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Judges 19
By Matt Jones | February 2, 2006
Today in Preaching and Worship class Darrell Johnson tried to tackle at really difficult passage. It was brought up last week when talking about what needs to be expressed when preaching. One of the elements that expository preaching needs to have is the Good News. That doesn’t mean that it has to be about Jesus, but it has to be about the Good News from God. Someone brought up the fact that there are some extremely difficult passages in the Bible to deal with and are often extremely difficult to preach on, let alone see the Good News. There is much more to this discussion, but I will leave it there.
This brings me to Judges 19. This is an example that is extremely difficult to see the Good News in, but as it is in the Bible, it must be dealt with in an appropriate way. It is often easy to just pass over difficult passages by saying “it was a different culture so we don’t have to deal with it like they did.” Often times, we can’t do that. To preach well (and understand the Bible well), original intent must be discovered. As is the case with most places in the Bible, but especially in Old Testament narrative, individual stories MUST be looked at in their larger context, in the metanarrative, the overarching story. This is going to be crucial when looking at a hard passage.
Judges 19:22-20:1 is difficult to read, let alone understand. Please read it prayerfully, slowly, and intently. It makes me cry.
19.22 While they were celebrating, behold, the men of the city, certain worthless fellows, surrounded the house, pounding the door; and they spoke to the owner of the house, the old man, saying, “Bring out the man who came into your house that we may have relations with him.” 23 Then the man, the owner of the house, went out to them and said to them, “No, my fellows, please do not act so wickedly; since this man has come into my house, do not commit this act of folly. 24 “Here is my virgin daughter and his concubine. Please let me bring them out that you may ravish them and do to them whatever you wish. But do not commit such an act of folly against this man.” 25 But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine and brought her out to them; and they raped her and abused her all night until morning, then let her go at the approach of dawn.
26 As the day began to dawn, the woman came and fell down at the doorway of the man’s house where her master was, until full daylight. 27 When her master arose in the morning and opened the doors of the house and went out to go on his way, then behold, his concubine was lying at the doorway of the house with her hands on the threshold. 28 He said to her, “Get up and let us go,” but there was no answer. Then he placed her on the donkey; and the man arose and went to his home. 29 When he entered his house, he took a knife and laid hold of his concubine and cut her in twelve pieces, limb by limb, and sent her throughout the territory of Israel. 30 All who saw it said, “Nothing like this has ever happened or been seen from the day when the sons of Israel came up from the land of Egypt to this day. Consider it, take counsel and speak up!” 20.1 Then all the sons of Israel from Dan to Beersheba, including the land of Gilead, came out, and the congregation assembled as one man to the LORD at Mizpah.
I don’t claim to be an expert on this, but Darrell managed to explain things in a way that were fit for preaching (even while it was a trial run for himself). I will attempt to share some of that message with you (while definitely paraphrasing and putting into my own words).
A beginning, and hopeful, note from C.S. Lewis in his Reflections on the Pslams:
Where we find difficulty, we may always expect that a discovery awaits us.
This story of the concubine does not make sense by itself. How could something like this appear here? And more importantly, how do we hear God’s love and Good News in this horrible event? This story must be looked at as part of the larger metanarrative, the greater story of Judges. Judges 2:10 states: “All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.” This is a VERY common theme throughout Judges. God lets Israel have its own way, and things get bad. A Judge is raised up to correct things, dies, and things get bad again. Not only does this cycle keep going, but it gets progressively worse. Each time a judge dies, the people disobey in even greater ways. There is degradation in each cycle. Judges 17-21 is the concluding section to Judges and we find two disturbing stories there that illustrate just how bad things have gotten. The first is about the house of Dan who have sold out and given themselves over to worshiping graven images and the second is the story of the concubine. This concluding section of Judges is bracketed with 17:6 and 21:25, both of which say the same thing: In those days Israel had no king and every man did what was right in his own eyes. Both 18:1 and 19.1 also reiterate that Israel had no king. The stories there are about what life becomes like when there is no king, how national life suffers; people just do what is right in their own eyes. 19.24 says, “Here is my virgin daughter and his concubine. Please let me bring them out that you may ravish them and do to them whatever you wish. But do not commit such an act of folly against this man.” That can be literally translated as “do whatever is good in your eyes” linking it back to the previous references. The author also calls these men “worthless fellows” or literally “sons of Belial” meaning sons of darkness or evil, sons of darkness, lords of the night (if you want more of the Hebrew root here, let me know). These men had sunk so low, they were below human, people of death, people of night. The point? When there is no king, no ruler, people do what is right in their own eyes and end up sons of Belial.
Where is the Good News in this? This repetition of “no king… no king… no king…” leaves us longing for a king, and for good reason. Without a king, the people fall. This points to the coming action of God and the raising of a king, a king whose influence is not temporary, one who moves people from sons and daughters of Belial to sons of daughters of light. This story is not prescriptive, but descriptive. This is not how things are supposed to be. We need to look towards the king. Of course, this isn’t fulfilled until Jesus Christ in the New Testament and as we live in the “now, but not yet” Kingdom of God, we will not see the completion of this until His return. This passage reveals Israel’s extraordinary need for a king and their desperation. It is not difficult to map that onto our own current situation with desperation all around us.
This section of Judges is very difficult to handle. I think that Johnson bravely tackled it and was able to deal with it in a healthy way. There is much more that can be done exegetically and hermeneutically that would also provide deeper meaning to this passage. I hope this was a helpful introduction to a difficult subject.
God Bless
-Matt Jones
February 6th, 2006 at 9:48 am
I often feel that even in the darkest moments of the Bible, such as this one, there is good news in that a king is yet to come. There is darkness before light, and part of the appreciation of the light is the ability to face the darkness.
On that note, I’d also add that the writings of C.S. Lewis have comforted me many times in my spiritual struggles. He was an amazing man.
February 6th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Amen brother. C.S. Lewis has an amazing way of speaking truth in such a specific and meaningful way. Such a wonderful witness we have been given!
February 8th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
[…] This weeks Christian Carnival is up! I have contributed my look at Judges 19, a difficult passage that seems to make it difficult to see the Good News. Head over to Christian Carnival CVIII at Part-Time Pundit for all of this week’s posts from around the Christain Blogosphere. If you want to catch up on previous posts, see my Christian Carnival Archice. […]
February 8th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
February 8th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Well done. I found this through the Christian Carnival.
June 20th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
November 14th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
March 31st, 2008 at 6:03 am
I can not help but notice the similarities between the story of the concubine in Judges and the story of Lot. In both stories a man takes in strangers. Lot took in The Angels and in this one the Old Man took in the Levite. In both stories the vile men came to the door demanding relations with the house guest. In both stories young women were offerend in place of the men. I have to be honest when I frist read each of these stories I was so distressed, I couldnt understand why women were treated with such disregaurd. Upon praying and asking God for insight, I saw a bigger picture start to shine through. In both stories these young girls were offered as a sacrifice to appease the angry mob. Although Lots daughters were spared and aparently so was the virgin daughter of the old man. Unfortunately the poor concubine, was not. But her sacrifice stemmed a revolt and a nation was ultimately saved and Good triumphed over evil in the end. Same as Sodom and Gohmor. So seing that this land had no king no laws no wrong from right. and seeing that often there were sacrifices given to apease an angry mob even up to the day of Jesus. I see now that her sacrifice as horrible as it was God used it to turn a bad situation and time into a blessing. And things changed. In the story of Lot Gods intentions were already laid out he had already intended on destroying the cities perhaps although it dont mention it this could have been in his plans as well. Being they were detained to leave late and have to seek shelter in a strange place. Just some food for thought