How to Persevere and Wait in Prayer (Judg 20.18, 23, 27–28) ‣ Praying Through the Bible
The Israelites proceeded to go up to Bethel, where they inquired of God, “Which of us shall go up first to battle against the Benjaminites?”
The Israelites went up and wept before the LORD until the evening, and they inquired of the LORD, “Shall we again draw near to battle against our kinsfolk the Benjaminites?”
And the Israelites inquired of the LORD (for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days, and Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, ministered before it in those days), saying, “Shall we go out once more to battle against our kinsfolk the Benjaminites, or shall we desist?”
Background
The next three prayers are petitions made to God in the midst of crisis and controversy. The story is long and the last in the book of Judges. As noted before, the purpose of Judges is to show how far Israel strayed from her faith. The unfaithfulness and corruption worsen as time goes on, until this last story—a story of rape, murder, and civil war.
A priest is on his way back to North Israel with his concubine (or wife—the word could mean a second wife who did not have a dowry). While staying at home in the Benjamite region, the woman is raped and murdered. The scene recalls those of Lot and his daughters in Sodom, and another sign of how bad things had become in Israel.1 The owner of the house failed in “hospitality” (an important cultural expectation), but the priest shoved the woman out into the rowdy crowd who demanded she be given over. It is a scene of spiritual poverty and social corruption.
