No King in Israel (44)

English translations of the Bible call the tribe made up of the children of Benjamin either Benjamites or Benjaminites. Literally, the Hebrew is “of Benjamin”. The numerous English versions extant split about 60/40 in usage, with the older versions like the KJV mostly leaning toward the truncated form of the name. At this point, neither is really right or wrong.

I’ll go with the shorter version here because it’s … shorter. Having read Judges 19 as many as thirty times in the process of preparing this series, I’m inclined to dwell on the evil men of Gibeah as fleetingly as possible.

III. Two Historical Vignettes from the Period (continued)

b. Benjamin becomes Sodom (continued)

Judges 19:10-15 — Three Grave Errors

“But the man would not spend the night. He rose 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. When they were near Jebus, the day was nearly over, 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.’ And his master said to him, ‘We will not turn aside into the city of foreigners, who do not belong to the people of Israel, but we will pass on to Gibeah.’ And he said to his young man, ‘Come and let us draw near to one of these places and spend the night at Gibeah or at Ramah.’ So they passed on and went their way. And the sun went down on them near Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin, and they turned aside there, to go in and spend the night at Gibeah. And he went in and sat down in the open square of the city, for no one took them into his house to spend the night.”

Having left the home of his father-in-law in Bethlehem reunited with his concubine, the Levite and his party headed north toward Ephraim through Judah into Benjamite territory. The above narrative is merely descriptive, and we will not dwell on it as nothing much happens in it other than the aforementioned three unforced errors.

• First, they left too late in the day to make it home before dark.
• Second, they declined to stop at Jebus when the opportunity presented itself. Perhaps the citizens of a non-Israelite city were as base and depraved as those in Gibeah, but they may well have passed the night safely there in any case: the citizens of Jebus, surrounded on all sides by Israelites, had no motive to rile up their neighbors by initiating unnecessary hostility, and potentially much to lose. Stopping earlier would also have given the party more time to find beds.
• Third, by pressing on once again, the Levite then chose Gibeah more or less out of necessity, which turned out to be the worst option of all.

The original decision to leave late in the day, brought on because of the Levite’s inconstancy and willingness to linger over food and drink at his host’s request, showed poor judgment. It could be argued the second decision (not to stop among non-Israelites) was made partially out of racial prejudice, though it’s equally likely the Levite had a healthy and perhaps even godly reserve about dealing with Canaanites. Nevertheless, none of these decisions was obviously wicked, though all were unfortunate. They put the Levite and his party in the hands of others who were very wicked indeed.

Judges 19:16-21 — An Unexpected Invitation

“And behold, an old man was coming from his work in the field at evening. The man was from the hill country of Ephraim, and he was sojourning in Gibeah. The men of the place were Benjaminites. And he lifted up his eyes and saw the traveler in the open square of the city. And the old man said, ‘Where are you going? And where do you come from?’ And he said to 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 the house of the Lord, but no one has taken me into his house. We have straw and feed for our donkeys, with bread and wine for me and your female servant and the young man with your servants. There is no lack of anything.’ And the old man said, ‘Peace be to you; I will care for all your wants. Only, do not spend the night in the square.’ So he brought him into his house and gave the donkeys feed. And they washed their feet, and ate and drank.”

Two from Ephraim

Initially, the Levite and his party had to settle for spending the night in the town square of Gibeah. They arrived as the sun was going down, and none of the locals could be bothered to take them in, though some were paying more attention to their visitors than others. However, an older sojourner from Ephraim noticed the trio on the way home from working in the field. Ephraim was Benjamin’s northern neighbor, and given that this older man had his own home and was well provisioned, it’s likely he had purchased a plot of land from an indigent Benjamite under Jubilee rules and was farming it in addition to his own.

In any case, stopping to talk to them, he discovered the Levite too called the hill country of Ephraim home, and offered them a meal and a comparatively safe place to sleep. The admonition “Do not spend the night in the square” may have been mere courtesy or just as ominous as it sounds. While initially declining the offer (he seems to be saying, “We’re fine here, there is no lack of anything”), the Levite and his party eventually accepted the Ephraimite’s proposal and entered his home.

The House of the Lord

The Levite saying, “I am going to the house of the Lord” is the first time in this account that we’ve seen reference to the tabernacle. Some commentators suggest this is an error, and that the man was obviously just going to his own home, as he eventually did. However, the words בֵּית יְהוָה are right there in the text. The writer most definitely mentioned the Lord’s name.

One possible explanation is that the tabernacle was at that time in Shiloh, a city in the highlands of Ephraim, right where the party was headed. The tent of meeting was first set up in Shiloh in Joshua 18 and was still there in 1 Samuel 1, over 300 years later, when Eli’s sons served there as priests. If this were the case, “the house of the Lord” would be synonymous with home for the Levite. It would also explain why he was living in Ephraim in the first place.

The only difficulty with this will arise in the next two chapters, in which the people appear to gather “before the Lord” at Bethel, about ten miles south of Shiloh. The text plainly states that the Ark of the Covenant was at Bethel in those days, and that Phinehas the son of Eleazar was priest there. It seems unlikely the tabernacle would be at Shiloh while the ark was in Bethel. With this in mind, some scholars theorize that the tabernacle moved from Shiloh to Bethel, then back to Shiloh at a later date.

Another proposal is this: since Bethel means literally “house of God”, it’s possible some of the six references to “Bethel” in chapters 20 and 21 should be read that way rather than as the name of the city. That would put Phinehas and the ark in Shiloh, where we would otherwise expect to find them.

In the end, who knows? Even if the ark and tabernacle were indeed at Bethel rather than Shiloh, Bethel was still on the Levite’s way north to go home, and he may have intended to pass through on the way.

Hospitality and Obligation

Hospitality was a much-prized virtue in most of the ancient Near East. The reasons are easy to see: inns and hostels were rare and dangers to travelers many. The traveler depended on the generosity of the locals for food, lodging and protection, and “paid it forward” by doing the same for others when at home. The practice is first associated with Abraham in Genesis 18, but prevailed throughout Israel’s history. We even see the Lord Jesus gently rebuking Simon for his failure of hospitality in the early first century: “You gave me no water for my feet; you gave me no kiss; you did not anoint my head with oil.” Simon had invited the Lord Jesus to his table, but his generosity fell short of the expected standard in several respects. That standard apparently started high and remained high.

In Israel, the Law of Moses had turned a practical tradition into a legal obligation far beyond the norm. Under the law, a sojourner was not only never to be oppressed or mistreated, but also invited to feasts and treated as well as the Israelites treated themselves.

Not an Option

Numerous OT accounts confirm this sort of behavior was not optional but expected. The story of David’s encounter with Nabal shows the king-in-waiting sufficiently confident to ask a random rich Israelite landowner to supply the needs of hundreds of his young men. Nabal’s wife Abigail was horrified by her husband’s failure of hospitality. Recognizing that refusing a traveler in need was a mortal insult, she astutely prepared a banquet for David’s men, which she brought to them behind her husband’s back along with a profuse apology for his behavior.

The Ephraimite’s offer of food, drink and a place to stay should not have been exceptional in Benjamin, but it was.