Judges 19:28

28 And he said to her, Up, and let us go; but no one answered. And he took her upon the ass; and the man rose up, and went to his place.

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 And the woman came at the dawning of the day, and fell down at the entrance of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light.

27 And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the door of the house, and went out to go his way, and behold, there lay the woman his concubine at the entrance of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold.

28 And he said to her, Up, and let us go; but no one answered. And he took her upon the ass; and the man rose up, and went to his place.

29 And when he was come into his house, he took the knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, according to her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the borders of Israel.

30 And it came to pass that every one that saw it said, There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came out of Egypt to this day. Think it over, advise, and speak.