Judges 19:19

The chapters that follow (Judges 17-21) do not belong to the historical order of this book. They pull back the curtain on some incidents in the inner life of this people, whom God in His patience bore with so long... If they had been obedient while Jehovah was their King, their prosperity would have been secure. They were self-willed, and the lack of restraint — when they had no king — gave room to every kind of loose living.

It is now a city of the stranger; but no more strange than Gibeah of Benjamin, with its ominous lack of common hospitality.

They evidently asked in Gibeah if they could find lodging, but no one was willing to take them in, so they sat in the town square (v. 15). Such was the coldness of Israelites toward Israelites at the time. They might have fared better in the Jebusite city!

The Levite soon saw that he was not welcomed among a people whom God had plainly commanded never to forsake the Levite (Deut. 12:19). A corrupt profession of faith gave no shelter to the servant of Jehovah. I am not speaking here about this man's own moral character. Verse 18 shows what such treatment produced in his heart: "I am going to the house of the LORD, but no one has taken me into his house."

This man, who had joined himself to a prostitute, would not turn in to the Jebusites. He avoided them out of national pride rather than piety, as if anything Israelite must be right — when Israel had already abandoned Jehovah. It is sometimes like this with Christians. They shrink from open association with the world, while the hidden springs of their own lives are impure. It is possible to be very strict about your public walk and yet very lax about personal holiness.

He was not a Benjamite, but came also from the mountains of Ephraim (v. 16)... He asked the Levite where they had come from and where they were going. He found they belonged in Ephraim too, but could find no lodging in Gibeah (vv. 18-19). The old man invited them to his house, giving food for both themselves and their donkeys. He knew the danger of spending the night in the open (v. 21).

This old man, who had settled down in the evil city, could only think of conciliation as a way to meet the evil. He was ready to sacrifice his own daughter (vv. 22-24). But this was not within his rights. Nor is it within our rights to make any compromise whatever with evil. Still, if we are linked with it, it makes cruel demands on us, requiring that we surrender what really belongs to God... How can we dare consent to the slightest evil to avoid (as we hope) a greater evil? Are we so foolish as to suppose that we can subdue evil by allowing evil?

It has been the commission of evil that has awakened them, and they gather together as one man, for what purpose? To take vengeance upon the evil... Ah, beloved, evil will never serve as a tie to hold the people of God together.