This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see what’s
happening in a Biblical text

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

This is the bottom of
Israel’s spiral into depravity.

They only do what’s right in their own eyes.

This becomes savagely clear in a
complex narrative full of sexual violence.

It begins as a Levite looks for and finds
his runaway concubine at her father’s house.

On the way home, the pair choose the supposedly
safer Israelite city of Gibeah over the foreign city of Jebus.

They are wrong.

The men of the city pound on their door and demand
the Levite be brought out so they can rape him.

Unthinkably, the husband sacrifices his
wife to protect himself.

The men of the city rape her until the morning.
She dies from the trauma.

The Levite carves his wife’s body into 12 pieces and ships
her to the elders of the12 tribes to incite war against Gibeah.

Outraged, 11 of Israel’s tribes muster
400,000 troops and march on the city.

But the tribe of Benjamin chooses
to defend Gibeah’s immorality.

For the first time since the Book of Joshua, Israel seems united
in its desire to destroy the immorality in the land of Canaan.

Ironically though, Israel must
destroy one of her own clans to do so.

The enemy of God is no longer outside, but within Israel.

In a series of three battles
both sides take heavy losses.

The body count proves God’s judgment isn’t just
against Benjamin, but against all of Israel’s men.

Six hundred men from Benjamin escape,
but no women or children are left alive.

The conquering tribes then secure
Benjamin’s eradication and make a law that

no father can give their
daughters in marriage to Benjamin.

But the men of Israel
realize this is shortsighted.

Israel can’t be without all 12 tribes.

Their solution is a loophole.

Technically no one will “give” their virgin daughters
to Benjamin; instead they will “take” them by force.

Israel resorts to the same behavior that started
the war, exploiting and raping 600
women so the men can save face.

[music]

Israel has rejected God’s kingship and
crowned themselves as better lawgivers.

But their edicts are confused and contradictory.

It’s unclear if God is for or against Israel.

And the constant violence against women is grisly proof of
Israel’s failures in general, but its men’s failures in particular.

Israel needs a leader who does not do whatever
seems best in his own eyes. And Israel needs a husband
who will not sacrifice his bride to save his skin.

That husband and leader is Jesus.

The Levite threw his bride to the mob and did nothing
as her sexuality was abused and her body mutilated.

But instead of sacrificing his bride to save himself,
Jesus sacrifices himself to save his bride.

Jesus was thrown to the crowds.

His clothes were gambled over.

He was naked.

His body was stripped and abused
for the pleasure of those watching.

Jesus is the only man
worthy to lead God’s people.

Jesus protects his wife, unlike how the
Levite and eventually all of Israel failed to do.

Jesus is the only one who
does what is right in God’s eyes.

The apostle Paul tells us that when Jesus died as our
husband, he did so to make us holy and clean by his Spirit.

Israel’s civil war was an attempt to clean up the immorality
of Gibeah, but the immorality of Gibeah was in them too.

The other 11 tribes were just
as capable of rape and murder.

If they wanted to purge Israel of sin,
they needed to kill themselves too.

But Jesus, the true Israelite, died so that all his people
could be purged from their sin. And he replaces our
violent and lecherous hearts with his own Spirit.

His death isn’t just sacrificial; it replaces our
self-destruction with his own powerful, loving, and holy Spirit.

Because of Jesus we are a new Israel.

Not a kingdom of lust and violence, but one
empowered by self-sacrificing love and mercy.

I pray you will see the God who is King.

And may you see Jesus as our loving husband
who sacrificed himself to give life to his bride.