1. (Judges 19:22) Their perverted demand
While they were celebrating, behold, the men of the city, certain worthless fellows, surrounded the house, pounding the door; and they spoke to the owner of the house, the old man, saying, "Bring out the man who came into your house that we may have relations with him."
While they were celebrating, behold, the men of the city, certain worthless fellows, surrounded the house: The next scene is reminiscent of the sad adventure of Lot while he was living in the city of Sodom. The old man was hosting his guests when suddenly there was a knock on the door. In fact, the house was surrounded by worthless men from Gibeah. They wanted the old man to send out the Levite so that they could have homosexual relations with the man.
In Hebrew, these worthless men are called ben-belial, or sons of Belial. This is a very derogatory expression. It is used in many places in the Bible and is used to label those who commit idolatry, gross rebellion against God or lewd and immoral acts. The text also says the sons of Belial daphak upon the old man's door. This does not mean knock or even beat on the door. This means to violently beat on the door with increasing force. This was a mob which meant business and was not going to take "no" for an answer.
2. (Judges 19:23-26) The wickedness and perversion of the men of Gibeah
Then the man, the owner of the house, went out to them and said to them, "No, my fellows, please do not act so wickedly; since this man has come into my house, do not commit this act of folly. Here is my virgin daughter and his concubine. Please let me bring them out that you may ravish them and do to them whatever you wish. But do not commit such an act of folly against this man." But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine and brought her out to them; and they raped her and abused her all night until morning, then let her go at the approach of dawn. As the day began to dawn, the woman came and fell down at the doorway of the man's house where her master was, until full daylight.
Then the man, the owner of the house, went out to them and said to them: The old man had to address the situation. He could not just huddle inside and hope these perverts would go away. So, he opened his door to address them.
We need to understand the Oriental mindset of hospitality. Among the things which hospitality entailed during that era, protection of the house guest was paramount. There was no greater shame than for a host to allow something terrible to befall a guest in his home. Hosts were obligated by custom to defend their guests with the cost of their own lives or their family's lives if necessary. Just as families today have set up an unspoken hierarchy whereby the children are protected at all costs by the adult family members (and even the younger children are protected by the older children), it was the same sort of thing with families that took in travelers whom they had never met before.
Here is my virgin daughter and his concubine: The old man offers to send out his own unmarried daughter as well as the Levite's concubine for the worthless fellows to gang rape in trade for keeping the males safe. In ancient times, and still in many Middle Eastern societies today, woman are worth little. Woman have far less value than men and very often they have less value than the farm animals. The Laws of Moses were the first to value woman equally with men, to insist on the humane treatment of women and to give women far more rights than they had ever had before known. Do not get me wrong, the Bible still presents a hierarchy whereby men are to be the authority. But men are to be an authority over women in love, for the purpose of caring for them and not for the purpose of using them or virtually enslaving them.
However, worldwide customs and traditions infiltrate everything. And the Hebrew society remained a male-dominated society. What we see happening in this regard to the women in this story is not acceptable before God.
Let me also point out what makes this story so extraordinarily shocking. Certainly homosexuality is at the center of it is undeniable, and it is at the top of the list of godless perversions through the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament. But what we must also see is that while we have witnessed this all before in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, at least the resident of those cities were pagans. They did not know God. But the men of Gibeah who were demanding homosexual sex with the old man's male guest are Hebrews! They are Benjamites! They had the Torah. Their parents were part of the Exodus. Joshua had only recently died. This mob consisted of God's set-apart people who were no more than one generation removed from Moses.
So the man seized his concubine: The Levite's concubine was handed to the men of Gibeah. They abused her all night long and only ceased at daybreak. The concubine somehow made it back to the door step of where her husband was hiding. And there she died from her injuries with her hands reaching toward the bolted door.
3. (Judges 19:27-30) The Levite discovers his dead concubine and issues a call for national judgment
When her master arose in the morning and opened the doors of the house and went out to go on his way, then behold, his concubine was lying at the doorway of the house with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, "Get up and let us go," but there was not answer. Then he place her on the donkey; and the man arose and went to his home. When he entered his house, he took a knife and laid hold of his concubine and cut her in twelve pieces, limb by limb, and sent her throughout the territory of Israel. All who saw it said, "Nothing like this has ever happened or been seen from the day when the sons of Israel came up from the land of Egypt to this day. Consider it, take counsel and speak up!"
When her master arose in the morning and opened the doors of the house: At daybreak, the Levite went outside to leave, and there he found his woman. He told her to get up to they could be on their was, but there was no response. He immediately knew she was dead. So, he loaded her up on one of the two donkeys and left for his home.
It is not only the horrific action of the men of Gibeah that are on display here, but the callous and cold heart of the Levite who is utterly indifferent to his concubine's suffering. The only reason the Levite probably went after his concubine to Bethlehem was selfish. He did not want his name defamed. He preferred to have her company than not, but that is about as far as it went. The thought of leaving her was an embarrassment. He went to Bethlehem to fetch her back with gifts and a donkey for her to ride home on was simply the price needed for him to get her back. It was a price he could afford with little discomfort. The price did not mean he would love her or protect her.
The sin of Gibeah would long be remembered and mentioned many centuries later in Hosea 9:9 and 10:9.
"They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their guilt, and he will punish their sins." (Hoses 9:9)
"Since the days of Gibeah you have sinned, Israel. There they took their stand. For these arrogant people at Gibeah, war was insufficient punishment." (Hosea 10:9)
When he entered his house, he took a knife and laid hold of his concubine and cut her into twelve pieces: When the Levite arrived home, he did something so drastic, it is hard to even read about without cringing. He took his concubine's body, cut it up into 12 pieces and sent one piece to each of the Israelite tribes.
I do not know even where to begin to talk about this. The Levite had obviously so little regard for his concubine before and now after her death. He cut her up, which is a terrible desecration. She was to be properly buried. The Hebrew word for cutting up/dividing her body into pieces is a word normally reserved for Tabernacle ritual. The word is nathach. It means to divide up the sacrificial animal into pieces for putting onto the Altar of Burnt Offering. The word being used here is out of place and seems to indicate that the Levite had some delusional sense of piety, righteous anger or twisted belief that if he was the one doing the cutting up (because he was a Levite) that it made it a proper religious act.
Taken together with the other young Levite of our previous story who allowed himself to become a priest (when he was not of the proper lineage), and even to worship teraphim (god idols), and then that he would leave Micah to go and be a priest for the tribe of Dan and set up cult worship in Laish paints a pretty bad picture of the Hebrew religious leaders of the ear of the Judges.
The Levites were the butchers of that era. They were highly trained in just how to dissect an animal for sacrificial purposes. Then later on, they prepared an animal for food according to the kosher traditions which slowly developed. Even today, it is usually Levites who will run Kosher butcher shops. This Levite man simply applied his skills to his dead concubine for personal reasons. Things like this do not go unnoticed.
Verse 30 explains that when the people saw this, they were appalled as they had never seen such an awful thing happen (at least among their own culture). The question on everyone's mind was what to do about all this? What should be done about the homosexual men in Gibeah who raped a concubine to death?
Also, what was to be done about the tribe of Benjamin who apparently did not show enough interest in the matter to bring those men to justice? That is what is dealt with in the final two chapters of the Book of Judges.
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