The Levite's concubine

[zeborah]

This young woman (Judges 19), also referred to as a girl, is from Bethlehem. She becomes the concubine of a man who lives in a remote hilly area. Here she is "unfaithful to him". My first reading of this is that she got bored and had it off with some other chap living there; but the next sentence makes me think that maybe, having gotten bored, the only thing she did was to run back home to her father.

Her husband (also referred to as her master) isn't too distressed about this; or at least, for whatever reason, it's four months before he chases after her to try and get her to come back to him. His father-in-law welcomes him with open arms and treats him as an honoured guest; not that Dad wants to get rid of his daughter again, because after a few days, when her husband says he must be going, his father-in-law coaxes him to stay for breakfast; just a few hours; just one more lunch... Until at last her husband says, "No, really, we must be off."

So her husband takes her and his donkeys away. They reach a town called Gibeah and wait in the town square until someone offers them lodging for the night. Only, during the evening, the local Mongrel Mob starts pounding on the door demanding to have sex with her husband.

Their host refuses -- the man is his guest and it would be inhospitable to turn one's guest out to be raped -- but they keep hammering away until the man sends our heroine out to them. (She's not being unfaithful to him if he tells her to do it.) They rape her all night. At dawn they let her go and she manages to get back to the doorway of the house he's staying at before falling down dead.

Her husband/master finds her body, cuts it into twelve pieces, and sends the pieces into the twelve parts of Israel to solicit justice against the people who killed her and their tribe who is protecting them. Blood flows.

Comments

[via-pigeon.livejournal.com]

What is it with biblical stories about townspeople wanting to rape guests?

[zeborah]

I think it's because if they don't make an effort to rape their guests then there's no story. :-)

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Again not one of the stories I recall ever being read in church!

I may be reading too much into the passage, but her Dad definitely seemed reluctant to let her go back. It's a pity he didn't send the husband packing without her. But then, of course, the Isrealites wouldn't have had an excuse to attack the tribe sheltering the perpetrators, would they?

[sciamanna.livejournal.com]

To me, it sounds like the woman is more of a slave than a wife: which would explain the father's reluctance (he may have sold her out of necessity), the fact that running away constitutes "unfaithfulness", and the act of "giving her" to others. I don't know enough about the time and place to tell if this impression is likely to be correct.

[zeborah]

I think you're right - even if not an outright slave, certainly closer to one than your average wife would be. The words like 'concubine' and 'master' certainly suggest something like that.

[zeborah]

There's quite a lot of stories they don't read in church...

I read it originally as paternal devotion - not wanting to let her go from him. But not wanting to let her go _to the husband/master_ makes even more sense. Alas that he probably wasn't in position to outright refuse the man.