Judges 19:23

_AND THE MAN, THE MASTER OF THE HOUSE, WENT OUT UNTO THEM, AND SAID UNTO THEM, NAY, MY BRETHREN, NAY, I PRAY YOU, DO NOT SO WICKEDLY; SEEING THAT THIS MAN IS COME INTO MINE HOUSE, DO NOT THIS FOLLY._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

THIS MAN IS COME INTO MINE HOUSE - He appeals to the sacred rights of hospitality, just as Lot did Genesis 19:8. Both cases betray painfully the low place in the social scale occupied by woman in the old world, from which it is one of the glories of Christianity to have raised her....

EXPOSITION JUDGES 19:1 WHEN THERE WAS NO KING (Judges 17:6; Judges 18:1; Judges 21:25). It appears from Judges 20:27, Judges 20:28 that the events narrated in these three last chapters of the Book of Judges happened in the lifetime of Phinehas, and while the ark was at Shiloh (see Judges 20:27, note). Phinehas evidently outlived Joshua ...

AND THE MAN, THE MASTER OF THE HOUSE, WENT OUT UNTO THEM,.... Opened the door, and went out to converse with them, and talked them after this manner: AND SAID UNTO THEM, NAY, MY BRETHREN, NAY, I PRAY YOU, DO NOT SO WICKEDLY; it is plain he understood them in such sense, that they meant not bare knowledge of the man, as who he was, c. but to commit wickedness the most abominable so great, that it cannot be well said how great it is; and to dissuade from it, he uses the most tender language, and the most earnest entreaties: SEEING THIS MAN IS COME INTO MY HOUSE, DO NOT THIS FOLLY; he argues from the law of hospitality, which ought not to be infringed; a man being obliged to protect a stranger under his roof; and from the nature of the crime, which was folly, stupidity, and what was abominable to the last degree....

2. ISRAEL'S MORAL CONDITION AND THE WAR ON BENJAMIN CHAPTER 19 The Levite and His Concubine _ 1. The Levite and the unfaithful woman (Judges 19:1)_ 2. The fate of the concubine (Judges 19:22) The results of departure from God are now revealed in the awful corruption and violence so faithfully recorded in this chapter. The moral condition of Israel has gone down to the same level of the Canaanites; they sank even lower than the nations whom God had doomed to destruction. We do not repeat the horrible details of this deed of lust and violence. Apostasy from God, rejection of the truth is followed by moral corruption. Romans 1:26 shows the vileness of the Gentiles, who turned their backs to the

JUDGES 19-21. In the story of the outrage of Gibeah, there is a combination of history and midrash. Hosea (Judges 9:9) makes allusion to the days of Gibeah, as a time of notorious moral depravity in Israel, and the events which he had in view doubtless form the basis of the present chapter. But when Israel is called the congregation (Judges 20:18), when the elders of the congregation are introduced, and when the tribes come automatically together as one man (Judges 20:1; Judges 20:11), making a national army ten times as great as Barak's, it is apparent that this is a modernised version of the story, written in the language of the congregation. It is

THE MAN. Another Lot in another Sodom. WICKEDLY. Hebrew. _ra'a._ App-44....

_Nay, my brethren … wickedly_ Similarly Genesis 19:7. _do not … folly_ This translation is only a makeshift. The Hebr. _nebâlâh_means much more than _folly_; it implies moral insensibility, repudiation of the claims of morality and religion, particularly, in this phrase, an outrage against the laws of nature, Judges 20:6; Judges 20:10; Genesis 34:7, Deu 22:21, 2 Samuel 13:12. In Joshua 7:15 the phrase is used of Achan's iniquity....

The Crime at Gibeah and Its Punishment Judges 19:1 to Judges 21:25 _The Levite and His Concubine Judges 19:1-30_ And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the side of mount Ephraim, who took to him a concubine out of Beth-lehem-judah. 2 And his concubine played the whore against him, and went away from him unto her father's house to Beth-lehem-judah, and was there four whole months. 3 And her husband arose, and went after her, to speak friendly unto her, and to bring her again, having his servant with him, and a couple of asses: and she brought him into her father's house: and when the father of the damsel saw him, he rejoiced to meet

THE WICKEDNESS OF GIBEAH A Levite and his concubine meet with foul treatment at Gibeah, a town of Benjamin. The indignation of the other tribes is roused against the Benjamites. This chapter gives the cause of the war between the rest of the tribes and Benjamin, with which the remainder of Judges is concerned. It is difficult to determine the period to which this war should be assigned. In Judges 20 there is no recognised leader or judge in Israel, but all the tribes (quite differently from elsewhere) act together 'as one man' (Judges 20:1); and the numbers given (Judges 20:2; Judges 20:15) imply a very large population; though an army app