"Now it came about in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite staying in the remote part of the hill country of Ephraim, who took a concubine for himself from Bethlehem in Judah. But his concubine played the harlot against him, and she went away from him to her father's house in Bethlehem in Judah, and was there for a period of four months. Then her husband arose and went after her to speak tenderly to her in order to bring her back, taking with him his servant and a pair of donkeys. So she brought him into her father's house, and when the girl's father saw him, he was glad to meet him." Judges 19:1-3 NASB

Here is something I want you to note, perfect loves pursues. There is here mixed in this very interesting book of Judges a small picture of the response of Jesus toward us. This portion of scriptures in itself has some very interesting facts to it, but I want you to see something powerful.

In the Bible you can see so often how God the creator and sustainer of all things pursues the sinner and draws him unto Himself. Here we have a Levite who took for himself a concubine and this appears to be, that he took her for his wife and that it was his only wife.

She played the harlot against him and went away from him to her Fathers house. This was punishable unto death according to the law. She directly rebelled against him and was gone for a total of four months. The Levite could have moved on with his life and said this is over.

The neat thing here is that even though she sinned against him and left him to play the harlot and went away after he had taken her as his wife, he still went after her. He pursued her where she was at, living in sin. He left his own home and went to her father’s house.

How did he win her back to himself? It says he, “arose and went after her to speak tenderly to her in order to bring her back.” The word tenderly here in the Hebrew is leb (labe) and means the heart; also used (figuratively) very widely for the feelings, the will and even the intellect; likewise for the center of anything (1).

He spoke tenderly to her heart the center of her being. We in the same manner in our former life were the concubines. We played the harlot against the Lord and sinned against Him deserving death by our sins. We left the Lord and went away from His perfect will and loving-kindness.

Yet He pursues us and draws us unto Himself. He cleanses us and takes away the grime of a dirty life in exchange for His new mercies as a new creation.

In His Pursuing Love,
Adam

Notes:
[1] Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary (OT:3820). Copyright (c) 1994, Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, Inc.