Levite's concubine

The outrage at Gibeah A Levite from the mountains of Ephraim had a concubine, who left him and returned to the house of her father in Bethlehem in Judah. Heidi M. Szpek observes that this story serves to support the institution of monarchy, and the choice of the locations of Ephraim (the ancestral home of Samuel, who anointed the first king) and Bethlehem (the home of King David) are not accidental. and in the New Living Translation she was "angry" with him. Rabbinical interpretations say that the woman was both fearful and angry with her husband and left because he was selfish, putting his comfort before his wife and their relationship, and the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges argues that the translation as 'angry' "suits the context, which implies a quarrel, but not unfaithfulness, on the woman’s part". They arrived in Gibeah just at nightfall. The Levite and his party waited in the public square, but no one offered the customary hospitality. Eventually, an old man came in from working in the field and inquired as to their situation. He, too was from the mountains of Ephraim, but had lived among the Benjaminites for some time. He invited them to spend the night at his house rather than the open square. He brought him into his house, and gave fodder to the donkeys; they washed their feet, and ate and drank. , Circa 1880 Suddenly certain men of the city surrounded the house and beat on the door. They spoke to the master of the house, the old man, saying, "Bring out the man who came to your house, that we may know him." "To know" is probably a euphemism for sexual intercourse here, as in other biblical texts and as the NRSV translates it. The Ephraimite host offered instead his own maiden daughter and the Levite's concubine. Ken Stone observes, "Apparently the sexual violation of women was considered less shameful than that of men, at least in the eyes of other men. Such an attitude reflects both the social subordination of women and the fact that homosexual rape was viewed as a particularly severe attack on male honor." The war against Benjamin , the Levite carries his dead concubine away – by Gustave Doré, circa 1890 Outraged, the confederated tribes mobilized to demand justice and gathered a combined force of about 400,000 confederated Israelites at Mizpah. They sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, demanding that they deliver up the men who committed the crime to be executed, but the Benjaminites refused and decided to go to war to defend the men of Gibeah instead. They gathered a rebel Benjaminite force of 26,000 to defend Gibeah. According to Judges 20:16, among all these soldiers there were seven hundred select troops who were left-handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. When the Tribe of Benjamin refused to surrender the guilty parties, the rest of the tribes marched on Gibeah. On the third day the confederated Israelites set men in ambush all around Gibeah. They formed into formation as before and the rebelling Benjaminites went out to meet them. The rebelling Benjaminites killed about thirty in the highways and in the field. Anticipating another victory, they were unaware of the trap that had been set as the confederated Israelites appeared to retreat and the Benjaminites were drawn away from the city to the highways in pursuit, one of which goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah. Those besieging the city sent up a great cloud of smoke as a signal, and the Israelite main force wheeled around to attack. When the Benjaminites saw their city in flames, and that the retreat had been a ruse, they panicked and routed toward the desert, pursued by the confederated Israelites. About 600 survived the onslaught and made for the more defensible rock of Rimmon where they remained for four months. The Israelites withdrew through the territory off Benjamin, destroying every city they came to, killing every inhabitant and all the livestock. Finding new wives ). In Judges 19–21, all other tribes attack Benjamin. According to the Hebrew Bible, the men of Israel had sworn an oath at Mizpah, saying, "None of us shall give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife." Then the people came to the house of God, and remained there before God till evening. They lifted up their voices and wept bitterly, and said, "O Lord God of Israel, why has this come to pass in Israel, that today there should be one tribe missing in Israel?" ==Rabbinical interpretation==

R. Ebiathar and R. Yonatan explained that this incident shows that a person should never abuse his household, for in this narrative it resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Israelites in the ensuing warfare. What happens within the small family unit is reflective of society as a whole, and marital peace is the basis for every properly functioning society. In addition, he also failed to address the needs of relieving Jephthah of his vow to sacrifice his daughter. As consequence, the high priesthood was taken from him and temporarily given to the offspring of Ithamar, essentially Eli and his sons. == Skeptical views ==

Traditionally the story of the Concubine of a Levite and the preceding story of Micah's Shrine have been seen as supplemental material appended to the Book of Judges in order to describe the chaos and depravity to which Israel had sunk by the end of the period of the Judges, and thereby justify the establishment of the monarchy. The lack of this institution ("At that time, there was no king in Israel") is repeated a number of times, such as Judges 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; and 21:25. Yairah Amit in The Book of Judges: The Art of Editing (2007), concluded that chapters 19–21 were written by a post-exilic author whose intent was to make the political statement that Israel works together. Additionally, the inhospitality which triggered the battle is reminiscent of the Torah's account of Sodom and Gomorrah. Many Biblical scholars concluded that the account was a piece of political spin, which had been intended to disguise atrocities carried out by the tribe of Judah against Benjamin, probably in the time of David, as an act of revenge or spite by David against the associates of Saul, by casting them further back in time, and adding a more justifiable motive. == Feminist interpretation ==

According to Deidre Brouer, an adjunct Hebrew instructor at Denver Seminary, many biblical authors "highly value women and speak adamantly against rape". She had the status of a concubine (Hebrew pilegesh), rather than a wife, to a Levite living in Ephraim. Madipoane Masenya, a professor of Old Testament Studies at the University of South Africa, writes Because it was rare for a woman to leave her husband, the narrator uses harsh language to describe the reason for the concubine leaving. She is said to have prostituted herself against her husband. Though it is assumed that she is a prostitute, the Hebrew verb for prostitution, zanah, can also mean "to be angry". Traditionally, translators and interpreters have followed the former verb, but some modern scholars prefer the latter verb because this meaning aligns much better with the Greek texts. Another possible explanation is that because the Levite spoke harshly towards her, she acted on her own and fled to her father's home where she was welcomed. Therefore, the Levite had to change his way of speaking in order for her to return with him. Throughout the story, the concubine never has a speaking role. Only the men ever speak, even though the story is centered around a woman. When the Levite stumbles over his concubine in the morning, it is unclear whether she is dead, as there is no reply. When the concubine dies is unknown; whether it was during the brutal night, on the way back to Ephraim, or when the Levite dismembers her body. At a time when there was no king or ruler in Israel, the old man uses the concubine in order to protect the Levite, thinking this was the right thing to do. The men of the city never saw a problem with their actions against the foreigners. The Priscilla Papers, a Christian egalitarian journal, makes mention of the narrative, writing: "By equating 'rape' with doing the 'good in their eyes', the text makes a powerful rhetorical statement by connecting a key theme throughout Judges with the rape of the concubine: Everyone was doing what was good in their eyes, but evil in God’s eyes." Judges 19 concludes by saying that nothing like this had happened since the Exodus of the Israelites from Ancient Egypt. Comparing the lamb sacrifice on the doors in Egypt to the concubine on the doorstep using sacrificial language, Brouer furthers the narrator's final statement saying, == In folklore ==

In 1875, the Palestine Exploration Quarterly published an account of a similar tale that was related by an elderly Arab fellah from Jaba'. According to this tale, a Christian from Bethlehem who was traveling to Taybeh with his wife or daughter stopped in Jaba' as night was falling. Local men entered the house while they were fast asleep and raped the woman, who was discovered dead in the morning. The Christian cut the body in half and sent one piece to Taybeh and the other to Mukhmas. Their residents, also Christians, immediately arose, and two bands encircled the village from the east and the west. The residents of Jaba' were lured out of their town by the first, who pretended to flee. Caught between the two bands, Jaba's residents were all massacred in the El Merj fil Moonka plain, which is located between Jaba' and the beginning of the Wady Bab esh Shab. The fellah claimed that wheat continues to grow to high heights on this cursed plain, but does not yield grain. ==See also==