Passage

Judges 19.1-21.25

Book: Judges · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Range note

This is a multi-chapter narrative arc covering the Levite-concubine atrocity (ch. 19), the subsequent intertribal war against Benjamin (ch. 20), and the precarious aftermath including the abduction-of-the-Shiloh-virgins resolution (ch. 21). The arc reads as a single coherent unit and is conventionally treated as such in OT scholarship. Full chapter texts are not embedded here at stub level; see the canonical ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT public-domain editions for the entire passage.

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The framing refrain (representative)

ASV (ASV)

And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the farther side of the hill-country of Ephraim, who took to him a concubine out of Beth-lehem-judah. (Judges 19:1, ASV, opening)

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25, ASV, closing)

WEB (WEB)

In those days, when there was no king in Israel, there was a certain Levite living on the farther side of the hill country of Ephraim, who took for himself a concubine out of Bethlehem Judah. (Judges 19:1, WEB, opening)

In those days, there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25, WEB, closing)

KJV (KJV)

And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the side of mount Ephraim, who took to him a concubine out of Bethlehemjudah. (Judges 19:1, KJV, opening)

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25, KJV, closing)

YLT (YLT)

And it cometh to pass, in those days, when there is no king in Israel, that there is a man a Levite, a sojourner in the sides of the hill-country of Ephraim, and he taketh to him a wife, a concubine, out of Beth-Lehem-Judah. (Judges 19:1, YLT, opening)

In those days there is no king in Israel; each that which is right in his own eyes doth. (Judges 21:25, YLT, closing)

Setting

Speaker: narrator (traditionally Samuel or later editor)
Audience: the Israelite tribal-confederacy and post-exilic reader
Location: Gibeah of Benjamin and surrounding territory
Time period: events c. 1100 BC (late Judges period); composed c. 1050-550 BC

Theological reading

Judges 19-21 is one of the OT's most disturbing narratives: the Levite's concubine is sexually assaulted to death by the men of Gibeah, dismembered as a call to inter-tribal war, and the resulting civil war against Benjamin nearly extinguishes the tribe. The book's closing-line refrain "in those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes" is the canonical-editorial framing: the narrative is descriptive of moral collapse, not prescriptive of any value endorsed. Cited in Lesson 4.3, Old Testament Difficulties under the descriptive-vs-prescriptive frame as one of the key test-cases. The book of Judges hub (Judges) provides higher-level theological context.

Treat this passage with scholarly distance in apologetic deployment; see Old Testament Difficult Texts for the master framework and Canaanite Conquest and Herem for the related OT-difficulty defeater pattern. The narrative records sin to condemn it via inclusion in the canonical framework, not to model it.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

Lexicon:

H0113 - adon, via Judges 19.11-12
H1330 - bethulah, via Judges 19.24
H5039 - nevalah, via Judges 19, Judges 19.23-24
H6031 - anah, via Judges 19.24
H6370 - pilegesh, via Judges 19

Passages:

Genesis 19

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.