The girl’s father seems overly eager, almost desperate to lavish hospitality upon his son-in-law. It is not only excessive but soon begins to feel oppressive.1 He detains the Levite for four nights and most of five days, plying him constantly with wine and food and urging him repeatedly to stay longer. Strengthen your heart,
he says more than once; spend the night, and let your heart be merry.
Why is so much space given to this hospitality? For one, it heightens the contrast with the treatment received later in Gibeah. This excessive hospitality implies the possibly endless hospitality that the Levite may have enjoyed if he had decided to stay in Bethlehem.
But there is something else here, which also helps us anticipate what is coming. In this enjoyment of hospitality, where is the concubine? There is no interest in her; she is in the background. There are no recorded conversations involving her. The Levite himself has forgotten the purpose of his visit. When will the Levite speak to her heart
? The socializing, the eating and drinking, all belong to the men. It is male carousing. This scene leaves us with a strong sense of her vulnerability, and some strong concerns about the morality of her husband. We see how much this Levite is attached to carousing, to letting the heart be merry,
all the while not pursuing her heart. All this carousing, this revelry, with the woman lost in the cracks, helps us make at least some sense of the later situation where throwing women out as sexual prey for the rabble seems right to the Levite.2
8 And on the fifth day he arose early in the morning to depart. And the girl’s father said, “Strengthen your heart and wait until the day declines.” So they ate, both of them.