Lange Commentary - Judges 19:22

Lange Commentary - Judges 19:22 - 19:30

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Lange Commentary - Judges 19:22 - 19:30

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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

The wicked deed of the Gibeathites, and the measure taken by the Levite to invoke the judgment of the nation on the perpetrators.

Jdg_19:22-30

²²Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain [omit: certain] sons of Belial [worthless fellows], beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him. ²³And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man Isaiah 24 come into mine house, do not this folly. Behold, here is my daughter, a maiden [virgin], and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing ²⁵[lit.the matter of this folly]. But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go. ²⁶Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her lord was, [and lay there] till it was light. ²⁷And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. ²⁸And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ²⁹[the] ass, and the man rose up, and gat him unto his place. And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with [according to] her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts [country] of Israel. ³⁰And it was so, that all that saw it, said, There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children [sons] of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day: consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

[¹ Jdg_19:30.—“The perfects åְäָéָä , åְàָîַø , Jdg_19:30, do not stand for the imperfects with vav consecutive, åַéְäִé , åַéּàֹîֶø , as Hitzig, Bertheau, and others suppose, but are perfecta consequentiœ, expressive of the result which the Levite expects from his action. It is only necessary to supply a ìֵàîֹø before åְäָéָä , which in lively narration or agitated discourse is frequently omitted (cf. e.g. Exo_8:5 with Jdg_7:2). The narrator uses the perfects, instead of the imperfects with simple å , usual in clauses expressive of design, quia quod futurum esse prœvidebat tanquam factum animo suo obversabatur (Rosenmüller). The Levite’s expectation that the moral indignation of all the tribes will be roused against such wickedness, and will lead them to resolve on punishment, is thus represented not as a doubtful conjecture, but as the confident anticipation of a certainly ensuing fact” (Keil). It is impossible to imitate this exactly in English, but the better rendering of the passage would be: “sent her into all the territory of Israel, saying [or, as we would say, thinking] it shall be that all who see shall say. There was no such deed done or seen,” etc. Chapter 20 shows, as Keil remarks, that the Levite was right in his anticipations. Dr. Cassel translates as the E. V.—Tr.]

EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL

Jdg_19:22 ff. The narrator is aware that he has to relate a history similar to the one that occurred in Sodom in the days of Lot; for at suitable points his language takes the same turns of expression (cf. Gen_19:5; Gen_19:7-8). Lot was only a resident in Sodom, just as here the aged Ephraimite is in Gibeah. He, like the latter, had invited the guests to his house. The Sodomites surrounded the house, and demanded the surrender of the strangers, as the Gibeathites do here. Lot proposes to bring forth his daughters, and the aged host of our history makes the same proposition. The dissimilarities, it is true, are equally conspicuous. The guests of Lot were angels, who frustrated all sinful designs: here, the entertainer receives but an imperfect Levite. Although the aged host cannot be compared with the hospitable nephew of Abraham, it must be admitted that he acts like a good Israelite. The men of Gibeah were personally sinners even beyond those of Sodom, for they had a God who does not tolerate such abominations. But their sin was the outbreaking of individual depravity; in Sodom it was the fruit of the national life. Hence, both were punished according to their guilt. Benjamin perished almost; Sodom was wholly destroyed. In Sodom all sinned, from the youth to the gray head (Gen_19:4): in Gibeah, the criminals were “sons of wickedness,” who, however, by being called àַðְùֵׁé äָòéø , “men of the city,” are shown to belong to the higher classes, which circumstance also accounts for their unchecked attainment of such great proficiency in evil. This nightly vagabondizing of wanton youth was but too well known to antiquity, even in Roman times, when Roman emperors took part in it. Here, however, unholy, idolatrous usages seem also to have come into play, according to which strangers were abused for purposes of sensuality, as, contrariwise, in the service of the Syrian Goddess natives were given up to the stranger. It was a night-riot, which began with sundown and ceased with the morning. Hence, the Levite probably remained unmolested until night had fully set in, and could depart unhindered when the day broke.

It was at all events a fearful crime in Israel. The Mosaic law punished it with death (Lev_20:13; cf. Jdg_18:22, etc.). Even the infringement of the rights of hospitality was in Hesiod’s opinion, which was followed by the later Greeks, a crime of equal magnitude with adultery or the defilement of a father’s bed (Nägelsbach, Nachhom. Theol. 252 f.). The aged host was, therefore, right in speaking of the matter as a ðְáָìָä , an abominable crime. But the savage Benjamites are no more willing to hear reason than the men of Sodom were. Their violent thundering at the door ( îִúְãַּôְּ÷ִéí ), and their language (cf. Gen_19:9), afforded sufficient occasion to the host to fear that they would soon break into the house itself. He is most especially concerned to shield the Levite, for in this direction lay the chief crime. Hence, no requisition is made upon the servant to give himself up for his master—for that would not have changed the nature of the crime,—but the host, like Lot, offers them women, his own daughter being one. But he is not called upon to make this sacrifice: the Benjamites will not have his daughter; for she is no stranger, and belongs to their neighbor. It is especially to this offer of his daughter that the opening words of Jdg_19:25 apply: “they would not hearken.” Hereupon the Levite takes his resolution, and leads forth his concubine. Her beauty pacifies the violent wantons; but she herself falls a victim to their horrible lusts. The beastly treatment she receives deprives her of life. What an awful lesson! The same woman, whose sensuality was heretofore unsatisfied, is now killed by excess of illicit intercourse. The Levite who, notwithstanding her wanton disposition, runs after her, is now obliged to give her up to others. She who would not live for him, must now die for him.—In Christendom, also, similar horrors have occurred. Who could bear to write the history of licentiousness! At the close of the fourteenth century a Thuringian knight abducted a maiden. Placing her on his horse behind himself, he intended to reach Erfurt the same evening before the closing of the city-gates. He failed, and was compelled to seek shelter with the maiden in the hospital situated outside of the city. The inmates, when they saw the beautiful woman, murdered the knight, and abused her until she died. The crime being discovered, the house was burned down, together with the criminals (Falkenstein, Hist. von Erfurt, p. 277).

Jdg_19:29 f.. And he came into his house. It must have been a fearful night for the Levite, knowing that his concubine was in the power of the wanton mob, and it was a terrible morning when he found her dead on the threshold of the house. He had risen early, and made better haste to get away from the house of his host than he had done to leave that of his father-in-law, in order to avoid a meeting with the inhabitants. His journey was a sad one; for his second ass carried the lifeless body of the dishonored woman. Filled with these horrors, perpetrated against him in Israel, he appeals to all the people of Israel. He cuts the corpse into twelve pieces, and sends them out in every direction. Expositors have one after another spoken here of Lucian’s narrative (in Toxaris) of the Scythian custom of sitting on the hide: “if any man is injured by another, and is unable to revenge himself, he sacrifices an ox, cuts up the flesh, and dresses it; then spreading the skin on the ground, he sits down on it, etc. Whoever pleases then comes, takes a part of the flesh, and placing his right foot on the hide, makes a solemn promise to assist him to the utmost of his abilities.” It must be said that there is no analogy whatever between this usage and the act of the Levite. The Scythian usage is the symbolical formula of an oath, by which all who take part in it promise to unite themselves into one body with the supplicant. But such is not the idea in our passage, nor yet in 1Sa_11:7. Saul sends out the pieces of the divided oxen with the threatening message, that thus it shall be done to the oxen of every one who does not take the field after him. The Levite has no right to do anything of this kind. He issues no threat which he himself can execute. Nor does he place Israel under oath to avenge his wrong. But he shows the nation what is possible within its borders, and what may happen to any one in Israel as well as it has happened to himself. Hence, he sends not a divided ox, but the divided woman. Saul threatens that the oxen of those who do not follow him, shall be cut to pieces. The Levite intimates that unless such practices are abolished in Israel, the same fate may befall any woman. He points to the anarchy which breaks out in Israel, when the rights of hospitality are no longer respected, and the rights of the householder no longer secure, and when heathen abominations like those of Sodom are practiced in the land. The woman cut in pieces speaks more loudly than any other language could do. Of course, a message accompanied the pieces of the body, the contents of which are given in verse 30. Every one who saw must say that anything like this had not occurred in Israel since the nation dwelt in Canaan. It closed with the words: “Take the matter to heart, advise, and speak.”

Doubtless, the divided body spake loudly to all the tribes of Israel. But it spoke not of repentance, but only of the necessity of taking prudent measures against the recurrence of similar outrages, of which any one might himself become the victim. And yet the thing needed was not merely the removal of the abomination which was manifest, but the conversion of the heart, whose hidden wickedness had produced the abomination. The Levite points to the sins that had been committed; but does he also confess the share he himself had in them, and in the guilt that attached to them? The same self-righteousness is revealed by the whole people, as is shown by Judges 20.

Footnotes:

[Jdg_19:30.—“The perfects åְäָéָä , åְàָîַø , Jdg_19:30, do not stand for the imperfects with vav consecutive, åַéְäִé , åַéּàֹîֶø , as Hitzig, Bertheau, and others suppose, but are perfecta consequentiœ, expressive of the result which the Levite expects from his action. It is only necessary to supply a ìֵàîֹø before åְäָéָä , which in lively narration or agitated discourse is frequently omitted (cf. e.g. Exo_8:5 with Jdg_7:2). The narrator uses the perfects, instead of the imperfects with simple å , usual in clauses expressive of design, quia quod futurum esse prœvidebat tanquam factum animo suo obversabatur (Rosenmüller). The Levite’s expectation that the moral indignation of all the tribes will be roused against such wickedness, and will lead them to resolve on punishment, is thus represented not as a doubtful conjecture, but as the confident anticipation of a certainly ensuing fact” (Keil). It is impossible to imitate this exactly in English, but the better rendering of the passage would be: “sent her into all the territory of Israel, saying [or, as we would say, thinking] it shall be that all who see shall say. There was no such deed done or seen,” etc. Chapter 20 shows, as Keil remarks, that the Levite was right in his anticipations. Dr. Cassel translates as the E. V.—Tr.]

He imitates the example of Lot. Therein lies his excuse. He seeks to prevent one sin, and commits another without knowing whether he can prevent the first.

This act of his also testifies to the degeneracy of the Levitical body. He has not moral strength enough to die in order to preserve himself from defilement, and hence thinks himself obliged to surrender his concubine. His own head, therefore, shares in the guilt of the crime done on the woman.

[He probably gave up all idea of recovering his concubine, as being hopeless. So Bertheau and Keil. He may have entertained plans for rescuing her in some more effective way. There is at all events nothing in the text that justifies us to suppose that he went on his way, “as if he did not once think what had become of his unhappy companion,” and was “reminded of her only by stumbling upon her lifeless corpse,” as Bush rather wildly comments—Tr.]

It might be thought that an analogy is afforded by the singular oath on the sacrificial pieces of a boar, a ram, and a bull, which Demosthenes mentions as taken by the accuser in cases of murder (adv. Aristocratem, p. 642); but here also none exists.

This sense is also contained in the words of the Levite in Jdg_20:6.