after a sacrifice. Then he sent her pieces out to the 12 tribes as demonstration of his moral outrage at what had been done to him.

The point of this story ought to be directed at our own hearts as we often exhibit this kind of moral outrage at the “sins” of others all the while ignoring our own. The church has often selected the sins that it will be outraged against “cutting up” up those that have participated in while being oblivious to the sins that it participates in. The problem was not so much “what each man was doing” but standard they chose to do it by, “their own eyes”. That is the perversity of fallen fleshly man as they proclaim their own “rightness” before God all the while insisting on following their own flesh. They do so while complaining that their fellow man is wrong for their pursuit of the same!



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