Judges 19:29 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
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.
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
house
בֵּית֗וֹbei.To
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
took
וַיִּקַּ֤חvai.yi.Kach
H3947
to take (in the widest variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
knife
הַֽמַּאֲכֶ֙לֶת֙ha.ma.'a.Khe.let
H3979
something to eat with · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
hold
וַיַּחֲזֵ֣קvai.ya.cha.Zek
H2388
to fasten upon · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
concubine
בְּפִֽילַגְשׁ֔וֹbe.fi.lag.Sho
H6370
a concubine · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
divided
וַֽיְנַתְּחֶ֙הָ֙vay.na.te.Che.ha
H5408
to dismember · conjunction + verb, piel sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
bones
לַעֲצָמֶ֔יהָla.'a.tza.Mei.ha
H6106
a bone (as strong) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
twelve
לִשְׁנֵ֥יםlish.Neim
H8147
two · preposition + noun, common both genders dual absolute
pieces
נְתָחִ֑יםne.ta.Chim
H5409
a fragment · noun, common masculine plural absolute
sent
וַֽיְשַׁלְּחֶ֔הָvay.sha.le.Che.ha
H7971
to send away · conjunction + verb, piel sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
coasts
גְּב֥וּלge.Vul
H1366
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵֽלYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Judges 20:6-7 And I took my concubine, and cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance of Israel: for they have committe…
1 Samuel 11:7 And he took a yoke of oxen, and hewed them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel by the hands of messengers, saying,…
Deuteronomy 21:22-23 And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree:
Romans 10:2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Judges 19:22–end
Here is, I. The great wickedness of the men of Gibeah. One could not imagine that ever it should enter into the heart of men that had the use of human reason, of Israelites that had the benefit of divine revelation, to be so very wicked. "Lord, what is man!" said David, "what a mean creature is he!" "Lord, what is man," may we say upon the reading of this story, "what a vile creature is he, when he is given up to his own heart's lusts!" The sinners are here called sons of Belial, that is, ungovernable men, men that would endure no yoke, children of the devil (for he is Belial), resembling him, and joining with him in rebellion against God and his government. Sons of Benjamin, of whom Moses h…
divided her . . . into twelve pieces--The want of a regular government warranted an extraordinary step; and certainly no method could have been imagined more certain of rousing universal horror and indignation than this terrible summons of the Levite.
Next: Judges Chapter 20
John Gill on Judges 19:29
And when he was come into his house,.... Having taken the dead body of his wife from off the ass, and brought it in thither, and laid it in a proper place and order:
he took a knife; a carving knife, such as food is cut with, as the word signifies; the Targum is, a sword:
and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces; cut off her limbs at the joints of her bones, and made twelve pieces of them, according to the number of the tribes of Israel:
and sent her into all the coasts of Israel; that is, to every tribe, as Josephus says (y): there was now no supreme magistrate to apply unto for justice, nor the court of seventy elders, and therefore he…
And they turned aside thither to pass the night in Gibeah; and he (the Levite) remained in the market-place of the town, as no one received them into his house to pass the night.
Jdg 19:16-19
Behold, there came an old man from the field, who was of the mountains of Ephraim, and dwelt as a stranger in Gibeah, the inhabitants of which were Benjaminites (as is observed here, as a preliminary introduction to the account which follows). When he saw the traveller in the market-place of the town, he asked him whither he was going and whence he came; and when he had heard the particulars concerning his descent and his journey, he received him into his house. ואת־בּית י הלך אני (Jdg 19:18), "and I wa…
The Church Fathers
Our sufferings have been dreadful beyond endurance, and it is impossible to describe them in suitable terms; but in order that the dreadful nature of the events which have taken place may be more readily apprehended, I have thought it good to remind you of a history out of the Scriptures. It happened that a certain Levite was injured in the person of his wife; and, when he considered the exceeding greatness of the pollution (for the woman was a Hebrew, and of the tribe of Judah), being astounded at the outrage which had been committed against him, he divided his wife's body, as the holy Scripture relates in the book of Judges, and sent a part of it to every tribe in Israel, in order that it might be understood that an injury like this pertained not to himself only, but extended to all alike; and that if the people sympathized with him in his sufferings, they might avenge him; or if they neglected to do so, might bear the disgrace of being considered thenceforth as themselves guilty of the wrong. The messengers whom he sent related what had happened; and they that heard and saw it, declared that such things had never been done from the day that the children of Israel came up out of Egypt. So every tribe of Israel was moved, and all came together against the offenders, as though they had themselves been the sufferers; and at last the perpetrators of this iniquity were destroyed in war and became a curse in the mouths of all: for the assembled people considered not their kindred blood but regarded only the crime they had committed.… For my object in reminding you of this history is this, that you may compare those ancient transactions with what has happened to us now, and perceiving how much these last exceed the other in cruelty, may be filled with greater indignation on account of them, than were the people of old against those offenders. For the treatment we have undergone surpasses the bitterness of any persecution; and the calamity of the Levite was but small when compared with the enormities which have now been committed against the church; or rather such deeds as these were never before heard of in the whole world or the like experienced by any one. For in that case it was but a single woman that was injured and one Levite who suffered wrong; now the whole church is injured, the priesthood insulted, and worst of all, piety is persecuted by impiety. On…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Benjamin, The Tribe Of — The contrast between the warlike character of the tribe and the peaceful image of its progenitor comes out in many scattered notices. Benjamin was the only tribe which seems to have pursued archery…
Gibeah — A hill or hill-town, “of Benjamin” (1 Sam. 13:15), better known as “Gibeah of Saul” (11:4; Isa. 10:29). It was here that the terrible outrage was committed on the Levite’s concubine which led to the…
Micah — A shortened form of Micaiah, who is like Jehovah? (1.) A man of Mount Ephraim, whose history so far is introduced in Judg. 17, apparently for the purpose of leading to an account of the settlement of…
Wolf — Heb. zeeb, frequently referred to in Scripture as an emblem of treachery and cruelty. Jacob’s prophecy, “Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf” (Gen. 49:27), represents the warlike character of that tribe…
Armies Of Israel, The · Collected by: Extraordinary means — Collected by: Extraordinary means
Jews, The · Obliged to unite against enemies — Obliged to unite against enemies
Rape · General references — General references
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
