Judges 17-21

The final section of Judges covers several stories involving the tribes of Dan and Benjamin, during a time when, ironically, there was no leader of Israel--no "judge." I believe that the horrors these stories embody result directly from the fact that there was this absence.

First, a layman named Micah hired a Levite to be his household priest, to watch over his personal sanctuary and his household idols. A group of men from the tribe of Dan convince this unnamed Levite to desert Micah and join them as their priest. In doing so, he stole the household idols of Micah. Micah tried to follow with a band of men to recapture his priest and idols, but abandoned the quest when he realized he was outnumbered. Oddly, the story seems to just end there, with no negative consequence for either Micah (for worshipping an idol) or for the Levite for his disloyalty to Micah. 

The narrative switches to the story of another unnamed Levite from Ephraim, who had taken a concubine who was unfaithful to him and fled from him. The Levite followed her to her father's house to reclaim her, and on his return journey home with her he stayed the night with a resident of Gibeah,where the tribe of Benjamin live. But the corrupt men of that city stormed the old man's house in order to abuse the traveling couple. Incredibly (to me at least), the Levite forced his concubine out of the house for the men of Gibeah to ravish and abuse all night. In the morning, he collected her and continued the journey home. There, he killed his concubine and divided her body into twelve pieces that he scattered throughout Israel. Perhaps there is something about the social order that I am not understanding here, but the text refers to this Levite as the concubine's hisband. What husband (what human) abandons their wife to a mob without a fight to be raped and beaten?  Or kills her and carves up her corpse?

The spreading of her remains enflamed the other Israelites to assemble for revenge on Gibeah and the Benjaminites. After a few preliminary defeats, the Israelites prevailed--slaughtering all but 400 Benjaminite men who escaped their wrath. But the Israelites grieved for the near obliteration of one of the twelve tribes, so they slaughtered the inhabitants of a city whose inhabitants had refused to join their revenge mission on Gibeah, sparing only the virgin women of the city. Those virgin women were given to the Benjaminites who had escaped, so that they could begin to repopulate the tribe. Because the surviving Benjaminites outnumbered these captured virgins, the Benjaminites without wives were instructed to kidnap young women dancing in the vineyards at Shiloh as part of the yearly feast for the Lord, which they did. In this way the tribe of Benjamin was restored.

These stories come to us with nameless protagonists and little moral commentary. Perhaps there is a hint about this in the last line of the book:

In those days, there was no king in Israel; everyone did what he thought best.

To my mind "what they thought best" was, in these stories, horrifying and despicable. So, perhaps the lesson is that, left to our own sensibilities about "what is best", we are sure to stray from God's path--to idol worship, to violence, to mindless vengeance, to savagery, to fratricide. We need the Lord's guidance. We need a "judge" to show us the path. We need God's word to nourish and sustain us.