Judges 19:28

28 And he said to her, Get up and let us be going; but there was no answer; so he took her up and put her on the ass, and went on his way and came to his house.

Judges 19:28 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 19:28

And he said unto her, up, and let us be going
He spoke to her as supposing her asleep, in order to awake her, and prepare for their journey with all the haste they could, lest greater mischief should befall them:

but none answered;
for she was dead; and her death was occasioned, as Josephus ^F23 says, partly through grief at what she had suffered, and partly through shame, not daring to come into the sight of her husband; but chiefly through the injuries done her by the number of persons that had lain with her: so it is reported ^F24 of the Thessalonians, when they took Phocis, many women were destroyed through the abundance of rapes committed upon them. To these Abarbinel adds, the cold of the night, being without her clothes, or anything to cover her:

then the man took her up upon an ass;
and carried off her dead body, without making any remonstrance to the inhabitants, from whom he could not expect that any justice would be done him:

and the man rose up, and got him unto his place;
to his city on one side Mount Ephraim, to which he made as much haste as he could, instead of going to the house of God at Shiloh, as he proposed; for now the circumstances of things were changed with him, and instead of sacrificing and giving praise to God in his house, his business was to seek for justice from the tribes of Israel.

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FOOTNOTES:

F23 Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 2. sect. 8.)
F24 Herodot. Urania, sive, l. 8. c. 33.

Judges 19:28 In-Context

26 Then at the dawn of day the woman came, and, falling down at the door of the man's house where her master was, was stretched there till it was light.

27 In the morning her master got up, and opening the door of the house went out to go on his way; and he saw his servant-wife stretched on the earth at the door of the house with her hands on the step.

28 And he said to her, Get up and let us be going; but there was no answer; so he took her up and put her on the ass, and went on his way and came to his house.

29 And when he had come to his house, he got his knife, and took the woman, cutting her up bone by bone into twelve parts, which he sent through all Israel.

30 And he gave orders to the men whom he sent, saying, This is what you are to say to all the men of Israel, Has ever an act like this been done from the day when the children of Israel came out of Egypt to this day? Give thought to it, turning it over in your minds, and give your opinion of it.