Judges 19:18
And he said unto him, We are passing from Beth-lehem-judah toward the side of mount Ephraim; from thence am I: and I went to Beth-lehem-judah, but I am now going to the house of the LORD; and there is no man that receiveth me to house. And he said unto him, We are passing from Beth-lehem-judah toward the side of mount Ephraim; from thence am I: and I went to Beth-lehem-judah, but I am now going to the house of the LORD; and there is no man that receiveth me to house.
Chapters 17-21, where the verse stands, record events from the early part of the judges period, while the main story of the book ends with chapter 16. Within those closing chapters, the verse belongs to the account of the crime at Gibeah, in which the people of Gibeah committed a grave offense and the tribe of Benjamin identified itself with them. The phrase house of the LORD in the verse denotes the sanctuary, the prepared dwelling place of God among His people.
The verse belongs to a record of Israel's backsliding that brought disgrace and the punishment that followed. Those closing chapters record internecine strife, ruffianism, and bloodshed. The verse is part of the account of Israel's deep moral corruption in the period when people did what seemed right in their own eyes; the events in chapters 18 and 19 reveal gross immorality, showing that unaided human judgment and conscience can be perverted so that wrong appears right. Israel's backsliding gives no thought that it cannot be done with impunity, and those whom God used to deliver His people, though taken from the very best material at hand and sometimes crude and rough as in the case of Samson, are not examples He has set to follow.