(Trigger warning. I’m going to be talking about a story from the Bible that involves rape and abuse.)
Later, there’s pounding on the front door and shouting. A gang of men from the town were there and they wanted to have some “fun” with the man. The old man tried to talk them out of it. It’s bad hospitality, not to mention wrong (verse 23). He even offered them his daughter and the concubine. “I will bring them out to you, and you can abuse them and do whatever you like. But don’t do such a shameful thing to this man” (verse 24). The gang didn’t like that offer, but the man shoved his concubine out the door anyway.
The old man didn’t place much value on women, either. He was okay with throwing the women to a gang of men. He didn’t see any reason to protect them. He thought he was keeping the men from doing something “shameful.” What they were planning to do to that poor woman was just as shameful, worse so. The old man and her “husband” were supposed to protect her. The old man had extended his hospitality. They were practically honorary members of the household. Don’t get me started on her “husband.”
Makes you wonder how often this particular gang of men did this. Enough that the old man told the travelers not to spend the night in the town square. They must have done this to every traveler that came through Gibeah. Maybe they were rather nasty to the people who refused to turn over their guests. If they were that violent toward the woman, how did they treat others?
She was gang raped.
All night.
They let her go when the sun came up. She managed to make it back to the old man’s house. Just in time to die on the porch.
When her husband opened the door, he told her to get up so they could go. She didn’t get up, so he puts her body on one of the donkeys and he and his servant go home.
She doesn’t get a proper burial. He doesn’t tell her dad what happened. Instead, the man chopped up her body and sent it out with a message to all the parts of Israel. A battle ensues because the people of Gibeah and the rest of the descendants of Benjamin won’t make things right. And after the fight ends, several hundred young, unmarried women (virgins) are kidnapped and forcibly married to the unmarried survivors from Benjamin’s descendants.
Awful story, right? One of the worst, I think.
And we don’t even know her name.
We don’t know any names.
There’s just a whole lot of pain.
And she gets the worst of it.
She should have been protected, cherished, loved. She should have been a wife, not a concubine.
It’s so easy to pass judgment on the people in this story. So easy, we do it without even really thinking about it. Usually following those thoughts, we think that we’re so much better, our society is so much more civilized, we wouldn’t do that if we were in that situation.
But is our society all that better?
We don’t have to look any further than the headlines to know that women are still being taken advantage of. Headlines announce another influential man is being accused of rape, and we’re quick to blame the ones doing the accusing. Other headlines speak of redistributing sex, because some men are getting violent because they aren’t getting any. If they had sex, they wouldn’t be violent, goes the reasoning. Still other headlines decry human trafficking. According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, there were an estimated 57,700 people in slavery here in the United States.
We’re not any better than they were back then. We’re all fallen, sinful people.
So what do we do? “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).
“When you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” (Matthew 25:40).
Your neighbor, the least of these, the women, the children, the homeless, the imprisoned.
Love them. Protect them. Feed and clothe them. Changing these horrible headlines starts with us.
To start, I’m going to give this concubine a name. I’m going to call her Abigail. It means “my father’s delight.” She deserves that much.
Part one can be found here.