(28) But none answered.--The sacred writer, in his horror, will not say that she was dead.

Upon an ass.--Rather, the ass, which had borne her while she was living. The omission of every detail, the narration of the naked facts in the simplest words, without pausing to say so much as a single word respecting the Levite's or the old man's feelings, is a striking example of the difference of the historic method of ancient and modern times.

17:7-13 Micah thought it was a sign of God's favour to him and his images, that a Levite should come to his door. Thus those who please themselves with their own delusions, if Providence unexpectedly bring any thing to their hands that further them in their evil way, are apt from thence to think that God is pleased with them.And he said unto her, up, and let us be going,.... He spoke to her as supposing her asleep, in order to awake her, and prepare for their journey with all the haste they could, lest greater mischief should befall them:

but none answered; for she was dead; and her death was occasioned, as Josephus (w) says, partly through grief at what she had suffered, and partly through shame, not daring to come into the sight of her husband; but chiefly through the injuries done her by the number of persons that had lain with her: so it is reported (x) of the Thessalonians, when they took Phocis, many women were destroyed through the abundance of rapes committed upon them. To these Abarbinel adds, the cold of the night, being without her clothes, or anything to cover her:

then the man took her up upon an ass; and carried off her dead body, without making any remonstrance to the inhabitants, from whom he could not expect that any justice would be done him:

and the man rose up, and got him unto his place; to his city on one side Mount Ephraim, to which he made as much haste as he could, instead of going to the house of God at Shiloh, as he proposed; for now the circumstances of things were changed with him, and instead of sacrificing and giving praise to God in his house, his business was to seek for justice from the tribes of Israel.

(w) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 2. sect. 8.) (x) Herodot. Urania, sive, l. 8. c. 33.