For those reading through the Bible this year you have discovered that not all stories you come across would receive a “Family” rating. While violent, gory descriptions and tantalizing sexual details are avoided, if some of the stories were to be recreated for the movies they would receive an “R” rating for violence, adult themes and sexual content.
Humans are portrayed in less than flattering ways. Even heroes like King David do not receive a whitewash job. Spin-doctors were not available to put a positive spin on negative actions.
Of particular concern are the stories where women are treated poorly or victimized. One such account is the last story in the book of Judges. Recently I had a conversation with a couple from our congregation about the horribleness of this story.
A Levite and his concubine are on their way home. Unable to make it home before nightfall, they stop at Gibeah, a Benjamite town. An old man invites them to stay with him. While he is entertaining his guests, a group of townsmen get drunk. They come to the old man’s home and demand that he send out the Levite so they can have sex with him.
The elderly gentleman is deeply disturbed by the demands of the men to violate his guest. To protect his male guest from being sexually molested, he offers his virgin daughter and the man’s concubine to the group instead. The men of the town refuse. They want the man. (By the way this story is similar to the story of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah.)
The Levite takes matters into his own hands when he sees that the men of the town will not be satisfied. We read in Judges 19: 22, “So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go.”
The night of abuse kills the women. The man lays her body on his donkey and returns home. When home, he cuts his wife into 12 pieces and sends one piece to each of the Israelite tribes. Not surprisingly, he gets the attention of leadership and calls the tribes together. He tells his story. The people are outraged! They determine to punish these men who violated the concubine and dishonoured community standards of hospitality.
The tribes of Israel took costly action against the men of Benjamin. It is heartening to know that the actions of these drunken men were not excused. We cannot overlook the fact that the behaviour of the men in Gibeah created an outrage and united the tribes together to exercise justice. Yet still, we are left with disturbing questions.
Why would the host think it was better to offer his own virgin daughter and his guest’s concubine to appease a lustful, drunken group of men who want to have sex with his male guest? What about the Levite who pushed his concubine out to be raped all night? Why did anyone listen to him after such cowardly and disrespectful treatment of his wife? Are women of such low value that it is better to protect the man and victimize the women? We might ask, “If the Bible is the word of God, where is God’s word in this story?”
We can safely say the Bible is not advocating that it is better for a woman to be victimized than a man. Israel was in a state of national and spiritual disintegration. The story ends in Judges 21: 25 with these words, “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.” It is dangerous to live in a place where law and order ceases to exist and everyone does what is right in their own eyes.
Our minds may drift to the story of Rwanda and the murderous chaos, or Iraq and the daily devastating car bombs. But our schoolyards can be dangerous places when children huddle together and attack another child. Churches can be less than safe when people decide to do what is right in their own eyes. Life in our homes can be precarious when family members stop listening, use power and insist that they will do what they want to do. The fall of Enron might be described as an example of what can happen in business when people at the top decide to do what is right in their own eyes.
When you couple the phrase “doing what is right in their own eyes” with the phrase, “Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD…” the environment of Judges begins to take shape. This last phrase occurs seven times in Judges. The nation was spiralling downward. A preponderance of people followed their own personal ethic, which often turned out to be no ethic. They also lived with no regard for God. The God who brought them out of Egypt, the God they covenanted to obey, was now ignored. Israel had become like the nations around them.
These two phrases provide the context for the events we read in the book of Judges. The story of the Levite and the concubine is a description of evil unleashed.
The story is also a description of how women were valued according to the custom of the time. A description of what is, is not a justification, nor is it intended to serve as a norm, for what should be. In the story of Lot, when the men of Sodom wanted to rape the angels, the outcome is much different. Lot, like the man who took the Levite in, offered his daughters to a lustful mob to protect his guests. It seems that centuries before the story in Judges, women were valued as expendable for the sake of male guests. But the angels intervened. You could say that when God has his way, no one faces the ravenous mob. The mob was blinded by the power of God. Everyone in Lot’s house was kept safe, including Lot’s daughters.
The story in Judges and the story of Lot in Genesis reveal the cultural attitude toward women. It is a description of cultural values but it is not a norm to be followed or embraced.
You might say, “How primitive they were.” I would suggest the primitiveness we see back then is present in the 21st century. Horrible stories – stories which are only the tip of the iceberg – emerge from our world on a too regular basis. Women from other countries are promised jobs in Canada only to find themselves warehoused as sex slaves without freedom. They are used for prostitution and pornography. When the women are no longer useful, they are discarded. Because these women do not exist in the eyes of the law, their lives mean nothing to those who control them.
Who keeps the sex slave industry so lucrative for those who enslave women and children? Do you really want to know the answer? It is sensitive, culturally sophisticated, educated North Americans and Europeans. Some may even attend church on Sunday mornings.
When we read a story like the last story in Judges, don’t imagine that somehow we have moved beyond this kind of abuse of women. Similar kinds of stories occur much too frequently in North America. World wide, the sexual exploitation of women and children is greater – especial for those who have no economic advantage and who are without status. Again it should be noted that North American men are frequently culpable, using their money, their freedom from accountability while travelling, to indulge in what has become known as sex tourism.
Stories like the one in Judges are not stories to dismiss as primitive. They are stories to remind us of what happens when people do what is right in their own eyes and have no regard for God or His boundaries for their lives.
So where is God’s word in this story? Part of the challenge is to listen, to open our eyes and sensitize ourselves to what is happening in our world. Organizations such World Hope, World Vision and World Relief have programs aimed at helping women improve their economic situation so that poverty and the need to feed their family does not lead to sexual exploitation. These efforts need our support.
What can we do? One example from our own congregation: Phyllis knit scarves, sold them at Christmas and sent the money to help educate children in a community in Congo. Providing children with education helps empower them to rise above victimization.
As we listen for God’s word to us as individuals and as a congregation we can be part of the solution that diminishes sexual exploitation.
God’s word is present for the men of this congregation. Our culture devalues women by treating them as sex objects. A women walks past a man or a group of men on the street and what happens? The response often goes beyond the enjoyment of beauty to viewing another human being as an object to bring sexual release. Jesus put it this way, "You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart, Matthew 5:27.”
Is it too strong to say that what the men in Gibeah did to the concubine, we may do in our hearts through our wayward thinking and reduction of women into sex objects?
God’s word can be found in this story as we listen but there is more. God’s word is found in the story. The book of Judges ends. We move into the story of Ruth. It is a beautiful story of loyalty, love, and God’s mercy and grace. Through an amazing turn of events, the Moabite heroine Ruth becomes the great grandmother of . . . King David.
The last story of Judges is not the last story. It is one story in the ongoing drama of God’s story. His story continues to unfold. In Ruth, the reader of Scripture is introduced to an amazing woman from whom will come a King. This king will pull the nation of Israel together, bring peace and spiritual renewal.
The story of course does not stop with King David. The first verse of the first book of the New Testament (Matthew) reads: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” In that verse, Matthew is bringing the reader up to speed, showing how God’s story, as seen in the story of Israel, is not finished. We now have the story of Jesus.
According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was given his name “for he will save his people from their sins, (Matthew 1:21b).” He will also be called “Emmanuel” (which means, God with us), Matthew 1: 22b.”
If we dismiss the story of the Levite and the concubine as sub-biblical and primitive, we can miss God’s word. It will mean that we do not wrestle with the realities not only of the pre-king days of Israel but also of our world at present.
Our task is to listen for God in the story keeping in mind the realities of our own day. Instead of avoiding the story because of its portrayal of evil, we can ask ourselves:
No matter how badly we may have failed – whether it be the failure of indifference to the plight of women in our world or our own sexual sins – we can be thankful that the last story in Judges is not the last story. God sent his Son into the world because we failed. God’s redemptive story continues. He invites us to experience forgiveness and transformation in our lives.
The Apostle Paul writes: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death…” To be set free from the law of sin and death is to have the life-changing power of God’s Spirit in us. Freedom no longer allowing selfish, destructive desires to rule in our lives—doing what is right in our own eyes— but to live a life doing what is right in God’s eyes. That is freedom!