Some Stories Deserve A Pause

-

cocubine-door-pic2I am behind on my devotions this week.  I decided to catch up this morning.  I read Judges 19 and I had to stop.  What just happened?  I spent a few minutes looking for bible commentaries that would help me understand the passage better.  For several more minutes I have just been sitting here trying to absorb the story.

Here is my version:  man has a fight with his wife, she takes off for several months, man decides that he still loves her and goes after her, they decide to reconcile, hang out at the in-laws for a few days, they go off and get stuck in a bad city, stay at some guys house where they are threatened by some locals, man panics and throws his wife out to the locals, they rape her all night, she crawls back to the door where the man is staying, he opens the door and discovers she has died, he cuts her up into twelve pieces and sends her out to the tribes of Israel saying no worse crime has ever been committed.

What a sad and difficult story.  In my research I determined that some translations say that she cheated on him.  I agree with the commentaries that say it is unlikely given the culture.  He would have just had her stoned.  Yet I think that is part of what makes me sad.  Did that make it easier for the translators to accept that this man just threw her to the wolves?  Did calling her a concubine as opposed to a wife make it better? I imagine the agony of the woman and it fills me with grief.  At the same time I am angry with the husband.  What does the man have to complain about when he threw her out there?  And who cuts up their wife into 12 pieces?

The raw yucky-ness of this story makes me think of the cross.  For me, the fate of the concubine is on of the most horrible things I can think about.  Just like the cross.

Comments

Maggie said…
Definitely a odd story that makes you wonder what kind of people -the locals were -what kind of man her husband was? How could this Brutality happen especially after the reconciliation of their Love. I had not read this story although I have several bibles and do read them. Another question is Why 12 pieces? So very very strange.
9:16 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jillian Michaels - Maximize Your Life

-
I was really excited when I heard Jillian Michaels was coming to Winnipeg.  If you don't know who Jillian Michaels she is the trainer that is known for being on the Biggest Loser.  Jillian's contestants are often the winners of the Biggest Loser (as was the case this year with a contestant who had everything against her in the beginning.)  The reason I like Jillian is not because of her training skills.  It is because she has an ability to get to the heart of a contestant and figure out what it is that is getting in the way of their goals. When she came on stage see was instantly endearing.  She swapped her high heels for flip flops saying that she felt like she had done her duty by coming out in them.  She broke down what she was going to talk about - nutrition, working out, mind.  She was real about the fact that many of the people who came to see her, wanted to know how to lose weight so she spent the first hour talking about it.  The second hour was all about how to meet
Read more

Enough of Too Much

-
Image
This morning I woke up and decided I have had enough.  I am sick of feeling yucky all of the time.  I want to feel better and I know that in order to do that, I need to start making healthier food choices.  I knew this day would come. A few weeks ago I started exercising.  This is generally a first step for me.  Now this morning I decided to face the scale.  I have gained weight -- a lot of weight.  So enough.  It is time to start making better choices and tracking my food again.  Today I started tracking again.  It feels good. Interestingly, I also decided I was sick of getting so many emails from the various companies I have given my email address to for whatever reason.  I unsubscribed from at least ten lists.  Then I cleaned my apartment (okay that’s probably because I have people coming over tomorrow.)  I feel like I can breathe all of a sudden.  Like I have more space.  I used to get about 20 emails a day.  Today I got two and unsubscribed from their lists too. Getting rid of
Read more

Gratitude

-
I have given up on keeping a gratitude journal about 10 times.   I would try.   Stick with coming up with 3 things I was grateful for every day for a month.   Then I would stop.   It never really made me feel better.   The only thing it accomplished was to check off another ‘should’ from my list. Honestly keeping a gratitude journal just gave me a reason to feel bad about myself.   I would think: “Why is it so hard to come up with my three things?’ “How long before I actually feel grateful for this stuff?’ “Why am I so ungrateful for the gifts that God has given me?” “What’s wrong with me?” “I am a bad person.” Okay that is a bit dramatic but I do know that actually trying to keep a gratitude journal and having it fail did make me feel bad.   So I stopped trying years ago.   The issue was that people I respect would say that gratitude is a requirement for living a fulfilled life.   I believed them.   It makes a lot of sense.   It just didn’t work for me. Fast f
Read more