Chapter 19

I think one of the hardest chapters for me to understand is Judges 19.  Although Genesis 19 is almost as bad.

In Judges, it is the story of the Levite and his concubine.  She had returned to her father's house, and after awhile, he goes to get her.  He stayed five days, and then left with her and traveled.  They got to a city, and after a long wait, an older man invited them to stay with him.  While they were there, men from the city banged on the door demanding that he be handed over so they could rape him.

Ok, so far, the story is going badly, but from here it takes a total nose-dive into unbelievability.

Instead of several options perhaps available to them, the old man offers to hand out to the men a trade.  "Here, have my daughter and his concubine instead."

Hmm...

wow.

In the end, the man shoves his concubine out the door to the howling mob to do whatever they want to her.  They do.  They rape her all night until she dies.

And... inside the house.... the brave men enjoy their dinner and sleep??  And the daughter whose father was so willing to throw her to the mob listens to the crowd and to the screams of the concubine and....  cowers knowing her own father would have sent her out to them too???

The story in Genesis has a slightly better ending only because angels intervened.  There Lot takes in strangers and when wicked me bang on his door, he is willing to throw away his daughters to be killed to save his own skin.

It sickens me.  The value of women.  Worth being thrown out.  If a man was endangered.

These passages bother me.  Not so much Genesis since the angels stepped in.  But the account in Judges sickens me.

Why?  What is God's view on this?  He is silent.  It is true that they come and judge the city who did that, but there is no judgement on the men who threw her out to the dogs to be killed.

Just silence.

How can that be ok?  I want God to strike the man dead.  But He doesn't.  Just silence.

There are times that I wonder how much has changed.  I live in a world where people are all too willing to sacrifice the women if it saves the men.  I've seen it in other couples.  I see in in our marriage.  In our mission.

Not that everyone in our mission is like that.  But some are.

But I've met a few that would rather throw me out than risk losing a man.

 "Oh, don't listen to her, she's just unstable."  "Women, so emotional, you know."  and my personal least favorite, "She's just damaged from her past.... she'll never be ok." And now the new one, "Well, she'd doing this... I told her not to, but she is anyway..."

And this last week, I watched as someone was willing to throw me out to be attacked in order to save his own skin.  To deflect attention from himself by throwing me out.

Now to be honest, he tried to rescue me afterwards.  Tried to go back and say he didn't exactly mean what he had said, but it was too late.

I got chewed up and spit out.  And some things will never be the same after that.

It's sad.  And I am hurting.  Hurting that my value is that little.  That it is easier to throw me away than to risk losing him.  Or to face his own problems.  Easier to throw me under the bus.

Sadly, there were no angels in this story to say, "hey, no!"

And I'm wounded.  And unsure if I ever want to trust again.  Or if I'm just not worth fighting for.

If no one else will fight for me, why fight for myself?  I can't fight a crowd.  I'm outnumbered by those who will just as rather discard me than risk the loss of my husband.  Maybe it is time to give up hope of any change.  To just live as is.  I can't fight anymore.