Reaching the source of the Jordan far up in the northern mountains, they found the town of Laish just as the spies had described it. Far from its mother-city, the careless colony had no deliverer in its hour of peril. Without warning the spoilers burst upon it, scaled its walls, set it on fire, and massacred its inhabitants, men, women and children without mercy. They afterwards rebuilt it, called it _Dan after the name of Dan their father_, and there set up the images they had taken from Micah. There too the young Levite, who, it seems, was no unimportant personage, but no other than Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of the great lawgiver Moses[177], ministered at this new sanctuary, and his descendants remained till the Captivity (Judg. xviii. 14–31). If any proof were wanting of the association of religious with moral declension at this period, it is supplied by the biography of another Levite, which is also given in these concluding chapters of the Book of Judges. 2. This Levite, who, like the other, dwelt on the edge of Mount Ephraim, took him a concubine out of Bethlehem-Judah, who proved faithless, and returned to her father’s house. On this her husband went in quest of her, and was received by her father with true Eastern hospitality. As the fifth day declined after his arrival, resisting the importunities of his father-in-law who would have had him stay longer, he rose up to return, and as night fell drew near the town of Jebus, which still remained in the hands of its Canaanite inhabitants. Rejecting the advice of his servant to lodge there during the night, he pressed on, and it was already dark when he reached Gibeah in Benjamin. As he was sitting in the streets of the town awaiting an offer of shelter, an old man approached coming from his work in the fields. His home, too, was in Mount Ephraim, but he was sojourning at Gibeah, and taking compassion on the homeless condition of the Levite he brought him into his house, and gave him a lodging for the night. As they sat at meat, certain of the lowest inhabitants of the place set upon the house, and treated the Levite’s concubine with such violence, that in the morning when he arose he found her lying dead before the door. Enraged at this savage act he took her home, and there with his knife divided her together with her bones into twelve pieces, and sent them among the twelve tribes. This ferocious summons to vengeance roused all Israel as one man (Judg. xx. 1). Even the tribes beyond the Jordan assembled with the rest of their brethren, and 400,000 warriors met at Mizpeh in Benjamin, a fortified eminence a little to the north of Jebus, and listened to the Levite while he recounted the dark tale of outrage (Judg. xx. 2–6).