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 (19:10-15)
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?
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