The story in the Book of Judges 19, 20 and 21 of a civil war in Israel over sexual misconduct is one of the Bible’s most disturbing.
The Revs. Marcos Zuniga and Mark Woodruff say the conflict between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the nation around 1,000 B.C. would have been avoidable with better leadership.
Referring to the account of a concubine’s body being cut into a dozen pieces and sent to all the other tribes because some Benjamites had raped her to death, the Rev. Zuniga said, “What I take from that is that they didn’t think like we do today.
“I would have just sent letters, but they felt like they needed to make a statement. They were serious about protecting their honor and their kingdom.”
After a series of horrific battles in which the tribe of Benjamin was reduced from more than 50,000 men to 600, the other tribes worried that all the Benjamites would be wiped out and they arranged for 400 virgins and then for 200 single women from Shiloh to be offered to the survivors so that peace could be restored, said Zuniga, family pastor at Kingdom Church.
“They should have given up the scoundrels who had done that because it would have saved a bunch of bloodshed,” he said. “It had made the whole tribe guilty when they refused.
“There can come a time when we should say, ‘What’s right is right. We can’t stand behind that.’ Something is wrong with our society when we won’t say that just because it is a kinsman.”
The Rev. Woodruff, co-parochial vicar with Monsignor Robert Bush at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, said the story is not in the Catholic Liturgy probably because the theme is better expressed in the story of Abraham, Lot, Lot’s wife and Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19.
“There are some interesting points,” Woodruff said. “There was the need for a king to organize the country and keep it safe, the whole tribe was responsible for the death of the woman and the whole nation became involved in punishing the perpetrators.
“Cutting up the concubine sounds sick. It certainly wasn’t respecting the sacredness of her body. Nobody comes off very well in this passage.”
Woodruff said the conflict started when a Levite came to the town of Gibeah, just north of Jerusalem, with his concubine and the townsmen besieged the Levite’s host, demanding to have sex with him.
The host offered the crowd his daughter, who was rejected, and the Levite finally sent the concubine out. “They had gotten to a state of lawlessness,” Woodruff said.
“Their religion was not well off at that time and they didn’t have a good moral basis. They needed God’s law.”
He said Chapters 19-21 are at the end of Judges and make no mention of a judge like all the other chapters, indicating that there was no judge to make rulings and give guidance in disputes.
“A king would have probably been able to avoid all the chaos,” Woodruff said, noting that the war was a prelude to the prophet Samuel’s appointing Saul the king.
“Another theme is that the other tribes didn’t want Benjamin to die out. They wanted to keep 12 tribes, which later became important for Christians with the 12 apostles. There was something sacred about the number 12.”
The Girls of Shiloh
Reclaiming his unfaithful concubine,
A Levite from the hills of Ephraim
Spent five days with her father, making merry,
Before departing in fear of Jerusalem.
They put into Gibeah, where a man,
Alarmed, said, “You can’t stay in the city square.”
As soon as they had washed themselves and eaten,
A crowd of the depraved besieged them there.
“Give us the man who came of late!” they shouted.
The old man begged his townsmen, “No!” and offered
To make his daughter go, but the mob roared on.
The Levite and his host finally proffered
The concubine, who suffered all night to
The death. Her master cut her up and sent
A piece to each of the dozen tribes. Asking,
“Who has heard of such a thing?” they went
To the Benjamites to demand the guilty but were
Refused. In that time of judges, there was
No king and so from Dan to Gilead
And Beersheba, four hundred thousand for the cause
Took up arms, inquiring of the Lord, “Who shall
Go first?” He sent Judah and on Gibeah’s
Sand the truculent tribe of Benjamin slew
Twenty-two thousand. The Spirit’s advice to lay
An ambush at Baal Tamar finally
Reversed the fight and fifty thousand fell.
The last six hundred Benjies fled and made
Their stand on the Rock of Rimmon. The Scriptures tell
A tale of national insanity,
For the victors voice their grief all night and ask
God why a whole tribe should be missing, then
Because Jabesh Gilead is absent, task
Twelve thousand to slay those brethren, too, and bring
Four hundred virgins for the rebels, who,
Still two hundred shy, are told to lie
East of the road to Shechem for the Shiloh
Girls, absolving their fathers of the oath
That none would ever join the scandalous tribe.
When the girls come dancing out, each man
Grabs one and takes her home and as the scribes
Impart, peace is restored. The cataclysm
Over, there is little else to say of it
Except to repeat it was a time of judges,
When every man would do as he saw fit.
