Judges 19:1-30 (gang rape, dismemberment, body part message)

There is a story in Judges chapter 19 verse 1 - 30 that talks about a man who took his concubine and settle in a town. They have no place to sleep that night, so the man of the house invited them into his house for rest. Later that night some wicked men surrounded the house and ask for the guest (the man that was with his concubine) to come out to have sex with him. The man of the house refused to do so. Rather, he offer the guest's concubine and they took her away and she got raped that whole night. She return in the early morning and laid down at the door. I think she was probably dead, but I could be wrong. So tomorrow her husband was about to leave and saw her lying on the floor near the front of the door, he carried her away and they went back to their hometown. While he was there, He chop her body up into 12 pieces and distributed them to the 12 tribes of Israel.

You can read the story from Judges 19:1-30 here:

Judges 19:1 In those days Israel had no king. Now a Levite who lived in a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim took a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.

Now my question is, why did the man chop her body up?

Does God approved of this or not?

Sending her flesh to 12 tribes?

What is the purpose of this story, because in the last verse (verse 30) it says:

"Everyone who saw it said, "Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!"

Pretty evil story.

Have you ever read the entire book of Judges? It ends with "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes..." A stark contract from


So no, God was not pleased with what they were doing.

It happened after the time of Joshua's death & before the judges.
He did it to express his "vehement passion", & the last verse of the chapter is his appeal for the tribes to think about it (& do something).
John Gill explains it reasonably well:
JG Commentaries

Right. So does this has anything to do with Jewish tradition or God's law? Like the consequences for sin etc, hence, why she got chop?

superman2010 said:

Right. So does this has anything to do with Jewish tradition or God's law? Like the consequences for sin etc, hence, why she got chop?

Click to expand...

There is no law that says a person should be chopped up, but the man gave his reasoning as this:

Quite honestly, not only were the men of Gibeah evil but so was the old man and so was the Levite. The old man offered up his virgin daughter and the man's concubine and the Levite ALLOWED his concubine to go...not only allowed but when the men of Gibeah didn't want her...the Levite took his concubine to them! I didn't understand any one of them.