"Moral Chaos in Israel”
Judges 19-21
September 24, 2006
by C.W. Powell
Our subject today is the account of the sordid affair of civil war in Israel; events that probably happened shortly after the conquest of the land for Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron was high priest. It left the tribe of Benjamin permanently weakened in Israel. I am not going to give all the details of the sordid story, but give the general events and then make some observations.It might very well be that Bret Harte in his classic tale of tragedy, “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” said it best:
- “It [Poker Flat] was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked it.” Outcasts of Poker Flat, by Bret Harte.
Let us go over the historical events of chapters 19-21.
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1. A man Levite from Mt. Ephraim had a concubine who ran away from home, and returned to her father’s house in Bethlehemjudah and remained there for 4 months. Then the Levite journeyed to Bethlehemjudah to speak kindly to her, taking her gifts, hoping to persuade her into coming home with him. Her father was very glad to see him, his suit was successful and his concubine agreed to return home with him. After several days of feasting and celebrating the Levite and his concubine left, intending to return to his home. Her father went overboard in his hospitality and the Levite delayed his departure, putting himself and his wife and servant in danger.
2. On the way home, they needed to pass near the city of Jebus, which later to be called called Jerusalem, which was still occupied by the Jebusites, for this was long before King David took Jerusalem from the Jebusites. Night was coming on and the man, unwilling to stay in the land of the ungodly, continued into the land of Benjamin and came to the city of Gibeah, where he thought they would be safe.
3. In Gibeah, however, they found no place, and thought they would have to spend the night in the street. But in the evening, an old man came in from work, and insisted that they not stay in the street but come in to spend the night in his home. This they did.
4. After dark, homosexuals from Gibeah, in a scene reminding us of Lot in Sodom, came banging on the door and insisting that the old man send out the man that were lodging there so that they could rape and abuse him. The old man refused and offered his daughter and the man’s concubine instead. They took the concubine, abused her all night. At dawn they let her go and she fell down at the threshold of the old man’s house. She was dead when the Levite was ready to resume his trip the next morning. He put her body on his donkey and returned to his home.
5. At his home he took her body, divided it into twelve pieces and sent each piece to each one of the tribes of Israel with the story. All Israel was outraged, saying that nothing like that had happened since they had come out of Egypt. It was the purpose of the Levite to rouse the nation over the evil that had been done. His plan succeeded.
6. At Mizpeh all of Israel gathered together with the chief men of war, some four hundred thousand chief men and valiant men. They heard the story again from the mouth of the Levite and took a great pledge to get revenge against Gibeah and that none of them would return home until this revenge was accomplished. They also uttered a terrible curse upon any city in Israel that did not send soldiers, and vowed not to allow their daughters to marry men in Benjamin. Both vows were foolish.
7. They sent a message to the tribe of Benjamin, insisting that they deliver up the criminals of Gibeah. This Benjamin refused to do, but gathered their warriors together to fight with Israel. The men of war of Benjamin numbered some twenty-six thousand men.
8. Israel enquired of the Lord how they should conduct the battle. The first day the Lord told them to send up the tribe of Judah first. Benjamin prevailed in the battle and some twenty-two thousand men of Israel died. At the end of the day, Israel wept before the Lord and asked for instructions for the next day, whether they should continue the battle. The Lord said for them to go to battle. It was another victory of Benjamin and some eighteen thousand men of Israel died.
9. All of Israel fasted and prayed before the Lord and offered sacrifices and cried out to the Lord. We might note that Mizpeh was very near to Shiloh where the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle was located at this time. The high priest Phinehas asked the Lord if they should persist in the battle. The Lord said yes, for I will give you the victory this time. This time, when the battle was joined before Gibeah, the men of Israel turned to flee as they had before, and the men of Benjamin came out to chase them, and fell into an ambush, and there was a great slaughter of the men of Benjamin. The only men that escaped of the tribe of Benjamin were 600 men who fled to the rock Rimmon. Over twenty-five thousand soldiers were killed, and the cities of Benjamin were burned and all were destroyed of Benjamin except the six hundred who had hidden at Rimmon. All the men, the women, the beasts, everything was destroyed in Benjamin, and it looked as if a whole tribe of Israel would cease to exist.
10. Israel now had a problem. After the blood lust had passed and reason returned they realized that a great evil had occurred and they were sorry for what they had done. If Benjamin was to be restored, the six hundred men would have to have wives and begin again to build their cities and families. The problem was, at Mizpeh, all the men of Israel had sworn that they would not give their daughters to be wives to men of Benjamin. What was to be done?
11. Someone said that the city of Jabeshgilead had not come to Mizpeh to answer the call. So Israel sent troops to Jabeshgilead. They killed every male and woman of the city, except 400 young virgins. These they gave to the men of Benjamin for wives, leaving 200 without wives.
12. The problem of the 200 was solved by tell these 200 to go to Shiloh during the time of a great feast of the Lord. When the young girls came out to dance, the 200 were given permission to grab a wife and carry her off. If the fathers or brothers of the girls complain, they were to be told to buck up and consider the larger good. And so it was done.
What are we to make of this account of sin, corruption, and misery? It is hard to make sense of that which is by nature chaotic and confused, but we will try. There are some lessons to be learned.
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1. It shows that the work of the law can make nothing perfect. God had given great and wonderful laws to his people Israel. He Himself had been their lawgiver and had led them with the pillar of fire and cloud. They had seen great miracle done. He had given them the land of Canaan, and had given them worship and a priesthood. How soon civil order and godliness had vanish from their midst! Sometimes it will take a very great price to restore godly order to a church or to a nation.
2. Only the most external things seemed to have weight among them. This Levite would not dwell all night in Jebus, the city of the Jebusites, but traveled further than he intended to get into Benjamin and dwell at Gibeah. He might very well have been better off among those who had no light than among those who rejected light. Israel made much of their oath, but thought little of bringing the punishment of the Canaanites to the people of Benjamin. Why should all the men, women, and children die? Is this the way they construed their circumcision? To destroy a whole tribe in Israel for the sins a few. Even God would have spared Sodom if ten righteous people had been there. Were there no righteous ones in Benjamin? Years later, God would have compassion upon Nineveh because of the babies in the city; could not Israel have compassion on Benjamin? Those who fought to protect the sodomites were certainly worthy of punishment, but why punish everyone?
3. How much better is the rule of faith. We are certainly to add virtue to our faith, for faith without works is dead; but knowledge must also added to virtue; or virtue may very well be selfrighteous cruelty and harshness; and temperance or good sense must be added to knowledge, for knowledge can be a most cruel and heartless thing, especially if be only the knowledge of the letter of the law. By this knowledge Saul of Tarsus wasted the church. Also, the disciples of our Lord would have called down fire from heaven upon those cities that rejected Christ. Jesus said to them, “Ye know not what spirit ye are, for the Son of man came not to destroy lives but to save them.”
4. They put more weight upon their rash and godless oath than they did on the girls at Shiloh, who were wrested forcefully from their families and shipped off to Benjamin. It is true that great wealth would eventually be theirs, for 600 families would inherit the entire nation of Banjamin, but it is hard to imagine a more brutal and ungodly method of arranging marriages.
5. There are only two Levites mentioned in the book of Judges; the Levite that became Micah’s priest, and this one here. Both were involved in some of the greatest wickedness that befell Israel: the idolatry at Dan and the near extinction of a whole tribe. This latter came about because of disorder in the Levite’s house. His concubine rebelled and ran away, returning to her father’s house. Why didn’t her father immediately seek to reconcile her to her husband? Parents, if you do not discipline your children and teach them the way of godliness and faithfulness you may turn loose upon society very great evils. What a great matter a little fire kindleth, the Holy Spirit said. Wise old Solomon said that strife is like the letting out of water—it is far easier to plug the hole in the dike than it is to stem the raging flood that devastates the whole land. This woman’s faithlessness to her oath, and the unfaithfulness of her father, caused the devastation of Benjamin and terrible cruelty to the girls of Jabeshgilead and Shiloh. There is no question that God requires women to occupy a place of submission in the order He established in church and society, but very often they are brutalized because of harshness that is the result of the wickedness and truancy of men. The strong ought to protect the weak and not bring ruin upon them because the men are ignorant and foolish. It was wicked of Israel to condemn the whole tribe, and it was wicked for them to make such a foolish and cruel vow concerning marriage. But just as later the daughter of Jephthah would suffer for his wicked vow, and the head of John the Baptist would be lost because of the wicked vow of Herod, so the daughters of Israel must suffer because of the stupidity of the men of Israel.
6. There are a few bright points. It was good that Israel was united to destroy evil. But it was not good for them not to be able to discern that justice must be mixed with mercy. It was good that they endured even though it did not go well at first. The cost of this war was very great. Over forty thousand men of Israel were slain; over twenty five thousand warriors of Benjamin, besides all the women and children and the other men of Benjamin who were not warriors. Sixty-five thousand warriors of the covenant people died before Gibeah, all because of the faithlessness of a Levite’s wife. The ways of the Lord are mysterious indeed. The cost in human tragedy moves us even these many centuries later. If there were any godly in Israel, and there surely were, they must have cried out mightily to the Lord for the days of Messiah and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to change the hearts of his people. How hard those hearts were!
7. It was also good for Israel to call upon the Lord. But maybe in the beginning it was a call for God to bless their own battle plans. I do not know. But the Lord chastens his people. Certainly the evil in Benjamin did not arise overnight, but the wickedness of Sodom and cruelty had flowered there in the sight of all Israel. Because it had not been rooted out when a small plant, it would take a very great price to root it out when it had come to maturity. This is certainly true in our own lives. Let us pray that God will give us wisdom and understanding in our youth, so that cruelty and harshness may not exact a very great price in our families and churches and cities. We must go and learn what that means, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
8. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. It was a false mercy that caused the father of the concubine to allow her to stay in his home for four months away from her rightful husband. It was a false mercy that caused her father to delay the Levite from returning home, keeping him from leaving in time to get to a safe place to spend the night. But the righteousness of the righteous can be very cruel, also. Men may kill and murder in the name of God and destroy much in the name of righteousness.
This passage illustrate an important truth of Scripture. The law is spiritual and was intended not to be administered by the flesh, but by the Holy Spirit. Those who seek to be righteous by the flesh are doomed to failure, as Galatians tells us. Unless the Gospel displays Christ crucified among us, the flesh rises us, takes occasion by the law and brings devastation and ruin, as Paul tells us. Shall we cut off everything that offends? Where shall we end but in murder and suicidal harshness? No, we are rather to present ourselves to Christ, for we are not our own, but are bought with a price, the precious blood of Christ. Because Christ died for us, we are not our own, and even our righteousness is not our own.
The Apostle put it this way in Galatians 5:
- “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love. Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. I have confidence in you through the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded: but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased. I would they were even cut off which trouble you. For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.” (Ga 5:1-26 AV)