The Levites, Too
Next follows two stories illustrating how the religious leaders join in Israel’s
corruption. In the first story, Micah employs his mother’s wealth to hire a Levite to be a
priest and spiritual father to his household. After a time, the Levite receives a better offer
to serve as a priest for the entire tribe of Dan. He leaves taking with him the graven image,
teraphim, and ephod belonging to Micah. Micah reaps what he sowed in his own theft
from his mother. For dramatic effect, the name of this Levite is not given until the end of
the story. He is Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses (Jgs 18:30). The irony
of Moses’ grandson setting up an idol in the territory of Dan, in the very house of the
Lord at Shiloh where the Ark of the Covenant rests, is shocking. A descendant of Moses
now perpetuates idolatry reminiscent of the golden calf.
The second story is a horrific tale of evil upon evil. It begins with a Levite taking a
concubine from Bethlehem. This location suggests that she is from the tribe of Judah,
which is a serious problem, as Levites were to marry only within the tribe of Levi, a special
requirement for the priestly clan. The Levite’s concubine
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“plays the harlot” against
him (Jgs 19:2). It is worth noting that some translations do not follow the Hebrew text,
instead translating the phrase “she became angry with him.” This translation misses the
fact that harlotry serves as the background, and often the foreground, of the entire story
of Judges.
The Levite reclaims his concubine and on their return journey, in a scene eerily
reminiscent of Lot’s story in Sodom and Gomorrah, the men of Gibeah (which is part of
the tribe of Dan) demand the Levite’s host to give over the Levite that they may sexually
“know” him. Fearing for his own life, the Levite sends his concubine outside into the mob
of depraved men. At daylight, the Levite awakens, having slept in safety, to find his
concubine near death after being violently exploited all night. The scene grows even
darker as the Levite returns home, and the story, with intentional ambiguity, does not
indicate when the concubine dies (on the journey or at the hands of the Levite) but goes
on to tell how the Levite dismembers the woman, cutting her into twelve pieces and
sending the dismembered parts of her body off to the twelve tribes. The Levite’s actions
are a grim echo of the perversion of Israelite sacrificial worship, only now at the hands of
the very tribe entrusted with guarding the purity of that worship.
All the tribes but Dan gather at Mizpah and accept the Levite’s account of the story,
which conveniently leaves out his culpability, and demand justice of the guilty men of
Gibeah. War breaks out, with all the tribes united against Dan. This is the first time in
Judges that all of the tribes unite to fight, but, ironically, they fight against one of their
own people, not the pagan nations around them. When early on the Danites have the
upper hand, the other tribes gather at Bethel and weep, just as at Bochim at the beginning
of Judges, but this time they do not understand why they suffer. The united tribes prevail,
slaughtering Dan’s women and children and leaving the tribe of Dan a remnant of only
six hundred. Judges concludes with Israel’s failure to fight the Amorites, while at the same
time they fight their own brethren, the Danites, to the point of near annihilation.
Regretting their violence against Dan, the tribes decide to wipe out the males of
Jabesh-gilead, since they had not answered the summons to fight against Dan, and Israel
had sworn an oath to kill anyone who refused the call to arms. The tribes then give the
virgins of Jabesh-gilead to the surviving men of Dan to perpetuate
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their tribe. This
still leaves the Danite men short of women, so the Israelites invite the remaining Danites
to the vineyards of Shiloh, where women will soon appear to dance at a night festival kept
to memorialize Jephthah’s daughter from the earlier narrative of Judges (Jgs 11:39–40).
Jephthah’s rash oath is now matched with Israel’s foolish oath. The civil war that had
begun with the outrage of a rape now leads to the rape of six hundred women by the
surviving Danites.
Israel’s anarchic attempt at justice perpetuates injustice and leads to a telling
summary: “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his
own eyes” (Jgs 21:25). Moral blindness and relativism characterize Israel. Israel does not
need mighty men, but men of character and faith. Israel’s infidelity to God is aptly
embodied in the image of harlotry. Israel plays the harlot and will end up like the Levite’s
harlot, tragically raped and dismembered by the pagan nations. The final observation,
that all this happens when there is no king in the land, points to Israel’s need for righteous
leadership and anticipates the continuing story of salvation history.
Interlude: Ruth
The book of Ruth appears as a supplemental book during the period of the Conquest
and Judges, and it is located between Judges and 1 Samuel in the Christian canon of
Scripture. The opening line of Ruth sets its story in the time of the judges: “In the days
when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land” (Ru 1:1). Famine is listed in
Deuteronomy as one of the curses for violating the covenant law, and so Ruth gives us a
picture of Israel suffering covenant chastisement for its sin, sins familiar to any reader of
Judges. In response to the famine, a man from Bethlehem, Elimelech, moves his wife and
two sons east to the land of Moab. Elimelech’s two sons marry Moabite women, a flagrant
violation of the Torah’s injunctions against mixed marriages. Not surprisingly, Elimelech
and his two sons die, suggesting divine disfavor. This leaves Elimelech’s widowed wife,
Naomi, and her two daughters-in-law.
At length, the famine ends, and Naomi heads for home. Ruth, one of her daughters-
in-law, refuses to leave Naomi and wants to adopt her people, her land, and, most
importantly, Naomi’s God. As they return to Bethlehem in poverty,
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Ruth gleans
in the fields of a rich relative of Naomi’s, a man named Boaz. Ruth proves her worth by
her humility and hard work, and catches Boaz’s attention. He ensures that she is treated
well as she gleans the barley harvest behind the reapers. Boaz blesses her for her fidelity to
Naomi and to God, asking that she be rewarded by the Lord “under whose wings [she
has] come to take refuge!” (Ru 2:12). The image of an eagle’s wings, of course, goes back
to God’s promise at Sinai. This echo of the Sinai covenant is poignant, because Ruth, a
foreigner, shows more fidelity to the covenant than many native Israelites.
Boaz marries Ruth, proclaiming that all the people of Bethlehem know she is “a
woman of worth” (Ru 3:11). This same phrase is found in only one other place in
Scripture, Proverbs 31:10, describing the ideal wife. In the Jewish canon of Scripture,
Ruth follows not Judges but Proverbs, thus highlighting Ruth as the embodiment of the
“noble woman.” Ruth and Boaz are blessed with a son whom they name Obed, who will
later have a son named Jesse, who will be the father of David. Ruth, a foreigner, will be
grafted into the line of David, the line of the future messiah.
Thus the story of the Conquest and Judges, which recounts Israel’s increasing cycle
of disobedience, is bookended with the stories of Rahab and Ruth, two foreign women
who are faithful to God. While Israel is going after foreign gods, two foreign women
forsake the gods of their nations and put their trust in the Lord. Ruth, like Rahab,
illustrates that anyone can come to the Lord as long as they put their trust and faith in
him alone. The problem posed by Judges—that there is no king—will find its answer in
the lineage of these two foreign women. Their virtue and faith leads not simply to King
David, but ultimately to the King of kings, Jesus Christ, the Son of David.
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Chapter Six
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