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. When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel. (Judges 19:25-29 NIV)

Then the man uses the rape/murder of his concubine as an excuse to have Israel wage a war against the Benjamites. This is the second time (so far) that a band of local hooligans have demanded a male guest be sent out to be gang-raped, and the second time the owner offered up his virgin daughter, only to be rebuffed. In the first case, the Angels did something about it. In this case, the guest throws out his concubine for the crowd.

Note that she was no even dead when she collapsed at the door, and her owner had a good night’s rest during all this. All after he’s just convinced her to return home with him.

Israel attacks the Benjamites (including the special lefty sling squad), and have 22,000 men killed. So they ask the Lord if they should attack the next day. The Lord answered, “Go up against them.” (Judges 20:23 NIV) They get another 18,000 killed. The next day, they come up with an ambush plan, and kill 25,000 during the day.

Then…

The men of Israel went back to Benjamin and put all the towns to the sword, including the animals and everything else they found. All the towns they came across they set on fire. (Judges 20:48 NIV)

This is really an overreaction.

Now that they’ve killed all the women, children, and goats, they realize that there are still men, and they now need wives (since they just killed all their women). But they swore that no Benjamite wouldn’t one of their daughters. A conundrum.

This is easily solved, if you happen to be a psychopath. Since Jabesh Gilead didn’t send an army to help with the extermination, they send an army there, and kill everyone but the female virgins. All 400 of them they send to the widower Benjamites. Problem solved!

But there’s not enough women to go around, so the Israelites tell them to kidnap the Shiloh women when they are dancing at the festival. Somehow, this seems like a good idea.

My summary of Judges is that it’s the parody book of the Bible. All the stories are told in the same style, with the same characters, but are just mockeries of what’s come before. Was it written by Graham Chapman and John Cleese?

Next: Ruth