Worse than Sodom

Judges 19-20

            What a disgusting story! Let’s start with the concubine. First, she’s not his wife. There’s no mention of a wife. Maybe she died. Who knows? But this Levite has not honored her enough to make her his wife outright. Second, the text says that she was unfaithful to him and left him to home. That doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. If she was unfaithful, the Levite would have sent her home, but the text makes her the agent of leaving. There’s an ancient tradition that would have us understand 19:2 this way: “She abhorred him and went back to her parents.” That makes more sense to me, especially in view of his subsequent behavior.

            Then the story takes a decidedly horrific turn. The Levite wants to stay in an Israelite town and that town turns out to be as bad as Sodom. Compare this account with the story of the angels and Lot in Sodom (Genesis 19)! The homeowner offers his virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine to the mob, but this time there is no angel to intervene, and the mob rapes the concubine to death. (Thank God there is no mention that they sent the young girl out!) Finally the Levite dismembers her and sends the parts of her body as a warning to Israel. This is just hard to read! Why is it the Bible? Probably to show just how far Israel had fallen; she was becoming indistinguishable from the nations around her.

            Chapter 20 details the consequences of this incident. The Levite disappears from the story, but his warning takes root and eleven tribes make war against Benjamin, where Gibeah (the offending city) is. Now, granted the Benjaminites take arms in defense of their fellows, but the result of the story—the near annihilation of the entire tribe—seems out of proportion. I don’t know if we’re supposed to feel sorry for Benjamin or if we’re supposed to support the actions of the rest of Israel.

            The refrain through this part of Judges is that there was no king in the land and that everyone did what was right in his own eyes (repeated or alluded to 4 times in 5 chapters). I’ve had an insight this morning: there is no king—including the Lord! There is no human king to maintain order (Romans 13:1-5) and Israel had pretty thoroughly rejected the Lord’s kingship, too!

            I had another thought this morning, too. Judges 19 is what happens when human sin is unchecked. One of the ways we Lutherans speak about the Law of God is that it has a curbing effect, that is, because of conscience and the needs of society, the Law has a sort of civilizing, controlling effect, containing the worst outbreaks of sin. But when society breaks down, when there is no respect for authority and no fear of consequences, horrible things happen. You can think of Judges 19, Somalia in the 1990s, the violence that increasingly mars our society.  The answers are complex and not uniquely Christian. (The old saw, “This country needs to come back to the Lord,” is just too easy from my point of view.) No, it requires parents who teach and model respect for authority; it requires strong and just institutions of government; and, yes, true faith wouldn’t hurt the cause.

            More than that, though, we need to see that all of that evil lives in our fallen nature. But for the blessings of good families, nurturing institutions, and true faith, each of us has the potential for that kind of wickedness. It is one of the reasons that a confession of sins is so often a part of our worship and it is one of the reasons why recognizing ourselves as forgiven sinners is so important.