Judges 19:3

3 Then her husband set out after her, to speak tenderly to her and bring her back. He had with him his servant and a couple of donkeys. When he reached her father's house, the girl's father saw him and came with joy 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, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite, residing in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.
2 But his concubine became angry with him, and she went away from him to her father's house at Bethlehem in Judah, and was there some four months.
3 Then her husband set out after her, to speak tenderly to her and bring her back. He had with him his servant and a couple of donkeys. When he reached her father's house, the girl's father saw him and came with joy to meet him.
4 His father-in-law, the girl's father, made him stay, and he remained with him three days; so they ate and drank, and he stayed there.
5 On the fourth day they got up early in the morning, and he prepared to go; but the girl's father said to his son-in-law, "Fortify yourself with a bit of food, and after that you may go."

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Gk: Heb [she brought him]
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.