The book of Judges is perhaps one of the most violent in the canonical bible and contains what are certainly the cruelest narratives in the principle scriptural texts of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Judges is the seventh book in the Christian bible, set after the events in Joshua ( the establishment of the Israelites in Canaan) and before those in Samuel (the divine ordination and coronation of the first king, Saul). Judges depicts a lawless land guided only by whatever local authority prevails in a particular town or province. The narratives in Judges serve as historical examples of why the Isralite monarchy was established – the need for law and order to combat rampant chaos and atrocity.

Judges Chapter 19 tells the story of a Concubine who plays the whore against a Levite. The Levite has been set up to become a Judge in a kingless land where men did what was right in their own eyes. The Levite runs after his Concubine to speak friendly to her to bring her home. He finds her at her father’s house in Bethlehem where her father bids the Levite to feast with him and make himself merry. When the Levite finally gets back on the road after days of feasting, he ends up stopping in a city of his ancestry. There, an old wayfaring man takes the couple in for the night. The Benjaminite men of the city surround the old man’s home demanding him to bring out the Levite so they can “know” his wickedly. The men become uncontrollable causing the Levite to sacrifice his Concubine to save himself. They “know and abuse” her all night long. When the day begins to spring, the Levite arises to find the Concubine lying with her hands on the threshold. He says “Up and let us be going”. But none answered. He saddles her body on his ass and “gats him to his place.” Then the Levite cuts the Concubine’s body up into twelve pieces and sends her to the tribes of Israel.

In the following chapter, the tribes of Israel rise up against the blood misdeed, but again there is no true justice. The result is a terrible massacre of the entire tribe of Benjamin, to whom the “wicked men” belonged. This blood-revenge comes too late for the Concubine, nor is it directed toward the Levite, who questionable actions destroyed the unnamed woman. However, the devastation of the Benjaminite men leads to a lack of suitable husbands for the remaining captive women of Benjamin. Without this tribe, Israle has invoked the displeasure of the Lord. Their solution gathers 400 captured virgins of Benjamin in a vineyard during a feast, from whom they must repopulate the tribe. The men of the remaining eleven tribes are commanded: “…catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Bengamin” (Judges 20:21). The tribe is preserved at the cost of the rape of 400 women. This mockery of justice is commented on the final verse of the book: “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”