For the Love that Burns for Her

Dismembering the Corporate Body of Women in the Church

Photo by Rayson Tan on Unsplash

She escaped once.

We learn this through the voice of a man.

But he came for her. “To speak to her heart in order to bring her back” (Judges 19:3). What does this speech sound like? We do not know because we never hear it. She never hears it. Perhaps she did and we aren’t privy to it. Because his private expressions of care mean nothing in contrast to the collective harm heaped on her. That is what we see. More of the same. Men meeting with men who think and behave like men. Who make the decisions to give, to take, to stay, to leave. To sacrifice.

Sacrifice her, not them.

This is the message over and over in Judges 19. We get one glimpse of her agency. Using the last bit of strength in her, as the light was breaking into the darkness of her nightmare, she makes her way back to the Levite, her master, and collapses at the threshold of his sacral duties.

What has he done? There he is in full vigor, set to leave alone after sacrificing her body and soul to be ravaged and raped in place of his own. All night long. As long as her body can bear it. Now he is made to look at her. She metaphorically serves at the entrance of the tent of meeting. Look into the bronze basin, Levite, made up of the mirror she is reflecting to you. Of who you are. Or whom you love. Of what you will do next.

To be the reaper of revenge. Against all but himself.

In the words of Phillis Trible:

Of all the characters in scripture, she is the least. Appearing at the beginning and close of a story that rapes her, she is alone in a world of men. Neither the other characters nor the narrator recognizes her humanity. She is property, object, tool, and literary device. Without a name, speech, or power, she has no friends to aid her in life or mourn her in death. Passing her back and forth among themselves, the men of Israel have obliterated her totally. Captured, betrayed, raped, tortured, murdered, dismembered, and scattered—this woman is the most sinned against. In the end, she is no more than the oxen Saul will later cut (ntḥ) in pieces and send (šlḥ) throughout all the territory of Israel as a call to war (1 Sam. 11:7). Her body has been broken and given to many. Lesser power has no woman than this, that her life is laid down by a man.

How will the Israelites respond?

Trible notes what is lost in the English translations, “All who saw it said, ‘Nothing like this has ever happened or been seen from the day when the sons of Israel came up from the land of Egypt to this day. Consider it, make a plan, and speak up!’” (Judges 19:30). The Hebrew has no neuter, “The verbal forms and the object are all feminine gender.” The literal response of the people reads, “And all who saw her said, ‘She was not, and she was not seen such as this from the day that the people came up out of the land of Egypt since this day.’” This nuance spotlights the act of terror against the woman. We also miss the imagery in the text when they respond, “‘Consider it, take counsel, and speak up!’”  Trible explains that “Strikingly, the first command is actually the Hebrew idiom, ‘direct your heart,’ followed by the phrase, ‘to her.”

“Long ago the man was supposed to speak to the heart of the woman, though he did not. Now Israel must direct its heart to her, take counsel, and speak.”

But that is not the response. The violence against women continues as “the rape of one has become the rape of six hundred…Israelite males have dismembered the corporate body of Israelite females.”

How can we bear this darkness? We must lament it. Wail over it.

Scripture takes us through this darkness and vile evil carried out by God’s so-called people. The coldness of the narrative moves us in outrage and gut-heaving sadness. Do we see what these men wouldn’t? Do we feel what these men wouldn’t?

And the canon directs us to further direct our hearts to the woman. The Hebrew Bible follows Judges with the story of Hannah (1 Sam. 1:1-2:21) and the Greek Bible follows with the story of Ruth. Through the telling of the stories of these women “in the days when the judges ruled,” we see a different and redemptive narrative. The women are seen, named, revered, have agency. Give life. The men direct their hearts to them. And this is the thread that leads to Christ, the One who directs his heart to his bridal people, takes on flesh, weeps over death, his body, given for many, for the love that burns for her.

Greater love has no man than this.

We cannot look at the account in Judges as ancient and barbaric when we have men in the highest positions of leadership in the biggest Protestant denomination in America inserting their lawyers into a case of a woman who was repeatedly raped by her father and his fellow officer, filing a brief in the Kentucky Supreme Court to block a law lifting the statute of limitations for survivors to sue third parties such as churches and schools. Such as them. Just like that, the horrific raping of one which cries for justice becomes the rape of six hundred…These men in the Southern Baptist Convention have dismembered the corporate body of women in their churches.

Weep over this. See these women. They need escape from such evil. Do we see what these men will not? Do we feel what they will not?

The SBC says, “Sacrifice her, not us.”

This is not the way of love. This is not of Christ. This is not church.

The unfolding message in Scripture presses us to see.

How we treat our women reveals our eschatological anticipation of joy.

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