Judges 19 · WEB
The Levite's Concubine at Gibeah
Listen — WEB narration 0:00 / 0:00 Narration: World English Bible (David Williams), public domain — AudioTreasure.
Tap a verse to copy it, open the Hebrew, or write a note.
In those days, when there was no king in Israel, there was a certain Levite living on the far side of the hill country of Ephraim, who took for himself a concubine out of Bethlehem Judah.
2His concubine played the prostitute against him, and went away from him to her father's house in Bethlehem Judah, and was there for four months.
3Her husband arose and went after her to speak kindly to her, to bring her back, having his servant with him and a couple of donkeys. She brought him into her father's house; and when the father of the young woman saw him, he rejoiced to meet him.
4His father-in-law, the young woman's father, kept him there; and he stayed with him three days. They ate and drank, and lodged there.
5On the fourth day, they arose early in the morning, and he rose up to depart; and the young woman's father said to his son-in-law, "Strengthen yourself with a morsel of bread and afterward you shall go your way."
6So they sat down, ate, and drank, both of them together; and the young woman's father said to the man, "Please be pleased to stay all night, and let your heart be merry."
7The man rose up to depart; but his father-in-law urged him, so he lodged there again.
8He arose early in the morning on the fifth day to depart; and the young woman's father said, "Please strengthen yourself, and stay until the day declines." They ate, both of them.
9When the man rose up to depart, he and his concubine and his servant, his father-in-law, the young woman's father, said to him, "Behold, now the day draws toward evening. Please stay all night. Behold, the day grows to an end. Lodge here, that your heart may be merry; and tomorrow get on your way early, so that you go home."
10But the man wouldn't stay that night, but he rose up and departed, and came near to Jebus (also called Jerusalem); and there were with him a couple of saddled donkeys. His concubine also was with him.
11When they were by Jebus, the day was far spent; and the servant said to his master, "Please come and let us turn aside into this city of the Jebusites and lodge in it."
12His master said to him, "We won't turn aside into the city of a foreigner that is not of the children of Israel; but we will pass over to Gibeah."
13He said to his servant, "Come and let us draw near to one of these places; and we will lodge in Gibeah or in Ramah."
14So they passed on and went their way; and the sun went down on them near Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin.
15They turned aside there to go in to lodge in Gibeah; and he went in and sat down in the street of the city; for there was no man who took them into his house to lodge.
16Behold, an old man came from his work out of the field at evening. Now the man was of the hill country of Ephraim, and he lived in Gibeah; but the men of the place were Benjaminites.
17When he lifted up his eyes, he saw the wayfaring man in the street of the city; and the old man said, "Where are you going? Where did you come from?"
18He said to him, "We are passing from Bethlehem Judah to the far side of the hill country of Ephraim. I am from there. I went to Bethlehem Judah, and I am going to the house of Yahweh; and there is no man who receives me into his house.
19Yet there is both straw and fodder for our donkeys, and bread and wine also for me and for your female servant, and for the young man who is with your servants; there is no lack of anything."
20The old man said, "Peace be to you; however, let all your needs be on me; only don't lodge in the street."
21So he brought him into his house and gave the donkeys fodder; and they washed their feet and ate and drank.
22As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain base fellows, surrounded the house, beating at the door; and they spoke to the master of the house, the old man, saying, "Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may have sex with him."
23The man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, "No, my brothers, please don't act so wickedly; since this man has come into my house, don't do this folly.
24Behold, here is my daughter, a virgin, and his concubine. I will bring them out now. Humble them and do with them what seems good to you; but to this man don't do any such folly."
25But the men wouldn't listen to him; so the man grabbed his concubine and brought her out to them; and they had sex with her and abused her all night until the morning; and when the day began to dawn, they let her go.
26Then the woman came at the dawning of the day and fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was, until it was light.
27Her master rose up in the morning and opened the doors of the house and went out to go his way; and behold, the woman his concubine had fallen down at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold.
28He said to her, "Get up and let's be going." But there was no answer. Then he put her on the donkey; and the man rose up and went to his place.
29When he had come into his house, he took a knife and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.
30It was so, that all who saw it said, "There has been no such deed done or seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt to this day. Consider it, take counsel, and speak."
✶
Summary
A Levite from the hill country of Ephraim travels to Bethlehem to retrieve his concubine who had left him. After several days of hospitality at her father's house, they depart late and stop for the night in Gibeah, a Benjaminite town where an Ephraimite stranger takes them in. That night, wicked men of Gibeah surround the house demanding the Levite for sexual violence. He sends out his concubine instead, and she is gang-raped and abused through the night. She dies on the threshold. The Levite carries her body home, dismembers it, and sends the pieces to the twelve tribes of Israel as a summons to judgment — the most disturbing act in the entire book.
Themes
- The total moral collapse of Israel — Gibeah mirrors Sodom (Gen 19)
- The nameless woman as the primary victim of Israel's violence and the narrator's indictment
- Hospitality traditions inverted: the one place they expected safety becomes the site of horror
- The absence of God from this narrative as a literary statement about Israel's spiritual condition
- The Levite's callousness toward the woman he sacrificed
Key verses
- Judg 19:22 — “The men of the city, certain base fellows, surrounded the house, beating at the door; and they spoke to the master of the house, the old man, saying, 'Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may have sex with him.'”
- Judg 19:28 — “He said to her, 'Get up and let's be going.' But there was no answer.”
- Judg 19:30 — “There has been no such deed done or seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt to this day. Consider it, take counsel, and speak.”
Context & background
Gibeah (modern Tel el-Ful, in the West Bank, just north of Jerusalem) was the capital city of the tribe of Benjamin and later the hometown of King Saul. Its appearance here as the site of this atrocity is one of the most searing ironies in the entire Hebrew Bible. Jebus — the pre-Israelite name for Jerusalem — lay just south of Gibeah; the Levite refuses to stop there because it is not yet an Israelite city, choosing instead what he assumes is the safer Israelite town of Gibeah. Bethlehem Judah, where the concubine had returned to her father, is in the southern hill country of the modern West Bank, about six miles south of Jerusalem. The hill country of Ephraim where the Levite lived is the central highlands of the modern West Bank. God is conspicuously absent from this chapter — Yahweh is never consulted, invoked, or mentioned.
Cross-references
- Gen 19:1-11 — The men of Sodom demand Lot's guests; Lot offers his daughters instead — the parallel to Gibeah is unmistakable and intentional
- Gen 34 — The rape of Dinah and the subsequent violent revenge: another story of sexual violence and its communal consequences
- Hos 9:9; 10:9 — The prophets Hosea later cites "the days of Gibeah" as the benchmark of Israel's deepest depravity
- Lam 1:12 — "Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?" — the woman lying at the threshold echoes the suffering of Jerusalem
- Rom 1:28-32 — God giving people over to debased minds: the moral spiral described in Judges reaches its nadir here