Judges 19:24-20:1 – Behold, here are my virgin daughter and his concubine. Let
me bring them out now. Violate them and do with them what seems good to
you, but against this man do not do this outrageous thing.” But the
men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine and made her go
out to them. And they knew her and abused her all night until the morning. And
as the dawn began to break, they let her go. And as morning appeared, the
woman came and fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was,
until it was light. And her master rose up in the morning, and when he opened
the doors of the house and went out to go on his way, behold, there was his
concubine lying at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He
said to her, “Get up, let us be going.” But there was no answer. Then he
put her on the donkey, and the man rose up and went away to his home. And
when he entered his house, he took a knife, and taking hold of his concubine he divided
her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout all the
territory of Israel. And all who saw it said, “Such a thing has never
happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the
land of Egypt until this day; consider it, take counsel, and speak.” Then all
the people of Israel came out, from Dan to Beersheba, including the land
of Gilead, and the congregation assembled as one man to the Lord at Mizpah.
Hosea
9:9 – They have
deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah:
he will remember their iniquity; he will punish their sins.
1 Samuel 7:5 – Then
Samuel said, “Gather all Israel at Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for
you.”
Application:
- · The tragedy of this story lies not only in the decadence of Gibeah, but also in the callous selfishness of men who would betray defenseless women to be brutally violated for a whole night.
- · Sins unrepented of are remembered, as well as the accumulated sins of generations.
- · Mizpah nhere the Israelites gathered to undertake disciplinary action against Benjamin after the abuse and murder of the concubine of a traveling Levite in Gibeah of Benjamin.
All Scripture verses taken from ESV
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