Judges 19:22 [Now] as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, [and] beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him.
Ver. 22. Certain sons of Belial.] Yokeless, lawless, masterless monsters; breathing devils, 2Co 6:15 and such as differed from beasts, non ratione sed oratione tantum, by speech only, not by reason; men compact of mere incongruities and absurdities a 2Th 3:2 unreasonable wicked men; flagitious fellows.
Beset the house round about.] Sodomite like. Gen 19:4 Domus tutissimum cuique refugium atque receptaculum, saith the civil law. A man's house is his castle, say we. But this old man could not be quiet in his own house for these beastly ruffians, qui gyraverunt circa domum, who beset the house and beat at the door, as though they would have broken it down.
That we may know him.] O faces hatched with impudence! "They declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not," Isa 3:9 they set it on the "cliff of a rock" to the view of all. Eze 24:7-8 But it may be that then at Gibeah, as now in the Levant, b sodomy was not held a vice.
a Aποποι .
b Sir H. Blunt's Voyage, 79.