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.
Arthur Cundall’s preference, expressed in the quotation above, rested on the Septuagint translators’ rendering of Judges 19:2 that is the equivalent of "his concubine was angry with him." However the Hebrew text has "his concubine was unfaithful to him," and this is the preferable reading. As we have noted, the Israelites paid less attention to the Law in the period of the judges than they did while Joshua was alive. It is probable that the concubine had been unfaithful and the Israelites simply did not execute the penalty for that offense that the Law prescribed. The fact that the Levite waited four months to get his wife back suggests that he was not eager to do so.