The Bible and Rape Culture (II)
The Concubine in Judges 19: Raped, Dismembered, Erased
Content Warning:
This essay contains descriptions and discussions of sexual violence, misogyny, and gender-based brutality as found in Judges 19. It includes analysis of rape, victim-blaming, and the objectification of women. Reader discretion is strongly advised. If you are a survivor or someone sensitive to these topics, please take care of yourself as you engage—or choose not to engage—with this piece.
Author’s Note:
I’m writing this series because the Bible is not just a holy book—it’s also a record of how deeply embedded patriarchy has been in faith, culture, and history. These stories matter because they’ve shaped how women are seen, treated, and silenced. We don’t talk about them enough, and when we do, we rarely center the victims. I want to change that.
This is part two in an ongoing series where I talk about women who were raped or almost raped in the Bible and analyzing how the victims were portrayed and how the issue was handled. In the last letter, I talked about Tamar.
The Bible and Rape Culture (I)
I grew up Christian and I still go to church. I vaguely remember the story of Tamar being taught in Sunday school—it was a cautionary tale told to the girls, warning them to be careful not to enter a man's private abode. There was never any mention of "don't rape" to the guys though, but that's a conversation for another day.
Today I'll be moving on to The story of Levite’s concubine.
The story of The Levite’s concubine at the hands of evil men can be found in Judges 19. But I recommend reading to chapter 21.
The story starts of with telling us that there was no king in Israel at the time. This is important because it's almost like the excuse the Bible uses. Like an, there was no king in Israel so everyone did what they liked type thing.
The beginning part of the story is not really relevant to me so I'll be quick. In a nutshell, a Levite takes a concubine, she goes back to her parents home, he comes to get her back and they live in the late afternoon to go back to their home. They don't want to stay with people who are not Israelites and so they keep moving even if it's dark. They are about to sleep in the square when a man offers them shelter. A man tries to be hospitable and they accept.
This is where it starts getting terrifying. While they are inside, the Bible records that some of the wicked men of the city surrounds the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.”
And the man go out and replies them saying: “No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this outrageous thing.”
My first question is this, would this old man be okay with a man, a person being raped if the person was not his guest? It seems like these potential rapists are not the only evil people in the town. But I digress. We're about to see the extent of the old man's evil.
The old man - the host - continues by saying:
Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But as for this man, don’t do such an outrageous thing.”
Ahhhhhhhh! When I first read this I didn't know how to feel. I was mad and angry at first, then I was sad. Sad because this man's love and respect for guests didn't extend to the concubine. Shey if the poor concubine had known that she would be offered up for slaughter by her host she would have stayed with her parents?
See the way he protected the man because he is his guest, and then compare it to the way he threw the woman under the bus… The man deserves to die.
He even added that the “evil men” can use his daughter and his guests concubine as they wish like, do whatever, I don't fuckin care.
The other man that deserves to die asides from the obvious ones like the evil men that eventually raped the concubine to death. They raped her all night and dumped her at the door of the house.
The other man is the Levite. For the host to have the effrontery, the audacity, the temerity to offer the Levite’s concubine like a lamb to a slaughter really says a lot about the kind of man he is. Because trust me, if he had even an ounce of love and respect for his concubine, the host would never have had the gall, the balls to do it.
Now, let's even say that he was misunderstood and that the host was just a bastard, this Levite did not complain, he did not fight, he did not protest. He did not even care.
What kind of man allows his partner to be raped. Or maybe he didn't see her as a partner. Maybe he saw her as trash, meat, a commodity. Because that's certainly not how you treat a partner.
The next morning he sees her at the door and tells her to “Get up; let's go.” He doesn't ask how she is, he doesn't panic or scream and when he finds out she is dead he doesn't mourn her.
He just carries her corpse home, cuts it up into twelve parts and sends it to the twelve tribes of Israel.
While reading this, I felt so sick, because what do you mean you cut up her body. Even in death this woman could not rest.
But the horror doesn’t stop there.
In chapters 20 and 21, after using the rape and murder of the concubine as an excuse for war, the men go on to kill even more women. They destroy an entire tribe—Benjamin—except for a few hundred men. Then guess what? They panic. They realize those men won’t have wives. So what do they do?
They go and steal women. First, they kill every woman in Jabesh Gilead who isn’t a virgin and take the rest as wives for the Benjamite men. Then, because there still aren’t enough women, they literally wait in ambush to kidnap girls dancing at a festival to force them into marriage.
Let that sink in.
They used a woman’s brutal rape and death to justify genocide, and when that caused a shortage of women, they kidnapped more.
First question, how did they know the women who were virgins? I'm pretty sure virgin wasn't written on their foreheads. Why did they kill the women who weren't. What is the message being sent? That women are only good for living when they are virgins?
Next question, how is it that they kill more women to avenge the death and rape of another. How is it that they steal women to marry, against their consent doing the very thing they wiped out an entire tribe for.
It just shows that it was never about justice, it was never about the concubine. It was always about men and their egos.
What’s even more terrifying than this story is how many churches skip it, how many pastors gloss over it or reduce it to a footnote in a sermon about “the dangers of lawlessness.” They don’t name what really happened: a woman was gang-raped, murdered, dismembered, and discarded—then used as a prop for political violence. And not once was there outrage for her. Not once was justice pursued for her.
The church today is no different. It still centers men. It still excuses violence if the perpetrator is a “man of God.” It still silences victims in the name of forgiveness. It still teaches women to be submissive and blames them when men sin. It still acts like purity is a woman’s worth and that her pain is only useful if it can serve a man’s purpose.
We don’t need more sermons about the “sinfulness of Sodom.” We need sermons that ask why a man sacrificed his concubine to a mob and why nobody cared. We need churches that see women as people, not objects, not property, not tools for atonement. We need pastors who preach like that woman mattered.
Her name was never recorded. But her story is etched in blood. And if the church won’t say her name, I will.
I had never even come across this part till today. I mean I went to Sunday school for over 15 years and not a single mention of it. I think they know.
I read the whole Bible when I was little and it didn’t really register in my head. I knew the woman died, I KNEW that she was raped at the doorstep and they could possibly hear the sounds, I KNEW that the man cut her body up into 12 pieces and sent them out to the tribes of Israel.
It didn’t register in my head that she was a human being, I saw her as just collateral damage, as something devoid of feeling or anything. It also didn’t register in my head the wickedness of the host and her husband, I just accepted that it was completely normal behavior to use the women as appeasement gifts or priced goods because it happens a lot in the book.
I can see where some people get the idea of raping people because it’s so normalized in the Bible. I mean as translators, you can always omit some passages because the scriptures that Jews use are different from the ones that Christians use. They could’ve omitted those parts out or reinforced that it was wrong and unethical….or maybe it was a normalized in their society, they didn’t see women as humans, as beings capable of emotions and opinions.