The stories we don't teach

a walk-through of two rhyming stories

Warning: Today we are beginning a four-part series on two stories in the Hebrew Scripture that are horrific to read. They are stories of violence and sexual abuse. If you need to skip this series, please do so.

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Today we are going to look at two rhyming stories in the Hebrew Bible that are quite awful. Though they are difficult to read, I believe these stories are in the Bible because the world can be horrifying. When we look at the horrifying things that happen in the world, we need to know that God never shies away from reality. God is not sitting in heaven pretending everything is fine. Following Jesus does not mean that we have to pretend, and the presence of horrific violence and abuse does not mean that God is not watching or does not care.¹

That does not mean that we feel comfortable with the stories or that we get all of our questions answered. This series is also not designed to make us comfortable or answer all of our questions. Instead, we want to look at questions like ‘What can we learn about God?” “What can we learn about people?” “How are we supposed to read these stories?” The entire Hebrew Bible is Jewish meditation literature. It isn’t short fables or pithy instructional posts. You are supposed to feel as you read them. And not just good feelings. The stories are supposed to churn in your mind after you read them. Robert Alter in The Art of Biblical Narrative wrote that “meaning was conceived as a process.” The reader was supposed to suspend judgement and weigh multiple possibilities. The reader is to brood “over gaps in the information provided.”² You are supposed to carry them with you and think about them as you read other stories in the Bible and in our own headlines.

I have researched and written this series in stages because the material is difficult. You may need to read and interact in stages as well. This piece will be here waiting for you whenever you are ready. I’m going to walk through both stories today, with only minimal commentary in footnotes, but I encourage you to read them yourself. Read them in different translations. They are found in Genesis 19 and Judges 19.

Genesis

The visitors to Sodom are angels who have previously visited with Abraham (along with the Lord). Abraham had bartered with God about sparing the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah from judgment if there were enough righteous people, but he stopped at ten people. The two angels arrive in the evening and Lot quickly rises from his position in the city gate, a place of prominence, and offers them hospitality. They tried to refuse, but he pressed them and they gave him. Lot prepared a feast for them.

However, before they could go to bed, “the men of the city of Sodom, both young and old, the whole population”³ came to Lot’s house and demanded that he send the visitors out so that they could “have sex with them.”⁴

Lot went out and shut the door behind him and tried to reason with the people. He said, “Don’t do this evil, my brothers. Look, I’ve got two daughters who haven’t been intimate with a man. I’ll bring them out to you, and you can do whatever you want to them. However, don’t do anything to these men, because they have come under the protection of my roof.”

The men of the city were offended. They said Lot was acting like their judge even though he was from another place and then threatened him with harm. They came to break down the door. But the angels snatched Lot back inside, shut the door, and struck the men outside with blindness. They could not find the entrance to harm anyone.

The angels told Lot to gather his family, anyone who belonged to him, and leave the city. They were going to destroy it “because the outcry against its people is go great before the Lord, that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” His sons-in-laws would not go so Lot gathered his two daughters and his wife and left the city.

That story continues on, please go read it. But that’s all we are going to cover in our conversation about these two stories.

Judges

In the days when there was not a king, a Levite from remote part of the hill country of Ephraim acquired a woman from Bethlehem as his concubine. She was unfaithful and left him⁵ and went to her father’s house for four months. Her husband “followed her to speak kindly to her and bring her back.” He brought his servant and a pair of donkeys and was welcomes into the house of his father-in-law. They ate, drank, and spent the nights there.

This story has a large portion that is devoted to the Levite’s attempts to leave and the father-in-law’s attempts to stay. He stayed an extra night. Ate and drank the next day but then refused to stay. They left even though it was evening. The servant tried to convince him to stop at Jebus “That is, Jerusalem” because it was almost night. But the Levite refused saying that he did not want to stay in a foreign city with no Israelites. They went on. The sun set. They stopped in Gibeah and went to the town square. No one offered them hospitality.

Then a man came in from the field. This man was also from the hill country of Ephraim but he was living among the Benjaminites in Gibeah. He asked where they were going and where they were from. The Levite answered and said that no one had taken them in even though they had what they needed for themselves and the donkey. The man was happy to take care of them “only don’t spend the night in the square.” Once they were inside the man’s house, “all of a sudden, wicked men of the city surrounded the house and beat on the door. They said to the old man who was the owner of the house, ‘Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.’”

The owner responded, “Please don’t do this evil, my brothers. After all, this man has come into my house. Don’t commit this horrible outrage. Here, let me bring out my virgin daughter and the man’s concubine now. Abuse them and do whatever you want to them. But don’t commit this outrageous thing against this man.” The men of the city did not like that plan so the Levite grabbed his concubine and threw her outside where she raped and abused until morning. Early in the morning, she made her way back and she collapsed on the doorway as the sun rose.

When the Levite came out to leave, the woman was lying with her hands on the threshold. He said “get up. Let’s go.” But there was no response. “So the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.” When he got home, he cut the woman in pieces and sent her throughout the territory of Israel.

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When I was writing those out, I felt weighed down by the horror and violence that occurred in the stories. We should feel that way. With our media choices and our access to news, it’s easy to be callous and seared to the awful things that humans do to one another. One of the complaints that I hear about the story in Judges is that the actions of the people are not condemned. Nowhere does it say that it was evil or that God hated it. But the people hearing or reading the story in Judges would have already known that. They would have immediately thought of the story from Genesis and how God protected the women and judged the people who thought that behavior was ok. These stories are not meant to be read in isolation to one another.

In two weeks, we are going to look at some comparisons and contrasts in these two stories. We will also highlight the four themes in Scripture that we will study throughout. For now, if you can, pray about these stories. Ask God what we are supposed to learn about who God is. How should these stories shape us?

I’d love to hear if you’ve heard these stories taught or how you feel about these stories being in Scripture. Is this something that bothers you? Have you heard excellent teaching on these stories?

1. While there are many approaches to stories like these, I approach Scripture with a hermeneutic of trust. I believe that we can see God’s character in all of Scripture and that God is opposed to evil.

2. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 2011), 12.

3. This probably hyperbole to some degree. My NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says it “indicates widespread participation. It is unlikely, though, that every single member of the male population is present, for Lot’s sons-in-law do not seem to be there. (Zondervan 2019, 49.)

4. Quotations are from the CSB. The CSB is a more dynamic translation, focusing on readability. The NRSV, as mentioned in the above footnote, is a word-for-word translation.

5. So the CSB says. The term for “unfaithful” is actually pretty vague and it is translated in the NRSV as “became angry.”