Judges 19:28

28 He said, “Get up! Let’s go!” But there was no answer. So he put her body on his donkey and took her home.

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 At daybreak the woman returned to the house where her husband was staying. She collapsed at the door of the house and lay there until it was light.

27 When her husband opened the door to leave, there lay his concubine with her hands on the threshold.

28 He said, “Get up! Let’s go!” But there was no answer. So he put her body on his donkey and took her home.

29 When he got home, he took a knife and cut his concubine’s body into twelve pieces. Then he sent one piece to each tribe throughout all the territory of Israel.

30 Everyone who saw it said, “Such a horrible crime has not been committed in all the time since Israel left Egypt. Think about it! What are we going to do? Who’s going to speak up?”

Footnotes

• [a]. Greek version adds for she was dead.