The Levite and His Concubine
1 In those days, when there was no king in Israel, there was a certain Levite living on the farther side of the hill country of Ephraim, who took for himself a concubine out of Bethlehem Judah. 2 His concubine played the prostitute against him, and went away from him to her father’s house to Bethlehem Judah, and was there for four months. 3 Her husband arose and went after her to speak kindly to her, to bring her again, 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 lady saw him, he rejoiced to meet him. 4 His father-in-law, the young lady’s father, kept him there; and he stayed with him three days. So they ate and drank, and stayed there. 5 On the fourth day, they got up early in the morning, and he rose up to depart. The young lady’s father said to his son-in-law, “Strengthen your heart with a morsel of bread, and afterward you shall go your way.” 6 So they sat down, ate, and drank, both of them together. Then the young lady’s father said to the man, “Please be pleased to stay all night, and let your heart be merry.” 7 The man rose up to depart; but his father-in-law urged him, and he stayed there again. 8 He arose early in the morning on the fifth day to depart; and the young lady’s father said, “Please strengthen your heart and stay until the day declines;” and they both ate. 9 When the man rose up to depart, he, and his concubine, and his servant, his father-in-law, the young lady’s father, said to him, “Behold, now the day draws toward evening, please stay all night. Behold, the day is ending. Stay here, that your heart may be merry; and tomorrow go on your way early, that you may go home.” 10 But the man wouldn’t stay that night, but he rose up and went near Jebus (also called Jerusalem). With him were a couple of saddled donkeys. His concubine also was with him. 11 When they were by Jebus, the day was far spent; and the servant said to his master, “Please come and let’s enter into this city of the Jebusites, and stay in it.” 12 His master said to him, “We won’t enter into the city of a foreigner that is not of the children of Israel; but we will pass over to Gibeah.” 13 He said to his servant, “Come and let’s draw near to one of these places; and we will lodge in Gibeah, or in Ramah.” 14 So they passed on and went their way; and the sun went down on them near Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin. 15 They went over there, to go in to stay in Gibeah. He went in, and sat down in the street of the city; for there was no one who took them into his house to stay.
A journey delayed by hospitality ends at nightfall in an Israelite town where no door opens — the safety calculation that decides for Gibeah is the chapter's hinge.
In those days, when there was no king in Israel, there was a certain Levite living on the farther side of the hill country of Ephraim, who took for himself a concubine out of Bethlehem Judah.
The second appendix opens under the same rubric as the first — no king — and with another Levite of no name. A concubine was a wife of secondary status; the relationship breaks, and she returns to her father's house in Bethlehem for four months Judges 19:2. The English translations divide over what caused the break — some read that she was unfaithful, others that she was angry with him — and the story that follows does not depend on settling it.
Her husband arose and went after her to speak kindly to her, to bring her again, 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 lady saw him, he rejoiced to meet him.
The journey begins as reconciliation — literally, to speak to her heart — and it is the last kind thing the text records him intending. In Bethlehem the father-in-law's hospitality swallows five days Judges 19:4–8: eating, drinking, let your heart be merry, one more morsel, one more night. The delays push the departure to mid-afternoon of the fifth day Judges 19:9–10, which puts nightfall in exactly the wrong place.
His master said to him, “We won’t enter into the city of a foreigner that is not of the children of Israel; but we will pass over to Gibeah.”
Here is the chapter's hinge, and it is a safety calculation. At dusk near Jebus — Jerusalem, still Canaanite Judges 1:21 — the servant proposes stopping, and the Levite refuses: not among foreigners; press on to an Israelite town. The assumption underneath is the whole point: among covenant people we will be safe. Gibeah of Benjamin will spend the rest of the chapter destroying that assumption, and the narrator has set it up so that the reader watches Israel fail a test that pagans were never given the chance to fail.
They went over there, to go in to stay in Gibeah. He went in, and sat down in the street of the city; for there was no one who took them into his house to stay.
The first failure is quiet: no door opens. In the ancient east, taking in the traveler was elementary decency, and a party with its own provisions — there is no lack of anything Judges 19:19 — asked nothing but a roof. Gibeah lets them sit in the square as night falls. The one man who finally takes them in is not a Benjamite at all but a sojourner from Ephraim, an old man coming home from the fields Judges 19:16 Judges 19:20–21. The town's only hospitality is imported — and the reader who knows Genesis has already recognized the scene being staged, a traveler lodged behind one door in a town where the night is about to knock Genesis 19:1–3.
held with reason What this mark means