Gibeah is a name appearing in several Books of the Hebrew Scripture. It is generally identified with a hill along the Central Benjamin Plateau, 4.8 km / 3 mi North of Jerusalem along the Watershed Ridge at 839 m / 2,754 ft above sea level.
Gibeah is a variation of the Hebrew word meaning "hill," other names include Gibeah of God, Gibeah of Benjamin, for it is in the territory of the Tribe of Benjamin and Gibeah of Saul where King Saul lived.
From after the conquest of the Promised Land by Joshua until the formation of the 1st Kingdom of Israel, the Tribe of Benjamin was a part of a loose confederation of tribes. No central government existed and in times of crisis the people were led by leaders known as Judges.
The Book of Judges, the 7th Book of the Hebrew Scripture recounts the rape of an unnamed woman, the concubine of a member of the tribe of Levi, by a gang from the Tribe of Benjamin. She was from Beth'Lehem but was living with a Levite in the hill country of Ephraim, North of Jerusalem. The Levite is referred to as the husband of the woman (Judge 19:3;20:4) and the son-in-law of the woman's father, who in turn is referred to as the Levite's father-in-law (Judges 19:4,5,7,9). The uncertain nature of the differences between a wife and a concubine reveals the complexities involved in understanding notions of kinship and marriage presupposed by biblical narratives.
The Hebrew text states that the woman "prostitute herself against "the Levite (19:2). It is possible that the woman's prostitution does not refer to literal sexual infidelity but is a sort of metaphor for the fact that she leaves her husband. The harsh language to describe it could result from the fact that it was viewed in a very negative light.
Four months after he woman returns to Beth'Lehem, the Levite goes after her. The text states that he wishes to "speak to her heart,"and no discussion between the Levite and the woman is recounted. The woman's father acts as if he is glad to see the Levite, but for several days he delays the return of the Levite and the woman to Ephraim. Because of this delay the travelers finally set out at a late hour and, due to the unwillingness of the Levite to spend the night in a city of foreigners (19:12), arrive at the Benjamin city of Gibeah after the sun has gone down.
The travelers initially have a difficult time finding a place to spend the night. They are finally offered hospitality by an old man who, like the Levite, is from Ephraim. While the travelers join themselves and started to eat, the house became surrounded by men of the city who, wished "to know" the Levite (19: 22). The Ephraimite attempted to dissuade them from raping his male guest, offering to them his own daughter and the Levite's concubine in place of the Levite.
When the men of Gibeah refused to accept the two women, one of the men inside the house threw the concubine outside. The woman is then raped by the men of Gibeah throughout the night. They did not kill her. Early in the morning the woman tried to return to the house from which she was thrown but collapsed at the door. The Levite found her when he arose to leave the place and ordered her to get up.
When she did not respond, he placed her on the back of his donkey and returned to Ephraim.
The Levite, upon his arrival in Ephraim, cut the woman's body into 12 pieces and sent these pieces throughout the land. As a result of this action, 400,000 armed men altogether gathered at Mizpah, to review the situation, and decided not to rest until the crime had been punished. Mizpah was located on the Northern border of what later became the kingdom of Judah. It was West of Jericho, and somewhat North West of Jerusalem. Bethel is a few miles to the North of it, and Gibeah is a few miles to the South.
The Benjaminites raised an army of of 26,000 in addition to 700 left-handed sling specialists who could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. Those men were serious warriors. David was one of them, who could hurl stones up to a pound in weight with uncanny accuracy at upwards of 90 mph. They were a serious thread in battle.
A cycle of violence resulted in the slaughter of many men, women, and children and the Benjaminite as a tribe was nearly wiped out. The other tribes began to mourn, because they did not want to have Israel as a nation reduced by a tribe. But there was a problem to be solved, because as the tribes had prepared for war with Benjamin, they had sworn never to give any of their daughters in marriage to Benjamin. A partial solution presented itself when the assembly began to deal with one group in Israel that had not answered the call to arms against Benjamin. All the tribes had sworn an oath, on penalty of death for non-compliance, to support the war. Now that the war was over, it was discovered that no one had come from the city of Jabesh-Gilead. The city was located across the Jordan about 20 miles North of the Jabbok River. The transgression of not sending troops had to be punished, so 12,000 men were sent to Jabesh-Gilead to kill the inhabitants of the city, which they did. Everyone was killed except 400 young virgins at Shiloh.
Those virgins became part of the solution to the problem of the 600 Benjaminites that survived the war by hiding in a cave for 4 months. The rest of Israel made peace with them and gave them the 400 virgins from Jabesh-Gilead as wives so that they could repopulate their tribe. But since the Benjaminites needed more wives, Israel resorted that they still would not give them any of their daughters but they would look the other way if the Benjaminites came and stole some of their daughters.
The Book ends with an appropriate refrain: "In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes."
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