The Levite's Concubine: New Light on a Dark Story

Previous commentators accept that an adulterous wife dared return to her father's house and a benign husband sought to retrieve her, or they stipulate a unique meaning for the phrase . By understanding in a sense attested elsewhere in the Bible, this essay both resolves the crux of implausibility and obviates the need for singular translation. A close literary reading also presents a new interpretation of the entire chapter, demonstrating that the theme of Judges 19 is neither hospitality nor the abasement of women but Israel's Sodom-like abnegation of commitment and compassion down to that last stronghold of security—the family unit. Contrary to other feminist readings, this feminist interpretation reveals the biblical author's empathy toward the concubine, his contempt for the guilty, and his imposition of punishment on the wrongdoers.