All the single ladies

Yesterday I read the last three chapters of Judges, beginning with the one where the man goes to get his concubine back and take her home. Since it’s a long journey, they lodge the first night in Gibeah, a city of the Benjamites. Wicked men, sodomites, surround the house where he’s staying and demand that he come out that they might “know him,” the Bible term for having sexual intercourse.

He shoves his concubine out the door and says, “Here’s my concubine. Humble her and do whatever you want to her. Just don’t hurt me.”

Every year I read this story and feel physically sick to my stomach. Can you imagine the terror that woman felt, being shoved out the door to a group of men big enough to surround the house, knowing what they were going to do to her?

If you go back to the beginning of the story, you find that this woman ran away from her “husband” and back to her father’s house. No wonder. The man was a worthless piece of garbage. Selfish beyond belief.

The Bible says the group of men “abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go.”

I cry every single time I read this. How horrifying.

In the morning, the man comes out of the house and she is lying on the doorstep with her hands on the threshold. He says cheerily, “Up, and let us be going.”

I want to shoot him, bring him back to life, and shoot him again. Torture him slowly. How one person can have zero thought for this woman right now is more than I can bear. She has been abused literally to death.

So why is this story in the Bible? Is God okay with what happened? Apparently not, since the next two chapters describe how the rest of the tribes of Israel all but destroyed the tribe of Benjamin “for they have committed lewdness and folly in Israel.”

And yet it’s not enough for me. No punishment will ever be great enough to make up for what happened to that woman. I struggle badly with this every year. It ties me in knots and keeps me up at night.

But then . . . I read what comes next in the Bible: the book of Ruth.

It’s the story of a Moabite woman (Ruth, not a Jew) who married a Jewish man who then died. Ruth follows her mother-in-law Naomi back to Naomi’s homeland of Bethlehem-judah where Ruth meets Boaz, a wealthy older man who also happens to be a family member.

Remember the old Jewish custom that if a man dies childless, a near kinsman should marry his wife and raise a child in the deceased man’s name? That’s the kinsman-redeemer, and that’s what Boaz turns out to be.

Boaz owns the fields where Ruth is gleaning (picking the remnants) during the barley harvest, and he tells his young men not to touch her. He gives her physical protection. Then later, when she comes to him on the threshing floor, he urges her to leave before she is seen there, protecting her reputation. He obviously cares more for her than for himself.

But today the thing that jumped off the page at me was this: when Naomi heard that Boaz was protecting Ruth among his workers in the harvest fields, she thanked God for Boaz’s kindness. Then in the next chapter, Boaz thanks God for Ruth’s kindness of not following after young men instead of old Boaz.

Do you see the stark difference between these two stories?

One is full of selfishness, cowardice, and complete disregard for the spouse.

The other is marked by kindness.

Recently a young lady asked me if two different personality types could be happily married to each other. One an introvert, the other an extrovert. One liked these things, the other liked different things.

If you learn nothing else today, hear this: personality means nothing in marriage. Ben and I are as opposite as two people can possibly be, yet we’ve been happily married for 38 years. Likes and dislikes are something to laugh and joke about.

Character is what matters. How does he act when things don’t go his way? What is his reaction when he’s under intense pressure? When the company he works for goes bankrupt? When his dog dies? When the waiter gets his order wrong? When his car dies on the side of the highway during rush hour?

Is he selfish and cowardly? Does he think of himself first? Or is he protective and kind?

Girls, your choice of a husband is so much more important than I can possibly communicate. Stop looking for handsome or smart or high earning potential.

Look for kindness.