HORROR: Cutting Up of the Concubine Judges 19:1-30 | (un)ANSWERED

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We've all experienced the odd occurrence in the Bible and was left with fringe questions.

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Watch and listen as we leave no question unanswered.

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Today we open our Bibles to the Old Testament, specifically the Book of Judges. This was a time after Israel came into the

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Promised Land and divided up the territory, giving an allotment to each of the twelve tribes.

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There was no king in Israel in those days, and that was true in two ways. There was no physical monarch leading the people until King Saul came on the scene.

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But also, that statement is indicative of the people's hearts toward God.

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They did not consider the Lord Yahweh to be their king, and therefore sin wreaked havoc in the land.

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In this episode, we will take a look at one of the most disturbing accounts in all of Scripture, the rape and cutting of the

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Levite's concubine. Why did this man allow the rape to take place, and why did he cut her up?

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We won't let this question go unanswered any longer. Let's go to the text. The account starts in Judges chapter 19.

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A Levite, a man in charge of the spiritual leadership of their nation, was sojourning in the hill country of Ephraim.

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A woman is introduced as the Hebrew word concubine. This is a second -class wife in those days.

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She goes to visit her father in Bethlehem, and after four months, the Levite realized she wasn't coming back.

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It says she played the harlot against him, and he wanted to bring her home. Played the harlot here can simply mean she abandoned her husband, and not necessarily that she had sexual relations with other men.

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Maybe she was tired of being a secondary wife. The Mosaic law never mentions a woman divorcing a man, so it's possible her leaving her husband by default declares her a prostitute.

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When the Levite arrives to his concubine's home in Bethlehem, it says she receives him and her father was glad to see him.

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So it seems things would work out. The son -in -law repeatedly accepts the father's hospitality and invitations to stay until the fifth day when the

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Levite's patience had run out. Despite it being late in the day and soon to be dark, the man leaves with his concubine and servant.

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This hasty decision would cost him later. They come to the Gentile city of Jebue, and instead of stopping their travel, they avoid the town in hopes of lodging in an

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Israelite city. The Levite expects that they would not be safe with the Jebusites, or at least would not be received in hospitality.

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Boy was he wrong. Well, once arriving to Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin, what they thought they would get there—hospitality and safety—is the opposite of their treatment.

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This would be unheard of in Israel. The people knew the law was to help travelers, and especially their

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Israelite brethren travelers. The man, his concubine, and his servant and their donkeys sit in the open square, unsure of what to do, and an old man also from the hill country of Ephraim insists that they take refuge in his home in the city.

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The Levite says they have all the supplies they need, but could only use the help of a roof over their heads.

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What is interesting is the urgency of the old man that he has to remove them from the open square despite this being a walled and fortified city, but the danger isn't from outside, it's from within.

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While the Levite, his concubine, and his servant were celebrating with the old man in his house, they heard a banging on the door.

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It says the men of the city, worthless fellows, or in the Hebrew, literally, sons of Belial, surrounded the house.

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Belial was a combination of the word without and worth or prophet. These were men of great wickedness and evil.

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Paul uses Belial as a synonym for Satan in 2 Corinthians. These are sons of the devil.

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They demand to take the Levite man and rape him. These men are vicious homosexuals.

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They will break many laws against God this very night. The laws of hospitality, the laws against fornication and adultery, the laws against homosexuality, and the laws against rape and murder.

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The old man and the Levite walk out to them and try to appeal to the men. Do not act so wickedly.

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This is a great evil. This is folly. It is willful sin. He tells the men not to do this act of foolishness.

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But then like a fool himself, doing right in his own eyes, not regarding God's law and sanctity of life, he brings out both the man's concubine and his own daughter.

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He says, you can ravish them. The Hebrew word means to emaciate, bend, submit, oppress, humiliate, and do as he says what is right in your own eyes with these women, not just the man.

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This is unbearable. The old man makes his own daughter and the concubine less than the

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Levite man. His desire to be a good host and protect the man is at the cost of the very fabric of morality and justice.

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He thinks somehow heterosexual rape will be less offensive than homosexual rape.

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He's willing to abandon his duty as a father. The men are willing to be derelict of duty to the women.

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You see, men are to protect women and children, and the opposite is being done here.

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This man would give preference to a nameless traveler over his own flesh and blood.

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He also offers the Levite's concubine, which happens to be the first time he even acknowledges her.

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But in verse 25, the men would not receive their offers of the women. So the most appalling thing happens.

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The Levite man seizes his own concubine, his wife, and threw her to the men.

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Despite having gone to all those lengths to retrieve her from her father's house in Bethlehem, he threw her to ravaging dogs.

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By the time she is thrust upon the men, they are already aroused enough to seize her and destroy her.

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They raped and abused her all night until morning, gang -raped for hours on end until the light of day.

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With little strength she had left, she dragged herself back to the threshold of the door.

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The day had finally dawned. Truly, these travelers had no idea how dark the night would be.

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So the Levite opened the door and was about to go on his way. He was going to abandon her.

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She left him originally, being a second -class wife, and here he was, abandoning her in multiple ways.

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It seems as if he is oblivious and unconcerned with the state of this woman. He says, Get up!

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Let's go! Like nothing even happened. With what seems like no expression of emotion, the man throws her body on one of the donkeys and heads to his home.

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Why does it seem like there is no remorse, no disgust or grief over what happened?

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How did he sleep that night, hearing her scream? There is currently no indication that she died from the raping until he states it to the

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Israelite elders in chapter 20. But it seems hard to trust him at this point.

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Did she die and then he cut her up, or did he cut her up in a rage at the time she was still clinging to life?

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It is most disturbing. He desacralizes her body and treats her like an animal.

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This is unspeakable gruesomeness. He cuts her body into 12 pieces and sends the fragments to the tribal territories of Israel.

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What is the man's aim? He attempts to demonstrate the inhospitality and brutality and corruption of the

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Israelite society. He wants the tribes to be offended by it. It may be the same as when

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King Saul cut up an oxen into 12 pieces in a rage and sent them to the tribes by way of messengers to evoke the people to action.

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But a woman? A woman? Verse 30 shows how nothing like this has ever happened before since they left

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Egypt. The Hebrew literally says, consider her, take counsel and speak up.

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Look at this and this act. But from what we can see is God never told him to do this.

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He also did what was right in his own eyes. The story goes on for two more chapters and the

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Israelite elders, appalled by what happened to this woman, assemble an army of 4 ,000 men and they descend upon the tribe of Benjamin.

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But Benjamin won't give up the men who committed these crimes and a civil war breaks out and the chosen nation of God is fractured.

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Only repentance and unity would fix what has happened here. Guys, there are a few things to consider with this account in Scripture.

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The concubine woman is nameless, as with many others in this context, contrasted to the strength of Deborah, the courage of Sisera with the tent peg, or the woman who killed

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Abimelech with a millstone. She is reduced to human flesh and abused viciously through the night.

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Reduced so far down that her dead body is treated like an animal carcass and cut up.

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The anonymity of the whole account of everyone involved does two things. It disintegrates individual value and attempts to demonstrate the corporate degradation of the people of Israel.

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That not only would a community allow this in Gibeah, an Israelite tribe, but also that they wouldn't offer up the men who did this atrocious crime against this woman.

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You might have noticed this account is much like Genesis 19 with the men of the city of Sodom wanting to rape

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Lot and the angels. The writer of Judges, possibly the prophet Samuel, used much of the same language of Genesis 19 and paralleled the accounts to demonstrate the depravity of the tribe of Benjamin's spirituality.

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They were just like the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, a place that God destroyed utterly.

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In fact, they were possibly worse. Feminists will use this text to demonstrate that men considered the rape of women more honorable than rape of men.

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But they miss the point. Neither is acceptable and permissible by God. He detests each.

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This account in no way shows the acceptable treatment of women, but quite the opposite.

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Neither party is without sin. The men of the city, or the old men, and the

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Levite. The Bible actually has the most definite and resounding voice against the wrong treatment of women, especially in the area of sexual sin.

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The Bible defends the right treatment of women on every side of the argument.

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With that said, though, the Bible makes it clear that homosexuality is an act that goes against the very fabric of creation.

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A man is complete when he is with his wife. The two become one flesh.

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Whereas Romans 1 says homosexual acts are the result of fruit of a society that hates

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God. This is how far the Israelites have degraded. In the end, this is a story of opposites.

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When sin pervades the land, then opposites are done. Evil is good, and good is evil.

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A wife abandons her husband, and instead of hospitality, attack is committed.

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Instead of sexually desiring women, these men desire men. Instead of protecting women and children, even to the point of dying while trying, they freely offer up the women to save themselves.

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Instead of treating a dead wife with respect and proper burial, he desecrates and cuts up her dead body.

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Instead of offering up the men who committed the crime, the Benjamites double down and go to war against their own kin.

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When everyone does what's right in their own eyes, they don't do what's right in God's eyes.

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And sin prevails, and it destroys. Although this is a hard one, there's your answer.

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Why did the Levite man allow the rape of his concubine and cut her up? Because everyone, including himself, ignored the

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Lord God Almighty and His precepts. And if we do the same, don't be surprised when you see atrocious acts like this take place in our world.