Coming Up for Air

When God exhaled through the pen of the writer of Judges, just what joint and marrow did He think to divide?

My eyes burn from watching Him brandish the blade with wild flourishes in the final chapters, and I consider that yes, it’s living and active. And of course it’s useful for teaching and training in righteousness.

But really.

Must it have been so grisly?

And to what end?

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Uneasiness inches up like waves slapping at my feet until I am soaked through. Were this gruesome narrative playing out on a theater screen, I would have to cover my eyes if not walk out altogether.

The story has woven knots of my inside parts. And yet, because it speaks from thin white pages that once twinkled with gold edges, I cannot look away. I cannot mask eyes and ears well enough to escape it.

So I dive deep into it, past the teasing waves. I’m ready to come up for air, but I still don’t know what to make of it.

Today, let me recap events while I catch my breath. I’m afraid that to start any other way would be to chop the concubine into parts all over again. There’s time to break it apart later. (And you can always read it for yourself in Judges 19-21.)

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In those days Israel had no king.

The statement both precedes and follows this account, echoing the writer’s lament throughout the book that folks just did what seemed right to them. How this all seemed right to anybody, that part goes right past me.

The story begins with a Levite and his concubine. Following her unfaithfulness to him, she returns home to her father. Some months later, he moves toward her in reconciliation, traveling to her father’s home to bring her back. It feels, just for a second, like Hosea and Gomer.

His father-in-law welcomes him, and he stays a few days. And then, at the hospitable man’s urging, a few days more.

The Levite departs for home late in the day with his servant, his concubine and a couple of donkeys. When it comes time to stop for the night, he dismisses his servant’s suggestion that they bed down in near Jebus, not wanting to stay the night with pagans. They traveled on instead to Gibeah, in Benjamin, where they believe they will be safer among their own people.

They stop in the town square and receive nothing but a cold shoulder from their brethren there until an older gentleman comes through and invites them to stay with him.

While they dine with the man, the locals stop over and demand that the host usher his guest out to them for sex. (Imagine the treatment he’d have received had they slept among pagans instead.) Horrified, his host refuses. Not horrified, he offers up his own virgin daughter and shoves the Levite’s concubine into the night for them instead.

It no longer feels like Hosea. Now it bears a stomach-churning resemblance to Sodom.

The men of the city assault the woman all night long, finally releasing her at dawn. Battered and violated, she finds her way back through the city streets only to collapse, dead, at the old man’s door.

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Outraged, the Levite carts the dead woman home on his donkey. There, he cuts her into twelve pieces to demonstrate the brutality she suffered. He sends one to each of the tribes in his demand for justice from the men of Gibeah.

Benjamin will not participate, as the Gibeans are their own. And so the house of Israel wars with itself, eleven tribes fighting against Benjamin over this horrible act.

The eleven tribes suffer heavy losses, but decimate Benjamin except 600 fighters who flee to the desert. The remaining tribes now grieve the loss of their brethren and and worry the tribe will vanish completely. But it’s a conundrum, since they have all sworn not to let their women marry a Benjaminite.

In a stroke of genius, they discover one tribe did not send representation to the council to take this oath. They attack Jabesh Gilead, killing all but the 400 virgins. These 400, now available for Benjamin, are not enough for the 600 men, so the other 200 single men go off to the annual festival at Shiloh, hide in the vineyards and snatch up brides for themselves from amongst the dancing girls.

And this, we learn, is what happens when everyone does what is right in his own eyes.

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Stay with me. There’s not a word in the Word that God didn’t give us on purpose.

There’s something for us here.

And we’ll get to it, one piece at a time.

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Photo credit: Sword (http://www.sxc.hu/profile/bodysoulsp)