And when the man rose up to depart, his father in law urged him: therefore he lodged there again.
The delay on the journey came about because the father-in-law pressed the man to remain, and so he spent another night there. The father of the concubine is called the man's father-in-law because a concubine held the legal standing of a wife, though of lower rank. The verse belongs to chapters 17 to 21, the closing chapters and final episodes of Judges, which contain the account of the crime at Gibeah, even though the regular history of the book ends with chapter 16.
Those closing chapters took place in the early part of the period of the judges. In chronological order they come before chapters 11 to 16. They are a record of Israel's backsliding and disgrace, marked by gross immorality scarcely exceeded by Sodom and by strife, ruffianism, and bloodshed, standing in contrast with the peaceful story of Ruth.
In that record conventional hospitality is set above female virtue. The history shows the evil that follows when people do what is right in their own eyes instead of following God's standard. As a record of backsliding it affords no basis for supposing that sin can be committed without punishment.
The delay on the journey came about because the father-in-law pressed the man to remain, and so he spent another night there. The father of the concubine is called the man's father-in-law because a concubine held the legal standing of a wife, though of lower rank. The verse belongs to chapters 17 to 21, the closing chapters and final episodes of Judges, which contain the account of the crime at Gibeah, even though the regular history of the book ends with chapter 16.
Those closing chapters took place in the early part of the period of the judges. In chronological order they come before chapters 11 to 16. They are a record of Israel's backsliding and disgrace, marked by gross immorality scarcely exceeded by Sodom and by strife, ruffianism, and bloodshed, standing in contrast with the peaceful story of Ruth.
In that record conventional hospitality is set above female virtue. The history shows the evil that follows when people do what is right in their own eyes instead of following God's standard. As a record of backsliding it affords no basis for supposing that sin can be committed without punishment.