No King in Israel

But his concubine was unfaithful to him, like a prostitute. She went away from him to her father’s house in Bethlehem, and she stayed there four months.

Then her husband went after her so he could speak kindly to her and bring her home. He took his servant with him and a pair of donkeys. She brought him into her father’s house, and when her father saw him, he was glad to meet him.

Her father kept him there, and he stayed three days. They ate and drank, and they slept there.

On the fourth day they got up early in the morning, and the Levite got ready to go. But his father-in-law said to him, “Eat a little bread first; it will do you good. Then you can be on your way.”

So the two of them sat down and ate and drank together. Then her father said to the man, “Please, stay the night, and have a good time.” The man stood up to go, but his father-in-law urged him, and he stayed there again.

Early in the morning of the fifth day he got up to go, and her father said, “Please, eat something first, and stay till the sun is lower.” So the two of them ate.

When the man got up to leave with his concubine and his servant, her father said to him, “It’s getting toward evening now. The day is nearly over. Please stay the night here and have a good time, and tomorrow you can set out early and go home.”

But the man wouldn’t stay another night. He got up and left, and he came near Jebus, which is Jerusalem. He had his two saddled donkeys with him, and his concubine was with him too.

His master said to him, “We won’t go into a city of foreigners, people who aren’t Israelites. We’ll go on to Gibeah.” And he said to his servant, “Come on, let’s get to one of these places. We’ll stay the night in Gibeah or in Ramah.”

So they went on their way, and the sun went down as they came near Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin. They went over there to stay in Gibeah. The Levite went into the town and sat down in the street, because no one took them in for the night.

That evening an old man came along, back from his work in the field. He came from the hill country of Ephraim and was living in Gibeah, but the men of the town were Benjamites.

He looked up and saw the traveler in the street of the town. “Where are you going?” the old man asked. “And where have you come from?”

“We’re traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to the far side of the hill country of Ephraim,” the Levite answered. “I’m from there. I went to Bethlehem, and I’m on my way to the Lord’s house. And nobody has taken me in. But we have straw and feed for our donkeys, and bread and wine for me, for the woman, and for the young man who is with us. We have all we need.”

“Peace be with you!” the old man said. “Just let me take care of everything you need. But don’t sleep in the street.”

So the old man brought him into his house and gave the donkeys something to eat. Then they washed their feet, and ate and drank.

The old man who owned the house went out to them. “No, my brothers,” he said. “Please don’t do such a wicked thing. This man has come into my house. Don’t do this disgraceful thing. Look, here is my daughter, who has never slept with a man, and here is his concubine. Let me bring them out to you now. Disgrace them, and do whatever you like with them. But don’t do such a disgraceful thing to this man.”

But the men wouldn’t listen to him. So the Levite grabbed his concubine and brought her out to them. They forced themselves on her and abused her all night, until morning. As the day began to dawn, they let her go.

At daybreak the woman came back, and she fell down at the old man’s door, where her husband was. She lay there until it was light.

In the morning her husband got up, opened the doors of the house, and went out to set off on his way. And there lay the woman, his concubine, where she had fallen at the door of the house, with her hands on the doorstep.

“Get up,” he said to her, “let’s go.” But no one answered. Then he lifted her onto the donkey and set off for home.

Everyone who saw it said, “Nothing like this has been done or seen from the day Israel came up out of the land of Egypt to this day! Think about it. Talk it over, and speak up.”

Then all the Israelites came out, from Dan all the way to Beersheba, and from the land of Gilead too. The whole community gathered as one in the Lord’s presence at Mizpah.

The chiefs of all the people, of every tribe in Israel, took their places in the assembly of the people of God. There were four hundred thousand foot soldiers who carried swords.

(Now the people of Benjamin heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah.) The Israelites said, “Tell us, how did this wicked thing happen?”

The Levite, the husband of the woman who was murdered, answered. “My concubine and I came to Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin, to spend the night,” he said. “The men of Gibeah came against me and surrounded the house at night. They meant to kill me. They forced themselves on my concubine, and she is dead.

“I took my concubine and cut her in pieces, and I sent them through every part of the land Israel inherited, because they have done a vile, disgraceful thing in Israel. Now, all of you people of Israel, give your advice here: what should we do?”

All the people stood up as one man. “None of us will go home, not to his tent or to his house,” they said. “Here is what we will do to Gibeah: we’ll go up against it as the lot decides. From all the tribes of Israel we will take ten men out of every hundred, a hundred out of every thousand, and a thousand out of every ten thousand, to bring food for the army. Then, when the army comes to Gibeah of Benjamin, it can pay the town back for every disgraceful thing its men have done in Israel.”

So all the men of Israel gathered against the town, joined together as one man.

The Benjamites came from their towns and gathered at Gibeah to go out and fight the Israelites. That day the Benjamites from the towns were counted: twenty-six thousand men armed with swords, not counting seven hundred chosen men from Gibeah itself. Among all these soldiers were seven hundred chosen men who were left-handed, and every one of them could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.

The men of Israel, not counting Benjamin, numbered four hundred thousand men armed with swords, every one of them a fighting man.

The Israelites set out and went up to Bethel, and they asked God, “Which of us should go up first to fight the Benjamites?”

The Lord said, “Judah first.”

But the men of Israel took courage, and they lined up for battle again in the same place as on the first day. They went up and wept in the Lord’s presence until evening, and they asked the Lord, “Should we go out again to fight our brother Benjamin?”

The Lord said, “Go up against him.”

So on the second day the Israelites went up against the Benjamites. That day the Benjamites came out of Gibeah against them again, and they cut down eighteen thousand more men of Israel, all of them armed with swords.

Then all the Israelites and all the people went up to Bethel. They sat there in the Lord’s presence and wept, and they fasted, eating nothing all that day until evening. They offered burnt offerings and peace offerings in the Lord’s presence.

The ark of the covenant of God was there in those days, and Phinehas, Eleazar’s son and Aaron’s grandson, served before it. The Israelites asked the Lord, “Should we go out to fight our brother Benjamin yet again, or should we stop?”

The Lord said, “Go up. Tomorrow I will hand him over to you.”

“They’re beaten, just like the first time!” the Benjamites said.

But the Israelites said, “Let’s run, and draw them away from the town to the roads.” The men of Israel were pulling back from the Benjamites because they were counting on the men they had hidden near Gibeah.

All the men of Israel left their places and lined up at Baal Tamar, while the hidden men burst out of their place at Maareh Geba. Ten thousand chosen men from all Israel came against Gibeah, and the fighting was hard. The Benjamites didn’t know that disaster was close. The men who had been hiding rushed into Gibeah, spread out, and struck down the whole town with the sword. The signal they had agreed on with the rest of Israel was a great cloud of smoke rising from the town.

When the smoke began to rise from the town like a column, the Benjamites looked behind them, and there was the whole town going up in smoke to the sky. Then the men of Israel turned around, and the men of Benjamin were frightened. They saw that disaster had come on them, and that they were beaten.

The Lord struck down Benjamin in front of Israel, and that day the Israelites killed twenty-five thousand one hundred men of Benjamin, all of them armed with swords.

The Benjamites turned and ran from the men of Israel toward the wilderness, but the fighting caught up with them, and the men coming out of the towns cut them down in the middle of the fighting. The Israelites surrounded the Benjamites, chased them, and trampled them down all the way to a place near Gibeah, on its east side.

Eighteen thousand men of Benjamin fell, all of them brave fighters. Others turned and ran toward the wilderness, to the rock of Rimmon. Israel picked off five thousand more of them along the roads, chased them hard as far as Gidom, and killed two thousand more there. So in all, twenty-five thousand Benjamite swordsmen fell that day, every one of them a brave man.

But six hundred men reached the rock of Rimmon and stayed there four months.

The men of Israel turned back against the Benjamites and struck them down with the sword: the people of the towns, the animals, everything they found. And they set fire to every town they came to.

The people came to Bethel and sat there in God’s presence until evening, and they wept loudly and bitterly. “Lord, God of Israel,” they said, “why has this happened to Israel? Why is one tribe missing today?”

The next day the people were up early. They built an altar there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.

Then the Israelites asked, “Is there anyone from all the tribes of Israel who didn’t come up to the Lord’s assembly?” They had sworn a solemn oath about anyone who didn’t come up to the Lord at Mizpah: “He must be put to death.”

The Israelites grieved for their brother Benjamin. “Today one tribe has been cut off from Israel,” they said. “How can we find wives for the men who are left? We have sworn by the Lord that we won’t give them our daughters to marry.”

So they asked again, “Which one of the tribes of Israel didn’t come up to the Lord at Mizpah?” They found that no one had come from Jabesh Gilead to the camp for the assembly. When the people were counted, not one person from Jabesh Gilead was there.

So the community sent twelve thousand of its bravest men there, with these orders: “Go and strike down the people of Jabesh Gilead with the sword, the women and the little ones too. This is what you are to do: put to death every male, and every woman who has slept with a man.”

Among the people of Jabesh Gilead they found four hundred young women. None of them had ever slept with a man. They brought them to the camp, to Shiloh, in the land of Canaan.

Then the whole community sent word to the Benjamites at the rock of Rimmon and offered them peace. So the Benjamites came back at that time, and the Israelites gave them the women of Jabesh Gilead they had kept alive. But there still weren’t enough for all of them.

The elders of the community said, “How can we find wives for the men who are left, now that the women of Benjamin have been destroyed? The Benjamites who escaped must keep their inheritance, so that a tribe isn’t wiped out of Israel. But we can’t give them our own daughters as wives, because the Israelites have sworn, ‘Cursed is anyone who gives a wife to Benjamin.’”

“But look,” they said, “there is a feast of the Lord every year at Shiloh, north of Bethel, east of the main road from Bethel up to Shechem, and south of Lebonah.”

So they gave the Benjamites their orders. “Go and hide in the vineyards,” they said, “and watch. When the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance, come out of the vineyards. Each of you seize one of the daughters of Shiloh to be your wife, and go home to the land of Benjamin.

“When their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, we’ll say to them, ‘Do us a kindness and let the men of Benjamin keep them. We didn’t take a wife for each of them in the war. And you didn’t give them your daughters; if you had, you would be guilty now.’”

The Benjamites did just that. They took wives from the dancers, one for each man, and carried them off. Then they went back to the land they had inherited, built up the towns, and lived in them.

Then the Israelites went home, each to his own tribe, family and land.

In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.