The Book That God Wrote, Judges Part 4

Welcome dear readers to the fourth and final part of the Book of Judges. For all the strange fever dream insanity that proceeded this you'd think the book would end with something resembling the corpse honey or the killer bread attack or the forehead nail attack right? You know, something fun, or at the very least completely mental. I'm sorry to say the Bible decided to go completely against expectations (it does that a lot) and give Judges the worst, most baffling, and straight up disturbing ending conceivable. I almost don't want to go through with this, you're better off just thinking that Judges ends with Samson's brainless antics, but that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to recount the Bible's stories, but also, and more importantly, share my thoughts on all this (which unfortunately tends to just resolve into mockery), and I have many a bone to pick with Judges' ending. So let's get on with it.

The Levite and his Concubine:

So okay, there's this Levite, and he has a concubine, neither are given names, so I'll call the Levite Lenny and the concubine Connie. So at some point, for some reason, Connie leaves Lenny, the Bible only says that she was, "unfaithful to him (19:2)," which could mean anything really, if she actually fucked around she would've been killed, so I don't think that was it. In any case, she leaves Lenny to go back to stay with her father. After a few months Lenny decides to forgive and forget and go back and get her (I guess his real wives weren't as good in the sack as ole Connie was), and surprisingly Lennie and Connie's father get along swimmingly. Or at least they seem to, Lennie stays for days, and when he finally decides to leave Connie's father is able to get him to stick around even longer. "Oh, don't leave before breakfast," and so they'll eat and drink and goof off until Lenny's finally like, "Alright dude, I've really gotta go now."
"No, no, it's practically dinner, stay for dinner, you can leave first thing in the morning." And this shit happens for days because, well, first thing in the morning gets preempted by "Oh you can't leave before breakfast." Finally, Lenny, after one particularly late breakfast, is able to break away from Connie's father and get his ass on the road, and so off he goes with Connie and a servant in tow.

My interpretation of this is that Lenny and Co. got on the road a lot later than he wanted (if he's anything like me he probably wanted to get the fuck outta dodge around 3am, if you've ever road tripped with me then you know this already), the reason I think this is because it starts getting dark and they haven't quite gotten as far as they'd like. The sun's going down and they see a Jebusite city, and the servant's like, "Hey, why don't we stay there tonight?"
"Hell no," Lenny spits, "that's a gentile city, I'm not going near any fuckin goys." I guess Lenny's racist, but then again, I'm sure there were only hard feelings against the Israelites back then, you know, that whole fucking everyone up for no reason thing will do that. So, they move on, and miraculously reach the Israelite city of Gibeah right as the sun is going down. This is a little unsettling though, while I was reading this story I did get a sense of unease (yes before I even knew how it ended). Something doesn't seem right, why are they so worried about making it to a city before nightfall? Were things that bad back then? I understand someone like Jacob being scared shitless to spend the night out in the wilderness (which he wasn't, that crazy bastard), but this isn't wilderness anymore, this is God's country right? Shouldn't a fucking Levite be safe?

So anyway, they reach Gibeah, and they sit in the town square waiting for someone to take them in. I guess that's what travelers did back then, they'd just chill at the town square until somebody came up and said, "Sup dudes, come stay at my place tonight." Well, Lenny and Co. sit there, and sit there, and sit there, and everyone seems to ignore them, until finally an old man sees them and asks them who they are and such. When they tell the old man their story he invites them home, "You are welcome to stay at my house tonight, don't spend the night in the town square." Again, I'm getting this uneasy feeling about this story, it's the way the Bible specifies that it took a long time for them to be picked up by someone, it's in the way the old man says, "Only don't spend the night in the square (19:20)." This all seems eerie to me, and if you'd like an argument that the Bible is fiction, it's that this is what we call foreshadowing, and unfortunately, real life doesn't have foreshadowing, it'd be cool if it did though.

That night, while Lenny and the old man are sitting around and drinking, a mob of dudes surround the house and start pounding on the door screaming, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him (19:22)." Wow, really? Didn't these assholes learn anything from Genesis where this exact thing happened before ... well except this time there's no angels to fuck the city up. Again, to reuse my old joke, were these guys just sitting around all like,
"Hey, did you see that dude visiting old man tonight?"
"Yeah, he was hot."
"Let's go have sex with him."
"...Okay."
Was this a typical problem back then? Were there just roving bands of dudes that would rape any guests that showed up to there city? Like a crazy hazing ritual, sounds like every frat I've ever heard of, "Yeah, let's all fuck the new guy." Now I know what you're thinking: this sounds like our typical mental Judges fun right? This same shit was fun back in Genesis, and you're right. This was fun back in Genesis, but only because Lot escaped and the angels rained flaming sulfur down on the rape team (and their entire city, and a whole other city for good measure), in Genesis we saw cause and effect, a horrible act reprimanded with the most epic of punishments. What makes this awful is what happens next, not to mention the very creepy feeling buildup to it the Bible effectively created, which is impressive in its own right really.

So what does the old man do? He goes outside and says to them, and I'm just gonna quote it straight up here,

No, my friends, don't be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't do this disgraceful thing. Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don't do such a disgraceful thing (19:23-24).

What the fuck? What the fucking fuck? Fuck you old man. Seriously, "No, don't rape my guest, here have my daughter, she's a virgin, you can all gang rape her all you want. There's also this concubine, if, yknow, you want someone more experienced." UGH, what the fuck is wrong with you asshole? So somehow it's disgraceful to ass rape a man (which it totally is) but it's not disgraceful to rape your virgin daughter, fuck you. If I was Lenny, after hearing that I would've been tempted to push that rotten old man out there to be raped by the crowd, "take that asshole." But the crowd don't want to gang rape a virgin or a concubine, they want to fuck the Levite, and they wont settle for anything else. What the fuck was wrong with people back then? Christ almighty.

So what does Lenny do? Well a real man would've either used his brain, "Let's see if we can find a way to sneak out of here," or his brawn, "Send me out there, I'm gonna stab all those bitches in the face," which this would fit right in with Judges' action packedness right? Unfortunately this dude does neither,

So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.
When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, "Get up; let's go." But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home (19:25-28).

Not only does this mother fucker send his concubine out to a vile crew of rapists, but when it's all said and done and she's been raped to death, this awful dickhead just steps over her body, "Oh you, get up bitch, it's time to go." What a fucking dickless piece of shit. I hate the Bible.

Twelve Pieces to Civil War:

Oh and guess what, it gets worse. See when he gets home, he decides it would be a great idea to cut her body into twelve pieces and send each piece to the leader of each tribe of Israel. Apparently casting her outside to save his delicate virgin butthole wasn't enough, he has goes all serial killer on her dead body. So the tribe leaders show up to this Levite's house and are all like, "Hey dude, what the fuck is up with sending us rotting body parts in the mail?" So Lenny relates his story, and the leaders decide that this can't stand and their only viable option is to march the war wagon against those responsible. The one's responsible, by the way, were the tribe of Benjamin, lovingly referred here to as the Benjamites, which was a whole tribe of Israel. And so the eleven remaining tribes march out against the tribe of Benjamin.

Alright, so I have a lot of problems with this (how could I not?), so many in fact that I'm not really sure where to start. Ok, first of all, they march against the whole tribe of Benjamin, a tribe of Israel. If the tribe of Benjamin was at fault then why did Lenny send a concubine part to Benjamin's leader? And how awkward was that meeting with all the tribes there at Lenny's house?
"Oh my God, this is atrocious! The tribe responsible must be destroyed."
"Um..."
"Yes, we must march our war machine against those vile Benjamites."
"Er guys...?"
"Fuck yes, their whole tribe will pay for this atrocity."
"Uh guys? I'm right here."
"Oh ... uhh ... damn this is awkward, can you maybe pretend like you didn't hear that?"
Not only that, but why do they have to wage war against the entire tribe? Can't they get some details from Lenny, then ask the old man if he recognized any of the dudes? You know, do a little detective work? Find one of the assholes responsible, then torture him until he gives up his sick bastard friends, then kill all of them horribly. Maybe even display all their bodies in public for a while to remind everyone what happens to sick rapist assholes. Also, what really gets me, is that they hear Lenny's story and they don't immediately say, "What the fuck is wrong with you? You deserve to be killed too." I'm all for killing those responsible, but guess what, this Levite mother fucker is also responsible. He might not have raped and beaten his concubine to death, but he nonchalantly threw her out there, and then showed a complete depraved indifference about her well being. That is until he got her back home and decided to cut her into fucking pieces. Me? I'd get all the information I could out of this jackass, stab him in the goods and move on to fuck up the other assholes responsible.

So maybe the remaining tribes thought that this atrocity was so completely fucked up that they had to wipe out the entire tribe, just the dudes actually responsible wouldn't be enough, and somehow Lenny had nothing to do with it. Now before the eleven remaining tribes march against the Benjamites they stop in for a visit at the temple to get God's blessing, and basically ask him what's what. So they ask God, "Hey God, who should we send in first against the Benjamites?"

"Send in the tribe of Judah first."
"Praise be, let's lock and load Israel," and off they go with God on their side to crush the Benjamites with the tribe of Judah. The only problem is that the Benjamites completely decimate the tribe of Judah, and now Israel is confused (not to mention me), God was on their side and they were easily bested by the Benjamites. What the fuck God? I know we're talking about war with your own people for doing something despicable here, but if you weren't down with it why not say so? Like, "Woah, no, the whole tribe isn't responsible, only kill the ones that are, I'll give you a magic trick to figure out who the actual rapists were, just kill them." And don't even fucking start, back in Numbers God gave a whole little magic trick involving holy dust and water just to test if a woman was unfaithful to her husband. Don't believe me? Check out Numbers 5:11-31 to read it in excruciating detail. So basically there's no reason why there can't be a similar trick to see if some dude is a vile rapist, right? Now this is only provided that God isn't down with Israel waging civil war on itself, but he didn't seem all that hung up about it when Moses and the Levites killed 3,000 people for worshiping a golden calf, sure there might've been some orgying going on there, but still, you'd think God would want these assholes punished in some form right? I mean he killed Israelites left and fucking right in the wilderness for basically just being whiney, I feel he oughta have the collection of eleven's back here.

Apparently it was just a misunderstanding, "Oh did I say Judah," God says, "I meant Asher, send Asher after their asses." Ok, so this was after tons of praying and worshiping and God tells them to send in the tribe of Asher, who also get fucking destroyed by the Benjamites. Hey Israel, why not attack with everyone? Seems like the logical path, you know, that whole eleven armies to one thing sounds pretty damn good right now. Why didn't you attack with everyone? Oh right, because God fucking told you not to, are you even on their side God? I'm starting to think not, otherwise why didn't you just say, "Hey geniuses, send everybody, it doesn't take a deity to know that eleven to one are great fucking odds. Now leave me alone I'm smoking pot with Vishnu." This whole thing doesn't make any sense to me, alright so they are finally able to root out the Benjamites Joshua style, but it seems too little too late. I mean I'm all for the waging of this war (in a literary satisfying sense), but God's behavior here is sending me some seriously mixed messages. And even after this war the Israelites are second guessing it, they feel bad about almost wiping out the Benjamites. That's right, after all this, the Benjamites are still around when Judges ends, the remaining Israelites even help them find wives to repropagate their tribe. So seriously? What the fuck is going on?

Is there a point to this story? A moral even? If there is I'd like to know what it is. But truthfully, I know there isn't one. This is just a horrible story told for no reason, much like Lot's daughters, which is left here for merely historic purposes. Which seriously guys, this is a story you might want to leave out of the history books. If there's anything to learn from this story, I think it's found in a particular line repeated throughout the later third of Judges, and the very line that ends the book: "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit (21:25)." No shit, I never would've guessed that.

So that does it for Judges, up next is Ruth, a very short book that contains a peculiar little tale. If read one way it's just strange, but if read another way (by applying a little patented Bible lore) is right up my immature alley. Oh can't wait, look for it in the near future, and also look for a "What I Learned" coming soon. We aren't done here Judges, hear me? Until next time.