Commentaires bibliques

This history has no connection whatever with the preceding. The note of time Judges 20:28 shows that the date of it is in the lifetime of the first generation of settlers in Canaan.

A concubine - See the margin. The name does not imply any moral reproach. A concubine was as much the man's wife as the woman so called, though she had not the same rights. See Judges 19:3-4.

Played the whore against him - Perhaps only meaning that she ran away from him, and left him, for she returned to her father's house.

This is a perfect picture of the manners of the time. It is probable that the father showed more than usual hospitality, in order to ensure the kind treatment of his daughter by her husband. These particulars are given to account for their journey running so far into the evening, which was the immediate cause of the horrible catastrophe which followed.

City of a stranger - This shows how completely, even in these early days, the Jebusite population had excluded both the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.

Gibeah, which belongeth to Benjamin - See Joshua 18:24 note.

A street - Probably the square or place within the gates, where courts were held, bargains made, and where the chief men and strangers congregated.

Which was also of Mount Ephraim - i. e., of the country of the Levite. This single giver of hospitality was himself a stranger and sojourner at Gibeah.