Bible’s Horror Story: Levite & Concubine
There is a story in the Book of Judges about a man who sent the body of his concubine raped by men across the country after he cut it into twelve pieces. The Bible records a terrible event that is rarely seen in other books.
There was no king in Israel when the incident occurred according to Chapter 19 of the Book of Judges. In the absence of a leader, people act recklessly according to their desires and stubbornness.
Bible’s Story: Levite & Concubine
During that time, a Levite lived in the corner of the Ephraim mountains. From Bethlehem, Judah, he brought his concubine.
She went back to her father’s house in Bethlehem after leaving her husband for adultery.
About four months later, her husband’s heart eased a bit, and decided to bring her back, so it is unknown if he kicked her out or if she went to her hometown because she was embarrassed to see him.
A man went down to Bethlehem’s concubine’s father’s house with a servant and two donkeys.
‘To speak kindly to her’ is what the Bible says, but to say that you spoke kindly would imply forgiveness and reconciliation.
As a result, the woman was moved and brought her husband home, believing he had abandoned her because of her fault. Also, the man’s father-in-law welcomed him and treated him generously.
The father-in-law earnestly dissuaded her to take another day off when the man stayed for three days and tried to take the woman back to Emery. Eventually, the father-in-law stayed for a few more days after repeating it several times.
The Beginning of Tragedy
On his way back to Ephraim with a woman and servant, a man greeted his father-in-law and stayed overnight in Gibeah, a tribe of Benjamin. In an old man’s house, he ate, washed his feet, and tried to sleep, but local bullies surrounded the house and argued with the old man to let him go. It is a homosexual expression in the Bible to say ‘we may know him‘.
The scene is very similar to what happened when angels stayed at Sodom’s Lot. Sodom’s people said something similar. Lot said he would sacrifice his daughter to save the guests, but Gibeah also said the old man would sacrifice his daughter to save the guests.
When the neighbors refused the old man’s offer, he was forced to give him his concubine. The men had been ganging up on the woman all night. It is unclear how many men have committed women since the woman took turns sexually assaulting the man until just before she collapsed.
After doing it until dawn, the bullies let the woman go. Almost collapsing at her husband’s house, the woman crawled to the door. Early in the morning, the man told her to get up because she was lying on the floor, but she didn’t respond.
A Levite divides the body of his concubine into twelve pieces
As he returned to Ephraim’s house with his concubine’s body on a donkey, he took a knife and split it into twelve pieces.
To send it to the twelve tribes of Israel, it was divided into twelve pieces.
By mutilating her body, he wanted to liven up to what Gibeah’s bullies had done to his concubine.
Each tribe that received the dismemberment said in unison. “Such a thing has never happened or been witnessed since Israel came out of Egypt.”
Israel Exterminates the Tribe of Benjamin
There has been an unprecedented bizarre incident. The woman’s body was never cut into twelve pieces in a violent demonstration against the whole country.
It was impossible not to get excited when they saw the dismembered body. About one-tenth of the population in each tribe gathered with knives, quickly reaching 400,000. In Gibeah, they asked the Benjamin tribe to release the bullies who sexually assaulted the woman.
Initially, only the bullies were targeted for killing, but when the Gibeah people refused to listen, the entire Benjamin tribe was attacked.
About 33,000 Benjamin tribesmen were capable of fighting with knives. The Benjamin tribe made a good plan and initially set up a criminal record that caused great damage to 400,000 troops, even though it was almost impossible to fight against 400,000 troops with only 30,000 troops.
In the course of the battle, the Benjamin tribe became more and more disadvantageous until eventually no men remained.
What’s unusual here is that even after other Israelis fought against the Benjamin tribe and won a great victory, they shed tears because they felt sorry for the Benjamin tribe. They were not only crying, but they were crying, according to Judges 21:3.
They asked, “O Lord, why has this happened in Israel, that one tribe is lacking today?”
A desperate plan to leave the tribe of Benjamin
Benjamin faction members fought as enemies in the war, but they were heartbroken when the same race became so horrible that no one like Benjamin remained.
It is now up to the entire nation to figure out how to let the Benjamin tribe survive without disappearing from Israel. Thus, they have begun to reconcile with Benjamin’s former enemy.
To prevent the Benjamin tribe from disappearing, the few remaining Benjamin men had to get married and have children.
Benjamin women almost died during the war, and the rest of Israel hastily made vows before God to not give their daughters to Benjamin men, so the rest of Benjamin men had no wives.
Eventually, the Israelis invaded there to punish the Jabesh-gilead people who did not participate in the war, killed both men and married women, took only 400 women prisoners, and gave them to Benjamin men.
As if that weren’t enough, he instructed Benjamin men to hide in a vineyard and kidnap women coming out to dance at the Shiloh festival. It would be taken care of if her father and brother protested.
The Benjamin men hid in Shiloh’s vineyard and kidnapped the women who came out to dance and made them their wives.
Therefore, the Benjamin tribe was preserved, and each tribe of Israel returned to its original location.
At the end of the fraud account, this is the case. According to Judges 21:25:
Israel had no king in those days. Everyone did what they thought was right in their own eyes.
