“They were relaxing, when suddenly some men from the city, good-for-nothings, surrounded the house and began beating at the door. ‘Send out the man who came home with you!’ they demanded of the old man whose house it was. ‘We want to have sex with him!‘”-Judges 19:22
If there’s any one scene in the book of Judges that demonstrates just how far Israel had fallen into depravity, the story in chapter 19 is definitely a top contender.
We’re given pretty much a replay of what happened when Lot was living in Sodom.
The old man had invited the Levite, his concubine and servant into his home and was entertaining them when all of a sudden there was a loud knock at his door.
The Hebrew verb being used here is DAPHAK…
And it doesn’t mean to just knock.
It means to AGGRESSIVELY pound or beat with ever increasing intensity.
Whoever was at the door wasn’t going to be ignored.
So the old man goes to the door, opens it and finds himself surrounded by a group of thugs.
These were all men of Gibeah…
But the Scripture referred to them as BEN-BELIAL or sons of Belial.
This was a very derogatory expression that was only used towards those who committed idolatry, engaged in perversion or were openly rebellious against the Lord.
Now before I get into what the old man did to appease this group of scoundrels standing before him, I need to explain something about the ancient Oriental mindset concerning hospitality.
In those days, there was no greater shame than for a host to allow something terrible to happen to visitors in his own home.
Hosts were obligated by custom to defend their guests no matter what…
Even if it cost them their lives or their family members’ lives.
I know this is something the modern western mind can’t comprehend.
But that was the culture and mindset in those days and we just have to accept it.
I see a lot of folks projecting their own modern ideas of hospitality, sexuality and so on onto the Biblical text and it leads to great misunderstanding.
Therefore, keep in mind that what I’m about to tell you was customary for those times.
So what did the old man do?
He offered to hand over his own virgin daughter as well as the Levite’s concubine to the men to satisfy their lust for sex if they would just leave the male guests in his home alone.
This was all about good ‘ole ancient Middle Eastern hospitality…
And it was at the expense of the women present.
We’ll continue on with this shocking story the next time we meet.
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