Sermon Tone Analysis

When I was young boy, I decided that I was going to have some fun at the expense of some morning doves that made a nest in our crab apple tree.

A bird was sitting on the next so I jumped u[, grabbed a hold of the branch and bounced on it until the bird flew away.

I had my fun so I walked it away.

It wasn’t until later that I was confronted with the consequences of my actions.

Unbeknownst to me, there were three tiny hatch-lings in that nest, and when I was bouncing that branch, I inadvertently bounced those hatch-lings out of the nest and onto the driveway where their lives came to an abrupt end.

I was a bit of a gruesome image.

Freshly hatched birds, bleeding out on the ground.

I couldn’t believe what I had done.

It was wrong to abuse the bird on the nest.

I felt guilty about that.

The fact that my cruelty resulted in the bloody picture in front of me is an image that is forever seared in my mind.

I didn’t mean to do that…but that did excuse the sin and that didn’t take away from the fact that the consequences were right there.

It was a gruesome, bloody image, and it made me sick to my stomach and it forever changed my relationship to God’s creation.

Sometimes we have to stare into the face of the consequences of our own actions before we get the point.

Sometimes its really ugly, takes our breath away, or makes us sick to our stomachs.

In those moments sometimes its best to keep staring, burning the image into your mind so you never forget.

I think such is the case with our text for today.

I mentioned last week that the end of the book of Judges is anything but pleasant.

These are stories that make us sick to our stomachs, and they should!

I mention last week and I’ll say it again:

The sickening feeling that we are going to experience is a good thing.

We aren’t supposed to look at these stories and gloss over the troubling details in search of typology or veiled analogies to Christ.

We’re supposed to sit and stare into the face of our own depravity and see how vile sin really is, and see what happens to a society that has turned its back on the King of kings.

So don’t try to push the yucky feeling away.

Embrace it for the gift that it is.

Last week we saw how a rejection to the king inevitably leads to rampant idolatry and the pursuit of selfish ambition.

Those things lead to a variety to sins, such as brutality, theft, and selfish opportunistic behavior.

This week the dial is really turned up to eleven in terms of the evil that was present in Israel, demonstrating her utter need for not just a godly king, but THE King.

We will see how the rejection of the rule of God leads to brutality, immorality, inhospitality, cowardice, and callousness.

Our chapter can be divided into four parts,

First, the we have what in literary terms is called the foil.

A foil is a character whose purpose in the story is to highlight something about a second character.

That’s what we find in the first paragraph: Surprising Hospitality

In the next two paragraphs we find the first hints that there is something that is not quite right in Gibeah.

The details might seem relatively benign to us, but when we understand the cultural expectations and what the Law of Moses instructed about how to treat sojourners, it becomes much more eyebrow raising as we see surprising inhospitality

The fourth paragraph has the shocking sins of the men of the city, and then the final paragraph gives us the shocking response of the Levite.

That’s where we’re going.

Let’s look at our text

Surprising Hospitality

Once again, the author prefaces the episode this statement, reminding us that what we are about to see is the result of rejecting godly leadership over their lives.

Something else you will notice is that no one in this story is named.

This may be an indication that this is a true story, but the lack of specificity given for the names of the people tells us that this story is merely an example of what is happening all across the land.

This could be any Levite, and concubine, and family.

The kind of behavior we are about to see wasn’t limited to this specific story.

Verse 2.

I need to pause a moment here as well.

There is a textual issue with this verse.

The word for “she was unfaithful” is a bit stronger than the ESV translates it.

It ought to be “prostituted herself” “engaged in harlotry”.

But it also a word that is nearly identical to another Hebrew word that means “to be angry with” or “to feel repugnance toward something”.

You can see up on the screen how close these two words are, and if you say them quickly they may even sound exactly the same.

So we aren’t sure what the original word is.

Contextually, some have made the argument that she being angry with her husband makes the most sense, considering how the Levite is going to peruse her in the following verses.

Others argue that if she was prostituting herself, that should be of little surprise to us considering the condition of the land.

Personally, I think her being angry fits the context just a little bit better, though at the end of the day, I’m not sure that it makes a very big difference in how we understand the text other than directing to where our sympathies ought to lie.

Let’s read on,

Now, we read this and might wonder, what’s the point here?

Its an interesting paragraph.

A man goes to retrieve his concubine, and then his father-in-law essentially tries to throw him a week long party, and eventually says, no, no.

I need to leave.

I’ve stayed too long.

There are two things that are important to us from this paragraph.

Look at the over the top hospitality that is being granted to this man.

That is going to stand in stark contrast with what will follow.

Notice that they didn’t end up leaving until the day was nearly spent.

He just needed to get going lest he be detained another day.

This all sets us up for what comes next.

Surprising Inhospitality

Because they set out so late, they did not get as far as they may have wanted to.

As a result, they had the option of turning to spend the night in Jebus, which was later known as Jerusalem, but at this time it was not an Israelite city.

He concluded that it was safer to be in an Israelite town rather than a town controlled by the Jebusites.

But he came into Gibeah, they ended up in the open square for the night.

Why?

The text says “for no one took them into his house to spend the night”

The Law of Moses is very clear on what is expected for Israelites for those sojourning through the land.

God expected a culture of hospitality among his people.

Furthermore, the cultural expectation was that someone would welcome him and give him a place to stay.

But he seems to have been completely ignored.

This would have raised eyebrows, not only because of the cultural expectations, but also because this was an Israelite city and the hospitality expectations were all the higher.

This stands out like a sore thumb after just reading about the over the top hospitality he was show by his father in law.

The irony only grows as as continue to read.

Finally.

A man showing him the hospitality that we might expect.

He seems rather urgent with his insistence for the man to stay with him.

It seems as thought he is aware of what lurks within his own city.

Shocking Immorality

Now if you’re saying to yourself, “hey, this kind of sounds like another story we know.

This sounds like Sodom and Gomorrah” you’d be exactly right.

There are many striking parallels between the two accounts, even down the verbs used for the actions taking place.

The accounts aren’t just similar.

It seems as though the author patterned his telling of the story after the pattern of Gen 19, while holding true to the events that happened in Gibeah.

And so, with shocking detail, we have this account.

From time to time when cities are established, they can be named after existing cities, just with the word “new” at the beginning.

Several of you here are from New Albany.

The East Coast has the nickname “New England” there is the state of “New Hampshire”, all named after other places for different reasons.

There is one commentator that called Gibeah “New Sodom” because of the sins present.

As if simply being inhospitable wasn’t enough, the men of the city ambushed the house in order to rape, not the concubine, but the man.

Their wickedness is astounding.

And this is ISRAEL!

This isn’t gentile Sodom.