Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 19:27
And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and, behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down [at] the door of the house, and her hands [were] upon the threshold.
27. With instinctive art the Hebrew story-teller leaves much to the imagination (cf. Jdg 11:39); but at the end of the verse he adds a detail which betrays the pathos of the tragedy.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The posture either of one that had fallen down, or of one that was laid down to sleep, her hands or arms (for the Hebrew word signifies both) leaning upon the threshold and being put under her head; and therefore he thought to awake her, and raise her up.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And her lord rose up in the morning,…. Very early no doubt, and it is scarcely reasonable to think he should sleep quietly after such a riot, and his concubine or wife delivered up to the lust of such brutish creatures:
and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way; either in search of her, or rather to make the best of his way on his journey, to preserve his own life, having given her up for lost:
and, behold the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold; in a posture that persons are when they fall, stretching out their hands to save themselves what they can; or of such who lay themselves down to sleep with their hands under their heads, and which her husband thought was her case, by what follows.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(27) Her hands were upon the threshold.As though they had been stretched out towards her husband in one last agony of appeal (Vulg., sparsis in limine cnanibus).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Jdg 19:27 a
‘And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way.’
Once he was satisfied that the crowd had gone, and unaware of what had happened to his wife, but realising that her non-return probably meant that he would never see her again, the Levite decided to make his escape as quickly as he could. He had presumably been up all night wondering what was happening and hoping to hear his wife’s knock on the door. He may well have thought that, in view of her past behaviour, she had chosen to go off with the men.
The affair does not reflect well on him but he was at least glad to be alive and knew that he had to make his escape before the men came back. The reference to him as ‘her lord’ may reflect the writer’s disapproval of his behaviour. As her lord he should have watched over her interests. Alternately it may mean that the writer agreed with the behaviour that had made ‘her lord’, the important one, escape maltreatment.
Jdg 19:27 b
‘And behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold.’
Her posture suggests that she had almost made it. Her hands were on the very threshhold. When he found her there he clearly thought she was asleep, and his heart was probably lightened. He was a good enough man not to believe that men could be so evil as these men had been.
“With her hands on the threshold” may indicate that she had almost made it, or that as she collapsed she had vainly reached out for help. She had almost reached shelter, but had not had the strength for the final attempt. It had been too late.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jdg 19:27 And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and, behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down [at] the door of the house, and her hands [were] upon the threshold.
Ver. 27. The woman his concubine was fallen down. ] As Jdg 19:26 . Like as she sinned, so she suffered: Per quod quis peccat, &c. See Heb 13:4 . And let the guilty that go yet unpunished make an end of all in God’s privy chamber of mercy by repentance, that so his open judicial proceeding in court may be stopped.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Reciprocal: Jdg 19:26 – her lord was
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jdg 19:27-28. Went out to go his way Concluding, without doubt, that the Gibeathites had conveyed away his concubine, and would keep her, and therefore he hasted home to take proper measures for the recovery of her; as we find he did afterward to revenge her death. He said unto her, Up, and let us be going He thought she was only asleep, and the unexpected surprise of seeing her, and his haste to get out of this inhospitable place, might make him express himself in this manner.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Levite’s reaction to the atrocity 19:27-30
"It is not only the action of the men of Gibeah which reveals the abysmally low moral standards of the age; the indifference of the Levite who prepared to depart in the morning without any apparent concern to ascertain the fate of his concubine, and his curt, unfeeling command when he saw her lying on the threshold (27, 28), these show that, in spite of his religion, he was devoid of the finer emotions. The sense of outrage does not appear to have influenced him until he realized that she was dead, when he lifted her body on to one of the asses and continued his journey." [Note: Cundall and Morris, p. 198.]
"That the woman is put on a donkey recalls Jdg 1:14, where the woman Achsah is also riding on a donkey. The two scenes form a tragic envelope-structure for the book of Judges. Whereas Achsah is an active subject, stating her desire for ’a present’ or ’a blessing’ from her father, and getting it, the Levite’s concubine remains nameless and without a voice. Whereas Achsah prospers, the Levite’s concubine is tragically victimized. This envelope-structure is part of the larger pattern in the book of Judges. The progressive deterioration that starts with Gideon and reaches its nadir in Judges 17-21 is signaled in part by the increasing violence against women . . . It is the case, then and now, that the disease of a society manifests itself in the abuse of women." [Note: McCann, p. 131.]
As soon as he arrived home the Levite callously cut his concubine into 12 pieces, as one would slaughter an animal (Exo 29:17; Lev 1:6; Lev 1:12; Lev 8:20). It is possible that he murdered her here. He later described what happened as though she was already dead when he cut her up (Jdg 20:5-6), but we wonder if we can believe him in view of how the writer painted his character. He may have committed murder in a fit of rage over the indignity to his honor that the men of Gibeah’s treatment of his concubine involved. This shows his further disrespect for his wife. In that culture the treatment people gave a corpse reflected their respect, or lack of respect, for the dead person. He should have given her a proper burial. Instead he sent one piece of her body to each of the Israelite tribes explaining what had happened and calling on them to take action. King Saul later summoned the tribes for war with a similar act involving an animal (1Sa 11:7).
"Sending the dissected pieces of the corpse to the tribes was a symbolic act, by which the crime committed upon the murdered woman was placed before the eyes of the whole nation, to summon it to punish the crime . . ." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, p. 446.]
The Israelites perceived this incident as the greatest act of moral corruption in their nation’s history (Jdg 19:30; cf. Hos 9:9; Hos 10:9). The last sentence in the last verse of this chapter is perhaps the most significant. What would Israel do? Would she deal with this situation as God had specified in the Mosaic Law, or would she disregard His will as almost everyone in this story had done? The nation had faced a similar crisis in dealing with Micah (cf. Jdg 18:14). The next chapter shows what Israel did.
". . . it is truly remarkable that this nameless Levite from an obscure place in Ephraim was able to accomplish what none of the divinely called and empowered deliverers had been able to do. Not even Deborah and Barak had been able to galvanize support and mobilize the military resources of the nation to this extent." [Note: Block, Judges . . ., p. 550.]
Chapter 19 is a story about love and hate. The major manifestation of love is hospitality. The major manifestation of hate is immorality (lit. what is contrary to manners). Webster’s dictionary defines immoral as "contrary to the moral code of the community." [Note: Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, s.v. "immoral."] The idea that man sets his own standards of morality goes all the way back to the Fall (Genesis 3). Really God sets these standards. He does so in love and for the welfare of humanity, and He reveals them in His Word. When people abandon God’s standards, life breaks down, unravels, and disintegrates.
Notice how the characters in this chapter behaved when they chose to disregard divine sovereign authority. The most admirable person was the Levite’s father-in-law. He showed love to both the man and the woman by extending hospitality (Jdg 19:4-9). The concubine loved the Levite enough to live with him temporarily, but she did not love him enough to remain faithful to him. The Levite loved the concubine enough to go after her, but he really hated her as a person. He handed her over as a coward, spoke to her callously, and treated her body contemptuously. He failed to protect her (Jdg 19:25), to assist her (Jdg 19:27), and to respect her (Jdg 19:29). The old stranger loved the other men in the story, but he hated the women: his daughter and the concubine. The men of Gibeah are the most despicable characters. They hated the men and the women in the house. Their profession of love (intercourse, Jdg 19:22) was a pretext for hate (attempted homosexual rape, heterosexual rape, and murder). This is how people, even God’s people, may behave when they reject God’s rule over their lives (Jdg 19:1).
"By describing as clearly and graphically as possible the horrible, terror-filled, violent consequences of human self-assertion and idolatry-that is, everybody doing what is right in their own eyes-Judges 19, the book of Judges, and the prophetic canon invite repentance and conformity of self and society to the just, righteous, and peaceful purposes of God." [Note: McCann, p. 132.]