A Levite and His Concubine

The situation in Israel had declined so badly that there were those among God's people who behaved similarly to the earlier inhabitants of the doomed Sodom and Gomorrah. Civil war among the tribes resulted. This final, sordid story in Judges clearly blames the covenant failures of Israel on the lack of a covenant-keeping king (17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25).