Judges 19
Trigger Warning: R*pe, abandonment, abuse.
While they were enjoying themselves, a crowd of troublemakers from the town surrounded the house. They began beating at the door and shouting to the old man, “Bring out the man who is staying with you so we can have sex with him.” The old man stepped outside to talk to them. “No, my brothers, don’t do such an evil thing. For this man is a guest in my house, and such a thing would be shameful. Here, take my virgin daughter and this man’s concubine. I will bring them out to you, and you can abuse them and do whatever you like. But don’t do such a shameful thing to this man.” But they wouldn’t listen to him. So the Levite took hold of his concubine and pushed her out the door. The men of the town abused her all night, taking turns raping her until morning. Finally, at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman returned to the house where her husband was staying. She collapsed at the door of the house and lay there until it was light. When her husband opened the door to leave, there lay his concubine with her hands on the threshold. He said, “Get up! Let’s go!” But there was no answer. So he put her body on his donkey and took her home. When he got home, he took a knife and cut his concubine’s body into twelve pieces. Then he sent one piece to each tribe throughout all the territory of Israel. Everyone who saw it said, “Such a horrible crime has not been committed in all the time since Israel left Egypt. Think about it! What are we going to do? Who’s going to speak up?”
Judges 19:22-30 NLT
This is one of the weirdest, wildest, and most wicked stories in the Bible, and that’s saying a lot. In the Bible, we see wars, pillaging, disasters, and disease. We see bold bestiality, excessive abuse, and even child sacrifice. We see incestual rape and sensless murder as brothers assault sisters and daughters assault fathers. We see the very edge of human debauchery. The Bible isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes it’s so bad it can make you question God and His sovereignty, and this story is an example of that.
In your first few reads, it may be hard to find something positive in this chapter. It starts off with us meeting a Levite, a church leader, in a tumultuous relationship. He brings home a concubine, a woman with whom he is sleeping with but not married to, but she soon gets fed up and leaves him. Four months later, he decided to go after her to try to persuade her to come back with him. The Levite goes to her childhood home, and after about a week of some interesting back and forth with her father, the Levite and his concubine end up leaving together.
They’re on their way back home and decided against staying in a non-Israelite town. They thought it would be safer to stay with proclaimed followers of God, so they travelled further until they found a more familiar space. This sounds like a good plan.
They finally make it to an Israelite town, and as they settle down to sleep in the town square, a man comes to them and tells them that it is dangerous to be out there and invites them to his house. This is even better, you’d think, right? Safer city in a nice man’s home. But no. A mob begins to form and they come to the man’s home asking him to give them the man who came to visit so they can gang rape him. Woah.
This is set up just like the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. You remember the story where a city was so wayward that God said there weren't even ten righteous people in the entire city? Abraham’s nephew, Lot had invited some guests into his home after they tried to sleep in the town square just like this man did and the men of the city came to his house and asked to rape them too. Genesis 19 is just like Judges 19, but this time it’s a town of people who should be followers of the Most High God, but this is how bad they've become. They should be better, right? It’s one thing for sodom and Gomorrah to be this abusive and perverted but a “city of God?” Remember, the Levite and his concubine decided to go to a city full of proclaimed followers of God because they thought it would be safer.
However, Israel isn't just like Sodom, they're worse. In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot ends up trying to make a trade by offering his virgin daughters to the mob of men so they they would not rape his guests. He chose strangers over his daughters. He chose random men over the daughters he raised and supposedly loved. It's already insane, but the Judges 19 iteration is worse. As the mob of men ask for this man in Judges for his guests, the homeowner offers not just his daughter but the other man’s concubine too. How do you offer another man's woman, too? At this point, we’re even worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. No one has respect for anyone. No one is protecting the weak or defending the innocent. Instead, they are exploiting them for personal protection.
The homeowner offers two innocent women to the mob to be abused, just like they did in Sodom. The mob tries to decline his offer as they are still set on having their way with the Levite. So instead of fighting, the Levite takes matters into his own hands and throws his woman to the crowd to be abused. Since the mob of men want him instead of his concubine, in an effort to protect himself, the Levite pushes her out to the crowd and the men take turns raping her until the morning. Woah.
This is insane. I don’t even want to type this all but I haven’t even explained the full extent of how bad this is. It's terrible, but it doesn’t stop there. I’m telling you it gets worse. This innocent woman has been abused all night, and the man who should have protected her has essentially sold her into abuse and left her for dead as if she didn't matter. She is bloodied and battered, and has no choice but to reach out to the only person she knows in this strange city. She crawls and limps her way to the house where the Levite was staying and collapses by the door as her last bit of strength wanes.
When the Levite opens the door and sees his concubine left for dead, he flippantly utters a soulless response that is only two words in Hebrew, “Get up, let’s go.” No sympathy. No recourse. No remorse. No repentance. No acknowledgment of his crimes or accountability for his actions. This man has the title of a respected leader but the actions of a demented psychopath.
This story is already one I feel bad about reading, let alone typing, but it gets weirder, wilder, and even more wicked as the Levite, a man who was likely a prominent church leader, senselessly cuts this innocent woman’s body into twelve pieces and mails them to the rest of the tribes of Israel. Why? This is evil. It’s demonic. It’s perverse. It’s senseless, and it’s the state of God's chosen people.
Y'all, there is more demented material I could mine from this message, but I think you’ve had enough. The Israelites believed that they were above the perverse behavior of other nations, but here is one of their leaders outperforming the worst of the worst in a few verses. They assumed that they were better than the people of “the world”, but when you pull back the layers they’re just as bad if not worse. Does this sound familiar? It would have been so easy for the people of Israel to point fingers and act like other nations were worse off or more wayward, but this story goes to prove that they were just as evil.
The book of Judges unveils a more than problematic pattern for the peoples of both that day and ours. Being seen and called by God doesn’t stop you from living painfully against His wishes. The negative side of free choice is that you can choose to fully oppose God and His people. It doesn't matter how much you know, how many prophets you've sat under, or how many miracles you've seen. You can become this demented if you lean away from God. Some of us even practice evil while saying our actions are for God. It’s evil. It’s broken. It’s repulsive, and it’s the result of this sinful world. Our sin stains all of our actions and desires. We react to the sins of others with sins of our own. Our thought processes are demented and demoralizing. We’re sick and spreading. When God says our sins are like scarlet, this is what He means. Sin is a sickness that can rapidly unravel us if we do not allow it to be killed at the source. We know better but choose not to do better. We, like Israel, are infected.
The moral fabric of God's chosen people is unraveling at the seams. They can’t seem to help themselves from being painfully infected by the sinful actions and mindsets they’ve been called to abandon. Right after God delivered them from Egyptian captivity and gifted them with prominence in the promised land, they started looking worse than the nations they were called out of. Why? How? What's the problem, and if there even is one, what's the solution?
As the passages surrounding this plot line unfold, you’ll become aware of the author's repeated announcement of a painful fact. They consistently make us aware of a problem that has potentially led to vile implications. Israel had no king. This chapter begins by describing the events to follow as events that occurred in the days when Israel had no king. It is echod consistently as Israel spirals into disarray. This is an important fact. They had no leadership. They had no standard. They were sinking deeper and deeper with no one to act as a lifeguard. No one to stand up and put a stop to this demented behavior. No one to force accountability or call for change. No savior and that meant no hope.
At the end of our passage the people utter amongst themselves, “Such a horrible crime has not been committed in all the time since Israel left Egypt. Think about it! What are we going to do? Who’s going to speak up?” They all can see the evil. They all can see the problem. They all can see that they’re getting worse and something needs to shake, but they can also recognize that they have no one with the audacity to speak up. No one is doing anything about it. They have no king.
As you look around our world, you may see the same thing. Government leaders seem to have less tact than tantrum-throwing toddlers. The powerful seem to have no accountability for their actions and the real people they’re persecuting. We’re killing the world we were called to steward and assaulting the people we were called to love. Our world is broken, and at times, the people who should be standing up and putting a stop to it are taking part in it. So what's next?
It seems simple. We need a king. Can imagine Isreal saying that they need men. They need men to stand up and speak up. They needed someone to hold evil accountable and to pull them out of their systems of broken standards.
I would love to give you a simple charge. I would love to call you to stand up and speak up. I'd love to tell you that you're the king that is missing in this world and that if you show up, things would be better.
I’d love to talk about how important strong men are, especially now. I'd love to talk about how important fathers are. You can look around and see the disadvantages that children typically face when a present and active father isn't in their home. Men are missing and it is killing our communities and crippling our culture. Yes, women are stepping up, but neither fathers or mothers were ever meant to do this alone. Regardless of how amazing and appreciated a woman who steps up is, something is still missing when there isn’t a strong father. We need males who have been molded and matured into a man who can make a difference. But can I be honest?
While we do need men to step up and speak up in their spheres of influence, the rest of the story shows us that this is only a partial answer. It’s like putting duct tape on a leak. The truth is that Israel got a king. They actually got a bunch. About 6 books and 167 chapters of the Bible tell the stories of the kings that would come and the kingdoms that would rise and fall. Some good. Some bad. None perfect.
Kings built kingdoms and divided them. They tore down idols and erected them. Some stood for justice while some stood for injustice. We even get stories of kings from other nations who took the stage. But here’s the catch, none of the best humanity had to offer was good enough.
Our best men still had skeletons in their closets, limitations and weaknesses that would inhibit them from fixing this problem at the core. Many were gifted, charismatic, disciplined, and favored enough to trim this problematic tree at the branches but none were worthy to cut it down at the root. They could mask the symptoms but could never truly eradicate the sickness.
The same is true for you. You may be powerful. You may have built influence. You may have desired in your heart to do right above all else, but while your best can be appreciated, it isn’t quite alleviating. Your best can’t fully erase the issue. There is only one man who is wise enough, kind enough, ambitious enough, powerful enough, man enough and God enough to sit on the throne and fix this issue. That man as you know is Jesus.
As we close this story I want you to remember that no matter how hard you are pushed to be the best you can be, you like this world will still need a Savior. No matter how much responsibility you take, how well you lead, or how lovingly you act, your actions may be appreciated but they will not supersede our need for Jesus. Man up. Be the man God has called you to, but make sure you don’t seek to take His place. You’re not the star. You’re a role player. Jesus is the one and only answer to this sin sick world.
The good news is that God is saying now what He said to Isreal in the time of Moses. I have heard your cries and I am sending a Savior. God has a way out of this trash, broken and twisted world, and it’s through Jesus Christ. Everything won’t be perfect in this world. There will be immense hurts and pains and you will question everything. But the good news is that He is coming to free you. He is coming to save you. He is coming to rescue you.
