10/4 Reading (Judges 19-21; 1 Corinthians 9)

Judges 19: Just as with Judges 18, this chapter starts with the same phrase: “In those days there was no king in Israel” (Judges 19.1). This chapter was disturbing. We see a Levite who marries a second woman (he’s already married), who then gets mad and heads to her father’s house. The man goes to her and brings her home after several days. On the way they have to stay in a town. They are taken in by a foreigner. While there, the men of this town surround the house demanding to have sex with the Levite. He ends up sending his wife out and they proceed to rape and abuse her all night. She dies from this treatment. The husband sees her the next morning, throws her over his donkey, gets back home, cuts up her body into twelve pieces, and sends the pieces of her body into all of the areas of Israel. Um…what!!!!!!!!!!!

Judges 20: This is a very violent chapter. Civil war erupts between Israel and the Benjaminite tribe. At first the Benjaminites were winning, but then they start to lose and the rest of Israel destroys pretty much all of them (only 600 survive). They also kill all of the women and burn the town down. Like I said, very violent chapter. Clearly we are seeing the continued decline of the Israelites.

Judges 21: Now the Israelites decide they need to find wives for the remaining Benjaminites in order to avoid complete annihilation. To do this, they attack the one tribe that didn’t provide warriors in the previous chapter. They kill most of them, take the women who are virgins to marry the remaining Benjaminites.

I gotta say, if the goal was to make me dislike the Israelites, they succeeded. These chapters were rough.  

1 Corinthians 9: As I start to read this chapter I can’t help but think that this letter to the Corinthians is so disjointed. It seems like Paul was almost given a list of questions/concerns from the people and he’s just checking them off one by one.