This article was originally published on Crosswalk.

Scripture doesn’t say what I want it to say sometimes.

I’m not a fan of the whole Tamar incident in Scripture, where she was tricked and then raped by her half-brother, Amnon. King David, their father, was “furious” according to Scripture. And yet he did nothing.

And I’m really not a fan of the story about the Levite concubine told in Judges 19. This nameless woman travels with her husband to Gibeah where they find shelter with one of its citizens. That night, some wicked Benjamite men of the town demand to have sex with her husband. In a despicable act of self-preservation, the husband offers his slave wife to the evil Benjamites instead. They brutally rape and abuse her all night.

In the morning, the husband finds his wife on the doorstep. Callously, he says, “Get up; let’s go.” (Judges 19:28)

But she can’t. She’s dead.

He then feigns indignation and sends parts of her body to the twelve tribes of Israel, inciting a war of vindication for a crime he allowed to happen. His actions are reprehensible. The Benjamites are vile.

Then there is the issue of slavery in Scripture. The Bible definitely doesn’t say what I want it to say there. 

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