"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."349
As soon as he arrived home the Levite callously cut his concubine into 12 pieces as one would slaughter an animal (Exod. 29:17; Lev. 1:6, 12; 8:20).350This 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.
"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 . . ."351
Saul later summoned the tribes with a similar act involving an animal (1 Sam. 11:7).
The Israelites perceived this incident as the greatest act of moral corruption in their nation's history (v. 30; cf. Hos. 9:9; 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. 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."352
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."353The idea that man sets his own standards of morality goes all the way back to the Fall (Gen. 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 (vv. 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 (v. 25), to assist her (v. 27), and to respect her (v. 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, v. 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 (v. 1).
