Wickedness in the tribe of Benjamin

The last three chapters of the book of Judges contain a very tragic story of the wickedness of the men of Gibeah and the tribe of Benjamin. The tribe of Benjamin was severely punished and was almost entirely cut off from the rest of the tribes.

Chapter 19 speaks of a Levite who took to himself a concubine. A concubine was a sort of secondary wife; and that such connections were not disreputable, being according to the general custom of those times. This is seldom practiced today although it is still widely practiced in certain countries. The Levite’s concubine was unfaithful and she returned to her father’s house. Today, the cases of unfaithfulness and infidelity are numerous so much so that it has become something that is not surprising anymore. We hear about it almost everyday ranging from celebrities to neighbors and friends. The host of the place where the couple was staying was willing to make a proposal relative to his virgin daughter in order to defend the guest that was at his home. This also does happen in these days where parents are willing to give up their children whether to sell their son to the slave market or their daughters to prostitute homes in order that they have money. The wicked men wanted to have sex with the Levite man. This shows they were homosexual which is very common today.

This phenomenon has become so common that it no longer shock us much when we hear about it. The Levite man took his concubine most likely by force and violence and gave her to them in order to save his body. They raped and abused her all night and dismissed her at dawn. The Levite then took her home and cut her into twelve pieces and sent the pieces to each tribe. This is evidently widely happening in the modern day scenario. There had been too many cases of girls being raped and abused and then murdered just to satisfy their lust. Newspapers these days are full of reports on these gruesome and inhumane acts. At the end of the book the Israelites took a vow not to give their daughters in marriage to the Benjamites. So the Benjamites seized and carried off the women who danced at the feast and the women became their wives. This is hardly practiced these days because there aren’t many vows whereby a woman shouldn’t be given into marriage to a certain tribe or race.