Expositor's Dictionary of Texts - Judges 19:1-30
Judges 19:1 On the night before he fled from Geneva, Rousseau relates how finding himself unusually wakeful, 'I continued my reading beyond my usual hour, and read the whole passage ending at the story of the Levite of Ephraim in the book of Judges, if I mistake not, for since then I have never seen it. This story made a great impression on me, and in a kind of dream my imagination still ran upon it.' Suddenly wakened by the news that his Émile was proscribed, he drove off, and composed,... read more
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Judges 19:26
(26) Then came the woman. . . .—It would be scarcely possible to enhance the depth of pathos and of horror which the sacred writer throws into these simple words. If to the wretched woman punishment had come in the guise of her sin (Wis. 11:16, “that they might know that wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also shall he be punished”) which had been the prime cause of the whole catastrophe, the Levite was punished both for his condonation of an offence which could not be condoned, and for the... read more