Judges, Ruth: Revised Edition (The NIV Application Commentary)

by K. Lawson Younger

The most agonizing question that confronts the reader is: Was the woman dead when the Levite found her on the doorstep? Two of the ancient versions answer the question. The LXX and the Vulgate offer “but she was dead” as the answer to the Levite’s commands to his concubine when he comes out the door in the morning. Yet the Hebrew text of Judges 19:29–30 is not clear “whether the Levite simply dismembers a corpse or whether he himself murders his concubine in a fit of rage”46 (see further comments on 20:1–48). Usually the Hebrew Bible states when a person is dead. If the ancient versions preserve the original reading, it is hard to explain how such an important clause was dropped in the transmission of the text. It is more reasonable to assume that the original had no statement that she was dead and that the versions added it, attempting to solve the apparent problem. Since the text does not say that she is dead, there is some uncertainty as to when she dies. Having returned home, instead of giving her a proper burial (if she is dead), the Levite callously took a knife and cut her up limb by limb. He sent the parts to the twelve tribes in order to cause horror among them and muster them for war against Benjamin. Later, Saul will call up the tribes of Israel in a strikingly similar fashion, although he cut up a pair of oxen, not a woman (1 Sam 11:7)!