By Jordan Burgen
Question:
"I hope that this email finds you well. I have been doing a bible study for sometime and I have got hung up on a few parts of the Bible and I would really like an interpretation/ explanation if you have some time.
-1 Samuel 18:27 - David and the Foreskins
So what in the world is going on and why does David bring back their foreskins of all of the things that he could have brought back? What was the point of this story? What is the significance?
-Also in Leviticus 10:1-3: The Death of Nadab and Abihu
So Aaron’s two sons burned strange incense against God’s command and were burned to death by God in front of the congregation all over incense? Why does God come off so hard in the Old Testament when Jesus is God in the flesh and is literally the embodiment of love? Why was God so ferocious in the Old Testament? Why were Aaron’s sons punished with being burned to death over incense? What is the significance behind the tabernacle and why is it not a part of the Christian Church but a part of the Catholic Church?
-Lastly, Judges 19:22-30 - Gibeah's Crime
Forgive me but WHAT? This guy offers his daughter to be raped rather than his guest? What is the point of this story? Why kill and cut up his concubine and ship her parts across Israel? To send a message? What is going on?"
The significance of the foreskins that David brings back is what they represented to the Israelites. The covenant that God made with Abraham in Genesis that Abraham would be the father of a great nation and that the salvation of the world would come from his descendants (Jesus) was symbolized with circumcision. It was the mark of the Israelite people, a sign that they were consecrated to God, and that He was their ruler. So, when David brought their foreskins back, he was symbolically dedicating the battle and the defeat of the Philistines to the LORD. It is gruesome, I know, but that is the significance.
Your second question has multiple layers, so bear with me. As to what they actually did that deserved this immediate punishment is that they disregarded the way in which God made known to them how He wanted to be worshipped and served. Meaning good, they took it in their own hands to honor them in a way God had not wanted. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary puts it like this: “This then is the first lesson of this tragic occurrence. We have to do with a God who is very jealous; who will be worshipped as He wills, or not at all. Nor can we complain. If God be such a Being as we are taught in the Holy Scripture, it must be His inalienable right to determine and prescribe how He will be served. And it is a second lesson, scarcely less evident, that with God, intention of good, though it palliate, cannot excuse disobedience where He has once made known His will. No one can imagine that Nadab and Abihu meant wrong; but for all that, for their sin they died.”
God demands perfection (Matthew 5:48). Only perfect-ness can be in the presence of God. If this wasn’t so, He would not be holy and He would not be God. We should be very appreciative of this fact. God is perfect and nothing imperfect, including imperfect worship, has ever been near Him. If it does, it dies. However, He loved us and did not want to be disconnected from us forever, so He sent His Son Jesus to die in our place, and take all our imperfections on to Himself, and then impart His perfect-ness onto us. So, now we are allowed into the presence of God. Jesus has bared all the punishment for our sins. Nadab and Abihu did not have that privilege.
As for the tabernacle, it was a portable temple where the actual presence ad Spirit of God dwelled. It is no longer a part of our church because we believe the Holy Spirit of God now dwells inside of each person who puts their faith in Christ. The tabernacle, among other things, represented a separation from God with its “levels” of closeness to God. It had curtains people were not allowed to go through, as did the temple after it. When Jesus died, the Bible tells us that curtain in the temple was literally ripped in half from top to bottom, symbolizing that we no longer need to go through a priest to get to God and there is now no separation between us and Him. Jesus had “perfected” us by imparting His righteousness onto us.
The story in Judges is a terrible one. Literally nothing moral happens in the whole thing. And the Bible doesn’t condone any of it, just reports it. First, a Levite, which was the tribe the priests were to come from and were expected to be Holy, had a concubine who had cheated on him. On his way back from retrieving her, they stayed at the house of another man. People from that city demanded that man hand over the Levite so they could rape him. (This mirrors the story of Lot in Sodom from Genesis). The man, bound by the laws of hospitality, will not hand over the man, but instead hands over the man’s concubine (and offers his own daughter as well). The men rape her and she dies. The Levite finds her in the morning and for some reason decides to cut her up and send her to all the tribes of Israel. I don’t know why he chose this awful method of sending a message, but he did. It alerts the tribes of Israel as to the absolute depravity going on. A civil war ensues to punish the tribe of Benjamin (responsible for the rape of the concubine) and that entire tribe is nearly wiped out. To save them, the Israelites let them steal a bunch of wives. Like I said, nothing good happens in this story. It is meant to highlight the fact that Israel had become evil and everyone did exactly as they wished. There was a very clear need for a savior. The book of Judges ends with this story and this verse: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.” (Judges 21:25) The next book is the Book of Ruth, which is a short book about something unrelated, but then the next book after that is 1 Samuel, which begins the story of how Israel got a king, and God continued His plan of bringing a Savior to the world through the descendants of the second king of Israel, David.
The Bible doesn’t sugar coat anything. It tells it how it was. And “how it was” was very disturbing and evil. But God redeemed it all through Jesus. He never gave up on humanity, no matter how bad it got. The stories told in the Bible, though extreme sometimes, represent the state of humanity and what God chose to love anyways. He truly is a great, loving God, one we never deserved.
I hope this shed some light on these stories. I have wrestled with very similar questions myself, and I thank you for reaching out to learn about these confusing stories. Please let me know if you have any more questions!
