The Book of Judges

Have you read the Book of Judges, you know, Old Testament, right after Joshua? I read it a couple of years ago when I was reading through the Bible in a year. For some reason I didn’t notice some of what is there, or I didn’t pay much attention or something. Because today when I’m reading it, I notice that it is a hard book to read, meaning I don’t get it. Why is it in the Bible? Some of it seems so …….. so non-God-like. At least it is a far cry from the New Testament and Jesus.

The story I read today is in Judges 19. The story is about a man, a Levite, who had a concubine wife who didn’t like it with him or was adulterous and feared him so she went to her father’s home. The Levite goes to visit his father-in-law’s house, stays several days and finally leaves with his concubine wife. On the long trip home, he stays with someone who tries to defend him from men who want to have sex with him. The owner of the home instead offered his virgin daughter or the Levite’s concubine wife. The men actually take the concubine, repeatedly rape and abuse her all night before letting her go. She dies before morning. When the Levite readies to leave the man’s house, he nearly steps on the dead woman. I picture in my head that he kicks her a couple of times to wake her. When that doesn’t work, he throws her over one of the donkeys to travel home. Once there, he cuts her into pieces and sends them to all of the areas of Israel, which starts a civil way of sorts between the Benjamites and the rest of Israel. (See Judges 20)

That is the story in a nutshell. I don’t see any single sentence that says anything to me. I don’t get an overall feeling of …..well, anything. Only one thought occurred to me and it is: they hated homosexual acts worse than they hated rape of women. Or maybe they hated the homosexual act when it was rape too. Who knows? I didn’t find anything satisfactory in on-line commentaries or other resources I have at home.

Perhaps the thing we can learn from this comes in the last sentence in Judges Judges 21:25 “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” They were without a proper, God-fearing, God-inspired leader. They went from bad to worse because they didn’t have a relationship with God and “everyone did as he saw fit.” Lesson? If we don’t have a King who leads us on the right path, we will do destructive and awful things.

Help me, God, when I act as though I don’t need your leadership as well as your mercies and grace. Rebuke me, scold me, make me into someone who does what YOU see fit. Amen

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