This is one of the hardest chapters to read and find our way out of. In the history of us, God doesn’t sugarcoat what our sins have done. Sin causes great harm within and to others. In those days Israel had no king. Judges 19:1. Who is our King?

There’s a woman in this chapter who is a concubine to a Levite, a priest. She had no rights. But she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her parents’ home in Bethlehem, Judah. As we read further, it’s no wonder to me she left this man.

He comes to get her after 4 months. Her father entertains this man and keeps prevailing upon him to remain just a few more days and in that time they eat and drink together. Finally they leave and come to an Israelite town because the Levite doesn’t want to go to any city whose people are not Israelite.

The story continues after a resident of that town invites them into his home away from the square at nighttime and the two men eat and drink and enjoy themselves.

Men from the city pound on the door demanding the man be released to them so they can have sex with him. The owner of the home, appalled, offers his virgin daughter and the concubine instead. The woman of this story is sent outside the protection of the home and of the Levite. She is raped all night and manages to drag herself back to the threshold of the door where she dies.

When her master got up in the morning and opened the door …(v. 27) Can you imagine sleeping during that night? He put her on his donkey and continued home and cuts up her body into 12 parts and sends those parts into all areas of Israel.

The people are incensed. “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Just imagine! We must do something! So speak up!” v. 30.

Maybe a woman had never been cut up into 12 pieces and sent throughout a land, but women have been brutally raped then and now. This woman was not safe. She was a victim of not just sexual violence but of the violence of hate. Isn’t that what sin is? The violence of hate. The men of that city wanted to commit sexual violence against another man, that man committed violence of hate toward a woman he should have protected, the men of that city committed violence against that woman to the point of death, the people were moved to more violence in response…to more hate. When will we ever get enough of violence…of hate? Do we see violence and hate today? Have we had enough?

Who is our King? Is He really? God was not the King of Israel. They had no king. No truer words were ever penned. At some point each person needs to reach a point where the darkness of life in sin that causes great harm is enough. Where we become so saturated in hate that we cry out to the Only One who can heal us.

One day our King and Lord will return. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Revelation 21:4. Can you imagine how the woman of our story will feel when she sees her true King and Lord? She will be safe. She will be loved. What about the men who brutally raped her and the man who didn’t care? The old order of things will pass away and they will be healed by their King and Lord. Will they have reached that point where they are so sickened by the darkness of sin that they want that healing? A choice we will each of us need to make. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 1 John 1:5-7. Fellowship with our Lord and King and with each other. That is the light God offers. That is the light our woman in the story needs. The light of God’s love healing us of all darkness.