The Pulpit Commentary — Judges — Section 180

CHAPTER XIX. the temple, n cave, the north, o. pit, a coUlltry, &c., and is used in the dual number (see Ver. 1.-When there was no king (eh. 1 Sam. xx.iv. 4 ; 1 Kings vi. 16; Pa. xlviii. mi. 6; xvi.ii. 1; m. 25). It appears from 3 ; cxxviii. 3 ; Iso.. xxxvii. 24 ; Ezek. xxxii. eh. xx. 27, 28 that the events narrated in 23, &c.). It means the innermost, hindmost, these three last chapters of the Book of furthermost parts. Its application here to Judges happened in the lifetime of Phinehas, the northern side of Ephraim seems to imply and while the ark was at Shiloh (see eh. xx. that the writer wrote in the south, probably 27, note). Phinehas evidently outlived Joshua in• Judah. A concubine. An inferior wife, (Josh. xxiv. 29, 33), though there is no evi- who had not the same right for herself or dence to show how long. The events in for her children as the wife had (see Gen. these chapters must have occurred in the XXV. 6). interval between the death of Joshua. and Ver. 2.-Played the whore, &c. Perhaps the death of Phinehas. A certain Levite, the phrase onlymeans that she revolted from &c. It is a cnrious coincidence that both him and left him. Her returning to her the Levite whose sad story is here told, and father's house, and his anxiety to make up the Levite the son of Gershom of whom we the quarrel, both discourage taking the phrase read in the preceding chapters, were sojourn- in its worst sense. Four whole months. ers in the hill coUlltry of Ephraim, and also Literally, days.four rrwnths; meaning either closely connected with Bethlehem-judah. a year and four months, as in 1 Sam. xxvii. Perhaps the legitimate inference (see ver. 18, 7, where, however, the and is expressed; or nnd eh. xx. 26, 27) is that in both cases the days (i. e. many days), viz.,.fowr months. Levites were drawn to Ephraim by the ark For the use of days for a year see Exod. being at Shiloh, and also that there was xiii. 10 ; Judges xvii. 10, &c. a colony of Levites at Bethlehem-judah. Ver. 3.-To bring her again. So the Whether there was any connection between Keri. But the Cethib has to briJng him, i. e. the presence of Levites at Bethlehem and it, again, viz., her heart. But the phrase f,o the annual sacrifice at Bethlehem which speak f,o her heart is such a common one for existed in David's time, and which argues f,o speak friendly or kindly to any one that it the existence of a high place there, can only is not likely that it should here be used be a matter of conjecture (see 1 Sam. ix. 13, otherwise, so that the pronoun should refer and xx. 29). All we can say is that there to heart. If the masculine is here the right was the universal prevalence of high-place reading, it may be an archaism making the worship during the time of the judges, and euffix of the common gender like the plural that the services of Levites were sought after suffix in ver. 24, which is masculine, thongh- in connection with it (eh. xvii 13). On the e.pplied to women, and like the masculine side. Hebrew, aides. In the masculine form pronoun itself, which is so used throughout· the word means the hip and upper part of thePentateuch and elsewhere (see nlso eh. :u:i. the thigh ; in the feminine, as here, it is 12; Exod. i. 21 ). A couple of asses. One for al'l,Ii~d only to iuanimate objects, as a house, himself aud oue for he!'. lie rejoiced. No OR, XIX. 1-30.] THE BOOK OF JUDGES. 19J