June 3 – The Levite – Judges 19
Today’s story is a horrific one. It begins by a Levite marrying a loose woman. She “plays the whore” after they are married, and she goes back home. He goes to his in-laws house to bring her back home. It seems that he gets along great with his father-in-law. Finally the Levite begins his journey home with his wife. As night is nearing, they begin to set up camp on the side of the road. An older gentleman passing by convinces them to stay at his house for the night. After they had eaten, a group of sodomites surrounded the house and began beating the door. These homosexuals demanded the owner of the house to send out the male guest to commit sexual acts on him. The Levite sends out his wife. The homosexuals commit wicked acts on this lady all night, then let her go. She is able to crawl back to the door step before she dies. The Levite, finding her in the morning, cuts up her body and sends them all over Israel with the message to come help the Levite eliminate such wickedness. In the next chapter, Israel does rise up against the sodomite community and destroys them.
Wow! What can we learn from a story like this?!? It really seems this Levite was callous and insensitive to his wife. There is no way I would send out my wife for this mistreatment! But this story seems to focus on the way the Israelites united in chapter 20 to eliminate wickedness in their country. Here was a group called “men of Belial.” This reveals the importance to identify wickedness as wickedness. We are not to call evil good, or good evil. We are not to tolerate wickedness or evil. Tolerating evil is the first step of accepting evil. After we accept wickedness, we will promote wickedness. We are to see sin as God sees it.
