Judges 19:3

3 So her husband set out, and he went after her to speak {tenderly to her}, to bring her back. He took with him his servant and a pair of donkeys. And she brought him [to] her father's house, and the father of the young woman saw him and was glad to meet him.

Judges 19:3 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 19:3

And her husband arose
From the place where he lived:

and went after her;
to Bethlehemjudah, where her father lived:

to speak comfortably to her
"or to her heart" F12; having heard perhaps that she repented of her sin, or if it was only upon a quarrel between them, his anger might cool and subside, and therefore sought for a reconciliation; and which was the more commendable in him, as he did not put her away, but she departed from him: and

to bring her again;
to his own city, and to his own house and bed, as before:

having his servant with him, and a couple of asses;
one of them for her to ride upon, and the other to carry provisions on:

and she brought him into her father's house;
it seems she met with him before he came thither, in the fields, or in the street; and by this it appears that she was glad to see him, and received him in a loving manner, and introduced him into her father's house, so that things looked well, and promised success:

and when the father of the damsel saw him, he rejoiced to meet him;
having a good opinion of him, and perhaps understood, even by his daughter's story, that she was most in fault, and therefore was well pleased to see him come after her; though he ought before this time to have sent her home, or sought for a reconciliation of her to her husband.


FOOTNOTES:

F12 (hbl le) "ad cor", Pagninus.

Judges 19:3 In-Context

1 In those days there was no king in Israel; there was a man, a Levite, who dwelled as a foreigner in the remote areas of the hill country of Ephraim. And he took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.
2 But his concubine felt repugnance toward him, and she left him and went to her father's house, to Bethlehem in Judah; she was there some four months.
3 So her husband set out, and he went after her to speak {tenderly to her}, to bring her back. He took with him his servant and a pair of donkeys. And she brought him [to] her father's house, and the father of the young woman saw him and was glad to meet him.
4 His father-in-law, the young woman's father, urged him to stay with him three days; and they ate and drank, and they spent the night there.
5 On the fourth day, they rose early in the morning, and he prepared to go, but the father of the young woman said to his son-in-law, "{Refresh yourself} [with] a bit of food, and afterward you may go."

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Literally "to her heart"
Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.