Reading for January 5th

Read Judges 19.1-21
In verse 1-21: Spending the night in Gibeah.
In verse 1: In those days ... Israel: This refrain (17.6; 18.1; 21.25) suggests that a king would make such a horrifying lawlessness unlikely.
As a concubine she is recognized wife with inferior legal status.
In verse 2: She returns to her family of origin (father's house), but the circumstances as unclear.
In verse 4-9: The point of this prolonged account is that they left  much later in the afternoon than was wise.
In verse 12: The irony is sharp.
Jerusalem as a city of foreigners is rejected as in hospitable in favor of shelter with people of Israel.
In verse 15: That no one took them in would be considered outrageous; hospitality was an important civic virtue.
In verse 16: The old man is a fellow countryman (hill country of Ephraim; v. 1) living as a resident alien in Gibeah.
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