The Levite and His Concubine Arrive in Gibeahby emmanuel_higgins

Judges 19:14

And they passed on and went their way; and the sun went down upon them when they were by Gibeah, which belongeth to Benjamin.

The verse describes travelers overtaken by evening at sunset when they were by Gibeah, which belonged to Benjamin, as part of the account of the crime at Gibeah committed by its Benjamite people. It stands in the closing chapters 17-21, after the main story ending at chapter 16, which record Israel's backsliding and the disgrace and punishment that followed. Those closing chapters portray internecine strife, ruffianism, and bloodshed.

Those closing chapters record events from the early part of the history of the judges though placed at the end of the book. Chapters 17-21 belong chronologically before chapters 11-16. It belongs to a period when Israel had no king and people did what seemed right to themselves. That way of life led to gross immorality and a society in which wrong could appear right, where conscience and human reason without divine revelation were perverted by selfishness.

The backsliding shown does not mean anyone can sin without punishment. Those God used to deliver His people at that time are not set as examples to follow, for God worked with the best material at hand even when it was crude and rough, as in the case of Samson. Its wording about the sun going down proves that the day commences in the vicinity of sunset but not always at the same point, because the rising and setting of the sun constantly vary.