M³ Final Thoughts on A Bad Story

            This is it. I won’t be dealing directly with this story any more after this. This might feel like a bit much after I’ve spent so much time on this story, but I think it’s necessary.

            This story is not well-known in the Bible. When you start listing off Bible stories, this one is never on the list.

            At all.

M³ Foreign Influence

            So, the story is actually over, but we need to deal with this on another level. How did this story come about? What happened to Israel since the time of Joshua that they have changed so much. With Moses and the 10 Commandments, they’re on the verge of becoming a civilization, an empire. They are establishing laws, justice, and identity by the time Moses passes on, and Joshua takes up the reins and actually gets them into the Promised Land. They enjoy prosperity for a time.

            By the time the book of Judges begins, however, the landscape has changed. Israel is an occupied land with Philistine overseers. The Philistines will continue to be there until David is able to oust them, which will take several years.

M³ WHY?!?!?!

            So, when I first became of aware of this story in grad school, my professor asked the entire class a very simple, very crucial question: “Why is this story in the Bible?”

M³ The Solution

            Okay, so Israel puts Jabesh-gilead to the sword, including women and children. But! But, how does this solve the problem? Benjamin will die out, so what does this accomplish? We’re not done yet with the worse.

            Sorry.

            See, there were more instructions.

M³ Yes, It Got Worse

            So, we have to set the wayback machine before the war on this one, which is exactly how chapter 21 of Judges begins. See, it feels the need to tell us some of the details regarding the (air quotes) “justice” (/air quotes) they swore against the Benjamites. In particular, the beginning of this chapter wants to call out how all of those who gathered to strike back against the Benjamites swore, “no one of us shall give his daughter in marriage to Benjamin.” Cuz, y’know, they done bad.

M³ War Machine

            So now that Israel has God on their side (at least claiming to), victory is assured. And, yeah, they win. Decisively. Israel won hard. They pwned the Benjamites that day. Seriously. Tens of thousands of Benjamite armsmen were slain.

            But Israel didn’t stop.

            They went after cities.

            They killed civilians.

M³ Asking God

            As improbable as it sounds with the numbers in the respective armies, the first time the Israelites went up against the Benjamites, they suffered 22,000 casualties (Judges 20:22). While tactics are important, a lot of warfare comes down to numbers. With the numbers the Israelites have, they shouldn’t have had any trouble squashing the Benjamites. Somebody screwed up. However, we don’t have any kind of record of the actual battle to determine what went down aside from splitting up their forces as “Judah shall go up first” against the Benjamites (Judges 20:18).

M³ You and What Army? Oh.

            The scattering of the concubine throughout Israel has the desired effect: outrage. Israel gathers up a huge army against their fellow tribe of Benjamites, demanding “hand over those scountrels in Gibeah, so that we may punish them to death, and purge the evil from Israel,” (Judges 20:13) to which the Benjamites more or less replied, nuts to you.

M³ Voiceless

            I can’t let this go, yet. This poor concubine has no voice. No one in this story has a name, so that’s not as big an issue, but the fact that this woman never speaks bothers me. Yes, the Bible is pretty terse when it comes to speech, relating things generally and narratively instead of with extensive dialogue, but we do have some. The perverse men, the host, and the Levite priest all speak up in this story. But not this woman. She is voiceless.

M³ The Final Cut

            Our nameless Levite visits more misery upon us. After returning home, “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” (Judges 19:29).

            So, um, yeah, that happened.

M³ On The Steps

            The Levite priest tossed his concubine to the wolves. Actually, she might have fared better among the wolves. It would have been over more quickly. Those hoping for a reprieve like in Sodom and Gomorrah, where the angels revealed themselves, sorry. It’s not going to happen. We’re going to the bad place with this story. I don’t do this often, but we need to get the full passage of this for context.

M³ The Worst Bible Story—Ever!

            This story should come with a warning. Obviously this is a warning, but there should be a warning in the Bible about it. It’s horrible. I mean Game of Thrones Red Wedding kind of horrible. In fact, I think it’s worse than that. Strike that, I know it’s worse than that. This story makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like a ride at Disneyland.

            But you know what, most people don’t even know this story is in the Bible.

            Strap in, we’re going for a wild ride.