The Piety of Fools: Text: Judges 19:10-15
Introduction: When The Center Will Not Hold
The book of Judges is a grim and bloody business. It serves as God's inspired record of what happens when a people forsake their covenant moorings. The refrain of the book, repeated like a funeral dirge, is that "in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." This is not a celebration of libertarian freedom. It is a diagnosis of societal rot. When men abandon the objective standard of God's law, they do not become free; they become slaves to their own appetites, and the result is chaos, depravity, and self-destruction. The final chapters of Judges, from seventeen to twenty-one, are the ugliest corner of this very dark room. They are an appendix of anarchy, showing us the logical and brutal end of a nation in full-blown apostasy.
We are not reading ancient history that is disconnected from us. We are looking in a mirror. Our nation, and the West generally, is shot through with the same godless premises. We have been told that true freedom means every man inventing his own moral code, defining his own reality. But as we see here in Judges, when every man does what is right in his own eyes, it doesn't take long for the most horrendous evils to be considered normal. When the light of God's law is extinguished, the monsters come out to play.
This story of the Levite and his concubine is perhaps the nadir of the entire Old Testament. It is a story of moral cowardice, sexual perversion, tribal corruption, and civil war. And it all begins with a series of seemingly small compromises, foolish decisions made by a man who should have known better. In the passage before us, we see a man making a decision based on a form of piety, a kind of religious formalism, that is completely detached from reality. He is about to discover, in the most horrific way possible, that a hollow and superficial allegiance to the covenant is no protection at all. In fact, it is a deadly snare.
The Text
But the man was not willing to spend the night, so he arose and went and came to a place before Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). And there were with him a pair of saddled donkeys; his concubine also was with him. They were alongside of Jebus, and the day was almost gone. And the young man said to his master, “Come, please, and let us turn aside into this city of the Jebusites and spend the night in it.” However, his master said to him, “We will not turn aside into the city of foreigners who are not of the sons of Israel; but we will pass on by until Gibeah.” Then he said to his young man, “Come and let us draw near to one of these places; and we will spend the night in Gibeah or Ramah.” So they passed along and went their way, and the sun set on them near Gibeah which belongs to Benjamin. Then they turned aside there in order to enter and to spend the night in Gibeah. So they entered and sat down in the open square of the city. Now no one was taking them into his house to spend the night.
(Judges 19:10-15 LSB)
A Fateful Decision (v. 10-13)
We begin with the journey and the critical choice that sets the stage for the horror to come.
"But the man was not willing to spend the night, so he arose and went and came to a place before Jebus (that is, Jerusalem)... They were alongside of Jebus, and the day was almost gone. And the young man said to his master, 'Come, please, and let us turn aside into this city of the Jebusites and spend the night in it.' However, his master said to him, 'We will not turn aside into the city of foreigners who are not of the sons of Israel; but we will pass on by until Gibeah.'" (Judges 19:10-12)
The Levite has lingered too long at his father-in-law's house. Hospitality is a good thing, but even good things can be twisted into a form of delay and irresponsibility. Now, daylight is failing, and they are near the city of Jebus, which we know as Jerusalem. At this point in history, it was still a Canaanite stronghold, a "city of foreigners." The servant, exercising plain common sense, suggests they stop for the night. It is the practical, prudent, and safe thing to do.
But the Levite refuses. And his reasoning is dripping with a pious, but utterly foolish, legalism. He will not stay with foreigners. He will press on to a city of his brethren, a city of the "sons of Israel." On the surface, this sounds commendable. It sounds like covenant loyalty. He is choosing to associate with his own people, the people of God, rather than with pagans. This is the kind of reasoning that gets approving nods in a Sunday School class. He is separating himself. He is being holy.
But this is a piety completely detached from wisdom. This is the kind of religious pride that God detests. The Levite is making a judgment based on external labels, "Israelite" versus "foreigner," while ignoring the actual state of affairs. Israel was in a state of deep apostasy. The label "Israelite" was no guarantee of righteousness; in fact, as the story will show, it was a cover for a depravity that would rival Sodom. He assumes that the covenant sign, circumcision, guarantees covenant behavior. This is a fatal mistake, and one the apostle Paul would later have to address repeatedly. He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly (Romans 2:28-29).
The Levite's decision is a form of ethnic pride masquerading as faithfulness. He trusts in the flesh. He thinks there is some inherent safety in the company of his fellow Israelites simply because they are Israelites. He would rather risk traveling in the dark to get to a "safe" Israelite town than accept the common grace of shelter in a pagan one. This is a profound misreading of the world. He has forgotten that sin corrupts everything, and that covenant people are capable of the most grotesque sins when they abandon God. As it turns out, he would have been far safer among the Jebusites. The irony is thick and tragic. He avoids the declared enemies of God only to be destroyed by those who call themselves God's people.
The Arrival at Gibeah (v. 14-15)
Having made his principled but foolish decision, the Levite and his party arrive at their chosen destination.
"So they passed along and went their way, and the sun set on them near Gibeah which belongs to Benjamin. Then they turned aside there in order to enter and to spend the night in Gibeah. So they entered and sat down in the open square of the city. Now no one was taking them into his house to spend the night." (Judges 19:14-15 LSB)
They press on, and the sun sets. Darkness falls, not just on the landscape, but on the nation. They arrive in Gibeah, a city in the tribe of Benjamin, and they do what any traveler would do: they go to the city square, the public space where they would wait for an offer of hospitality. In the ancient world, hospitality was not simply a nice gesture; it was a sacred duty, a pillar of civilized society. To refuse hospitality to a traveler was a profound breach of social and religious obligation. It was a sign of a hard, selfish, and godless heart.
And in this covenant city, this city of the "sons of Israel," what happens? Nothing. "Now no one was taking them into his house to spend the night." The silence is deafening. The entire city sees them, the traveler, his concubine, his servant, his donkeys, and they all look the other way. They pull their curtains shut. They bar their doors. The city that the Levite chose for its covenant status demonstrates a complete collapse of covenant ethics. They are Israelites in name only. Their hearts are cold, hard, and inhospitable.
This is a damning indictment. The law of God was clear. "You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 22:21). This command was woven into the fabric of their national identity. Their own history as vulnerable travelers was meant to cultivate a spirit of generosity and welcome. But here, in the heart of Israel, that command is utterly ignored. This is not just a social failure; it is a theological failure. A lack of hospitality is a symptom of a deeper disease: a lack of the love of God and the fear of God. When a people stop loving their neighbor, you can be sure they have already stopped loving God.
The Levite is now stranded. His foolish piety has led him from a potentially safe harbor among pagans to a cold and indifferent city of his own kinsmen. He is sitting in the dark, in the town square, a public rebuke to the entire city. But the indifference of Gibeah is just the calm before the storm. The cold shoulder they receive here is only the first sign of the moral rot that has consumed the city. The hearts that are closed to hospitality will soon be open to the most monstrous forms of wickedness.
Conclusion: The Danger of Dead Orthodoxy
What are we to make of this grim overture? This story is a powerful warning against a religion of external labels. The Levite made his choice based on a tribal, ethnic loyalty that he confused with genuine faithfulness. He chose Gibeah because it was an Israelite city, and in doing so, walked his entire party into a nightmare. He preferred the appearance of covenant faithfulness to the reality of common sense.
We do the same thing whenever we place our trust in external markers of faith rather than in the living reality of faith. We do it when we trust in our church membership, our baptism, our Reformed credentials, or our Christian heritage, all while our hearts are cold and our lives are disobedient. A dead orthodoxy is no better than paganism; in many ways, it is worse, because it cloaks itself in the language of Zion while its heart is in Babylon. The men of Gibeah were circumcised. They were sons of Abraham. And they were sons of Belial.
The failure of hospitality in Gibeah was the canary in the coal mine. It was the external sign of a deep, spiritual sickness. A people who will not open their homes to a traveler in need are a people whose hearts are shut to God. And when hearts are shut to God, every other evil is waiting right at the door. The events that follow this cold reception in the town square are some of the most shocking in all of Scripture, but they are the logical fruit of this initial failure.
The gospel call is not a call to trust in our bloodline, our nationality, or our church affiliation. It is a call to be born again. It is a call for God to do for us what He did on Day One of creation: to speak light into our darkness. Our hearts, by nature, are like the city of Gibeah, inhospitable to God. We sit in the public square of our lives and refuse to let the traveler, Jesus Christ, into our homes. He stands at the door and knocks (Rev. 3:20). The beginning of salvation is when, by His grace alone, we hear His voice and open the door. And when He comes in, He does not come as a guest to be tolerated, but as the master of the house, who cleanses it from top to bottom and makes it a place of true hospitality, a place where both God and neighbor are welcomed and loved.
Let us therefore examine ourselves. Are we resting in the mere label of "Christian," or are we living out the reality of the covenant? Does our faith manifest itself in love, in good works, in hospitality? Or are we like the Levite, clinging to a form of godliness while denying its power, making decisions that are piously stupid and will lead us, eventually, into the darkness of Gibeah?