Bible Passage: Judges 19[1]
1. In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite, residing in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. 2 But his concubine became angry with him, and she went away from him to her father's house at Bethlehem in Judah, and was there some four months. 3 Then her husband set out after her, to speak tenderly to her and bring her back. He had with him his servant and a couple of donkeys. When he reached her father's house, the girl's father saw him and came with joy to meet him. 4 His father-in-law, the girl's father, made him stay, and he remained with him three days; so they ate and drank, and he stayed there. 5 on the fourth day they got up early in the morning, and he prepared to go; but the girl's father said to his son-in-law, "Fortify yourself with a bit of food, and after that you may go." 6 So the two men sat and ate and drank together; and the girl's father said to the man, "Why not spend the night and enjoy yourself?" 7 When the man got up to go, his father-in-law kept urging him until he spent the night there again. 8 On the fifth day he got up early in the morning to leave; and the girl's father said, "Fortify yourself." So they lingered until the day declined, and the two of them ate and drank. 9 When the man with his concubine and his servant got up to leave, his father-in-law, the girl's father, said to him, "Look, the day has worn on until it is almost evening. Spend the night. See, the day has drawn to a close. Spend the night here and enjoy yourself. Tomorrow you can get up early in the morning for your journey, and go home." 10 But the man would not spend the night; he got up and departed, and arrived opposite Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). He had with him a couple of saddled donkeys, and his concubine was with him. 11 When they were near Jebus, the day was far spent, and the servant said to his master, "Come now, let us turn aside to this city of the Jebusites, and spend the night in it." 12 but his master said to him, "We will not turn aside into a city of foreigners, who do not belong to the people of Israel; but we will continue on to Gibeah." 13 Then he said to his servant, "Come, let us try to reach one of these places, and spend the night at Gibeah or at Ramah." 14 So they passed on and went their way; and the sun went down on them near Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin. 15 They turned aside there, to go in and spend the night at Gibeah. He went in and sat down in the open square of the city, but no one took them in to spend the night. 16 Then at evening there was an old man coming from his work in the field. The man was from the hill country of Ephraim, and he was residing in Gibeah. (The people of the place were Benjaminites.) 17 When the old man looked up and saw the wayfarer in the open square of the city, he said, "Where are you going and where do you come from?" 18 He answered him, "We are passing from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, from which I come. I went to Bethlehem in Judah; and I am going to my home. Nobody has offered to take me in. 19 We your servants have straw and fodder for our donkeys, with bread and wine for me and the woman and the young man along with us. We need nothing more." 20 The old man said, "Peace be to you. I will care for all your wants; only do not spend the night in the square." 21 So he brought him into his house, and fed the donkeys; they washed their feet, and ate and drank.22 While they were enjoying themselves, the men of the city, a perverse lot, surrounded the house, and started pounding on the door. They said to the old man, the master of the house, "Bring out the man who came into your house, so that we may have intercourse with him." 23 And the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, "No, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Since this man is my guest, do not do this vile thing. 24 Here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do whatever you want to them; but against this man do not do such a vile thing." 25 But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine, and put her out to them. They wantonly raped her, and abused her all through the night until the morning. And as the dawn began to break, they let her go. 26 As morning appeared, the woman came and fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was, until it was light.27 In the morning her master got up, opened the doors of the house, and when he went out to go on his way, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold. 28 "Get up," he said to her, "we are going." But there was no answer. Then he put her on the donkey; and the man set out for his home. 29 When he had entered his house, he took a knife, and grasping his concubine he cut her into twelve pieces, limb by limb, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel. 30 Then he commanded the men whom he sent, saying, "Thus shall you say to all the Israelites, 'Has such a thing ever happened since the day that the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until this day? Consider it, take counsel, and speak out.'"
Introduction
One of the important passages in the bible for me is this very chapter of the judges 19. The first time read it in a liberative perspective, it really struck me hard. How can a passage of intense brutality and unimaginable violence be a part of God’s holy word? This opened my eyes and made me understand that the text needs to be seen in the lens of suspicion. Hence I thought that it would be appropriate for me to do a study on this passage for this assignment. The study however convinced me to speak for the rights of women and encouraged me to stand up for women where and when ever necessary especially at the time when the women are under such intolerable pain of patriarchal domination.
Reflection
This story of the gang rape and mutilation of a Levite's concubine wife in Judges 19 is a difficult text to read; it is indeed a "text of terror," as Phyllis Trible has argued. This text of terror constitutes for some the model narrative for elucidating oppression and violence perpetrated against women and their victimization. Texts both reflect and critique everyday life. Texts of terror contain vivid and mundane images of women's oppression and brutality. They reflect and critique our ignorance, complicity, and culpability in the brutality and victimization of women and others. We resist the idea that the perpetrators of heinous acts could be one of us, anyone like us, or anyone familiar to us.
This story of the unnamed woman is one of the most disturbing texts in the Hebrew Bible. The woman, who is from Bethlehem but lives with a Levite in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Jerusalem, is referred to in Hebrew as the ‘pilegesh’ of the Levite. The precise nature of the relationship between a man and his ‘pilegesh’ is not always clear from the biblical texts, however, and scholars have sometimes disagreed about the term’s meaning. It is usually translated into English as “concubine” and understood to refer to a wife or sexual partner of secondary status. Although certain men in the Hebrew Bible have both wives and concubines, no wives or additional concubines are referred to in Judges 19. The Levite is referred to as the “husband” of the woman (19:3; 20:4) and the “son-in-law” of the woman’s father (19:5), who in turn is referred to as the Levite’s “father-in-law” (19:4, 7, 9). The uncertain nature of the differences between a wife and a concubine reveals the complexities involved in understanding notions of kinship and marriage presupposed by biblical narratives.
The Hebrew text states that the woman “prostituted herself against” the Levite (19:2). Thus, it has often been assumed that she was sexually unfaithful to him. Certain Greek translations, however, state that she “became angry” with him. The latter interpretation is accepted by a number of commentators and modern English translations, including the NRSV, since the woman goes to her father’s house rather than the house of a male lover. It is also possible that the woman’s “prostitution” does not refer to literal sexual infidelity but is a sort of metaphor for the fact that she leaves her husband. The act of leaving one’s husband is quite unusual in the Hebrew Bible, and the harsh language used to describe, it could result from the fact that it was viewed in a very negative light.
Four months after the woman returns to Bethlehem, the Levite goes after her. Although the Hebrew text states that he wishes to “speak to her heart” (19:3; NRSV, “speak tenderly to her”), no discussion between the Levite and the woman is recounted. Indeed, the text never records any of the woman’s words. The woman’s father acts as if he is glad to see the Levite, but for several days he delays the return of the Levite and the woman to Ephraim. Because of this delay the travellers finally set out at a late hour and, due to the unwillingness of the Levite to spend the night in a city of “foreigners” (19:12), arrive at the Benjaminite city of Gibeah after the sun has gone down.
Although hospitality to strangers was an important custom in the ancient world, the travellers initially have a difficult time finding a place to spend the night. They are finally offered hospitality by an old man who, like the Levite, is from Ephraim. While the travellers are eating, the house is surrounded by men of the city who, according to the Hebrew text, wish “to know” the Levite (19:22). “To know” is probably a euphemism for sexual intercourse here, as it is in other biblical texts and as the NRSV translates it. The Ephraimite host attempts to dissuade the men of the city from raping his male guest, offering to them his own daughter and the Levite’s concubine in place of the Levite.
Several elements in this part of the story, including the offer of two women as objects of rape in the place of a male object, are very similar to elements of the story of Lot and his daughters (Gen 19:1–8). Apparently the sexual violation of women was considered less shameful than that of men, at least in the eyes of other men. Such an attitude reflects both the social subordination of women and the fact that homosexual rape was viewed as a particularly severe attack on male honour.
When the men of Gibeah refuse to accept the two women, one of the men inside the house throws the concubine outside. Interpreters generally agree that it is the Levite who throws her to the crowd, though the text only states ambiguously that “the man seized his concubine, and put her out to them” (Judges 19:25) without noting specifically which man is meant. The woman is then raped by the men of Gibeah throughout the night. They do not kill her, however, for in the morning she returns to the house from which she was thrown and collapses at the door. The Levite finds her there when he rises to leave and orders her to get up. When she does not respond, for she apparently is near death, he places her on the back of his donkey and returns to Ephraim.
The text does not tell us exactly when or how the woman dies. The Levite, upon his arrival in Ephraim, cuts the woman’s body into twelve pieces and sends these pieces throughout the land. The horror of the tale represents extreme disorder, to be rectified only by the establishment of monarchic rule. The fate of the concubine is particularly gruesome, however, and the story has appropriately been called a “text of terror” by Phyllis a feminist commentator.
The text is fraught with and reeks of images and language of familiarity. Familiarity can and often does render risk and danger invisible. Normally expected behaviour, particularly normalcy practiced by authoritative or dominant persons or institutions, can camouflage or render invisible oppression and violence. In contexts of perceived familiarity and/or normalcy, oppression and brutality against women and children can more easily occur with little or no interference. We warn our children, and rightly so, to beware of strangers. But traffickers in human flesh are often not strangers. Every year thousands of women and children, drawn from every corner of the world, are recruited or drafted into modern-day sex slavery in our country
If, for many women and men, the grace of God cannot be found in the story, perhaps it can be found in the act of telling and retelling of the concubine's story. The retelling of her story brings her terror into the light of day so that her victimization can confront and challenge us. Her story foregrounds how familiarity and/or proximity have been and are used as a pretext and context for the oppression, silencing, trafficking, sexual abuse, and murder of women, children, and other vulnerable members of our society and world. The language and images of the concubine's story point to the similarities between her story and the stories of modem-day victims of sex trafficking. By telling her story and the stories of our contemporary sisters and brothers, we bring them out of the darkness exposing our will-full ignorance, culpability, complicity, and responsibility.
This being the context of the passage chosen for how is it to be read for today? Are we also supposed to do as it is written in the “Word of God” as we consider all that is written in this “Holy Book” as words of God, how are we responding to this text that is so brutal, so exploitative, so embarrassing and so inhumane? Are we commanded to rape and brutally murder women and go sinless? What can we do to prevent the objectification and victimization of women and children? What can we do to help stop the terrors that loiter in the night?
Have we not read the various rapes? The rapes which have been hitting headlines of every news paper, has become so common that everyday there is atleast three or four rape cases been reported. Where is our society heading? Is there no solution for this incomparable imposed misery on women?
We can read the concubine's story as if it were our story, our daughter or son's story, and sister or brother's story. We can read the story through the eyes of the guilty and complicit men in the story, asking ourselves how we are guilty of or complicit in the objectification of women, men and children in the church, in our homes, in our communities, in the larger society, and in the world. We can read and teach her story in our homes. We can educate ourselves, our families and our children about sex trafficking. We can stop assuming that every woman and girl on a "street comer" wants to be there and that every run away deserves what waits for her on the street.
In order to release the captives and set free the oppressed, we have to open our eyes and shine a light on the terrors in the night. The terror that these victims experience is unimaginable. Yet, modem-day sex trafficking is not an imaginary tale. It may be happening in our neighbourhood or right at the coffee shop in our area or even in the house next door, or in our own back yard. All we can do is to stand strong for this cause, for this matter any woman who is being harassed needs to be spoken for, irrespective of who she is, for it is this woman today and tomorrow it could be one of our own family members who would be facing the same danger. May God strengthen us, as we strive to help the victims of such atrocities and discrimination in our own life situations. Amen
BIBLIOGRAPHY
NRSV
Exum, J. Cheryl. Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub) versions of Biblical Narratives. Sheffield, England: 1993.
Meyers, Carol, General Editor. Women in Scripture. New York: 2000.
Stone, Ken. “Gender and Homosexuality in Judges 19: Subject-Honor, Object-Shame?” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament67 (1995): 87–107.
Trible, Phyllis. Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives. Philadelphia: 1984.
Yee, Gale A. “Ideological Criticism: Judges 17–21 and the Dismembered Body.” In Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies, edited by Gale Yee, 146–170. Minneapolis: 1995.
[1] NRSV
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