049 The Rape at Gibeah

We closed our last session with the question "Can too much hospitality be a bad thing?" In this section our concerns will also focus in part on hospitality but it will deal with the effects of a lack of hospitality. We will be party to a series of events in which we will see Israel's moral conduct to a low that is not to be exceeded anywhere else in the Old Testament. Our text for this session Judges 19.10-30 is readily divided in to two parts: 1) The social outrage at Gibeah (vv. 10b-21); and 2) The moral outrage at Gibeah (vv. 22-30). We look first at the social outrage at Gibeah.

The Social Outrage at Gibeah (19:10-21)

One of the primary characters in this narrative is the wife/concubine of the Levite. While the writer makes both the Levite and father-in-law seem like real people to us by using a variety of literary techniques, he does not do the same of the young woman. Behind a curtain of questions about her, she seems to have little influence on the events surrounding her. "Though none of the characters in the account is named, she is the most faceless of all."

The commentator Daniel Block recognizes that: "The only events in which she is an active participant are her abandonment of her husband (v. 2) and her welcoming him at her father's house (v. 3). Other than these two events the young woman has little to say about what takes place in her life. The picture we are give of this woman is that she is a person at the mercy of male dominated society and she seems to willing accept her passive role that society has given her. Through the words of the writer we are able to glimpse the fact the in her death, "she dies, a victim of men who have no thought whatsoever for the dignity and feelings of this woman."

Verse 19.10 is a transitional verse. For the first time we see the Levite assert himself by refusing to stay any longer at his father-in-law's. Taking his wife/concubine, his servant, and his two donkeys, he departs from his father-in-law's home even though the time of his departure is so late that he will have to look for a place to spend the night after only traveling about six miles. This puts the travelers in the vicinity of Jerusalem which is still occupied by the Jebusites. The Jebusites were non-Semitic peoples who had not been driven from the city Jebus (Jerusalem) by the Israelites.

As our travelers come near to Jebus, the servant and the priest become engaged in a conversation about where they should take lodging for the night (19:11-13). The servant makes the obvious suggestion that they stop at Jebus and spend the night there. The Levite dismisses his servant's suggestion and the reasons he gives for not accepting his servant's suggestions are critical to our story. The Levite's answer to his servant is that he won't go into any city whose inhabitants are not Israelites. In light of the general tone of Judges this is something of a surprise because we have many instances where the Israelites have co-existed with the Canaanites without incident. Why would this be any different? The decision to bypass Jebus in favor of traveling on to two smaller cities in Benjamin, north of Jebus, seems to have been made based on the issue of hospitality. The priest felt that they would not be as safe in Jebus among the Canaanites as they would in a city inhabited by fellow Israelites. Thus the party continues on until they reached Gibeah in Benjamin.

In verses 14-15 our travelers enter the city of Gibeah, expecting to receive hospitality from their fellow Israelites and be invited into the home of one of the inhabitants of Gibeah. Going to the city square, the Levite and his fellow travelers anticipated that someone would stop and offer them a place to spend the night. No one invites them in. Verse 15 is a shocking verse because of the lack of hospitality offered to these travelers. It is made all the more shocking when one realizes that this lack of hospitality was shown to them not by Canaanites but by fellow Israelites. It is clear that "the social disintegration has infected the very heart of the community. People refuse to open their doors to strangers passing through. It makes no difference that these travelers are their own countrymen."

The Open Square (19:16-21)

These verses, consisting of mostly dialogue, introduce us to a new character, an old man who is an Ephraimite, living and working in Gibeah among the Benjaminites. Like our other characters the old man is nameless.

Returning from his work in the fields the old man passes through the city gates and sees the Levite and his band in the city square. The old man, striking up a conversation with the priest, asks him where he is going and where has he come from. The Levite tells the old man that they are coming from Bethlehem and are going to the hill country of Ephraim. The old man does not acknowledge the presence of the young woman or the servant but the Levite responds to the old man's questions in the plural, including his companions in his answer. The Levite offers no insight as to the purpose of his trip. It seems that, from the writer's perspective, the reconciliation of the couple is no longer an issue as the coming events are about to demonstrate.

The Levite complains v. 18b that no one in Gibeah has offered him a place to sleep for the night even though they have food for themselves and their donkeys. It is another of the writer's ironies that the Levite bypassed Jebus (Jerusalem) thinking that they would find no hospitality in a Canaanite city in favor of spending the night in a city of their own countrymen where he expected that hospitality would not be an issue. The priest gives voice to a symbol of the "social malignancy in Israel," even at the most fundamental level, hospitality, there is no sense of nation, as one tribe fails to extend the commonly accepted courtesy of hospitality to members of another tribe. Daniel Block rightly said: "There is no sense of community."

In contrast to the response of the Gibeahites, the old man in verses 19:20-21 not only warmly greets the visitors, but extends to the priest the hospitality that he was expecting to receive as the old man offers to provide them with whatever they needed. The old man insists that the travelers should not spend the night in the city square. Since Gibeah was a walled city and thus should be safe from outsiders, the old man's remark is as first curious. As we will find out shortly, the old man knew that the threat to the travelers was going to come from outside the walls but rather it would come from within the very walls that did not but create a false sense of protection for the visitors. The old man leads the travelers to his house and makes them welcome. Feeding their donkeys, offering them water to wash their feet after which they refreshed themselves with food and drink.

The old man's show of hospitality is the ways things are suppose to be, but this will be in sharp contrast to the way things are in Israel which is represented by the response of the Benjamites. The writer does not openly declare the state of Israelite society by saying that it is rotten; rather "he tells a story to illustrate the point. This conversation turns out to be a self-analysis-an Israelite is telling a story about Israelites."

The Moral Outrage at Gibeah (19:22-28)

Verses 19.22-26 are perhaps the vilest verses in the Bible. As we mentioned in our last session it is impossible to read these verses without being reminded of the passages in Genesis describing the depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. In verse 19.22 the old man and his guests are enjoying their meal and fellowship when the loud banging on the door announces the arrival of the men of Gibeah who are not coming as a friendly welcoming committee. The NIV identifies them as "wicked" men. The Hebrew word for wicked can cover a wide-range of nastiness from murderers and rapists to the more mundane types such as drunks and boors. The men of Gibeah fell into the murderers and rapist category. The writer implies that while only some of the wicked men were pounding on the door, the entire city was made up of wicked men. Block suggests that "the author has generalized the depravity of Gibeah to the entire male population, whose ravenous lust is demonstrated in their pounding on the door and their demand to the host to hand the Levite over to them so they may have sexual relations with him." The demand of the wicked men violates a least three fundamental laws: "the law of hospitality, the proscription on intercourse outside of marriage, and proscription on heterosexual intercourse."

Verses 19:23-24 provide us with a glimpse of the response of the old man to the request of the wicked men to have the Levite come out so that they could have sex with him. Even though the old man is not a Benjaminite, he addresses the men as "my friends" in the NIV and asks them not to do such a vile thing to his guest. The word translated in the NIV as vile can also be translated "to do evil." The writer was likely attempting to link the word evil as used to describe the actions of the men of Gibeah with the frequently used refrain that "The Israelites did what is evil in the sight of the Lord." This would support the writer's underlying contention that the Gibeahites behavior is merely representative of the general "spiritual and ethical malaise of the nation during the days of the judges." The word translated "this disgraceful thing" in the NIV means literally "this foolishness." Block explains that the Hebrew word "denotes emptiness, vanity, without moral, spiritual, or reasonable restraint, hence intellectual stupidity and/or moral turpitude." It is obvious that the writer means moral turpitude here.

After rebuking the men for their proposed actions of having sex with the Priest, the old man does what is right in his own eyes-he offers his virgin daughter and the Levite's concubine to the wicked men instead. This action would allow the wicked men to have their way with the women, "doing to them whatever is good in their own eyes."

The ethical issues in this passage are many and they are complex. We have issues of homosexuality, rape, adultery, and murder. We are also confronted with issues related to a male centered society. The old man was in a quandary and he took what for him was the lesser of two evils as he offers young women in the house to the wicked men as a substitute for the Levite. Feeling that his honor as a host was at stake he decided that his obligation of protection was more important to his male guest than even his own daughter or the man's wife. Block points out rightly that for the old man "A host's honor is at stake-not justice or morality. That is why to him heterosexual rape is preferable to homosexual rape. The host cannot betray his obligation to his male guest."

It is ironic that the object of the desires of the men of Gibeah was the Levite, not the women or the Levite's servant. Perhaps the men were not even aware that the man was a Levite but the writer uses this to demonstrate that as representatives of all the men of Israel they had no respect for the priest. Here is another example of that which had been ordained by God, called out to be holy being subjected to desecration at the hands of Israel, not by Israel's enemies, but by Israel.

The Levite, sensing that the men of Gibeah are not interested in negotiating grabs his wife/concubine and throws her out the door to be devoured like scraps given to a pack of wild dogs. Is the Levite trying to defend his host, himself and as Block suggests "masculine honor" as well? After all of the drama of the past four months to retrieve his wife could the Priest give her up so easily? The men "doing what is right in their own eyes: they raped her, they abused her, and at dawn they threw her back. At dawn she crawls back to the door of her host's house and dies. The actions of all the characters, excepting the woman, give clear evidence that in Israel, the knowledge of Yahweh and the doing what is right in His eyes has supplanted by the evil of man and in everyone doing what is right in their own eyes.

Returning Home (19:27-28)

The writer provides us with an almost unbelievable portrait of the Levite on the "morning after." Appearing totally indifferent to the fate of his wife he prepares to depart for home. Opening the door of the old man's home, he steps outside to find the dead body of his wife lying on the threshold. His response to seeing her dead form at the door way is almost ludicrous, he commands her to "get up, let's go." With no response from his wife, with little or no emotion, the Levite picks her up and throws her body on one of the donkeys and heads off for home. There may not be a more calloused portrait of a man in all of scripture then what we see here.

This episode leaves us with a number of questions. Block identifies seven questions that are particularly troubling.

(1) How could the host offer his own virgin daughter and the guest's concubine to this mob? How could the laws of fatherhood be suspended, and did the laws of hospitality not apply to women?

(2) After going to such effort to recover his concubine, how could the Levite thrust her out to these brutes?

(3) Why did the men of the town accept the concubine as a substitute for the Levite?

(4) Where was the host's virgin daughter in all this?

(5) Where was the Levite while the men of the town were abusing his concubine? Could he really have continued his merriment or gone to bed and slept?

(6) Why is there no apparent remorse when he discovers her?

(7) Perhaps most torturous of all, was the woman dead when the Levite found her?

This last question is particularly troubling. Several translations (the LXX and the Vulgate) imply she was dead. If so the wicked men of Gibeah can add murder to their already long list of crimes committed. However verses 19.29-30 do not make it clear whether or not the Levite is carving up a corpse or did he murder her and then dismember her. In 20.5 the Levite does not charge the men of Gibeah with murder, he only says that they raped her "And she died." Block says that this "leaves open the possibility that he, rather than the rapists, was responsible for her death." If the young woman was not dead then the Levite is guilty of murder and if she was dead then at best he is guilty of desecrating her body by carving her up as if she was an animal.

Conclusion

This narrative can be understood on several levels. On the surface it is about hospitality as the hospitality of the father–in-law and the old man are contrasted with the inhospitality of the people of Gibeah. On an ethical level the narrative is about the depth of "unrestrained animal lust and human depravity," to which Israel, as represented by the men of Gibeah, has sunk.

Yet there is more to this narrative. This narrative deals with the question of what it is sometimes like to be a woman in a man's world. Ordinarily, a woman should not feel threatened by living in a man's world. But the writer exposes a situation that in a world of "unrestrained animal lust and human depravity," is without protection and is subject to "male exploitation and violence." Regardless of the societal rules of hospitality, in a man's world they do not include women. As the writer portrays, hospitality may protect men but it can come at the expense of women. Hospitality, as practiced in Israel, protects men not women. Block summarizes it this way: "In this world hosts need not protect women as they protect men, husbands may seize their wives and throw them out to the mob and men may rape, abuse, and discard women without restraint. The rules of hospitality and family order protect only males, and where the wills of males' conflict, it is quite acceptable to offer females as sacrifices in defense of male honor."

In a society with Yahweh as King, we should find men loving their women as themselves, willing to sacrifice themselves, if necessary, to protect the lives of the women they love. Yet Israel no longer recognizes Yahweh as King, in Israel everyone does as they see fit in their own eyes and the results are predictable. The writer shares that in such a society men use women as tools to satisfy their own needs and interests. There is no sense caring, sacrificing or protecting them at a man's expense, Israel is now no different than the Canaanites that surround them. One of the many ironies of this narrative is that the Levite sought out the sanctuary of Gibeah rather than expose his party to the possible dangers of Jebus, "only to discover that Canaan had invaded his own world."

In our narrative the Canaanization of Israel is represented by the four crimes that were committed by the Gibeahites: homosexuality, rape, adultery, and murder. There is nothing in this narrative that attempts to justify sexual crimes by men against women. The Old Testament, as it manifests Yahweh's will, is unequivocal in its statements against the crimes of rape, adultery, homosexuality and murder. The standards set for Israel are clear and the fact that such crimes could be committed so easily are clear signs that the normative standards established by Yahweh are no longer being practiced because of the nation's Canaanization.

One question that Block suggests we ask is "What is it about homosexual rape that makes it worse even than heterosexual rape?" The only way we can answer this question rightly is to understand the "biblical perspective on human sexuality." This is not the forum for a full discussion of this complex subject but here are the highlights. The primary role of sexual activity in creation is procreation. In man's case it is we begin to "fulfill the mandate and promise of God to be fruitful." Heterosexual sex is both natural and necessary to propagate the species. With homosexual sex it is impossible to propagate the species and therefore unnatural (Ro 12.26-27).

As unpopular as it maybe in our society today, the Bible, affirming only heterosexual marriage, sees a "second function of sexual activity is to express intimacy and marital commitment. The sexual activity between a husband and wife expresses in physical intimacy their emotional and spiritual union. Attempting to create this intimacy between two people of the same sex, especially men, denounced as an abomination and as a crime is put on a level with adultery and incest and is punishable with death ( Lev 18:22 and 20:13). Homosexuality then is not a crime against nature it is a crime against God and it is another way of demonstrating the "expression of doing what is right in one's own eyes."

The writer's judgment upon Israel is that the Canaanization of Israel is complete. The only difference between the Israelites and the Canaanites around them is that for a time they are ethnically different. It is impossible to distinguish the Israelites from the Canaanites with "regard to morality, ethics, and social values." The cruel irony is that Israel is now no different than the nations "whom they were commanded to destroy and on whom the judgment of God hung." If the Israelites have become like the Canaanites can God's judgment on them be far behind?