Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: Judges 19:1-21:25

Theme: These chapters teach us how sin escalates.

As we read this passage we see how a personal sin escalates into the sinful behavior of a city (chpt.

19), which escalates into the sinful behavior of a tribe (chpt.

20), which escalates into the sinful behavior of a nation (chpt.

21) which leads to genocide.

To say that the moral climate of Western Culture has changed significantly in our lifetimes, is — to say the least — an understatement.

A generation ago, behaviors that even the non-religious considered offensive are now readily accepted by the culture.

Behaviors that were only whispered about fifty years ago are now openly celebrated.

Today we live in an era were moral absolutes are considered a relic of the past.

The retarding affects of Cultural Christianity upon our society are wearing off, and Confessional Christianity is often met with ridicule and derision.

We live in an era where everyone does what is right in their own eyes.

Such eras are not new.

The last chapters of the book of Judges seem strangely out of place.

The last judge mentioned in the Book of Judges is Samson.

His story is told in Judges 13-16.

But there are four more chapters following his story.

These last chapters of Judges are a departure from the earlier narrative structure of the book.

The first sixteen chapters give us a bird’s-eye view of things.

At regular intervals we read “the people did evil in the eyes of the LORD,” but details of that evil are sparse with the main story being how God used various men and women to deliver Israel, and set them back on a path of obedience.

These last chapters give us a ground-level, detailed view of what life was like in Israel during those times, and consists of two episodes: Micah and the Danites (chpt.

17-18), and Israel’s war against the Tribe of Benjamin (chpt.

19-21).

Chapters 1-16 showed us how God rescued Israel, but in these last four chapters we are given two case studies of the kind of spiritual condition he rescued them from.

It’s not pretty.

They show us just how far men can sink into depravity when left to their own resources.

This view of humanity without God is so bleak that these passages are almost never preached upon or even studied.

In 40 years of pastoral ministry I’ve never, ever looked to these chapters for sermon material until preaching through the Book of Judges forced me to consider their message for 21st century believers.

Our focus for this evening is on the sad story of a callous husband seeking retribution over the death of a wife who he seems completely indifferent to.

His lust for justice ultimately turns into the near-genocide of the Tribe of Benjamin.

As we begin looking at these chapters, notice that there is only one person named in the entire three-chapter episode: Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron.

In the previous story the only person named was Jonathan, the grandson of Moses.

This tells us two important things: 1) that, chronologically speaking, these stories belong at the beginning of the period of the Judges, and 2) that within three generations of coming into the Promised Land the nation had degenerated and turned away from God.

These chapters teach us how sin escalates.

As we read this passage we see how a personal sin escalates into the sinful behavior of a city (chpt.

19), which escalates into the sinful behavior of a tribe (chpt.

20), which escalates into the sinful behavior of a nation (chpt.

21) which leads to a near genocide of a people group.

The outline of these three chapters is pretty simple ...

Benjamin’s Perversion (19:1-30)

Benjamin’s Purge (20:1-48)

Benjamin’s Preservation (21:1-25)

Some lessons to take away

I. BENJAMIN’S PERVERSION — A Gang Rape

1. the closing narrative of the Book of Judges begins with the story of a gang-rape of a woman by a group of men in the city of Gibeah in the tribal area of Benjamin

2. the back-story starts with a Levite from the hill country of Ephraim seeking to regain custody of a run-a-way concubine

“In those days Israel had no king.

Now a Levite who lived in a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim took a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. 2 But she was unfaithful to him.

She left him and went back to her parents’ home in Bethlehem, Judah.

After she had been there four months, 3 her husband went to her to persuade her to return.

He had with him his servant and two donkeys.

She took him into her parents’ home, and when her father saw him, he gladly welcomed him.

4 His father-in-law, the woman’s father, prevailed on him to stay; so he remained with him three days, eating and drinking, and sleeping there.”

(Judges 19:1–4, NIV)

a. while we are not told, and we cannot be certain, a number of Old Testament scholars believe that the Levite of our current story is Jonathan, the grandson of Moses and the Levite of the previous two chapters

3. this Levite’s concubine was unfaithful to him, and runs back home to her father’s house

a. the Hebrew literally says, she played the harlot

1) she has an affair after which she runs away from her husband and returned to her father’s house in Bethlehem of Judah

ILLUS.

A concubine was a woman, often a servant or slave, with whom a man had regular sexual relations, but to whom he was not legally married.

A concubine did not have the rights of a wife and a concubine’s children were not rightful heirs.

Even if a husband treated a concubine as a wife, she had virtually no legal rights, and her future, and that of any children, were often at the whims of the man’s primary wife.

2) while God never sanctioned multiple wives in Jewish culture, the attitude may have been, “If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob could do it, why can’t I?”

b. four months after she has run away, the Levite traveled to Bethlehem where he initiated a reconciliation with his concubine

c. he was gladly welcomed by the woman’s father, with typical Near-Eastern hospitality, who entertained the Levite four days and part of a fifth before the Levite decided he could stay no longer

A. A JOURNEY HOME ENDS TRAGICALLY

“But, unwilling to stay another night, the man left and went toward Jebus (that is, Jerusalem), with his two saddled donkeys and his concubine.

11 When they were near Jebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, “Come, let’s stop at this city of the Jebusites and spend the night.”

12 His master replied, “No.

We won’t go into any city whose people are not Israelites.

We will go on to Gibeah.” 13 He added, “Come, let’s try to reach Gibeah or Ramah and spend the night in one of those places.”

14 So they went on, and the sun set as they neared Gibeah in Benjamin.

15 There they stopped to spend the night.

They went and sat in the city square, but no one took them in for the night.”

(Judges 19:10–15, NIV)

1. the deficient hospitality of the Gibeahnites is in stark contrast to the excessive hospitality of the concubine’s father

a. the Levite refused to stay in Jebus because it’s not an Israelite city, and they press on to Gibeah which is

1) they arrive at twilight and sit down in the village square

2) the laws of hospitality dictated that someone take them in, but they are apparently ignored

b. finally, an old man, also from the hill country of Ephraim who was now living in Gibeah, stops, inquires, and ultimately welcomes them into his home

2. later in the evening the trouble begins

“While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house.

Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.”

23 The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don’t be so vile.

Since this man is my guest, don’t do this outrageous thing.

24 Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine.

I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish.

But as for this man, don’t do such an outrageous thing.”

25 But the men would not listen to him.

So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go.

26 At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.”

(Judges 19:22–26, NIV)

a. it’s a horrific story that we can only imagine talking place after the zombie-apocalypse has arrived and society has completely broken down

b. the display of human depravity in this story is astounding

3. the laws of hospitality demand that the old man protect his quests at all costs

a. to invite someone into your meant not only providing hospitality, but to also offering them protection

b. the old man from Ephraim pleads with his neighbors not to do such a wicked thing, and even offers them his own daughter and his guest’s concubine for the men to ravage

1) he offers heterosexual rape as an alternative to homosexual rape

2) the old man’s proposal is overshadowed by the Levite’s self-serving action

4. the twist in the story is found in vs. 24 where the Levite himself took his concubine and sent her out to the gathered mob

a. it’s here where some modern translations miss the point