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tinpraIf you missed my previous posting, I am writing a (hopefully) brief series of essays in response to a YouTube video that supposedly lays out the dirty truth behind what a Biblical marriage really is. In the course of the video approximately fifteen examples of marriages are brought up, each one completely outrageous and jaw-dropping if you’ve never heard of them. Each one is also actually in the Bible. However most of them are not examples of a Biblical marriage. If you’ve read this already, skip ahead to the essay.
What does “biblical” mean? Well it can mean “Of, relating to, or contained in the Bible” as defined in TheFreeDictionary.com. Basically anything that’s in the book regardless of its nature.
Biblical also means “Pious; reverencing God, and his character and laws; obedient to the commands of God from love for, and reverence of, his character; conformed to God's law; devout; righteous; as, a godly life.” from BrainyQuote.com. This, I think, is the meaning that most of us have in mind when we talk about something being biblical: that it reflects the character and precepts of God as set forth in the Bible. Godly.
Just because something is in the Bible (the first definition) doesn’t mean that it is in fact biblical (the second definition). The Bible doesn’t just show you what you’re supposed to do and then give examples of people who did them, the Bible shows us people in their real lives doing real things. Often real crazy, downright outrageous things. Because that’s what real people do. Just because someone lives their life in the heart of Crazy Town, however, doesn’t mean we make them the new standard for living. Usually we use it as an object lesson of what not to do. Why? Because it’s an indication of a wild deviation from the standard, whatever that standard is. And we know they’re deviating from a standard because when there is no standard, there can be no deviation, and where there’s no possibility for deviation you can never have shocking, outrageous behavior.
And so I am compelled to make the distinction between the marriages in the Bible, as mentioned in the YouTube vid, versus what a biblical marriage actually is.
In my previous essays I tackled the statements made in the video that a biblical marriage is one man, his wife, and their murderous son (Adam, Eve and Cain); one man and his sister (Abraham and Sarah,) and and the help (Abraham, Sarah, and Haggai); and one man and his table salt-wife (Lot and Mrs. Lot).
For this essay I’ll be looking at the statement made in the Betty Bowers video that a biblical marriage is between “one man, [and] a gal who’s kidnapped and raped right after her brother, father, mother and slutty sister have been slaughtered.” This is also known as the story of how wives were provided for the tribe of Benjamin after they had been nearly wiped out in a civil war.
But we can’t start there. That story all by its lonesome is bad enough, trust me, but starting there would be like coming in for the last half hour of a 2-hour movie. Sure you get the big bang and enough storyline to make what you’re seeing interesting, but you don’t know what’s actually going.
400 Virgin Brides Who Deserved Better (Or Mrs. Levite Starts a War)
So what’s going on? It all starts with a Levite (a man from the tribe of Levi, the tribe from which the priests came) and his concubine. A concubine was something like a wife, but not exactly. She may not have been a wife because she was of very low status, because her family couldn’t provide a dowry, or because she couldn’t set up a household for whatever reason. It’s important to know, however, that this is the only woman in this Levite’s life as far as we know. You’ll see in lots of places, especially where it concerns the kings, that it wasn’t uncommon for a man to have a wife and a concubine during biblical times.
This was not in God’s plan. How do we know? Because there’s not a single place in the Bible where a man with more than one wife, or a wife and a concubine, has a good home life—not that I can think of at least. The man and the women might be good people, overall, but they have oh...so...many problems, and they’re almost always to do with family dynamics. We’ve already seen it with Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, where Sarah was Abraham’s wife and Hagar became Abraham’s concubine.
The Levite isn’t quite in that kind of multi-partner situation, however. There’s no competition for the guy’s affections here. So even though she isn’t a full wife, we’re going to call this woman Mrs. Levite because she might as well be for our purposes.
When our story opens, the Levite and Mrs. Levite have had a serious argument over Mrs. Levite sleeping around, so she’s gone back home to Dad. After a while the Levite decides to take the high road in the situation and forgive her. He goes to his father-in-law’s house to win Mrs. Levite back. Sounds like a decent guy, doesn’t he? (Judges 19:1-10, AMP) Keep reading.
Anyway, the Levite wins her over and she agrees to go back home with him. For whatever reason, though, her father doesn’t want them to go. Perhaps acting out of ancient Eastern hospitality customs, he invites them to stay for the evening meal and over night. Then the next morning he invites them to stay for breakfast. This quickly turns into five days of going nowhere slow. Finally, after the Levite has had enough, he tells his father-in-law that they are absolutely, positively, going home. And they do. But it was already late when they started back so it wasn’t too long before they needed to stop for the night. Had the Levite and Mrs. Levite left earlier in the day, this might not have been an issue. They might have been able to press on all the way home, or perhaps have stopped someplace closer to where they lived that was more familiar to them. As it was, they ended up in a town that belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. (Judges 19:11-14, AMP)
At this point the Levite does something that’s seems strange to modern Westerners, but was normal in his time: He sits in the town square and waits for someone to offer him and Mrs. Levite a place to stay. At the time, there were no hotels or inns for travelers, so people would hang out by the city gate or at the town square waiting for a local to offer them shelter. This was totally normal. It was an inconvenience to the person who offered, yes, but it wasn’t strange either. In fact, it was a welcome inconvenience. It would be like someone offering their seat to a pregnant woman or an elderly person on a public bus/train. It inconveniences the person who is giving up their seat, but it’s expected in society that someone will at least make the offer, and the person giving up their seat is happy to do so.
No one offers the Levite a place to stay. No one, that is is, until an older man happened to be from the same place where the Levite was currently living offered to take everyone in for the night. Usually this would also mean that the person would have to feed them and take care of them, but the Levite quickly explains that he’s came prepared with everything they would need...except shelter. (Judges 19:16-21, AMP)
And here is where it all begins to crash, burn and then burn again.
Remember in the story of Lot and Mrs. Lot, how the men of Sodom wanted Lot to give them his guests (angels from God) so they could have sex with them? This is what happens to the Levite, Mrs. Levite and their servant, but it’s the townspeople of this Israelite town owned by the tribe of Benjamin (also known as Benjamites for short, like Canadians = citizens Canada). And like the story of Lot, the nice old man from Ephraim who takes them in offers his virgin daughter to the rape-happy mob instead—along with Mrs. Levite! It’s bad enough to offer your own child, but to throw someone else’s wife to the wolves? What makes it crazier is that (a) the mob is made up of fellow Israelites, and (b) the Levite totally throws Mrs. Levite under the bus! Sure the old man offers her to the gang-rape mob, but it’s the Levite that pushes her out the door and tells them to have their way with her. All night they gang rape her, until dawn when they let her go. She staggers back to the house where they’re staying, and falls down dead, her hands on the threshold.
The Levite gets up, opens the door, and finds Mrs. Lot’s body there. The callous jerk (because he has totally lost his Nice Guy points from earlier, at least in my personal esteem) demands that she get up so they can go home, but, of course, she’s dead so she doesn’t get up. The Levite puts her body on the back of his donkey and heads home with her and his servant. (Judges 19:26-28, AMP)
Pretty freakin’ awful, right? Does any of this sound particularly godly? Not at all, right?
But wait, it gets worse.
When the Levite gets home later that day, he cuts up Mrs. Levite’s body into twelve parts and sends them to the other tribes. As you can imagine, everyone is in an uproar, especially since he hasn’t explained what happened A huge council of leaders and fighting men get together to find out what all this means. You can imagine how sending a dead woman’s body parts throughout the nation could freak people out and get them mobilized. The Levite tells his story: The house I was staying in was attacked, my concubine was raped and killed, and so I’ve sent you her body to show you just how heinous this all is, especially since this wasn’t done by strangers but by one of our own tribes. ”What happens now?”
Great question! The council’s initial decision was that they would go straight to the city where this had happened, Gibeah, and surround it to handle the gang-rapists. They would also send men throughout the tribe of Benjamin to persuade them to give up the men who had committed the horrible crime, so that they could be sentenced to death. (Judges 20:9-11, MSG)
Except Benjamin wouldn’t do it. They won’t give up the guys who attacked the Levite and his concubine, even though the Bible describes them as worthless fellows. Which is just horrible! There’s a whole town full of witnesses to a crime committed worthless men and you won’t give them up?
As you can imagine, none of the council is happy with this verdict. To top it off, Benjamin was so pissy about the council’s demands that they get a war party together to back the wicked men of Gibeah! Even though it was their people who were in the wrong. So the rest of Israel got ready to fight, too. (Judges 20:14-17)
Now here’s the one bright spot in the entire story: Before going to battle against Benjamin and starting a civil war, Israel sought advice from God about whether they should fight and which tribe should go first. God gave them the okay...and they totally failed the first day. So they went back to God, who told them to go fight...and they totally failed the second day. So they fasted and prayed and wept and made sacrifices to God, because they really didn’t want to lose for a 3rd day even with their superior force, and God promised them that he would give Benjamin to them in battle. Which is actually the first time he promises that they will win in the 3 times they seek out God. The Bible is silent as to why God didn’t guarantee victory the first or second time Israel faced Benjamin. This is also the only time that anyone, including the Levite who comes from the priestly tribe, seeks God’s advice.
So Israel goes up against Benjamin, and after some fierce and tricksy fighting, they do indeed win the battle. But with heavy, heavy costs, particularly to Benjamin. This is also the end of the bright spot in this story. If you’re saying to yourself, That wasn’t much of a bright spot, then you are mentally on target for how much more messed up the rest of this story is about to get. Oh yes, it gets worse.
Apparently while the council was still meeting, before they went to Gibeah and sent messengers to Benjamin, they had all decided that none of them would allow women from their tribes to marry into Benjamin. The decision had been made when tempers were high, and all the fighting men were still alive. Now that Benjamin was decimated (which included the people of Gibeah, not just the fighters), and tempers had cooled, the council felt that their decision was too harsh. Except everyone had made that vow. What were they going to do?
Make a bad, bad decision, that’s what. It started off pretty good sounding: The battle is over, lets bring Benjamin back into the family of Israel. And just as they had when they were losing the battle, the Israelites cried out to God about the awful situation.
But that’s all they did. Somehow they forgot to actually wait for a reply from God. Have you ever had someone ask for something of yours and, in the process of asking, simultaneously take it? You haven’t said whether they can or can’t have your property, but somehow they feel that the very act of asking gives them permission. That’s basically what the council did here. They asked God what to do about their fellow Israelites who had lost so many people and weren’t going to be getting any new ones, they offer sacrifices to God...and then they act on the plan they already have in mind. They’re doing it out of compassion for Benjamin, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually a good idea.
And what is this not-a-good-idea? Why it’s the Betty Bowers example! Which doesn’t even fully capture the absolute horror of what happened.
The council takes a headcount to figure out which tribe/town didn’t come to the original council meeting, and so didn’t make the vow against allowing women to marry into Benjamin, and didn’t fight against Benjamin with everyone else. The people of Jabesh-Gilead apparently were the only slackers who weren’t utterly horrified by having pieces of Mrs. Levite sent to them in the mail.
(And please remember what started all of this: Mrs. Levite died after being gang raped to death by Benjamites who wouldn’t give her and her husband a place to stay for the night as a basic sign of ancient hospitality.)
The council came up with a plan (and if you’ve ever been a fan of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, those words should already have you shaking your head). They sent out 12,000 fighters to kill all the males, all the married/widowed women, and the children of Jabesh-Gilead leaving only the never-married young women behind. Who were then given to the remaining Benjamites as wives. (Judges 21:10-14, MSG)
I have to agree with the Betty Bowers video here: that is abso-freaking-lotuly insane!
More importantly, it wasn’t at all sanctioned by God. Remember, the council complained/lamented to God, but they never waited to see what he had to say about it.
But wait, it gets worse. Yeah. Worse.
Apparently, the poor 400 girls who have been kidnapped and had their families slaughtered aren’t enough for the Benjamites! Nope, their still about two hundred wives short. So what’s the next plan (for which they don’t even bother sending up a token prayer to God this time)? The remaining Benjamite men would wait until the yearly feast of the Lord at Shiloh, and hide in the vineyards during the celebration. Any of the girls who came out to dance in celebration—something that apparently only unmarried women did—could then be captured by the Benjamite men and stolen for wives. What about their families, you ask? Well, if their families came to the council to complain, they would be asked to be gracious to the Benjamites (who had started the civil war by not giving up to the authorities the men who had tried to attack a man and his guests, then gang raped the guest’s wife until she died!) because so many of their number had died in battle without thought of their future; this way the tribe of Benjamin would be provided for without the other tribes breaking their vow. (Judges 21:16, 19-22, NIV)
For real, people?! This sounds like a good idea?! Apparently it did, because that’s exactly what the Benjamite men did. Seriously, this is the kind of thing that if it happened in a modern age there would have been people yelling at their televisions, quickly followed by protests in the streets because that’s how off-the-wall this is.
It so happens that this story ends the book of Judges. The very last verse of the book is “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25, AMP), which is nearly the same verse this story starts with. It doesn’t say and even though there was no king in Israel, the people sought out God’s advice and walked in that. No, each person did what s/he thought was right. For some 400 girls that meant becoming the brides of wicked men who wouldn’t give up a group of gang rapists, after their own families had been murdered in front of them. For another 200 or so girls, it meant being stolen from their families to be married off to those same men. As one of the commentators I read said, how ironic is it that the Benjamites get wives through violence and rape, which was the reason so many of them had been killed in the first place. The only time God is sought out is when the council is first trying to figure out should they fight Benjamin (yes), and should they keep fighting even though they were losing (yes). After that the people make up their own minds about what to do, and it’s completely and utter chaos.
Does any of that sound like a godly marriage? As a matter of fact, God wasn’t consulted about any of these marriages. The last the Israelites heard, God wanted Benjamin to be decimated. What he was going to do about Benjamin after that? Who knows. Maybe absorb them into the rest of Israel. Maybe younger sons from Israel would be allowed change tribes and join Benjamin, perhaps with their own young families, to give the rebellious tribe new blood. We’ll never know. Certainly the track that the council ended up taking wasn’t of God. As I mentioned earlier, they cried out to God about the situation but no one ever waited long enough to see what God’s response would be. They made their offerings and went away. Unlike the previous time they’d made offering, and then waited to hear from God.
So then is a marriage between “one man, [and] a gal who’s kidnapped and raped right after her brother, father, mother and slutty sister have been slaughtered” in the Bible? Yes. And what a crazy, hellish ride that was. But is it biblical, where we mean of God? Absolutely not.
Next essay: David and aaaaaaaaall his women. All’em. All of them. Sorta.
What does “biblical” mean? Well it can mean “Of, relating to, or contained in the Bible” as defined in TheFreeDictionary.com. Basically anything that’s in the book regardless of its nature.
Biblical also means “Pious; reverencing God, and his character and laws; obedient to the commands of God from love for, and reverence of, his character; conformed to God's law; devout; righteous; as, a godly life.” from BrainyQuote.com. This, I think, is the meaning that most of us have in mind when we talk about something being biblical: that it reflects the character and precepts of God as set forth in the Bible. Godly.
Just because something is in the Bible (the first definition) doesn’t mean that it is in fact biblical (the second definition). The Bible doesn’t just show you what you’re supposed to do and then give examples of people who did them, the Bible shows us people in their real lives doing real things. Often real crazy, downright outrageous things. Because that’s what real people do. Just because someone lives their life in the heart of Crazy Town, however, doesn’t mean we make them the new standard for living. Usually we use it as an object lesson of what not to do. Why? Because it’s an indication of a wild deviation from the standard, whatever that standard is. And we know they’re deviating from a standard because when there is no standard, there can be no deviation, and where there’s no possibility for deviation you can never have shocking, outrageous behavior.
And so I am compelled to make the distinction between the marriages in the Bible, as mentioned in the YouTube vid, versus what a biblical marriage actually is.
In my previous essays I tackled the statements made in the video that a biblical marriage is one man, his wife, and their murderous son (Adam, Eve and Cain); one man and his sister (Abraham and Sarah,) and and the help (Abraham, Sarah, and Haggai); and one man and his table salt-wife (Lot and Mrs. Lot).
For this essay I’ll be looking at the statement made in the Betty Bowers video that a biblical marriage is between “one man, [and] a gal who’s kidnapped and raped right after her brother, father, mother and slutty sister have been slaughtered.” This is also known as the story of how wives were provided for the tribe of Benjamin after they had been nearly wiped out in a civil war.
But we can’t start there. That story all by its lonesome is bad enough, trust me, but starting there would be like coming in for the last half hour of a 2-hour movie. Sure you get the big bang and enough storyline to make what you’re seeing interesting, but you don’t know what’s actually going.
400 Virgin Brides Who Deserved Better (Or Mrs. Levite Starts a War)
So what’s going on? It all starts with a Levite (a man from the tribe of Levi, the tribe from which the priests came) and his concubine. A concubine was something like a wife, but not exactly. She may not have been a wife because she was of very low status, because her family couldn’t provide a dowry, or because she couldn’t set up a household for whatever reason. It’s important to know, however, that this is the only woman in this Levite’s life as far as we know. You’ll see in lots of places, especially where it concerns the kings, that it wasn’t uncommon for a man to have a wife and a concubine during biblical times.
This was not in God’s plan. How do we know? Because there’s not a single place in the Bible where a man with more than one wife, or a wife and a concubine, has a good home life—not that I can think of at least. The man and the women might be good people, overall, but they have oh...so...many problems, and they’re almost always to do with family dynamics. We’ve already seen it with Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, where Sarah was Abraham’s wife and Hagar became Abraham’s concubine.
The Levite isn’t quite in that kind of multi-partner situation, however. There’s no competition for the guy’s affections here. So even though she isn’t a full wife, we’re going to call this woman Mrs. Levite because she might as well be for our purposes.
When our story opens, the Levite and Mrs. Levite have had a serious argument over Mrs. Levite sleeping around, so she’s gone back home to Dad. After a while the Levite decides to take the high road in the situation and forgive her. He goes to his father-in-law’s house to win Mrs. Levite back. Sounds like a decent guy, doesn’t he? (Judges 19:1-10, AMP) Keep reading.
Anyway, the Levite wins her over and she agrees to go back home with him. For whatever reason, though, her father doesn’t want them to go. Perhaps acting out of ancient Eastern hospitality customs, he invites them to stay for the evening meal and over night. Then the next morning he invites them to stay for breakfast. This quickly turns into five days of going nowhere slow. Finally, after the Levite has had enough, he tells his father-in-law that they are absolutely, positively, going home. And they do. But it was already late when they started back so it wasn’t too long before they needed to stop for the night. Had the Levite and Mrs. Levite left earlier in the day, this might not have been an issue. They might have been able to press on all the way home, or perhaps have stopped someplace closer to where they lived that was more familiar to them. As it was, they ended up in a town that belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. (Judges 19:11-14, AMP)
At this point the Levite does something that’s seems strange to modern Westerners, but was normal in his time: He sits in the town square and waits for someone to offer him and Mrs. Levite a place to stay. At the time, there were no hotels or inns for travelers, so people would hang out by the city gate or at the town square waiting for a local to offer them shelter. This was totally normal. It was an inconvenience to the person who offered, yes, but it wasn’t strange either. In fact, it was a welcome inconvenience. It would be like someone offering their seat to a pregnant woman or an elderly person on a public bus/train. It inconveniences the person who is giving up their seat, but it’s expected in society that someone will at least make the offer, and the person giving up their seat is happy to do so.
No one offers the Levite a place to stay. No one, that is is, until an older man happened to be from the same place where the Levite was currently living offered to take everyone in for the night. Usually this would also mean that the person would have to feed them and take care of them, but the Levite quickly explains that he’s came prepared with everything they would need...except shelter. (Judges 19:16-21, AMP)
And here is where it all begins to crash, burn and then burn again.
Remember in the story of Lot and Mrs. Lot, how the men of Sodom wanted Lot to give them his guests (angels from God) so they could have sex with them? This is what happens to the Levite, Mrs. Levite and their servant, but it’s the townspeople of this Israelite town owned by the tribe of Benjamin (also known as Benjamites for short, like Canadians = citizens Canada). And like the story of Lot, the nice old man from Ephraim who takes them in offers his virgin daughter to the rape-happy mob instead—along with Mrs. Levite! It’s bad enough to offer your own child, but to throw someone else’s wife to the wolves? What makes it crazier is that (a) the mob is made up of fellow Israelites, and (b) the Levite totally throws Mrs. Levite under the bus! Sure the old man offers her to the gang-rape mob, but it’s the Levite that pushes her out the door and tells them to have their way with her. All night they gang rape her, until dawn when they let her go. She staggers back to the house where they’re staying, and falls down dead, her hands on the threshold.
The Levite gets up, opens the door, and finds Mrs. Lot’s body there. The callous jerk (because he has totally lost his Nice Guy points from earlier, at least in my personal esteem) demands that she get up so they can go home, but, of course, she’s dead so she doesn’t get up. The Levite puts her body on the back of his donkey and heads home with her and his servant. (Judges 19:26-28, AMP)
Pretty freakin’ awful, right? Does any of this sound particularly godly? Not at all, right?
But wait, it gets worse.
When the Levite gets home later that day, he cuts up Mrs. Levite’s body into twelve parts and sends them to the other tribes. As you can imagine, everyone is in an uproar, especially since he hasn’t explained what happened A huge council of leaders and fighting men get together to find out what all this means. You can imagine how sending a dead woman’s body parts throughout the nation could freak people out and get them mobilized. The Levite tells his story: The house I was staying in was attacked, my concubine was raped and killed, and so I’ve sent you her body to show you just how heinous this all is, especially since this wasn’t done by strangers but by one of our own tribes. ”What happens now?”
Great question! The council’s initial decision was that they would go straight to the city where this had happened, Gibeah, and surround it to handle the gang-rapists. They would also send men throughout the tribe of Benjamin to persuade them to give up the men who had committed the horrible crime, so that they could be sentenced to death. (Judges 20:9-11, MSG)
Except Benjamin wouldn’t do it. They won’t give up the guys who attacked the Levite and his concubine, even though the Bible describes them as worthless fellows. Which is just horrible! There’s a whole town full of witnesses to a crime committed worthless men and you won’t give them up?
As you can imagine, none of the council is happy with this verdict. To top it off, Benjamin was so pissy about the council’s demands that they get a war party together to back the wicked men of Gibeah! Even though it was their people who were in the wrong. So the rest of Israel got ready to fight, too. (Judges 20:14-17)
Now here’s the one bright spot in the entire story: Before going to battle against Benjamin and starting a civil war, Israel sought advice from God about whether they should fight and which tribe should go first. God gave them the okay...and they totally failed the first day. So they went back to God, who told them to go fight...and they totally failed the second day. So they fasted and prayed and wept and made sacrifices to God, because they really didn’t want to lose for a 3rd day even with their superior force, and God promised them that he would give Benjamin to them in battle. Which is actually the first time he promises that they will win in the 3 times they seek out God. The Bible is silent as to why God didn’t guarantee victory the first or second time Israel faced Benjamin. This is also the only time that anyone, including the Levite who comes from the priestly tribe, seeks God’s advice.
So Israel goes up against Benjamin, and after some fierce and tricksy fighting, they do indeed win the battle. But with heavy, heavy costs, particularly to Benjamin. This is also the end of the bright spot in this story. If you’re saying to yourself, That wasn’t much of a bright spot, then you are mentally on target for how much more messed up the rest of this story is about to get. Oh yes, it gets worse.
Apparently while the council was still meeting, before they went to Gibeah and sent messengers to Benjamin, they had all decided that none of them would allow women from their tribes to marry into Benjamin. The decision had been made when tempers were high, and all the fighting men were still alive. Now that Benjamin was decimated (which included the people of Gibeah, not just the fighters), and tempers had cooled, the council felt that their decision was too harsh. Except everyone had made that vow. What were they going to do?
Make a bad, bad decision, that’s what. It started off pretty good sounding: The battle is over, lets bring Benjamin back into the family of Israel. And just as they had when they were losing the battle, the Israelites cried out to God about the awful situation.
But that’s all they did. Somehow they forgot to actually wait for a reply from God. Have you ever had someone ask for something of yours and, in the process of asking, simultaneously take it? You haven’t said whether they can or can’t have your property, but somehow they feel that the very act of asking gives them permission. That’s basically what the council did here. They asked God what to do about their fellow Israelites who had lost so many people and weren’t going to be getting any new ones, they offer sacrifices to God...and then they act on the plan they already have in mind. They’re doing it out of compassion for Benjamin, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually a good idea.
And what is this not-a-good-idea? Why it’s the Betty Bowers example! Which doesn’t even fully capture the absolute horror of what happened.
The council takes a headcount to figure out which tribe/town didn’t come to the original council meeting, and so didn’t make the vow against allowing women to marry into Benjamin, and didn’t fight against Benjamin with everyone else. The people of Jabesh-Gilead apparently were the only slackers who weren’t utterly horrified by having pieces of Mrs. Levite sent to them in the mail.
(And please remember what started all of this: Mrs. Levite died after being gang raped to death by Benjamites who wouldn’t give her and her husband a place to stay for the night as a basic sign of ancient hospitality.)
The council came up with a plan (and if you’ve ever been a fan of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, those words should already have you shaking your head). They sent out 12,000 fighters to kill all the males, all the married/widowed women, and the children of Jabesh-Gilead leaving only the never-married young women behind. Who were then given to the remaining Benjamites as wives. (Judges 21:10-14, MSG)
I have to agree with the Betty Bowers video here: that is abso-freaking-lotuly insane!
More importantly, it wasn’t at all sanctioned by God. Remember, the council complained/lamented to God, but they never waited to see what he had to say about it.
But wait, it gets worse. Yeah. Worse.
Apparently, the poor 400 girls who have been kidnapped and had their families slaughtered aren’t enough for the Benjamites! Nope, their still about two hundred wives short. So what’s the next plan (for which they don’t even bother sending up a token prayer to God this time)? The remaining Benjamite men would wait until the yearly feast of the Lord at Shiloh, and hide in the vineyards during the celebration. Any of the girls who came out to dance in celebration—something that apparently only unmarried women did—could then be captured by the Benjamite men and stolen for wives. What about their families, you ask? Well, if their families came to the council to complain, they would be asked to be gracious to the Benjamites (who had started the civil war by not giving up to the authorities the men who had tried to attack a man and his guests, then gang raped the guest’s wife until she died!) because so many of their number had died in battle without thought of their future; this way the tribe of Benjamin would be provided for without the other tribes breaking their vow. (Judges 21:16, 19-22, NIV)
For real, people?! This sounds like a good idea?! Apparently it did, because that’s exactly what the Benjamite men did. Seriously, this is the kind of thing that if it happened in a modern age there would have been people yelling at their televisions, quickly followed by protests in the streets because that’s how off-the-wall this is.
It so happens that this story ends the book of Judges. The very last verse of the book is “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25, AMP), which is nearly the same verse this story starts with. It doesn’t say and even though there was no king in Israel, the people sought out God’s advice and walked in that. No, each person did what s/he thought was right. For some 400 girls that meant becoming the brides of wicked men who wouldn’t give up a group of gang rapists, after their own families had been murdered in front of them. For another 200 or so girls, it meant being stolen from their families to be married off to those same men. As one of the commentators I read said, how ironic is it that the Benjamites get wives through violence and rape, which was the reason so many of them had been killed in the first place. The only time God is sought out is when the council is first trying to figure out should they fight Benjamin (yes), and should they keep fighting even though they were losing (yes). After that the people make up their own minds about what to do, and it’s completely and utter chaos.
Does any of that sound like a godly marriage? As a matter of fact, God wasn’t consulted about any of these marriages. The last the Israelites heard, God wanted Benjamin to be decimated. What he was going to do about Benjamin after that? Who knows. Maybe absorb them into the rest of Israel. Maybe younger sons from Israel would be allowed change tribes and join Benjamin, perhaps with their own young families, to give the rebellious tribe new blood. We’ll never know. Certainly the track that the council ended up taking wasn’t of God. As I mentioned earlier, they cried out to God about the situation but no one ever waited long enough to see what God’s response would be. They made their offerings and went away. Unlike the previous time they’d made offering, and then waited to hear from God.
So then is a marriage between “one man, [and] a gal who’s kidnapped and raped right after her brother, father, mother and slutty sister have been slaughtered” in the Bible? Yes. And what a crazy, hellish ride that was. But is it biblical, where we mean of God? Absolutely not.
Next essay: David and aaaaaaaaall his women. All’em. All of them. Sorta.