Once again, Israel found themselves without a king. During this time, the Bible tells us of an event which, though seemingly isolated, almost caused the annihilation of one of the tribes of Israel.
A Levite had taken a concubine but she played the whore and left him, staying at her father’s house. After about four months, her husband (the Levite) came to claim her and take her back to his own house. He had a great time visiting with his father-in-law and ended up staying for five days.
On the fifth day, he decided to take his wife/concubine and leave despite urgings from his father-in-law that he stay longer. Due to the late hour of leaving, they couldn’t make it back home before night so they decided to stay in Gibeah, a Benjamite city, rather than at some other non-Israelite city.
They walked the streets, looking for a place to stay for the night and no one took them in. This continued until an old man, coming from his field, heard their story and learned of their shelterless state. He offered his own home, beseeching the man not to stay the night in the street. That should have been a warning.
While they ate and visited, men from the city surrounded the house and demanded that the old man bring out his visitor so they could sexually violate him. Begging the crowd not to behave so wickedly against a visitor, the old man offered his own daughter, a virgin, and the wife/concubine of his visitor for their vile pleasure.
So perverse was this group that they didn’t want a woman, they wanted the man! No wonder spending the night on the streets was a bad idea. The Levite took his wife/concubine and gave her to the gang of men and they gang raped and abused her all night. Only at daylight did they let her go. She only made it back to the door of the house before she fell down dead from the abuse.
As the Levite exited the house that morning to leave, he noticed her on the doorstep. Telling her to get up, that they were leaving, he then realized she was dead. He took her body back home and immediately cut her into twelve pieces, sending them to each of the twelve tribes of Israel.
The result was indignation and outrage. Never before had something like this happened in Israel; not from the time they came out of Egypt. The perversion of the Benjamites had to be stopped.
The children of Israel gathered before the Lord as one man and listened as the Levite told of the atrocity committed against his wife/concubine and, worse, of the attempted sodomy against him by fellow Israelites. The evil was clear, but because the Benjamites were Israelites, messengers were sent to them. All they had to do was find the perverse men in Gibeah and hand them over so they could be executed, putting away evil from Israel. The Benjamites didn’t listen and would not deliver the perverse men. Accordingly, 400,000 Israelites went against 26,700 Benjamites.
I have to wonder why the Benjamites thought they could take on an army that was roughly fifteen times larger than they. I have to wonder also at the level of perverseness that must have been in the tribe of Benjamin that they would not deliver the malefactors to their just punishment.
In the battle, 22,000 men of Israel (not Benjamites) died that first wave. Crying before the Lord, the Israelites once more attacked and lost 18,000. Could it be that God was cleansing His people on both sides of the aisle? The result of this slaughter was that the Israelites turned whole-heartedly to God and sought Him.
For the third time, the Lord commanded the Israelites to go against the Benjamites. This time, the destruction was complete. The overconfident Benjamites were slaughtered wave after wave, their cities were destroyed and burnt, all the cattle were killed as was anyone who came to hand. Only 600 men were able to escape to the mountains where they hid out for four months.
Civil war is never pleasant, but the Israelites had done the right thing. Evil and perversion had been spotted in their midst and the first action they took was to rid the evil from out of them, no matter where it came from.
The peace the Israelites would gain as a result of one man’s stay in Gibeah was God’s peace following His cleansing and restoration. There was still no king or judge and everyone did what was right in his own eyes… yet God blessed the men of Israel for their decisive action against perversion and wickedness with peace throughout the tribes of Israel.
