Judges 19:29
And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel. And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel.
The verse stands in the book of Judges, whose lessons run through chapter 21 and whose name comes from the leaders God raised up from time to time and whose deeds are recorded there. Those leaders were generally called to service in a time of great national crisis when the nation had gone into captivity, and for that reason are called saviours, the last of the line being Samuel. Comparing 17:1 with 18:1, 31, the book was not written until about the time that there was a king in Israel, and it may have been written by Samuel or Nathan.
Judges 17-21 happened in the early part of the time of the judges rather than at the end, with the main story of the book ending at chapter 16. In time those chapters come before Judges 11-16 even though placed after them in the book.
The verse belongs to the account of the grave crime at Gibeah, in which the people of Gibeah committed a grave crime and the tribe of Benjamin identified itself with them. It is the disgraceful murder of the Levite's concubine at Gibeah of Benjamin, which nearly resulted in the extermination of the tribe of Benjamin. Gibeah means high, stands 2,690 feet above the sea about 200 feet higher than Jerusalem within an hour's walk from Jerusalem, and commands a fine view beyond the Dead Sea far into the mountains of Moab.
The verse belongs to a record of Israel's backsliding and the disgrace and punishment that followed, showing the extreme immorality prevailing during a time when people did what seemed right to themselves. It is included among the readings that show Israel's low moral and spiritual condition in the last chapters of Judges, before Samuel the prophet was called. The account illustrates how human judgment, unaided by divine revelation and blinded by selfishness, can make wrong appear right. The surrounding events expose how conventional hospitality was treated as more important than a woman's virtue, and tribal loyalty as more important than justice, yet neither priority excuses sin. Israel's backsliding gives no one permission to backslide without punishment.