He said to her, Up, and let us be going; but none answered: then he took her up on the donkey; and the man rose up, and got him to his place.
As soon as he arrived home the Levite callously cut his concubine into 12 pieces, as one would slaughter an animal (Exodus 29:17; Leviticus 1:6; Leviticus 1:12; Leviticus 8:20). It is possible that he murdered her here. He later described what happened as though she was already dead when he cut her up (Judges 20:5-6), but we wonder if we can believe him in view of how the writer painted his character. He may have committed murder in a fit of rage over the indignity to his honor that the men of Gibeah’s treatment of his concubine involved. This shows his further disrespect for his wife. In that culture the treatment people gave a corpse reflected their respect, or lack of respect, for the dead person. He should have given her a proper burial. Instead he sent one piece of her body to each of the Israelite tribes explaining what had happened and calling on them to take action. King Saul later summoned the tribes for war with a similar act involving an animal (1 Samuel 11:7).