Judges 19:1-30

19:1-30 | How far Israel had fallen! Adultery, lack of common hospitality, sodomy, rape, and murder had become a way of life! When people become their own law, social order and basic morality do not exist. Humankind, left to its own devices, falls into unimaginable sin.

19:12-20 | Everyone coming in and out of the city had to pass through the open square, so any needy stranger would have been noticed. Despite ancient Near East customs, which demanded that anyone who needed a place to stay be invited to lodge with a local resident, no one from Gibeah itself – a Benjamite city – showed any hospitality to this man (Gen. 18:4; 19:2; 24:32; 43:24; Heb. 13:1-2).

19:24-25 | That these cowardly and selfish men would give their daughter and concubine over to abusive men to save themselves was an extreme example of where lawlessness leads (Gen. 19:4-5).

19:29 | Dismembering the concubine into twelve pieces and sending those pieces throughout all the territory of Israel was recognized by Israel’s tribes as a call to war (1 Sam. 11:7).