Our family dinners tend to be sort of an open form for chaos. I don't mean that in a bad way, and in fact, our family dinners are pretty much the best ever. Sometimes, however, my brother and I get a little too chatty for my parents' tastes.
It's bad enough that we frequently reminisce about the days before we understood Ezekiel 4, question exactly what every colour of scab and hair in Leviticus 13 means, but Monday night at dinner we spent an inordinate amount of time discussing Judges 19.
For those who don't recall the story, it's the charming little tale of the time that the Levite and his concubine spent the night in Gibeah, and due to some terrible treatment from the men of that place, the concubine died. Ahem. Anyhow, the Levite realized that he should stand up for this wrong (or something), and decided to prove a point. So he took the dead concubine, cut her in twelve pieces, and sent her via messenger to the twelve tribes of Israel, hoping to incite righteous anger. Or something. That he did, and by the time all was said and done, thousands of Israelites had given their lives fighting for the cause. This, of course, inspired the whole Rock-of-Rimmon passage, which is a story for another time.
So the discussion my brother and I were so animatedly having was that matter of exactly how the woman would have been divided. For instance, if the arms/hands were divided into three pieces, then you wouldn't have need of the legs/feet to be divided into three pieces. Perhaps the larger the tribe was, the larger the piece was?
Anyhow, my parents didn't seem to have much appreciation for our highly spiritual discussion, and shot it down. But seriously, the quandary is remarkable!
It brings to mind the age-old discussion from Revelation 13 about the heads and horns/crowns. How can seven heads have ten horns/crowns? Which heads get the extra horns/crowns? Is it symmetrical, like the heads on either end and the one in the middle get those extra horns/crowns? It's just so confusing.
But, these are things that don't really make a difference in the long run. There are many, many other things in the Word of God I should be spending my time considering.
Like, you know, whether or not the lions in Solomon's temple were real or not. Always a good one.
2 comments:
Strange you should be thinking about that Judges story because I have too.... and in an almost creepily similar way too. Among other thoughts, like how utterly horrible the entire thing is.
Yeah, that whole eww-how-gross-is-this thing comes to mind even, perhaps, before the whole well-how-does-this-work? thing comes to mind. But I love that you've been pondering this as well!
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