Warning: abuse triggers.
Scripture is chockful of stories about threshold covenants and therefore, implicitly if not explicitly, about cornerstones. It’s surprising how much of the historical record is given over to such events, especially in the early days of the formation of the tribal brotherhood. Once the focus turns to the kings, it’s different—but until then, most of the incidents that were significant enough to make their way into national memory involved threshold covenant in one way or another.
The most devastating, at least in terms of its impact, was an event that happened in a small town that was part of the territory of Benjamin. The town was Gibeah and the incident became a byword for depravity. Over five hundred years later, Hosea described the corruption of the Israelites by saying:
‘They have gone deep in depravity as in the days of Gibeah.’
Hosea 9:9 NASB
But what happened at Gibeah wasn’t an isolated event. Before we dig into the details, it’s worth noting it was basically a rerun of the story of Sodom but with an even more horrific ending. Gibeah was, in many ways, Sodom 3.0 and, like its precursor, it begins with what turns out to be a comparison story. Hospitality done right is contrasted with hospitality done desperately wrong.
Immediately before the recounting of the fate of Sodom, God comes to visit Abraham, accompanied by two angels. Now angels are a feature of cornerstone stories, going way back to the creation itself, as God reveals during His questioning of Job:
‘Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
… On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?’
Job 38:4–7 NIV
And although God isn’t mentioned passing over the cornerstone at the doorflap to Abraham’s tent to accept hospitality, it’s clear that the entrance—and therefore the cornerstone—is a significant feature of the story. It may be that one of the angels is sitting right in front of it because Sarah is explicitly mentioned as being just behind him and listening in from the doorway. It’s there that she’s caught out eavesdropping and laughing at the thought she’ll conceive a son at the age of ninety—her laughter is in fact symbolic of the conception of her son, Isaac, whose name means laughter. Perhaps she’s right under the lintel or else the angel is, because the Hebrew word for Isaac’s name rhymes with that for lintel or doorframe. God loves little poetic touches like this.
I’m making a big deal about the association of angels with cornerstones and threshold events because, although it’s not obvious at this moment, it’s going to be a crucial point much later in the series for understanding a controversial passage in Paul’s writing.
Throughout the encounter between God and Abraham, the generosity of Abraham in welcoming strangers and offering hospitality is made abundantly clear. The following episode in the Genesis narrative is a complete contrast with this exemplar of kind, almost extravagant, provision. Fresh bread made from the finest of flour, choice young calf on a barbecue, creamy milk—Abraham’s immediate orders to his servants show he didn’t intend to skimp, even before he was fully aware it was a divine visitation.
Abraham’s welcome is immediately contrasted with that of the citizens of Sodom. The angels depart to conduct an investigation into the way the people of Sodom treat strangers—complaints about their behaviour are so serious they have reached heaven itself. A pair of angelic detectives with judicial powers have been assigned to look into the matter. They are greeted courteously by Lot, Abraham’s nephew, who follows a similar pattern to his uncle in extending hospitality. The angels enter Lot’s house, thereby passing over the cornerstone and partaking in a threshold covenant. A basic understanding would have then been in place: if danger threatens, both host and guests will defend each other to the death. And danger does indeed threaten. The citizens of Sodom surround the house and demand the visitors be handed over to them so the people can have sex with them.
Now surely this can’t be happening to every visitor to town. Trading caravans would have bypassed Sodom as soon as word got around that rape was the price of doing business there. More likely than not, ritual sex—and possibly sacrifice, as well—was reserved for a special feast day of a local deity. And Lot, having covenanted with his guests, is obliged to go to any length to defend them. This is why he offers his daughters in exchange. Fortunately his guests are angels and, after blinding the citizens groping for the doorway of the house, they lead Lot and his family out of the doomed city, saving their lives before a nuclear-level explosion takes it out. Thereafter Lot’s wife and daughters make some very bad decisions and the consequences of threshold covenant violation ripple down through the centuries.
We get a clue about the identity of the spirit the citizens of Sodom are likely to have been worshipping in another episode of ritual sex and threshold covenant some four or five hundred years later. The Israelites had come almost to the end of their wilderness wanderings and had camped in the Valley of Acacias. A quick check of their history scrolls would have told them that they’d come to the ancient site of Sodom. They’ve just warred against the Amorite King Sihon of Heshbon and defeated him. In doing so, they had made it possible for the Moabite monarch, Balak—a descendent of Lot—to regain his throne and his homeland. Now was Balak grateful? Maybe he was, but his fear overrode any thankfulness. He sent for the diviner Balaam to curse the Israelites. Balaam tried three times to do so, but failed—eventually coming to realise that God would only allow blessing on the people He had chosen as His own. So to keep his pay—and probably his head and reputation—Balaam suggested a devious strategy to the king of Moab. Since it was evident to him that was impossible to persuade God to annul His covenant with the Israelites, then the opposite had to happen. The Israelites had to be coaxed into violating the covenant with God, thereby forfeiting His protection and coming out from under His covering.
And so we come to Sodom 2.0. The Moabites and the Midianites conspired together to lure the Israelites into sin through an unholy covenant with Baal Peor, lord of the opening. This profane covenant was pledged through ritual sex with priestesses of the godling, through eating food sacrificed to the idol at a ceremonial feast, and through bowing down to it in order to bind themselves in service. The Baal of Peor, the opening, is a doorway spirit, a threshold guardian. No doubt it was the same unholy entity as had existed at Sodom, since this is exactly the same locality. A plague breaks out and it was clearly seen as connected to this idolatry since the word for plague means strike and is the same word as is used for smiting, tripping, stumbling, stubbing or dashing a foot against a stone. Every single one of those meanings were symbolic ways to refuse covenant.
In the threshold covenant rite, a person passed over the cornerstone to accept covenant or they hit, struck, or dashed their foot against it to reject covenant. The word for plague in this passage is the word for thwacking a cornerstone.
Twenty-four thousand people had died by the time Phinehas, grandson of Aaron, chose to enter the curse and spear it. (The Hebrew text is quite clear, despite our English translations which say he entered a tent and speared two people through the stomach in the act of sex. The word translated tent in this passage is in all other instances translated curse. Phinehas therefore foreshadowed Jesus who became the curse for us to rescue us from the plague of sin.)
And so we come to Gibeah, or more appropriately Sodom 3.0. Now Sodom 2.0, the Baal Peor incident, was connected to the original Sodom through defilement of the landscape. Even after the complete destruction of the city by God, a spiritual pollution remained that was so deep the Israelites would have been wise to heed the warning of the name of the Valley—that of the Acacias, which in Hebrew means turn aside. Such heavy contamination on the land suggests that the threshold spirit here is Belial, the spirit of abuse, since this entity is so defiling that God commands about any town found worshipping him:
‘You must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock. You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt.’
Deuteronomy 13:15–16 NIV
Now Gibeah (or Sodom 3.0) is linked to Sodom 2.0 through a person, rather than through the landscape. And that common person is Phinehas who, though he is backgrounded in the story of Gibeah, is a haunting presence just beyond the edge of the narrative.
The story is told right at the end of the Book of Judges. It’s a long one and it’s clearly out of chronological order since Phinehas is part of the story and it’s unlikely he lived to be 400 years old. At first, the story conceals the name of the Levite who is the focus of the story. But eventually it’s revealed to be Jonathan, the grandson of Moses and the second cousin of Phinehas.
Jonathan apparently comes from Bethlehem. His minor wife—or concubine—certainly comes from there. One day he’s travelling through the hill country of Ephraim and he stops overnight at the house of a man named Micah. Now Micah’s a rogue—he stole a fortune in silver shekels—eleven hundred of them—from his mother and only gave them back when he heard the curse she pronounced on the robber. When he returned them, two hundred were used to make an idol that was installed in a shrine with an ephod and some household gods. Micah then appointed one of his sons as a priest.
So Micah is not only a thief, he’s an idolator and violated the commands of God by ignoring the restriction on the priesthood—that it’s confined to a special group of Levites who descend from Aaron. In addition, he’s made an ephod, no doubt copied from the garment of the high priest Phinehas who lives somewhere nearby, since he too is said to reside in the hill country of Ephraim.
When Micah learns that his guest is the grandson of Moses, he apparently couldn’t believe his luck. How much more prestigious would it be to have a household priest with such a famous lineage? He offers Jonathan an annual wage of ten shekels and a shirt and the deal is done.
Now Jonathan had no more right to be a priest than Micah’s son did. In addition, a Levite was supposed to take his share from the tithes of the people, not seek the security of an annual wage. As for adopting the type of priestly garment only his cousin Phinehas was entitled to wear, he apparently felt no qualms about usurping the symbolic robe of that authority. Personally I think he was jealous that the line of Moses had faded into obscurity while that of Aaron shone with fame. But, above all, I think he was opportunistic.
His concubine left him and returned to Bethlehem. He eventually followed her and wooed her back. At this point in the story, a similar theme to that in Genesis occurs. Once again, there’s the contrast between the superbly generous host and a violent, inhospitable town.
In ancient times, even to today in many parts of the Middle East, a stranger can knock on a door and expect, no questions asked, lodging and hospitality for up to three days. After that, courteous inquiries will be made about the visitor’s intentions and the support they can offer the household. Now, in the story of Jonathan’s return to Bethlehem, his father-in-law keeps pressing him to stay another day, another day, another day. In all, he extends hospitality for five days and is willing to give still more. What the narrator of the history wants us to realise is that the father-in-law is an incredibly generous man.
Jonathan eventually leaves late one afternoon with his concubine and his servant in tow. The servant is a significant part of the story because there’s no way Jonathan would ever have revealed his own heinous actions in the making of this tragedy. The servant is the only witness who was capable of revealing the darkness and crookedness in Jonathan’s character—apart, of course, from Jonathan himself. The servant suggests lodging overnight at Jebus—later to become Jerusalem. Jonathan decides to forge on and they arrive, very late, at Gibeah in Benjamin. At first there’s no welcome from the locals—a big red flag. No one apparently wants to be responsible for a threshold covenant where defence-to-the-death is part and parcel of the deal. Obviously they know what’s being planned. Finally an outsider in town offers Jonathan overnight lodging—and soon after, the house is surrounded and the men of Gibeah demand that the Levite is given up so they can have sex with him.
No angels appear to save the day and, in desperation, the host and the husband push the concubine outside. She’s gang-raped all night and, at dawn, she reaches out to put her hand on the cornerstone—thereby proclaiming that she was the threshold sacrifice for the men. Instead of protecting her, as the covenant dictated, she was the offering to save them.
It is not completely clear if she is dead at this point. There’s a hint she was murdered by her husband. As I said, I think these lurid details would only ever have been revealed by the servant because they’re so monstrous I don’t think Jonathan would ever have admitted to them. The depravity gets worse. He uses her as a call to war. The tribes are shocked by the news of the outrage. But there’s an immediate split. The tribe of Benjamin decides to defend the people of Gibeah and all-out war ensues.
To cut a long story short, the end result of the civil war that then takes place is the virtual extermination of the tribe of Benjamin—99% of all their clans are wiped out. Only six hundred men survive the genocide. They are given some young virgins to rebuild the tribe. These brides are trophies of war captured from a town on the far side of the Jordan—their families had been wiped out as punishment for not turning up to the civil war.
See why God insisted on a total ban on having anything to do with a locality where Belial, the spirit of abuse, had taken hold? The mind control on those who merely fought a battle against the town was so great they were incapable of recognising they had instantly repeated the very thing they’d just condemned.
Jonathan, quite wisely, leaves Micah’s employ, assists in the theft of the ephod, the silver idol and the household gods and joins the men of Dan who are migrating to the far north. In the distant future, his descendants would serve at the sanctuary of the golden calf set up by Jeroboam.
Gibeah meantime is rebuilt—clearly ignoring the Lord’s command about cities where Belial has been worshipped. A generation or two down the track, out of that defiled city, will come Israel’s first king Saul. It doesn’t take a degree in psychology to know that, with a male line who survived a genocide and a female line that was a trophy of war, he’s likely to be a seriously tormented soul. And that he’d have been brought up to hate the people of Bethlehem.
Surprisingly Saul mends several of the rifts between the tribes. But the one between his hometown and that of Bethlehem—no, that goes from bad to worse. Nor does David, who has the opportunity to repair the breach, do so.
This is the most destructive story, apart from that of Adam and Eve, in all of recorded Scripture. I can make that claim with confidence because Jesus made the healing of this savage covenant breach His absolute top priority on His return from heaven on the day of His resurrection.
This vile and repulsive event tore apart the tribal confederation that Moses, Aaron and Miriam had worked so hard to forge into a covenantal community. Forty years of stress and frustration to birth a tribal brotherhood—and it was gone, swiftly and irrevocably. And irony of ironies, it was Moses’ grandson who was the instigator of its destruction. The brotherhood never recovered and the impact was still felt in Israelite history fourteen centuries later when Jesus recapitulated healing into it.
How He did is the subject of the next podcast. It was so beautiful and so utterly simple. He gave us a wonderful example to emulate in our own broken histories.
This is Grace Drops and I’m Anne Hamilton. May Jesus of Nazareth defend You with His kiss today.
Thank you to Lorna Skinner of www.riversofmusic.co.uk for the background music.
For more on Jonathan and the civil war he instigated, see God’s Priority: World Mending and Generational Testing.. Please get in touch through the contact form at Armour Books if you are in the US, UK or Australia and there are availability/price issues at the retailer.