Judges19chapter 19

Judges 19:1-2

when there was no king in Israel: The formula falls four times in the book, at 17:6, 18:1, 19:1 and 21:25, and it brackets the closing block at both ends. A Levite and Bethlehem open this chapter as they opened chapter 17, where a Levite of Bethlehem went to sojourn in mount Ephraim; here a Levite of mount Ephraim takes a concubine out of Bethlehem, and the two halves of that pairing are reversed. Verse 2 says she played the whore against him, while the Septuagint reads that she was angry with him and the Vulgate has only that she left him, and Josephus in Antiquities 5.2.8 writes that she became estranged. The reason she went is carried three ways by the old witnesses and the Hebrew says the one thing.

Judges 19:3-4

The Hebrew behind speak friendly is to speak to her heart, the same expression that stands behind Ruth 2:13, where Boaz has spoken friendly unto thine handmaid. It is the one act of kindness the chapter records, and the father answers it by rejoicing to meet him. Three days was the ordinary length of a guest's welcome, and verse 4 closes on the third, so everything after it is the father pressing for more than custom asked.

Judges 19:5-7

Five verses go on eating and drinking and on a father pressing his guest to stay, which slows the telling down to the hour. The words recur across the chapter: comfort thine heart at verses 5 and 8, let thine heart be merry at verses 6 and 9, and making their hearts merry at verse 22, where the same phrase stands over the moment the house is beset. Hospitality is what the whole delay is made of, and hospitality is what Gibeah withholds at verse 15.

Judges 19:8-9

The fifth day is named and then spent, since they tarried until afternoon. The father's plea at verse 9 counts the hour twice over, the day draweth toward evening and the day groweth to an end, and the second clause in Hebrew is the picture of a day pitching camp for the night. The Levite leaves anyway, and verse 14 reports what the hour cost him, that the sun went down upon them when they were by Gibeah.

Judges 19:10-12

Jerusalem is a Jebusite town here, which Joshua 15:63 records of Judah and Judges 1:21 records of Benjamin, and it stays Jebusite until David takes it at 2 Samuel 5:6 to 9. The servant proposes lodging there and the master refuses on one ground, that it is not of the children of Israel, and turns to a town of his own people instead. What follows happens in Benjamin, among Israelites, in the place chosen for being Israelite.

Judges 19:13-15

Gibeah and Ramah are both Benjamite towns, and Gibeah is where Saul lives when the kingdom begins, called Gibeah of Saul at 1 Samuel 11:4, 15:34 and 2 Samuel 21:6. Verse 15 states the failure without comment: he sat him down in a street of the city, for there was no man that took them into his house to lodging. Taking in the traveller is the duty Genesis 18 and 19 turn on, and Hosea 9:9 and 10:9 later measure Israel by the days of Gibeah.

Judges 19:16-17

The one man who stops for them is from mount Ephraim himself and only sojourning in Gibeah, and the verse adds that the men of the place were Benjamites. Lot stood in the same position at Sodom, a sojourner sitting in the gate at Genesis 19:1, and the men of that city threw it at him at 19:9, this one fellow came in to sojourn. The old man's first words are the two questions a host asks a stranger, whither goest thou, and whence comest thou.

Judges 19:18-19

He names his destination as the house of the Lord, where the Septuagint reads to my house, which is where verse 29 has him arrive; both readings are old and the chapter settles neither. The house of God stood at Shiloh through this period, which Judges 18:31 states outright and 21:19 assumes, and the road from Bethlehem up to mount Ephraim runs by it. Verse 19 lists what the party already carries so that no host could plead the cost: straw and provender for the asses, bread and wine for the people, and no want of any thing.

Judges 19:20-22

Washing the feet at verse 21 is the courtesy of Genesis 18:4 and 19:2, and the exact phrase they washed their feet falls three times in Scripture, here, at Genesis 43:24 in Joseph's house, and at John 13:12. Verse 22 then repeats Genesis 19:4 and 19:5 close to word for word, the house beset round about, the door beaten, and the demand bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him. The word Belial enters Scripture at Deuteronomy 13:13 of men drawing a whole city into idolatry, falls here, returns at Judges 20:13 of these same men, and is used once in the New Testament at 2 Corinthians 6:15.

Judges 19:23-24

The old man's answer runs along Lot's at Genesis 19:6 to 8, out at the door, my brethren, do not so wickedly, and then his own daughter offered in the guest's place. The narrator reports the offer and records no approval of it and no rebuke of it. What both hosts defend is the man under their roof, and what both put forward against him is a woman of their own household.

Judges 19:25-26

At Sodom the visitors pulled Lot inside and struck the men at the door with blindness at Genesis 19:10 and 19:11, and the guests were never touched. Here nothing intervenes, and the night is given in a single clause, they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning. Verse 26 brings her back at first light to the door of the house where her lord was, and she gets that far and no further.

Judges 19:27-28

The detail the narrator stops on is her hands upon the threshold, which measures how far she got. Up, and let us be going is the only word the Levite is recorded as speaking to her in the whole chapter, and none answered is all the Hebrew says. The Septuagint adds at this point that she was dead, where the Hebrew leaves the moment of her death unstated, so when she died is read two ways by the old witnesses and the chapter itself does not say.

Judges 19:29-30

The twelve pieces sent into all the coasts of Israel work as a summons to the tribes, and Saul does the same thing with a yoke of oxen at 1 Samuel 11:7, hewing them in pieces and sending them throughout all the coasts of Israel; he sends from Gibeah, this town. Verse 30 is the measure the nation takes for itself, that there was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day. The chapter ends by handing the matter over in three imperatives, consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds, and chapter 20 is what the tribes do with it.