(1) In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a Levite residing at the other end of the hill country of Ephraim took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. (2) Once his concubine deserted him [see below -- out of fear of spousal abuse], leaving him for her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah; and she stayed there a full four months. (3) Then her husband set out, with an attendant and a pair of donkeys, and went after her to woo her and to win her back. She admitted him into her father’s house; and when the girl’s father saw him, he received him warmly. (4) His father-in-law, the girl’s father, pressed him, and he stayed with him three days; they ate and drank and lodged there. (5) Early in the morning of the fourth day, he started to leave; but the girl’s father said to his son-in-law, “Eat something to give you strength, then you can leave.” (6) So the two of them sat down and they feasted together. Then the girl’s father said to the man, “Won’t you stay overnight and enjoy yourself?” (7) The man started to leave, but his father-in-law kept urging him until he turned back and spent the night there [see below -- out of fear for his daughter from this man's violent temper and abuse]. (8) Early in the morning of the fifth day, he was about to leave, when the girl’s father said, “Come, have a bite.” The two of them ate, dawdling until past noon. (9) Then the man, his concubine, and his attendant started to leave. His father-in-law, the girl’s father, said to him, “Look, the day is waning toward evening; do stop for the night. See, the day is declining; spend the night here and enjoy yourself. You can start early tomorrow on your journey and head for home.” (10) But the man refused to stay for the night. He set out and traveled as far as the vicinity of Jebus—that is, Jerusalem; he had with him a pair of laden donkeys, and his concubine was with him. (11) Since they were close to Jebus, and the day was very far spent, the attendant said to his master, “Let us turn aside to this town of the Jebusites and spend the night in it.” (12) But his master said to him, “We will not turn aside to a town of aliens who are not of Israel, but will continue to Gibeah. (13) Come,” he said to his attendant, “let us approach one of those places and spend the night either in Gibeah or in Ramah.” (14) So they traveled on, and the sun set when they were near Gibeah of Benjamin. (15) They turned off there and went in to spend the night in Gibeah. He went and sat down in the town square, but nobody took them indoors to spend the night. (16) In the evening, an old man came along from his property outside the town. (This man hailed from the hill country of Ephraim and resided at Gibeah, where the townspeople were Benjaminites.) (17) He happened to see the wayfarer in the town square. “Where,” the old man inquired, “are you going to, and where do you come from?” (18) He replied, “We are traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to the other end of the hill country of Ephraim. That is where I live. I made a journey to Bethlehem of Judah, and now I am on my way to the House of the LORD, and nobody has taken me indoors. (19) We have both bruised straw and feed for our donkeys, and bread and wine for me and your handmaid, and for the attendant with your servants. We lack nothing.” (20) “Rest easy,” said the old man. “Let me take care of all your needs. Do not on any account spend the night in the square.” (21) And he took him into his house. He mixed fodder for the donkeys; then they bathed their feet and ate and drank. (22) While they were enjoying themselves, the men of the town, a depraved lot, had gathered about the house and were pounding on the door. They called to the aged owner of the house, “Bring out the man who has come into your house, so that we can be intimate with him.” (23) The owner of the house went out and said to them, “Please, my friends, do not commit such a wrong. Since this man has entered my house, do not perpetrate this outrage. (24) Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. Let me bring them out to you. Have your pleasure of them, do what you like with them; but don’t do that outrageous thing to this man.” (25) But the men would not listen to him, so the man seized his concubine and pushed her out to them. They raped her and abused her all night long until morning; and they let her go when dawn broke. (26) Toward morning the woman came back; and as it was growing light, she collapsed at the entrance of the man’s house where her husband was. (27) When her husband arose in the morning, he opened the doors of the house and went out to continue his journey; and there was the woman, his concubine, lying at the entrance of the house, with her hands on the threshold. (28) “Get up,” he said to her, “let us go.” But there was no reply. So the man placed her on the donkey and set out for home. (29) When he came home, he picked up a knife, and took hold of his concubine and cut her up limb by limb into twelve parts. He sent them throughout the territory of Israel. (30) And everyone who saw it cried out, “Never has such a thing happened or been seen from the day the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt to this day! Put your mind to this; take counsel and decide.” (1) Thereupon all the Israelites—from Dan to Beer-sheba and [from] the land of Gilead—marched forth, and the community assembled to a man before the LORD at Mizpah. (2) All the leaders of the people [and] all the tribes of Israel presented themselves in the assembly of God’s people, 400,000 fighting men on foot.—[...ultimately resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews.]
Rav Yosef said: Who will tell us that Rabbi Evyatar is a reliable authority? And furthermore, there is good reason to question his statement: He is the one who sent a letter to Rav Yehuda, and wrote: People who ascend from there, Babylonia, to here, Eretz Yisrael, fulfill by themselves the verse: “And they have given a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, and have drunk” (Joel 4:3), i.e., these people abandon their families. And Rabbi Evyatar wrote him this verse without scoring, i.e., etching lines into, the parchment upon which he wrote the letter. And Rabbi Yitzḥak says with regard to the writing of a verse from the Torah: One may write two words without scoring the parchment, but one may not write three words without scoring the parchment. Instead, one scores the parchment before writing the verse, as one does when writing a Torah scroll. This ensures that the writing will be done on a straight line, thereby rendering it more beautiful. And it was taught in a baraita: One may write three, but one may not write four. Since Rabbi Evyatar wrote more than three words from a verse without scoring the parchment, his halakhic rulings are evidently unreliable. Abaye said to him: Is that to say that anyone who does not know this halakha of Rabbi Yitzḥak is not a great man? Granted, with regard to a matter that depends on reasoning, it is well, as it is possible to say that an individual who does not know a halakha that can be inferred by logical reasoning cannot be considered a reliable authority. However, this halakha is a tradition, and it is possible that Rabbi Evyatar simply did not hear this tradition. And furthermore, Rabbi Evyatar is the one that his Master, the Holy One, Blessed be He, agreed with in his interpretation of a verse, as it is written with regard to the episode involving the concubine in Gibeah: “And his concubine went away from him” (Judges 19:2). The Sages discussed what occurred that caused her husband to become so angry with her that she left him, and Rabbi Evyatar says: He found her responsible for a fly in the food that she prepared for him, while Rabbi Yonatan says: He found her responsible for a hair [nima]. And Rabbi Evyatar found Elijah the prophet and said to him: What is the Holy One, Blessed be He, doing now? Elijah said to him: He is currently engaged in studying the episode of the concubine in Gibeah. Rabbi Evyatar asked him: And what is He saying about it? Elijah said to him that God is saying the following: Evyatar, My son, says this and Yonatan, My son, says that. It is seen here that God saw fit to cite the statement of Rabbi Evyatar. Rabbi Evyatar said to him: God forbid, is there uncertainty before Heaven? Doesn’t God know what happened? Why does He mention both opinions? Elijah said to him: Both these and those are the words of the living God, i.e., both incidents happened. The incident occurred in the following manner: He found a fly in his food and did not take umbrage, and later he found a hair and took umbrage. Rav Yehuda says a different explanation: The man found a fly in the dish that she cooked for him, and he found a hair in that place, i.e., in her genital area. When he found a fly it produced a reaction of disgust, and he did not grow angry with her, but the hair was a matter of danger, as he might be hurt by it, and therefore he became angry with her. There are those who say: This and that were found in a dish. The difference is that the fly was a result of circumstances beyond her control, as it fell into the dish on its own, but the hair was found in the dish due to her negligence.
Rav Ḥisda says: A person should never impose excessive fear upon the members of his household, as the husband of the concubine of Gibeah imposed excessive fear upon her and this ultimately caused the downfall of many tens of thousands of Jews in the resulting war (see Judges 19–20).
At the end of the story, the verse states: “Then Amnon hated her with exceeding, great hatred, for greater was the hatred with which he hated her than the love with which he had loved her” (II Samuel 13:15). The Gemara asks: What is the reason for Amnon’s intense hatred? Rabbi Yitzḥak says: While he raped her, a hair [nima] of hers became tied around his penis and caused him to be one whose penis has been severed. The Gemara asks: But if the hair became tied around his penis, what did she do? Why would Amnon hold this against her? Rather, say that she intentionally tied a hair around his penis during intercourse, and she made him one whose penis has been severed in order to take revenge on him, and for this he hated her. The Gemara challenges this: Is that so? But didn’t Rava interpret a verse homiletically: What is the meaning of that which is written: “And your renown went forth among the nations about your beauty” (Ezekiel 16:14)? This teaches that Jewish women do not have armpit hair or pubic hair. Therefore, Tamar would have had no hair to injure Amnon in that way. The Gemara responds: Tamar is different, as she was the daughter of a beautiful woman, who was a gentile.
Found a hair in "that place" -- the custom was to remove all pubic hair, in order not to endanger one's husband and cause his penis to be cut off. It was because of this danger that he lost his temper at her and that she fled before his anger.
(יט) וְכֵן צִוּוּ חֲכָמִים שֶׁיִּהְיֶה אָדָם מְכַבֵּד אֶת אִשְׁתּוֹ יוֹתֵר מִגּוּפוֹ וְאוֹהֲבָהּ כְּגוּפוֹ. וְאִם יֵשׁ לוֹ מָמוֹן מַרְבֶּה בְּטוֹבָתָהּ כְּפִי מָמוֹנוֹ. וְלֹא יַטִּיל עָלֶיהָ אֵימָה יְתֵרָה. וְיִהְיֶה דִּבּוּרוֹ עִמָּהּ בְּנַחַת. וְלֹא יִהְיֶה עָצֵב וְלֹא רַגְזָן:
(19) Thus the Sages commanded: A man should honor his wife more than himself and love her as himself. If his money abounds, he should use it for her benefit, according to what he can afford. He should not inspire excess fear in her, and he should speak gently with her, and be neither depressed nor hot-tempered.