5 Thoughts About Judges 19

Sunday, we discussed one of the strangest stories in the Bible. A concubine leaves her Levite husband because she is mad at him. After four months, he follows to retrieve her. They stay at a man’s home on the way home, and the city leaders show up and want to rape the visitor. Instead, this Levite man shoves his concubine out the door. The city men take turns raping her and leave her to die. 

These events seem to be a trigger for the Levite, and he believes that the other tribes should do something to stop these atrocities from continuing in the tribe of Benjamin. To make his point, he cuts her body into twelve pieces and mails a body part to each of the other tribes. Now that you have the background, here are my five observations this week from Judges 19.

Control and Love Can Often Look the Same

The Levite went to retrieve his wife after she left. From the outside, this would signify that he loved her and wanted her home. It could also mean that he just wanted to control her. When he shoves her out the door to be raped, it seems clear his affection toward her is very low. 

Her father tried to get them to stay multiple days. This could be viewed as control. It could also mean that he knew his daughter was in danger, and being close by was the safest place for her. 

Control and love look very much the same. Sometimes the only difference is the motive. The actions are the same. Discerning love and control can be challenging.

Corrupt Leaders Create Corrupt Culture

It was the leaders of the town who came to rape the visitor. If the leaders openly practice evil, the community believes this is acceptable behavior. The leaders set the tone for the culture. When leaders are corrupt, the culture will be corrupt. This is true from the smallest family unit to the largest organization to nations worldwide. Who we choose as our leaders is critical. Corrupt leaders can corrupt us. 

Sin Is Always Seeking A New Victim

If all the city men wanted was to have sex, they could have had sex among themselves. They were not satisfied with that. They wanted a new victim. Sin is never satisfied for you to accept it while sitting on the sidelines and not participating. Sin is only satisfied when it encompasses everyone in its practices.

Corrupt Cultures Do Not Happen Overnight

Mass rapes by the leaders of a city on unsuspecting visitors did not just become acceptable overnight. This was a long path of continuing immorality. It started with a single ignored incident until it eventually became a common practice. Corrupt cultures are more like cancer than they are a bomb.

The Longer You Wait To Deal With Corruption, the Higher the Cost

When you reach a certain age, health professionals recommend specific tests and exams because you are at a higher risk for certain diseases. The purpose of regular testing is to catch these things early. The sooner a condition is noticed, the easier and less costly it is to remedy. The longer it goes undetected, the higher cost and pain you have to endure.

Personal sin, cultural immorality, and organized evil are much the same. The sooner it is addressed, the easier and less costly to fix. The longer you wait, the more painful the correction and the higher the price. The people finally paid attention when they received body parts and took action.

The text we looked at ended with two questions: 1) What will we do? 2) Who is going to speak up? I think those are still two questions we need to consider today.