I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
This passage tells a sorry story. We have a Levite who is traveling with his concubine and a servant. He chooses to press on late in the day rather than stop among non-Israelites. He proceeds to a town of Benjamin, where at first no one offered to take them in, even though all they needed was shelter (they had sufficient supplies to feed themselves and their beasts of burden). Then when an old man does offer them shelter, the town troublemakers show up and demand that the old man send the traveler out so that they can rape him. It is clear that this behavior is not unanticipated because the old man had insisted that the travelers not spend the night in the town square. The old man offers his daughter and the traveler’s concubine to these hooligans (this sounds, and is, horrible, but we must remember that the code of hospitality of that day called for defending one’s guests at all cost), but they refuse the offer. Finally the traveler (who nothing in this tale reflects well on) shoves his concubine out the door. The hooligans rape her all night long. At daybreak, they let her go and she manages to return to the house where her husband was staying where she dies. He comes out and discovers that she is dead when she does not respond to his command to get up so that they can travel on. When he gets home, he cuts up her body and sends the parts throughout Israel (apparently with a message as to what happened).
The men of Israel gather and decide that this crime must not go unpunished. They send word to the tribe of Benjamin demanding that the troublemakers who did this be surrendered for execution. Rather than surrender these men, the tribe of Benjamin rallies to their defense. The men of the rest of Israel go up against the men of Benjamin and fight a three day battle. For the first two days, the men of Benjamin inflict heavy losses on the rest of the Israelites. On the third day, the Israelites set a trap for the men of Benjamin and slaughter them.
When I read this passage today, I noticed something I had not noticed before. These troublemakers had been causing problems for some time and no one had done anything about it. The old man was afraid for a stranger to stay the night in the town square. This indicates that he knew that the town troublemakers would have harmed the man if he was left without shelter. While it is possible that no one in the town of Gibeah was able to stand up to these troublemakers and no one outside was aware of their crimes, it seems likely that the neighboring towns were aware of it and let it go since their targets were primarily outsiders. This story points up an important lesson. When a community allows troublemakers to get away with their actions, those troublemakers will get more and more brazen until their actions lead to the destruction of that community. There are groups today that defend bad behavior by members of their community. What they fail to understand is that by doing so, they encourage that bad behavior to get worse. In addition, at some point, that bad behavior will get so bad that those outside of the group will feel the need to take action. When the outsiders take action, they will target not only the troublemakers but the entire group.
In this passage Jesus and John the Baptist are conducting their ministries not far from each other. John’s disciples approach John concerned because more people are going to Jesus than are coming to John. John is not concerned. He tells his disciples that this is as it should be, that he had told them that he was not the Messiah. While this situation is unique (after all, Jesus was the Messiah), it provides a lesson for all of us. We should all be happy when another eclipses us in the public eye when they do so by bringing glory to God.
I just discovered that yesterday’s Psalm was only verses 1-23 of this psalm, not the entire psalm as I blogged. Still there is a lot in this psalm. Everything on earth is dependent on God. God supplies food for all of the creatures of this earth. God takes pleasure in all that He has made and as a result, we should be good stewards of His creation. And it contains what I am striving to make my prayer each day:
for I rejoice in the Lord.
…
Let all that I am praise the Lord.
These proverbs today are so telling about the world. They are such complete, “No? Duh!” comments that they almost seem silly to put into the Book of Proverbs. Yet, there are many people who do the opposite of what they say. Those who plan to do evil come to bad ends, while those who plan to do good are praised. Then we have to advice that work brings profit, but merely talking leads to poverty. Many people have great ideas but they only talk about them and never do them. It does not matter how great your idea is, if you don’t put in the work, nothing will come of it.