Judges, 19 - Darkest Chapter | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] Shalom, friend. Shalom, Jeremy. >> Hey, Ari. How are you? >> Good to see you. I'm doing well, thank God. Welcome back to Judges chapter 19, brought to you by the Land of Israel Network at the land of Israel.com. >> You know, these last chapters in the book of Judges, they're not easy, and I'm glad that we're going through it together. >> Yeah. Yeah. Me, too. It's a lot. It's It's very disillusioning for me. I'm like I'm a storybook type of guy. These aren't storybook chapters. Um so I want to open up 19 with a question uh which I think will stay with us throughout this entire chapter. So the book of chauffee is closing. We've uh left behind the great deliverers Dvorah Gdon Shimon Samson. Two days ago we encountered the strange story of Mika Micah right that man from the hill country of Ephraim who built a private shrine and hired himself a Levite. And yesterday, Jeremy, you walked us through chapter 18 where the tribe of Don exported that idolatry across the entire nation. Right. And today's chapter opens with words that uh should give us, I think, a touch of deja vu, right? Came to pass in those days when there was no king in Israel that there was a certain Levite sojouring on the side of the hill country of Ephraim. Okay, you have to hear this with the ears of someone who just finished chapter 17, right? Two chapters ago, a man from the hill country of Ephraim with a Levite from Bethlehem of Yehuda. Now, a Levite from the hill country of Ephraim who takes a concubine from Bethlehem of Yehuda. Same hills, same town, same tribe of priests, right? The the the geography here is not a coincidence. At least I don't think so. Something seems to be happening here. So, what's going on? Why does the Bible deliberately echo chapter 17 as he opens chapters 19, right? As 19 is opening and it's it's just echoing 17. So, let's hold that question for a second because this chapter, I believe, is going to answer it. So, let's dive in. The Levite takes a pile, a concubine from Bethlehem Yehuda, the same Bethlehem from which a future king will arise. the same Bethlehem from which the Levite of chapter 17 walked out searching for a place and something goes wrong. The text says she was unfaithful to him. The word is vatisna which definitely implies some type of infidelity. Either way, she returns to her father's house in Bethlehem. Four months pass. The Levite finally goes after her with his servant and a pair of donkeys elib, right? He wants to speak to her heart. He wants to win her back. The text frames it um with a certain tenderness, I think. And the father-in-law receives him with overflowing hospitality. One day, two days, three days, four days. Every morning the Levite tries to leave. Every morning the father-in-law detains him with food and wine. Stay another night. Eat one more meal. Don't go yet. It's almost comic. It's like an Israeli mother who can't let you leave the house without one more cup of coffee, one more cookie, right? But it's not just comic. The Tanakh lingers here for a reason. I believe at least because hospitality is the central virtue of Abraham. It is the Jewish trait. And in chapter 19, we're about to watch that what what happens when a nation forgets what hospitality is for. The spirit of what it's about. Right? On the fifth day, late in the afternoon, the Levite finally tears himself away. His servant urges him, "Master, let us turn aside into this city of the Yvi and lodge in it." Right? Yus, what we know today as Jerusalem, the future city of the Bamikdash, the holy temple, sitting right there on his road home. Right? And the Levite refuses. Verse 12, we will not turn aside into the city of a foreigner that is not of the children of Israel. We don't dwell with foreigners. We want to be with our people. We push on to give a of to our brothers, to our own. You know, Ari, I just want to stop here for a second. I want to point out just the irony of this verse. I mean, the man says, "I don't want to stay with these Canaanites. I would much rather stay in a Jewish part of town." And who knows what these Jebusites might do anyway. I mean, the pagans of Yevus probably would have given them shelter, fed them, sent them on their way in peace. It's the city of the Israelites of fellow Jews that's going to destroy them. And I really believe the story puts the future sight of the beta mikdash of Jerusalem in the verse on purpose. The Levite that's destined to serve in that temple, passed by the place of holiness, chosen by Hashem to find safety, but instead he finds the exact opposite. And this is a setup for the harshest story arguably in the entire Tanakh. And it's highlighting this all happened within the family because you know although Israel is a family, families without shared values, without the Torah as a moral guide can end up worse than Canaanite society. >> Yeah, exactly. And I think that's about that's what we're about to watch right now, right? They reach Ga at sunset. They sit in the open square. And how are they welcomed? Verse 15. Ishmaotam. And there was no man who took them into his house to lodge. A whole city of Jews, a Levite at their gates, with his concubine, with his donkeys, with nowhere to sleep, and not one door opens. Right after the 4-day overflow at the father-in-law's house in Yehuda in Judea, the silence of Giva is deafening. Right? The Tanakh is conveying this contrast really dramatically. Abraham, he was that's where Abrahamic hospitality comes from. Abrahamic hospitality in Judea and cold indifference in Benjamin. And uh and finally an old man comes in from his field at evening. He's actually not a native of Ga. He too is from the hill country of Ephraim. He sees them in the square and takes them home. Uh notice the pattern. It's the Ephraimite sojourer who provides hospitality in a city of Benjamin where no native will. The chapter is telling us something about the spiritual and cultural geography of Israel at this moment. And that is when the night becomes a nightmare. Right? Verse 22. And you must hear the Hebrew because the the narrator here is doing something extraordinary. Benal Benal. Does that sound familiar? Behold, the men of the city, base fellows, surrounded the house. Bring out the man who came into your house. That way we may know him. >> You know, Ari, you just have to stop here for a second because those words, that's exactly the story of SOM. And in Hebrew, those are the same words verbatim. I mean, you go back to Genesis chapter 19 when the angels arrive at Lo's house and the men of stone surround the building demanding that the visitors be brought to them. It's exactly what they said. And the text is forcing us to see Israel has become stone. And this may be like the deepest indictment in the entire book of Chaim. Israel is Stow. I mean, Israel was brought into the land precisely so that she would never become what was on the land before her. The whole purpose of the conquest was to clear out Sodomlike civilizations and replace it with a Sinai civilization. And here within the sight of Jerusalem, we have inhabitants of the Holy Land becoming exactly what the Holy Land was meant to expel. And until Israel reckons with that, no king and no army can save her. >> Yeah. And and that reckoning is coming, right? What comes next is almost too painful to read, right? The host pleads with them, don't do this evil. He offers them his own daughter, Abetula. Uh, and the Levites pile. They refuse the daughter. They want the man. And finally, the Levite, the Levite, the one who is supposed to be the moral spine of Israel, the one descended from the tribe that was given no land precisely so that they could watch it's watch the the nation in their follyies. teach the nation Torah without compromise. The Levite takes his pleesh and pushes her out the door. Verse 25. So the man laid hold of his concubine and brought her out to them and they abuse her all night to sanitize the words a little bit. Right? And in the morning, she crawls back to the doorstep of the house where her husband is sleeping. And she dies there with her hands on the threshold. She has she has no name in this chapter. She doesn't speak. Not when she leaves, not when she returns, not when she's thrown out, not when she dies. Right? The most vulnerable person in the story is also the most silent. And her silence is the loudest indictment in the entire book of Shaft. When a society forgets its covenant, the first voice to disappear is always the voice of the powerless. So the Levite finds her in the morning and his coldness is shocking. Right? Verse 28. Get up and let's go. She doesn't answer. She just dies. He puts her on the donkey. He takes her home. And then this is one of the most disturbing acts I I think in the entire Tanakh. He cuts her body into 12 pieces and sends one piece to each tribe of Israel. >> You know, we just have to stop here. This whole story is so painful, but the Bible is so honest. The people are evil for abusing and torturing that woman all night. The Levite was horrible for grabbing her and shoving her out of the house to begin with. And then in the morning, he sees her on the floor and instead of tending to her, caring for her, he's like, "Get up. Let's go." And it's all just so wrong. I mean, he's clearly shaken up by the whole thing. I mean, he cuts her body into 12 parts and sends all the pieces to the tribes of Israel. And the rabbis, they're split right down the middle in this one. Some say what he did was righteous, that he was forcing Israel to wake up because nothing else was going to do that. And the others were just really uncomfortable with it. And you can see why. I mean, look at what's happened to the Levites in these last few chapters. The Levite in chapter 17 sold his soul for idolatry. The Levite here in chapter 19 hands his own woman over to her killers, then carves her body up and sends a message out to Israel. The tribe that was supposed to be the conscience of Israel has become part of the chaos that it was meant to fix. And the Nvi doesn't tell us what to think. He just tells us how Israel reacted. That nothing like this had happened since the days that they came out of Egypt. Not since Egypt. not in any generation in between. This chapter is rock bottom. And that's how the prophets want to end the book of Judges when things can't get any worse. A new leadership is soon to come and bring salvation to the nation that needs it now more than ever. >> Yeah. You know, and we come back to our opening question after this. Why does the Na'vi, why does the prophet echo chapter 17 in the opening verse of chapter 19? Right. a man of the hill country of Ephraim, a Levite from Bethlehem. The same setting, the same cast of characters. And I think possibly because chapter 17 and chapter 19 are really not two separate stories. They're the same story told twice. Once in its quiet beginning and once in its final consequence. Chapter 17 was a man building a bait Elohim, right? a an a house of idolatry in his own house, sincerely believing he was serving Hashem while doing what was right in his own eyes. It looked harmless. Uh a private confusion, a personal shrine. Chapter 19 is what that confusion looks like two chapters later when it has metastasized through the bloodstream of the nation. Right? It looks like a city of Israelites that has become stone. It looks like a Levite who throws a woman to her death and then carves her body into a message. It looks like a nation that for a moment almost looks away. But here's the most important thing about how this chapter ends. Israel does not look away. The tribes gather. They demand an accounting. They refuse to let what happened be buried. And that refusal, that insistence on naming evil out loud is the first stirring of something this book has been waiting for from the beginning. It's the moment a scattered people begins to act like a nation and and sitting today in the hills of Judea where we are right now watching the redemption unfold before our eyes which is happening. This is exactly the lesson uh one of the great lessons that we need. Our people have been hunted, slandered, dragged through the courts of nations who should know better by this point in history. We're being lectured about morality by those who hide and facilitate the murders of our people. The world wants us to be quiet or to move on or to soften the story to to let the bodies be buried and the headlines change. They even accuse us of the very genocide that was inflicted upon us. Right? This chapter says, "Do not be silent." The deepest sin inim in the book of judges is not what was done in the ga. It's the silence that almost followed it. And the rebirth of Israel begins the moment that silence is broken. So I guess my blessing to us is may we be a generation that breaks that silence and that tells the truth about what has been done to our people. that the the the generation that stands up in our streets, in our settlements, in our cities, in front of the world, and refuses to let the bodies of our brothers and sisters become a story the world's allowed to forget. The land is being settled. The exiles are returning home. The redemption is unfolding in front of our eyes. And part of that redemption is finding our voice. The voice that this Levite did not have. the voice that Israel at the end of this chapter finally begins to find. Uh, but this story isn't over yet, my friends. What flows out of this night becomes the civil war of chapter 20. So stay tuned for chapter 20 tomorrow with Jeremy [music] Kazakh. We'll see you tomorrow for Judges chapter 20.