Judges 19:22

THE HOMOSEXUALS OF GIBEAH MURDER THE CONCUBINE

"As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain base fellows, beset the house round about, beating at the door; and they spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying; Bring forth the man that came into thy house, that we may know him. And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man has come into my house, do not this folly. Behold, here is my daughter a virgin, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not any such folly. But the men would not hearken unto him; so the man laid hold on his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all that night until the morning: and when the day began to spring; they let her go. Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was till it was light."

There was hardly ever a more tragic episode than this. In this narrative the Lord has given us a picture of the true nature of the homosexual. He is an unqualified beast, willing to sacrifice any human being whomsoever upon the altar of his own selfish lust. We are astounded that some in our age are willing to apologize and even seek grounds of justification for this type of perversion! It has even been described as an ACCEPTABLE modern lifestyle. Ridiculous! The example before us occurred shortly after the conquest of Canaan in 1,400 B.C., and there was also the despicable example of the sodomites of Sodom and Gomorrah centuries earlier in the times of Abraham and Lot (Genesis 19).

The Holy Scriptures make it abundantly clear that the disapproval of God frowns upon all such activity, and an apostle has declared that impenitent practitioners of this shameful vice (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) "shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

"The resemblance of this narrative to that of Genesis 19 suggests that the Israelites by their contact with the Canaanites had themselves been reduced to the level of the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it shows the wisdom of God in commanding that such workers of abomination should have been destroyed. A society that is willing to put up with this type of immorality is placing a celestial order for its own destruction.

"The prophet Hosea (Hosea 9:9) made allusion to `the days of Gibeah' as a time of notorious moral depravity in Israel, and he probably had in view the events of this chapter."[14] Our own view is that such a "probability" is in fact a CERTAINTY.

"Here is my daughter a virgin, and his concubine" (Judges 19:24). There is no justification for this cowardly surrender of two able-bodied men to the unbridled lust of Gibeah's "homosexuals." Josephus states that the homosexuals carried the woman to their home, "Where they satisfied their lust upon her the whole night."[15] As Kyle Yates said, "This kind of action by those men (the Levite and his host) cannot be justified."[16]

THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ANTIQUITY

We should not leave this tragic episode without observing the low estimate which the men of that era placed upon the value of women. Not only did the men of this chapter offer a virgin daughter and a concubine to satiate the lust of the savage homosexuals of Gibeah, even Abraham offered to sacrifice Sarah to save himself (Genesis 12:10-20). Women should beware of forsaking the principles of the Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, who alone, has elevated woman above the humiliations that marked her status in the pre-Christian era. Satan is today offering women all kinds of inducements to turn against the teachings of Christ, but once those teachings are rejected, woman will quickly find herself again treated as a chattel. India supplies the only proof of this that is needed.

"Then came the woman and fell down at the door of the man's house, where her lord was" (Judges 19:26). "Poor thing! With her last breath, she turned to the house where her lord was, who should have protected her, but who had abandoned her in her hour of need."[17]