1. Judges 19:22 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

What is meant by “worthless fellows”?

Judges 19:22 (ESV)

22 As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, worthless fellows, surrounded the house, beating on the door. And they said to the old man, the master of the house, “Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may know him.”

Literally, the term is sons of Belial. It appears twenty-seven times in the Old Testament, most regularly referring to people of bad character. Psalm 18:4–5 in its poetry places the term in parallel to death and Sheol. It may well be that this use of the term led to its use in intertestamental literature as the name of a supernatural evil being. In the New Testament, the word occurs once as a name for Satan (2 Corinthians 6:15).1 The term here describes a group of men without honour, perverted revolutionaries against God.