The Levite’s Concubine (3 of 3)

(Continued from yesterday)

My observation is therefore as follows:

• The men of Gibeah committed gang rape and must be punished. God used Israel as His instrument to execute justice.
• However, Israel was not “a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master” (2 Tim 2:21), and need to be cleansed.
• God humbled the Israelites twice by giving them defeat. 40,000 (22,000 v 21 plus 18,000 v 25) or one tenth of the 400,000 foot soldiers (v 2) were killed.
• Then all the sons of Israel and all the people went up and came to Bethel and wept; thus they remained there before the LORD and fasted that day until evening. And they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD. (Judg 20:26) After they repented God delivered the Benjamites into Israel’s hands (Judg 20:28).
• However, the Israelites took matters into their own hands and, even though God never told them to do so, killed 25,100 (v 35, v 46’s 25,000 is round number) of the 26,700 (26,000 Benjamites + 700 from Gibeah v 15) men on that day, leaving only 600 who escaped. By deduction 1,000 were killed on the first two days.
• One error leads to another, leading to the fiasco to provide for the survival of the Benjamites in Judges 21.

Actually there are more problems in the story leading up to the civil war, including:

• The Levite took a concubine for himself (v 1). God’s plan is one husband, one wife.
• The concubine played the harlot (v 2) and should have been stoned (Deut 22:22).
• Homosexuals demanding sex with the Levite (v 22) reminiscent of Genesis 19;
• The owner of the house offering his virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine to appease the gay attackers (v 24). What father would have done that?
• The selfish Levite bringing his concubine to the men, who gang raped her all night (v 25).
• Committing indignity to a dead body by dismemberment, and sending her body parts to incite war (v 29).

All these were recorded to illustrate what happened when people do not acknowledge God and did what was right in his own eyes. That’s where the focus is, not whether God’s actions were justified. God is just, but men were, and still are, disobedient, causing all the sins and evils. He will return soon to rectify all problems.