Judges 19:4
And his father in law, the damsel’s father, retained him; and he abode with him three days: so they did eat and drink, and lodged there. And his father in law, the damsel’s father, retained him; and he abode with him three days: so they did eat and drink, and lodged there.
Judges 17-21 record events that happened in the early part of the period of the judges though placed at the end of the book, with the main story of the book ending at chapter 16. Judges 17 to 21 belongs together with Joshua 23, 24 and Judges 1 to 10 as one lesson. The verse belongs to the book's account of the crime at Gibeah, whose people were associated with the whole tribe of Benjamin. The closing chapters of Judges, including 19:1-21, record internecine strife, ruffianism, and bloodshed.
The verse belongs to an account that shows the gross immorality prevailing in the latter part of the period of the judges, when people did what was right in their own eyes. Its visit and hospitality form part of a chapter whose events reveal how badly society can be corrupted when human judgment is not guided by God's standard of righteousness. The verse belongs to a pitiful record of backsliding and its consequent disgrace and punishment. It shows a time when conventional hospitality was set higher than female virtue and clannish loyalty to a tribe was set higher than rendering justice, a condition still seen today, and there is never excuse for sin.
By calling the concubine's father the man's father-in-law, the verse shows that a concubine was legally a wife, though she could be a slave wife or inferior in rank.