CHAPTER 17
These final chapters in Judges are a bit weird. They are not about judges. Basically, they’re stories about the Hebrew
from before the time of Samuel and after the time of Joshua that the author
wanted to include, so in Judges they go.
These stories aren’t dated at all, so it’s hard to tell when they
happened. They’re just stuck at the end
to not get in the way of what’s a largely chronological chapter.
There are just two stories, though. One is about Micah and the Levite and is
Chapters 17-18. The main event is the
abomination of the Tribe of Benjamin from Chapters 19-21.
Chapter 17 is a short one at least. There’s a story and it looks like we missed
the first and second acts. When we
enter, a man named Micah tells his mom that he’s found the 1,100 silver pieces
that she’d lost and had placed a curse upon.
Micah admits to her that he took and apparently feels bad enough to give
it back and confess.
She takes it well and orders some of the silver pieces to be
made into a silver coat for an idol.
Yeah, this totally violated a commandment. But then again this is probably one of those folk stories that
emerged as the Hebrew themselves came into being. The Bible hear doesn’t bring up the commandment being broken (my
Bible’s footnote does, though). The
Bible does say, however, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone
did what was right in their own eyes.”
That’s the theme of these last chapters, and these chapters really
aren’t very nice ones for the most part.
It’s like the stories are told to show the downside of letting everyone
go to hell in their own way. People need structure. (No wonder the priests writing the Torah stressed centralization
so much).
Anyhow, they make their idol and then a Levite comes there
and they pay him to serve Micah & Mom as a priest. Clearly, these people have some money. The nameless Levite agrees.
CHAPTER 18
Well, the tribe of Dan decides to move. No, this doesn’t have anything to do with
Chapter 17, but it well. Give it
time.
The Danites were promised some land, of course, by Moses,
but the conquest of Canaan never was fully completed, so the Danites are on the
move. They attack some place to take it
as theirs. The Danites also come to
Micah and all them and tell the Levite to come with them. Why serve a family if you can serve a
tribe? Did they really lack all Levites
in the tribe of Dan? That seems
odd.
The unnamed Levite goes and takes the silver idol of Micah
with him. Wait – what? Why?
That ain’t right. Micah agrees,
and takes off after it. But it’s the
entire tribe of Dan. He’s forced to go
home empty handed. And the idol belongs
to Dan and their Levites. We’re told
the idol is placed in Shiloh.
OK, that last detail is actually a little interesting. Shiloh is where the ark was supposed to be
until the construction of Solomon’s Temple.
It’s where Samuel will be. It’s
a big priestly town. And in fact,
Richard Elliot Friedman argues that much of the Old Testament was likely
written by priests associated with Shiloh.
So that would explain why the author cares about this little story ---
they had the idol there and he new its origins story.
It’s still a weird story, though. As near as I can tell, it’s to show the downside of life in the
times before kings, when people did as they wanted. But the really fucked up shit comes in the next chapter.
CHAPTER 19
OK this one doesn’t start off so bad, not so bad at
all. This guy – no name is given, so
it’s extra-likely this is just a popular parable rather than a real story – has
his concubine run off on him. So he
tracks her down to her dad’s house to take her back.
The dad – also unnamed, of course – is thrilled to see the
man his daughter left. So he’s either a
really warmhearted guy or a terrible dad, depending on the family
dynamics. (Or both). Anyhow, the girl and guy get back together,
but before they can leave, the father-in-law insists on plying them with
food. So they have to stay. And again.
And again.
Boy, this dad is stoked to see everyone. He doesn’t want them to leave. He’s like a stereotypical mother-in-law or something,
feeding everyone until they can’t move.
(Man, it almost sounds like the plot of a Hollywood horror movie – he
feeds them until they can’t move – and then he kills them! But this is an ancient Hebrew horror story –
he feeds them, and later someone else does something horrible to them. Spoiler!)
Anyhow, after nearly a week of this, the son-in-law really
must be going with everyone else. Bye,
dad-in-law! He strikes me as a lonely
father-in-law, the way he never wanted anyone to leave. Regardless, everyone sets out and they
approach a non-Hebrew city with night falling.
Should we stay here? Nah, we
should stay with our own people. Let’s
go to the nearby Benjamin town of Gibeah.
Gibeah?
DUN-DUNN-DUNNNN!! Bad things
will happen here, man. Bad things. The story of Sodom will get ripped off. Really.
But first no one will let the guy and his crew in their
homes. So he’s forced to spend the
first part of the night in the public square.
OK, here is where we see why we had all that opening stuff with the
father-in-law. The father-in-law was
the archetypal good host. That is
paralleled with the people of this town, who are the ultimate bad hosts. They suck, and not just a little bit.
Luckily, a guy from outside town comes in, sees the family,
and invites them to his place for the night.
See? He’s not from the town and
is therefore a nice person.
Yeah, but the townsmen find out, and here is where theauthor rips off the story of Lot in Sodom.
The men of the town surround the guy’s home and demand the male
travelers be brought out for sodomy.
(Why didn’t they attack them in the public square when they had the
chance? Because that wouldn’t give us a
chance to repeat the story of Sodom).
Keeping the parallel going, the owner of the house makes a
counteroffer – the same counteroffer Lot made.
Don’t rape the men. Take our
women! Like Lot, the guy even points
out that his own daughter is a virgin.
Rape away, gang! He also offers
the traveler’s concubine while he’s at it. Gee, thanks. Did he confer with the guy? (Probably, as
we’ll soon see the guy has no problem with this). He certainly didn’t confer with the concubine, or his own
daughter.
Homeowner (it’s annoying that no one has a name in this
story), actually says the following to the mob, “This man has come into my
house; do not commit this terrible crime.
Instead, let me bring out my virgin daughter and this man’s
concubine. Humiliate them, or so whatever
you want; but against him do not commit such a terrible crime.”
Whoah, whoah – whoah!
This is in the running for the worst moment in the entire Bible. There is so much wrong there that it would
take years to unpack it all. He isn’t
just offering his daughter up to a pack of rapists, he basically encourages
them to degrade her as much as possible.
He actually says, “Humiliate them”! Someone won’t be winning many father of the year contests. Also, apparently raping a man is a terrible
crime, but raping his daughter isn’t that big a deal. Oh my.
Well, the daughter is safe.
Because the traveler – the guy who began the chapter, you may recall –
“seized his concubine and thrust her outside to them.” CLASSY!
If nothing else, we can see why she left him. And now her father’s
hospitality at the top of the chapter doesn’t seem so cheery at all, now does
it? Cripes.
Oh, and it gets better.
The next lines are, “They raped her and abused her all night until
morning, and let her go as the sun was coming up.” So she got gang raped all night long – a gang raping that
occurred when her husband knowingly threw her (against her will!) into a pack
of rapists knowing this would happen.
And he did it to save himself.
That’s all he was thinking about.
You know how the guy is supposed to be the protector? Well, this guy doesn’t know that. He really doesn’t know that.
But we’re still not done.
We learn the traveler/husband wakes up in the morning – so he laid to
rest while his concubine/wife was getting gang raped just outside! – and sees
his wife by the entrance. What does he
say? Does he apologize? Does he ask how
she’s doing? Does he treat her for her
trauma? Nah. His exact words are, “Come, let us go.” Wow, what a sweetheart.
My God, this jerk is actually making me miss Samson!
She doesn’t respond.
She’s dead. Apparently a night
of violent gang raping after your husband cruelly and indifferently throws you
to the mob is bad for your health.
Mr. Sensitive responds as only he can, though. He cuts up her body into 12 pieces, sending
one to each tribe of Israel. The hell? He cut up her body into pieces? What the flying fuck is wrong with this
piece of garbage? He’s trying to raise
the ire of Israel against the townsmen of Gileah. OK, they are horrible, but he’s letting himself entirely off the
hook here.
There is an awful lot of horrible activity in just 30 verses
here.
CHAPTER 20
This is a much longer chapter – 48 verses – but it’s mostly
about a fight. In short, The Most
Amazing Husband of All-Time has succeeded in angering all of Israel against
Benjamin. The other 11 tribes agree –
no one will return home until this outrage has been avenged. (Yeah, this reads far more like a parable or
story than an actual history).
Well, they demand Benjamin offers up the men of Gileah or
else, and Benjamin refuses. Why?
I have one thought. In 1968, there was a murder in the
Indiana town of Martinsville. A black
woman was killed in town. She had never
been in town before and was there selling encyclopedias. She told some people there was a car
following her and asked for help, but didn’t get it, and then she was
killed. Evidence indicated she was
killed for being black after dark in a sundown town. Up to that point in time, Martinsville was a racist town, but not
much worse than many other towns in the state or region or country. It was just a generic racist town.
But then this outrage happened. And it happened in a way that really cut off any defenses – female, denied help, killed in a town where she had never been before. The federal and/or state law agencies got involved and that was it – the town tightened up. The circled the wagons completely. This is going on too long, but the town swiftly went from being a racist town to being the racist town. So much so that the state highway between Bloomington (where Indiana University is) and the state capital actually had to go around Martinsville even though it was directly on the way because people in the town treated blacks so badly. The town was banned from hosting high school sports for a while due to its insane racism of opposing black athletes).
Anyhow, in Martinsville, you had a real and indefensible
outrage occurred, but outside pressure caused the town the rally behind the
reprehensible. The same thing is going
on here with Benjamin.
This means war.
We’re told that Israel gets 400,000 men, while Benjamin sends out 26,000
swordsmen. The town of Gibeah sends out
– well, I’ll quote the verse directly, sense it’s one of my favorite bizarre
verses of all – Gibeah, “mustered out 700 picked men who were left-handed,
every one of them able to sling a stone at a hair without missing.” I just love that the Bible put in the detail
about how they’re all left handed. That
matters, apparently. Not the name of
the Levite in Chapters 17-18 or the name of the traveler and his concubine in
Chapter 19 – but the handedness of the Gibeah men.
Also, this line was once quoted in the username of a poster
at Baseball Think Factory. It’s funny –
it’s God’s bullpen! Judges 20:16 – the
official Bible verse of Tony LaRussa!
Anyhow, the war.
Israel has an insane numbers advantage, but gets utterly slaughtered two
days in a row, losing 22,000 and 18,000 men.
Jeepers! But then comes day
three, where the Israeli forces learn their lesson, plant an ambush and
slaughter the Benjamin.
The Bible says 25,100 Benjamin soldiers fall in that battle. Then, in follow up action another 25,000 Benjamin men fall. Well. .. out of 26,700? Um… Ohh-kay. The numbers don’t work, not at all.
Eh, regardless, there are only 600 men left from the tribe
of Benjamin. And that’s all that’s left
of the tribe, too. Everyone else is
dead. Cities destroyed, even livestock. You just have 600 men left who are out in
the forests. Boy, it sure looks dumb of
them to defend the Martinsville of ancient Canaan.
CHAPTER 21
The other 11 tribes take a vow. Now that they’ve gone all
Joshua and committed genocide, leaving just 600 men left in Benjamin, they take
a solemn vow: none of us shall let our daughters marry any surviving Benjamin
men. This is clearly an attempt to end
the tribe altogether.
So you get a weird case of emotional whiplash when
immediately after taking the vow, Israel bemoans that now no one will be able
to marry Benjamin and thus the tribe will die off. Guys? That’s the point of
your vow. That’s the only point of your
vow. This really hadn’t occurred to
you?
Also, I should note that towards the end of this story,
there are a bunch of weird repeating stories, where the same thing is said
twice, shortly after each other. For
example, the battle last chapter, and now they’re bemoaning here. It’s like the author was working with
previous sources, and combined them, and decided not to delete one or the
other, and so left some double stories in.
The same thing happens throughout the Torah, but I didn’t expect to see
that here.
The tribes have a solution, though. Has anyone not taken the vow? Yes – in fact,
we’re lucky and a town didn’t show up: the people of Jabesh-gilead. Their women can marry Benjamin! So that’s settles it. The other 11 tribes attack the town,
slaughter all the residents save for 400 virgin women for Benjamin to marry.
Wait – WHAAAAA???? They did WHAT? Holy shit! They
slaughtered a town, a place full of innocent bystanders because they didn’t
want to go against their vow? Mass
murder was more moral somehow?
Extra-added bizarreness with triple score irony points –
this story began, you might recall, because a town of Benjamin inhospitably
treated a traveler and his family, and that so outraged Israel they went to war
with Benjamin. So now, in a war with a
beginning like this, you get this incredible coda where they outrage not a
family, but an entire stinking town!
But the horror isn’t over. 400 virgins isn’t enough for 600
men, so Israel’s other 11 tribes help the survivors of Benjamin kidnap a bunch
more women from another place. At least
there isn’t another massacre. I love how know everyone is working with Benjamin
now. All the horrible deeds Benjamin
did on their own have been forgotten as they join with the rest of the tribes
in new horrible deeds!
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
These last chapters are moral train wrecks. Really, from Samson onwards that’s the case.
However, I found Judges to be extremely engaging and just
fascinating. I was horrified, I was
intrigued, I found it memorable – it was never boring.
In “The Good Book” Daniel Plotz makes a good point. (Actually he refers to a book made by
someone else, but no matter). You can
look at Judges one of two ways. You can
look at it as a sports contest – us vs. them and hurrah for all the things our
guys do and boo all the things they do.
Or you can look at it from a more morally complex
place. Both sides – Hebrew and
non-Hebrew – engage in all sorts of behaviors, massacres, assaults, trickery,
etc. And you can focus it not as a
sporting contest of Good vs. Evil but as a series of incidents between flawed
and fallible peoples.
Click here to read the next installment: The Book of Ruth.
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