SEV Biblia, Chapter 19:1
¶ En aquellos días, cuando no había rey en Israel, hubo un levita que moraba como peregrino en los lados del monte de Efraín, el cual se había tomado mujer concubina de Belén de Judá.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Judges 19:1
Verse 1. There was no king in Israel] All sorts of disorders are attributed to the want of civil government; justice, right, truth, and humanity, had fallen in the streets. Took to him a concubine] We have already seen that the concubine was a sort of secondary wife; and that such connections were not disreputable, being according to the general custom of those times. The word glyp pilegesh, concubine, is supposed by Mr. Parkhurst to be compounded of glp palag, "to divide, or share;" and gn nagash, "to approach;" because the husband shared or divided his attention and affections between her and the real wife; from whom she differed in nothing material, except in her posterity not inheriting.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 1. And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in Israel , etc.] The same is observed in ( Judges 17:6 18:1) and refers to the same times, the times before the judges, between them and the death of Joshua, during which time there was no supreme magistrate or ruler in Israel, which is meant; and this is observed, as before, to account for wickedness being committed with impunity, such as adultery, sodomy, murder, etc. afterwards related: that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the side of Mount Ephraim ; in a city that was on one side of that mountain; it seems not to have been a Levitical city, because he was only a sojourner in it; perhaps he chose to reside there, as being near to the tabernacle of Shiloh, which was in that tribe; who took to him a concubine out of Bethlehemjudah ; the same place from whence the wicked Levite came, spoken of in the preceding chapters, and who was the means of spreading idolatry in Israel; and here a wicked concubine of a Levite comes from the same, and was the cause of great effusion of blood in Israel; which two instances may seem to reflect dishonour and disgrace on Bethlehem, which were wiped off by the birth of some eminent persons in it, as Boaz, Jesse, David, and especially the Messiah. The woman the Levite took from hence is in the Hebrew called, “a wife, a concubine” f390 ; for a concubine was a secondary wife, taken without espousals and a dowry: some think they were espoused, though there was no dowry, and were reckoned truly wives
