The Judges. Day 63, Gibeah In Israel Compared To Sodom And Gomorrah, Part One

In the days of the judges, near the end of that era, the author of Judges keeps telling us, "In those days Israel had no king," and, "Everyone did what was right in their own eyes". This doesn't mean every person in the nation was doing wrong. Many of them had enthroned the Lord as king of their hearts and "doing what was right in their own eyes" meant following the commandments and laws of the Lord because they were in agreement with Him about what was right and wrong. But when men and women do what seems right to them (or what seems expedient or pleasurable to them) lawlessness begins to abound and that's what we're seeing as we approach the end of the book of Judges. Those who didn't honor God as their Lord and king were doing whatever their carnal natures pleased. That's why, in our passage today, we find the citizens of an Israelite town being as violent and wicked as the heathen citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah. Our passage today and tomorrow will remind us of the passage of Genesis regarding Sodom and Gomorrah. 

The Levite from yesterday's study, along with his concubine and his servant, are heading home from Bethlehem. They got a very late start on their journey because the Levite's father-in-law kept plying him with food and drink in order to delay his departure. It's nearing dark and the small group needs to find a place to stay for the night. The Levite assumes his group will be safer spending the night in an Israelite town than in a non-Israelite town. He's wrong about that but this should have been the case. Not only should his fellow Israelites have shown him hospitality as a fellow citizen, but they also should have been living by the laws and commandments of the Lord. They did none of these things. 

Have you ever been lied to, defrauded, or betrayed by a fellow churchgoer? I think most or all of us have been in that position. We expect unbelievers to live according to the flesh, doing what seems right in their own eyes and living in a manner that's contrary to the word of God. But we don't expect our brothers and sisters in Christ to do us wrong. That's why we feel so shocked and hurt when it happens. In Judges 19 the Levite expects the people of Gibeah to treat him well because, in his mind, they are his brothers and sisters in the Lord. They are his kinsmen because they share common ancestors. They share the same religion, or at least he assumes they are living by the word of God, and he thinks he and his wife and servant will be safe spending the night at Gibeah. Little does he know, they'd have been far better off staying with the heathen Jebusites instead.

"When they were near Jebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, 'Come, let's stop at a city of the Jebusites and spend the night.' His master replied, 'No. We won't go into any city whose people are not Israelites. We will go on to Gibeah.' He added, 'Come, let's try to reach Gibeah or Ramah and spend the night in one of those places.' So they went on, and the sun set as they neared Gibeah in Benjamin. 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 19:11-15) There were apparently no public inns in Gibeah. The group waits in the city square to be invited into someone's home for the night. But no one extends any hospitality toward them.

"That evening an old man from the hill country of Ephraim, who was living in Gibeah (the inhabitants of the place were Benjamites), came in from his work in the fields. When he looked and saw the traveler in the city square, the old man asked, 'Where are you going? Where did you come from?' He answered, 'We are on our way from Bethlehem in Judah to a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim where I live. I have been to Bethlehem in Judah and now I am going to the house of the Lord. No one has taken me in for the night. We have both straw and fodder for our donkeys and bread and wine for ourselves your servants---me, the woman and the young man with us. We don't need anything.'" (Judges 19:16-19) The Levite says, "We will be no trouble to you at all. We have our own food and drink and we have supplies for our donkeys. All we need is a safe place to sleep." 

The old man, who is not a native of Gibeah but is from Ephraim like the Levite, invites the group to spend the night at his house. Only this man, who was once a stranger in Gibeah himself, has any concern for them. "'You are welcome at my house,' the old man said. 'Let me supply whatever you need. Only don't spend the night in the square.' So he took them into his house and fed his donkeys. After they had washed their feet, they had something to eat and drink." (Judges 19:20-21) Just like in Sodom and Gomorrah, it's not safe to spend the night in the square. You'll recall from our study of Genesis that in Chapter 19 the two angels (whom Lot did not realize were angels) announced to Lot their intention to spend the night in the square when he invited them into his home. Alarmed at the thought of this, he insisted "strongly" that they come to his house rather than camping outdoors for the night. He knew they wouldn't be safe on the streets. As it turned out, they weren't safe in his house either, for after dark the men of the city began pounding on the door insisting that Lot surrender his two guests to them. The same thing is about to happen in Gibeah, illustrating for us just how far some of the citizens of Israel descended into sin and lawlessness in the era of the judges. But the people of Gibeah aren't the only people who have ever behaved as if they don't know the God of Israel. Whenever believers behave in ways that make them indistinguishable from unbelievers, they are revealing that something in their hearts isn't right with the Lord. We've all essentially denied Christ at one time or another by behaving contrary to what He's commanded; the men of Gibeah are denying by their actions that they ever knew anything about the Lord, only they're denying Him on a much larger scale than most people ever do. I think that, by this point in time, they must have renounced Him altogether.

Something in the hearts of the men of Gibeah wasn't right with the Lord, and in a big way. They must have been drifting from the truth for a very long time to have reached the point at which we find them in our text. "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.'" (Judges 19:22) In Genesis, after Lot had supplied a meal to his guests, we were told: "Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of Sodom---both young and old---surrounded the house. They called to Lot, 'Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them.'" (Genesis 19:4-5) I wish there was some way of putting this delicately but there was no way of doing that when we studied Genesis 19 and there's no way of doing it while we're studying Judges 19: the men of Gibeah are demanding to be allowed to gang rape the Levite. 

There's much more going on here than the men of Gibeah wanting to have sexual relations with other men, just as there was much more than that going on in Sodom and Gomorrah. I'm not trying to gloss over what the Bible says about same-sex relationships but I'm pointing out that the men of Gibeah aren't even talking about that type of relationship. They're talking about a violent act. They've developed such a low regard for human dignity and human life that they'd drag a guest away from a private home where he's been offered a safe night's lodging in order to sexually assault him over and over, as a group, until he likely ends up dead. The men aren't thinking about his rights. They aren't thinking about him as a human being at all. 

In tomorrow's study the Levite's host will offer the men a substitute for the Levite. The Levite will be agreeable to the substitution even though it will end in the death of the wife he traveled all the way to Bethlehem to win back.