(24, 25) Behold, here is my daughter . . .--The main horror of these verses lies, and is meant to lie, in the nameless infamy to which these men had sunk, of whom we can only say,
"Non ragionam di lor ma guarda e passa."
But we must not omit to notice that the conduct of the old man and the Levite, though it is not formally condemned, speaks of the existence of a very rudimentary morality, a selfishness, and a low estimate of the rights and sacred dignity of women, which shows from what depths the world has emerged. If it was possible to frustrate the vile assault of these wretches in this way it must have been possible to frustrate it altogether. There is something terribly repulsive in the selfishness which could thus make a Levite sacrifice a defenceless woman, and that woman his wife, for a whole night to such brutalisation. The remark of St. Gregory is very weighty: "Minus peccatum admittere ut gravius evitetur est a scelere victimas offerre Deo."
17:7-13 Micah thought it was a sign of God's favour to him and his images, that a Levite should come to his door. Thus those who please themselves with their own delusions, if Providence unexpectedly bring any thing to their hands that further them in their evil way, are apt from thence to think that God is pleased with them.
Behold, here is my daughter, a maiden, and his concubine,.... His own daughter, a virgin, and the concubine of the Levite his guest:
them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you; those he proposed to bring out, and deliver to them, to lie with, to do with as they pleased to gratify their raging lust, which to do was more than he ought, or had power to do: he had no right to prostitute his own daughter, and much less the concubine or wife of another man, though perhaps it might be with the consent of the Levite; but all this he said in a hurry and surprise, in a fright and terror, and of two evils choosing the least, and perhaps in imitation of Lot, whose case might come to remembrance:
but unto this man do not so vile a thing; as he apprehended that to be which they were desirous of, whether to kill him, as he himself says, Judges 20:5 or to commit the unnatural sin, and which, rather than comply with, he should have chosen to have been slain.
"Non ragionam di lor ma guarda e passa."
But we must not omit to notice that the conduct of the old man and the Levite, though it is not formally condemned, speaks of the existence of a very rudimentary morality, a selfishness, and a low estimate of the rights and sacred dignity of women, which shows from what depths the world has emerged. If it was possible to frustrate the vile assault of these wretches in this way it must have been possible to frustrate it altogether. There is something terribly repulsive in the selfishness which could thus make a Levite sacrifice a defenceless woman, and that woman his wife, for a whole night to such brutalisation. The remark of St. Gregory is very weighty: "Minus peccatum admittere ut gravius evitetur est a scelere victimas offerre Deo."
them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you; those he proposed to bring out, and deliver to them, to lie with, to do with as they pleased to gratify their raging lust, which to do was more than he ought, or had power to do: he had no right to prostitute his own daughter, and much less the concubine or wife of another man, though perhaps it might be with the consent of the Levite; but all this he said in a hurry and surprise, in a fright and terror, and of two evils choosing the least, and perhaps in imitation of Lot, whose case might come to remembrance:
but unto this man do not so vile a thing; as he apprehended that to be which they were desirous of, whether to kill him, as he himself says, Judges 20:5 or to commit the unnatural sin, and which, rather than comply with, he should have chosen to have been slain.