Judges 19:3

3 Then her husband went to ask her to come back to him, taking with him his servant and two donkeys. When the Levite came to her father's house, she invited him to come in, and her father was happy to see 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 At that time Israel did not have a king. There was a Levite who lived in the faraway mountains of Ephraim. He had taken a slave woman from the city of Bethlehem in the land of Judah to live with him,
2 but she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her father's house in Bethlehem in Judah and stayed there for four months.
3 Then her husband went to ask her to come back to him, taking with him his servant and two donkeys. When the Levite came to her father's house, she invited him to come in, and her father was happy to see him.
4 The father-in-law, the young woman's father, asked him to stay. So he stayed for three days and ate, drank, and slept there.
5 On the fourth day they got up early in the morning. The Levite was getting ready to leave, but the woman's father said to his son-in-law, "Refresh yourself by eating something. Then go."
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.