It happened on the fourth day, that they arose early in the morning, and he rose up to depart: and the young lady's father said to his son-in-law, Strengthen your heart with a morsel of bread, and afterward you shall go your way.
Now this is wrong that a priest should have a concubine, not his wife, just a concubine. This is following really the pagan practices of the people that were around him and even the priest. Now his concubine left him, went out and was a prostitute, returned to her father who was living in Bethlehem. And so after a few months he was missing her and so he decided to go back and talk her into coming back with him. They had a live-in relationship; living together without marriage. Some of the people today think they are so modern, so chic, you know, "we're just living together" as though that were, you know, chic. All right have it your way, c-h-i-c. Hey, this has been going on for a long time. You're old-fashioned, nothing modern about that. Sin's been around from the beginning.So he went back, he went down to Bethlehem where she'd gone back to her dad to talk her into moving back in with him again. And her dad took a liking for the guy and he was good in his sales pitch and she decided to go back with him. But the dad said, "Aha, you know, stick around, you know, let's just drink and have a good time."And so they drank and it got evening and the guy says, "Well, I'll be going home.""No you can't go tonight. Stay until tomorrow, you know, and you get a start off tomorrow." So he stayed to the next day and so they got up and started to celebrate again and they kept drinking through the day. And came evening and said, "Well I better be going.""Ahh, you can't go, it's getting dark. You might as well wait until tomorrow and leave tomorrow. "And so he spent the night again and, you know, same old thing.And in the afternoon he said, "Hey, I gotta be going.""Awe, no, no spend the night and tomorrow get up real early and get a good start."He said, "Hey, I've got to go." So he saddled up the two donkeys, he took his servant and the concubine and they started back towards Ephraim from Bethlehem.It was getting evening as they came to Jebus, which was later to be Jerusalem; about five miles from Bethlehem and the servant said, "We better turn into Jebus here and spend the night."And he said, "No I don't want to spend the night in a city that doesn't belong to the Israelites. Let's go on." And so they came to Ramah, which is sort of a northern suburb of Jerusalem, and somehow that didn't appeal to them so they went a little further to a city of the Benjamites, the city of Gibeah.And he said to his servant, "Come let us draw near and we'll spend the night here."