Introduction
The reprehensible acts of God’s people in Judges 19-21 puzzle many Christian readers today. We find ourselves exhorted by the heroics of the judges and God’s covenant faithfulness to His people despite their continued sin. But when we come to the final chapters of the book, we are bombarded by the horrors of Israel’s lawlessness. Flustered, we begin to scramble for an interpretation by which we may put our minds at ease. The gore of the story can blur our interpretive vision, leading us to lose focus on the leading motif of Scripture: the revelation of the glory of God in the person and work of Christ. There is, however, hope for a faithful Christian reading of Judges 19-21. To refocus our interpretive vision, we must broaden our contextual view of Judges 19-21 so that we can behold Christ as the King of a once unruly people. The first section of this paper will consider the unhelpful interpretive approaches that further confuse the meaning of the text. The second section will provide a solution to this confusion through a contextual consideration of Judges. In the third section, we will briefly consider the law of God as it is revealed in the final chapters of the book. Finally, the last section will apply our contextual solution to Judges 19-21, helping us gaze upon the gospel and the long-awaited King provided in it.
Blurring Our Interpretive Vision
No reasonable person can read the last chapters of Judges without experiencing discomfort from the evils within them. As hard as we may try to prevent it, the brazen wickedness of Israel distracts us in our reading. The rape, murder, and dismemberment of the Levite’s concubine, the civil war that ensued between Benjamin and Israel, and the abduction of virgins of Shiloh all contribute to our blurred interpretive vision. The shock of these events can easily lead us to take some muddle-headed interpretative approaches to the text. Two of these approaches are moralism and feminism. Let us consider both methods of interpretation.
After reading Judges 19-21, we can quickly become driven by our emotions. This leads to many Christian readers resorting to an interpretive framework commonly used today: moralism. Daniel Block asserts that lay readers tend to focus on the heroic figures in Judges, viewing them as models for good Christian character.[1] While it may not be inherently wrong to consider the value of the godly traits of Bible characters, this emphasis indicates moralism at work.
Moralism reduces a given text to a lesson on the dos and don’ts of life. The reader is forced to determine the meaning of a text based on its moral commands or prohibitions. But a moralistic interpretive approach finds challenges in Judges 19-21. The main issue the approach faces comes from the sheer lack of heroes in the story. The resolution to this issue is to turn the passage into an example of what happens when a nation walks away from God. This blurs our interpretive vision because it ignores the original audience of the book and the passage’s deeper redemptive-historical significance. Suffice to say that moralism is an unhelpful approach to Judges 19-21 since it fails in these key areas. While moralism may be unhelpful, there is another interpretive approach just as unhelpful and perhaps more dangerous. This method of interpretation is called feminism.
Some seek to understand Judges 19-21 through the socio-political lens of feminist theology. The abuse of women is a prominent theme throughout the book’s final chapters, and the honest reader cannot help seeing Israel’s misogyny as a troubling characteristic of God’s chosen people. [2] While it is necessary that we acknowledge the corruption of Israel’s men, we must guard against applying the unbiblical and unbalanced framework of feminism to the text. Like other feminist scholars, David Shepherd argues that Judges 19-21 is “illuminated” by feministic-theological conclusions about the nation of Israel during the time of the judges.[3] We must concede that the unruly men of Benjamin could have been restrained by a law-enforcing king. The solution, however, that a feministic-theological framework provides is rather limited in scope. Diagnosing the problem as socio-political, feminism provides a socio-political solution in the institution of Israel’s monarchy.
Admittedly, the need for a new governmental structure is indicated in the text, but this social change was yet another fading solution to Israel’s spiritual poverty. Even feminist theologians recognize the systemic misogyny of Israel and the failure of the monarchy to bring justice to women in the land.[4] But the true source of this national injustice cannot be identified under this framework. The rest of the Old Testament illustrates that the kings of Israel and Judah were guilty of the same misogynistic trends of the men of Israel in the time of the judges. Even the most exemplary king, David, was guilty of objectifying Bathsheba. We must conclude that feminist theology presents a problem too great for it to solve. Thus, one’s interpretive vision is clouded even further. But there is a way for us to regain our vision of this text’s true meaning. Let us take time now to observe the context of Judges 19-21.
Regaining Our Interpretive Vision
Regaining our vision in Judges 19-21 requires that we recall the basics of biblical hermeneutics. Context is one of the fundamental building blocks for a sound interpretation of Scripture.[5] Throughout the history of the church the contextual consideration of a given text has proven useful in the task of biblical interpretation. Like a photographer seeking to find the perfect focus in a camera’s lens, we must broaden our field-of-view to the contexts surrounding Judges 19-21. After this is accomplished, we will provide ourselves with greater interpretive clarity. First, we will consider the place of Judges 19-21 in the book of Judges itself. Second, we will widen our view by recognizing the place of Judges in the Old Testament. Finally, we will zoom out further to see the place of Judges in the whole of Scripture.
Understanding the place of chapters 19-21 in the book of Judges is of utmost importance when we come to interpret the horrible events described at its end. The intended meaning of a Bible passage is uncovered through careful examination of its literary structure. According to J.B. Payne, we can divide Judges into three sections.[6] The first section consists of 1:1-2:5, and it records the events following Joshua’s death. The second section, 2:6-16:31, details the history of the judges and Israel’s need for a leader to guide them into repentance and covenant faithfulness. The third section consists of an appendix in 17:1-21:25. Israel’s infidelity and God’s judgment against them led to the horrible events contained in this final section. On display in the last chapters of the book is the covenant unfaithfulness of God’s people and their disregard for His provision of the Promised Land. The basic function of Judges 19-21 is to show that God’s people had become just like the people of Canaan.[7] This structure orients us around the purpose of the final chapters within the book itself. This purpose is further illuminated when we consider the place of Judges in the rest of the Old Testament.
The Hebrew canon divides the Old Testament into three sections: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. Judges is placed in the section of the Prophets as the second of four Former Prophets. Distinguishing Judges as a book of prophecy reminds us of its use in telling the story of redemptive history. The whole book, even the atrocities in chapters 19-21, are intended to proclaim Israel’s need for a law-abiding king to rule over them.[8] Judges speaks to this in two ways. First, it speaks to the indictment of Israel’s covenant breaking. Second, it speaks as a sermon about the necessity of a king to personally follow and corporately enforce the law of God. Let us zoom out once more to see Judges in the context of the rest of Scripture.
The apostles recognized Judges as both a prophetic and theological telling of Israel’s history. The New Testament writers understood that the point of the book was to communicate the need of a mediator between God and His people.[9] Scripture testifies to the events of Judges and affirms them as Spirit-inspired. In Acts 13:20 the apostle Paul acknowledged the historicity of the book and Israel’s governmental structure in the period of the judges. Hebrews 11:32 even mentions four of the judges by name. These judges, as flawed as they were, demonstrated their trust in God and His promises during the lawless, kingless period in their nation’s history. These New Testament references to the judges help us understand the place of Judges in all of Scripture. In its relation to the redemptive story, Judges is a proclamation of human sinfulness and our just judgment under the law of God. It is a prophetic declaration concerning our need for someone to subdue our lawless hearts and bring them to order. These proclamations and prophecies in Judges find their ultimate ends in the person of Christ as He is revealed in the New Testament.
These contextual considerations guard us from boxing Judges 19-21 into unhelpful frameworks. The context of Judges leads us to recognize a more faithful interpretive framework: a covenantal one. In this covenantal framework, we perceive the incapability of Israel to keep the covenant God made with them at Mount Sinai. This focuses our interpretive vision on the need for a new and better covenant. But as our once blurred vision is now aided by the light of context, let us briefly meditate on God’s law as it is revealed in the book. By doing so, we will achieve a proper orientation in our own hearts and minds as we seek to faithfully read the final chapters of Judges.
Looking to the Law of God
In Judges 19-21, we observe many instances of the people of God breaking God’s law. His moral law was broken when the Gibeonites raped and murdered the Levite’s concubine. Specifically, this sexual immorality demonstrated their breaking of the seventh commandment (Ex. 20:14). The civil law was transgressed when the people of Gibeah failed to show hospitality toward the Levite and his concubine. Hospitality was not shown until another sojourner welcomed them into his home. Though they were not foreigners to their Benjaminite kin, the principles regarding the treatment of sojourners would have applied in their situation (Ex. 22:21; Lev. 19:33; Deut. 10:18-19). The ceremonial law was broken by the Levite’s ritual impurity as a priest of God. Leviticus 8-10 indicates the ceremonial purity required of God’s priests. The Levite’s disregard for this standard of cleanliness in the dismemberment of his wife further shows his apostasy. These brief considerations of the law of God in Judges 19-21 provide a clearer view of Israel’s immorality. In doing what was right in their own eyes, they sinned in the eyes of a holy God.
John Calvin once said, “The law is like a mirror. In it we contemplate our weakness, then the iniquity arising from this, and finally the curse coming from both—just as a mirror shows us the spots on our face.”[10] When we gaze into the pure law of God, we see the wicked reflection of our soul’s deformities. Therefore, when we look at the horrors of Judges 19-21, we must resist the temptation to have a haughty view of God’s people. The appendix of Judges shows us Israel’s need for a good, law-abiding king, but it also shows us our own need for the exact same. Seeing God’s righteous standard as revealed in the Law, the prophetic book of Judges pronounces the peoples’ failure to keep His covenant. But thanks be to God that Judges prophesies, though implicitly, of the Anointed One who would come to keep that which Israel could not. Let us now look in faith toward Christ, who is the true and better priest, Israel, and king of Judges 19-21.
Looking to the Son of God
Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the written word of God reveals the Incarnate Word of God. Our human limitations make us prone to missing the many types of Christ provided for us in the Scriptures. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, our earthbound eyes are often kept from recognizing Jesus (Lk. 24:16). But just as Jesus clarified the blurred vision of those two troubled disciples, He also provides hermeneutical clarity when we come to troubling texts such as Judges 19-21. “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Lk. 24:27). The book of Judges, included in the phrase “all the Prophets,” contains within it the Spirit-inspired message of Christ, who is the true and better priest, Israel, and king.
The author of Judges intended to illustrate the moral decline of God’s people as they continued in their unfaithfulness to His covenant. By chapters 19-21, Israel had become unconcerned with God’s faithfulness and commands.[11] Judges 19 proves that the Levitical priesthood was no exception to this nationwide apostasy. The combination the Levite’s unholy treatment of his concubine and the ritual purity that was required of priests leads us to conclude that he was disqualified from holding any priestly office in Israel.[12] This kind of disregard by the Levite led to many of the oracles against the priests and shepherds of Israel in the Latter Prophets. But the Israelites would not be abandoned under this corrupt priesthood, and neither is the Christian reader who takes up Judges 19 today. For our edification, let us consider how the failings of the Levite point toward Jesus, the true and better priest of God.
The Levite’s neglect of his concubine is gut-wrenching. The concubine, however, was not without her own sin. The text states, “And his concubine was unfaithful to him, and she went away from him to her father’s house at Bethlehem in Judah, and was there some four months” (Jdg. 19:2). Though she was unfaithful to him, the Levite intended to restore her to himself. After showing kindness toward her and starting on their journey home, his compassion quickly changed to cruelty. When the men of Gibeah came beating on the door of their house, the Levite handed his wife over to the hands of lawless men as an act of cowardly self-preservation.
The Levite’s treatment of his wife strongly contrasts Christ’s treatment of His own. Christ’s Bride, the Church, was once His sworn enemy. In Adam, she committed shameless acts of spiritual adultery, reveling in her sin and unfaithfulness to the requirements of God’s law. In His pure mercy and grace, He took on flesh and was born in the city of Bethlehem. He did this to obtain His Bride for Himself. His purpose to redeem her was steadfast through trial unlike that of the Levite. Jesus, the true and better Levite of Judges 19, willingly gave Himself away to lawless men that His Bride might be saved from the wrath of God to come. Accomplishing the will of His Father, He drank of the cup of this wrath so that His Bride might drink of the cup of new covenant mercies. But Christ’s death was not the end of His priesthood.
The Holy Spirit testifies of Christ saying, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 110:4; Heb. 5:6). The resurrected Christ now intercedes for His people in the heavenly tabernacle of God, fulfilling the role that the Levitical priesthood typified in the Old Testament. Where the Levite failed in Judges 19, Christ succeeded. With these humble reflections on the eternal priesthood of Christ fresh in our minds, let us also consider how Israel’s failings in Judges 20 lead us to a clearer view of Christ as the true and better Israel.
Strictly speaking, the civil war that followed the horrors done in Benjamin was not included in Israel’s moral failures. Seeking to ensure they were acting in accordance with the will of God, the Israelites sought His counsel. “‘Shall we go out once more to battle against our brothers, the people of Benjamin, or shall we cease?’ And the Lord said, ‘Go up, for tomorrow I will give them into your hand’” (Jdg. 20:28). While the war was God’s means of bringing judgment on Benjamin, it is necessary to consider the faults of Israel that led to the barefaced wickedness of Gibeah’s men.
By the end of the book of Joshua, the great leader of God’s people had come to the end of his days. God’s conquering of Canaan through Joshua was an act of His grace toward the nation. In it He provided His people with the land He first promised to their father Abraham. They owed to Him their service and honor for His covenant faithfulness. In Joshua 24:14-28, a dialogue was recorded between Joshua and the people of Israel. Joshua told the people, “Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord” (Jos. 24:14). The gods of their fathers were not to be their gods. The Israelites gave their hearty amen and committed themselves to the service of God. Joshua’s response was quite unexpected.
Rather than giving the people false assurance, he informed them of their moral inability to do what they had committed to do (Jos. 24:19-20). But the Israelites simply doubled down on their promise to serve and obey God alone. According to the people, God’s sovereign acts through the Exodus and the conquering of Canaan were enough to convince them of their need for covenant fidelity. Nevertheless, we see the nation of Israel failing to hold up their end of the covenant in Judges 2. God said, “But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done?” (Judg. 2:2) Israel’s resemblance of the people of Canaan was a result of their failure to obey God by driving them and their idols out from the land provided for them.
The failings of Israel point us to the need for Jesus in Judges 20. As the evil remained in the Promised Land, sinfulness festered in the hearts of God’s people.[13] Christ, in the new covenant of grace, functions as the true and better Israel of Judges 20. Instead of conquering the evil outside of His people, He conquers the evil within their own hearts, giving them a new heart and His Spirit by which they may serve the Lord in covenant faithfulness. Unlike Israel’s loss of the tribe of Benjamin, Christ ensures in both His person and work that He will lose none who are truly His (Jn. 6:39). Likewise, He secured a total victory for Himself and His people when, through death, he destroyed Satan (Heb. 2:14-15). This victorious fulfillment of Christ as the true and better Israel is carried along by His kingly office. Let us finally consider how Judges 19-21 points to Christ, the long-awaited King.
Recall the repeated words of the final chapters of Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel” (Judg. 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). Judges 21:25 adds the phrase, “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” This addition indicates that there was a direct connection between Israel’s lack of a king and their lawlessness. Deuteronomy 17 laid out the law’s standards for Israel’s kings, and Judges 19-21 illustrated the need for such a lawful king.[14] But the king’s longevity was conditioned upon his adherence to the stipulations of God’s covenant. This condition proved problematic for Israel and their kings.
As the history of Israel unfolded, it soon became clear that their kings could not measure up to the standard of God’s law. Even David, the king after God’s own heart, was deeply flawed when faced with the law’s demands. But in 2 Samuel 7, God made a covenant with David that a son would come from him and that he would have a kingdom that would never end. From David’s line, a true and better king was promised. According to Arthur Pink, Peter’s point in Acts 2:30 indicated that when Christ sat down at the right hand of the Father, He seated Himself upon the throne of David.[15] The promise in the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7 was fulfilled in Christ Jesus. The void once present on the throne of David because of human sinfulness has been filled in Christ. He is the perfect King of the true Israel of God. He subdues us in our unrighteousness and leads us in accordance with His own righteous keeping of the law.[16] We, as Christian readers of Judges 19-21, do not look beyond the book as if the messianic kingdom were still future. Rather, we recognize the present reality of His rule over all things while we await the full consummation of His glorious reign. Behold, Christ Jesus the Lord—true and better priest, Israel, and king.
Conclusion
We need not fear difficult texts like Judges 19-21. Rather, we should embrace them as Christians, knowing that even the passages that pronounce the depravity of humanity remind us of the cure found in Christ. When considering Judges 19-21, David Schwab aptly put it, “Jesus is the King for whom the text yearns, when it yearns for a covenant-keeping King who leads the nation in true righteousness and holiness.”[17] Let us refocus our hermeneutical eyes on the center of Holy Scripture, Christ the Lord, and may He clarify our blurred interpretive vision by His Spirit as we have our minds renewed in His image. Consider the words of Psalm 2 when the psalmist speaks of the messianic king, “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps. 2:11-12). Those who are united to Christ the King by grace through faith are indeed blessed in the glorious shelter of His redemptive kingdom.
About the Author
Jared Saleeby is an MDiv student at CBTS. He is the happy husband of Ruth Saleeby. The Lord has blessed them with three awesome kids. He serves as one of the pastors at New Covenant Church in Myrtle Beach, SC.
[1] Daniel I. Block, “Judges, Book Of,” ed. Chad Brand et al., Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 962.
[2] Don Michael Hudson, “Living in a Land of Epithets: Anonymity in Judges 19-21,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 19, no. 62 (June 1994): 65.
[3] David Shepherd, “Ruth in the Days of the Judges: Women, Foreignness and Violence,” Biblical Interpretation 26, no. 4–5 (2018): 528–43.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Gordon D. Fee and Douglas K. Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 4th ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 30.
[6] J. B. Payne, “Judges, Book Of,” in New Bible Dictionary, ed. D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer, and D. J. Wiseman, (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 629.
[7] Michael J. Glodo, “Judges,” in A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament, ed. Miles V. Van Pelt, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 180.
[8] Glodo, “Judges,” 177.
[9] Mark F. Rooker, “The Book of Judges,” in The World and the Word: An Introduction to the Old Testament, with Eugene H. Merrill and Michael A. Grisanti. (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2011), 298.
[10] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill and trans. Ford Lewis Battles, The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 1 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 355.
[11] Kimberly Dickson, “Rape, Dismemberment, and Chaos in Judges 19–21,” Priscilla Papers 36, no. 1 (2022): 4.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Glodo, “Judges,” 180.
[14] David Schrock, “Jesus’ Kingly Office,” in Lexham Survey of Theology, ed. Mark Ward, Jessica Parks, Brannon Ellis, and Todd Hains, (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press. 2018), Logos, n.p.
[15] Arthur W. Pink, The Divine Covenants, (Memphis, TN: Bottom of the Hill Publishing, 2011) 184.
[16] Glodo, “Judges,” 199.
[17] George M. Schwab, Right in Their Own Eyes: The Gospel According to the Book of Judges, ed. Tremper Longman III, The Gospel According to the Old Testament, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2011), 215.
This blog post is authored by a student of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary.
