Judges
19:1a, 22-30 (NIV) In those days Israel had no king.
. . .
22
While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city
surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who
owned the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have
sex with him."
23 The
owner of the house went outside and said to them, "No, my friends, don't
be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't do this disgraceful thing. 24
Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to
you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this
man, don't do such a disgraceful thing."
25 But
the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her
outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at
dawn they let her go. 26 At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her
master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.
27 When
her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped
out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of
the house, with her hands on the threshold. 28 He said to her, "Get up;
let's go." But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and
set out for home.
29 When
he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into
twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel. 30 Everyone who saw it
said, "Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the
Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to
do!"
NOTE: The wickedness
of this passage defies belief. In some ways, it seemed hard to top the story of
Micah and the Danites, but this easily surpasses it in ungodliness. God records
it for a purpose, it is the ending story of Judges, a book that while it portrays
a repeated cycle of sin shows an even greater issue, a descent into deeper
levels of sin. Judges tells us in story what Romans 1:17-32 says didactically.
And the picture is one of a people being "sold" into their sin in
much the same way as Paul describes the human race as "God gave them over
… to their sin (last part paraphrased)." The man was wrong in how he
treated his wife. The owner was wrong in how he treated the women. The wicked
men were wrong in their desire for homosexual sex and for their treatment of
the women. And the people were wrong for not recognizing and dealing with the
sin issue in Israel sooner. Modern day armchair commentators will say that God
is wrong but that is a misunderstanding of scripture. Nowhere does God approve
or substantiate the actions. The scriptures record accurately what happened but
the story does not speak to God's character but rather to the character of man.
And even more terrifying, it speaks about the character of a religious people
(the Jews) who were to represent God on earth, and their incredible failures to
be a witness for God.
The other message of
this passage is that in the end times, this will be the picture of the church,
another group of people who call themselves by God's name but become a
religious people living in a manner completely opposed to God's moral rules (2
Tim 3:1-5 "… having a form of godliness but denying it's power").
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