No King in Israel (43)

Years ago, my aunt appeared at her mother’s door only a few days into her honeymoon, wailing about her “impossible” new husband. My grandmother was a worthy old gal with a very traditional, even biblical view of the importance of keeping one’s word once given. She briskly turned her daughter around in the yard and pointed her right back where she had come from with the trenchant observation, “You married him.”

Hrm. I loved my aunt. She was quite a woman. But I’ve always enjoyed that story.

A Helping Hand That Didn’t Help

The last story in Judges is about a woman who parts from her husband living in Ephraim and runs a day’s journey down the road to her father’s house in Judah. Instead of turning her around and sending her back to her husband as my grandmother did, this dad takes his daughter in, obliging the husband to come looking for her a few months later and setting all kinds of other events in play. I’ve never liked “What if?” questions, but it’s hard not to wonder what might have happened differently if the young woman’s father had simply respected the marriage arrangement and not enabled his daughter’s separation.

Moot point. He did. Here’s the first instalment of the tragic and grisly account from Judges 19. The human imagination is simply not adequate to contemplate all the possible ways our choices can turn out badly. Unlike the Lord, we can’t see the future. For this reason, perhaps, the word of God gives us principles to live by, little things like “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”

No, I’m not suggesting either the woman or her father were responsible for her wretched fate. That’s very much on the tribe of Benjamin.

III. Two Historical Vignettes from the Period (continued)

b. Benjamin becomes Sodom (continued)

Judges 19:1-9 — Estranged and Reunited

“In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite was sojourning in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, who took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. And his concubine was unfaithful to him, and she went away from him to her father’s house at Bethlehem in Judah, and was there some four months. Then her husband arose and went after her, to speak kindly to her and bring her back. He had with him his servant and a couple of donkeys. And she brought him into her father’s house. And when the girl’s father saw him, he came with joy to meet him. And his father-in-law, the girl’s father, made him stay, and he remained with him three days. So they ate and drank and spent the night there. And on the fourth day they arose early in the morning, and he prepared to go, but the girl’s father said to his son-in-law, ‘Strengthen your heart with a morsel of bread, and after that you may go.’ So the two of them sat and ate and drank together. And the girl’s father said to the man, ‘Be pleased to spend the night, and let your heart be merry.’ And when the man rose up to go, his father-in-law pressed him, till he spent the night there again. And on the fifth day he arose early in the morning to depart. And the girl’s father said, ‘Strengthen your heart and wait until the day declines.’ So they ate, both of them. And when the man and his concubine and his servant rose up to depart, his father-in-law, the girl’s father, said to him, ‘Behold, now the day has waned toward evening. Please, spend the night. Behold, the day draws to its close. Lodge here and let your heart be merry, and tomorrow you shall arise early in the morning for your journey, and go home.’ ”

In Those Days

The “no king in Israel” theme repeats here, but the phrasing allows for a break in chronology for the events about to be related. Rather than “after some days”, as it says in chapter 15, or “after him”, as it says three times in chapter 12 — both clearly denoting linear progression in the narrative — the words “in those days” simply indicate these events took place sometime before Israel had its first king, a period we have already established exceeded 300 years. In other words, we are about to encounter a story out of order in more ways than one.

The ‘Unfaithful’ ‘Concubine’

There is a fair bit of wiggle room in the language used to describe the unnamed and unfortunate woman in this passage. (Being objective about it, the writer doesn’t name her husband either.) On the one hand, the Hebrew plainly states she did something sexually immoral and left him to go home to her father. The word used to describe her behavior appears five more times in Judges alone, always referring to either literal promiscuity (Jephthah was the son of a harlot; Samson visited a prostitute [both, zānâ]) or else as a metaphor for idolatry. That’s hardly ambiguous. The Greek OT (translated from the Hebrew centuries later) puts her departure down to anger at her husband rather than sexual misconduct; however, given her terrible and untimely end, that may be more of a hindsight reinterpretation intended to cast her in the best possible light than a legitimate rendering of the Hebrew.

In her favor to some degree, while translators of the passage generally go with “concubine”, as the ESV does here (a word often denoting a sex slave), the woman in question may in fact have been a lower-status wife acquired by the Levite from her father’s house for less than the standard bride price, or perhaps nothing at all. There is no suggestion in the text that the man had any other women in his life, and Hebrew scholars note the word translated “concubine” here permits such an interpretation. Some propose that the Levite was insufficiently well off to meet her father’s bride price, but this seems improbable given that he traveled with a servant and a pair of donkeys, wine and plenty of supplies. Either he came into some money during the four months apart from this woman, or else money was not a problem for him.

More likely, however, some taint of impropriety had lowered the woman’s perceived marriage value and compelled her father to let her go without a bride price or at a deep discount just to get her out of the house, resulting in the “concubine” designation. It would hardly be surprising to find that a woman predisposed to marital unfaithfulness also had a poor reputation while still living in her father’s house. Her father’s fawning conduct toward the husband also favors that interpretation. After four months with his daughter back in the house, he seems delighted — almost desperate — to see her reconciled to her husband and out from under his roof.

The Husband / Father-in-Law

The phrase translated “his father-in-law” in English is literally “the father of the young woman”. In Hebrew, it connects father and daughter, not the father and the man in his daughter’s life. In English, we naturally read this to imply a marriage contract in force and a relationship between the two men that follows from the marriage vows. The Hebrew has no such connotation and we should probably not import into the relationship our modern associations as the translators of the ESV have done here. Likewise, the word translated “husband” is the generic Hebrew for “man”, specifically a male. It is sometimes translated “husband” where context requires it, but usage does not demand that in every case.

That’s not to say no verbal matrimonial contract with the father existed. It probably did. We just can’t legitimately appeal to either of these familiar expressions to answer the question.

The Geography

From the hills of Ephraim straight south to Bethlehem is twenty miles, a fair journey, but one that people habituated to traveling on foot could make during daylight hours, provided they got going early. On the way down to Bethlehem, the Levite and his servant probably did. The route required passing through Ephraim, then Benjamin, into Judah, where the concubine’s father lived.

To Speak Kindly

Don’t worry, I’m going to thrash the Levite later. To his credit, despite some delay, he made an effort to retrieve his concubine after she departed rather than simply moving on. At least one commentator believes the man’s effort to reconcile shows the Septuagint interpretation of the cause of separation is correct, meaning that he realized he was at fault. I don’t think we have enough information to make that determination. I have known of numerous men (and women) with straying partners who made the first move toward reconciliation. It very much depends on the personality and character of the individuals involved.

Nor should we draw any general conclusions about the Bible’s teaching concerning marriage from this particular historical record, as some commentators do. This is description, not prescription, and the situation comes with a bunch of cultural baggage with which most of us are unfamiliar.

A Merry Heart

James writes that double-minded people are unstable. That certainly seems the case here. After an initial stay of three days, the Levite plans to leave for home, but changes his mind on day four when his host presses him to stay. The same thing happens on day five. I don’t think we’re reading too much into the narrative to recognize there’s an inordinate amount of merry-making going on, more than is justified by the circumstances.

We will shortly see how this delay in departing precipitates everything bad that follows it. A man who is unable to carry through on his resolve is not a dependable character. Jesus taught that godly men keep their word: a yes is a yes, and a no is a no. The distance home was short enough that had the Levite and his concubine left Bethlehem early in the morning on the fourth or even fifth day, the party would likely have crossed safely into Ephraimite territory by mid to late afternoon.

That never happened.