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Judges 19:16 "And behold, an old man was coming from his work in the field at evening; the man was from the hill country of Ephraim and he was sojourning in Gibeah; the men of the place were Benjaminites."

 

This is part of a much larger story that will end in the other tribes of Israel going to war against the city of Gibeah and the tribe of Benjamin (Judges 20). It will start when the old man here takes in a traveling Levite from Ephraim and his concubine. The concubine will ultimately be horrendously abused and murdered at the hands of some of the men of the city of Gibeah (Judges 19:20-30), while the old man's hospitality will stand in stark contrast to that of the townspeople, none of whom was willing to take in the Levite and his companions (Judges 19:15).

 

A review of the crimes of Gibeah that led to war shows how what seem like small crimes of indifference and "othering" can lead to a culture beset by wickedness and ripe for chastisement. First, the people of this town refused a resting place to travelers, presumably because the strangers were not of their tribe. Next, certain base men of the city came banging on the door of the old man who did show hospitality, demanding the Levite be handed over to them so they could "know him" (while not told explicitly what they meant by this, the Levite will later say they meant to kill him (Judges 20:5), and it also seems to be a reference to the crime of sodomy, as this whole encounter is written in strikingly similar language to the story of Lot and the angelic rescuers in Sodom (see Genesis 19:1-9)). The old man begged the men not to do this wicked thing, but they were unrelenting, so the Levite gave them his concubine to satisfy their lust. Finally , the men abused and murdered this woman, leaving her body on the doorstep, without any concern for consequences, and apparently there were none, at least from their fellow citizens.

 

We may live in a place or society we think of as good, I'm sure the Benjaminites in Gibeah thought the same, while it is actually quite wicked indeed. If we are perceptive, we can see hints of the true nature of things in small acts of callousness or cruelty, especially towards those our society thinks of as somehow lesser. The traveling Levite was not accepted into any home in this city other than that of a fellow Ephraimite. Obviously, not everyone on whose door the Levite knocked participated in the evil of the "base men", but they all were perfectly willing to refuse a stranger lodging. They had drifted from God's commands on how to treat one another; this indifference to strangers is the first sign we have of that.

 

Once we start "othering" people, treating them as less than us, crimes against them become likely. While not everyone in this town engaged in the murder, they were all somewhat complicit in the crime due to their attitudes and the culture they were nurturing. Members of a community see how others are treated and hear how they are spoken of. People thus can come to see others as less than human, removing the guardrails God's commands put up to protect all from the base tendencies of humanity. That is why the entire city had to be punished for the crimes of these men. The people had become indifferent, perhaps even antagonist, to their fellow man. Dangerous tendencies were thus permitted a foothold, and grew, in some, to allow this horrific crime.

 

We can learn a lot about the health of our society by looking at the crimes being committed (and whether they are actually considered crimes - see abortion for example), and how the perpetrators are corrected, if at all. I think a clear-headed evaluation of our current culture would put us much closer to the Benjaminites than we would like to think we are. This is in large part because we have "othered" people, like the unborn or those with whom we disagree politically, and thus have created a culture of simmering wickedness that we try to mask by lies we tell ourselves about our "goodness." God tells us what is good. If our culture is defining goodness otherwise, it is not He who is wrong but us, and we will suffer the consequences, just as the cities of Gibeah and Sodom did.