Which was also of mount Ephraim. — He was therefore a fellow-countryman of the Levite, but his hospitable feelings were aroused before he had been informed of this fact.
Toward the side of mount Ephraim. — Rather, the depths of the hill-country of Ephraim.
I am now going to the house of the Lord. — We are not told anywhere else in the story that the Levite was going to Shiloh (Judges 18:31; Joshua 18:1), but that he was returning to his home in Mount Ephraim. Hence some render the words, “I walk at the house of Jehovah” — i.e., I am a Levite, engaged in the service of the Tabernacle at Shiloh. It is true that this would be no answer to the question, “Whither goest thou?” On the other hand, the phrase is not a usual one for going to a place, and the Levite perhaps meant to imply an additional reason why the inhospitable reception was very unworthy. His office ought to have procured him a welcome, yet he who belongs to God’s house cannot find shelter in any house in Gibeah. The LXX. adopt another reading, and render it “to my house” (reading Bîthî). The reading of the MSS. may have come from regarding the last letter as an abbreviation of Jehovah.