A Levite in the land of Ephraim had an unfaithful concubine. Ephraim seems to be over-represented in this book. The concubine runs off to her father’s house and the Levite goes after her. After staying for a few days, they head back home, but by the time they reach Jebus, the sun is starting to set. The Jebusites are not Israelites so the Levite does not want to stay there. They press on and make it to Gibeon, which is a Benjaminite city, so they are Israelites.
No one would take the Levite and his party in for the night though so they were ready to stay in the town square for the night. Luckily an old Ephraimite man came in from the fields and invited them into his house.
Now this story plays out exactly like the story of Sodom and Gomorrah for a little while. The wicked men come and want to have sex with the Levite, but the head of the household in stead offers them his daughter. This time though, the wicked men accept the offer and the host’s daughter and the Levite’s concubine are both dropped outside in the crowd and the concubine is raped to death by the mob.
The Levite slung her body over the back of his donkey the next morning, took her home and cut her into twelve pieces which he sent to the heads of the twelve tribes.
All of Israel came together and met so the Levite could tell them the story of what had happened. They told the tribe of Benjamin to hand over the men of that wicked town, but they refused and mustered an army. They were beaten though and most of the town was killed. All the men of the other eleven tribes swore that they would never give a daughter in marriage to a Benjaminite.
What happened next is a little unclear, but it sounds like there was an assembly sometime later and everyone felt bad for the tribe of Benjamin because they had no women and would die out. Now no one from Jabesh Galead bothered to show up to this meeting, so the rest of the assembly went in and killed all the men and all the women who weren’t virgins there. I’m not sure what tribe Jabesh Galead was a part of, but I think they must have been Israelites because they were expected at the meeting. The Israelites gave the women who weren’t killed to the Benjaminites, but there weren’t enough to go around. The solution they came up with was to wait until the next big festival and have all the available girls run around through the fields and the Benjaminites hide in the grass waiting for them. Then the Benjaminites could steal some women and they would have Israelite wives without anyone having to break their vow. If any of the girls fathers started asking questions about what happened to their daughters at the festival, the tribal elders would let them know that they had been given to the Benjaminites but don’t worry because the vow hadn’t been broken.
This is the last story in Judges and I’ve got to say, I don’t think I’ve taken away a single message or lesson from this entire book. It’s interesting to read, but no one seems to be following the law, even when the book seems to imply that they’re doing the right thing. The first story didn’t make much sense, and then each one after that made progressively less. There’s a recurring assertion that this was the time before Israel had a king and people did as they pleased. Is this whole book just a statement about what a mess things are when we try to govern ourselves without anyone who has a direct line to God? I would certainly accept that teaching but isn’t that kind of what we’re trying to do now?
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