/ /. l-L.l^ LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON. N. J. Presented by "TVieWfc^ow of GreorQ'eDu<5c\n -, \l Division.JCj.^f\l H" SecHonJUSS.£siJ (* Copy "2- - Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library http://www.archive.org/details/bookofjudges42cass BOOK OF JUDGES. BT PAULUS "OASSEL, D. D., PROFESSOR IN BERLIN. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, WITH ADJHTIONS, P. H. STEENSTRA, rKoruaoft or biblical utbrature ih the pkotestant episcopal divinity schooi AT CAMBKIDGE. v \gs. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, letered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by Charles Scribnee and Company, • tae Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington THE BOOK OF JUDGES. INTRODUCTION. § 1. Contents and Plan, 1. The Book of Judges is in a special sense the first historical book of Israel. It doe* not. like the Book of Joshua, relate the deeds of one man, nor does it, like the last four books of Moses, revolve around the commanding figure and lofty wisdom of a prophet. To a cer- tain extent, this book also is a Genesis. The first book of the Pentateuch describes the opening period of the primitive patriarchal family: the Book of Judges relates the earliest history of the people of Israel in Canaan. " The children of Israel asked the Lord," is its opening sentence. It rehearses the fortunes, deeds, and sufferings of the people, as they occurred after the death of Joshua. For this personage was only the testamentary executor of the prophet who remained behind on the other side of the Jordan (cf. on ch. i. 1). When he also died. Israel, the heir, deprived both of the authoritative direction of Moses and the executive guidance of Joshua, entered upon the independent management of its acquired possession. The Book of Joshua is the history of a conqueror ; the Book of Judges that of a people for the first time in possession. Hitherto, Israel had always been in a condition of unrest and movement, first enslaved, then wandering in the desert, finally undergoing the hardships of the camp and conquest ; the Book of Judges exhibits the nation in the first period of its life as a settled, possessing, and peaceable people. Hitherto, the nation, like a minor, had been authoritatively directed by its guardian and friend ; the Book of Judges opens at the moment in which the people itself is to assume the administration of its affairs in accordance with the sacerdotal and civil constitution which has been framed for it. This is indicated, from various points of view, by the name which our Book bears in the Canon : Shophetim, Judges. The same title is borne by the Synagogue pericope which begins, at Deut. xvi. 18, with the command, " Thou shalt make thee Judges (Shophetim) in all thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee." Since Moses no longer exercised his legislative, nor Joshua his executive functions, these Shophetim constituted the highest civil authority (cf. on ch. ii. 16), who in conjunction with the priesthood, were to watch over the observance of the law. The Book of Judges, accordingly, recounts the history of the times, after the death of Joshua, in which the governing authority in Israel was to be exercised by the Shophetim. 2. The Biblical books are throughout books of instruction. For this purpose, and this alone, were they written. Their design is to show the relations, first of God, and through God of Israel, to history. In their view, all history, and that of Israel especially, is a con- tinuous fulfillment of the truth and purposes of God. The achievements and the fortunes of all nations are the consequences of their moral relations to God. But the preeminence of Israel consists in this, that the God of nature and of time was first revealed to it, and that in the Law which it received from Him, it has a clear and definite rule by which it can order its relations to God and know the moral grounds of whatever befalls it. Upon the observance of this law, as the evidence and expression of faith in the living God, the freedom, well-being, and peace of Israel repose. This had been made known to the people, before under Joshua's direction they left the desert and addressed themselves to the conquest of Canaan. If after victory, they shall observe the law, and be mindful of their calling to be a holy People of God, prosperity will follow them ; if not, they shall fall into bondage, poverty, and discord (Deut. vii. 1 ff.). The Book of Judges is a text-book of fulfillment to this prediction. The twenty-one sections of which it consists are organically put together for this purpose. It may, indeed, be said that there are three principal divisions recognizable : first, chaps, i. and 4 THE BOOK cr „UDGES. ii. ; secondly, chaps, iii.-xvi. ; thirdly, chaps, xvii.-xxi. But the lessons which these thre« divisions respectively contain, evince precisely the organic connection in which the whole narrative stands with all its parts, as the necessary fulfillment of what was promised in the law. The first two chapters are a pragmatic introduction to the history of the book as a whole. They explain the possibility of the events about to be related. Not in the history of Joshua could the germs of the subsequent conflicts lie ; for Joshua stood in the spirit of the law, and moved in the steps of Moses. It was only in what the tribes did after his death, that their foundation was laid. Accordingly, when ch. i. relates the prosecution of the con- quest by Israel, its main object in so doing is not to tell what was conquered and how, but rather to show that in violation of the Mosaic command the tribes failed to expel the Canaanites. In consequence of this failure, the forewarnings of the law (Deut. vii.) went into fulfillment. Peace endured only so long as the elders yet lived who remembered all the great works that were done for Israel at their entrance into Canaan (Josh. xxiv. 31). The younger generation soon fell into the snares of temptation, and consequently into spiritual and political servitude. In distress, indeed, they sought after God, and then heroes rose up among them, who were truly their Judges, and who, acting in the spirit of God, regained their lib- erty. Their deeds are reported in chaps, iii.-xvi. But the root of the evil was not thereby removed. Heathenism continued to exist in the bosom of Israel. The occasion of apostasy afforded by the idolatry of the Canaanites was permanent, but the institution of the judgeship was transient. The service of Baal perpetuated itself from generation to generation ; but the strength and energy of the Judge expired with the person in whom they dwelt. So also all those judges whom according to the law Israel was to elect for the administration of its local affairs (Deut. xvi. 18 f), were invested with merely personal, not hereditary, dignity. The permanent evil was not confronted with any equally permanent institution. To this fact ch. ii. already alludes; for it says, ver. 19, that "when the Judge was dead, they turned back." 3. In consequence of this, the Book of Judges is the book of fulfillment from yet another point of view. It teaches that by reason of the fact just alluded to, the hereditary kingly office had to be set up. In Deuteronomy (xvi. 18 f.). the institution of Judges in all the gates of Israel is immediately followed by this provision (ch. xvii. 14 ff.) : " When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me, then shalt thou set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose." The Book of Judges shows that this result was unavoidable. The government of the Judges, it points out already in ch. ii., has no traditional strength. The authority of the greatest among them ceases when he dies. Each one of the great heroes who are portrayed from ch. iii. onward, affords proof of the want of the hereditary kingly office, albeit in different ways. When Othniel died, no second hero of Judah was forthcoming to restrain Israel from sin. Ehud was a deliverer (ch. iii.), but he is not even called a Judge. After him, the work of delivering and judging devolved on a woman, and Barak was willing to fight only if she went with him (chaps, iv., v.). Gideon became inspired with courage only through great wonders on the part of God (ch. vi.) ; and however pious and great, he himself occasioned confusion in Israel (ch. viii. 27). Jephthah had no legal descent of any kind. Samson was an incomparable hero ; but he fought single-handed, without a people to support him. The Judges were indeed deliverers ; but their authority was not recognized throughout all Israel. The call of Deborah was answered by only two tribes. Gideon's leadership was at first opposed by Ephraiin. Jephthah fell into sanguinary discord with the same tribe. Sam- son was bound to be delivered up to the Philistines by the terror-stricken tribe of Judah itself. The judgeship did not even maintain itself within the same tribe. Of the six principal heroes, three belonged to the south, — Othniel, Ehud, Samson, — and three to the north, — Barak, Gideon, Jephthah ; none to Ephraim, the tribe of Joshua, and two to Man- isseh. The title of the hero was Sliophet, Judge. But judges there were always. In every tribe, Jie judge was the local magistrate. The hero who rose up to conquer bore no new title. And his authority was merely the authority of the common Shophet territorially extended by virtue of his mighty deeds. But whatever unity he might have formed during his activity, dissolved itself at his death. The tribes then stood again under their separate Shophetim. Permanent organic connection could be secured only through a king. Without this common § 2. TIME OF COMPOSITION. and permanent centre, the interests of the several tribes diverged, and each section became indifferent to whatever occurred in the others. National interest decayjd, and with it, of course, national strength. The narratives of chaps, xvii.-xxi. form, it is true, a division by themselves, but a division that stands in organic connection with the whole Book. The events there related do not follow after the last judge of whom ch. xvi. speaks. They belong to much earlier times, and yet the position assigned them is well considered and instructive. They demonstrate by new and striking illustrations the necessity of the kingly office ta strengthen Israel, within and without, over against the existing idolatry, which could main- tain itself only by reason of the divisions and want of unity between the tribes of Israel. The events of these last five chapters do not seem to have occurred under the tyranny of any hostile king. So much the more strikingly do they set forth the weakness of the form of government which Israel had at that time, — a weakness which, to be sure, had its ulti- mate oTound in the weakness of the people itself. They show the decay both of religion among the people and of the priesthood. The first two of these chapters (xvii. and xviii.) teach us what sins in spiritual matters and what deeds of civil violence were possible in Israel, without causing the whole nation to rise in remonstrance. The last two show the reverse of this, namely, the fanaticism of self-righteousness with which the whole people pro- ceeded against one of the brotherhood of tribes, reducing it even to the verge of extinction. Both kinds of sins were possible only because the hereditary, general, and authoritative kin on that account that the Book of Judges closes with the heroic deeds and death of Sum- son. The age of heroes is past. The age of kings can begin only when a prophet enjoys respect as a judge throughout all Israel, which had never been the case before Samuel. Hence, this prophet's history forms the introduction to the history of the kingship, since with- out his consecration no king could exist. This is why the Septuagint and the "Vulgate call the Books of Samuel the First and Second of Kings. The extreme points of time between which the composition of our Book must have taken place, may easily be indicated. It must have been later than the great victory of Samuel over the Philistines, the reformation of Israel, and the return of the ark of the covenant from exile (cf. on ch. xviii. 30). One consequence of the reformation was that, notwithstand- ing Samuel's protest at first, the people desired a king ; for in this promised office they sought security both against their enemies and against themselves and their own unbe- lief. Another consequence, probably, was the composition of this manual of penitence and instruction. On the other hand, our Book must have been written before the reign of David. Jerusa- lem was still called Jebus, and the Jebusites had not yet been expelled (ch. i. 21, xix. 10). But if 2 Sam. v. 6 ff. is to have any meaning at all, it must refer to the utter destruction of the Jebusites' power by David, a conclusion which the whole history confirms. Moreover if our Book had not been written before the time of David, references to his reign could not be wanting. From Othniel's time, the tribe of Judah, David's tribe, falls into the back- ground. The mention of it in the history of Samson, is far from honorable. The relatively copious treatment of affairs in which Benjamin figures, points to the time of King Saul While the history of Othniel is quite summarily related, that of Ehud is drawn out to the minutest detail. Similarly rich is the flow of tradition in the narrative concerning Gibeah (ch. xix. sea.). Saul says of himself that he is " of the smallest of the tribes" (1 Sam. ix. 21). This history of Gibeah explains the cause of Benjamin's smallness, and traces it to the savage war made on him by Israel. § 3. The Sources. 1. The author did not command materials in equal abundance from all the tribes. A full supply flowed in upon him out of the traditions of the tribes bordering on Ephraim, namely, Benjamin, Manasseh, and Dan. The story of Deborah describes the heroic exploit of Naph- tali and Zebulun; but Deborah herself resided between Ramah and Bethel, on Mount Ephraim, near the confines of Benjamin. Of the tribes at the extremities of the land, of Reuben (Gad is included in Gilead), of Simeon (only the incident in ch. i.), of Asher, the author's sources afforded scarcely any information. Concerning Judah's preeminence, only ch. i. (cf. ch. xx. 18) communicates anything. Toward Ephraim (for ch. i. 22 ff, refers to the whole house of Joseph), the sources nourish an unfavorable disposition. No hero, properly speak- ing, came out of Ephraim ; for of Abdon nothing but his name and wealth is mentioned (ch. xii. I. 3). Ephraim originates the sinful opposition to Gideon and Jephthah. In Ephraim Abimelech plays his role as royal usurper. There Micah sets up his false religion. Thence also sprang that Levite who was the cause of the civil war. It must not be overlooked that lor the author and his times all this was of great significance. When the king demanded of Samuel is appointed, he is not chosen out of Ephraim, but out of Benjamin. The author, who favors the institution of the kingship, brings the moral incapacity which Ephraim as leading tribe has hitherto shown, into prominence. The priesthood, it is true, had their seat at Shiloh. But the whole history of the Judges shows the powerlessness of the priesthood in times of danger. The facts related in the last five chapters of our book, by way of sup- plement to the deeds of the heroes, are sufficiently indicative of the fall of the priestly tribe. Such things, also, as are told of Levites, occurred only " because there was no king.' Ephraim. it is true, gave Samuel to the nation, the restorer of Israel's spiritual strength, and the reformer of the priesthood; but even he could give no guaranty for his children who when in old age he transfers his office to them, do not walk in his steps. § 3. THE SOURCES. 2. As to the authorship of the Book of Judges, the traditions which ascribe it to Samne are ancient; but if in such obscure matters one were to risk a conjecture, he would hardly attach himself to these traditions. The Book apparently presupposes the reign of Saul, just as in the Books of Samuel the reign of David is presupposed. To record the deeds and in- structions of God, as brought to view in the history of the nation, was certainly a well-con- sidered, and, as the extant sacred writings show, a fearlessly and honestly executed office If this was the office held by the mazkir at the courts of David, Solomon, and the kings in general (cf. 2 Sam. viii. 16, 1 Kings iv. 3, etc.), it would be natural to ascribe our Book to a Benjaminite of the court of Saul. This man had before him narratives, extending over a period of 400 years, which must have been written by contemporaries of the events related. Local and material details such as the histories of Ehud, Gideon, Abimelech, Jephthah, Sam- son, as also those of Micah anil the priest at Gibeah, exhibit, can only proceed from narra- tors who stood personally near the events. Nevertheless, as has already been remarked, an organic recasting of the materials extends through the whole Book, by means of which the doctrine it is designed to teach is brought prominently to view, and the arrangement of the individual narratives determined. To this it is owing that the record of the great deeds achieved by the Judges closes with Samson, although it is not certain that the death of that hero is the latest event of the Book, and also that the narratives concerning Micah and Gib- eah stand at the end, although, as the author himself does not conceal, the events occurred much earlier (cf. ch. xviii. 12, xiii. 25; also, xx. 23). The lesson conveyed in the introduc- tion of the Book, especially in ch. ii.. that sin and apostasy are the cause of servitude, and that apostasy in turn is the consequence of the people's disobedience in not expelling the Canaanites, is brought out in similar turns of thought and expression throughout the work (cf. ch. ii. 11, iv. 1, vi. 1, x. 6, xiii. 1 ; ch. ii. 14, iii. 8, x. 7 ; ch. ii. 17, viii. 33, x. 13 tf.). The objection that chaps, xvii.-xxi. do not contain such expressions, testifies only to the clearness and order which everywhere pervade the simple narrative. Until the story reaches the age of Samson, these expressions occur because they indicate the moral links in the his- torical connection. But chaps, xvii. - xxi. are placed outside of this connection. They pre- sent occurrences out of times in which the formula?, " the sons of Israel continued to do evil " (cf. ch. iv. 1, etc.), or, " they did evil " (cf. ch. ii. 11, etc.), were not properly applicable, since they were times of " rest " to the land, in consequence of the victories of one great Judge or another (cf. ch. iii. 11, etc.). Accordingly, these chapters find the ground of the evils they set forth not in the want of a Shophet but of a king. Their unity with the Book as a whole, ap- pears clearly on a comparison of them, as to style and diction, with the introduction, chaps, i. - iii. ; as again similar philological characteristics testify to the unity of chaps, i. - iii. with iv. - xvi. (cf. Keil, Lehrb. der hist. krit. Einleil., § 4 7, notes 4 and 5). 3. Notwithstanding this, it is plain that the different narratives of the Book exhibit a dif- ference of coloring among themselves. This could not be otherwise. From the earliest times down to the Middle Ages, it has ever been the manner of the chronicler to tell his story, for the most part, in the very words of his sources. Precisely the Christian historiography of pious men in mediasval times abounds with proofs and instructive illustrations of this fact. To this practice the numerous liapax lerjomena of our Book, found nowhere else, are due (cf. ch. i. 15, iii. 22. iv. 4-19, v. 10, 28. vii. 3, xiv. 9-18, xv. 8, xviii. 7, etc.) ; while in many places traces of abridgment by the author might be pointed out (cf. ch. iv. 15, xvi. 13 tf., xx.). The communication of invaluable contemporary documents like the Song of Deborah and the Parable of Jotham not only confirms this explanation, but also makes it probable that in other parts of his work too the author made use of popular and heroic songs, although the fact that his prose account of the victory of Deborah and Barak is man- ifestly independent of the Song of Deborah shows that this conjecture is to be applied with great caution. The author was acquainted with the contents of the Book of Joshua and of the entire Pen- tateuch. His first chapter becomes intelligible only when viewed in connection with the Book of Joshua. In the 13th chapter of that Book, the Lord says to Joshua that while he ia •)ld much land remains still to be possessed. The territories yet to be conquered are indicated, and orders are given for the division of the whole land among the tribes. With this account ch. i. of our Book connects itself. It shows what conquests remained to be made, from what necessary exertions the people still shrank, and where contracts of toleration were still made with the heathen inhabitants. The enumeration of places, especially in ch. i. 27-36, pre- •upposes familiarity with chaps, xiii.-xix. of Joshua so necessarily, that withoit it if would 8 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. be altogether unintelligible. Only those places are named which were not fully subdued consequently, the knowledge of what formed the entire territory allotted to each tribe is pre- supposed. But this knowledge could only be obtained from the above-mentioned chapters in Joshua, since the territorial possessions of the respective tribes had nowhere else been de- fined. In fact, the Book of Judges as a whole sets forth the fulfillment of what was contained in the Pentateuch and Joshua : its author must therefore have been acquainted with the con- tents of both. Chapter ii. is largely made up of sentences found in the last four books of Moses [cf. Hengst. Pentateuch, Ryland's ed., ii. 24 f.]. The history of the exodus is evi- dently known to the author in the very words of the Biblical narrative (cf. ch. ii. 12, vi. 13) The song of Deborah speaks in like manner of the journey through the desert and of Sinai. The narrative of the discord in Shechem (ch. ix. 28), reminds one of the story of Dinah (Gen. xxxiv.) ; and the deed in Gibeah is related in phraseology similar to that used in the history of Lot (Gen. xix.). We must here glance at a misunderstanding emphatically main- tained by Bertheau in several passages of his Commentary. The Book of Judges, he asserts, contains references to matters that occurred under Solomon, and therefore its author must have lived after this king. In support of this, he refers to 1 Kgs. iv. 7-19 compared with Judg. i. 27, 28 ; but the reference proves nothing. The passage in Kings relates, to be sure, that Solomon appointed twelve officers over all the realm, whose duty it was to provide for the royal household. Of course, the districts mentioned Judg. i. 27 fell under the charge of some one of these officers. But in Judg. i. 28, it is stated that Manasseh did not drive out the Canaanites of these districts, but let them remain on condition of paying tribute, and in that we are to find a reference to Solomon 1 ! As if Solomon had not appointed these officers over the whole kingdom ! or as if their appointment had any reference to the Canaanites or to " tribute," neither of which are so much as named in connection with it 1 A measure neces- sary in every regal government for the existence of the state, we are to identify, forsooth, with a measure of subjugation against enemies in a district 1 The very passage in 1 Kgs. ix. 15- 22, which Bertheau connects with 1 Kgs. iv. 7-19. should have shown him the true nature of the appointment of these officers. For these verses, while they state that Solomon made serfs of the still remaining heathen, expressly add that he did not make servants of any Israelites. But this action of Solomon toward heathen is not the subject of discourse at 1 Kgs. iv. 7-19, where officers are appointed over all Israel ; and as little in Judges i. 28, which speaks of the time when Israel grew strong (which it certainly had been long before Solomon's day), and imposed tribute 1 upon the Canaanites. This is the very thing for which Manasseh is blamed, that when it grew strong, instead of expelling the heathen inhabitants, it made them tributary, thus sowing the seeds of future sin. The whole passage, if it referred to Solomon, would be senseless. And why, if the author thought of Solomon, did he not name him ? Yet more singular is another conjecture put forth by Studer and Bertheau. Judg. i. 29 states that Ephraim did not drive the Canaanites out of Gezer, but that they continued to dwell there. Now, we read in 1 Kgs. ix. 16 ff., that an Egyptian Pharaoh conquered Gezer, and slew the Canaanites, after which Solomon rebuilt the city. To this conquest, now, we are to suppose the author of Judges alludes in ch. i. 29 ! But the author manifestly knows only this, that the Canaanite still dwelt in Gezer ! Had he alluded to the conquest of Gezer and its rebuilding, he must have told of the destruction of the Canaanite ; for at the time of Solomon's rebuilding, the Canaanite was no longer there ! Of such grounds as these for bringing down the date at which our book was written, Bertheau has four more (p. xxix.) : 1. His interpretation of ch. xviii. 30, which he thinks may refer either to the Assyrian or Babylonian conquest, on which see the commentary below. 2. The expression " until this clay " (ch. i. 21, 26, vi. 24, x. 4, etc.), implies a long lapse of time between the occurrence and the author. But even fifty years would suffice, and the author had a period of four cen- turies under review. 3. The author was acquainted with regal government in Israel (ch. xvii. 6, xviii. 1, etc.). Undoubtedly, because lie lived under Saul, and therefore also, 4. Shi- loh had ceased to be the seat of the priesthood. But how all this can be made to prove ths composition of the Book of Judges in the Assyrian period, it is hard to say. Bertheau (aftei alters) speaks of a cycle of twelve judges; but to justify this, either Barak or Abimelech must be omitted. The Jews counted fourteen. The number seven can only be got by force •or the Book contains eight extended biographical sketches, to which Othniel is to be added 1 DQ, the difference between which and ~OV — ^, 1 Kgs. is. 21, is also to be noted. § 3. THE SOURCES. 9 All such play on numbers, which if the author had intended or found, he would have unquestionably set forth clearly and boldly, can at best neither prove nor disprove any- thing. 4. But it is precisely the traces by which the author's use of earlier narratives is indi- cated, that testify to his freedom and originality. They show a natural and living appro- priation of sacred history and its teaching, not a slavish and mechanical borrowing. The language of our Book, too, contains expressions not found in the Pentateuch and in Joshua (cf. on ch. ii. 14 and 18, xx. 26, and Keil, I. c). The manner in which earlier history records occurrences analogous to those which our author has to relate, is recalled with free- dom, without servile imitation. Compare, e. g. the account of the appearance of the angel to Gideon and the kindling of his present, with that of the visit of the angels to Abraham (Gen. xviii.) and the kindling of his sacrifice ( Gen. xv. 1 7) ; the story of Jephthah's vow with Abrabam"s offering up of Isaac (Gen. xxii.). Very significant is the clearly discriminating use of the divine names Jehovah and Elo- him. the former of which constantly designates the absolute God who has revealed himself to Israel, while the latter expresses the general conception of Deity, as recognized also by heathen- ism. The nations of Canaan were not without Elohim on whom to call. But Baal and Ash- taroth were false Elohim. Israel had the true Deity, the only Elohim (DVibSiT): the living Jehovah. This God of Israel the heathen, and with them the apostate Israelites themselves, did indeed consider and speak of as an Elohim ; but he was no nature-deity, but the God of Israel's history. Jehovah, the Deliverer from Egypt, the mighty wonder-worker, the Creator of all men. The use of the names Jehovah and Elohim is indicative of the difference be- tween Israel and the nations in their relations to the true God and in their views of the uni- verse. It implies not different documents but different spiritual conditions ; and the profound subtiltv of the narrative is shown nowhere more strikingly than in the alternation of these names. When the heathen Adonibezek speaks, in ch. i., he uses Elohim. Ehud, when he addresses King E'^lon, says Elohim; but when he speaks to Israel, Jehovah (cf. ch. iii. 20, 28). Micah's private chapel is merely called a house of Elohim (ch. xvii. 5), although he himself pretends to serve Jehovah. To sinning Ephraim Gideon speaks only of Elohim, just as this name only occurs in the history of Abimelech. The name used corresponds with the spirit of those by whom or in whose ears it is spoken. In Micah's idolatrous temple, in the Shechem of Abimelech's time, and in Ephraim's pride, the fear of the true God of Israel does not manifest itself. Occasionally, Jehovah and ha-Elohim (Q > ribsn), the God, sc. of Israel, are used inter- changeably ; but yet not altogether as equivalents. Even the heathen Midianites may speak of the God of Israel as ha-Elohim (ch. vii. 14), but not as Jehovah. The latter is only put into the mouths of such as worship the Holy One in full faith. Very instructive in this respect is the alternation of the divine names in the accounts of the angelophanies to Gideon and the parents of Samson. The angels appear in human form, but their exalted naturt shines through the lowlier appearance. On this account, an angel (ch. xiii. 6), as also a prophet, may be called an Ish ha-Elohim, a godlike man ; but no one is ever called Ish Jehovah, a Jehovah-like man. That description can be applied to neither angel nor man. The divine appearance in the human form under which the angel comes, can only be described by the term Elohim, or, in so far as its source in the God of Israel is to be specially indicated, by ha-Elohim. 1 True, the expression " Angel of Jehovah " may be used as well as " Angel of ha-Elohim ; " but still, in ch. vi. 20, 21, these expressions seem to be distin- guished from each other in such a way, that the latter designates the angel simply in his appearance (ver. 20), the former as the possessor of supernatural powers (ver. 21). When Gideon once more hesitates, and desires to assure himself whether he be really the chosen deliverer, and therefore longs to have the reality of the angelic appearance already enjoyed confirmed, he addresses himself to ha-Elohim (vers. 36, 39). It may indeed appear strange that in connection with the answer in ver. 40 simply Elohim is used ; but the explanation is that the meaning being plain, the article is omitted as unnecessary. Ll The author seems to take the genitive in C^H^SH ti^S, as a gen. of quality, as in C^— "1 It^S, ' an eloquent man." But this is certainly incorrect. The expression rf man of God," does not indicate subjective char- acter or nature, but objective official relations. First applied to Moses (Deut. xxxiii. 1), it waf commonly used to desig- nate a prophet. It denotes a man whom God has taken into relations of peculiar intimacy Witt himself in order through him to instruct and lead his people The genitive may be denned as the gen. of the principal, frori whom the " man ' derives his knowledge and power, and for whom he acts. — Tr.J 10 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. ft. These discriminations between the divine names are not to be ascribed to our author in any such sense as if the earlier times which he describes, and the sources which came down to him out of them, had not yet possessed any clear perception of them. All tradition, in whatever form he used it, narrative ana song, was pervaded with the same consciousness as that which lives in Biblical books and doctrines, from which indeed it had derived them. The Song of Deborah, the documentary character and genuineness of which are undoubted, celebrates with prophetic power the Jehovah of the generations of Israel. The document which Jephthah sends to the king of Ammon shows a living knowledge of the contents and language of the Books of Moses, although it treats both with great freedom. If Gideon did not live in the consciousness of the authoritative God, who revealed himself in the law, and led Israel through the desert into Canaan, he could not say, while refusing an offered crown, " Jehovah shall rule over you " (ch. viii. 23). When Jephthah makes a vow, he makes it not after the model of any heathen usage, but in the language, form, and spirit of the Israel- itish vow, as regulated by Moses. The story of Samson becomes intelligible only by the light of the Nazaritic institute of the Pentateuch (Num. vi.). The priestly body comes to view in the service with Urim (ch. i. 2, xx. 18). Respect for the priesthood shows itself plainly, albeit in a perversion of it, in the conduct of Micah (ch. xvii. 13). The officiating Levite is known by his priestly dress, furnished with the prescribed bells (ch. xviii. 3). It is undoubtedly true that the circumstances of the Levites, as they come to view here anq there, as also the story in ch. xix., indicate a wretched condition of the order ; but decay implies vigor, just as caricature implies truth. The false ephod points to the true ; the idol altar of Gideon's father, to that which his son erects in the place of it. The Book of Judges treats of great international conflicts. But these wars are waged by the nations of Canaan not only against the strange people, but against that people's God. No conflict had ever arisen, but for Israel's Jehovah, from whom his people derived their national existence and character, — and, indeed, it was only the living Jehovah, who would not suffer himself to be represented by dead images, that could produce this deep and lasting antagonism. Without him, Israel could not have maintained itself in a struggle of four hundred years, to be finally victorious, and to find itself in possession of solid foundations for future civil and religious life. Of course, the Book of Judges does not aim at giving a history of the general culture of the age, after the manner of modern times. That it says so little of the priestly institutions and the law, proves only that it presupposes them as known. It is certain, at least, that the discourses of the prophetic messengers (chaps, ii. and x.), like the whole Book, explain the several apostasies of the nation out of the decay of their religious and spiritual life. To infer from the abnormities that come to view, as the idolatry in Ophra, the sin of Abim- elech, the discord between the tribes under Jephthah, the abomination in Gibeah, and the wretched condition of the Levites, that the law, in all the fullness of its instructions, was not yet known or published, would be a singular procedure. As if during the times succeeding Clovis there had been no churches, no bishops, no Christian people, in Gaul, notwithstanding the horrible deeds of the kings and their helpers ! Or as if in our own day and land, in winch the Christian Church and Christian doctrine are unquestionably prevalent, the presence and existence of these might nevertheless be denied, because of the abominations of apostasy which come to light, as to morals, in police-reports, and as to doctrine in the myriad books of modern idolatry ! It is the nature of Biblical historiography to disclose the truth, without regard to men and without flattery. It does not, in modern fashion, glorify in breathless declamations the dutiful deeds of the " faithful " ; it mentions them in few words. But it brings the disgrace and punishment of sin into the foreground, in order to warn against transgression and induce repentance. That it has become common, especially since the rationalistic period, to represent the age of the Judges as wild and barbarous, only shows that men are prone to overlook the vices and bloodshed peculiar to their own day. Our Book ••overs a space of four hundred years. Now, as the periods of servitude are characterized as times of apostasy, while those of independence are represented as times of order, it is not unimportant to observe that apostasy prevailed during but one third of the time descril«d. § 4. CHRONOLOGY. 1 1 § 4. Chronology. 1. The Book of Judges contains also chronological data in connection with the occurrencei which it records. It is a suggestive fact, with reference to the peculiarities of his sources, and the manner in which he used them, that the first numerical statement of time given by the author refers to the duration of the oppression of Israel by Chushan Rishathaim, king of Aram. Concerning the occurrences between the death of Joshua and the time of Chushan, related in the introductory chapters, no dates are given, and their duration can only be approximately ascertained. The table of chronological data is conveniently divided into two parts : from Chushan to the domination of Ammon, and from that to the death of Samson. Israel served Chushan 8 years. Had rest under Othuiel 40 Served Moab 18 Had rest under Ehud 80 ^ (40 ■>) Served Jabin 20 Had rest under Barak 40 Served Midian . . . 7 Had rest under Gideon . . 40 Was ruled by Abimelech . . 3 Had Tola for Judge 23 jj Jair, Judge . 22 Total 301 years. (261 ?) Among these numbers, only the statement that after Ehud's victory there followed eighty years of rest, excites special attention. The number forty is by no means an unhistorical, round number. Nevertheless, it seems manifestly to express the duration of a period, par- ticularly that of a generation. In forty years the generation of the desert died out (cf. Num. xiv. 33). The statements that after the achievements of Othniel, Deborah, and Gideon, respectively, a period of forty years passed in rest, bring to light the internal ground of re- newed apostasy, already indicated in the introduction (ch. ii. 10), namely, that after the death of the generation which had witnessed the deeds of the heroes, another rose up which had no living remembrance of them. So much stress may properly be laid on this internal ground, as to make the number eighty after Ehud's exploit very remarkable in its singularity ; so remark- able, in fact, as to incline one to suppose that the original reading was forty. Apart from every other consideration, this supposition would have much in its favor, if it were certain — which, however, despite the statement in ch. iv. 1, it is not — that the number in question was also intended to give the length of Ehud's subsequent life. It would also give a clearness unu- sual in chronological matters to the statement of Jephthah that three hundred years had passed since Israel gained a firm footing in Heshbon, beyond the Jordan (ch. xi. 26). For from the year in which Jephthah says this, backward to the first year of Chushan, would on this reckoning be 261 -f- 18 = 279 years. Twenty years would very satisfactorily till up the gap between the last of Joshua's conquests and the commencement of the Aramsean domina- tion. For although the kings of Sihon and Og were defeated by Moses seven years earlier, the two and a half trans-Jordanic tribes came into possession, properly speaking, only after the conquest of Canaan (Josh. xxii.). If the number eighty be left untouched, we get a period of three hundred and nineteen years from Jephthah back to Chushan's domination, to which the interval of twenty (or twenty-seven) years must be added, for this length of time must in any case have elapsed between the entrance into Canaan and the invasion of Chushan (cf. ch. ii. 10, iii. 7). But it is natural to suppose that Jephthah in his letter to the king of Ammon would use the larger, not the smaller, number of which the case admitted, in order to prove the right of Israel to its land. The change of eighty into forty is also of importance with reference to other chronological combinations, as will appear farther on. 2. In ch. x. 7 the historian states that God, by reason of Israel's renewed apostasy, deliv- jred them into the hands of the Philistines and Ammonites. The statement gives the impres- sion that this domination of these nations over Israel was contemporaneous, but exerted over different parts of the land. The narrative then proceeds to speak first of the tyranny of Amnion, which lasted eighteen years, and then of that of the Philistines, which continued forty years. From the first of these oppressors, Jephthah delivered the eastern tribes ; against the other, Samson began the war of liberation. 12 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. It certainly seems as if the author of our Book wished to convey the lesson that, as timf went on, the condition of kingless Israel became continually worse. At first, hostile attacks had come from one side only ; a great victory was then won, and " the land rested." After Gideon, this expression no longer occurs. Moreover, it is never said of subsequent heroes that " they judged : " and the duration of their official activity no longer reaches to forty years. These facts are not to be neglected in our chronological survey. The combination of the chronological data of the Book of Judges with those found else- where, and especially with the well-known statement in 1 Kgs. vi. 1, according to which four hundred and eighty years intervened between the exodus from Egypt and the building of the temple, is still attended with difficulty. Doubtless, the difficulty is itself a most striking proof of the antiquity, originality, and independence of our Book. Had it been composed at a late period, by the same hand that wrote the Books of Kings, would not its author have attempted to get rid of these remarkable difficulties ? But the fidelity of the Old Testament tradition never shows itself more clearly than in cases in which, according to modern notions, it had been so easy for an editor to remove all occasion for resorting to hypotheses. For without these, it is at this day impossible to produce agreement. We know that agreement must exist, — for, surely, ancient authors were not incapable of arithmetical addition 1 — but coercive, scientific proof of it, we do not possess. The opinions of even the oldest Jewish chronologists were divergent. In support of our hypothesis we adduce the passage 1 Sam. xii. 11, where it is said that "Jehovah sent Jerubbaal, and Bedan, and Jephthah, and Sam- uel," and delivered Israel from their enemies round about. Now, Bedan is, without doubt, to be understood of Samson, the hero out of Dan. The passage, therefore, presents the pecu- liarity that it places Samson before Jephthah. Keil insists that the Ammonitish and Philis- tine oppressions occurred, not successively, but simultaneously. It is undoubtedly correct to gay, that we are not first to sum up the numbers relating to the occurrences set forth in chaps, xi. and xii. thus : — Ammon 18 years. Jephthah 6 " Ibzan 7 " Elon 10 " Abdon 8 " Total 49 years. and then add the years of the Philistine domination and those of Samson. Just as in 1 Sam xii. 11, Samson stands before Jephthah, so in Judg. x. 7 the Philistines are named before the Ammonites : " Jehovah gave Israel into the hands of the Philistines and of the sons of Ammon." That notwithstanding this Jephthah's deeds are first related, has its ground in the fact that in this way the achievements against the Philistines connect themselves with the principal wars of Israel in the days of Samuel and Saul. According to ch. xiii. 1, the Philis- tine domination lasted forty years. After Samson's great victory at Lehi, it is remarked, ch. xv. 20, and afterwards repeated, that " he judged Israel twenty years." These twenty years cannot be included in the forty. It is against the spirit of the Book, after such a victory to speak of Samson's "judging," and yet to suppose that at the same time Israel continues to be given " into the hands of the Philistines." Therefore, when the prediction concerning Sam son (ch. xiii. 5) only says that " he shall begin to deliver Israel," the meaning is that he will not thoroughly subdue them, as was done in the days of Samuel and David, for after the death of Samson their power again became dominant. Now, if this be undoubtedly correct, the supposition that the Ammonitish and Philistine servitudes commenced exactly at the same time, would compel us, notwithstanding 1 Sam. xii. 11, to place Jephthah lomr before Samson; for the Ammonitish domination lasted only eighteen years, and Jephthah ruled only six. The following conjecture is therefore to be preferred: With Gideon's death the land ceased "to have rest." Judges of forty years' service appear no more ; but a servitude of forty years begins. The Philistine attack occurred perhaps soon after Abimelech, induced probably by reports of the discord that prevailed in Israel. While in the North ami East Tola and Jair judged forty-five years, the Philistine servitude began in the southwest ; and while Ammon >ppressed Gilead in the East, Samson smote the Philistines in the southwest. The Gilead- ites make Jephthah their chieftain " because he had begun to smite the enemy " (cf. on ch. xi. 1,2); for Samson also had become Judge when he had commenced to put down the Philis- tines (c{. on ch. xv. 20). § 4. CHRONOLOGY. 13 Tl e combination of the chronological data of our Book with those of Samuel and especially the important one in 1 Kgs. vi. 1, is further facilitated by the fact that in 1 Sam. xii. 11, Eli is not named between Jephthah and Samuel. The inference from this omission is, that the forty years dur.ng which he ruled, are not to be separately taken into account. He was high-priest during the occurrence of the events in the North and South. The following addi- tional conjectures may therefore be regarded as probable : The war spoken of in 1 Sam. iv. 1, commenced by Israel against the Philistines, may be held to indicate the new vigor which the victories of Samson and the terrible catastrophe at Gaza had infused into the people. About thirty years had probably elapsed since the death of Samson. Then follow twenty years of penitence on the part of Israel (1 Sam. vii. 2), dated from the exile of the ark and its restoration to Kirjath-jeariin, that great event with which the Book of Judges is also acquainted. If next, according to ancient tradition, we add forty years for the time of Sam- uel and Saul, and forty for the reign of David, we arrive at the number four hundred and eighty in a manner sufficiently satisfactory and historically probable, as shown by the follow- ing tables : — Wanderings in the desert . 40 Conquest of the land ... 7 Until Chushan 20 Ehud . . 40 Amnion . . li] f Samson . . 20 = 90 Chushan . 8 Abimelech . 3 Othsiel Moab . 40 . 18 Tola . . Jair . . . 23 . 22 = Philistines . 40 Ehud . 40 Amnion . IS ' Samson . . 20 Jabin . 20 Jephthah . 6 Barak . . 40 Ibzan . . 7 .— . Erom death Midian . 7 Elon . . . 10 of Samson to GlDEON . 40 Abdon . . ■ 8. k Sam'l, about 30 213 97 Samuel before the victory (1 Sam. vii. 10) 20 Samuel and Saul 40 David 40 Solomon 3 103 Therefore, From Exodus to Chushan . . 67 Chushan to Gideon .... 213 Abimelech to Abdon ... 97 Samuel to Solomon .... 103 480 years. Those who accept the eighty years of Ehud, as has hitherto been done, are obliged with Keil to reduce the interval from the death of Moses to Chushan to seventeen years, and that from the death of Jair to Solomon to one hundred and twenty-three, whereby Samson's judge- ship vanishes, and no account is taken of the twenty years preceding the victory undei Samuel. 3. In conclusion, we remark that in the historical sketch of the Apostle Paul, Acts xiii. 18- 20, where he says, ver. 18, " and God nourished (ZTpotpo(p6pri} them forty years in the wilder- ness ; " ver. 19, " and destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he divided their land to them by lot ; " ver. 20, " and after that he gave them Judges for about four hundred and eighty years, until Samuel the prophet," the reading four hundred and eighty can scarcely be the original one. The apostle evidently had his eye on our canonical books: in vers. 17 and 18, on the Books of Moses ; in ver. 19, on the Book of Joshua ; in ver. 20, on the Book of Judges ; for this is followed by references to the Books of Samuel. As he was undoubtedly acquainted with the number four hundred and eighty in Kings, he could not assign four hundred and fifty years to the period from Joshua to Samuel, with which moreover no ancient tradition coincided. The conjectural reading, three hundred and fifty, appears therefore to be prefera- ble ; and it is certainly not a matter of indifference that, adding the numbers one after another as was done by Jewish tradition in general, three hundred and fifty years would actually represent the period from Chushan to the end of the Philistine domination. True, it would show that Paul also read only forty years in connection with Ehud. The objection that Paul also assigns a definite period of forty years for the reign of Saul, for which the Old Testa- ment gives no authority, is destitute of force. For the Book of Samuel gives no information at all concerning the length of this king's reign, and the Apostle followed the view, enter- tained also by Josephus {Ant. vi. 14, 9), according to which the reign of Saul, during and ifter the lifetime of Samuel, lasted forty years. It was sought in this way to explain 1 Sam. ciii. 1. [Note by the translator. Keil and Bachmann, both of whom have repeatedly in- vestigated the chronology of the Book of Judges, have come to conclusions somewhat different 14 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. from those of our author. As their schemes essentially agree, it will be sufficient to indicate that of Bachmann, the latest published and the least accessible to the English reader. It may be found in his commentary, Das Buck der Richter, vol. i. pp. 53-74. Its turning points so far as they differ from our author's, may be briefly stated as follows: (1.) It adheres in every instance to the numbers given ; hence, the period from Chushan to Gideon inclusive (<•). the table above), becomes two hundred and fifty-three years. (2.) It makes the forty yean Philistine servitude come to an end with the victory near Mizpeh. (3.) While it makes tin Ammonitish and Philistine servitudes synchronistic in the main, as required by ch. x. 7, it sup- poses the beginning of the Philistine to fall from three to five years later than that of the Am- monitish oppression. If they began simultaneously, it would follow that a new Judge, Abdon, was somewhere recognized after Samuel had already assembled all the house of Israel, and had shown himself the Judge and deliverer of all Israel (ef. 1 Sam. vii. 3, 5, 6), which is not likely. Abdon, however, having once beeu recognized as Judge, before the victory under Samuel, might continue to be regarded as such until his death. It is only necessary, therefore, to bring down the beginning of the Philistine servitude far enough to allow of this previous recogni- tion. (4.) It includes the twenty years of Samson in the " days of the Philistines," according to ch. xv. 20. It supposes Samson to begin his work as a young man of eighteen or nineteen years of age (cf. ch. xiv. 4 ff.), and thus allows his birth to fall after the beginning of the Phil- istine servitude, as demanded bych. xiii. 5. (5.) As to Eli, since his pontificate ended twenty years before the victory of Mizpeh, its beginning must antedate the commencement of the Philistine oppression by twenty, and the Ammonitish by from fifteen to seventeen years. And, in fact, the earlier years of Eli's pontificate afford no traces of hostile oppression. The people journey to the great festivals regularly and securely (1 Sam. i. 3, 7, 21, 24; ii. 1 9 J ; and even the sins of the sons of Eli, by which the people also are led astray (1 Sam. ii. 17, 24), are such as bespeak a time of careless security and prosperity. The following table exhibits the results thus obtained, for the time beginning with the Ammonitish and ending with the Philistine oppression. The figures at the left denote years after the death of Jair : — 1 Ammonitish servitude begins in the Eli is in the seventeenth year of his pontificate. East, and continues eighteen years. 4 In this year or one year earlier or later, the Philistine servitude begins in the West. 18 Jephthah breaks the Ammonitish yoke, and judges six years. 22 Samson begins his career, as a young man of eighteen to nineteen years. 24 Ibzan, Judge, seven years. Eli dies. Samuel. 31 Elon, Judge, ten years. 41 Abdon becomes Judge, and rules eight years 42 Samson dies. 44 The third year of Abdon's Judge- The victory uear Mizpeh, under Samuel, ends ship. the Philistine servitude, 1 Sam. rii. , Now, allowing ten years, instead of Dr. Cassel's twenty, for the interval between tha division of the land and the invasion of Chushan, and retaining the eighty years of Ehud, we get, — From the Exodus to Chushan, 57 years. From Chushan to Gideon 253 " From Abimelech to Mizpeh 92 " Samuel and Saul, 40 ; David, 40 ; Solomon, 3, 83 " Total . 485 years. This total, which it would be more proper to express variably as four hundred and eighty- four to four hundred and eighty-six, is not so far away from four hundred and eight} as to occasion any difficulty. In the first place it may be questioned whether the three years of Abimelech ought to be reckoned in ; and in the second place, it is highly probable that some of the periods include fractional years, so that the last year of one and the first of the next properly form but one, whereas in the process of addition they come to stand for two. But are not tei years too short to cover the interval between the division of the land and the nroad c' Chushan-Rishathaim ? No, says Bachmann, p. 7 2ff., "for, 1. Nothing demands a § 5. CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL HELPS. 15 lengthened period between the death of Joshua and the beginning of the Mesopotamia servitude. The passage at ch. ii. 11 ff. does not describe an earlier visitation than the Meso- potamian, but merely gives a general view of the causes and consequences of all the visita- tions about to be related. Under the "ins "IT?, the " other generation," cf. ch. ii. 10, neither a chronological generation of forty years (Bertheau), nor a familia eminens, that placed itself at the head of the nation (M. Hartmann), is to be understood. Nor does the remark of ch. ii. 7, about the elders who " outlived Joshua," require any considerable number of years. It merely affirms that they outlived him, without saying that they outlived him long. If in the second year of the Exodus these elders were eighteen or nineteen years old (Num. xiv. 29), at the division of the land, that is 38+7 years later, they would be sixty-three or sixty-four ; and ten years more, until the first hostile oppression, would suffice fully to bring them to that age which according to Ps. xc. 10 constituted the highest average of human life even in the time of Moses. Nor, finally, is it necessary to assign much time to the pro- cess of moral deterioration in Israel (ch. ii. 6 ff.) ; for this began and went on progressively in and even before the days of the elders, and it was only the completed apostasy to idolatry that ensued after their death. 2. From Josh. xiii. 1, compared with xiv. 10 ff. it is evident that Joshua cannot have continued to live long after the division of the land. While the second of these passages represents Caleb, at the age of eighty-five years, still full of youth- ful strength and perfectly ready to undertake the conquest of his inheritance, the first gives the great age of Joshua as the reason for the command to divide the land, although the conquest was yet far from complete. And since exactly the same expression recurs in ch. xxiii. 1, 2, it is impossible to suppose that the farewell gatherings of chaps, xxiii. and xxiv., which were held shortly before the death of Joshua (ch. xxiii. 14), took place many years later. Neither the D^ai C^\ " many days," of ch. xxiii. 1, nor the circumstance that, ac- cording to ch. xix. 50, Joshua built a city and lived in it, can prove the contrary ; for a few years' time satisfies them both. Nor is there any ground in Ex. xxxiii. 11 and Num. xi. 28 for inferring that Joshua must have lived a considerable time after the division of the land ; for the term ~TS2 denotes office, not age, and ynpsiS, even if we explain it " from his youth " (" of his chosen ones," is probably to be preferred, cf. the Sept. and Vulg.), does not assert that Joshua was then a young man. On the other hand, it is only when we assume that Joshua died at a relatively early date, that the contents of Judg. i. 1-21 appear in their true light. But especially decisive for the utmost possible reduction of the length of the in- terval in question is the passage Judg. xi. 26. According to this passage, three hundred years had elapsed since Israel took possession of the land on the east of the Jordan. Now, between the Mesopotamian invasion and the death of Jair, there lies a period of three hun- dred and one, or, excluding Abimelech, two hundred and ninety-eight years. It is evident, therefore, that, reckoning Jephthah's three hundred years from the dismissal of the eastern tribes (Josh, xxii.) to the attack of the Ammonites (Judg. x. 7), the shorter the preceding period be computed, the closer becomes the agreement between the historical fact and the approximate number of Jephthah. It is manifestly more likely that three hundred and eight to three hundred and eleven, than that three hundred and thirty to three hundred and fort) or more years, should be roundly represented as three hundred. We hold, therefore, with Llditfoot (Opp. i. 42), S. Schmid, Vitringa, Keil, and others, hat an interval of about ten years, as left at our disposal by our computation of the chronology of the whole period, is in fact fully sufficient for the events between the division and the first subjugation of the land ; and we accordingly reject, as wholly groundless extensions of the chronological frame, the as- sumption, since Josephus (Ant. v. 1, 29; vi. 5, 4) almost become traditional, that twenty-five years are to be allowed for Joshua, and eighteen for the " elders ; " the computation of vari- ous Rabbins (Sed. Olam, Isaaki, Abr. Zakut, and others), which assigns twenty-eight years to Joshua and the "elders" together; and every other similar hypothesis." — Tr.] § 5. Critical and Exegetical Helps. 1. In the criticism and translation of the Hebrew text, constant use has been made of the large Rabbinic Bible published at Venice, 1617-1618 by Petrus and Laurentius Bragadin, af- '.er the Bomberg edition. Compare the preface by Judah Arjeh of Modena, corrector of Jie work. Use has also been made of the Biblia Universa, published in 1657, at Leipzig, by Christian Kirchner. after the edition of B. A. Montanus. Compare the preface prefixed to 16 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. the work by the Dean and Theological Faculty of the University of Leipzig. Also of the Bihlia Hebraica of Joh. H. Michaelis, Halle, 1 720 ; the Biblia of Ddderlein and Meisner, as edited by Knapp, 1819 ; and the edition of the Book of Judges, with a German translation and commentary, by Mair Obernik, Fiirth, 1805. A treatment of the text such as has recently again been attempted by the wild theories of Geiger, Dozy, and others, is at variance with the laws of objective scientific criticism, and renders textual tradition, language, and contents so many footballs for subjective caprice. If* application is the more to be lamented, since it also increases the difficulties of such criticism as is both necessary and in accord with the spirit of Holy Scripture. But we must not be hindered by excesses of this kind from acknowledging, that it is more in keeping with piety toward the sacred volume to venture upon textual emendations in a few passages than to reject them. This conviction has governed us in the exposition of several passages (cf. on ch. ii. 3, iv. 15, v. 11, vii. 6 and 8), and especially in the treatment of ch. xviii. 30, where it is shown that the antiquity of the current reading is by no means a guaranty of its correct- ness, but only a proof of the fidelity of the Masoretic tradition. It is unfortunately impracticable here to institute a closer collation of the Hebrew text with the LXX. and the Targum, as also with Josephus, than has been incidentally done in the exposition. It is, however, a matter sufficiently necessary, not to be neglected hereafter. The beginnings made by Ziegler (Bemerkungen iiber das Buch d. Richter, in the Theol. Abhandl., Gbttingen, 1791) and Frankel (in his Vorstudien zur Septuaginta, Leipzig, 1841) are certainly still in want of a thorough continuation. The Syriac version of the Books of Judges and Ruth by Paul of Telia (beginning of the 7th century), has been published at Copenhagen, by Th. Skat Rdrdam : Libri Judicum el Ruth, secundum versionum Si/riaco-Hexaplarem, Havnias, 1859. The exposition of the Mi- drash on the Book of Judges, is given in the Jalkut Shimeoni, by R. Simeon, of Frankfurt, Venice edition, printed by Bragadin, torn. ii. For assistance in gaining acquaintance with Talmudic expositions, the following works may be consulted : Nachalath Shimeoni, by R. Simeon, of Lissa, ed. Wandsbeck ; Toledoth Jakob, by R. Jakob Sasportas, Amsterdam, 1657, 4to; Sepher Mareh Kohen, by R. Isaehar, Cracow edition, 1689, 4to. The Jewish expositors of the Middle Ages, R. Solomon Isaaki (i. e. Raschi, frequently but improperly called Jarchi), R. David Kimchi (Redat), R. Levi ben Gerson (Ralbag), and other expositions, are found in the large Rabbinic Bibles. The commentary of R. Isaak Abarbanel on the Prophetce Priores appeared at Leipzig, 1686. Expositions, partly excellent, of passages of our Book, by the Caraite Aaron, are found in Wolff's Bibliotheca Hebraza, Hamburg, 1715-43. A Jewish German translation in rhyme is found in Koheleth Jakob, Prague, 1 763, but with expositions and legends intermixed. A better, older, and literal Jewish German translation appeared at Amsterdam, 1679, fol. In more recent times several synagogue versions of the Holy Scriptures have been printed. Of these that which appeared under the conduct of Dr. Zunz adheres most closely to the Maso- retic text, cf. Orient. Literaturbl., 1840, p. 618. The Book of Judges as a whole did not receive separate and special treatment at the hands of the earlier Christian exegesis. We must here refer to the general introductions to the O. T. for information concerning editions and expositions which include our Book. Jerome, Theodoret, and, later, Rhabanus Maurus and Rupert von Deutz, might be particu- larly mentioned. Among the later Roman Catholic expositors Serarius stands preeminent on account of his diligence and voluminousness : Commentarii in libros Judicum et Ruth, Paris, 1611, Moguntia;, 1619. Among Protestant expositors Brentius, Bucer, P. Martyr, Chytraus, Seb. Schmid, Osiander, Starke, and Drusius, are still worthy of attention. The commentary of Le Clerc began the rationalistic mode of exposition, and has furnished it with most of its jtaterials. It is only forty years since the Book began again to receive any real attention. For ten years the commentary of Studer, Das Buch der Richter, grammatish und historisch trkldrt, Bern, 1835, almost entirely controlled the exposition. Valuable matter was contrib- jted by Hengstenberg, die Authentic des Pentateuchs [translated into English by Ryland, inder the title Dissertations on the. Genuineness of the Pentateuch, Edinburgh, 1847.. — Ti:.]. Still longer than Studer did Bertheau's exposition, Das Buch der Richter und Rut, Leipzig, 1845, maintain its prominence, to which for that reason special attention is given in the present work. The first volume of C. R. Keil's Biblischer Commentar iiber die Prophetischer. Geschichtsbiicher des A. T., containing Joshua, Judges, and Ruth (Leipzig, 1863), appeared § 5. CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL HELPS. 17 after the greater part of our Book was finished. The author's theological attitude, diligence, and erudition are in no need of special characterization in this place. [Since the publica- tion of Dr. Cassel's work, the first volume of a new commentary by Dr. Joh. Bachmann, Pro- fessor at Rostock, has appeared, entitled, Das Bach der Richter, mit besonderer Riicksicht auf die Geschichte seiner Auslegung und kirchlichen Verwendung erkldrt, etc., Berlin, Ersten Bandes erste H'alfte, 1868, Zweite Halfte, 1869. Theologically, the author stands on sub- stantially the same ground with Cassel and Keil. His work is thorough and exhaustive. For English works on the whole Bible, cf. the commentary on Matthew, p. 19. We here add : Bush, Notes Critical and Practical on the Book of Judges, New York ; and the Books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth ; with Notes and Introductions by Chr. Wordsworth, I). D., London, 1865, forming Part I. of vol. ii. of The Holy Bible : with Notes, etc., by the same author. Dr. Wordsworth is learned and devout, but somewhat too much given to allegori- zing — Tr.] It cannot be desirable to enumerate here all the exegetical introductions and other writings more remotely connected with the business of exposition. For such enumeration we refer to Danz's Unioersalworterbuch, to the works named by Dr. Lange in the commentary on Gene- sis, and to the older general commentaries of Starke, Lisco, and Gerlach. It is sufficient here to mention the Introductions of Havernick and Keil, Ewald's Geschichte Israels, and Stahelin's Untersuchungen uber den Pentateuch, die Bilcher Joshua, Richter, etc., Berlin, 1843. Much that is excellent — to confine ourselves to what specially belongs here — is contained in the little work of Prof. Wahl, Ueber den Verfasser des Buches der Richter, a " programme " of the Gymnasium and Realschule at Ellwangen, 1859. Compare also Nagelsbach, s. v. Richter, in Herzog's Real Encyklopadie, vol. xiii. ; and in general, the articles of this encyclo- paedia on the several Judges. On the chronology of the Book, the following works deserve to be mentioned : Jewish — the Sepher Juchasin, by Abraham Sacuto, Amsterdam, 1717; Tsemach David, by David Gans, in the edition of Vorstius, Hebrew and Latin, 1644, 4to ; and Seder Haddoroth, by R. Jechiel, of Minsk, 1810, fol. Herzfeld, Chronologia Judicumet primorum Regum Hebraorum, Berolini. 1836 ; and Bachmann, Si/mbolarum ad tempora Judicum recte constituenda specimt n (Rostock University "Programme" for 1860). The very latest conjectures maybe found in Rockerath, Bibl. Chronologie, Minister, 1865. 2. Of writings treating single parts of the Book of Judges, the number is larger. The Song of Deborah has been especially favored. We mention the following : 1 Lette, Animad- versiones Sacra;, L. Bat. 1759. Ruckersfelder, Sylloge comentt. et observatt. philol. exeget., Deventirae, 1762. Wilh. Abrah. Teller, Uebers. des Segens Jakobs und Mosis, insgleichen des Liedes der Israeliten und der Deborn. etc.. Halle and Helrnst., 1766. Schnurrer, Diss, in Deborm-Canticum, Tub. 1775 (cf. his Dissent. Phil. Critical, Gothaa, 1790). Kbhler, Nachlese einiger Anmerkk. uber das Siegeslied der Deb., in Eichhorn's Repertorium for 1780, p. 163 if. Hollmann, Comment, phil. crit. in Carmen Deboroz, Lips. 1818. Kohler, in the Studien und Kritihen for 1831, pp. 72-76. Kemink, Commentatio de Carmine Debora, Traj. ad Rhen., 1840. Kalkar, Questionum Biblic. Specimen, I., Othinise, 1835. Bbttger, in Kauffer's Bib- lischen Studien (only to ver. 23), Dresden and Leipzig, 1842-44. Gumpach, Alttestament- lichen Studien, Heidelberg, 1852. Sack, Die Lieder in den historischen Biichern des A. T., Barmen, 1864. Among translations, that of Herder, in his Geist der Hebraischen Poesie, ii. 196 (Cotta's edition of his works, 1852), still holds its merited rank. Little known, and yet not unimportant, is that of J. C. W. Scherer, in Irene, a monthly periodical by G. A. v. Halem, Minister, 1804, i. 44. Less valuable is Debora, a Portrait of Female Character, by E. Munch, in Minerva, an annual, for 1828, p. 339. Many excellent remarks on the Song of Deborah are found in Lowth's celebrated book on Hebrew Poetry ; but the annotations of Schmidt (in Auszuge aus Lowth's Vorlesungen, Dantzig, 1793) are worthless. In the exposition of the Song below, compression has been so much sought after, that its brevity, in view of the many new explanations that are offered, may be deemed a fault. Some improvement may perhaps be made in this respect hereafter. The history of Jephtbah has experienced an equally abundant treatment. To the literature ■nentioned in the exposition below, we here add the following : Reinke, Beitrdge zur Erklarung ies A. T., Miinster, 1852. Very sensible remarks against the assumption that Jephthah'a daughter was sacrificed are found in Schedius, Syngramma de Diis Germanis, Halaa, 1728. A discourse on " Jephthah's Sacrifice," with special reference to the importance of vows of l The Jewish traditions concerning Deborah are given in a popular form in Btth Jisrael, Amsterdam, 1724. 2 18 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. homage, may be found among the Discourses of the Stolberg Chancellor, Job. Tiiius, Hal berstadt, 1678. F. Ranke, also, in his Klaglied der Hebrder, felt himself oblige* I to fellow the old view. It is a curiosity of uncommon ignorance that in the French Opera L'Eufaii. Prodigue, of Sue and Auber, the bride of the Prodigal, that is to say, a woman, is named Jephthah. Roskoff, in his work Die Simsonssage, nach ihrer Entstehung, Form, und Bedeutung, und der Heraklesmythus, Leipzig, 1860, gives the literature of those writings in which Samson is put on a parallel with Hercules. The author's own zeal for the parallelism is far more mod- erate than that of E. Meier, for instance, in his Gesch. der poetischen Nationalliteratur der Hebrder, Leipzig, 1856 But even his admissions we have not been able to consider well founded and trustworthy. We cannot believe, for instance, that there is such similarity between the answer to Samson's prayer, after his exploit at Lehi, and the myth which recounts how Hercules, when unable to sleep on account of crickets, got rid of them, as to make it a safe foundation for scientific results. And it is only the thorough-going establish- ment of the historical and moral as well as ideal difference between the two characters thai can give any real significance to other analogies that may exist, and that appear to suggest themselves so plainly. In the commentary on the narrative we have engaged in no polemics, but have attempted a positive exposition of the ideas contained in it. Single parts of Samson's life were formerly frequently treated. As against the boundlessly insipid and wretched views of the so-called rationalistic exposition, which reached its acme in Baur's Biblisher Moral, 1803, i. 195 flf. the modern mythical apprehension is, to a certain extent, a real advance. But it is only by setting aside the subjective party opinions of the day, and by adopting a mode of apprehending the narrative that shall be at once objective, historical, and congenial to its contents, that exegesis can claim to be scientific or be capable of advancing science. A beautiful elogium of Samson as compared with Hercules is found in Petri Labbe Elogia Sacra, Lips. 1686, p. 667 : — " Hercnli cosetaneus verus Hercules fuit ; Qute in illo tabula, in hoc mere miracula." " Samson's Foxes" are treated of by Paullini, in his Philosoph. Luststunden, i. 147. Essays on the jawbone in Lehi are named below. Schiller, perhaps, had the miracle of Lehi in mind in his ballad Der Biirgschaft, verses twelve and thirteen, where Mdros in answer to prayer is delivered from thirst by water issuing from the rock. In the Wiltinasage (ed. Per- in"ski6ld, p. 272), Sigurd, who has freely allowed himself to be bound, at the right time rends all his cords asunder. Thackeray relates (in his Four Georges, eh. vii.) that when George HI. of England was blind and mentally diseased, he nevertheless selected himself the music for sacred concerts, and always from the Samson of Milton and Handel, and all his selec- tions had reference to blindness, imprisonment, and suffering. There is a dramatic poem in three acts, by Sack, entitled Simson, Zurich, 1854. The narrative in Judg. i. 17 is supposed to be improved and supplemented in the work of the Leiden Professor, Dozy : De Israeliten te Mekka, van Davids tyd tot in de vi/fde eeuw onser tudrekening, Haarlem, 1864. German translation, Leipzig, 1864. If any book can bring con- tempt and ridicule on philological and ethnographical investigations and expositions, it is this volume. Few books can ever have been written whose authors presumed, to such an extent, and with such naive boldness, to substitute subjective arbitrariness for objective tact and moderation in the treatment of history and language. It is here made clear how little a knowledge of Arabic literature implies a fitness for historical investigation and conjecture. It happens unfortunately too often that some knowledge of technology imagines itself to be master of art, and that some acquaintance wit) i ammatical forms deems itself proficient in exegesis. Let it not be thought that this judgmrn' is here written down because Prof. Dozy holds the freest views of the Bible, considers Abi aliam and Sarah to be myths, and subscribes to Gei- cer's opinion that the Jews falsified Scripture. For Prof. Dozy, the credibility of Scripture is conditioned by the necessities of his hypothesis. If a passage suits him, it is by all means to be accepted ; if it does not suit him, the reasons for rejecting it are at once apparent The book, likely to dazzle and deceive by reason of its unequaled audacity and the splendor of its exterior, deserves the severest censure, because it treads under foot all lawful methods af scientific and philological research. A few sentences, having reference to the above-men- tioned passage will show this. We pass over h : s identification of the fact recorded at Num. xxi. 2, 3, with that related ir { 6. THE COURSE OF THOUGHT. I" Judg. i. 17, for therein he follows others. But he thinks that the reading of the Syriac and Arabic versions, " Simeon went with Judah his brother," is better than that of the Hebrew text (which the Sept. has also), " Judah went with Simeon his brother." The Hebrew text he thinks, was altered by the Jewish doctors, " who begrudged Simeon the first role " Now, the matter stands thus : In ver. 3 Judah invites Simeon to assist him to subjugate the terri- tory allotted to him, promising that he will afterwards help him (Simeon) to take possession of his also. Simeon consents, " and," says the writer, " Simeon went with him (Judah). Simeon therefore stands first in this instance, and yet the envy of the Jews did not alter the clause. When the turn came to Simeon's territory, to which Zephath belongs, Judah ren- dered assistance to Simeon ; consequently ver. 17 says, " and Judah went with Simeon." If rank comes into consideration at all in this expression, it belongs to the second named, to whom he who goes with him merely renders assistance. If the Peshito reversed the order in ver. 17, it was only to bring about a verbal agreement with ver. 3 b. Simeon and Judah had smitten the Canaanites in Zephath, inflicted the ban upon them, and given to Zephath the name Hormah (prop. Chormah) from cherem, cf. below on ch. a. 17. Now this putting under the ban was not anything peculiar to these two tribes. Moses had done it in behalf of all Israel (Num. xxi. 3). Its infliction throughout the con- quest was expressly enjoined, Deut. vii. 2. Joshua executed it in Jericho, in Ai, and every- where else (cf. Josh. vi. 17, vii. 10, etc.). But Dozy finds in the ban (cherem) something peculiar to the tribe of Simeon ; and combining this assumption with the narrative in 1 Chron. iv. 24-43, where (ver. 41) we read of a ban executed by the tribe of Simeon, he arrives at the following conclusion : " Since the sons of Simeon made and inflicted the ban ( : !!i , '"irpi), it follows that they made a herem." The place therefore " was called Herem or Hormah." But what place in Arabia — for that the place was in Arabia similar reasonings have previously proved — could be called Herem but Mecca ! For Herem means also a " place consecrated to God," and Mecca is called Haram, which is equivalent to Herem. Therefore, the battle of the sons of Simeon took place in Mecca ; and even the name Mecca dates from it ; for maka raba signifies a great defeat, to wit, that which the enemy there suf- fered at the hands of Simeon. The Simeonites came to the entrance of Gedor, on the east side of the valley (1 Chron. iv. 39). Now, of course, the walls of the old temple in Mecca were called al gadr (al gidar =: the wall) ; consequently, Gedor is to be read Geder, and signifies the temple in Mecca, to which they came. It must, however, be read Geder Baal, although the second word be wanting ; for 2 Chron. xxvi. 7 speaks of Arabians who dwelt in Gur Baal, and Gur is to be read Geder. The LXX. at this place speaks of Arabians dwelling M ttjs ire'row. Common sense would think of Petra ; but Dozy knows that they mean the black stone in Mecca, etc. Dozy says at the beginning, that exegesis requires so much learning only because it deals with " Hebrew books." Unquestionably 1 for where but in Hebrew exegesis would one dare to be guilty of such scientific folly I Had one ventured to do this in the domain of classical philology, he would have experienced the fate with which the philosophers menaced Homer when they threatened to drive him from the stadium with scourges. All science becomes impossible, when credible objective tradition is made the plaything of subjective caprice. We cannot here enter farther into details ; these must be left for other places. For those who know, it is enough to say, that if such arguments are valid, the next thing will be, instead of the Israelites in Mecca, a book on " the Meccans in Zion." Science, too, needs to experience the promise written in Ezek. xxxix. 29. § 6. The Course of Thought} The Book derives its name from the Judges whom God raised up to guide and dehvei Israel. It begins, therefore, by depicting the sins and consequent sufferings into which Israel fell after the death of Joshua, and which rendered the judgeship necessary. fl The following paragraphs were written by the author as ff Preliminary Observations " to the " Homiletical Hints," which he gives in a body at the close of the commentary, and not, as in the other volumes of this work, after the several sections to which they refer. It was thought advisable in translating the "Jook to alter this arrangement and make it conform to that observed in other parts of the general work. The more detailed analysis of the contents, as also tin formal division of the work itself into parts and sections, together with the resumes placed at the head of each division throughout the work, have been added by the translator, guided for the most part by hints, and largely even in the lan- guage of the author himself. It is proper to add that these are the only additions that have not been inclosed in brafkftt* -Tr.] 20 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. After this introduction follows the main body of the work, which treats of the history of Israel under the Judges themselves. The raising up of the successive heroes exhibits with ever-growing lustre the gracious guidance of God, revealing itself more and more wonderfully as the distress into which Israel falls becomes more pressing. The selection of the several judges and heroes forms a climax of divine wonders, in which the multiformity of Jehovah's saving resources shows itself in contrast with the monotonousness of Israel's sins, and the workings of His grace in the hidden and obscure in opposition to that pride of the people in which their falls originated. The histories of the Judges, especially those of Othniel, Ehud, Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson, through whom and their adherents the great and merciful deeds of God do show themselves in ever-increasing fullness, form the sec- tions into which the Book may be divided. From Othniel to Samson, under whom the his- tory returns to the tribe of Judah from which it started, every Judge illustrates a new side of God's wonderful assistance. This manifoldness characterizes the judgeship. It rests on no tradition. The changes of the persons and tribes entrusted with its functions, interrupt its efficacy. The narrative gradually indicates the want of unity, despite the abundance of strength. Hence that which peculiarly characterizes the judgeship, marks at the same time its imperfection. For even times of peace admitted of such occurrences as those which fil. the closing part of the Book, after the record of Samson's death. In the closing part of the Book, the decay of the priesthood, the arbitrariness of individ- uals, and the abominations of licentiousness, passion, and discord, are traced back to the want of a settled, permanent government. The close of the Book of Judges forms an introduction to the Books of Kings. The following analysis indicates a little more in detail the course of the narrative ai sketched above : — Part First. Introductory delineation of the condition of Israel after the death of Joshua ; sin, and the judgments entailed by it, rendering the judgeship necessary. Chaps, i.-iii. 4. 1st Section. The relations of Israel towards the remaining Canaanites, as forming the back- ground of the ensuing history. Believing and obedient Israel enjoys divine direction and favor, is united within and victorious without ; but faithlessness and disobedience lay the foun- dations of apostasy and servitude. Ch. i. 2d Section. The religious degeneracy of Israel which resulted from its disobedient conduct with respect to the Canaanites, and the severe discipline which it rendered necessary, as explaining the alternations of apostasy and servitude, repentance and deliverance, character- istic of the period of the Judges. Chaps, ii.-iii. 4. Part Secojtd. The history of Israel under the Judges : a history of sin, ever repeating itself, and of divine grace, constantly devising new means of deliverance. Meanwhile, however, the imperfections of the judicial institute display themselves, and prepare the way for the appointment of a king. Chaps, iii. 5.-xvi. Xst Section. The servitude to Chushan Rishathaim, King of Mesopotamia. Othniel, the Judge of blameless and happy life. Ch. iii. 6—11. 2d Section. The servitude to Eglon, King of Moab. Ehud, the Judge with the double- edced dagger. Shamgar, the deliverer with the ox-goad. Ch. iii. 12-31. 3d Section. The servitude to Jabin, King of Canaan. Deborah, the female Judge of fiery spirit, and Barak, the military hero. Chaps, iv., v. 4th Section. The incursions and oppressions of the Midianites. Gideon, the Judge who refuses to be king. Chaps, vi.-viii. 5th Section. The usurped rule of Abimelech, the fratricide and thorn-bush king. Ch. ix. 6th Section. Two Judges in quiet, peaceful times : Tolah of Issachar, and Jair the Gileadite. Ch. x. 1-6. 7th Section. The oppression of the Midianites. Jephthah, the Judge of the vow. Chaps, x. 6-xii. 7. Sth Section. Three Judges of uneventful lives in peaceful times : Ibzan of Bethlehem, Elon .he Zebulonite, and Abdon the Pirathonite. Ch. xii. 8-15. 9th Section The oppression of the Philistines. Samson the Nazarite Judge. Chaps. »iii.-xvi. § 6. THE COURSE OF THOUGHT. 21 Part Third. The conclusion of the Book, tracing the evils of the period, the decay of the priesthood, the self-will of individuals, and the prevalence of licentiousness, passion, and discord, to the absence of a fixed and permanent form of government. Chaps, xvii.-xxi. 1st Section. The history of Micah's private temple and image-worship : showing the individual arbitrariness of the times, and its tendency to subvert and corrupt the religious institutions of Israel. Chaps, xvii., xviii. 2d Section. The story of the infamous deed perpetrated at Gibeah, and its terrible conse- quences : another illustration of the evils that result when " every man does what is good in his own eyes." Chaps, xix.-xxi THE BOOK OF JUDGES. PAKT FIRST. Introductory Delineation of the Condition of Israel after the Death of Joshua ; Sin, and the Judgments entailed by it, rendering the Judgeship necessary. FIRST SECTION. THE RELATIONS OF ISRAEL TOWARDS THE REMAINING CANAANITES A3 FORMING THE BACK- GROUND OF THE ENSUING HISTORY. BELIEVING AND OBEDIENT ISRAEL ENJ0T8 DIVINE DI- RECTION AND FAVOR, IS UNITED WITHIN AND VICTORIOUS WITHOUT J BUT FAITHLESSNESS AJJD DISOBEDIENCE LAT THE FOUNDATIONS OF APOSTASY AND SERVITUDE. " Who shall first go up against the Canaanite f n Chapter I. 1, 2. Now [And] after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the children [sons] of Israel asked the Lord [Jehovah]. 1 saying, Who shall go up for us 2 against 8 the 2 Oanaanites first to fight against them ? And the Lord [Jehovah] said, Judah »hall go up : behold, 4 I have delivered the land into his hand. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL [a Ver. 1. — Tne author renders : " the sons of Israel asked God ; n and by way of explanation adds the following note : " Thus do we intend constantly to render i""Pn\ on the ground that it expresses the absolute idea of the true God in Israel. Since QTwN is also used in connection with heathen worship, it corresponds to our ( Godhead, Deity ' or 1 the Gods.' " In this translation the word Jehovah will be inserted. — Ta.] [2 Ver. 1. — : )3*'"n73?' > " ,, E. Dr. Cassel takes ?0 / in a partitive sense, and translates, "who of us shall go up." It is more properly regarded as dot. commodi ; for, (1.) The partitive relation, though sometimes indicated by ^(ap- parently however, only after numerals, cf. Ges. Lex. s. v. ,4 b}, would be more properly expressed by 2 or 7^3 . and (2.> \\ the writer had intended to connect ITJ^ with N ^3, he would not have placed the verb between them, cl. Is. xlviii. 14, j aug. xxi. 8. As it stands, the expression is a perfect grammatical parallel with Is. vi. 8: ^13 v"7f ^""'O Moreover. ^3"^, in the sense of ^133 or ^137373, adds nothing which is not already implied in the words, n?^** S D n* r"Ti713, r ff ho shall first go up." On the other hand, taken in its natural sense, as indirect object after the verb, it expresses the thou^ut, that whoever "goes first,'' makes a beginning, will do it for the advantage of all. VFhat that advantage was, may i^. seen from our author's exposition of the inquiry. — Tr.] [8 Ver. 1. — 7S, properly, towards. Dr. Cassel has gegen, which means both " towards n and (f against." The -*me preposition occurs in vers. 10, 11 ; and though translated "against,'' is not to be taken in the sense of , V. Th» 24 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. hostile intent in these passages is not expressed by " S, but appears from the context. In this Terse, attention to thi proper meaning of vS. does away with the appearance of tautology which in English the inquiry presents — Te.] [* Ver. 2. — Dr. Cassel : " Wofdan ! Up then ! " On this rendering of HSn, cf. the foot-note on p. 26- — Ta.] EXEGETTHAL AXD DOCTRINAL. Vcr. 1 . And after the death of Joshua it came to pass. This commencement corresponds entirely with that of Joshua, ch. i. 1 : " and after the death of Moses, the servant of Jehovah, it came to pass." On account of this correspondence the usual ad- dition, " the son of Nun," but also the designation " servant of Jehovah. "elsewhere applied to Joshua (Josh. xxiv. 29 ; Judg. ii 8), is omitted. A simi- lar correspondence exists between Josh. xxiv. 29, and Deut. xxxiv. 5. Wherever Joshua is com- pared with Moses, care is taken to indicate at the same time the important difference between them. Joshua also is a " servant of Jehovah," but not in the same high sense as his master. Joshua also died, but not like Moses " through the mouth of Jehovah" (HirP ^5" 75?). Moses was clothed with the authority of origination and establishment. He had been the Father (cf. Num. xi. 12), the Priest (Ex. xxiv. 8), the sole Regent (Num. xvi. 13), and Judge (Ex. xviii. 16), of his tribes. He transferred the priesthood from Himself to Aaron (Ex. xxviii. 1) ; he selected those who assisted him in deciding minor lawsuits (Ex. xviiL 21 ; Num. xi. 17). He took seventy men of the "el- ders of the people," to bear with him the burden of governing the tribes (Num. xi. 16) ; he imparted of his own honor to Joshua, that the congregation 1 If in Ex. vi. 20, 26, the order is " Aaron and Moses," it * only to indicate Aaron as the first-born ; hence, ver. 27 of the same chapter, as if by way of correction, says. ft these are that Moses and Aaron."' For the same reason Num. in. 1 reads : " These are the generations of Aaron and Moses.'* As the order is everywhere Moses and Aaron, so it is nat- urally also :f Moses and Eleazar." This difference in the relations of Moses and Joshua respectively to the Priest, it is important to notice. For it is of itself sufficient to show the un'enableness of Bertheau's assertion (Buck der Rieh- ter t p. 9), that Num. xxvii. 21 is to be so taken that Joshua is to ask, not before, but for, instead of, Eleazar, whether he shall go out : that is (as he thinks), tf in a manner just as valid as if the high-priest had inquired of Jehovah." To in- quire of God by meant of the Urim, the Priest alone could do, for he alone had it. Moses and the prophets received revelations immediately ; but when the Urim is mentioned, the Priest is the only possible medium. The passages to which Bertheau refers, speak against his assertion. The LXX. are as plain as the Hebrew text. In 1 Sam. xxii. 10, it is the Priest who inquires of God for David. Josephus, Ant. iv. 7, 2, is an irrelevant passage, and therefore cannot *e cited at all. Moreover, Josephus himself puts Eleazar before Joshua, when he speaks of both riv. 7, 3). Nor is there any good ground for doubt as to the clearness of the passage in Num. xxvii. If we find no mention anywhere of Joshua's having inquired by Urim, the foundation of this fact is deeply laid in his relations to Moses. He was called only to be the executor of the designs of Moses. His ac- tivity expends itself in continuing the work of Moses. It moves entirely within the lines prescribed by Moses, and is Unpelled by his inviolable authority. Joshua's deeds are but the historical outgrowth of the spirit of Moses. The Book of Joshua is but the narrative of Joshua's obedience *o the word of Moses. Whatever Joshua ordains, is ren- dered Atcred by an appeal to Moses. Even the division of the land is ennducted according to this authority (Josh. xiii.-xv ). "Every place have I given you, as I said unto Moses," is the language used (Josh i. 3). Remember what Moses commanded you, says Joshua to the tribes of Reuben, 1%&, and Manasseh (Josh i 13). The fact is brought out of Israel might obey him (Num. xxvii. 20.) With the death of Moses the work of legislation is closed. After him, Joshua exercises the authority of government and direction. By his deeds he gains for himself respect among the people, like that which Moses had (Josh. i. 5, i. 17, iv. 14, xvii. 4, xviii. 3) ; similar wonders are wrought through him : but he executes only inherited commands ; his task de- mands the energy of obedience. Moses had always been named before Aaron (Moses and Aaron) j 1 but when Joshua and the Priest were named to- gether, Eleazar stood first. (Thus, Num. xxxiv. 17 ; Josh. xiv. 1, xvii. 4, xix. 51, xxi. 1). When Moses lived, the priesthood received their com- mands through him ; after his death, Joshua re- ceived support and aid through the Priest (Num. xxvii. 21). In accordance with this, we must un- derstand what is said, Josh. i. 1, namely, that " the Lord spake unto Joshua." For henceforth " there arose not a prophet like unto Moses." That which Moses was, could not repeat itself in any other person. Joshua, therefore, was only the reflection of a part of the power of Moses ; but as such he had conducted the first historical act of fulfillment demanded by the Mosaic law. The conquest of Canaan was the necessary presupposi- tion of the Mosaic system. Israel, having been liberated, received a national homestead. When Joshua died, the division of the land among the tribes was completed. With the death of Moses with peculiar emphasis in the following passages: " B« strong and very courageous to do according to all the laws which Moses my servant commanded thee : turn not from it to the right hand or the left" (Josh. i. 7). "There was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel'' (Josh. viii. 35). "As the Lord commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses com- mand Joshua, and so did Joshua ; he left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses " (Josh. xi. 15). Wherever, therefore, Joshua simply executes the will of God as expressed in the commands of Moses, the necessity for inquiring by Urim does not arise. It is precisely in this execution of the Mosaic commands that God speaks to Joshua, as Josh iv. 10 clearly teaches ; K until everything was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to speak, accord- ing to all that Moses commanded Joshua." The direct command of God to Moses operates on Joshua who exe- cutes it. That Joshua is the executor of the commands of Moses, cannot consistently with the spirit of the book which re lates his history, be overlooked. When, however, the do* cision by Urim is alluded to, and it is said, " according to his mouth " (V2 73?), the reference is to the same (priestly) mouth which, Josh. xix. 50. assigns an inheritance to Joshua, " according to the mouth of Jehovah '• ( v37 (""Pi"^ ^2). This method of decision comes into play when Joshua has no instructions from Moses according to which to act. The peculiar position of Joshua, by whom, through the word of Moses, God still always speaks and acts as through Moses (Josh. iii. 7), and who nevertheless does not like Moses stand before, but after, the priest, becomes every- where manifest. This position also is unique, and nevei again recurs. It is therefore at his death, and not till then, that the preponderance of the Priest as the sole possessor of the word of God, becomes fully manifest. The fact, there- fore, that we now firsc hear of an " asking of the Lord," so far from being obscure, Is full of instru'tion on the histor- ical position of affairs- CHAPTER I. 1,8. 25 the spirit revealed in the law enters upon its course through the history of the world. With the de- parture of Joshua, the national development of Israel in Canaan commences. The position of Moses was unique, and like that of a father, could not be refilled. When he dies, the heir assumes the house and its management. This heir was not Joshua, but the people itself. Joshua was only a temporary continuator of the Mosaic authority, specially charged with the seizure of the land. He was but the executive arm of Moses for the conquest {i"PI£J?, " minister," Josh. i. 1 ). His per- sonality is inseparable from that of Moses. As Elijah's spirit does not wholly depart from the na- tion until Elisha's death, so the personal conduct - and guidance of the people by Moses do not en- tirely cease until the death of Joshua. Joshua's activity is just as unique as that of his teacher. He is no lawgiver, but neither is he a king or judge, as were others who came after him. He is the servant of Jehovah, inasmuch as he is the minis- ter of Moses. The correspondence between Judg. i. 1 and Josh. i. 1, is therefore a very profound one. The death of the men, which these verses respectively record, gave rise to the occurrences that follow. The sons of Israel asked Jehovah. Literally : " And it came to pass .... and the sons of Israel asked," etc. The first " and " (1) introduces the cause, 1 the second the consequence. It is moreover intimated that the consequence is speedy in coming, follows its cause without any interval. The trans- lation might have been : " And it came to pass .... that the sons of Israel immediately asked ; " or, " Scarcely had Joshua died, when the sons of Israel," etc. It lies in the nature of the Hebrew copula, that when it introduces a consequence, it also marks it as closely connected with its antece- dent in point of time. The Greeks and Romans made similar use of koX and et. Cf. the line of Vir- gil {s-Eneid, iii. 9) :. Vix prima inceperat o?$tas, et paler Anchises darefatis vela jubebat. The Hebrew idiom has also passed over into the Greek of the New Testament, ef. Luke ii. 21 ; not ore eVAVjs- O-naav Tj/xepal oktw .... Kal €K\7]8r], etc. : " and the child was eight days old, when forthwith it was named Jesus," where the Gothic version like- wise retains the double yah, " and." This brings out the more definite sense, both in the parallel passage. Josh. i. 1, and here. Scarcely had Moses died, is the idea there, when God spake to Joshua. The government of Israel was not for a moment to be interrupted. Scarcely was Joshua dead, when the sons of Israel asked Jehovah. As Joshua suc- ceeded Moses in the chief direction of affairs, so the congregation of the children of Israel succeeded Joshua. The representatives of this congregation, as appears from Josh. xxiv. 31 and Judg. ii. 7, are the Elders (C"'2~T). Jewish tradition, accordingly, makes the spiritual doctrine pass from Moses to Joshua, and from Joshua to the Elders. These El- 1 [Bertheau : " ^Tl^T in conjunction with the words, ' after the death of Joshua,' first connects itself with the 'losing narrative of the Book of Joshua (xxiv. 29-33), and Ib^ondly designates the Book of Judges as a link in the chain ol books which relate, in unbroken connection, the [sacred] history of the world, from the creation to the exile of the nhabitants of the southern kingdom. The several books Jrhieh contain this connected historical account are joined together by the connective i." — Tr.] 2 Cf. Josephus, Ant. jv. 8,14, who states on the authority ders are the seventy men chosen by Moses (Num. xi. 16) to assist him in bearing the burden of the people. The term " Elder," it is true, is applied to every authority among the people, especially civil. " Elders," as representatives of the people, are wit- nesses of the wonders of God in the desert (Ex. xvii. 5). The " Elders " are judges- (Deut. xxii. 16) ; thp civil authorities of each city are "Elders" (Deut xxv. 7). " Seventy of the Elders," with Moses ami the priests, behold the glory of God (Ex. xxiv. 1 seq.). The C^ptP, shoterim, officers charged with executive and police duties, become " Elders " as soon as they execute the regulations of Moses among the people (Ex. xii. 21 ). The seventy Elders who assisted Moses in bearing the burden that pressed upon him must, therefore, be distinguished from the authorities of the several tribes and cities. They represent the whole nation. As such, they unite with Moses, at the close of his career, in com- manding the people to keep the law, andafter pass- ing the Jordan to erect a memorial of great stones (Deut. xxvii. 1,2). During the regency of Joshua, the authorities and representatives of the people, beside the priests and Levites, consist of Elders, heads of tribes, judges, and magistrates (shoterim). Such is the enumeration after the conquest of Ai, and particularly in Josh, xxiii. 2, where, in order to give his last instructions to Israel, Joshua calls all the representatives of the people together. Again, in eh. xxiv. 1, it is stated that Joshua " called for the Elders of Israel, and for their heads, judges, and magistrates." If no distinction were intended here, it had been sufficient to say, "elders and heads ; " for judges and magistrates were also " elders." But he called together the national representatives and those of the several tribes, like two " Houses " or " Chambers." The tribal representatives and authorities he dismisses; but the "Elders," who belong to all the tribes in common, remain near him, as they had been near Moses. These, there- fore are they who, when Joshua dies, step into his place. As on him, so on them, there had been put of the spirit that was on Moses (Num. xi. 17). They quickly and zealously undertake the government. They determine to begin at once where Joshua stopped, to make war on the nations who have not yet been conquered, though their lands have been assigned to the several tribes (Josh, xxiii. 4) Joshua is scarcely dead, before the Elders inquire of God. 8 No father ever cared for his children as Moses, under divine direction, cared for his people. Who, then, when he is gone, shall determine what the people are or are not to undertake ! The answer to this question is recorded Num. xxvii. 21 : After the death of Moses, Joshua is to stand before Elea- zar the priest, inquire of him after the judgment o f Urim from Jehovah, and according to his answei they shall go out and come in. That Joshua ever did this, the book which bears his name nowhere records. It is characteristic of his exceptional pcsi- tion. as bound by the word and directions of Moses, of Jewish tradition that there were in every city seven judges, each with two Levitical assistants, corresponding to the seveuty-two of the general senate. 3 [Bachmajw : " The sons of Israel here are not the whole nation, but only the tribes west of the Jordan, who ar* ( spoken of in the same way, and in express contradistinction from the tribes east of the Jordan, in Josh. xxii. 12, 13, 32. According to Josh. xiii. and xxiii. the further conflict with the Canaanites was incumbent on the western, not on the eastern tribes. Hence, also, the following account treats on]} of the doings and omissions of the western Israel ' Tb 1 26 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. that the word of God comes directly to him, al- though he ranks after Eleazar the priest. But this is not the position of the congregation of Israel ; and hence the provision made by Moses for Joshua now formally becomes of force. For the first time since Num. xxvii. 21, we find here the word '^27 with 2, in the signification " to inquire of Jeho- vah ; " for the C^-ISS /SK? of that passage and the n'jn , 3 7St£7 of this are equivalent expres- sions. Inquiries put to the Urim and Thummim were answered by none but God. In the sublime organism of the Mosaic law every internal thought, every spiritual truth, presents itself in the form of an external action, a visible symbol. Urim and Thummim (Light and Purity) lie in the breast-plate on the heart of the priest, when he enters into the sanctuary (Ex. xxviii. 30). They lie on the heart ; but that which is inquired after, receives its solution from the Spirit of God in the heart of the priest. Consequently, although in the locus classicus (Num. xxvii. 21), the expression is, "to inquire of the Urim," here and elsewhere in the Book of Judges it is always, " and they inquired of Jehovah." The Greeks also used the expression eparav tov OeoV for "inquiring of the oracle," cf. Xenoph., Mem., viii. 3). The Urim also were an oracle, and a priest announced the word of God. The God of Israel, hoivever, does not speak in riddles (Num. xii. 8), bu' in clear and definite responses. Israel asks : — Who of ua ' shall first go up against the Ca- naanite to fight against him ? The word " go up " is not to be taken altogether literally. The Hebrew i^7^> here and frequently answers in sig- nification to the Greek itpoptxav, Latin aggredi. It means to advance to the attack, but conceives the defense as made from a higher level. The point and justification of the inquiry lies in the word "first." The question is not whether aggressive measures shall or shall not be adopted, but which of the tribes shall initiate them. Hitherto, Moses, and after him, Joshua have directed the movements of the people. Under Joshua, moreover, all the tribes united in common warfare. All for one, each for all. The general war is at an end ; the land is divided, the tribes have had their territories as- signed them. Now each single tribe must engage the enemies still settled within its borders. This was another, very difficult task. It was a test of the strength and moral endurance of the several tribes. The general war of conquest under Joshua did not come into collision with the joy of posses- sion and rest, for these had as yet no existence. But after the dispersion of the tribes such a com- mon war, under one leadership, was no longer prac- ticable. It may also have appeared unwise that all the tribes should be engaged in general and simul- taneous action within their several territories. Had one tribe been defeated, the others would not have been in a position to assist it. The question there- fore concerned the honor and duty of the first at- 1 [Cf. on this rendering the note under the text on p. 23. -T».) 2 Cf. Ps. exiv. 2, and the Prsikln and Jnlkut on the Book of .fudges (3d. Amsterd.) § 37, p. 2, ch. viii. 8 The history of Athens contains a similar instance. The iouncil of war before the battle of Marathon was presided }ver by Callimachus, of the tribe Ajax. A preponderance >f voices, exaggerating the danger, already inclined to avoid the Persian army, when Callimachus voted for the course irged by Miltiades. and turned the tide. In consequence of his. the tribe of Ajax was specially honored. Notwithstand- tack. As yet no tribe held any definite priarity of rank. For the sake of peace and right., it was left with God to determine who should first go up tu fight against the inhabitants of the land, to yrina them, as the word used expresses it, and thus de- prive them of that power for evil which as nations they possessed. The signification "to war" of En7, is illustrated by the meaning " to eat," which it also has. The terrible work of war is like the action of the teeth on bread, it tears and grinds its object. Hence the Greek fidxaipa, knife, belongs to /uaxOc"") to fight, just as the Hebrew P5?£?~i knife, belongs to ^3S, to eat. Ver. 2. And Jehovah said, Judah shall go up. Judah takes a prominent position among the sons of Jacob, even in the lifetime of their father The misdemeanors of his elder brethren favor this. It is he who saves Joseph from the pit in which the wrath of the others designed him to perish : and who, by suggesting his sale into Egypt, paves the way for the wonderful destinies which that land has in store for Israel. He is capable of confessing his sins (Gen. xxxviii. 26). He pledges himself to Jacob for the safe return of Benjamin, and him the patriarch trusts. He, also, in the hour of peril, speaks the decisive word to the yet unrecognized Joseph (Gen. xliv. 18) ; and, although he bows him- self before Joseph, the blessing of Jacob neverthe- less says of him (Gen. xlix. 8 If.) : " Thy brethren praise thee ; the sceptre shall not depart from Ju- dah." The tribe of Judah holds the same promi- nent position. It is the most numerous tribe. At the first census (Num. ii I. its military strength is greater than that of both the tribes of Joseph- In the desert, it leads the first of the four encamp- ments, — that, namely, which faces the east (Num. ii. 3). a It began the decampment and advance (Num. x. 14). Among those appointed bv Mo-es to allot the land, the representative of ,/tnhili is named first (Num. xxxiv. 19) ; and hence when the allotment was actually made under Joshua, the lot of Judah came out first (Josh. xv. 1). But the tribe of Judah had yet other merits, by reason of which it took the initiative on the present occasion. When Moses sent twelve men to recon- noitre the land, one man from each tribe, the mes- sengers of Judah and Ephraim alone, full of faith and courage, sought to awaken within the people a spirit pleasing to God. The messenger of Ephraim was Joshua, the son of Nun. the minister of Moses ; the representative of Judah was Caleb. Both ob- tained great credit for their conduct. Joshua be- came the successor of Moses. When Joshua died, Caleb still lived. The great respect which be en- joyed, as head of the tribe of Judah, and on account of the approbation of Moses, may also be inferred from Josh. xiv. 6. 3 Up then ! I have delivered the land into his hand. " Up then." the address of encouragement: agite, macte ! ' Judah may boldly attack — victory is certain. Caleb stands at the head of the tribe. ing the use of the lot, the last place in the chorus was never assigned to this tribe (Plutarch, Qu. Symp.. i 10. c£ Bockh, Staalsltaitsluitt der Athentr, i. 743. note). It is said that Charlemagne, induced by the heroic deeds of Count Gerold, bestowed on the Swabians the right of forming th« vanguard in every campaign of the empire. 4 [Occasionally H3n may be properly rendered by Up ! "' or " Now then ! " cf. Ps. exxxiv 1, where it is fol- lowed by an imperative ; but in situations like the present such a rendering is unnecessarily free. The word is designed CHAPTER I. 3-8. ■zl He ha* already been assured of victor}' by Moses (Num. xiv. 24 ; Josh. xiv. 9). Josephus (Ant. v. 2, 1) calls the priest who officiates Phinehas. He infers this from Josh. xxiv. 33, where the death of Eleazar is recorded. According to Jewish tradition, Phinehas also wrote the conclusion of the Book of Joshua. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Ver. 1 . Israel is believing and obedient after the death of Joshua. Like a child after the death of its father, it has the best intentions. It is zealous to perform, with speed and vigor, the task imposed bv Joshua. As directed by the law (Num. xxvii. 21). it inquires of God through His priest, the appointed medium for announcing His will. The recollection of benefits received from the departed hero, and the feelings of piety toward him, are still exerting their influence. So does many a child finish the period of instruction preparatory to confirmation, with a heart zealously resolved to be pious. Many a Chris- tian comes away from an awakening sermon with resolutions of repentance. Principium fervet. First love is full of glowing zeal. To begin well is never without a blessing. The best inheritance is to con- tinue obedient toward God. Starke : God gives more than we seek from him. — Gerlach : Not even the task which had been imposed on each individual tribe, will they take in hand, without having inquired of the Lord concerning it. Ver. 2. God therefore vouchsafes direction and promise. Judah is to go before. When Israel is believing and obedient, Judah always goes before (Gen. xlix. 10) : in the desert, at the head of the host; after the time of the Judges, when David sits upon the throne of Israel ; and finally, when to excite the attention and put it on the alert for what is coming. Of course, the assurance which here follows it, would animate and incite ; but the agite .' made ! are in the the Lion of the tribe of Judah conquers the last enemy, which is death. Starke : If we also desire to war against our spiritual Canaanites the first attack must be made and the war must be conducted, by Christ Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev." v. 5). Lisco : The words, " I have delivered the land,' are meant prophetically ; with God that which i> certain in the future is as if it were present [Bush (combining Scott and Henry) : The pre- cedency was given to Judah because it was the most numerous, powerful, and valiant of all the tribes, and that which the Lord designed should possess the preeminence in all respects, as being the one from which the Messiah was to spring, and for that reason crowned with the " excellency of dignity " above all its fellows. Judah therefore must lead in this perilous enterprise ; for God not only appoints service according to the strength and ability He has given, but " would also have the burden of honor and the burden of labor go together." Those who have the precedency in rank, reputation, or influence, should always be disposed to go before others in every good work, undismayed by danger, difficulty, or obloquy, that they may encourage others by their example. Wordsworth : The death of Joshua is the date of degeneracy. So in spiritual respects, as long as the true Joshua lives in the soul, there is health. St. Paul savs, " I live ; yet not I, but Christ lireth in me." The true Joshua lives in the souls of his saints ; but if He dies in the soul, that death is theirs ; the death of their souls ( Origen). Bachmann : As the Book of Joshua opens with the mention of Moses' death, so the Book of Judges with that of Joshua. The servants of the Lord die one after the other ; but the history of his kingdom goes on uninterruptedly. — Tr.] words to which i"T3n calls attention, not in HSH itMll Tb.] Judah and Simeon agree to assist each other in clearing their allotted lands of Canaan- ites. They defeat the enemy in Bezek, capture Adoni-bezek, and burn Jerusalem Chapter I. 3-8. 3 And Judah said unto Simeon his brother, Come up with me into my lot, that we may [and let us] fight [together] against the Canaanites ; and I likewise will go with 4 thee into thy lot. So Simeon went with him. And Judah went up, and the Lord [Jehovah] delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand : and they 5 slew [smote] of [omit : of] them in Bezek ten thousand men. 1 And they found [came upon, unexpectedly met with] Adoni-bezek in Bezek : and they fought against him, 6 and they slew [smote] the Canaanites and the Perizzites. But [And] Adoni-bezek fled ; and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and bis 7 great toes. And Adonibezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table ; as I have done, so God [the Deity] hath requited me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there ? he died. (Now [omit the ( ),and for Now read: But] the children [sons] of Judah had fought [omit : had 2 ] against Jerusalem, and had taken it, and smitten it [and took it * and smote it] with the edge* of the sword, and set the citv on fire [gave the city up to the fire]. 28 THE BddK OF JUDGES TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 4. — K Smote them in Bezek ten thousand men " :'. e. to the number of 10,000 men. Cf. ch. iii. 29. 31, ete \s for the word 71D3, its proper meauing is " to strike, to smite : " here, doubtless, so far as the ten thousand are con- eerned. to smite fatally, to kill ; elsewhere (in ver. 5, for instance), to defeat, vanquish- — Ta.J [2 Ver. 8. — Muthew Henry : Our translators judge it [the taking of Jerusalem] spoken of here, as done formerly in Joshua's time, and only repeated [related] on occasion of Adoni-bezek's dying there, and therefore read it, " they had fought against Jerusalem," and put this verse in a parenthesis ; but the original speaks of it as a thing now done ; and that seems most probable, because it is said to be done by the children of Judah in particular, not by all Israel in general, whom Joshua commanded. — Tr.] [3 Ver. 8. — To fight against a city, ™P ""£ CPl vH, is to besiege it, or assault it by storm, cf. Josh. x. 31 ; 2 Sam xii. 26. ^D -• is to take by such a movement. Hence Dr. Cassel translates, tr fought against Jerusalem, and took it by storm, ersturmtea ts." — Tr.] [4 Ver. 8. — J.H ""*^ *~ : lit. *' aerordins; to the mouth (t. e. edge) of the sword. The expression denotes unsparini destruction, a killing whose only measure is the sharpness of the sword's edge. Cf. Bertheau in loc. Tr.] Judah, the first tribe. This summons of Judah to Simeon to conquer together their territories is in- structive in several respects. It shows that the whole south had indeed been attacked, but was not yet occupied. True, the narrative of the conquest of Canaan by Joshua is not complete, and leaves much to be supplied ; but thus much is clear, that though Joshua undoubtedly made war on the southern and northern Canaanites, he by no means obtained control of all the land. It is also evident from Josh. i.-x. 42, that as long as Joshua fought with the more southern enemies, his encampment was at Gilgal, in the neighborhood of Jericho and the Jordan, to which after each victory over the southern kings, whom he pursued far into the southwest, he always fell back (Josh. x. 15, 43). Hence the conversation with Caleb, concerning the inheritance of the latter takes place while the camp is still at Gilgal (Josh xiv. 6). Consequently, it can only have been the result of victories over the northern princes, that Joshua, in the last years of his regency, transferred the encampment of the people to Shiloh (Josh, xviii. 1, xxi. 2) and She- chem (Josh xxiv. 1). Of this territory he had already gained permanent possession. It belonged to the inheritance of the tribe of Ephraim. Joshua himself was of this tribe. That fact explains how it was that Ephraim was the first to come into se- cure and permanent territorial possession. In this also Joshua differs from Moses. The latter, al- though sprung from the tribe of Levi, belonged to all the tribes. He was raised above every special tribe-relationship. His grave even none can boast of. Joshua does not deny that he belongs to Joseph, although he does not yield to their less righteous demands (Josh. xvii. 14). His tribe forms the first circle around him. When he locates the national centre in Shiloh and Shechem, it is in the posses- sions of Ephraim. Here, as long as Joshua lived, the government of the Israelitish tribes and their sanctuary had their seat. Here the bones of Joseph were buried ; here are the sepulchres of Joshua and his contemporary, the priest Eleazar. Ephraim was the point from which the farthei warlike expeditions of the individual tribes wen directed Precisely because the first permanenth held possession had connected itself with Joshua and his tribe, the summons to seize and occupy their assigned territory came next to Judah and its prince Caleb, the associate of Joshua, and after him the first man of Israel. But Judah and EXEOETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 3. And Judah said unto Simeon his brother. In matters of war the tribes were repre- sented by the Nesi'im (DS'PJ 1 . A Nasi, prince or chief, stood at the head of each tribe, and acted in its name, although with great independence. At the numbering of the people in the desert, the Nasi of Judah was Nahshon, the son of Aminadab ; but after the sending of the spies, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, held that position (Num. xxxiv. 19). According to the directions of Moses in the pas- sage just referred to, these princes were to assist the Priest and Joshua in the allotment of the land to the tribes. They are the same who, in Josh. xix. 51, are called "heads of families." For, as appears especially from Josh. xxii. 14, only he could he Acui who was " head of a family." Col- lectively, they are styled " the princes of the con- gregation " (Josh. xxii. 30). That Moses names only ten (Num. xxxiv. 18, etc.), arises from the fact that he refers only to the allotment of the land this side the Jordan- The princes of the two and a half tribes beyond the Jordan had nothing to do with this. When the trans-Jordanic tribes were erroneously suspected of apostasy, the ten princes with the priest went to them as an embassy from the other tribes (Josh. xxii. 14). It was these princes who ratified the treaty with the Gibeonites (Josh. ix. 15) ; and the congregation was bound by theit oath, although greatly dissatisfied when the decep- tion of the Gibeonites was discovered. Come up with me into my lot. The territory of a single tribe was called its lot, ;^P3. C; rc- pare the Greek kAtjoos, used to denote p;35essions in general, and also the portion of territory as- signed to each party embarked in a colonial enter- prise. (" Croesus devastated the lots of the Syrians," v tovs KAypovt, Herod, i 76.) — It was nat- ural for Judah to summon his brother Simeon to join him; for Simeon's territory lay within the borders of Judah. 1 According to the statements jf Jo.-h. xv., the inheritance assigned to the tribe of Judah might be bounded by two lines, drawn respectively from the northern and southern ex- tremities of the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean, :hr northern line passing below Jerusalem. Sim- eon's part lay in the middle between these iines, toward the west. For this reason, Simeon is al- ready in Num. xxxiv. 20 named second, next to 1 [Keil : Simeon is called the " brother" of Judah, not lay within that of Judah (Josh. xix. 1 fT.), on account of to much because they both descended from one mother, which Simeon's connection with Judah was closer than thai >-u.os. Josephus (Ant. v. 2, 3) says that the Anakim were a race of giants, " whose bones are still shown tu this very day." What stories were current about the discovery of gigantic human remains in Asia Minor and Syria, may be learned from the Heroica of Fhilostratus (ed. Jacobs, p. 28). A body of gigantic length was found in the bed of the Oron- l Cf. Heyne on Apollodorus, i. 9, p. 59. The later Jews write "Qyj?! for Ptolemy Cf. Ewald, Gesck. Israel's, i. 908, 3U. T : " tes. It was thought also that the bodies of Orestei and Ajax had been seen. The faint-hearted spies had depicted the Anakim as Nephilim, men like the prehistoric Xibdungen of German story ; and from this Josephus constructed his giant-tale. Josh. xv. 14 remarks, " And Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak." A contradiction lias been found therein with what we read here, " And they smote." None really exists. The narrative is actually more exact than is generally supposed. The statement of Josh. xv. 14 refers to Judges i. 20. The tribe of Judah bad now indeed taken Hebron, and conquered the Anakim ; but for peaceable possession the time had not yet come. Accom- panied by Simeon, Judah proceeded onward to gain possession of the whole territory. At Judg. i. 19 the whole campaign is finished. Then they give Hebron to Caleb, and he drives out whatever re- mains of the Anakim. It was not with three per sons, but with three tribes or nations, that they had to do. Olhniel takes Kirjath-sepher, and wins Achsah, the daughter of Caleb. Chapter I. 11-15. 11 And from thence he [i. e. Judah] went against the inhabitants of Debir : and the 12 name of Debir before icas Kirjath-sepher : And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kir- 13 jath sepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife. And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it : and he gave him Achsah 14 his daughter to wife. And it came to pass, when she came to him [at her coming; sat. to her husband's house], that she moved [urged] him to ask of her father a [the] field : and she lighted from off her ass ; and Caleb said unto her, What wilt thou [what is 15 the matter with thee] ? And she said unto him, Give me a blessing : for thou hast given me a south land [hast given me away into a dry laud 1 ] ; give me also [therefore] springs of water. And Caleb gave her the upper springs, and the nether spring-. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. LI Ver. 16. — "On/" D — -2H "^H^ > ^ : Dr - Cassel's rendering agrees substantially with that of the LXX. and many modern critics. Bertheau says . '" 223n t^HS i s the accusative o f place. It would be difficult to justify the other and usual rendering grammatically, since 7.HJ with the accus. suffix, never, not even Jer. is. 1, Isa. xxvii. 4. means to give anything to one." Bachmauu, however, objects that " 7i""l2 does not occur ot the giving of daugh- ters in marriage, and that the absence of a preposition, say vS, before t/"" , S would make a hard construction. The ■ufflx *0 is either a negligent form of popular speech, substituted for ** ; (cf. Ewald, Ausf. Lekrb. 315 b), or, better, a second accus., such as is quite common with verbs of giving, favoring, etc. (cf. Ewald, 283 b). and from which rule ]ri3 is not to be excepted, cf, Ezek. xxi. 32." — Tr.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 1 1 . And he went against Debir. The position of Debir, hitherto unknown, was recog- nized not long since by Dr. Rosen, on the hill-top called Deioirbdn, near the spring Ain Nmtkur, in a southwestern direction from Hebron, between that Kirjath-sannah (n3D, Josh. xv. 49) philological!; express one and the same idea. Furst well remarks (Lex. s. v. TO?) that " ~Q7 is the Phoenician equivalent of the Hebrew' "T.-^i a material pre- pared from the skins of animals, and of the place and Dura (/jilschr. der Morgenl Gesellschaft, ' Himvaritie for a book written on palm-leaves." 1857, ii. 50-64). I From the latter, he says, the Greek 5i^t)€po was The name of Debir was formerly Kirjath- 1 formed, and thus the "word passed over to the sepher. In my Ortsnamen (i. 116, note), I already i Greeks and Persians. There is no reason to doubt endeavored to show that Debir, Kirjath-sepher, and that the name describes the citv as a depository of 34 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. jvritten traditions, book-rolls. Kirjath-sepher 1 was a Palestinian Hermopolis, city of Thoth, where literature had its seat (cf. Plutarch, De Isid., ed. Parthey, p. 4 ; the Sept. translates, tt6Kis tuv ypafi/iaTaiv). Such depositories, where the sacred writings were kept iv kiVtt;, in a chest (Pint. /. c), for preservation, were common to the religion of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Babylonians. To this place, that which sheltered the sacred ark of Israel's divine law opposed itself. It was therefore of much consequence to conquer it, as on the other hand its inhabitants valiantly defended it. The different names testify of the different dialects of the tribes who have held Uebir. Ver. 12. And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kirjath-sepher. Caleb is the chief of the tribe of Judah. Hebron has fallen to him as his inherit- ance, but it does not circumscribe his eager in- terest. " Caleb said." His personal zeal is the more prominently indicated, because displayed in a matter which involved the general cause, the honor of the whole tribe. At the conquest of He- bron, the phrase was, " and they smote;" at the next battle, fought lor Debir, it is, " Caleb said." As the whole tribe assisted in gaining his personal inheritance, so for the honor of the tribe he de- votes that which was wholly his, and his alone. He offers the dearest possession he has, as a prize for him who shall storm and take the strong mountain fortress and seat of idolatry. It is his only daughter (cf. 1 Chron. ii. 49) Achsah, born to him in advancing years. He can offer nothing better. Stronger proof of his zeal for the cause of Israel he cannot give. To obtain the daughter of a house by meritorious actions has in all ages been a worthy object of ambition set before young and active men. It was only by a warlike exploit that 1 >avid obtained Michal who loved him. The Messenian hero Aristomenes bestows a similar re- ward. When a country maiden rescued him, with heroic daring, from danger involving his life, he gave her his son for a husband (Pans. iv. 19J. The conquest of Uebir is therefore especially mentioned to the honor of Caleb and his love for Israel. The event was a glorious incident in the hero's family history. Ver. 13. And Othniel, the son of Kenaz, a younger brother of Caleb, took it. Israel, the nation, was divided into tribes, these into families, these into " houses," and these again into single households. This may be clearly seen from the story of Achan (Josh. vii. 14ff.|. Achan was of the tribe of Judah, the family of Zerah, the house of Zabdi, and the son of Carmi. So Caleb was the son of Jephunneh, of the house of Kenaz : whence, Num. xxxii. 12, he is called the Kenezite. Ber- theau (pp. 21, 22) labors under a peculiar error, in that he confounds the family of the Kenezite in the 1 Attention was again directed to the city from the fact that the first liturgical poet of the modern Jews, Kalir, designates a Kirjath-sepher as his native place. He does not, however, mean this city, but. playing on the word, he translates KoAAtppoTj in Palestine by Kirjath Sliei'htr, i. ?. Beautiful City. This opinion advanced by me in 1845 {Fmnkd's Zeitschr.) has perhaps lost none of its prob- ahilitv. 2 [The above view of the relationship between Caleb and Lhluiiel is held by most modern critics. Amoug its oppo- ueuts, however, are Ewald and De Wette. The former ( Gfsch. Israels, ii. .374) deems it " more suitable, in accordance with ■ he view cf the oldeat narrator, to take Kenaz as the younger brotner of Caleb ; " the latter, in his excellent German Version, translates : " Othniel, der Stthn des Ktnas, 'Its ungitltn Bmrten Calebs." Of ancient versions, the Tar- I tribe of Judah with the hostile people of the same I name mentioned Gen. xv. 19. It is true, Lengerke (Kenaan, p. 204) and others preceded Um in this | Hitter also (Erdkunde, xv. 138 [Gage's Transl. ii. 146]) has allowed himself to be misled by it. But a consideration of the important relations in which Caleb stands to the people of God, would alone have authorized the presumption that he could have no connection with a people that was to lie driven out before Israel. In addition to this, notice should have been taken of the isolated position of the Kenites, continuing down to a late period ; for notwithstanding the peaceful conduct of this people, and their attachment to Israel, their historical derivation from the father-in-law of Moses is never forgotten. The adoption of the celebrated hero into the tribe of Judah must at all events have been explained. But there is absolutely no foundation for any such assumption as that in question. The similarity of names affords so much :he less occasion, since the same names were frequently borne by heathen and Israelites, and also by families in the different tribes of Israel. One Edomite is named Kenaz, like the ancestor of Caleb ; another Saul, like the king of Israel ; a third Elah, like a man of Benjamin (Gen. xxxvi. 41 ; 1 Kgs. iv. 18). There is an alien tribe named s "1in ; but no one imagines that Israelites of the name "^f"! are to be reckoned to it. The name of the king of Lachish whom Joshua defeated, was Japhia, exactly like that of a son of David (2 Sam. v. 15). Hezron and Carmi, both families of Reuben, are such also in the tribe of Judah. The name Jephunneh is borne also by a man of the tribe of Asher (1 Chron. vii. 38). To this must be added that the Book of Chronicles traces the family of Caleb more in detail, and places them as relatives alongside of Nahshon, the progenitor of David (1 Chron. ii. 9 seq.). Caleb is the son of Jephunneh, of the house of Kenaz. Othniel is his brother. That the latter is not designated " son of Jephunneh," is because he is sufficiently distin- guished by means of his more illustrious brother. That he is styled " son of Kenaz," is to intimate that he is full brother to the son of Jephunneh, belonging to the same stock ; not, as might be, the son of Caleb's mother, by a husband from some other family. He is so much younger than Caleb, that the latter may be regarded as his second father, who had watched over him from youth up. Whj we are here, where the narrative is so personal in its character, to think only of genealogical, not of physical relationships, as Bertheau supposes, it is difficult to perceive. Just here, this would destroy, not merely the historical truth, but also the assthetic character, of the narrative. 2 Ver. 14. And it came to pass at her coming. gum and Peshito leave the question undecided. The LXX. in C. Vat., in all three passages, and in C. Alex, at Josh, xv. IT and Judg. iii. 9, makes Othniel the nephew, while in Judg. i. 13 C. Alex, makes him the brother, of Caleb The Vulg. invariably : " Otboniel Alius Cenez, frater Caleb." ! Grammatically, both constructions are equally admissible. For that adopted by Dr. Cassel, cf. Gen. xxviii. 5 : 1 Sam. xxvi. 6, etc. ; for the other. Gen xxiv. 10 ; 1 Sam. xiv. 3, etc. That the distinctive accent over Kenaz is not incom- patible with either construction, or rather does not commit the Masorites to the construction adopted by Dr. Cassel. as Keil intimates, may be seen from Gen. xxiv. 15, etc. Bachmann favors the alternate rendering — "filius Ke- nasi fratris Calebi " — on the following grounds: 1. "The fact that elsewhere Caleb is always designated as T the son of Jephunneh, 1 ' while Othniel is always 6poken of as ' f the CHAPTER I. 11-14. 85 Othniel had conquered the stronghold, — the victory was his, and Caleb gave him his daughter. The narrator forthwith adds an incident that marked the peaceful entrance of the young wife into the house of her husband, and afforded an interesting glimpse of her character. Caleb, the head of the tribe, was rich ; to him, and to liim alone, the fine fields and estates about Hebron had been given. Only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, had received them, not the whole family (Josh. xxi. 12). Othniel was poor. In the character of a poor, younger son, he had achieved heroic deeds. Not he thinks of goods and possessions ; but so much the more does the young Aehsah, who has been accustomed to wealth. Such is the course of the world. They are on their way to Hebron, a way which leads through fertile, well-watered fields. Their journey is a beautiful triumphal procession, over which the aged father rejoices. Aehsah urges pi"TrPD£11 from i"TO) her husband to seize the opportunity, and petition her father for the noble field through which they are passing. 1 He does it not. He deems it an act unworthy of himself. She, however, like a true woman, too sagacious to lose the proper moment, proceeds herself ingeniously to call her father's attention to the fact that she desires not merely honor, but also property. She slides from her ass — suddenly, as if she fell (TO^ril) — so that her father asks, " What is the matter with thee ? " Her answer has a double Bense : " Thou gavest me away into a dry land, give me also springs." give me a blessing ! 223n Y~}$ ("land of the south") is land desti- tute of water. No greater blessing there than springs. They make the parched field flourishing and productive (cf. Ps. exxvi. 4). Now, just as springs are a sign of abundance and wealth, so negeb is a symbol of indigence and want. Thou gavest me away, says Aehsah, in words full of con- cealed meaning, into a dryland — to a poor hus- band; give me also springs to enrich the land — my husband. Caleb understood and gave, the more liberally, no doubt, for the ingenious manner in which she asked. He gave her the upper and lower springs. flv2, for springs, occurs only in this passage. It is obviously not to be derived from 773. in the sense of rolling, turning, — from which comes i"^2) "pitcher," so named on account of its round form, — but is connected with old roots ex- pressive, like the Sanskr. gala, "water," of welling, bubbling (cf. Dieffenbach, Worterb. der Goth. son of Kenaz," raises a presumption against the supposition that Othniel is the brother of Caleb in the strict sense of the term 2. Caleb was 85 years old when Hebron was bestowed on him (Josh. xiv. 10, 14); and when he took possession of it, must have been some years older. Accord- ingly, if Othniel was his brother, even though his junior by from twenty to thirty years, — and a greater difference in age is surely not to be supposed, — it would follow, that the bold hero who won his wife as a prize for storming Debir was at that time from sixty to seventy years of age ; that about eighteen years later, he entered on his office as Judge as a man of full eighty years*of age ; and that, even though he died some time before the end of the forty years' rest (ch. iii. 11), he reached an age of 120 years or more, which is scarcely probable. 3. According to ch. iii. 9, Othniel is the first deliverer of Israel fallen under the yoke of heathen oppressors in consequence of its apostasy to heathen idola- try. Now, since idolatry is said to have become prevalent In Israel only after the generation that had entered Canaan with Joshua and Caleb had died ofT(ch. ii. 10), it is clear hat Othniel is regarded as belonging not to this, but to the Sprache, i. 183). What springs they were which Othniel received, it is difficult to say. Were they those which Robinson found on the way to Hebron, within an hour's distance ! Le Clerc wonders why this family history is here related. Most certainly not without intending to make the zeal of Caleb, the unselfishness of Othniel, and the prudence of Aehsah, points of instruction. The Jewish exege- sis, reproduced by Raschi, is essentially right, when it explains that Othniel was poor in everything but the law, in everything, that is, but piety and solidity of character. 2 History and tradition present many another pair like Othniel and Aehsah. The thing to be especially noted, however, is the firmness of Othniel in resisting his wife's enticement to make requests which it is more becoming in her to make. Not many men have so well withstood the ambi- tious and eagerly craving projects of their wives HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Compare Horn. Hints on ch. i. 17-20. [Scott ; It is a very valuable privilege to b« closely united with families distinguished for faith and piety ; and to contract marriage with those who have been " trained up in the nurture and ad- monition of the Lord." The same ; Nature teaches us to desire tem- poral benefits for our children ; but grace will teach us to be far more desirous and earnest in using means that they may be partakers of spiritual blessings. The same : If affection to a creature animates men to such strenuous efforts and perilous adven- tures, what will the love of God our Saviour do, if it bear rule in our hearts ? The same : If earthly parents, " being evil, know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will our Heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him ! " Henry : From this story we learn, 1st. That it is no breach of the tenth commandment moder ately to desire those comforts and conveniences of this life which we see attainable in a fair and regu- lar way 3dly. That parents must never think that lost, which is bestowed on their children for their real advantage, but must be free in giving them portions as well as maintenance, especially when dutiful. P. H. S. : Three Lessons from an Ancient Wedding : 1 . Caleb's lesson : Pious zeal for God and an heroic character are better than wealth or social rank. To such as possess these qualities let fathers freely give their daughters. 2. Othniel's succeeding generation, which agrees better with the hypoth esis that he is the son of a younger brother of Caleb, than that be is such a brother himself. 4. Finally, whatever, in view of Lev. xviii. 12, 13. may be thought of the difficulty of a marriage between an uncle and a niece, that interpreta- tion surely deserves to be preferred which, while it is possi ble in itself, does not raise the said difficulty at all " — Tr 1 1 [Wordsworth : '' The field : that is, the field which had been given to Othniel when the Book of Judges was written and which was known to be well supplied with water. This explanation of the article supposes that the words attributed to Aehsah in the text, were not the very words she used. — Tr.] 2 At an early date, the passage 1 Chrou. iv. 10. where Jabez says, " Oh, that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me," was already explained as referring to Othniel (cf. Temura y p. 16, a). Jerome was acquainted with a Jewish opinion according to which Jabez was a teacher of the law (ct. 1 Chron. ii. 65), who instructed the sons of the Kenite. ff Qiutst Htbr. in Lib. i. Parol., ed. Migne, iii. 1370 36 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. lesson : A wife is to be won for her own sake, r.Dt as the means of gaining access to her father's wealth. 3. Achsah's lesson : It is the wife's duty to promote the interests and honor of her husband. Wealth is a source of weight and influence, and a means of usefulness. Who knows how much this and similar thoughtful acts of Achsah contributed to shape the subsequent life-work of Othniel as judge of Israel. The same : It is more honorable to woman to be "sold" (a term entirely inapplicable, how- ever, to the case in hand), than to have a husbanc bought for her by her father's gold or lands. When a man stormed the walls of a stronghold, or slew an hundred Philistines by personal prowess, or paid fourteen years of responsible service, for a wife, 01 when, as in the days of chivalry, he ran tilts and courted dangers in her behalf, however grotesque the performance, it indicated not only solidity of character in the wooer, but also a true and manly respect for woman, which is not possessed by ai] men of modern days. — Tb.] The Kenites take %vp their abode in the territories of Judah. Chapter I. 16. 16 And the children [sons] of the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, went up out of [from] the city of palm-trees with the children [sons] of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad ; and they [he *] went and dwelt among * the people. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 16. — He, i. e., the Kenite. The subject of ?[/?*] is "O'p, the Kenite, collective term for the tribe. — Te.] [2 Ver. 16. — J""IW, with, near, the people, but still in settlements of their own, cf. ver. 21. Dr. Cassel's unter answer* tc the English among. — Tr.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 16. And the sons of the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law. Kenite is the name of a heathen tribe, which in Gen. xv. 19 is enumerated among the nations hostile to Israel. In the vision of Balaam it is mentioned in connection with Amalek (Num. xxiv. 21). It is there said of the tribe, " In the rock hast thou put thy nest " (^ipi?, from 1|7, " nest"). " Strong," indeed, " is their dwell- ing-place." The Kenites were a tribe of the wil- derness, troglodytes, who dwelt in the grottoes which abound everywhere in Palestine, but espe- cially in its southern parts. Barth, in 1847, saw caves at the lower Jordan, "high up in the steep face of the precipitous rock, on the left, inhabited by human beings and goats, though it is impossible to see how they get there" (Ritter, xv. 465). At the Dead Sea, Lynch discovered grottoes in the rocks, the entrance to which, in spite of all profi- ciency in climbing, could not be found. The name of the tribe, Kenites, is doubtless derived from ]i2, 1 Earlier scholars (Le Clerc, Lightfoot, Opera, ii. 581) were already struck by the Targum's constant substitution of riS^^ti?, Salmaah for Kenite. In this passage also it reads, '' the sons of Salmaah." Even Jewish authors were ftt a loss how to explain this. As it affords a specimen of the traditional exegesis of the Jews, already current in the larguin on this passage, I will here set down the explanation of this substitution : The Kenite of our passage is identified with the Kinim of 1 Chron. ii. 55, who are there described u " the families of the Sopherim.'' But how came the Ke- nites to hold this office, in after times so highly honored, and filled by men learned in the law (cf. Scsnhedrin, p. 104 a and 106 a) ' The father-in-law of Mose? — (tradition makes him which means an elevated hiding-place in the rocks, as well as a nest. The term troglodytes, likewise, comes from rpwyKri, "grotto," and is applied to both birds and human beings. As Jeremiah (xlix. 16) exclaims, " though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle," so jEschylus ( Choe'phoroe, 249) calls the nest of the eagle's brood, o-K-l]vntia, " dwelling-place." It is from this passage, and from ch. iv. 11, that we first leant that Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, 1 belonged to one of the Kenite families. Moses, when a fugitive in the desert, found an asy- lum and a wife in the retirement of Jethro 's house- hold. From that time, this family, without losing its independent and separate existence, was closely allied with all Israel. But it was only this family, and not the whole Kenite nation, that entered into this alliance. Else, how could the Kenite be named among enemies in the prophetic announcements of Gen. xv., and with Amalek in the vision of Ba- laam 1 Moreover, the text clearly intimates that the sons of the Kenite adhered to Israel, not as Kenites, but as descendants of Jethro, the father- flee from the council of Pharaoh of which he was a member. Sola, 11 a) — is the Kenite who, when the latter wandered in the desert (Ex. ii. 20, 21), gave him bread (lechem) and also, through his daughter, a house (bet/i). Now, the same chap- ter of Chronicles, vers. 51, 54, names a certain Sa/rna, and styles him the rt father of Eeth-lechem." The father of this " Bread-house " is then identified with Jethro. Consequently, the sons of the Kenite are the sons of Salmaah, and thus their name itself indicates how they attained to the dignity ac- corded them. The Targum on Chronicles (ed. Wilna, 1S36 p. 3, A) expresses it thus : " They were the sons of Zippora who (in their capacity of Sopherbrt) enjoyed, together with the families of the Levites, the glory of having descended from Moses, the teacher of Israel." CHAPTER I. 17-20. 37 In-law of Moses. 1 It is the constant aim of the historian of the conquest of Canaan by Israel, to show that every promise was fulfilled, and that no one who at ant/ time snowed kindness failed of his promised reward. 'Caleb's constancy and courage found their long-promised inheritance in Hebron. A recom- pense had also been promised to the sons of the Kenite- When Israel was on its journey through the desert (Num. x. 31), and Hobab (on the name, see below, on ch. iv. 11) desired to return to his old place of abode. Moses said : " Leave us not ; thou knowest our places of encampment in the des ert, and hast been to us instead of eyes. If thou go with us, every good thing with which God blesses us, we will share with thee." The fulfillment of this promise now takes place. The Kenites enter with the tribe of Judah into the inheritance of the latter, as into a domain in which they had always been at home. They share in the blessing bestowed by God on Israel. They went up from the City of Palms. No other place than the plain of Jericho is ever called the City of Palms in the Scriptures. Although the city was destroyed, the palm-groves still existed. How was it possible to suppose,- in the face of Deut. xxxiv. 3 and Judg. iii. 13, that here suddenly, with- out any preparatory notice, another City of Palms is referred to ! The statement here made, so far from occasioning difficulties, only testifies to the exactness of the narrator. Judah's camp was in Gilgal, whence they marched through Bezek against the enemy, and then to Hebron. Gilgal lay in the vicinity of Jericho. When the tribe decamped, the Kenite was unwilling to remain behind. On the march through the desert, their position as guides had of course always been in the van, and, therefore, with the tribe of Judah. They desire to enjoy their reward also in connection with this tribe, and hence the palms of overthrown Jericho cannot detain them. The region in which they were, can therefore be no other place of palms than that from which Judah broke up, namely, Jericho. In fact, the statement that they came from Jericho, proves the correctness of the view given above, that Gilgal was the place from which Judah set out to enter his territory. Into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in 1 This view does away with all those questions of which, after earlier expositors, Bertheau treats on pp. 24, 25. 2 Into this error, Le Clerc has misled later expositors, and among them, Bertheau, p. 25. However, the wholly irrele- vant passage of Diodorus (iii. 42), frequently cited to justify the assumption of another City of Palms, was already aban- doned by Rosenmiiller, p. 24. 8 Iflliak Chelo, the author of Les chemins de Jerusalem, in the 14th century, found Arad sparsely Inhabited, by poor the south of Arad. But why is the narrative of the Kenite expedition here introduced? It is a peculiarity of Hebrew narrators, that they weave in episodes like this and that of Othniel and Achsah, whenever the progress of the history, coming into contact with the place or person with which they are associated, offers an occasion. Hence we al- ready find events communicated in the 15th chap- ter of Joshua, which occurred at a later date, but of which the author was reminded while speaking of the division of the land. The history of the con- quest of their territory by Judah is very brief. Pirst, the mountain district of Hebron and the northeastern part of the territory was taken posses- sion of. Then, according to the plan laid down ver 9, they turned to the south. Of this part of their undertaking no details are given ; but as they were getting possession of the land in this direction, they came to Arad, where it pleased the Kenites to take up their abode, in close relations with Judah. A king formerly reigned at Arad, who attacked Israel when journeying in the desert (Num. xxi. 1), and was defeated by Moses. A king of Arad was also conquered by Joshua (Josh. xii. 14). After its occupancy by the tribe of Judah, the Kenites re- sided there. The position 3 of the place has been accurately determined by Robinson (Bib. Res. ii- 101, cf. Ritter, xiv. 121). Eusebius and Jerome had placed it twenty Roman miles, a camel's jour ney of about eight hours, from Hebron. This accords well with the position of the present Tell 'Arad, " a barren-looking eminence rising aboVe the country around." Prom this fragmentary notice of the place, we may perhaps infer what it was that specially attracted the Kenites. If these tribes were attached to the Troglodyte mode of life, the Arabs still told Robinson of a " cavern " found there. The Kenites still held this region in the time of David ; for from the vicinage of the places named in 1 Sam. xxx. 29 ff., especially Hormah, it appears that they are those to whom as friends he makes presents.* It is true, that when the ter- rible war between Saul and Amalek raged in this region, Saul, lest he should strike friend with foe, caused them to remove (1 Sam. xv. 6). After the victory, they must have returned again. Arabs and Jews, who lived of their flocks. The Rabbi tends his sheep, and at the same time gives instruction to his pu- pils. Cf. Carmoly, Itineraires de la Ttrre Sainte (Bruxelles, 1847), pp. 244, 245. 4 Cf. 1 Sam. xxvii. 10, where the same local position is assigned to the Kenites, and spoken of by David as the scene of his incursions, in order to make the suspicious Philistines believe that he injures the friends of Israel Simeon's territory is conquered, and Judah takes the Philistine cities. Chapter I. 17-20. 17 And Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they slew [smote] the Canaanittsa that inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it [executed the ban upon it]. 1 And 18 the name of the city was called 2 Hormah. Also [And] Judah took Gaza with the coast [territory] thereof, and Askelon with the coast [territory] thereof, and Ekron 19 with the coast [territory] thereof. And the Lerd [Jehovah] was with Judah ; f. 38 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. and he drave out the inhabitants [obtained possession] of the mountain [mountains] but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley [for the inhabitants of the low country were not to be driven out], 3 because they had chariots of iron. And they gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses [had] said : and he expelled thence the three sons of Anak. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. 20 [1 Ver. 17. — The Din (LXX. avaBe^a), in cases like the preseDt, was, as Hengstenberg {Pent. ii. 74) expresses it, ,f the compulsory devoteinent to the Lord of those who would not voluntarily devote themselves to him." To render the word simply by K destruction,'- as is done in the A. V. here and elsewhere, is to leave out the religious element of the act, and reduce it to the level of a common war measure. Cf. Winer, Realwbrterb.,s. v. Bann ; Smith's Bib. Diet. s. v. Anathe- ma. — Te.] [2 Ver. 17. — S" 1 !"?*!. Dr. Cassel translates it as if it were plural, and gives it the same subject with ^^PP^, rc they called." Correct, perhaps, as to fact, but grammatically less accurate than the A. V. S^P^I is the indefinite third person. Cf. Ges. Gr. 137, 3. — Te.] [S Ver. 19. — Dr. Cassel : denn nicht zu vertreiben waren die Bewohntr der Niederung. On the force of ^3, for(E. V but), cf. Ges. Gram. § 155, p. 271. — The construction of tt^^n? tO is unusual. According to Keil (and Bertheaul ft S V is to be taken substantively, as in Amos vi. 10, in the same eense in which the later Scriptures use ^ N S before the infinitive, 2 Chron. v. 11 ; Esth. iv. 2, viii. 8 ; Eccles iii. 14. Cf. Ges. Gram. § 132, 3, Bern. 1 ; Ewald, 237 c." Idea and expression might then be represented in English by the phrase : f< there was no driving the enemy out." On pO^, 6ee foot-note on p. 39. — Te.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 17. And Judah went with Simeon his brother. The course of conquest by the tribes is regularly followed, but the narrative delays only at such points as are connected with note- worthy facts. When Judah had reached the south, and was in Arad, the statement was introduced that the Kenite settled there. After the conquest of the south, the conquerors turned toward the low country (ver. 9). In order to get there, they must traverse the territory of Simeon. Consequently, Judah goes with Simeon now, to assist him in gain- ing possession of his land. This expedition also offered an event which it was important to chron- icle. They smote the inhabitants of Zephath, and called the city Chormah. In itself considered, the mere execution of the ban of destruction on a city otherwise unknown, cannot be of such im- portance as would properly make it the only re- ported event of the campaign in Simeon's territory. The record must have been made with reference to some event in the earlier history of Israel. 1 The tribes had just been in Arad, where the Kenites settled. Now, according to the narrative in Num. xxi. 1 ff., it was the King of Arad who suddenly fell upon the people in their journey through the desert. The attack was made when the Israelitish host was in a most critical situation, which, to be sure, could not be said to be improved by the ban executed on the cities of the king after the victory was won. Not Arad, — for this retained its name, — but one 1 Compare Rosenmuller, p. 25, and Hengstenberg, Pent. Ii. p. 179, etc. 2 The King of Arad only is spoken of, Num. xxi. 1, and It is not said that Arad was called Hormah. The (( name of the (one) place," it is stated, they called Hormah, whereas they '' banned their cities." Since, therefore, Arad and Hor- mah are distinguished, it is plain that this one place of the banned cities, which was called Hormah, was Zephath. — [Beethead : " It has been thought, indeed, that the word □ **rQ in Num. xxi. 3, in the connection in which it stands, ' T Indicates that in the time of Moses the whole southern dis- trict received the name Hormah, whereas, according to our passage [i. e. Judg- i. 17] it was given only to the city of tophath ; but E^pQ never signifies "region," and must of the places put under the ban, we are told, re- ceived the name Hormah. 2 The vow in pursuance of which this ban was inflicted required its subse- quent maintenance as much as its original execu- tion. Thus much we learn from the passage in Numbers. That a close connection existed between Arad and Hormah is also confirmed by Josh. xii. 14, where a king of Arad and one of Hormah are named together. In the same way are the inhab- itants of Hormah and the Kenites in Arad men- tioned together, upon occasion of David's division oi booty (1 Sam. xxx. 29). Since Moses was not able to occupy these regions, the banned city, as appears plainly from Josh. xii. 14, where a king of Hormah occurs, had been peopled and occupied anew. Hence it was the task of the tribe of Simeon, with the help of Judah, to restore the vow of Israel, and to change the Zephath of its heathen inhabitants once more into Hormah. That, in this respect also, the tribes observed the commands of Moses, and fulfilled what was formerly promised, — adjudg- ing to one, reward, as to the Kenite ; to another, the ban, as to Zephath. — this is the reason why this fact is here recorded. Robinson thought that there was every reason for supposing that in the position of the pass es-Sufah, far down in the south, the locality of Zephath was discovered ( Bib. Res ii. 181). The position, as laid down on his map. strikes me as somewhat remote from Tell 'Arad ; and the name es-Sufah, Arabic for " rock," cannot, on account of its general character, be considered altogether decisive. 3 Moreover, another Zephath actually occurs, nearMareshah (2 Chron. xiv. 10), be understood here, as in Gen. xxviii 19 and elsewhere, of one place or one city." — Ta.] 8 Some ruins, named Sepata by the Arabs, were found by Rowlands (cf. Ritter, xiv. 1084-5; Williams' Holy City i. 464). two and a half hours southwest of Khalasa (Robin ■ son's Elusa), and have also been identified with Zephath Their position is very different from that of Tell es-Suffih. They also seem to me to lie too remote from Arad. That the Biblical name Zephath has been preserved, after the Jew- ish inhabitants for many centuries must have used, not that, but Hormah, does not appear at all probable. In the moun- tains of Ephraim, Eli Smith came into a village Um-Sufah. " It reminded him of the locality of Hormah near the southern border of Palestine, both of which names [Um- Sufah and Hormah) iu Arabic designate such smooth tract/ of rock '" (Ritter, xvi. 561). CHAPTER I. 17-20. 33 not far from Eleutheropolis, and Robinson (ii. 31) makes it probable that by the valley of Zephath in which King Asa fought, the wady is meant which " comes down from Beit Jibrin towards Tell es- Safieh." In the Middle Ages, a castle existing there, bore the name Alba Specula, Fortress of Ob- servation, which at all events agrees with the sig- nification of Zephath. Ver. 18. And Judah took Gaza, Askelon, and Ekron. The territory assigned to Judah extended to the sea, including the Philistine coast-land, with their five cities. After the conquest of Simeon's lot their course descended from the hills into the lowlands (Shephelah, ver. 9), most probably by way of Beer-sheba, to the sea. In their victorious prog- ress, they storm and seize Gaza, Askelon, and Ekron, pressing on from south to north. Although Ashdod is not mentioned here, it is natural to sup- pose, since it was included in the borders assigned to Judah (Josh, xv.), and lay on the road from Askelon to Ekron, that it was also taken, previous to the conquest of Ekron. Josephus, drawing the 6ame inference, expressly includes it. It is said "'S 7! 1 ]) " they took by storm." They were not able, at this time, so to take and hold these places as to expel their inhabitants. The tribe of Judah, which, as it seems, now continued the war alone, on the sea-coast fell in with cultivated cities, pro- vided with all the arts of warfare. Israel at that time was not prepared for long and tedious wars. In swift and stormy campaigns, their divinely- inspired enthusiasm enabled them to conquer. On the mountains, where personal courage and natural strength alone came into play, they were entirely victorious, and held whatever they gained. It was only in the plains, where the inhabitants of the coast cities met them with the murderous opposi- tion of iron chariots, that they gave up the duty of gaining entire mastery over the land. 1 2 Ver. 19. For the inhabitants of the low country were not to be driven out, because they had iron chariots. 3 The noble simplicity 1 Thus an internal contradiction between this verse and the statement of the next that Jndah failed to drive out the inhabitants of the low country, aa asserted by Baihinger (Herz. Real-Encykl. xi. 564), does not exist. 2 [The author identifies the pttl?, the inhabitants of which Judah failed to drive out, with the P v£tE\ ver. 9, t •• : and hence renders it (see ver. 19) by Niederung, r low coun- try," prop, depression. Against this identification, accepted by Studer, Bertheau, Keil, and many others, Bachmann objects that, with the single exception of Jer. xlvii. 6, a poetic passage in a late prophet, p^2V is never applied to ,ne Philistine plain. tf In accordance with its derivation, [7Q3? denotes a valley-basin fcf. Robinson, Phys. Geog. p. 70), broadly extended it may be (Gen. xiv. 9, 10 ; Josh. xvii. 16; etc.), adapted for battle (Josh. viii. 13), susceptible of cultivation (Job xxxix. 10 ; Cant. ii. 1 ; Ps. Ixv. 14 ; etc.), but stiil always depressed between mountains and bordered by them. It never means a level plain or lowlands" Cf. Stanley, Sinai and Pal., p. 476, Amer. el. Bachmann, therefore, looks for the Emek — which, by the way, with the article, is not necessarily singular, but may be used collectively — within or at least very near the Mountains of ludah. tf Of valleys affording room for the action of char- tots, the mountains of Judah have several ; e. g"., the Einek -tephaim. Josh. xv. 8, southwest of Jerusalem, one hour long \nd one half hour broad, known as a battle-field in other Smes also (2 Sam. v. 18, 22 ; xxiii. 13) ; the Emek ha-Elah, Sam. xvii. 1, 2 ; the broad basins of the valleys of Jehosh- tphath and Ben Hinnoiu near the northern boundary (see Rob. 268, 273) ; the great, basin-like plain of Beni Nairn of the narrative could not show itself more plainly " The Lord was with Judah, and he gained posses- sion of the mountain district ; but £2? , "1"in ■_ Sv, not to be driven out," etc. The expression S / ^?t" " they could not," is purposely avoided. They would have been quite able when God was with them; but when it came to a contest with iron chariots their faith failed them. The tribes of Joseph were likewise kept out of the low country because the inhabitants had chariots of iron (Josh xvii. 16) ; but Joshua said (ver. IS), " Thou shall (or canst) drive out the Canaanite, though he be strong." Iron chariots are known only to the Book of Judges, excepting the notice of them in the passage just cited from Joshua. The victory of Deborah and Barak over Jabin, king of Canaan, owed much of its glory to the fact that Sisera com- manded Dine hundred iron chariots. Bertheau rejects the earlier opinion that these chariots were currus falcati, scythe-chariots, on the ground that those were unknown to the Egyptians. He thinks it probable that the chariots of the Canaanites, like those of the Egyptians, were only made of wood, but with iron-clad corners, etc., and therefore very strong. But such chariots would never be called iron chariots. The Egyptian war-chariots which Pha- raoh leads forth against Israel, are not so ealleu. To speak of chariots as iron chariots, when they were in the main constructed of a different material, would be manifestly improper, unless what of iron there was about them, indicated their terrible de- structive capacities. It has, indeed, been inferred from Xenophon's Cyropaidia (vi. 1, 27), that scythe- chariots were first invented by Cyrus, and that they were previously unknown " in Media, Syria Arabia, and the whole of Asia." But even if this Cyrus were to be deemed strictly historical, the whole notice indicates no more than the improve- ment * of a similar kind of weapon. It does not at all prove that scythe-chariots did not previously exist. The principal improvement which the in the east (see Rob. i. 488 ff.) ; and others. And that, in general, chariots in considerable numbers might be used in the mountain country, appears, with reference to a region a little further north, from 1 Sam. xiii. 5." Bachmann's view of the connection of ver. 19 with what precedes is as follows : Ver. 9. The battle of Bezek, etc., having secured .1 udati from attacks in the rear, and left him free to proceed in his undertakings, the theatre of these undertakings is divided by ver. 9 into three parts : the mountain country, the south (negeb), and the plain (shephelah). The conquest of the mountain country is illustrated by a couple of in stances in vers. 10-15 ; that of the south is similarly indi cated in vers. 16, 17 ; and that of the plain in ver. 18 Here, too, Judah was successful in his undertakings. As in the other cases, the places named here, Gaza, Askelon, Ekron, are only mentioned as examples of what took place in the Shephelah generally. The conquest of the western parts of the Shephelah being related, that of the eastern districts, nearer the mountains, was left to be inferred a.- a matter of course. Then, in ver. 19, the narrative returns to the mountain country, in order to supplement vers. 10-15 by indicating, what those verses did not show, that the con- quest of this division, the first of the three mentioned, wafl not complete. — Te.] 3 How properly the readings of the Septuaginta are not considered as authorities against the Hebrew text, is suffi- ciently shown by the single fact that here they read, " ori •P»jxd0 SieoretAaTO cuiTots," which also passed over into the Syriac version. A few Codd. add K «ai ap/iara triSTjpa nv- to7«." 4 Cf. Joh. flottl. Schneider in his edition of the Cyrojug dm (Lips. 1840), p. 368. 40 THE BOOK UF JUDGES. Cyrus of Xenophon introduced, was, that he changed the chariot-rampart, formed perhaps after the manner of the Indian battle-array [a/cschau- him, 1 the idea of our game of chess) into a means of aggressive warfare. For this purpose, he changed the form of the chariot, and added the scythe to the axle-tree. But the chariots of our passage must already have been intended for aggressive action, since otherwise the purpose of the iron is incomprehensible. Nor does Xenophon assert that Cyrus was the first who affixed scythes to chariots, although he would not have failed to do so if that had been his opinion. It is, moreover, in itself not probable. Xenophon mentions that the (African) Cyrenians " still ' had that kind of chariots which Cyrus invented. 2 And Strabo informs us that in his time the Nigretes, Pharusii, and Ethiopians, African tribes, made use of the scythe-chariot. 3 The changes introduced in the chariot by Cyrus, were made in view of a war against the Assyrians, whom Xenophon distinguishes from the Syrians. But from a statement of Ctesias 4 we learn that the Assyrian armies already had scythe-chariots. The same occasion induced Cyrus to clothe his chariot- warriors in armor. For at all events, Assyrian monuments represent the charioteers encased in coats of mail. 5 It serves to explain the term iron chariots, that Xenophon also speaks of iron scythes (Sue'irwa ffiSripu). Curtius (iv. 9, 4) describes chariots which carried iron lances on their poles (ex summo temone hastce prcejixce Jerro eminebant), for which the form of Assyrian chariots seems to be very well adapted. Representations of them sufficiently indicate the horrors of these instru- ments of war, by the bodies of the slain between their wheels. Ver. 20. And they gave Hebron unto Caleb. This statement, even after that of ver. 10, is by no means superfluous. Now, and not before, could Caleb receive Hebron as a quiet possession. Judah must first enter his territory. When the conquest was completed, — and it was completed after the western parts of the mountain region also sub- mitted, — the tribe of Judah entered upon its pos- sessions ; and then the aged hero received that which had been promised him. Then also, most likely, transpired that beautiful episode which gave to Othniel his wife and property. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Vers. 4-20. Obedient, believing, united Israel is attended by victory. And in victory it knows 1 Bohlen, Attes Indien, ii. 66. 2 [On this sentence of our author, Bachmann remarks : " Cassel's explanation that the Cyrenians had r still ' that kind of chariots which C.vrus invented, is the opposite of what Xenophon, /. c, expressly and repeatedly declares, namely, that Cyrus abolished (icaTeA.va'e } both the earlier {■npoaQtv ovtrav) Trojan method of chariot^warfare, and also that still in use (In xai vvv ouaai/} among the 4 Cyrenians, which formerly (rbv irpoadev xpovov) was also practiced by the Medefl, Syrians, etc." Bertheau and Bachmann (Keil, too) resist the conversion of K iron chariots " into currus faicati on the ground that these were unknown before Cy- how to punish and reward. Adonibezek terriblj experiences what he had inflicted on others, hut the sons of the Kenite dwell like brethren in the midst of Judah. The Canaanite is chastised ; but the Kenite reaps the fruits of conquest. The un- believers among the spies formerly sent by Moses are infamous, but Caleb gains an inheritance full of honor. Thus, faith makes men united before action ; after it, just. Men are wise enough to give every one his own {suum cuique), only so long as they continue obedient toward God. For faith 1 . regards that which is God's ; and, therefore, 2. awards according to real deserts. Othniel ob- tained Caleb's daughter, not because he was his nephew (nepos), but because he took Kirjath-sephtr. Before God, no nepotism holds good, for it is a sign of moral decay ; on the contrary, he gives the power of discerning spirits. He only, who in tht sanctuary of God has inquired after "Light anc Righteousness " (Urim and Thummim), can prop erly punish and reward. Starke (ver. 16) : The children of those par- ents who have deserved well of the church of God, should have kindness shown, and benefits extended to them before others. For ingratitude is a shame- ful thing. The same (ver. 17): Covenants, even when involving dangers, must be faithfully kept by all, but especially by brothers and sisters. [Scott (ver. 19): Great things might be achieved by the professors of the gospel, if they unitedly endeavored to promote the common cause of truth and righteousness; for then "the Lord would be with them," and every mountain would sink into a plain. But when outward difficulties are viewed by the eye of sense, and the almighty power of God is forgotten, then no wonder we do not prosper; for according to our faith will be our vigor, zeal, and success. Love of ease, indulgence, and worldly advantages, both spring from and fos- ter unbelief. Thus many an awakened sinner, who seemed to have escaped Satan's bondage, " is entangled again, and overcome, and his last state is worse than the first." Thus even many a be- liever who begins well is hindered : he grows neg- ligent and unwatchful and afraid of the cross ; his graces languish, his evil propensities revive; Satau perceives his advantage, and plies him with suita- ble temptations ; the world recovers its hold ; he loses his peace, brings guilt into his conscience, anguish into his heart, discredit on his character, and reproach on the gospel ; his hands are tied, his mouth is closed, and his usefulness ruined. — Tr.] rus, who inyented them, CyropeBdia, vi. 1, 27, 30. On the Egyptian war-chariot, see Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, i. 350. — Tr.] 3 Lib. xvii. 3, 7, ed. Paris, p. ',03: tr \pun-Tai Se icai 8pe- Tran7^>opot5 apfxao't-' 1 4 In the Bibt. Hist, of Diodor is, ii. 5. 5 Cf. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, ii. 335. [For an account of the Assyrian war-ctu.riot, p. 349. Oo p. 353, Layard remarks: r: Chariots ana'.d with scythes are not seen in the Assyrian sculpture, although mentioned by Ctesias as being in the army of Ninus." — Tr.] CHAPTER I. 21-26. 4) Benjamin is inactive, and allows the Jebusite to remain in Jerusalem. Joseph emulates Judah, and takes Bethel. Chapter I. 21-26. The House oi 21 And 1 the children [sons] of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhab- ited Jerusalem : but the Jebusites dwell [dwelt] with [among] - the children [sons] 22 of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day. And the house of Joseph, they also s went 23 up against Beth-el : and the Lord [Jehovah] was with them. And the house of Joseph sent to descry [spy out the entrance to] 4 Beth-el. Now the name of the city 24 before was, Luz. And the spies saw a man come forth out of the city, and thny said unto him, Shew us, we pray thee, the entrance into the city, and we will shew 25 thee mercy [favor]. And when [omit : when] he shewed them the entrance into the city, [and] they smote the city with the edge of the sword : but they let go the man 26 and all his family. And the man went into the land of the Hittites, and built [there] a city, and called the name thereof Luz : which is the name thereof unto this day. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [i Ver. 21. — The 1 would be better taken adversitively : But. It contrasts the conduct of Benjamin with that of Caleb, ver. 20. — Tr.] [2 Ver. 21. — Cf. note 2, on ver. 16, and 3 on ver. 29. — Tr.] [8 Ver. 22. — Dn~C2 look9 back to ver. 3 ff and intimates a parallelism between the conduct of the House of Joseph and that of Judah and his brother Simeon. — Tr.] [4 Ver. 23. — Dr. Cassel apparently supplies N"QT3 from the next verse. ~^i^, it is true, is usually followed by the accusative, not by 3. But on the other hand, S12^3 is put in the const, state before "V37 (cf- vers. 24, 25) ; whereas, if we supply it here, we must suppose it joined to T*3? by means of a preposition. It is as well, therefore, to say, with Bertheau, that " the verb is connected with 2 because the spying is to fasten itself, and that continuously, upon Bethel, cf. 2 with nS™1 and nW^H ', or with Bachmann, that 2 indicates the hostile character of the spving. 7 ' S^— *2 T T T : • . : T Is used as a general expression for any way or mode of access into the city : rt Show us how to get in, is the demand ot the spies. — Tr.) EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRLNAL. Ver. 2 1 . And the sons of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusite. At Josh. xv. 63, at the close of a detailed description of the territory of Judah, it is said, " As for the Jebusites, the inhabi- tants of Jerusalem, the sons of Judah could not drive them out ; and the Jebusites dwelt with the sons of Judah in Jerusalem unto this day." This verse has been thought to contradict the one above. In reality, however, it only proves the exactness of the statements. The boundary line of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah ran through the district of Jerusalem, through the valley of Ben Hinnom, south of the city (Josh. xv. 8). The city already extended outward from the foot of the citadel. The remark of Josephus, 1 that, in the passage above discussed, Judg. i. 8, the tribe of Judah took only the lower city, not the citadel, has great probability on its side. The conquest of the citadel was not their business at the time. It was sufficient for them to pursue the hostile king into his city, and then lay that in ashes. The citadel lay within the tribe of Benjamin. Nevertheless, on account of this fortress, Judah, also, was not able to expel the Jebusites, who continued to live side by side with them in the district of Jerusalem. At all events, the Jebusites in Jerusalem belonged to the territory of Judah so far at least, that the failure to expel 1 Ant. T. 2, 3 : XaAejnj 6" ^v y} KaOvncpBcv avToic aipc- ij„ a „ etc. them must be mentioned in connection with the boundaries of Judah. Still more necessary was it to repeat this statement in connection with Benja- min, within whose limits the city and fortress of the Jebusites were situated. Their expulsion properly devolved on this tribe. Successful occupation of the stronghold would have greatly increased the honor and consideration of Benjamin. The importance of the place, David recognized as soon as he became king. But Benjamin was content when the Jebusites, humbled by Judah, offered no resistance, left them in possession of the fortress, and lived peaceably together with them. It has been justly observed, that different terms are em- ployed in speaking of the failure of Judah and Benjamin respectively to drive out the Jebusites. Of Judah it is said (Josh. xv. 63), "they could not," because the Jebusites had their stronghold in another tribe. But of Benjamin this expression is not used, because they were wanting in disposi- tion and energy for the struggle that devolved upon them. Cf. on eh. xix. 12. Ver. 22. And the house of Joseph, they also went up toward Bethel. This action of the house of Joseph is told byway of contrast with the house of Benjamin. The tribe of Benjamin lay between Judah "and Ephraim (Josh, xviii. 11); and Bethel, within its limits, formed a counterpart to Jerusa- lem. Historically, Bethel is celebrated for the blessing there promised to Jacob, and afterward! less favorably for the idolatrous worship of Jero 42 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. boam Geographically, it was important on ac- count of its position and strength. As Jebus and Jerusalem are always identified, so it is everywhere remarked of Bethel, that it was formerly Luz ; and as Jebus indicated particularly the fortress, Jerusa- lem the city, — although the "latter name also em- braced both, — so a similar relation must be assumed to have existed between Bethel and Luz. Otherwise the border of Benjamin could not have run south of Luz (Josh, xviii. 13), while neverthe- less Bethel was reckoned among the cities of Ben- jamin (Josh, xviii. 22). This assumption, more- over, explains the peculiar phraseology of Josh, xviii. 13 : " And the border went over from thence to- ward Luz ( after which we expect the usual addition " which is Bethel ; " but that which does follow is :) on the south side of Luz, which is Bethel. It ex- plains likewise the mention, Josh. xvi. 2, of the border " from Bethel to Luz," i. e. between Bethel and Luz. The latter was evidently a fortress, high and strong, whose city descended along the mountain-slope. When Jacob erected his altar, it must have been on this slope or in the valley. One name designated both fortress and city, but this does not militate against their being distinguished from each other. Bethel belonged to two tribes in a similar manner as Jerusalem. The capture of Luz by Joseph would not have been told in a pas- sage which treats of the conflicts of the individual tribes in their own territories, if that fortress had not belonged to the tribes of Joseph. By the con- quest of Luz, Joseph secured the possession of Bethel, since both went by that name, just as David, when he had taken the fortress of the Jebu- site, was for the first time master of Jerusalem. This deed is related as contrasting with the con- duct of Benjamin. Benjamin did nothing to take the fortress of Zion : Joseph went up to Luz, and God was with him. This remark had been impos- sible, if, as has been frequently assumed, 1 the tribe of Joseph had arbitrarily appropriated to itself the city which had been promised to Benjamin. The riew of ancient Jewish expositors, who assume a Bethel in the valley and one on the mountain, does not differ from that here suggested. — Robinson seems to have established the position of the an- cient Bethel near the present Beitin, where scat- tered ruins occupy the surface of a hill-point. A few minutes to the N. E., on the highest spot of ground in the vicinity, are other ruins, erroneously supposed to be Ai by the natives : these also per- haps belonged to Bethel. 2 It cannot, however, be said, that until Robinson this position was entirely unknown. Esthori ha-Parchi, who in his time found it called Bethai, the I having fallen away, was evidently acquainted with it. :i In another work of the fourteenth century the then current name of Bethel is said to be Bethin.* Vers. 23-25. And the house of Joseph sent to spy out. ^""Tl from "Wl, to travel around, in order to find an entrance less guarded and inac- cessible. Luz appeared to be very strong and well guarded, and for a long time the assailants vainly 1 Already by Reland, Palrrstina, p. 841. 2 Robioson, BM. R>s. i. 448. 8 Kaflor ve Plurach (Berlin edition), ch. xi. pp. 47, 48. Zf. Zuuz, in Asher's Benj. of Tii'lda, ii. 436. * Ishak Chelo in Carinoly, pp. 249. 250. 6 The Qennan traitor Segestes merely alleges that he fol- lows higher reasons, although he knows that "jyrorlilores etiam Ht f/uos anteponitnl mvisi sunt." Tacit., Annal. i. 58, 2. Israel saw the hand of a higher Helper in such assist- ance ; and hence it had no hatre toward the rstru- uent* sought a suitable opportunity for a successful as- sault. When the Persians besieged Sardis, their efforts were long in vain. One day a Persian saw a Lydian, whose helmet had fallen over the ram part, fetch it back by a hitherto unnoticed way The man was followed, and the city was taken (Herod, i. 84). A similar accident favored the conquest of the fortress. The spies saw a man who had come out of the city. He failed to escape them. They compelled him to disclose the en- trance. They promised him peace and mercy on condition of snowing them the right way. He did it. It seems not even to have been necessary to storm the city ; they fell upon the inhabitants unawares. Only the man who had assisted them, and his family, were spared. They let him go in peace. He was evidently no Ephialtes, who had betrayed the city for money. Doing it under com- pulsion, and unconsciously serving a great cause, 5 no calamity betell him, and he found a new country. It not only behooves the people of God to perform what they have promised, but Jewish tradition fol- lowed persons like Rahab and this man, as those who had furthered the course of sacred history against their own people, with peculiar kindness. This man. like Rahab, is blessed for all time (cf. Jalkut on the passage, p. 8, d) . Ver. 26. And the man went into the land of the Hittites. It evinces a special interest in the man that his fortunes are traced even into a strange laud. Greek patriotism relates that Ephialtes fared as he deserved ; 6 our history employs the favorable destiny which befell this man, to show that as he did not designedly for the sake of money practice treason, so he was also the instrument of setting a prosperous enterprise on foot. But where is the land of the Chiltim (Hittites) to which he went ? In nearly all passages in which Scrip- ture makes mention of the Sons of Cheth (j~in, E. V. Heth), the Chitti (Vin, E. V. Hittite), and the Chittim (~*.nn, E. V. Hittites), the name appears to be a general term, like the word Canaan- ite. Especially in the three passages where the Chittim are mentioned 7 (Josh. i. 4 ; 1 Kgs. x. 29 j 2 Kgs. vii. 6), their land and kings are placed between Egypt and Aram in such a way as seems to be ap- plicable only to the populations of Canaan. Mov- ers 8 has successfully maintained that E\Fin and 3^713 refer to the same race of people ; but it can- not be accepted that this race consisted only of the Kittim of Cyprus. It must rather be assumed that the Chittim answer to a more general concep- tion, which also gave to the Kittim, their colonists, the name they bore. The historical interpreta- tion of Kittim, which applied it to Ionians, Mace- donians, and Romans, would not have been possi- ble, if the name had not carried with it the notion of coast-dwellers, 9 an idea which comparative phi- lology may find indicated. Now, it is unques- tionable that the Phoenician cities, with Tyre at 6 Ephialtes was the traitor of Thermopylae, cf. Herod. vii. 213. Traditions are still curreut of a traitor at Jena (1806), who was obliged to flee into exile. 7 [That ft, where this people is spoken of under the plural form of its patronymic, which happens only five times — at Judg. i. 26, 2 Chron. i. 17, and the places named in th« text. — Ta.] 8 Pksnizier, u. 2, 213, etc. 9 I have already directed attention to this in the Mag AUert/iumtr (Berlin, 1848), p. 281. CHAPTER I. 21-26. 43 their head, are even on their own coins designated by the terms HH and H2. As from its lowlands, " Canaan " became the general popular name of Palestine, so likewise to a certain extent the name Chittim became a general term applied to all Canaanites. When the panic-struck king of Aram thinks that Israel has received support from the kings of Egypt and the Chittim (2 Kgs. vii. 6), this latter name can only signify the coast-cities, whose power, from Tyre upwards, was felt throughout the world. From the fact that our passage merely says that the man went into the land of Chittim, 1 and presupposes the city built by him as still known, it may reasonably be inferred that he went to the familiarly known Chittim north of Israel The probability is great enough to justify our seek- ing this Luz upon the Phoenician coast or islands. A remarkable notice in the Talmud {Sola, 46 b), derived from ancient tradition, may lead to the same conclusion : Luz is the place where the dyein; of i"w3£l is carried on, where there are hyacinth- ian - purple dyeing-establishments. Down to the most recent times, the coast from Tyre upwards as far as the Syrian Alexandria, was very rich in purple (Ritter, xvi. 611 [Gage's Transl. iv. 280]). Now, pretty far away to the north, it is true, in the present Jebel el-Aala, at a point where a splendid northwest prospect over the plain to the lake of Antioch offers itself, Thomson 3 found hitherto wholly unknown ruins bearing the name of Kulb Lousy, with remnants of old and splendid temples The surname Kulb l might authorize the inference that the dyeing-business was formerly exercised there. The existence of temple-ruins, concernin which the Druses said that they had been with- out worshippers from time immemorial, explains also another remarkable tradition of the Tal- mud : that Luz is a city which the conquerors of the land did not destroy, and to which the angel of death never comes, but that they who feel the ap- proach of death, leave the city of their own accord. Traditions like this are characteristic of Sun- worship. In Delos no one was allowed to die or to be buried. 5 To Claros no serpents came. Neither could they penetrate to the land of the Astypalamns, on the island Cos. The island Cos is at the same time one of the seats of the ancient purple-trade. In the Syrian city Emesa there was a temple of the Sun, on account of which — as the story still went in Mohammedan times — scorpions and venomous animals cannot live there. 1 ' Name, ruins, and tradition would therefore tend to iden- tify Kulb Lousy as the remnant of an ancient city, distinguished like Cos for a specific form of indus- try and for its sun-worship, if indeed Cos itself (i~Q) be not understood by it. Luz is described by its name as a place of almond- trees (Gen. xxx. 37). And indeed, philologically Luz is akin to mux, nut. The Greek xapvov signi- fies almond (on account of its shape) as well as nut and egg.' 1 Eusebius was induced to identify the land of the Chittim with Cyprus, the rather Cf. oKTrj, Cos (the island Cos), cautes, costa, cfte, Kiiste. 2 The Sept. constantly (with barely two exceptions) translate H . wi 7 ! by veueivfliyos. Cf. Ad. Schmidt, Die frtechisehen Papyrusinkunden (Berlin. 1842), p. 134. 8 Cf. Ritter, xvii. 1577. [Thomson, Journey from Aleppo U> Mt. Lebanon, in Bibliotheea Sacra, vol. v. p. 667. — because the Cyprian almonds were celebrated in antiquity. 5 The almond-tree has always abounded in the holy land. The cities are in ruins, but the tree still flourishes. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. The cessation of perfect obedience is attended by the cessation of perfect victory. Benjamin does not expel the hostile Jebusite from Jerusalem be cause he has lost his first love. The tribes of Joseph, on the other hand, are able to conquei Bethel, because God is with them. Benjamin, the valiant tribe, is alone to blame, if it failed to tri umph ; for when Bethel resisted the sons of Joseph the latter were aided by a fortunate incident Benjamin did not conquer Jerusalem ; therefore, not the king out of Benjamin (Saul), but the rulei out of Judah (David), dwelt therein. However, it is of no avail to conquer by faith, unless it be also maintained in faith ; tor Bethel became after wards a Beth-aven, a House of Sin. Starke : 111 got, ill spent ; but that also which has been rightly got, is apt to be lost, if we make ourselves unworthy of the divine blessing, just as these places were again taken from the Israelites. [Wordsworth : Here then was a happy op- portunity for the man of Bethel ; he might have dwelt with the men of Joseph at Bethef and have become a worshipper of the true God, ard have thus become a citizen forever of the heavenly Bethel, the house of God, which will stand forever. Bui . . . . he quits the house of God to propagate heathenism and idolatry. The man of Bethel, therefore, is presented to us in this Scripture as a specimen of that class of persons, who help the Church of God in her work from motives of fear, or of worldly benefit, and not from love of God , and who, when they have opportunities of spiritual benefit, slight those opportunities, and even shun the light, and go away from Bethel, the house of God, as it were, unto some far-off land of the Hittites, and build there a heathen Luz of their own. — The same : There are four classes of per- sons, whose various conduct toward the Church of God, and to the gospel preached by her, is repre- sented by four cases in the Books of Joshua and Judges; namely, — 1. There is this case of the man of Bethel. 2. There is the case of the Ke- nites, in ver. 16, who helped Judah after their vic- tories in Canaan, and are received into fellowship with them. 3. There is the case of the Gibeonites, who came to Joshua from motives of fear, and were admitted to dwell with Israel, as hewers of wood and drawers of water. 4. There is the case of Rahab. She stands out in beautiful contrast to the man of Bethel. He helped the spies of Joseph, and was spared, with his household, but did not choose to live in their Bethel. But Rahab received the spies of Joshua, even before he had gained a single victory, and she professed her faith in their God ; and she was spared, she and her household, and became a mother in Israel, an an- cestress of Christ (see Josh. vi. 25). — Tr.] 4 Cf. Bochart, Hierozoicon, ii. 740. Aruck (ed. Amsteld.) p. 89, s. v. D"Ob3. 5 On this and the following notices, which will be mow thoroughly treated in the second part of my Hierozoicon compare meanwhile, ^lian, Hist. Anim. V. cap. vili. cap. s. 49 6 Cf. Ritter, xvii. 1010. 7 Casaubon, on Atfienteus, p. 65- 8 Athenaeus, p. 52 ; ct. Meureius, Cyprus, p. 80. 44 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. A list of places in the central and northern tribes from which the Canaaniles were not driven out. The tribes when strong, make the Canaanites tributary ; when weak, are content to dwell in the midst of them. Chapter I. 27-36. 27 Neither did [And] 1 Manasseh [did not] drive out the inhabitants of Beth-sheau and her towns [daughter-cities], nor Taanach and her towns [daughter-cities], nor the inhabitants of Dor and her towns [daughter-cities], nor the inhabitants of Ibleara and her towns [daughter-cities], nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and her towns [daughter-cities] ; but the Canaanites would dwell [consented to dwell] in that land. 28 And it came to pass when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute [made the Canaanites tributary], and [but] did uot utterly drive them out. 29 Neither 2 did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer ; but the Ca- 30 naanites dwelt in Gezer among 3 them. Neither 4 did Zebulun drive out the inhab- itants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol ; but the Canaanites dwelt among 31 them, and became tributaries. Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Accho, nor the inhabitants of Zidon. nor of Ahlab, nor of Achzib, nor of Helbah, nor of 32 Aphik, nor of Rehob : But the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhab- 33 itants of the land : for they did not drive them out. Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh, nor the inhabitants of Beth-anath ; but he dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land : nevertheless, [and] the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and of Beth-anath became tributaries [were tributary] unto them. 34 And the Amorites forced [crowded] 5 the children [sons] of Dan into the mountain mountains] : for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley : But And] the Amorite would dwell [consented to dwell] in mount Heres [,] in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim : yet [and] the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed [became 36 powerful], so that [and] they became tributaries [tributary]. And the coast [border] of the Amorites was [went] from the going up to Akrabbim, from the rock, and up- wards [from Maahleh Akrabbim, and from Sela and onward]. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. rl Ver. 27. — So Dr. Cassel. But the position of the verb at the beginning of the sentence suggests a contrast with what precedes : the House of Joseph took Luz ; but drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean Manasseh (a member of th» House of Joseph) did not do. Cf. next note. — Tr.] [2 Ver. 29. — The 1 here connects Ephraim with Manasseh, ver. 27 : Ephraim also was guilty of not driving out. -Tr.] [3 Ver. 29.— 12"ipa : lit. "in the midst of them." Cf. vera. 16, 21, 30, 32, 33.— Tr.) [4 Ver. 30. — The " ne'ither " ought to be omitted here acd also in vera. 31 and 33. Manasseh and Ephraim are toupled together, cf. notes 1 and 2 ; but from this point each tribe is treated separately : "Zebulun did not drive out," etc. — Tr.] [5 Ver. 34. — ^H V s 1 : to press, to push. From this word Bachm. infers that Dan had originally taken more of bH territory than he now held. — Tr.] kxeqetical and doctrinal. Ver. 27. And Manasseh did not drive out. The conquest of Luz was achieved by the two brother tribes conjointly. With the exception of this place, the lands allotted to them had for the most part been already conquered by Joshua. The portion of the half tribe of Manasseh lay about the brook Kanah (Nahr el-Akhdar). 1 A few cities, however, south of this brook, which fell to Ephraim, were made good to Manasseh by certain districts included within the borders of Asher and Issachar. This explains why Manasseh did not drive out the 1 [On this identification of the brook Kanah, cf. fliove in tmith's Bib. Diet., 8. v. " Kanah, the River." ■•- Tr.1 inhabitants of these districts. There were sLx town- ships of them, constituting three several domains, each of them inclosed in the lands of another tribe (n53n nt»btt7, Josh. xvii. 1 1 ). The first of these was Beth-shean to the east ; the second, the three cities Megiddo, Taanach, and Ibleam ; the third, Dor on the sea-coast. The two former were in- closed within the tribe of Issachar ; the latter should have belonged to the tribe of Asher. The districts thus given to Manasseh were valuable. Beth- shean (Greek, Scythopolis, at present Beisftn) oc- cupies an important position, and has a fertile soil It formed a connecting link between the two seas, as also between the territories east and west »f the CHAP1ER I. 27-36. 45 /ordan , and was a precious oasis 1 in the Ghor, the desert-like valley of this stream. It was an impor- tant place in both ancient and later times. Esthor ha Parchi, the highly intelligent Jewish traveller of the 14th century, who made this place the cen- tral point of his researches, says of it : " It is situ- ated near rich waters, a blessed, glorious land, fer- tile as a garden of God, as a gate of Paradise " (Berlin ed., pp. 1, 6; cf. Zunz in Asher's Benj. of Tudela, ii. 401 J. The situation of the three cities Megiddo, Taanach, and Ibleam, in the noble plain of Jezreel, was equally favorable. Concerning the first, it is to he considered as established that it answers to the old Legio, the modem Lejjun (Rob. ii. 328; iii. 118) ; although I am not of the opin- ion that the name Legio, first mentioned by Kuse- bius and Jerome, is etymologically derived from Megiddo. It appears much more likely that Lejjun was an ancient popular mutilation of Megiddo, which subsequently in the time of the Romans be- came Latinized into Legio. Taanach is confessedly the present Ta'annuk (Schubert's Reise, iii. 164; Rob. ii. 316, iii. 117). The more confidently may I suggest the neighboring Jelameh as the site of Ibleam, although not proposed as such by these travellers.' 2 Robinson reached this place from Jenin, in about one hour's travel through a fine country (Bib. Res. ii. 318 ff.). Lor 3 is the well- known Dandiira, Tantura, of the present day, on the coast (Ratter, xvi. 608, etc. [Gage's transl. iv. 278]). Josh.xvii.il names Endor also, of which here nothing is said. The same passage affirms that " the sons of Manasseh could not (1??* S 7) drive out the inhabitants." Evidently, Manasseh depended for the expulsion of the inhabitants of these cities upon the cooperation of Issachar, by whose territory they were inclosed. The example of the tribes of Judah and Simeon, the latter of whom was entirely surrounded by the former, does not seem to have been imitated. Issachar is the only tribe concerning which our chapter gives no information. But since in the case of all the tribes, except Judah, only those cities are here enumerated out of which the Canaanites had not been expelled, the inference is that Issachar had done his part, and that the cities within his limits which did not expel their inhabitants, were just those which be- longed to Manasseh. The statement that in Beth-shean, Megiddo, Taanach, and Ibleam the Canaanite remained, included therefore also all that was to be said about Issachar, and rendered further mention unnecessary. Issachar possessed the mag- nificent Plain of Jezreel (peya neStov), and was on that account an agricultural, peaceable, solid tribe. And the Canaanite consented to continue to dwell. Wherever vNVl occurs, it seems neces- sary to take it as expressing acquiescence in offered 1 Its magnificent position is also celebrated in the Tal- *iud, Erubin, 19 a; cf. Ketubolh, 112 a. See below on ch. It. '- [According to Bachmann, Knobel had already proposed this identification. Keil, after Schultz, suggests Khirbet- Belameh, half an hour south of Jenin. — Tr.] 8 Levy (Ptwnizische lmchriften, i. 35) thought that he ^ead this Dor on a Sidonian inscription together with Joppa. t is very doubtful whether he has found any one to agree with him. 4 [On the derivation and radical idea of the word 072, opinions are very much divided. There is no unanimity ven as to the usage of the word. Keil (on 1 Kgs. iv. 6, Sdinb. ed. 1857) asserts that it " nowhere signifies vertigal. .ribute, or socage, but in all places only serf or socager." proposals and conditions. In this sense it is to be taken Ex. ii. 21, where Moses consents to enter into the family of Jethro. Upon the proposals made by Micah to the Levite (Judg. xvii. 11), the latter consents to remain with him. David willingly ac- quiesces in the proposal to wear the armor of Saul, but finds himself as yet unaccustomed to its use. Manasseh was too weak to expel the inhabitants of these cities. He therefore came to an under standing with them. He proposed that they should peaceably submit themselves. Unwilling to leave the fine country which they occupied, and seeing that all the Canaanites round about bad been over- powered, they acceded to the proposition. Ver. 28. When Israel was strong, they made the Canaanite tributary. The narrator general- izes what he has said of Manasseh, and applies it to all Israel. The Canaanite, wherever he was not driven out, but " consented " to remain, was obliged to pay tribute. This lasted, of course, only so long as Israel had strength enough to command the re- spect of the subject people. Similar relations be- tween conquerors and conquered are of frequent occurrence in history. The inhabitants of Sparta, the Periceki, were made tributary by the victorious immigrant Dorians, and even after many centuries, when Epaminondas threatened Sparta, were in- clined to make common cause with the enemy (Manso, Sparta, iii. i. 167). According to Mo- hammedan law, the unbeliever who freely submits himself, retains his property, but is obliged to pay poll-tax and ground-rent (cf. Tomauv, Das Most. Reck, p. 51). When the Saxons had vanquished the Thuringian nobility, and were not sufficiently numerous to cultivate the land, " they let the peas- antry remain," says the Sachsenspiegtl (iii. 44), and took rent from them (cf. Eichhorn, Deutsche Staats und Rechtsy., § 15). The treatment which the Israelitish tribes now extended to the Canaan- ites, was afterwards, in the time of their national decay, experienced by themselves (cf. my Histori/ of the Jews in Ersch & Gruber, II. xxvii. 7, etc.). The word DO, by which the tribute imposed is desig- nated, evidently means ground-rent, and is related to the Sanskrit mddmetior, to measure. Another expression for this form of tribute is the Chaldee fTTO (Ezra iv. 20), for which elsewhere ^'~ appears (Ezra iv. 13). The Midrash (Ber. Rabba, p. 57, a), therefore, rightly explains the latter as Vv^'? i ~'?^?) ground-rent. The terms mensura and mensuraticum, in mediaeval Latin, were formed in a similar manner. The Arabic 3~0, Talmudic njIS, also, as Hammer observes (Landerverwali des Chalifats, p. 119), mean tribute and corn. 4 But the better view seems to be that although it is some times used concretely for socagers or bond-servants, (cf. 1 Kgs v.27(13}), yet its proper and usual meaning is tribute-sero'c* Out of the twenty-three instances in which the word occurs, there is not one in which it can be shown that it means tribute in money or products ; while it is abundantly evi dent that in many cases it does mean compulsory laboi, personal service. What kind of service the Israelites here re- quired of the Canaanites does not appear. It may have been labor on public works, or assistance rendered at certain timeH to the individual agriculturist. This appears at least as probable as Bachmann's suggestion that perhaps ' f the Ca- naanite merchants " were expected to furnish certain tr com- mercial supplies and services." Our author's view in fa vol of " ground-rent."' caouot be said to derive the support of analogy from his historical references. For as Bacnmanc 46 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. [But did not drive them out. Bertheau : '' ittT-nrrsb E^/irn : the emphatic expression by means of the infinitive before the finite verb, we regard as indicative of an implied antithesis ; but, although Israel, when it became strong, had the power to execute the law of Moses to destroy the Canaanites, it nevertheless did not destroy them." • Tk.] Ver. 29. And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanite that dwelt in Gezer. The situa- tion of Gezer may be exactly determined from Josh. xvi. 3. The border of Ephraim proceeds from Lower Beth-horon, by way of Gezer, to the sea. Now, since the position of Beth-horon is well ascertained (Beit 'Ur et-Tatha), the border, run- ning northwest, past Ludd, which belonged to Ben- jamin, must have touched the sea to the north of Japho, which likewise lay within the territory of Benjamin. On this line, four or five miles east of Joppa, there still exists a place called Jesor (Jazour Yazur), which can be nothing else than Gezer, although Bertheau does not recognize it as such (p. 41 ; nor Kitter, xvi. 127 [Gage's Transl. iii. 245]). It is not improbable that it is the Gazara of Jerome (p. 137, ed. Parthey), in quarto miUiario Nicopoleos contra septentrionem, although the dis- tance does not appear to be accurately given. The Ganzur of Esthor ha-Parchi (ii. 434), on the con- trary, is entirely incorrect. The position of Gezer enables us also to see why Ephraim did not drive out the inhabitants. The place was situated in a fine, fertile region. It is still surrounded by noble corn-fields and rich orchards. The agricultural population of such fruitful regions were readily permitted to remain for the sake of profit, especially by warlike tribes who had less love and skill for such peaceful labors than was possessed by Issa- char. Ver. 30. Zebulon did not drive out the in- habitants of Kitron nor the inhabitants of NahaloL This statement will only confirm the remarks just made. There is no reason for con- tradicting the Talmud (Mec/illa, 6 a), when it defi- nitely identifies Kitron with the later Zippori, Sepphoris, the present Seffurieh. As the present village still lies at the foot of a castle-crowned emi- nence, and as the Rabbinic name Zippori (Tsip- pori, from ""^SS, "a bird, which hovers aloft") indicates an elevated situation, the ancient name yvit?|? (from -1 ^i3 =-, £?) may perhaps be sup- posed to describe the city as the " mountain- crown " of the surrounding district. The tribe of Zebulon, it is remarked in the Talmud, need not commiserate itself, since it has Kitron, that is, Sep- phoris, a district rich in milk and honey. And in truth SefifQrieh does lie on the southern limit of the beautiful plain el-Buttauf, the present beauty and richness of which, as last noted by Robinson (ii. 336), must formerly have been much enhanced by cultivation. In connection with this, it will also be possible to locate Nahalol more definitely, l'hi- lologically, it is clearly to be interpreted " pasture" (Isa. vii. 19). It answers perhaps to the later justly remarks, " the case in which the conquerors of a country leave the earlier population in possession of their lands on condition of paying ground-rent, is the reverse of what takes place here, where a people, themselves agricul- turists, take personal possession of the open country, and concede a few cities to the old inhabitants.*' It is probable, However, that the situation varied considerably in different localities, cf. ver. 31 f. and ver. 34. — Tr.] 1 Wetjstein (Haiimn, p. 881 writes : "Of Ziphron (Arab. Abilin, a place from which a wady somewhat U the northwest of Sefiurieh has its name. For thii name comes from Abel, which also means pasture. This moreover suggests the explanation why from just these two places the Canaanites were not ex- pelled. They both became tributary, and remained the occupants and bailiffs of their pastures ant? meadows. Vers. 31, 32. Asher did not drive out tha inhabitants of Accho, Zidon, Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, Rehob. The whole history of Israel can be nothing else than a fulfilling of the spirit of the Mosaic law. The division of the land of Canaan is a part of this fulfillment. This divis- ion therefore cannot have respect only to the terri- tory already acquired, but must proceed according to the promise. The boundaries of the land des- tined for Israel were indicated by Moses. The ter- ritories which they circumscribe must be conquered. Whatever part is not gained, the failure is the fault of Israel itself. The boundaries indicated, were the outlines of a magnificent country. Splen- did coast-lands, stately mountains, wealthy agri- cultural districts, rich in varieties of products and beauty, inclosed by natural boundaries. The whole sea-coast with its harbors — Phoenicia not excepted — was included ; the northeastern bound- ary was formed by the desert, and lower down by the river. The border lines of the land of Israel, drawn Num. xxxiv., are based upon the permanent landmarks which it offers ; they are accurate geo- graphical definitions, obtained from the wandering tribes of the land. It seems to me that it is only from this point of view that the hitherto frequently mistaken northern boundary of the land, as given Num. xxxiv. 7-9, can be correctly made out. " And this shall be your north border," it is there said : " from the great sea ye shall take Mount Hor as your landmark ; thence follow the road as far as Hamath ; and the border shall end in Zedad : thence it goes on to Ziphron, 1 and ends in Hazar- enan." The range of Mount Casius, whose south- ernmost prominence lifts itself up over Laodicea (the present Ladikieh), forms the natural northern boundary of Phoenicia. This is the reason why on coins Laodicea was called 1^332 GN, the " Be- ginning of Canaan," as it might lie translated. It is therefore also from the foot of this range that the northern boundary of Israel sets out. The name Mount Hor is simply the ancient equivalent of Mount Casius and also of the later Jebel Akra, which latter term furnishes a general designation for every mountain since the Greek Akra was ex- plained by the Arabic Jebel. From the foot of this mountain ancient caravan roads (suggested by flt^n S2 .) lead to Hamath, and from Hamath to the desert. At present, as in the time of the geographer Ptolemy, who indicated their course, these roads pass over Zedad, at the western en- trance of the desert, the modern Sitdud (Bitter, xvi. 5 [Gage's Transl. iii. 175); xvii. 1443, etc.). Thence the border went southward till it ended > Hazar-enan, the last oasis, distinguished by fertile meadows and good water (Euan), where the two Zifran) wide-spread ruins are yet existing. According to my inquiries, the place lies fourteen hours N. E. of Damascus, near the Palmyra road. It haa not yet, I think, been vis ited by any traveller."' It is impracticable here to enter into further geographical discussions, but the opinion of Keil (on Num. xxxiv. 7-9} who rejects the above determina- tion, cannot be a :cepted as decisive, if for no other reason on account of tie general idea by which he ie •videntl* influenced. CHAPTER I >7-3n. V principal roads from Damascus and Haleb to Pal- myra meet, and where the proper Syrian desert in which Palmyra (Tadmor) is situated begins. The name Cefiere on the Tabula Peutingeriana, Zoaria (for the Goaria of Ptolemy), at present Carietein, Kuryctein (Bitter, xvii. 1 4o7, etc.), may remind us of Hazor. Tadmor itself did not lay beyond the horizon of Israelitish views. Whithersoever David and Solo- mon turned their steps, they moved everywhere within the circle of original claims. Israel was not to conquer in unbridled arbitrariness : they were to gain those districts which God had promised them. Conquest, with them, was fulfillment. The eastern border lias the same natural character. From Hazar-enan it runs to Shepham, along the edge of the desert to Riblah (the present Ribleh) •'on the east side of Ain " (Rob. iii. 534), along the range of Antilebanon, down the Jordan to the Dead Sea. These remarks it was necessary to make here where we must treat of the territories of Asher and Naphtali, the northwestern and north- eastern divisions of Israel. For it must be assumed that Asher's territory was considered to extend as tar up as Mount Hor, — that the whole coast from Accho to Gabala was ascribed to him. This coast-region Asher was not sufficiently strong and numerous to command. The division of the land remained ideal nowhere more than in the case of the Phoenician cities. Nowhere, conse- quently, was the remark of ver. 32 more applica- ble : " the Asherite dwelt among the inhabitants of the land ; " whereas elsewhere the Canaanites dwelt among Israel, though even that was against the Mosaic commands. Nor can it be supposed that the seven cities expressly named were the only ones out of which Asher did not expel the Canaan- ites. For who can think that this had been done in the case of Tyre, the " fortified city " (Josh. xix. 29) ! The names are rather to be considered as those of townships and metropolitan cities, so that when Zidon is mentioned other cities to the south and north are included as standing under Sidonian supremacy. The express mention of Tyre, in Josh. xix. 29, is due to the fact that the passage was giving the course of the boundaries. For the same reason, Joshua xix. is not a complete enu- meration of places ; for of the seven mentioned here, two at least (Accho and Ahlab) are wanting there. That Accho cannot have been accidentally overlooked, is evident from the fact that the bor- der is spoken of as touching Carmel, and that mention is made of Achzib. The relation of Asher to the Phoenician territory was in general the fol- lowing : A number of places (Josh. xix. 30 speaks of twenty two) had been wholly taken possession of by the tribe Outside of these, the Asherites lived widely scattered among the inhabitants, mak- ing no attempts to drive them out. The seven cities mentioned auove, especially those on the coast, are to be regarded as districts in which they dwelt along with the Canaanites. We have no reason for confining these to the south of Sidon. On the contrary, Esthor ha-Parchi (ii. 413-415) was right in maintaining that cities of the tribe of Asher must be acknowledged as far north as Lao- dicea. The statements in Joshua for the most part mention border-places of districts farther inland, in which the tribe dwelt, and from which the bound- ary line ran westward to the sea. Thus, at one time the line meandered (3 r *') to Zidon (xix. 28) ; then it came back, and ran toward Tyre (ver. 29). Nut till the words, " the ends were at the sea, "V • ; ^ '3Q1?>" do we get a sea-boundary from north to south. I translate this phrase, " from Chebel towards Achzib:" it includes the whole Phoenician tract. True, the whole enumeration implies that most of the places lay farther south than Zidon, in closer geographical connection with the rest of Israel. But places higher up are also named, fur the very purpose of indicating the ideal boundaries. Among these are the places men- tioned ver. 30, two of which again appear in our passage. Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Accho (Ptolemais, the present Akka), but dwelt among them. To the north of this Has Achzib (Kcdippa, the present ez-Zib). They dwelt with the inhabitants of Zidon in their dominion. They did not expel the inhabitants of Aphik (Aphecaj, on the Adonis river (Bitter, xvii- 553, etc.), not- withstanding the ancient idolatry there practiced, on account of which, evidently, it is mentioned. Rehob, since it is here named, must have been a not unimportant place. The Syrian translation of Rehob is S^72, KiTtabs, paltia, paltusa (plat: a 1 ). This accounts for the fact that the Greeks and Romans speak of an ancient Paltos, otherwise unknown (Bitter, xvii. 890), and of which the present Beldeh may still remind us. Hitherto, this has escaped attention. It was re- marked above that the sea-boundary is drawn, Josh, xix., " from Chebel to Achzib."" With this Chebel the na^H (Chelbah, E. V. Helbah), probably to be read n .;3r! (Cheblah), of our passage, may perhaps be identified. It is the Ga- bala of Strabo and Pliny, the Gahellum of the crusaders, the present Jebele, which lies to the north of Paltos, and below Laodicea, and in Phoe- nician times was the seat of the worship of the goddess Thuro (Ritter, xvii. 893; Movers, ii. 1, 117 ft"). There is but one of the seven cities of which we have not yet spoken, namely, Ahlab, named along with Achzib. It is very probable that this is Giscala, situated in the same latitude with Achzib. but farther inland. In Talmudic times the name of this place was Gush Chaleb; at present there is nothing but the modern name el-Jish to remind us of it. Ver. 33. Naphtali did not drive out the in- habitants of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath. The names of both these places allude to an idola- trous worship, and are also found in the tribe o r Judah. The name of Beth-anath (i~QV ST2), " House of Echo," from ""^2?, "to answer," indi- cates that its situation was that of the present Banias, the ancient Paneas. The inscriptions on the grotto called Panium, still point to the echo. One of them is dedicated to the "echo-loving" (ipiAeiriix?) Pan. The love of Pan for the nymph Echo was a widely-spread myth. Another inscrip- tion tells of a man who dedicated a niche (Koyxv) to the Echo (Commentary on Seetzeii's Reisen. 'v 161, 162). The introduction in Greek times of Pan worship in Banias, is moreover also explained by the fact that the name Bethanas (th), required* only an easy popular corruption to make it Paneas . _ _, , ^'-^-, L L*.«..t,..l*M Cnald.. p. 1740), but also in proper 1 The Targum also translates 2PT by NrWT2" G x 11 tot only when use )) "and onward, be- cause it is taken for granted that the further course of the border to the "Brook of Egypt " is known from the determinations of Moses as recorded in Numbers. There it was said, " Your border shall go to the south of Maaleh Akrabbim (at the south- ern extremity of the Dead Sea), pass through Zin, and its end shall be to the south of Kadesh-barnea." Here, the statement is somewhat more exact, inas- much as the border is prolonged from Akrabbim eastward to Sela, i. e. Petra. From Akrabbim westward it proceeds along the already indicated route, over Kadesh-barnea, Hazar-addar, and Az- mon, to the "Brook of Egypt" (Wady el-Arish, Rhinocorura). This course the writer deemed suf- ficiently indicated by the words " and onward." l HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Obedience and love toward God are wrecked on greediness and love of ease. Immediately after the death of Joshua, the children of Israel asked after God. But very soon they ceased to do that which Moses, and, in his name, Joshua had commanded them. Their business was to conquer, and not to tremble at strongholds or chariots of iron. They were to expel, and not to take tribute. But their heart was no longer entirely with their God They i [The foregoing paragraph, rendered somewhat obscure by its brevity, was explained by the author, in reply to eoine inquiries, as follows: "I endeavored to show that the idea of the passage is, that the original boundary lines of Israel, as drawn by Moses, had nowhere been held against the Amorite, i. e. the original inhabitants, except only in the south. Everywhere else, the inhabitants of Canaan, especially the Amorite, had thus far prevented the Israelites from taking full possession of the land ; but in the south the boundary between Israel and the Amorite remained as drawn by Moses, in Num. xxxiv. 3. I would ask that in connection with this the remarks under vers. 31, 32, be con- sidered. The whole first chapter is an exposition of the fact that Israel had not yet attained to complete possession of Canaan. It is a spiritual-geographical picture of what Israel had not yet acquired, and what nevertheless it should possess." In other words, Dr. Cassel's idea is, that the main thought of ch. i. may be expressed in two sentences: 1. On the west, north, and east Israel did not actually realize the assigned boundary lines between itself and the original inhabitants — the term Amorite being used in the wider sense it sometimes has. Cf. Gage's Ritter. ii. 125. 2. On the south, the Mosaic line was made good, and con- tinued to be held. The first of these sentences is expressed indirectly, by means of illustrative instances, in vers. 4-35 ; the second, by direct and simple statement, in ver. 36. In that verse, the narrative which in ver. 9 set out from Ju- dah on its northward course, returns to its starting-point, and completes what might be called its tour of boundary in- spection, by remarking that the southern boundary (known as southern by the course ascribed to it) corresponded to the Mosaic determinations. Ver. 36, therefore, connects itself with the entire previous narrative, and not particularly with vera. 34, 35. This explanation labors, however, under at least one very ferious difficulty. It assumes that in the expression tr border of the Amorite,' 1 the gen. is an adjective gen., making the phrase mean the Amoritish (Canaanitish) border, just as we «peak of the (t Canadian border," meaning the border of the U. S. over against Canada. But in expressions of this kind, the gen. is always the genitive of the possessor, so that the border of the Amorite, Ammonite, etc., indicates the boun- dary of the land held by the Amorite, Ammonite, etc. It teems necessary, therefore, with Bertheau, Keil, Bachmann, ■tc., to read this verse in connection with vers. 34, 35, and to tnd in it a note of the extant of territory held by the Am . forgot, not only that they were to purify the land, and alone control it, but also why they were to do this. They were indulgent to idolatry, because the worm was already gnawing at their own re ligion. They no longer thought of the danger of being led astray, because they were unmindful of the word which demanded obedience. Perfect obe- dience is the only safe way. Every departure from it leads downhill into danger. Thus we have it explained why so many under- takings of Christians and of the church fail, even while the truth is still confessed. The word of God has not lost its power; but the people who have it on their tongues do not thoroughly enter into its life. The fear of God is still ever the beginning of wisdom ; but it must not be mixed with the fear of men. Preaching is still ever effective ; but respect to tribute and profitable returns must not weaken it. Perfect obedience has still ever its victory ; but that which does not belong to God comes into judg- ment, even though connected with Christian mut- ters. Israel still confessed God, though it allowed the tribes of Canaan to remain ; but nominal ser vice is not enough. When confession and life do not agree, the life must bear the consequences. Starke : We men often do not at all know how to use aright the blessings which God gives, but abuse them rather to our own hurt. — The same : Our corrupt nature will show mercy only there where severity should be used, and on the other hand is altogether rough and hard where gentle- orite. The question then arises, how it is to be explained We take for granted that the Maaleh Akrabbim of this verse is the same as that in Num. xxxiv. 4 (a line of cliffs, a few miles below the Dead Sea, dividing the Ghor from the Arabah, see Rob. ii. 120), and is not, as some have thought, to be sought in the town Akrabeh, a short distance S. E. of Nabulus (Rob. iii. 296). The other point mentioned Is V/'OTl, the Rock. Commentators generally take this to be Petra, in Arabia Petra?a ; but the difficulties in the way of this view are insurmountable. In the first place we never hear of Amorites (take it in the wider or narrower sense) so far south as Petra, in the midst of the territories of Edom. In the next place, H 73?Q means upward, i. e. under the geographical conditions of this verse, northward (Dr. Cassel's onward, i. e. downward to the sea, could scarcely be defended). Now, a line run- ning from Akrabbim to Petra, and thence northward, would merely return on its own track, and would after all leave the Amorite territories undefined on just that side where a defi- nition was most needed because least obvious, namely, the southern. It seems, therefore, altogether preferable (with the Targ., Kurtz, Hist. O. Cov. iii. 239, Keil, and Bachm.) to take 3?73i"T as an appellative, and to find in it a second point for a southern boundary line. Kurtz and Keil identify it with rc the (well-known) rock " at Kadesh (the Kudes of Row- lands, cf. Williams, Holy City, i. 463 ff.), from which Mosea caused the water to flow, Num. xx. 8. Bachmann prefers the "bald mountain that ascends toward Seir " (Josh. xi. 17), whether it be the chalk-mountain Madurah (Rob. ii. 179), or, what he deems more suitable, the northern wall of the Azazimat mountains, with its masses of naked rock. In the vast confusion that covers the geography of this region, the most that can be said, is, that either view would serve this passage. In either case we get a line running from Akrab bini on the east in a westerly direction. From this south- ern boundary the Amorite territories extended tf upwards." But when ? Manifestly not at the time of which ch. i. treats, cf. ver. 9-19. The statement refers to the time be fore the entrance of Israel into Canaan, and is probably in- tended to explain the facts stated in vers. 34, 36, by remind* iug the reader of the originally vast power of the Amorite It was not to be wondered at that an enenry once so power ful and widely diffused should still assert his strength ir some parts of his former domain. Cf Bachmann — Tr.] CO THE BOOK OF JUDGES. ness might be practiced. — The same : Self-con- ceit, avarice, and 6elf-interest can bring it about that men will unhesitatingly despise the command of God. When human counsels are preferred to the express word and command of God, the result is that matters grow worse and worse. FScott : The siu [of the people in not driving out the Canaanites] prepared its own punishment, and the love of present ease became the cause of their perpetual disquiet. Henry : The same thing that kept their fathers forty years out of Canaan, kept them now out of the full possession of it, and that was unbelief. — Te.1 SECOND SECTION. THE RELIGIOUS DEGENERACY OF ISRAEL WHICH RESULTED FROM ITS DISOBEDIENT CONDUCT WITH RESPECT TO THE CANAANITES, AND THE 8EVERE DISCIPLINE WHICH IT RENDERED NECES- SARY, AS EXPLAINING THE ALTERNATIONS OF APOSTASY AND SERVITUDE, REPENTANCE AND DELIVERANCE, CHARACTERISTIC OF THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES. A Messenger of Jehovah charges Israel with disobedience, and announces punishment The people repent and offer sacrifice. Chapter II. 1-5. 1 And an angel [messenger] of the Lord [Jehovah] came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up J out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers ; and I said, I will never break my covenant with 2 you. And [But] ye shall make no league [covenant] with the inhabitants of this land ; ye shall throw down 2 their altars : but ye have not obeyed [hearkened to] my 3 voice : why have ye done this? 3 Wherefore [And] I also said, [in that case — ;, e. m the event of disobedience] i I will not drive them out from before you ; but they shall be as 4 thorns in your sides. 6 and their gods shall be [for] a snare unto you. And it came to pass, when the angel [messenger] of the Lord [Jehovah] spake [had spoken] 6 these words unto all the children [sons] of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice, am" 5 wept. And they called the name of that place Bochim [weepers] : and they sacrificeo. there unto the Lord [Jehovah]. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 1. — n /VS. Kbil: " The use of the imperfect instead of the perfect (cf. ch. vi. 8) is very singular, seeing that the contents of the address, and its continuation in the historical tense (K S 2S*1 and Ht2S l\ require the preterite. The imperfect can only be explained by supposing it to be under the retrospective influence of the immediately following imperfect consecutive . M De Wette translates, t( I said, I will lead you up out of Egypt, and brought you into the laud," etc. This supposes that ^^1"]TDS, or some such expression, has dropped out of the text, or is to be supplied. This mode of explaining the imperfect is favored (1), by the fact that we seem to have here a quotation from Ex. iii. 17; but especi- ally (2j, by the "^Sl before the last clause of this verse, and the ^"^ES D31 of ver. 3, which suggest that the same rerb is to be understood in ver. la. — Tr.] [2 Ver. 2. — ^!|2riri, from *f H3, to tear down, demolish. On the form, cf. Ges. Gram. § 47, Rem. i. — Tr.) [8 Ver. 2. — More literally : " What is this that ye have done ! " t. c. How great is this sin you have committed ! cf. ch. viii. 1. — Tr.) [4 Ver. 3. — Dr. BachmanD interprets the words that follow as a definite judgment on Israel, announcing that henceforth Jehovah will not drive out any of the still remaining nations, but will leave them to punish Israel. It is undoubtedly true that s iTnQS D!H may be translated, ft therefore, now, I also say ; '' but it is also true that it is more natural here (with Bertheau, Keil, Cass.) to render, ,: and I also said." To the citations of earlier divine utterances in vers 1. '2 (see the Comment.), the messenger of Jehovah now adds another, from Num. xxxiii. 65, Josh, xxiii. 13. It is, moreover, n strong poiut against Bachinanns view that God does not execute judgment speedily, least of all on Israel We can hardly conceive him to shut the door of hope on the nation so soon after the departure of the latest surviving contempo- raries of Joshua as this scene at Bochim seems to have occurred, cf. the comparatively mild charges brought In the mes- lenger. as implied in ver. 2, with the heavier ones in ver. 11 ff- and ch. iii. 6. 7. Besides, if we understand a definite and Una! wntence to be pronounced here, w* must understand ch. ii. 20 f. as only reproducini: the same las Bachmann does), although CHAPTER II. 1-5. 51 Isrue > apt.stasy had become far more pronounced when the first Judge arose than it is now. It seems clear, therefore that we must here understand a warning, while the sentence itselt issues subsequently (cf. foot-note 3, on p. 62). — Tr.] [o Ver. 3. — Dr. Cassel translates : « they shall be to you for thorns." Cf. the Commentary. The E. "V. supplies " thorns ' from Num. xxxiii. 55 ; but it has to change n^U/ into DlP^^iS or D^^S.— Tr.] [6 Ver. 4. — Better perhaps, with De Wette : K And it came to pass, as the messenger of Jehovah spake, etc., that thi people," etc. On 3 with the infin. cf. Ges. Lex. a. 3, B. 5, b. — Tr ' EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. ) . And there came a messenger of Je- hovah. Israel had experienced the faithfulness of the Divine Spirit who, through Moses, led them forth from Egypt, and made them a people. In him, they conquered Canaan, and took possession of a noble country. In addition to this, they had the guaranty of the divine word (cf. Lev. xxvi. 44), that God would never forsake them — that the truth on which He had thus far built up their lite and nationality, would endure. Reason enough had been given them to fulfill everything prescribed by Moses, whether great or small, difficult or pleas- ant, whether it gave or took away. They had every reason for being wholly with their God, whether they waged war or enjoyed the fruits of victory. Were they thus with Him ? Could they be thus with Him after such proceedings in relation to the inhabitants of Canaan as ch. i. sets forth 1 Israel's strength consists in the enthusiasm which springs from faith in the invisible God who made heaven and earth, and in obedience to his com- mands. If enthusiasm fail and obedience be im- paired, Israel becomes weak. The law which it fol- lows is not only its rule of duty, hut also its bill of rights. Israel is free, only by the law ; without it, a servant. A life springing from the law, exhibited clearly and uninterruptedly, is the condition on which it enjoys whatever is to its advantage. To preserve and promote such a life, was the object of the command, given by Moses, not to enter into any kind of fellowship with the nations against whom they were called to contend. The toleration which Israel might be inclined to exercise, could only be the offspring of weakness in faith (Deut. vii. 17) and of blind selfishness. For the sake of its own life, it was commanded not to tolerate idol- atry within its borders, even though practiced only by those of alien nations. For the people are weak, and the superstitious tendency to that which strikes the senses, seduces the inconstant heart. It can- not be otherwise than injurious when Israel ceases to be entirely obedient to that word in whose or- ganic wisdom its history is grounded, and its future l Nevertheless, Keil also, in loc, has followed the older expositors. [We subjoin the main points on which Keil rests his interpretation : ,f n"il"T T|S^!3 is not a proprietor any other earthly ambassador of Jehovah, as Phinehas or Joshua (Targ., Rabb., Stud., Berth., and others), but the Angel of Jehovah, consubstantial with God. In simple his- torical narrative no prophet is ever called PPi"!^ ™TS .^2 i such are designated S"33 or S'3.3 ETK. as in ch. vi. ■ T T • ' 8, or Cri/S Il'V. 1 Kgs. xii. 22, xiii. 1, etc. The pas- sages, Hag. i. 13 and Mai. iii. 1, cannot be adduced against this, since there, in the prophetic style, the purely appella- tive significance of T^ST'w is placed beyond all doubt by the context. Moreover, no prophet ever identifies himself ■o entirely with God, as is here done by the Angel of Jeho- vah, In his address vers 1-3. The prophets always distin- guish themselves from Jehovah by this, that they intro- duce their utterances as the word of God by the formula " thus Baith Jehovah," as is also done by the prophet in ch. rt. 8. Nor does it conflict with the nature of | secured. Ruin must result when, as has been r** lated, the people fails in numerous instances to driv out the heathen nations, and instead thereof enter* [into compacts with them. Special emphasis was I laid, in the preceding narrative, upon the fact that , for the sake of tribute, Israel had tolerated the ' worship of the lewd Asherah and of the sun, in ! Apheea, in the Phoenician cities, in Banias, and in ! Beth-shemesh. When the occupation of Canaan was completed — a date is not given — the impres- sion produced by a survey of the whole land was not such as promised enduring peace and obedience to the Word of God. The organs of this word were not yet silenced, however. When the heads of Is- rael asked who should begin the conflict, the Word of God had answered through the priest ; and an- cient exegesis rightly considered the messenger of God who now, at the end of the war, speaks to Israel, to be the same priest. At the beginning, he answered from the Spirit of God ; at the end, he admonishes by an impulse of his own. There he encourages ; here he calls to account. There " they inquire of God ; " here also he speaks only as the " messenger of God." He is designedly called " messenger of God." Every word he speaks, God has spoken. His words are only reminiscences out of the Word of God. His sermon is, as it were, a lesson read out of this word. He speaks only like a messenger who verbally repeats his commission. No additions of his own ; objective truth alone, is what he presents. That is the idea of the T[S .'2, the messenger, S-y-yf Aos, according to every explan- ation that has been given of him. The emphasis falls here, not on who spake, but on ichat was spoken. God's word comes to the people unasked for, like the voice of conscience. From the antith esis to the opening verse of the Book, where the people asked, it is evident that no angel of a celes- tial kind is here thought of. Earlier expositors ought to have perceived this, if only because it is said that the messenger — Came up from Gilgal to Bochim. Heavenly angels "appear," and do not come from Gilgal particularly. 1 The connection of this statement the Angel of Jehovah that he comes up from Gilgal to Bo- chim. His appearance at Bochim is described as a coming up to Bochim, with as much propriety as in ch. vi. 11 it is said concerning the Angel of Jehovah, that "he came and sat down under the terebinth at Ophra." The only fea- ture peculiar to the present instance is the coming up r( from Gilgal." This statement must stand in intimate connection with the mission of the angel — must contain more than a mere notice of his journeying from one place to another." Keil then recalls the appearance to Joshua, at Gilgal. of the an- gel who announced himself as the " Captain of the host of Jehovah," and promised a successful issue to Hie siege of Jericho. " The coming up from Gilgal indicates, therefore, that the same angel who at Gilgal, with the fall of Jericho delivered all Canaan into the hands of the Israelites, ap- peared to them again at Bochim, in order to announce the divine decree resulting from their disobedience to the com- mands of the Lord." With this view Bachmann and Words- worth also agree. It must be admitted, however, that the appearance of the Angel of Jehovah, or indeed of any angel, in the character of a preacher before the assembled congre- gation of Israel is without a parallel in sacred history. Keil"i. supposition that he addressed the people only tbrouzh theu* 52 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. with the whole preceding narrative is profound md instructive. The history of Israel in Canaan begins in Oilgal. There (Josh. iv. 20 ff.) stood the memorial which showed how they had come through the Jordan into this land (03*?^ ^ ,: ?¥t \T!?^'7" v^ - ^he name Gilgal itself speaks of the noblest benefit bestowed on them — their liberation from the reproach of Egypt. There the first Pass- over in Canaan had been celebrated. Thence also begin the great deeds that are done after the death of Joshua. As now the messenger of God comes from Gilgal, so at first Judah set out from thence to enter into his possessions. A messenger who came from Gilgal, did by that circumstance alone remind the people of Joshua's last words and com- mands The memorial which was there erected rendered the place permanently suggestive to Israel of past events. From the time that Joshua's camp was there, it never ceased to be a celebrated spot (comp. 1 Sam. vii. 16) ; but that on this occasion the messenger comes from Gilgal, has its ground in the nature of his message, the history of which commences at Gilgal. Vers. 2, 3. Why have ye done this ? This sorrowful exclamation is uttered by the priest — according to Jewish exegesis, Phinehas, the same who spoke ch. i. 2 — after he has exhibited in brief quotations from the old divine instructions, first, what God has done for Israel, and then what Israel has done in disregard of God. The eternal God has enjoined it upon you, not under any circum- stances to enter into peaceful compacts with the idolatrous tribes and their altars among you, there- by authorizing them openly before your eyes to manifest their depravity and practice their abomi- nations — what have ye done! The exclamation is full of sharp grief; for the consequences are in- evitable. For God said (Josh, xxiii. 13) : "I will not drive out these nations from before you." Is- rael had its tasks to perform. If it failed it must bear the consequences. God has indeed said (Ex. xxiii, 29, 30), and Moses reiterates it (Deut. vii. 22), " By little and little I will drive out the Ca- naanite, lest the land become desolate." And this word received its fulfillment in the days of Joshua and subsequently. But when Israel disobeys, God will not prosper its disobedience. It must then ex- perience that which the messenger now with grief and pain announces : Since Canaanites remain among you, who ought not to remain, and whom ye could have expelled, had ye been wholly with your God (Deut. vii. 17 ff.), they will hurt you, though they are conquered. It is not an innocent thinn to suffer the presence of sin, and give it equal rights. They shall be thorns, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. The Hebrew text has D^") D^b :rrn : literally, " they shall be sides unto you." ~1? everywhere means " the side ; " and the explanations which make " adversaries, hostes" (Vulgate), "nets" (Luther), "torment- ors" (Sachs), out of it, are without any founda- tion. Arias Montanus, who gives in lateribits, fol- lows therein the older Jewish expositors ; but neither does the idea of " hurtful neighbors " lie in heads tr representatives, is against the clear import of vers. 4, 6, and not to be justified by a reference to Josh. xxiv. 1, 2. Besides, an assembly of the heads and representatives, presents the same difficulty as an assembly of all the people. Angels appear only to individuals; to Israel as a nation God neaks through prophets. — Tr] the word. From the fact that the Chalde* para phrast has ^iTJJJp, " oppressors," it would indeed seem that he read D s "!^ i fot in Num. xxxiii. 55 he also renders I* 1 !??! by W?' 1 '!. The Septua- gint rendering irvvoxds (the Syriac version of i* has the singular, cf. Kbrdam, p. 69), might seem to indicate a similar reading, although o-wexea occurs perhaps only twice for "T^S (1 Sam. xxiii, 8 ; 2 Sam. xx. 3). None the less does it appear to me to be against the language and spirit of Scripture, to read Q , ~}^ here. For not only does D , "]2 occur but once in Scripture (Lam. i. 7), but it is expressive of that hostility which arises in consequence of the state of things here described. Only after one has fallen into the snare begins that miserable condition in which one is oppressed by the enemy, while all power of resistance is lost. The following considerations may assist us to arrive at the true sense : Every sentence, from ver. 1 to ver. 4, is in all its parts and words a repro- duction of utterances by Moses and Joshua. Verse 1 is composed of expressions found as follows : n b?.b\ etc., Ex. in. 17; ^riMI, etc., Josh. xxiv. 8; Vr-PSIM, etc., Deut. i. 35 ; "1DN rfb, etc., Lev. xxvi. 44. Verse 2 likewise : HfTIDri sb, etc., Ex. xxiii. 32, Deut. vii. 2; DiTniri2TE) pShtFI, Ex. xxxiv. 13, Deut. vii. 5 ; C^Qt» Wb, Num. xiv. 22. The case is similar with ver. 3, and it is to be assumed that the parallel passages may be used to throw light on the text. Now, as the first parallel to the expression, " and they shall be to you for tsiddim (O^S)," we have the words in Num. xxxiii. 55 : " and they shall be to you for pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides (D^TiS Crrfb)." Not for "sides," therefore, but for " thorns in the sides ; " and we can as little believe that the same meaning would result if the expression were only " sides," as we can imagine the idea to remain unaltered if instead of " pricks in the eyes," one were to say, " they shall be to you for eyes." The second parallel passage is Josh, xxiii. 13 : they shall be to you for " scourges in your sides and thorns in your eyes." The enemies are compared, not with "sides" and "eyes," but with scourges and thorns by which sides and eyes are afflicted. Now as our passage as a whole corresponds entirely with those of Numbers and Joshua, save only that it abridges and epitomizes them, the threat which they contain appears here also, and in a similarly condensed form. It was sufficient to say, " they shall be to you for thorns ; " accordingly, instead of S^^ we are to read C"3!i (tsinnim for tsiddim), a change as natural as it is easily accounted for, since both words occurred not only in each of the other passages, but in one of them were joined together in the same clause Emendation in this instance is more conservative than retention, for it rests on the internal organic coherence of Scripture. 1 Tsinnah, tsinnim, tseninim, 1 [Bachmann is not inclined to admire the " conservative " character of this emendation. He holds to the reading of the text, and finds in it a free reference to Num. xxxiii. 66 and Josh, xxiii. 13, by virtue of which " the nations them- selves " — for, in his view, the ^"^^S S V (ver. 3) refer! CHAPTER n. 1-5. 5S are thorns, spina, pointed and stinging. The fig- ure is taken from rural life. Israel, in the con- quest, has acted like a slothful gardener. It has not thoroughly destroyed the thorns and thistles of its fields. The consequence will be, that sowing and planting and other field labors, will soon be rendered painful by the presence of spiteful thorns. What will turn the Canaanites into stingingweeds and snares for Israel 1 The influence of habitual intercourse. Familiarity blunts aversion, smooths away contrarieties, removes differences, impairs obedience. It induces forgetfulness of what one was, what one promised, and to what conditions one is subject. Familiar intercourse with idolaters will weaken Israel's faith in the invisible God who has said, " Thou shall not serve strange gods." Ver. 4. When the messenger had spoken these words, etc. It is most likely that the few sentences here given, are but the outlines of the messenger's address. But every word rests on the basis of instructions delivered by Moses and Joshua. The people are sensible of the surpassing reality of the blessings which they have received, and for that reason are the more affected by the thought of the consequences which their errors have brought upon them. For the fulfillment of the law of truth as to its promises, guarantees the same as to its threatenings. Their alarm on account of sin is the livelier, the less decidedly active their disregard of the Word of God has hitherto been. They have not yet served the gods whose temples they have tailed to destroy — have not yet joined in sin with the nations whom they suffered to remain. It was a weak faith, but not yet full-grown sin, by which they were led astray. God's messenger addresses " all the sons of Israel," for no tribe had formed an exception. In greater or less degree, they all had committed the same disobedience. The whole nation lifted up its voice and wept. Ver. 5. And they called the name of the place Bochim (Weepers). The messenger of the divine word, when he wished to address Israel, must have gone up to the place where he would find them assembled. Israel had been commanded, as soon as the Jordan should have been em--..!. and rest obtained, to assemble for feasts and sacri- fices at a sacred place (Deut. xii. 10). This order applied not to Jerusalem merely, but to " the place which the Lord your God shall choose in one of the tribes." Thither they are to go up, trusting in God and dismissing care. It was only at such festal assemblies that Israel could be met. There was the opportunity for preaching and admonition. The chosen place at that time was Shiloh. There the tabernacle had been set up (Josh, xviii. 1 ) ; and there the people assembled (cf. Josh. xxi. 2). Thither they went up from far and near, to attend festivals (Judg. xxi. 19), and to offer sacrifices (1 Sam. i. 3). The whole progress of Joshua was a going from Gilgal to Shiloh. Accordingly, tin messenger of God can have found Israel at no other place. His discourse produced a general outburst of weeping (cf. 1 Sam. xi. 4). And only because it was a weeping of penitence and shame before God, did the place where it occurred receive and retain the name Bochim. It was not a place otherwise nameless How could the place where kuch an assembly was held be without a name ! And how could it occur to the people to assemble rather to the nations of the unconquered border districts (cf. ch. ii. 23, iii. 1), than to the scattered remnants of Canaan (tea within the conquered territories - - " are described at tides for Israel, t. t. as cramping, burdensome, tormenting neighbors ' But is it quite "conservative v to attach the at such a place ! In Shiloh itself, some spot — perhaps that where the priest was accustomed to address the people — received the name Bochim. This name served thenceforth to recall the teari which were there shed. So do they show to-day in Jerusalem the "Jews' wailing-place " (El Ebra, Ritter, xvi. 350 [Gage's Transl. iv. 50]), where every Friday the Jews pray and lament. " And they offered sacrifices there. ' After repentance ana reconciliation comes sacrifice. HOMTLETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Faith and repentance come from preaching. God's messenger preaches, and Israel hears. The people acknowledge their sins, and weep. At that time only a divine admonition was needed to make them sacrifice again to their God. To fall is pos- sible even for one who has received so much grace as Israel had experienced in the lifetime of Joshua and after his death ; but he rises up as soon as the messenger of God touches his heart with the preaching of repentance. A generation which experienced divine miracles, and recognized them as divine, can be brought to repentance by that miracle which in the proclamation of the word of God addresses the souls of men. Therefore, let not the preaching of repentance fail to address all the people. But the preacher must be (1), a messenger of God; and (2), must not shun the way from Gilgal to Bochim, — must not wait till the people come to him in the place for preaching, but must go to them, until he find a Bochim, a place of tearful eyes. But as God's messenger he must give heed that the weeping be not merely the result of affecting words, but of a penitent disposition ; that it be called forth, not by the flow of rhetoric, but by memories of the grace of God hitherto experienced by the congregation. Starke : How great concern God takes in the salvation of men, and especially in the welfare of His church, appears clearly from the fact that He himself has often reasoned with them, taught them, admonished and rebuked them. The same : The Word of God has the power of moving and converting men. The same : To attest our repentance by tears as well as reformation, is not improper ; nay, re pentance is seldom of the right sort, if it does not, at least in secret, weep for sin. Geelach : He reminds them of earlier com mands, promises and threats, and shows them how their own transgressions are now about to turn into self-inflicted judgments. The people, however, do not proceed beyond an unfruitful sorrow in view of this announcement. [Henry: Many are melted under the word, that harden again before they are cast into a new mould. Scott: If transgressors cannot endure the re- bukes of God's word and the convictions of theit own consciences, how will they be able to stand before the tribunal of the holy, heart-searching Judge. The same : The worship of God is in its own nature joy, praise, and thanksgiving, and oui crimes alone render weeping needful ; yet, consider- ing what we are and what we have done, it is much idea of something cramping, etc.. to the simple word " side. 1 which on no other occasion appears with such horrible sug- gestions of compression an"" suffocation as Dr. B. would giTl it here ? — Te.] 54 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. to be wished that our religious assemblies were more frequently called " Bochim," the place of the weepers. " Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." Wordsworth • The Israelites called the place Bochim ; they named it from their own tears. They laid the principal stress on their own feelings, and on their own outward demonstrations of sor- row. But they did not speak of God's mercies ; and thev were not careful to bring forth fruits of repentance ; they were a barren fig-tree, having oul> leaves. Their's was a religion (such as is too com mon) of sentiment and emotion;, not of faith and obedience. The same : Reproofs which produce only rea'-s — religious feelings without religious acts — emu tions without effects — leave the heart worse than before. If God's rebukes are trifled with, His grace is withdrawn. — Tr.] An extract from the Book of Joshua shoiving when and through what occasion the relij- ious apostasy of Israel began. Chapter II. 6-10. 6 And when [omit : when] Joshua had [omit : had] let the people go, [and] the children [sons] of Israel went every man unto his inheritance, to possess [to take 7 possession of] the land. And the people served the Lord [Jehovah] all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived : Joshua, who had seen all 8 the great works of the Lord [Jehovah], that he did for Israel. And Joshua, the sun of Nun, the servant of the Lord [Jehovah], died, being an hundred mid ten years 9 old. And they buried him in the border [district] of his inheritance in Tinnia h-lieres, in the mount [mountains] of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill [north of .Mount] 10 Gaash. And also all that generation were gathered unto their father- : - and there arose another generation after diem, which knew not t e Lord [Jehovah], nor yet the works 8 which he had done for Israel. [1 Ver. 7. — D"*^ ^P"^.rL to prolong one's days, usually means, '' to live long;" but here the addition "aftel Joshua " shows that the expression is not to be taken in this ordinary acceptation, but according to the proper sense of the words : ;( they prolonged days (life) after Joshua," i. e. they survived him : not, ,r they lived long after Joshua,'' cf. the remarks of Bachmann quoted on p. 15. — Tr.] [2 Ver. 10. — The sing. suf. in 1\""P3S!, although the verb is plural, arises from the fact that the expression F)wK3 ViH^W /S, and others of like import, are generally used of individuals Habit gets the better of strict grammatical propriety. — Tr.] [-i Ver. 10. — Dr. Cassel : die Gott nicht kannten, unit [also] audi seine Titat nicht ,■ i. e. " wbo knew not Uod (Jehovah), nor [consequently], the works." The explanation of this rendering is that he takes (r knew " in the sense of ''acknowl- edge,'' see below ; so that the clause gives him the following sense : tr they acknowledged not what God had done for them, and of course did not rightly value his works. But. as Bachmann observes, t( *137"V frO conveys no reproach, but only states the cause of the ensuing apostasy. The new generation did not know the Lord and his work, sc. as eye witnesses (cf. ver. 7, iii- 2) ; they only knew from hearsay." — Tr.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Vers. 6-8. The penitence of the people at Bo- chim had shown that it had not yet fallen from its obedience to God, that it was still conscious of the blessings which bail been bestowed upon it. The promise made to Joshua (Josh. xxiv. 24) had as yet been kept. They still served the Lord. Their position in this respect was the same as when he dismissed the tribes to take possession of their several inheritances. This dismission introduced Israel to the new epoch, in which it was no longer guided by Moses or Joshua. Hence, the insertion of these sentences, which are also found in Josh. xxiv., is entirely appropriate. They describe the arhole period in which the people was submissive to the Word of God, although removed from under the direct guidance of Joshua. The people was Cihhful when left to itself by Joshua, faithful after his death, faithful still in the days of the elders who outlived Joshua. That whole generation, which had seen the mighty deeds that attended the con- quest of Canaan, stood firm. Our passage says, " for they had seen," whereas Josh. xxiv. 31 s;ivs, " they had known." " To see " is more definite than "to know." The facts of history may be known as the acts of God, without being witnessed and experienced. But this generation had stood in the midst of the events ; the movements of the conflict and its results were still present in their memories Whoever has felt the enthusiasm inspired by such victories and conquests, can never forget them. The Scripture narrators are accustomed, like the chroniclers of the Middle Ages, to repeat literally what has already been said elsewhere, in cases where modern writers content themselves with A mere reference. While we should have deemed it sufficient to appeal to earlier histories for an account CHAPTER II. 6-10. 54 of the death of Joshua, the narrative before us takes the more accurate method of literal repetition. Iience, the interruption of the course of thought ;ommeneed vers. 1-5, is only apparent. Vers. 6-10 explain the pious weeping of the people which vers. i and 5 recorded. Joshua's death, age, and burial are mentioned, because the writer wishes to indicate that Israel served God, not only after its dismission l ty the still living leader, but also after his decease. The less necessity there was for the statements of vers. 8 and 9, the more evident it is that they are borrowed from Josh. xxir. And we may congratu- late ourselves that by thi ■ means the name of the place where Joshua was buried, has been handed down to us in a second form. Yer. 9. And they buried fiim in Timnath- heres, in the mountains of Ephraim, north of Gaash In Josh. xxiv. 30, the place is called Timnath-serah C"HD for DTP). The most rever- ential regard for the Masoretic text will not refuse to acknowledge many variations in the names of places, arising especially from the transposition of letters (as ^30 and 2.-0 Josh. xix. 29). 1 Jew- ish tradition, it is true, explains them as different names borne by the same place ; but the name Cheres is that which, in Kefr Cheres, preserved it- self in the country, as remarked by Esthor ha- Farchi (ii. 434) and other travellers (Carmoly, pp. 212, 368,444, etc.). Eli Smith discovered the place, April 26, 1843. A short distance northwest of Bir-Zeit (already on Robinson's earlier map, cf. the later), near Wady Belat, "there rose up a gentle hill, which was covered with the rains or rather foundations of what was once a town of consider- able size." The spot was still called Tibneh (for Timnah, just as the southern Timnath is at present called Tibneh). The city lay to the north of "a much higher hill, on the north side of which (thus facing the city), appeared several sepulchral exca- vations." - No other place than this can have been intended by the Jewish travellers, who describe several graves found there, and identify them as those of Joshua, his father, and Caleb (Carmoly, p. 387). The antiquity of the decorations of these sepulchres may indeed be questioned, but not that of the sepulchres themselves. Smith was of opin- ion that hitherto no graves like these had been dis- covered in Palestine. Tibneh lies on the eastern side of Mount Ephraim, the same side on which, farther south, Beth-horon and Saris are found. " Mount Heres," which not the tribe of Dan. but only the strength of Ephraim, could render tribu- tary, must have lain near Saris, east of Aijalon. It is evident, therefore, that the name Heres must have been borne by this whole division of the moun- tains of Ephraim; and that the Timnath in which Joshua was buried, was by the addition of Heres distinguished from other places of the same name. In this way, the peculiar interest which led Eph- raim to administer justice on Mount Heres (cf. on ch. i. 35) explains itself. Yer. 10. And also all that generation, etc. Time vanishes. One generation goes, another ?omes. Joshua, who had died weary with years, ■vas followed into the grave by his younger con- •emporaries. The generation that had borne arms tfith him, had been buried in the soil of the prom- sed land; and another, younger generation lived. I A» C^C^n and CmiT, CK^S ,S and T wi, lib. I. cap sx. torn. 2, p. 137. and VJlpB?. Cf. Bochart, Hierozo- It had already grown up in the land which the fathers had won. It inherited from them only possession and enjoyment. It already felt itself at home in the life of abundance to which it was burn It could not be counted as a reproach to them tha they had not seen the mighty works of God in con- nection with the conquest (hence it is not said -"IST S;) ; but in the triteness of possession they utterly failed to acknowledge pBHJ S ' I their indebtedness for it to God. How Israel came into the land, they must indeed have known; but to " know Jehovah " is something higher. They did not acknowledge that it was through God that they had come thither. Their fathers had seen and it-It that victory and freedom came to them from the Lord. But they, as they did eat, built goodly houses, and dwelt in them (Dent. viii. 12). forgat God, and said (Dent. viii. 17) : " Our power and the might of our hands hath gotten us this wealth." Modern German history furnishes an instructive illustration. The generation which broke the yoke of servitude imposed by Napoleon, " felt their God," as E. M. Arndt sang and prayed. The succeeding age enjoys the fruits and says : " Our 5 kill and arms have smitten him." The living enthusiasm of action and strength, feels that its source is in the living God. It looks upon itself as the instrument of a Spirit who gives to truth and freedom their places in history. The children want the strength which comes of faith in that Spirit who in the fathers accomplished everything — and want it the more, the less they have done. Every- thing foretold by Moses goes into fulfillment. The later Israel had forgotten (Dent. viii. 14) what God had done for their fathers — in Egypt, in the des- ert, in Canaan. The phraseology is very sug- gestive ; they "knew not Jehovah, nor, conse- quently, the works which he had done for Israel.' Among the people, the one is closely connected with the other, as is shown by what follows. HO.MILETICAL A.VD PRACTICAL. One generation goes and another comes, but the word of lie"! abides forever. It holds good for fathers and children ; it judges ancestors and de- scendants. The new Israel had not beheld the deeds of Joshua and Caleb ; but the God in whose spirit they were accomplished, still lived. They had not witnessed the recompense which was vis itcd upon Adoni-bezek ; but the Word which prom ises reward and punishment, was still living. Israel apostatized not because it had forgotten, but be- cause sin is ever forgetful. When the blind man sins, it is not because he does not see the creation which God created, but because sin is blind both in those who see and in those who see not. Therefore, no one can excuse himself, when he falls away into idolatry. Creation is visible to all, all have come up out of Egypt, all enjoy the favor of their God. Inexperience, Satanic art.-- of temp- tation, temperament, can explain many a fall ; yet, no one falls save by his own evil lusts, and all wickedness is done before the eyes of God (ver. Starke : Constantly to remtmber and medi- tate on the works of God promotes piety, causing 2 Hitter xvi. 562, Gage's Transl. iv. 246 ; [.Smith's " Visti to Antiparris,"' in Bibliotheca Sacra for 1843 (published at New York) p. 484 Tr.] On the desire of the Bedouins to be buried on mountains, cf. Wetzstein, Hauran, p. 26- 56 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. as to fear God, to believe in Him, and to serve Him. Lisoo : As long as the remembrance of the mighty works of God continued alive, so long also did active gratitude, covenant faithfulness, en dure. The apostasy of Israel during the period of the Judges : Idolatry and its consequences. Chapter II. 11-15. 1 1 And the children [sons] of Israel did evil * in the sight of the Lord [Jehovah], and 12 served Baalim: Aid they forsook the Lord [Jehovah the] God of their fathers, which brought them out of the laud of Egypt [Mitsraim], and followed other gods, of the gods of the people [peoples] that were round about them, and bowed themselves 13 unto them, and provoked the Lord [Jehovah] to anger. And [Yea] they forsook the 14 Lord [Jehovah], and served Baal and Ashtaroth. And the anger of the Lord [Jehovah] was hot [kindled] against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that [and they] spoiled them, and he sold them [gave them up 2 ] into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before 15 their enemies. Whithersoever [Wheresoever] 8 they went out, the hand of the Lord [Jehovah] was against them for evil [disaster], as the Lord [Jehovah] had said, and as the Lord [Jehovah] had sworn unto them : and they were [became] greatly distressed. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. Ver. 11. — l?nn : lit. "the evil." The use of the article, however, scarcely warrants the stress laid ou it by Dr. - T 'S Ml (see below), as 3?H("T, although most frequently used of idolatry, occurs also of 6in in general and of other sins - Num. xxxii. 13 ; 2 Sam. xii. 9 ; Ps. li. 6. The art. is probably used here as with other words denoting abstract ideas, ■ . Qm. Gt. § 109, Rem. 1, c. — Te.] [1 Ver. 14. — Bachmaitn : " The giving up to the enemy is represented as a selling. The term of comparison, however, the price received, but the complete surrender into the stranger's power." — Tr.] ft Ver. 16. — The E. V. takes 733 = D'inO"732, and ~lt£7S an the accus. whither, cf. Num. xiii. 27. So also L ' t t : ' •-• -: •er tbeau, Keil, and most versions and commentators. Dr. Cassel takee "ItJTS M accus. where, as in Gen. xxxv. 13, i Sam. vii. 7. Dr. Bachmann thinks it safer " in accordance with 2 Kgs. xviii. 7 (cf. Josh. i. 7, 9), to understand the whole expression not of the place of the undertaking, but of the undertaking itself (cf. Deut. xxviii. 20 : */23 na73?FI "Itl'SI *[T nbtrO, with ver. 19 : . . . . "•""TIN'22 ^Sb?) : lit. " in all what = for what they went out,"', e, (since the* connection points to matters of war) in all undertakings for which they took the field. It is at least safe to say that 2 Kgs. xviii. 7 requires this interpretation of the phrase in question, cf. Thenius in toe. — Ts.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Vers. 11-13. And they did the evil in the sight of Jehovah. In what the evil consisted, we are soon informed : they served other gods, not their God. These other gods of the nations round about them, are national gods. They severally represent the morals, inclinations, and aptitudes, of those nations. The heathen god is the embodi- ment of the spiritual life and character of the peo- ple that worships him. The God of Israel is the guidance, but to its own strength. Hence also, as soon as Israel forgets God as the author of its his- tory, it falls into the service of other gods, since these are the opposite of the absolute God, namely, the visible embodiment of the nation's own seif. The God of Israel is a God on whom the people feels itself dependent ; the heathen deity, with its material representation, is the resultant of the popular will. The very moment in which the impatient Israel of the desert forsook God, it wor- shipped the golden calf, the type of Egypt. Now, ven- opposite of this. He is the God of the uni- in Canaan also, Israel is induced to forget God as verse, inasmuch as He created heaven and earth ; its benefactor. It seeks to remove the contrariety and the God of Israel, inasmuch as He elected them which exists between itself and the Canaanites : to from among the nations in order to be a holy peo- cancel the dividing-lines drawn by the law of the pie unto Himself. The law is the abstract repre- invisible God. It can have fellowship with the rentation of that divine morality which is charac- other nations only by serving their gods. Among teristic of the holy nation, a* such. Israel forsakes the nations of antiquity no leagues found place God, when it does not follow this law. It forgets I except on the basis of community in sacred things : God, when it ascribes to itself that which belongs j for in these the national type or character ex- to Him; when it explains the history of its wars ' pressed itself. In the Italian cities, a union foi »nd victories by referring them, not to divine joint-sacritices was called concilium, and formed the CHAPTER II. 11-15. & indispensable prerequisite to connubium and com- meraum. The children of Israel, for the sake of their neighbors, forget their God. To please men, they do " the evil in the sight of the Lord." Evil, V~l, is the opposite of what God wills. Whatever the laws forbids, is " evil." " Ye shall not wor- ship strange gods," is the burden of the first, and the ultimate ground of all, commandments. There- fore, when Israel serves them it does what is, not simply " evil," but " the evil " (3^n). The trains of thought of the simple sentences, are bound to- gether by a profoundly penetrating logic. The new generation no longer knows the works of God in Israel's behalf. Hence it longs for intercourse with the nations round about. For these have not been driven out. In order to gratify this longing, it serves their strange gods. But thereby it for- sakes Jehovah, and provokes Him to anger. And they served Baalim. Baal OS?), as deity, is for the nation, what as master he is in the house, and as lord in the city. He represents and impersonates the people's life and energies. Hence, there is one general Baal, as well as many Baalim. The different cities and tribes had their individual Baalim, who were not always named after their cities, but frequently from the various characteris- tics for which they were adored. The case is an- alogous to that of Zeus, who by reason of his various attributes, was variously named and wor- shipped in Greece. The Israelites, as they forgot their own God, apostatized to that form of Baal service which obtained in the tribe or city in wmich they happened to live, according to the manifold modifications which the service of the idol assumed. Our passage reproduces very closely the words of the ^losaic law (cf. Deut. xvii. 2, 3 ; xxix. 25 (26)), except that it substitutes Baalim for elohim acherim, other gods. Eluhim acherim is of universal compre- hensiveness. " Other gods " being forbidden, the false gods of all ages and countries, whatever names they may bear, are forbidden. Acher is " another, not in any sense implying coordina- tion, but as expressive of inferiority, spuriousness. It is used like erepos, posterior, and the German after and aber. [Aberglaube [superstition] is a false nlaube [faith], just as elohim acherim are false gods. 1 ) Baalim is here substituted as being the current name of the countr}' for the false god. And in tmth the very name of Baal, in its literal significa- tion, expresses the contrast between him and the absolute and true Elohim, Jehovah. For as Baal (i. e. Lord. Master), he is dependent on the ex- istence of him whose Baal he is, just as he is no husband who has not a wife ; whereas it is the na- ture of the absolute God to be perfectly free and independent of every extraneous object. These Baalim were the " gods of the nations who dwelt roundabout them." Every word of ver. 12 indi- cates that what now occurred, had been foretold by Moses (cf. Deut. xxviii. 20; xxxi. 16; Lev. xxii. 33). The chief passages which are kept in view, ire Deut. vi. 10 ff. ; xxix. 25 ff. Ver. 13 begins with the same words as ver. 12, "they forsook 3od," not to repeat but to strengthen the state- Bent. It must astound the reader that they have 1 Of. my Abhnndlung ubtr Wissenjeh- und Akademien, p. ixxvifi. 2 Compare Methuastartus (n~int£7j?1i'"l^), formed ike M&thubaal, Methusalem, Man of (belonging to) Astarte. Compare jH^Htl^^K, " mv mother is Astarte," on the forsaken God (2!^ has the sense of our expres- sion " to ignore one," " not to notice him," as one lets a poor mac stand and beg without noticing him), to serve "Baal and Ashtaroth." Israel, the narrator wishes to say, was actually capable of Living up its own glorious God, who brought if up out of Egypt, for the sake of Baal and Ash- taroth! The statements of vers. 11, 12, 13, and 14 form a climax; for sin is not stationary, but sinks ever deeper. Ver. 1 1 had said that " they served Baalim. Ver. 12 intimates that this was in fact nothing else than that which Moses, in the name of God, had described as the deepest and most radical crime of which the nation could be guilty. Ver. 13 shows the blindness of Israel in its deepest darkness. The people has forsaken its God of truth and purity, for the sake of Baal and Ashtaroth ! That has come to pass against which Deut. iv. 19 warned as possible : " Lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, all the host of heuven, shouldest bow down to them and serve them. " The luminaries of the heavens are the original symbols of ancient idolatry. Baal answers to Zeus, the Greek Lightgod. Ashtaroth, in like manner, corresponds to Hera (according to the meaning of her name, a Baalah), the Star-queen. Ashtoreth means " the star " P^P* 1 ?. Persian sitareh, karnp, star) ; in the plural her name is Ashtaroth. This plural ex- presses the Scripture phrase " host of heaven," in one collective conception. As Elohim in its plural form represents the Deity, so Baalim represents Baaldom, and Ashtaroth the shining night-heavens. (Just as cives and civitas, C s /"S^ and i~ 1 T y? > are used to express all that is included in the idea of the State.) The Greek form of Ashtoreth, it is well known, was Astarte. Hence, names formed like Abdastartus ' 2 (Servant of Astarte), find their contrast in such as Obadiah (Servant of Jah), formed in the spirit of the Israclitish people. As- tarte represents on the coast of Phoenicia the same popular conception, suggested by natural phenom- ena, which till a very late period Asia Minor worshipped in the goddess of Ephesus. The Greek conceptions of Hera, Artemis, and Aphrodite do not so coalesce in her as to prevent us from clearly finding the common source. From the instruc- tive passages of Scripture, in which the language shows a relation of Astarte to the propagation of flocks (Deut. vii. 13; xxviii. 4), it is evident that as luminous night-goddess she, like Hera, was a patroness of corporeal fertility, an Ilithyia, Lucina, Mylitta. On account of this idea, which is char- acteristic of both goddesses, the heavenly Hera (Juno codestis) coincides with Aphrodite Urania, so that Hesychius remarks concerning Belthis (Baalath), that she may be the one or the other. Astarte was worshipped as Ashtoreth, not only in Zidon (1 Kgs. xi. 5 ; 2 Kgs. xxiii. 13), but through- out Canaan ; special mention is made of her temple in Askclon (1 Sam. xxxi. 10). It is evidently this temple of which Herodotus (i. 105) speaks as dedi- cated to Aphrodite Urania, and which, as the national sanctuary of Askelon, the Scythians de- stroyed. It was On account of its national charac Sidonian Inscription of Eshmunazar. Rodiger (Zeitschrift • d. d. m. Ges., 1865, p. 656) regards it as an abbreviation for mnit'SnCS, " maid-servant of Astarte." wherein he if followed by others. 58 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. ter, that the Philistines deposited in it the arrnor of Saul as trophies. They saw in its goddess the victor over the defeated enemy, just as at Ephesus the repulse of the Cimmerians was attributed to the aid of Artemis. Powers of resistance and de- fense were ascribed to all those Asiatic goddesses who presided over the principle of fecundity in nature. Their weapons protect pacific nature and that which she cherisht*, against the hostility of wild and savage forces. The worship of the Ephe- sian goddess is founded and celebrated by Ama- zons. Juno, the celestial, is represented with lance in hand. The same conception is indicated by an- cient representations of Aphrodite, in which she appears armed and prepared for battle. Astarte is at all events considered favorable to her nation in war, since trophies of victory hang in her temple, and the capital of the terrible warrior Og bears the name Ashtaroth (Josh. ix. 10 ; xii. 4). This King Og of Bashan is regarded as a scion of the mighty Rephaim. These latter have their seat at Ashte- roth Karnaim, where they are attacked by the eastern kings (Gen. xiv. 5). Ashteroth Karnaim points to the horns of the crescent moon, by which also Astarte of Askelon is indicated on the coins of that city (cf. Stark, Gaza, p. 259). The armed Aphrodite in Sparta is the same with Helena or Selene, the moon-goddess, — a fact clearly demon- strative of her identity with Astarte. Moon and stars, the luminaries of the night-sky, are blended in Ashtaroth. She represents the collective host of heaven. Before this " host " Israel bowed down when it forsook its " Lord of hosts." Baal and Ashtaroth stand for the whole national worship of Phoenicia, over against Jehovah, the God of the universe. They are the representatives of their na- tion's prosperity ; and it is therefore a profound conception, which Epiphanias says some held (Hceres. lv. cap. 2), which makes Hercules (Baal) to be the father, and Ashtaroth (or Asteria. tJjk (tol 'Aorepi'ap, ) the mother, of Melchizedek. Thus when Melchizedek bowed himself before Abraham and Abraham's God, the national spirit of Canaan submitted itself. When Israel prostrates itself be- fore such symbols, it cannot fail to provoke the an- ger of its God. Ver. 14. And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel. A climax appears also in the expressions concerning the displeasure of God. First, that which they do is evil in his sight (ver. 11); then, they provoke Him to anger 'ver. 12; cf. Deut. iv. 25; ix. 18); finally, hi: anger is kindled (ver. 14; also Num. xxv. 3; xxxii. 13). And He delivered them into the hands of the oppressors [spoilers] — and gave them up into the hands of their enemies. 1 Thus far the phraseology has been literally quoted from Mosaic utterances, except that Baal and Ashtaroth were substituted for sun, moon, and stars. The above words occur here for the first time. They express the historical consequences of Israel's wrong-doing. When Israel forsakes God and his law, it loses the basis of its nationality. With God and God's law, and through them, it is a people; without them, it has neither law nor national power. The gods after whom they run, do not at all belong to them. On the contrary, they are the property of nations "■ho are their enemies. Israel left Egypt a crowd 1 [On these words Bachmann remarks : r ' This does not de- *■ 1 1 '■■*■ a twofold visitation, either simultaneous or successive : first spoiling, then servitude (P. Mart.), or roving robber bands and regular hostile armies (Schm.) ; still less(Cajet.) i threefold degree of calamity — spoiling, slavery, flight [the of slaves. It was God's own revelation of Himself fulfilling his promise to the fathers, that made il free. If it give up this revelation, it has no longer a basis of freedom. Freedom is henceforth impos- sible ; for by serving the gods of other nations, it dissolves its own national existence. Hence, this faithlessness towards God, is the worst folly against itself. For the enemy who gave way before Israel's God and Israel's enthusiasm, will no longer spare the conquerors of Canaan when, like men without character, they kneel at strange altars. When God who elected Israel is not in the midst of the nation as its protector, it is like the defenseless, hart which the hunter pursues. Such is the figure which underlies the expression : " and God gave them into the hands of their C'DC." The root rrotf, DDE?, is not found in the Pentateuch, and occurs here for the first time. The shosim are ene- mies of the property of another, robbers, plunder- ers, — as the hunter robs his game of life and hap- piness. The word is kindred to the Greek x^fa, with the same meaning, although, to be sure, only the passive x^C ^ 1 ^ m use * (It seems also that the Italian eweiure and the French chooser are to be derived from this word ; but cf. Diez, Lex. der Rom. Spr., p. 79). Israel, having broken its cov enant with God for the sake of men, was by these very men oppressed. They robbed it of goods and freedom. For God had " sold it," like a person who has lost his freedom. What but servitude remained for Israel when it no longer possessed the power of God '. It cannot stand before its enemies, as was foretold, Lev. xxvi 37, in somewhat differ ent words. A people that conquered only through the contrariety of its spirit with that of its enemies, must fall when it ceases to cherish that spirit. No one can have power to succeed, who himself de- stroys his sole vocation to success. Hence, Israel could no more be successful in anything. The measure of its triumph with God, i? the measure of its misery without Him. Apostasy from God is always like a return to Egypt into bondage (Deut. xxviii. 68). Ver. 15. As Jehovah had said, and as he had sworn unto them. By applying to their sin the very words used in the law, the narrator has already emphasized the enduring truthfulness of the divine announcements. Israel is to experi- ence that everything threatened comes to pass ; and with reason, for every promise also has been verified. But here he expresses himself still more plainly. The hand of the Lord (Deut. ii. 15) was against them for evil (Deut. xxix. 20), as He " bad sworn unto them." No sentence evinces more plainly how closely the narrator keeps to the Mo- saic writings. When God is said to swear unto Israel, it is almost always in connection with blessings to be bestowed. Only in two instances (Deut. ii. 14; cf. Josh. v. 6), the Lord is repre- sented as having sworn that to those who had not obeyed his voice, He would not show the land. In these, therefore, the oath is confirmatory of threat- ened punishment. The double form of expression also, that God spake and swore, is prefigured Deut. xxix. 12 (13). And they became greatly distressed, "'?*]• Deut. xxviii. 50-52 describes the plunderers, who latter indicated by f they were no longer able to stand before their enemies ' — Tr.] ; but God in abandoning the people to the resistless violence of their hostile neighbors, doel thereby deliver them into the hands of the spoilers." - Ta] CHAPTER II. 16-23. 59 •hall rob them of their cattle and their harvests. " Thou shah be distressed in all thy gates " (17 ~'?D?)i is twice repeated in ver. 52. The narrator presupposes intimate acquaintance with the ancient writings, and therefore cites only their salient points. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. After the judgment of the word comes the judg- ment of the 6word. He who ceases to remember the works of God, ceases also to enjoy the power of God. 1'or him who shuts his eyes, the sun affords no light. Men are judged by the truth which they despise, and betrayed by the sin which they love. Israel can no longer withstand the nations over whom it formerly triumphed, because it courts their idols and leaves its own God. Thus men suffer through the passions which they entertain. They are plundered, when instead of God, they serve Baal-Mammon. The judg raent of the word which they forsake, is confirmed Men lose the freedom of the children of God, when (1) they are no longer grateful to God; conse- quently, (2) remember Him no more; hence, (3) attend no longer to the preaching of repentance ; and despite of it, (4) serve idols. Starke : He who engages in another wor>hi]>, forsakes the true God, and apostatizes from Him. But woe to the man who does this: for he brings himself into endless trouble. The same : God is as true to his threats as to his promises. Lisco ■ The people whom trouble and bondage had brought to a consciousness of their guilt, sank again into idolatry through levity and commerce with heathen, and thus new chastisements became necessary. Gerlach : The judgment affords a deep glance into God's government of the world, showing how He makes all sin subservient to his own power, by punishing it with the very evils that arise from it. The interposition of God in Israel's behalf by the appointment of Judges. Deliverance and the death of the Deliverer the occasion of renewed apostasy. Chapter II. 16-23. 16 Nevertheless [And] the Lord [Jehovah] raised up judges, which [and they] 17 delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. And yet they would not [But neither did they] hearken unto their judges, but 1 they went a whoring* after other [false] gods, and bowed themselves unto them : they turned quickly b out of the way ' which their fathers walked in, obeying 8 the commandments of the Lord 18 [Jehovah] ; but they did not so. And when the Lord [Jehovah] raised them up judges, then the Lord [Jehovah] was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge : (for it repented the Lord [Jehovah] because of their groanings [waitings c ] by reason of them that oppressed d them and 19 vexed [persecuted 6 ] 4 them.) And [But] it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned [turned back], and corrupted themselves 6 more than their fathers, in following other [raise] gods to serve them, and to bow down unto tliem ; they ceased not from 6 their own [omit : own] [evil] doings/ nor from their stubborn 20 way. g And the anger of the Lord [Jehovah] was hot [kindled] against Israel ; and he said, Because that this people hath transgressed my covenant 11 which I com- 21 manded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice ; I also will not hence- forth [will not go on to] drive out any [a man] from before them of the nations 22 which Joshua left when he died : that through them I may prove [in order by them to prove '] 7 Israel, whether they will keep the way of the Lord [Jehovah] to walk 23 therein, as their fathers did keep it, or not. Therefore [And] the Lord [Jehovah] left those [these] nations [at rest k ], without driving them out hastily [so that they should not be speedily driven out], neither delivered he them [and delivered them not] into the hand of Joshua. » V«r. 17. — ?I3T *3, etc., cf. Dent. mi. 16. » Ver. 17. — "lnQ TID, cf. Ex. xxxii. 8 ; Deut. is. 12. e Ver 18. — Di~lpS3, from HS3, cf. Ex. ii. 24, vi. 6. d Ter. 18.— ^nb, cf. Ex. in. 9. • Ver. 18. — pni appears here for the first time. Cf. the Greek $i.u>ku. f Ver. 19. — Cf. Deut. xxviii. 20. g Ver. 19.— ntTi?, with reference tc Ex. xxxiil. ( T 'T 7 etc., where already Israel is called P]H Vnt^p. n Ver. 20. — Cf. Josh. vii. 11. i Ver. 22. — Cf. Ex. xvi. 4 ; xx. 20 ; Deut. Tiii. 2. 10 xiii. 4 (3). k Ver. 23 — Cf. Num. xxxii. 15. 30 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 17. — Dr. Cassel has denn," for."' f * But " is better. On ^3 after a negative, cf. Ges. Gr. p. 272, at tup. — Ti- ps Ver. 17. — That is, as often as a Judge had succeeded in bringing them back to the way of their fathers, the! quickly left it again. So Bachmann. — Tr.] [8 Ver. 17. — 3?Qti?7 : " in that they obeyed." On this less regular, but by no means rare (cf. ver. 19, Ps. lxxviii 18 ; 1 Sam. xx. 20 ; etc.) use of the infin. with 7, cf. Ew. 280 d. — Tr.J [4 Ver. 18. — pFI^, only here and in Joel ii. 8. If the clause were rendered : " before those that crowded (t^riv, cf. on ch. i. 31) and pressed upon them." its metaphorical character would be preserved as nearly as possible. — Tr.] [C Ver. 19. — The E. V. is correct as to sense ; but the Hebrew phrase, filled out, would be, (f they corrupted their way," cf. Gen. vi. 12. — Tr.] [6 Ver. 19. — }Q ^w^Sn N / : lit. tr they caused not (sc. their conduct, course of action) to fall away from their (evil) deeds." — Tr.] [7 Ver. 22. — j"T1l3D ^3?£2/« Grammatically this infin. of design may be connected either with ?]*D^M fcO, ver. 21, ~)£5S S 1, ver. 20, or 3T *\ The first construction (adopted by E. V.) is inadmissible, because, 1. It suppose* that Jehovah himself continues to speak in ver. 22, in which case we should expect *3TT"jHSI, nrst P eT -- rather than mrP Tj'"!'!!'"'"^^ 2* It supposes that the purpose to prove Israel is now first formed, whereas it is clear from ch. iii 1, 4, that it was already operative in the time of Joshua. This objection is also fatal to the construction with ""ISN S 1, adopted by Keil. (That Dr. Cassel adopts one of these two appears from the fact that he reads: ff whether they will (instead of would, me farther on) keep the way of Jehovah," but which of the two is not clear.) It remains, therefore, to connect with 273?, against which there is no objection, either grammatical or logical. " For in such loosely added infinitives of design, in which the subject is not definitely determined, the person of the infin. goes back to the preceding principal word only when no other relation is more obvious, see Ew. 337 b (cf. Ex. ix. 16). But that here, as in the perfectly analogous parallel passage, ch. iii. 4, the design expressed by the infin. is not Joshua's nor that of the nations, but Jehovah's, is self-evident, and is besides expressly declared in ver. 23 and ch. iii. 1. So rightly LXX. It. Pesk. At. Aug. (ques. 17), Ser. Stud, and many others " (Bachinaoo). The connection from ver. 21 onward is there- fore as follows : In ver. 21 Jehovah is represented (cf. foot-note 3 on p. 62) as saying, " I will not go on to drive out the nations which Joshua left when he died." To this the author of the Book himself adds the purpose for which they were left, namely, to prove Israel, whether they would (not, will) keep the way t tTH"-T"iHS) °^ Jehovah to walk therein (C^, plur. " in them," constr. ad KfUUfft, the way of Jehovah cousisting of the TTirP HiS, Deut. viii. 2. — Keil), as their fathers kept it, or not. (r And so," he continues, i, e. in consequence of this purpose, K Jehovah (not merely Joshua) left these nations (rwS!""T, these, pointing forward to ch. iii. 1 ff., where they are enumerated,) at rest, in order that they should not speedily (for that would have been inconsistent with the design of proving Israel by them, but yet ultimately) be driven out, and did not give them into the hand of Joshua." But the tr not speedily " of Joshua's time had by Israel's faithless apostasy been changed into n never." — Tr.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. The first two chapters indicate, by way of intro- duction, the laws of historical cause and effect whose operation explains the occurrences about to be related in the succeeding pages. They are de- signed to give information concerning that most important of all subjects in Israel, — the relation of the will of God to his chosen people. Since pros- perity and calamity were both referred to God, it was necessary to explain the moral grounds of the same in the favor or wrath of God. It was most important, in view of the peculiar histories which were to be narrated, that the doubts which might be raised against the doctrine of God's all-power- ful and world-controlling direction, should be ob- viated. The connection between the national for- tunes, as about to be related, and the declarations of the Mosaic law, was to be pointed out. The reader was to be informed why the purposes of God concerning the glory of Israel in Canaan, as un- folded to Moses, had been so imperfectly fulfilled. In ch. i. a historical survey of the conquests of the tribes had been given, in order in connection there- Irith to state how little heed had been given to the behest of the law to expel the nations. In that lisobedience the germ of all subsequent misfor- tunes was contained. For by mingling with the leathen nations, the chosen people fell into sin. With Israel to fall from God was actually to fall back into bondage. In their distress and anguish, God (vers. 15 and 18) mercifully heard their crying, as he had heard it in Egypt (Ex. ii. 24; vi. 5) Now, as then. He raised them up heroes, whe through his might smote the enemy, and delivered the people from both internal and external bondage (ver. 16). This, however, did not remove the evil in its germ. Since the judgeship was not hereditary, the death of each individual Judge brought back the same state of things which followed the departure of Joshua and his contemporaries. The nation continually fell back into its old sin (vers. 18, 19). The history of events under the Judges, is the his- tory of ever recurring exhibitions of divine com- passion and human weakness. Hence, the great question in Israel must be one inquiring into the cause of these relations. If, the people might say, present relations owed their existence to the temp- tations occasioned by the remaining Canaanites, he on whom the first blame for not expelling them must fall, would be none other than Joshua ! Why did not that hero of God drive them all out of the land ! Why did he not secure the whole land, in alt its extended boundaries, for a possession to Israel? If only sea and desert had bounded their territories, Israel would have had no temptation to meddle with the superstitions of neighbors. Left to them- selves, they would have thought of nothing else than to serve their God. To this vers. 21 ff. reply : God is certainly the Helner and Guide of Israel, its Libera CHAPTER II. 11-23. 61 tor and Conqueror ; but not to serve the sinfulness and sloth of Israel. The Spirit of God is with Israel, when the freewill of Israel chooses obedience to God. But the freedom of this choice demonstrates itself only under temptation. Abraham became Father of the Faithful because, though tempted (Gen. xxii men and citizens. Originally, Moses, deeming i" his duty to exercise all judicial functions himself, was the only judge in Israel (Ex. xviii. 16). Bui when this proved impracticable, he committed thi lesser causes to trustworthy men from among the people, just as at the outset the Spartan ephor; ), he nevertheless stood firm. Fidelity and faith had authority only in unimportant matters. These approve themselves only in resistance to seductive he charged (Ex. xviii. 21 ; Deut. i. 16) to "judge influences. God in his omnipotence might no doubt remove every temptation from the path of believ- ers ; but He would not thereby bestow a boon on man. The opportunity for sinning would indeed be rendered difficult ; biit the evidence of victorious conflict with sin would be made impossible. Had God suffered Joshua to remove out of the way all nations who might tempt Israel, the people's in- ward sinful inclinations would have been no less, it would have cherished no greater love for God its benefactor, it would have forgotten that He was its liberator (ch. ii. 10) ; and the faith, the fidelity, the enthusiasm, which come to light amid the assaults of temptation, would have had no opportunity to win the approval of God or to secure the imparta- tion of his strength. Unfaithfulness, to be sure, must suffer for its sins ; but faithfulness is the mother of heroes. The Book of Judges tells of the trials by which God suffered Israel to be tried through the Canaanites, of the punishments which they endured whenever they tailed to stand the tests, — but also of the heroes whom God raised up because they preserved some faith in Him. The closing verses do not therefore contradict the open- ing of the chapter. The pious elders weep when from the words of the " messenger from Gilgal " they perceive the temptation. The unfaithful younger generation must suffer the penalty be- cause they yielded to the seduction. Joshua would doubtless' have expelled all the nations; but God did not permit it. He died ; but in Ins place God raised up other heroes, who liberated Israel when, in distress, it breathed penitential sighs. Such, in outline, are the author's thoughts as to the causes which underlie his history. He uses them to intro- duce his narrative, and in the various catastrophes of the history constantly refers to them. Vers. 16-19. And Jehovah raised them up Judges, n't2"tl\ Shophetim. This word occurs here for the first time in the special sense which it has in this period of Israelitish history, and which it does not appear to have had previously. t2St£? is to judge, to decide and to proceed according to the decision, in disputes between fellow-country- 1 A similarly formed title is that of Bilonnier, given by the French to the chief of the barristers, and yet very dif- ferent from the mediaeval btutonerius. 2 [Dr. Cassel's words are : Gesetz und Recht. For the tatter term, as technically used, the English language has no equivalent. It is Right as determined by law. — Tr.] 3 [Dr. Bachmann (with many others) reaches an entirely different definition of the "Judges." The Judge as such, he contends, acts in an external direction, in behalf of, Dot on, the people. A Judge, in the special sense of our Book, is first of all a Deliverer, a Savior. He may, or he may not, jxerr.ise judicial functions, properly speaking, but he is Judge because he delivers. This view he supports by an extended review of the urns loquendi of the word, and espe- cially by insisting that ch. ii. 16, 18 admits of no other definition. "Why," he asks, quoting Dr. Cassel, " if a Judge is first of all a restorer of law and right, does not ch. i. 11-19, which gives such prominence to the fact that the "breaking of the divine law is the cause of all the hostile oppressions endured by Israel, lay similar stress, when it lomes to speak of the Shophetim, on the restoration of the •lilthority of law, but, on the contrary, speaks of the deliv- ■hteously between every man and his brother.' For the future, he enjoins the appointment of judges in every city (Deut. xvi. 18). Their jurisdiction extends to cases of life and death, to matters of idol- atry as all other causes (Deut. xvii. 1-12 ; xxv. 2) ; and although the words are " thou shalt make thee judges," the judges are nevertheless clothed with such authority as renders their decisions completely and finally valid. Whoever resists them, must die (Deut. xvii. 12). The emblem of this authority, in Israel as elsewhere, was the staff or rod, as we see it carried by Moses. The root t2Ct£7 is therefore to be connected with tt^tS, staff (SKTrmpov, scipio. tOv^' is a staff-man, a judge. In the Homeric poems, when the elders are to sit in judgment, the heralds reach them their staves (11. xviii. 506) ; "but now (says Achilles, II. i. 237), the judges carry in their hands the staff." ' Judicial author- ity is the chief attribute of the royal dignity. Hence, God, the highest king, is also " the Judge of all the earth" (Gen. xviii. 25). He judges concerning right and wrong, and makes his awards accordingly. When law and sin had ceased to be distinguished in Israel, compassion induced Him to appoint judges again. If these are gifted with heroic qualities, to vanquish the oppressors of Israel, it is nevertheless not this heroism that forms their principal characteristic. That consists in "judging." They restore, as was foreseen, Deut. xvii. 7, 12, the authority of law. They enforce the penalties of law against the sin of dis- obedience towards God. It is the spirit of this law living in them, that makes them strong. The normal condition of Israel is not one of victory simply ; it is a condition in which ESpM ~fl law and right,- are kept. For this reason, God raises up Shophetim, judges, not princes (nesiim, sarim). The title sets forth both their work and the occasion of their appointment. Israel is free and powerful when its law is observed throughout the land. 3 Henceforth, (as appears from Deut. xvii. 14,) except shophetim, only kings, melakim, can rule in Israel. The difference between them erance of the people from its oppressors ? " To which it were enough to reply, first, that ver. 16 intends only to show how Israel was delivered from the previously mentionec consequences of its lawless condition, not how it was res- cued from the lawless condition itself ; and, secondly, that vers. 18, 19 clearly imply, that while military activity may (and from the nature of the case usually did) occupy a part of the Judge's career, efforts, more or less successful, to restore the supremacy of the divine law within the nation engage the whole. Hence, the Deliverer was rightly called Shophet, whereas in his military character he would have been more properly called y^tl'IB, cf. ch. iii. 9. Dr Bachmann, it is true, explains the title Judge (as derived from the second of the three meanings of tSC^ 1 ) *■ t0 J ua 8 e i 2. to save, namely, by affording justice ; 3- to rule) by the fact that the T. views the assistance sent by Jehovah tc his oppressed people as an act of retributive justice towards both oppressed and oppressor, cf. Gen. xv. 14 ; Ex. vi. 6, vii. 4 ; but in such cases Jehovah, and not the human organ through whom fle acts, is the Judge. — Tr.1 62 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. ties chiefly in the hereditariness of the royal office — a difference, it is true, of great significance in Israel, and closely related to the national destiny. The Judge has only a personal commission. His work is to re-inspire Israel with divine enthusiasm, and thus to make it victorious. He restores things to the condition in which they were on the death of Joshua. No successor were necessary, if with- out a judge, the nation itself maintained the law, and resisted temptation. Israel has enough in its divinelv-given law. Rallying about this and the priesthood, it could be free ; for God is its King. But it is weak. The Judge is scarcely dead, before the authority of law is shaken. Unity is lost, and the enemv takes advantage of the masterless dis- order. Therefore, Judges, raised up by God, and girded with fresh strength, succeed each other, — vigorous rulers, full of personal energy, but called to exercise judgment only in the Spirit of God. It has been customary, in speaking of the Punic suffetes, to compare them with the Israelitish sho- phefhiu And it is really more correct to regard the suffetes as consules than as kings. Among the Phoenicians also the idea of king included that of hereditariness. 1 The suffetes were an elected mag- istracy, whose name, like that of the Judges, was doubtless derived from the fact that they also con- stituted the highest judicial authority. They sat in judgment (ad jus dicendam) when the designs of Aristo came to light {Livy, xxxiv. 61). It is, in general, by no means uncommon for the magis- tracy of a city (summits rnagistratus), as iu the Span- ish Gades (Livy, xxviii. 37), to be styled Judges, i. e. suffetes. As late as the Middle Ages, the title of Spanish magistrates was judices. The highest i Which Movers (Pfionizier, ii. 1, 536) has improperly overlooked. As those who exercised governmental func- tions, properly symbolized by the sceptre, the Greek lan- guage could scarcely call them anything else than patnKeis. Some good remarks against Heeren's view of this matter were made by J. G. Schlosser (A/isioteUs 1 Politik, i. 195, 196). •2 It is only necessary to refer to Du Cange, under Ju- dices. Similar relations occur in the early political and judicial history of all nations. Cf. Grimm, Rec/itsaiierthiimer, p. 75*3, etc. 3 [Dr. Oassel, in striving after brevity, has here left a point of considerable interest in obscurity. Ver. 20 reads as follows : t( And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he said, Because this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened to my voice, I also will not, 1 ' etc. How is this verse connected with the preceding ? Vers. 11-19 have given a bird's-eye view of the whole period of the Judges. They have described it as a period of constantly renewed backsliding, calling down God's anger on Israel, and not permanently cured even by the efforts of the Judges. Thereupon ver. 20 proceeds as above; and the question arises, to what point of time in the whole period it is to be referred. Dr. Bachmann argues that iu ver. 20 the narrative goes back to the fr sentence " pronounced at Bochim (see ver. 3). " Ver. 20," he says, " adds [to the sur- vey in vers. 11-19] that, before God"s anger attained its complete expression in delivering Israel into the hands of strange nations {ver. 14), it had already manifested itself in the determination not to drive those nations out ; and with this the narrative returns to the judgment of Bochim." Accordingly, he interprets the **)pS s l, *'and he said," of ver. 20, as introducing an actual divine utterance, namely, the one delivered at Bochim. Without following the whole course of Dr. Bachmann's argument, it is enough here to say that his conclusion is surely wrong, and that the source of hiR error lies in the view he takes of the words spoken at Bochim, which are not a '' sentence " or ''judgment,'' but * warning t designed to obviate the necessity for denouncing udgment. The true connection, in my judgment (and as officer of Sardinia was termed judex.' 2 The Israel itish Judges differ from the suffetes, not so much by the nature of their official activity, as by the source, purpose, and extent of their power. In Israel also common shophetim existed everywhere ; but the persons whom God selected as deliverers were in a peculiar sense men ut" divine law and order. They were not regular but extraordinary authorities. Hence, they were not, like the suf- fetes, chosen by the people. God himself appointed them. The spirit of the national faith placed then: at the head of the people. Ver. 20, etc.* I will not go on to drive out a man of the nations which Joshua left when he died. The purport of this important sentence, which connects chapters i. and iii. historically and geographically, is as follows: The whole land, from the wilderness of Edom to Mount Casius and the " road to Hamath," and from Jordan to the sea, was intended for Israel. But it had not been given to Joshua to clear this whole territory. A group of nations, enumerated ch. iii. 3, had re- mained in their seats. Nor did the individual tribes, when they took possession of their allot- ments, make progress against them (cf. ch. i. 19, 34). Especially does this explain what is said above, eh. i. 31, of the tribe of Asher. Israel, therefore] was still surrounded by a circle of hea- then nations, living within its promised borders, to say nothing of those who with their idolatry were tolerated in the territory actually subjugated (cf. ch. i. 21, 27, 30J. These were the nations by whom temptations and conflicts were prepared for Israel, and against whom, led by divinely-inspired heroes, it rose in warlike and successful resistance I think Dr. Cassel also conceives it), is as follows: When Joshua ceased from war, there were still many nations left in possession of territory intended for Israel, cf. Josh. xiii. 1 ff. They were left temporarily, and for the good of Israel, cf. Judg. ii. 22, 23, iii. 1. 2. At the same time Israel was warned against the danger that thus arose, and distinctly told that if they entered into close and friendly relations with the people thus left, Jehovah would not drive them out at all, but would leave them to heroine a scourge to them, Josh, xxiii. 12 f. Nevertheless, Israel sooq adopted a line of conduct towards them such as rendered it inevitable that the prohibited relations must soon be established, cf. Judg. i. Then came the warning of Bochim. It proved unavailing. Israel entered into the closest connections with the heathen, forsook Jehovah, and served Baal aud Ashta- roth, ch. iii. 6, ii. 11 ff. The contingency of Josh, xxiii. 12, 13 had actually occurred, and its conditional threat passed over into irrevocable determination on the part of Jehovah. The time of the determination falls therefore iu the earlier part of the period of the Judges ; but as the moment at which it went into force was not signalized by any public announcement, and as each successive apostasy added, so to speak, to its finality, the author of the Book of Judges makes express mention of it (allusion to it there is already in vers. 14 b, 15 a.) only at the close of* his survey, where, moreover, it furnished an answer to the question which the review itself could not fail to suggest, Why did God leave these nations to be a constant snare to Israel? why was it, that even the most heroic Judges., men full of faith in God and zeal for Israel, did not exter- minate them ? The H72fcs a ^ of ver. 20, therefore, does not introduce an actual divine utterance. The author derivee his knowledge of God's determination, first, from Josh, xxiii. 13. and secondly, from the course of the history ; but in order to give tmpressiveness and force to his statement, he '■clothes it in the form of a sentence pronounced by God *' (Keil). The T in ~1H S T denotes logical, not temporal, sequence. On the connection of ver. 22 ff. with ver. 21, se« note 7 under the test. — Ta.] CHAPTER III. 1- 63 With their enumeration, briefly made in ch. iii. 1-5, the au hor closes his introduction to the nar- ration of subsequent events. The historical and moral background on which these arise, is now clear. Not only the scene and the combatants, but also the causes of conflict and victory have been indicated. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. The judgments of God are indescribable — his compassion is indefatigable. Whatever God had promised in the law, must come to pass, be it pros- perity or distress. Apostasy is followed by ruin ; the loss of character by that of courage. Heroes become cowards ; conquerors take to flight. Shame and scorn came upon the name of Israel. The nation could no longer protect its cities, nor indi- viduals their homes. In distress, the people re- turned to the altars which in presumptuous pride they had left. Old Israel wept when it heard the preaching of repentance ; new Israel weeps only when it feels the sword of the enemy. And God's compassion is untiring. He gave them deliverers, choosing them from among Israel's judges, making them strong for victory and salvation. But in hi* mercy He chastened them. For Israel must be trained and educated by means of judgment and mercy. The time to save them by a king had not yet come. Judah had formerly led the van ; but neither was the education of this tribe completed. Judges arose in Israel ; but their office was not hereditary. When the Judge died a condition of national affairs ensued like that which followed the death of Joshua: the old remained faithful, the young apostatized. The Judges for the most part exercised authority in single tribes. The heathen were not expelled from the borders assigned to Is- rael ; Israel must submit to ever-renewed trials ; and when it failed to stand, then came the judgment. But in this discipline, compassion constantly mani- fested itself anew. The word of God continued to manifest its power. It quietly reared up heroes and champions. The contents of these verses form the substance of the whole Book. Israel must contend, — 1, with sin, and 2, with enemies ; it ex- periences. — 1, the discipline of judgment, and 2, the discipline of compassion ; but in contest and in discipline that which approves itself is, — 1 , the vic- tory of repentance, and 2, the obedience of faith. Thus the contents of the Book of Judges afford a look into the history of Christian nations. They have found by experience what even in a modern novel the author almost involuntarily puts into the mouth of one of his characters (B. Abeken, Grei- fensee, i. 43): "Truly, when once the granite rock on which the church is reared has crumbled away, all other foundations crumble after it, and nothing remains but a nation of cowards and volup- tuaries." A glance into the spiritual life shows the same process of chastisement and compassion. The Apostle says (2 Cor. xii. 7): "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abun- dance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might de- part from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee : for my strength is made perfect in weakness." A recent philosopher ( Fischer, Gesch. der neueren Philos., i. 1 1 ) detines philosophy to lie, not so much universal science, as self-knowledge. If this be correct, repeutanee is the true philosophy , for in repentance man learns to know himself in all the various conditions of apostasy and ruin, reflection and return, pride and penitence, heart- quickening and longing after divine compassion. Starke : Fathers, by a bad example, make their children worse than themselves ; for from old sins, new ones are continually growing, The same ■ Although God knows and might immediately pun- ish all that is hidden in men, his wisdom employs temptation and other means to bring it to the light, that his justice may be manifest to his creatures. The same : Through tribulation and the cross to the exercise of faith and obedience, prayer and hope. And all this tends to our good ; for God tempts no one to evil. The same : Though God permit, He does not approve, the unrighteous oppressor of the unrighteous, but punishes his unrighteousness when his help is invoked. Lisco : God's judgment on Israel is the non-destruction of the heathen. Gerlach : From the fact that the whole history does at the same time, through scattered hints, point to the flourishing period of Israel under the kin^s, we learn that these constantly-recurring events do not constitute a fruitless circle, ever returning whence it started, but that through them all, God's providence conducted his people, by a road won- derfully involved, to a glorious goal. Enumeration of (ho heathen nation* left to prove Israel. Chapter III. 1-4. 1 Now these are the nations which the Lord [Jehovah] left [at rest], to prove Israel by them, (even as many of Israel as had not known [by experience] all the wars of Canaan ; 2 Only that the generations of the children [sons] of Israel might know to teach tliem 3 war. at the least such as before knew nothing thereof ; )' Namely, five lords [principalities] of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hi~ites that dwelt [dwell] in mount Lebanon, from mount Baal-hermon unto the entering in of I [lit. unto the coming i.e. the road to] Hamath. And they were to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the Lord [Jeho- vah], which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. u THE BOOK OF JUDGES. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [l Ver. 2 — Dr. C&ssel renders this verse freely : cc Only that to give experience to the generations of the sons of Lv rael, they might teach them war which they did not formerly learn to know. TI He supplies a second 7^?Q7 befori □172^^) (see the exposition below), and in a note (.which we transfer from the foot of the page), remarks : " Ver. 2 con- tains'two* subordinate clauses dependent on the subject of the principal sentence in ver. 1, which is r Jehovah.' In the first of these clauses (each of which is introduced by ]VQ7), the subject is ( Israel 1 (fully, ^""O^ fiTT^T): m the second, ( the nations.' The first expresses the result of the second; that which Israel experiences is, that the na- tions teach it war." Keil (who follows Bertheau) explains as follows : t( only (p^, with no other view than) to know the subsequent generations (j"Yl*"l'*T, the generations after Joshua and his contemporaries) of the sons of Israel, that He (Jehovah) might teach them war, only those who had not learned to know them (the wars of Canaan)." But, 1, if iTl")^ were in the accus., the author could hardly have failed to remove all ambiguity by prefixing VIS to it- 2. An iufin. of design with 7, following one with 7VQ7, without *1 to indicate coordination, can only be subordi- nate to the preceding. Thus in the English sentence : tf We eat in order to live to work,'' (t to work," would be at once interpreted as subordinate to " to live." A second ]V£2v might indicate coordination even without the assis- lance of ') cf. in English: ,( We eat in order to live, in order to work;" where we feel at once that "to live '' and t( to work " are coordinate so far as their relation to the principal verb is concerned. Hence, Dr. Cassel iusertt a second ]}?ft?j but this is an expedient too much like cutting the Gordiau knot to be satisfactory. Bachmann, who in the main agrees with our author, avoids this by treating D^Sl77 as a gerundive adverbial phrase. As for nV^T it is not indeed impossible that, remembering what he said in ch. ii. 10 (^V^ S/, etc.), and just now substantially repeated in ver. 1 b, the writer of Judges uses it here absolutely, to indicate briefly the opposite of the condition there described, in which case Dr. Cassel's rendering would be sufficiently justified. But since iHIHl W* 1 N 32 (ver. 2 a) clearly represents the M^ "Ht^S /3 HS of ver. 1 b, it seems obvious that the JH3?"-! of ver. 2 in like manner resumes the ]VD3 fTlttrwQ"73 j""lS ^""P of ver. 1. We may suppose, therefore, that the pronoun "them" is here, as frequently, omitted after j^l^T, and translate, freely, thus: "And these are the nations which Jehovah left to prove Israel by them — all that Israel which did not know all the wars of Canaan, in order that the after generations of Israel (they also) might know (understand and appreciate) them (i. e. those wars), in that he (t. e. Jehovah, or they, the nations) taught them war, (not war in general, however, but) only the wars whict (or, such wars as) they did not formerly know." The first p*^ as Bachmann remarks, limits the design of Jehovah, the second the thing to be taught. As to the last clause of ver. 2, if the accents be disregarded, the only difficulty in the way of the rendering here given is the plural suffix Q ■ but this probably arises from the fact that the writer's mind at once recurs to the " wars of Canaan." The 0*007, of old, is used from the point of time occupied by the ' r after gen- erations," as was natural to a writer who lived so late as the period of kings, and not from that in which the n*0n of ver. 1, and its design, took place. The masculine Q to represent a fern. plur. is not very unfrequent, cf. 2 Sam. xx. 3 ; 2 Kgs. xviii. 13. Dr. Bachmann connects the last clause with jHV 7 !, respects the accents (which join O*0£7 with "1T27S, not with D*1^?T* S 7), and renders : " that Israel might learn to know . . . war, namely, cnly those (wars) which were formerly, they did not know them= only the former wars which they did not know." The sense is not materially affected by this change. — Tb.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL- Ver. 1. All who had not experienced the wars of Canaan. Those are they of whom it was said, ch. ii. 10, that they " knew not the works of the Lord." This younger generation, after the death of Joshua and the elders, enjoyed the fruits of conquest, but did not estimate aright the great- ness of the dangers endured by the fathers, aud therefore did not sufficiently value the help of God. The horrors of war, to be known, must be ex- perienced. As if the conquest of Canaan had been jf easy achievement ! It was no light thing to triumph over the warlike nations. Was not the tribe of Judah, although victorious, obliged never- theless to abandon the valley to the iron chariots ? But of that the rising generation no longer wished to know anything. They did not know what " a rar with Canaan signified." Ver. 2. Only that to give experience to the generations of the sons of Israel they might teach them war, with which they did not before become acquainted. The construc- tion of the sentence is difficult, and conse- quently has been frequently misunderstood (among others, by Bertheau). The book which the nar- rator is about to write, is a Book of Wars ; and it is therefore incumbent upon him to state the moral causes in which these originated. God proves Is- rael for its own good. With this in view, " He left the nations in peace, to prove Israel by them." How prove Israel? By depriving it of rest through them. They compel Israel to engage in conflict. In defeat the people learn to know the violence of Canaanitish oppression, and, when God sends them heroes, the preeiousness of the boon of restored freedom. Only for this ; the emphasis of the verse CHAPTER III. 1-4. 65 foils on only (P - ^), which is introduced twice. Be- tween bsnif. and WV^f7 a ]V^1 1 is to he supplied. The Hebrew usus loquendi places both clauses (HSU ^Q 1 ? and OlT^f? 7?tf?), each beginning with 1V?7i alongside of each other without any connective, whereby one sets forth the ground of the other. God leaves the nations in peace, " in order that they might teach the Israel- ites what war with Canaan signified, — in order that those generations might know it who had not yet experienced it." It is not tor technical instruc- tion in military science that He leaves the heathen nations in the land, but that Israel may know what it is to wage war, that without God it can do noth- ing against Canaan, and that, having in the deeds of contemporary heroes a present counterpart of the experience of their fathers, who beheld the mighty works which God wrought for Israel through Moses and Joshua, it may learn humility and submission to the law. This reason why God did not cause the Canaanites to be driven out, does not, however, contradict that given in ch. ii. 22. Israel can apostatize from God, only when it has forgotten Him. The consequence is servitude. In this distress, God sends them Judges. These triumph, in glorious wars, over victorious Canaan Grateful Israel, being now able to conceive, in their living reality, the wonders by which God formerly raised it to the dignity of nationality, lias learned to know the hand of its God. Cf. ver. 4. Ver. 3. Five principalities of the Philistines. Josh. xiii. 2, seq., enumerates the nations which were to remain, with still more distinctness. There, however, the reason, given in our passage, why God let them remain, is uot stated. The principalities of the Philistines must be treated of elsewhere. The Canaanites and the Zidonians are the inhabi- tants of the Phoenician coast. The importance of Zidon has already been pointed out in ch. i. 31. The districts not under Zidonian supremacy, are referred to by the general term " Canaanite." The Hivite, here mentioned as an inhabitant of Mount Lebanon, does not occur under that name in Josh xiii. 5. He is there spoken of under the terms, "land of the Giblites (Byblus, etc.) and all Leba- non ; " here, a more general designation is em- ployed. The name "?n indicates and explains this in a manner highly interesting. The LXX. render ^n by Evaios , as for H jjn, the mother of all the living, they give E(/o. The word f^J^, '^t'7' t0 '' ve > whence i"Wn, includes the idea of " roundness, circularity of form " So the o>6v, ovum, egg, is round, and at the same time the source of life. Consequently, n*n and i~nn came to signify battle-array or encampment (cf. 2 Sam. xxiii. 11) and village (Num. xxxii. 41 ), from the circular form in which camps and villages were disposed. The people called Hivite is the people that resides in roundviUages. Down to the present day — marvelous tenacity of national custom! — the villages in Syria are so built that the eonicallv- shaped houses form a circular street, inclosing an open space in the centre for the herds and flocks. 1 Cf. Josh. iv. 24. [Compare the Dote under « Textual yii) Grammatical." — Tr.] 3 Cf. Preller, Gr. Mylkol., i. 77. He is such as ixpalos, tnaicpios. etc. That direcrdvTios also has no other meaning. PrelliT Bhows elsewhere. Mountain temples, says Welcker 5 Modern travellers have found this style of building still in use from the Orontes to the Euphrates (Hitter, xvii. 169S). It distinguished the Hivite from the other nations. And it is, in fact, found only beyond the boundary here indicated ; on northern Lebanon, above Mount Hermon. This therefore also confirms the remarks made above (at ch. i. 33), ou the parallel passage, Josh. xiii. 5, where we find the definition " from Baal-gad under Mount Hermon," whereas here we read of a "mount Baal Hermon." Baal Hermon, according to its signification, corresponds exactly with the present name Jebel esh-Sheikh, since on the one hand Sheikh may stand tor Baal, while, on the other, Hermon derived its name from its peculiar form. TO~?r! is a dialectic equivalent of the He- brew PS3~)S. I2~S is the height, the highlands: ]1!2~IS the prominent point, the commanding for- tress. Hermon, as the southern foot of Anti-Libanus, is it- loftiest peak. It towers grandly, like a giant (cf. Ritter, xvii. 151, 211), above all its surround- ings, — like a silver-rooted fortress of God. This is not the only instance in which Hermon is ap- parently the name of a mountain. It is probable indeed that to the Greeks the Hernuean Promon- tory ('Epu.aia &Kpa, Polyb. I. xxxvi. 11 ; cf. Man- nert, Geogr., x. ii. 512) suggested only some reference to Hermes. But the greater the diffi- culty of seeing why Hermes should give names to mountain peaks, the more readily do we recognize a ]"^":CJ> not only in this but also in the promontory of Lemnos, the Hermsean Rock ('Ep.uaiW \eVas) mentioned by Greek poets (iEschyl. Again., 283). It accords with this that Ptolemy specifies a Her- nuean Promontory in Crete also. It is evident how appropriately Hermon, in its signification of Armon, " a fortress-like, towering eminence," is used to denote a promontory. The Greek lutpa also has the twofold signification of fortress and prom- ontory; and Mount Hermon itself may to a certain extent be considered to be both one and the other. It is evident that when in Josh. xiii. 5 the bound- ary of the hostile nations is defined as running from " Baal-gad under Mount Hermon," and here as extending " from Baal Hermon " onward, the same -acred locality is meant in both passages, and that Baal Hermon is identified with Baal-gad. This is further continued by the following : The Talmud ( Chulin, 40 a ) speaks of the sinful worship which is rendered ~^3"^ ^7? ■ ' ,0 ,ne Godaof the mountain, i. e. as Raschi explains, the angel like unto Michael, who is placed over the mountains of the world. Moses ha-Cohen advances an equally ancient conception, current also among the Ara- bians, when he states [ap. Ibn Ezra, on Isa. lxv. 11), that Baal-gad is the star Zedek. i. e. Zeus. For Zeus is in fact the Hellenic deity of all moun- tain-peaks,'- the Great Baal Hermon. Hence it was customary among the Hellenes also to preparo sacrificial tables in the service of Zeus ; and with Isa. lxv. 11 we may profitably compare Pans. ix. 40, where we learn that in Chieronea, where the sceptre of Zeus was venerated as a palladium, "a table with meat and pastry was daily " prepared. At the birth of a son to her maid, Leah says (Gen. (Mythologie, i. 170), were erected to other gods only excep tionally. Ab for the temple of Hernies on Mount Cellene (Paus. viii. 17, 1), it could perhaps be made probable thai here also the name of the mountain suggested the worship of Hermes. 66 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. xxx. 11): "'3 S3 ; which the Chaldee translators already rentier by S2tS S13 (Jerus. Targ.) and S2D sVt!3 (Jonath.). ilTfiQ (cf. 2 Kgs. xxiii. 5), means, star; 21 JD >TO is the good star that ap- pears, — fortune, as the Septuaginta render ru^r;. Two planets, Jupiter and Venus, were ayaBovpyoi (Plutarch, Oe Is. et Os., cap. xlviii.), hearers of what is good. — fortune-bringers. Hence, Gad, as " Fortune, " could be connected both with Astarte (cf. Movers, Phorn., i. 636), and with Baal (Jupi- ter). 13 is manifestly the same as the Persian Kin (cf. lis and Tin, bra and ban, etc.), Ghoda, which signifies god and lord, quite in the cense of /?? (cf. Vullers, Lex. Pers. Lat., i. 660). If there be any connection between this term and the. Zendic hhadhata, it is only that the latter was used to designate the constellations. In heathen views of life, fortune and good coincide. To enjoy the good things of life is to be fortunate. Ayofli; tvxti is the Hellenic for happiness. The Syriac and Chaldee versions almost uniformly ren- der the terms ^tPN and pLaxaptos, blessed, which occur in the Old and New Testaments, by D1I2, good (cf. my work Irene, Erf. 1855, p. 9). In 13 the ideas God and Fortune coexist as yet un- resolved ; subsequently, especially in the Christian age, they were separated in the Germanic dialects as God and Good. For there is no doubt that in Gad (God), the good (fortunate) god and constel- lation, we find the oldest form, and for that reason a serviceable explanation, of the name God, which, like Elohim, disengaging itself from heathen con- ceptions, became the sacred name of the Absolute Spirit. At the same time it affords us the philolog- ical advantage of perceiving, what has often been contested (cf. DiefFenbach, Goth. Lex. ii. 416; Grimm. Myth. pp. 12, 1199, etc.), that God and Good actually belong together. Baal-gad was the God of Fortune, which was held to be the highest good. 1 — The meaning of flOn WO? has been indicated above (p. 46). HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. [Compare the Homiletical Hints of the preced- ing section. — Keil : In the wars of Canaan under Joshua, Israel had reamed and experienced that the power which subdued its enemies consisted not in the multitude and valor of its warriors but in the might of its God, the putting forth of which however depended upon Israel's continued faithful- ness towards its Possessor Now, in order to impress them with this truth, on which the existence and prosperity of Israel, and the realization of the purpose for which they had been divinely called, depended ; in other words, in order to show them by the practical lessons of experience that the People of Jehovah can fight and conquer only in the strength of their God, the Lord had 1 Movers (Phan. ii. 2, 515) thinks that he can explain ihe name of the Numidian seaport Cirta from *T3 U?S"^, tfhich is doubtful. On the other hand, when the Etymolog. Magnum, under TdSeipa, expresses the opinion that fades in Spain was so named because " ya£oe nap avroUrb suffered the Canaanites to be left in the land. Necessity teaches prayer. The distress into whicfc Israel fell by means of the remaining Canaanites, was a divine discipline, by which the Lord would bring the faithless back to Himself, admonish them to follow his commands, and prepare them for the fulfillment of his covenant-engagements. Hence, the learning of war, i. e. the learning how the People of the Lord should fight against the enemies of God and his kingdom, was a means ordained by God of tempting or trying Israel, whether thej would hearken to the commands of their God and walk in the ways of the Lord. When Israel learned so to war, it learned also to keep the divine commands. Both were necessary to the People of God. For as the realization by the people of the blessings promised in the covenant depended on their giving heed to the voice of the Lord, so also the conflict appointed for them was necessary, at well for their personal purification, as for the con- tinued existence and growth of the kingdom of God on earth. — Bertheau : The historian can- not sufficiently insist on the fact that the remaining of some of the former inhabitants of the land, after the wars of Joshua, is not a punishment but only a trial ; a trial designed to afford occasion of show- ing to the Israelites who lived after Joshua benefits similar to those bestowed on his contemporaries. And it is his firm conviction that these benefits, consisting chiefly of efficient aid and wonderful de- liverances in wars against the remaining inhabi- tants, would assuredly have accrued to the people, if they had followed the commands of Jehovah, especially that on which such stress is laid in the Pentateuch, to make no league with the heathen, but to make war on them as long as a man of them remains. Henry : It was the will of God that Israel should be inured to war, — 1. Because their country was exceeding rich and fruitful, and abounded with dainties of all sorts, which if they were not sometimes made to know hardship, would be in danger of sinking them into the utmost degree of luxury and effeminacy, — a state as destructive to everything good as it is to everything great, and therefore to be carefully watched against by all God's Israel. 2. Because their country iay very much in the midst of enemies, by whom they must expect to be insulted ; for God's heritage was as a speckled bird ; the birds round about were against her Israel was a figure of the church militant, that must fight its way to a triumphant state. The soldiers of Christ must endure hard- ness. Corruption is therefore left remaining in the hearts even of good Christians, that they may learn war, keep on the whole armor of God, and stand continually on their guard. Wordsworth : " To teach them war." So unbelief awakens faith, and teaches it war ; it excites it to contend earnestly for the truth. The dissemination of false doctrines has led to clearer assertions of the truth. Heresies have produced the creeds. " There must be heresies," says the Apostle, " that they who are approved among yo< may be made manifest" (1 Cor. xi. 19). — Tr.] e« fiixpCiv taKooop-npevov'' there is evidently no reference to ]l2p, but to Gad in the sense of Fortune. For the stress is laid not on the small beginnings, but on the good for tune, which from a small city made it great Tbja oi Movers, ii. 2, 621, not. 89 a. CHAPTER ILL 5-11. 67 PART SECOND. The History of Israel under the Judges : a history of sin, ever repeating itself, and of Divine Grace, constantly devising new means of deliverance. Meanwhile, however, the imperfections of the judicial institute display themselves, and prepare the way for the Appointment of a King. FIRST SECTION. THE SERVITUDE TO CHUSHAN-RISHATHAIM, KINO OP MESOPOTAMIA. OTHNIEL, THE JUDOK Of BLAMELESS AND HAPPY LIFE. Israel is given up into the power of Chushan-rishathaim on account of its sins . Othniel is raised up as a Deliverer in a?iswer to their penitence. Chapter III. 5-11. 5 And the children [sons] of Israel dwelt among [in the midst of] the Canaanites, 6 Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites: And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served 7 their gods. And the children [sons] of Israel did evil ' in the sight of the Lord [Jehovah], and forgat the Lord [Jehovah] their God. and served Baalim, and the 8 groves [Asheroth]. Therefore [And] the anger of the Lord [Jehovah] was hot [kindled] against Israel, and he sold them [gave them up] into the hand of Chushan- rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia [ Aram-naharaim] : and the children [sons] of Israel 9 served Chushan-rishathaim eight years. And when [omit: when] the children [sons] of Israel cried unto the Lord [Jehovah], [and] the Lord [Jehovah] raised up a deliverer to the children [sons] of Israel, who [and] delivered 2 them, even 10 Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. And the Spirit of the Lord [Jehovah] came [was] s upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war : and the Lord [Jehovah] delivered Chushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia [Aram] into his hand ; and his hand prevailed [became strong] 4 against Chushan-risha- 1 1 thaim. And the land had rest forty years : and Othniel the son of Kenaz died. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [I Ver. 7. — Literally, " the evil, 1 ' as at verse 12 and frequently. On the use of the article compare the tr Grammatical " note on ch. ii. 11. Wordsworth's note on the present verse is : " They did that evil which God had forbidden as evil.' — Tr.] 2 Ver. 9.— 2j7 , L*"i"1 (from I?^), here, without any preposition, with /N^fTO i~IS ' on the other hand at 2 Kgs. xiv. 27, "P2 is inserted. [De Wette, in his German Version, also takes Jehovah as subject of □3?" , tt , 'i ! ''l, which seems to be favored by the position of vWOP^? i*1M, which according to the common view would be separated from its governing verb by another verb with a different and unexpressed subject. But Dr. Cassel is certainly wrong when he supplies "through" instead of the " even " of our E. V., and so makes "Othniel" the medium by whom Jehovah delivered. That would be expressed either by ~P3 or by 2, cf. Hos. i. 7 ; 1 Sam. xiv 6; xvii. 47 Th« »cil» bS^Drn? DS are in apposition with V^EVTO. — Tr.] [8 Ver. 10. — So do Dr. Cassel and many others render TOTT ' but the rendering " came " is very suitable, if wit* Or. Bachmann, we assume TTFn, etc., to be explanatory of Df/*1, etc., in ver. 9. — TR.] 4 Ver. 11 — TVm. from TT37. [On the vowel in the last syllable, see Ges Gram. 67, Rem Jl — TR.J t T "' - T 58 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. BXEOET1CAL AND DOCTRINAL. Vtr. 5. And the sons of Israel dwelt. The introduction is ended, and the author now proceeds to the events themselves. Fastening the thread of his narrative to the relations which he has just unfolded, he goes on to say: Israel (therefore) dwelt among the Canaanite, Hittite, Amorite, Per- izzite, Hirite, Jebusite. The last of these tribes he had not in any way named before ; nor, apparently, is it accurate to say that Israel dwelt among the Jebusites. But the passage is a deeply significant citation. Deut. xx. 17 contains the following: " Thou shalt utterly destroy the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as Jehovah thy God hath commanded thee ; that they teach you not to do after all their abominations." But, says the narrator, the contrary took place ; Israel dwells amontr them, anil is consequently, as Moses fore- told, initiated into the sins of its neighbors. Hence, just as in that passage, so here also, only six nations are named. At Deut. vii. 1 the Girgashiles are added. The most complete catalogue of the nations of Canaan is given in Gen. x. 15 If. Another one, essentially different, is found Gen. xv. 19-21 . Here, the writer does not intend to give a catalogue ; he names the nations only by way of reproducing the words of Moses, and of manifesting their truth- fulness. Vers. 6, 7. And they took their daughters. Precisely in this consisted the " covenant " (n" , ~;5) which they were not to make with them. The reference here is especially to Deut. vii. 2 ft*. : " Thou shalt make no covenant with them. And thou shalt not make marriages with them ; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For it would turn away thy child from me, and they will serve false gods." All this has here come to pass. We read the consequence of intermarriage in the words : " and they served their gods." The same passage (Deut. vii. 5) proceeds : " Ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their Asheroth." But now Israel served " Baalim and Asheroth." It bent the knee before the altars of Baal and the idols of Astarte. Ashe- rah (see below, on ch. vi. 25) is the idol through which Astarte was worshipped. The altar was especially consecrated to Baal, the pillar or tree- idol to her. Hence the Baalim and Asheroth of this passage answer perfectly to the Baal and Ash- taroth of ch. ii. 13. Instead of destroying, Israel served them, "Q^ is to render bodily and per- sonal service. It is not a matter of thought or opinion merely. He who serves, serves with his bodv, — he kneels, offers, prays. The ancient trans- lators are therefore right in generally rendering it by Keirovpyelf. Among the Hellenes, liturgy (\eirovoyia) meant service which, as Biickh shows, differed from all other obligations precisely in this, that it was to be rendered personally. Hence, also, liturgy, in its ecclesiastical sense, corresponded perfectly with abodah (51125), and was rightly used to denote the acts of divine service. Now, when in this way Israel performed liturgy before idol images, that took place which Deut. vii. 4 1 [The " Crime-committing (Jrevelndc) Chushan." See Bertheau in loc. — Tb.] 1 Joeephus has \ovtrip9(K- On other readings see Haver lamp, ad Josh., i. 239, not. x. I The opinion of Bertheau that the prophet alludes to our foretold : " the anger of the Lord was kindled.' Whenever Israel, the people called to be free, falls into servitude, it is in consequence of the anger of God. It is free only while it holds fast to its God. When it apostatizes from the God of free- dom, He gives it up to tyrants, as one gives up a slave ("13??). Ver. 8. He gave them up into the hand of Chushan-rishathaim. The explanation of Risha- thaim, adopted by Bertheau, which derives it froir ^'^~!i and gives it the sense of " double injustice ' or " outrage," is not to be thought of. To sa» nothing of its peculiar form, there is no reason whatever why this title should be given to Chushan and not to the other tyrants over Israel. Had ii been intended to describe him as peculiarly wicked he would have been called ^~^< as in the anal- ogous case of Hainan (Esth. vii. 6). The Midrash alone attempts an explanation, and makes Risha- thaim to mean Lahan. The " double sin " is, that Aram (of which, in the spirit of the Midrash, Laban is the representative) formerly injured Ja- cob, and now injures his descendants (cf. Jalkut, Judges, n. 41). The renderings of the Targum and Peshito 1 sprang from this interpretation. Paul of Tela, on the other hand, follows the Septnagint, which has x ov(Ta P (Ta ^ a ^l J - * he, and others of later date, write Xovoav PeaaBdw/ji (ed. Rordam, p. 74). (Syncellus, ed. Bonn. i. 285, has x ovn ' a P'r a ^t J -~) Rishathaim is manifestly a proper name, and forms the complement of Chushan, which does not con- ceal its national derivation. At all events, at Hab. iii. 7, 3 where it stands parallel with Midian, it is used to designate nationality.' Now, ancient Per- sian tradition, as found in the Schahnameh of Fir- dousi, contains reminiscences of warlike expedi- tions from the centre of Iran against the West. One of the three sons of Feridoun. Selm (C7t£7), is lord of the territories west of the Euphrates. The nations of those countries are hostile to Iran. Men- tion is also made of assistance from Gangi Jehocht (as Jerusalem is several times designated) in a war against Iran (cf. Schack, Heldens. des Firdusi, p. 160). The Iranian heroes, on the other hand, Sam, Zal ( 'NT), and Rnstem, who carry on the wars of the kings, east and west, are from Sedjes- tan. Sedjestan, whose inhabitants under the Sas- sanides also formed the nucleus of the army (cf. Lassen. Zndische Altertli. ii. 363), derives its name from the Sacce (Sacastene). The name Sacae, however, is itself only a general ethnographic term, answering to the term Scythians, and compre- hended all those powerful nations, addicted to horsemanship and the chase, who made themselves famous as warriors and conquerors in the regions east and west of the Tigris. All Scythians, says Herodotus, are called Sacse by the Persians. The term Cossseans was evidently of similar compre- hensiveness. As at this day Segestan (or Seistan) is still named after the Saca?, so Khuzistan after the Cossseans (cf. Mannert, v. 2, 495). Moses Chorenensis derives the Parthians from the land of Chushan (ed. Florival, i. 308-311). In the Naklishi Rustam inscription (ver. 30) we read of Khushiya, which certainly appears more suggestive of Cossan, as Lassen interprets, than of Gaud*, as passage, is already found in the older Jewish expositors From any objective, scientific point of view, this view can scarcely be concurred in. 4 [That is to say. the term expresses ethnologic* no* local relations — Ta.] CHAPTER III. 5-11. 69 Benfe - explains (Die Pers. Keilinschr., p. 60). That they t.-e quite like the Parthians, Scythians, Sacs, j in the use of the bow and the practice of pillage and the chase, is sufficiently shown by the passage of Strabo (ed. Paris, p. 449, lib. xi. 13, 6). Like! Nimrod (Gen. x. 8), all these nations, and also the princes of the Sacae, Sara, Zal, and Rustem, are represented as heroes and hunters. Nimrod de- scends from Cush, and rules at the rivers. So here also Cush is a general term for a widely-diffused family of nations. It does not indicate their dwell- ing-place, but their mode of life and general char- acteristics ] Even the reference in the name of this Chushan to darkness of complexion is not to be overlooked. A centaur (horseman) is with Hesiod {Scut. Here. 185) an asbolos. "Asbolos," says Enpolemus (in Euseb., Prcep. Ev. ix. 17 ; cf. Nie- bulir, Assurund Babel, p. 262, note 2), is translated XOV/J.S by the Hellenes. The second Chaldee king is called Chomasbelos by Berosus (Fragmenta, ed. Midler, Paris, p. 503 ; Niebuhr, p. 490 ; Syn- ceJlus, i. 147, ed. Bonn) ; while in one passage (Lam. iv. 8) the LXX. translate shechor, " black," by a.a&6\Ti. Syncellus is therefore improperly cen- sured by Niebuhr for comparing Evechios, and not the son of Chomasbelos, with Nimrod. He could compare none but the first king with him who was likewise held to be the first. Accordingly, it can- not appear surprising that kings and heroes beyond the Euphrates are named l^S, "Chushan." 2 One of the most famous of the primitive kings of Iran was named 271S3 "O, Kai Kaous. Persian tradition tells of wars and conquests which he carried on in Mesi, Sham, and Rum, i. e. Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor (cf. Herbelot, Or. Bibl. ii. 59). They also relate misfortunes endured by him. In his wars in the West, 3 he was defeated and taken prisoner. His hero and deliverer was always Rustem (Oi~lttn or Ej"ID~!, also CntOV), DnntCP, cf. Vullers, Lex. Pers. ii. 32). Now, since it is obviously proper to compare these names with DVirttn limr, « Chushan-rishathaim " (for the y as well as the pointing of the Masora dates from the Rabbinic Midrash), there is nothing to oppose the idea that the celebrated Rustem of the East, the hero of Kaous, whom Moses Chorenensis calls the Saces, is actually mentioned here. It would enhance the interest of the narrative to find the hero of the Iranian world brought upon the scene of our history. Profane history would here, as so frequently elsewhere, receive valuable illus- tration from Scripture. An historical period would be approximately gained for Kai Kaous. On the other hand, such conflicts were sufficiently memo- rable for Israel to serve as testimonies first of God's anger, and then of salvation wrought out by Him. And they served Chushan-rishathaim, : n?5* V God is served with sacrifices ; human lords with tribute (cf. ver. 15). Hence the expression D" 1 We cannot enter here on a full illustration of the gene- alogy of Cush, as given Gen. x. For some excellent remarks lee Knobel Die ethnogr. Tqfel, p. 251- Where he read Cush, b Wagenseil's edition of Petachia, Carmoly's edition, prob- ably less correctly, has Acco. Where Benjamin of Tudela, Mi. Asher, p. 83, has fTlS, other manuscripts have Ci >: 13. "lush (Ezek. xxxviii. 5) may also pass for the African. ISII?, when a people became tributary. The " eight years " are considered in the introductorj section on the Chronology of the Book. Ver. 9. And the sons of Israel cried unto Jehovah. p??J is the anxious cry of distress. So cried they in Egypt by reason of their heavy ser- vice (Ex. ii. 23). They cry to God, as children to their father. In his compassion, He hears them. However, Jeremiah (xi. 11) warns the people against that time " when they shall cry 0P5' V unto God, but he will not hearken unto them." And He delivered them through Othniel the son of Kenaz. The Septuagint gives his name as Vo6ot>ir)A, while Josephus has 'OoWtjAos. Jerome (De Nominibus, ed. Migne, p. 809) has Athaniel, which he translates " my time of God " (tempus meum Dei). This is also the translation of Leusden in his Onomasticon, who however unnecessarily dis- tinguishes between a Gothoniel (I Chron. xxvii. 15) and Othniel. Gesenius derives the name from the Arabic, and says it means " lion of God." How carefully Josephus follows ancient exegesis, appears from his inserting the story of Othniel only after the abominations of Gibeah (ch. xix.) and" those of the tribe of Dan (ch. xviii.) ; for these occurrences were regarded as belonging to the time of servitude under Chushan (Jaucut, Judges n. 41). But his anxiety to avoid every appearance of improbability does not allow him to call Othniel the brother of Caleb. He speaks of him as "t7jj 'loiiSa (puAijs tis, one of the tribe of Judah " (Ant. v. 3, 3) ; for he fears lest the Greek reader should take offense at finding Othniel still young and vig- orous enough to achieve victory in the field, and render forty years' service as Judge. But the nar rator adds emphatically, " the younger brother of Caleb," — in order to leave no doubt that the con- queror of Kirjath-sepher and the victor over Aram were one and the same person. Nor is there any foundation for the scrupulosity of Josephus. In Israel the men capable of bearing arms were enrolled upon the completion of their twentieth year (Num. xxvi. 2, seq.). Now, if Othniel was twenty-five years of age when he conquered Kir- jath-sepher, and if after that a period of twenty years elapsed, during which a new generation grew up, he would be fifty-three years of age when as hero and conqueror he assumed the judicial office, — a supposition altogether natural and probable. Caleb in his eighty-fifth year still considered him- self fully able to take the field. Besides, it is con- sonant with the spirit which animates the history here narrated, that it is Othniel who appears as the first Shophet. Not merely because of the hero- ism which he displayed before Kirjath-sepher; but a new dignity like this of Judge is easily attracted to one who is already in possession of a certain author- ity, which was evidently the case with Othniel. He was one of those who, in part at least, had shared the wars with Canaan. He was the brother and son-in-law of the celebrated Caleb, and hence a head of the tribe of Judah, to which in this matter 2 One of the worst enemies of Kai Kaous was Deo Send, t. e. the White Foe. At the birth of Rustem's father, Zal, it was considered a misfortune that his head was white. Ht was therefore exposed (cf. Schack. Firdusi, p. 176). 8 Some call him ruler of Arabia, others of Syria. CI Mjk-Colm, Hist, of Persia, i. 27. 70 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. 1I90 the initiative belongs. Once it was asked, " Who shall first go up 1 " Judah was the tribe selected by the response. The first Judge whom God appointed, must appear in Judah. That tribe still had strength and energy ; there the memory of former deeds achieved by faith was still cher- ished among the people (cf.' Shemoth Rabba, § 48, p. 144 a). Ver. 1 0. And the spirit of Jehovah was upon him. The spirit of faith, of trust in God, of enthu- siasm. It is the same spirit which God bestows upon the seventy also, who are to assist Moses (Num. xi. 25). It was on that occasion that Moses exclaimed, " Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them." In this spirit, Moses and Joshua performed their great deeds. In this spirit, Joshua and Caleb knew no fear when they explored the land. In this spirit, the spirit of obedience, which in faith performs the law, becomes a spirit of power. Of those seventy we are told (Num. xi. 25), that when they had received the Spirit of God, they prophesied. The Targum therefore trans- lates, both there and here, HS'Oa PITH, Spirit of Prophecy. It does this, however, in the case of no Judge but Othniel. For although the HiiT} C^l is also spoken of in connection with Gideon, Jeph- thah, and Samson, it merely gives S^SS TVH in those cases, Spirit of heroism (ch. vi. 34 ; xi. 29 ; xiii. 25). The first ground of this distinction conferred on Othniel, is the irreproachable charac- ter of his rule. No tragic shadow lies on his life, as on the lives of the other heroes. To this must be added the ancient interpretation, already alluded to above (p. 35, note 2), which identified Othniel with Jabez (1 Chron. iv. 10), and regarded him as a pious teacher of the law. They said concerning him, that his sun arose when Joshua's went down (Bereshith Rabba, § 58, p. 51 b) They applied to him the verse in Canticles (iv. 7) : " Thou art all fair, there is no spot in thee" (Shir ha-Shirim Rabba, on the passage, ed. Amsterd. p. 17 c.). 1 And he judged Israel. He judged Israel before he went forth to war. It has already been remarked above, that t2?C7 means to judge in the name of 1 [Km : ,r The Spirit of God is the spiritual life-princi- ple in the world of nature and of mankind : and in man it Is the principle as well of the natural life received by birth, as of the spiritual life received through the new birth, cf. Auberlen, Gfist des Menschen, in Herzog's Realencykl., iv. 731- In this sense, the expression ' Spirit of Elohim ' alternates with f Spirit of Jehovah,' as already in Gen. i. 2, compared with vi. 3, and so on in all the books of the 0. T., with this difference, however, that whereas ' Spirit of Elo- him ' designates the Divine Spirit only in general, on the side of its supernatural causality and power, c Spirit of Je- hovah ' presents it on the side of its historical operation on the world and human life, in the interests of salvation. In its operations, however, the Spirit of Jehovah manifests itself as the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding, of Coun- cil and Strength, of Knowledge and the Fear of the Lord jlsa. xi. 2). The impartation of this spirit in the 0. T-, ^kes the form for the most part of an extraordinary, super- natural influence exerted over the human spirit. The usual expression for this is, ( the Spirit of Jehovah (or Elohim) V7}? ^H/tH, came upon him ; ' so here and in xi. 29 ; 1 Sam. xix.20, 23 ; 2 Chron. xx. 14 ; Num. xxiv. 2. With this, however, the expressions VvJJ (HPO^) PO^Jni, th. xiv. 6, 19; xv. 14; 1 Sam. x. 10; xi. 6; xvi. 13, and Z nS nttJnb, the Spirit > put on (clothed) the person,' :h. vi'34; 1 L'urnn. xii IS; 2 Chron. xxiv. 20. alternate; the law. The Judge enforces the law ; he pun ishes sin, abolishes wrong. If Israel is to be victo> rious, it is not enough to " cry unto the Lord ; " the authority of the law (I32tt.'Q) must be recog- nized. " These are the E^Stl'D (judgments) which thou shalt set before them," is the order, Ex. xxi. 1 . Israel must become conscious of Go,' and duty. At that point Othniel's judicial activitj began. This was what he taught them for the future. Not till that is accomplished can war be successfully undertaken. Ver. 11. And the land rested. Ef2^ ] Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done [did] evil in the 13 sight of the Lord [Jehovah]. And he gathered unto him [having allied himself with] the children [sons] of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel, and [they" 14 possessed [took possession of] the city of palm-trees. So [And] the children [sons" 15 of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years. But when [And] the chil- dren [sons] of Israel cried unto the Lord [Jehovah], [and] the Lord [Jehovah] raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the sou of Gera, a Benjamite [Ben-jemini]. a man left-handed [weak 2 of his right hand] : and by him the children [sons] of Israel 16 sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab. 3 But [And] Ehud made him a dag ger which had two edges, of a cubit [gomed] length : and he did gird it under his 17 raiment upon his right thigh. And he brought the present unto Eglon king of Moab : 18 and Eglon was a very fat man. And when he had made an end to offer the present. 19 he sent away [dismissed 4 ] the people that bare the present. But he himself turned again [turned back] from the quarries [Pesilim'] that were by Gilgal, and said. I have a secret errand 6 unto thee, O king : who said, Keep [omit : keep ] silence 72 THE BOOK OF JUDGES 20 And [thereupon] all that stood by him went out from him. And Ehud came [dre» near] unto him ; and he was sitting in a summer parlour [now he, i. e. the king, was sitting in the upper story of the cooling-house 6 ], which he had for himself alone [hit private apartment] : and Ehud said, I have a message from God [the Deity] unto thee. And 21 [Then] he arose out of his seat. And [immediately] Ehud put forth his left hand, and 22 took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly : And the haft alsc went in after the blade : and the fat closed upon [about] the blade, so that he could not [for he did not] draw the dagger out of his belly ; and the dirt [the dagger 7 ] came 23 out [behind]. Then [And] Ehud went forth through the porch [went upon the balcony], and shut the doors of the parlour [upper story] upon him [after him], and 24 locked them. When he was gone out. his [the king's] servants came ; and when they saw that [and they looked, and] behold, the doors of the parlour [upper story] were locked, [and] they said, Surely [doubtless], he covereth his feet in his summer- 25 chamber [chamber of the cooling-house]. And they tarried till they were ashamed waited very long] : and behold, he opened not [no one opened] the doors of the parlour upper story], therefore they took a [the] key and opened them: and behold, their 26 lord ivas fallen down dead on the earth. And [But] Ehud [had] escaped while they tarried ; and [had already] passed beyond the quarries [_Pesilim~], and 27 [had] escaped unto Seirath [Seirah]. And it came to pass when he was come [when he arrived], that he blew a [the] trumpet in the mountain [mountains] of Ephraim, and the children [sons] of Israel went down with him from the mount 28 [mountains], and he before them. And he said unto them, Follow [Hasten] after me : for the Lord [Jehovah] hath delivered your enemies the Moabites into your hand. And they went down after him, and took the fords of Jordan toward Moab, 29 and suffered not a man to pass over. And they slew [smote] of Moab at that time about ten thousand men, all lusty, 8 and all men of valour : and there escaped not a 30 man. So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel : and the laud had rest four-score years. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [V Ver. 12. — p'TrPT : the same word is used Ex. iv. 21. etc., Josh. xi. 20; but is here, as Bachmann remarks, to be explained not by those passages, but by Ezek. xxx. 24. It implies here the impartation not so much of strength as cf the consciousness of it. — Tr. J [2 Ver. 15. — *"lt2M : Dr. Cassel, sckwark, weak. r( Impeded " would be the better word. Against the opinion of some, that Ehud's right hand was either lamed or mutilated. Bachmann quotes the remark of Schmid that it would have been a breach of decorum to send such a physically imperfect person on an embassy to the king. It may be added that this explanation of ")t2M is at all events not to be thought of in the case of the 700 chosen men mentioned in ch. XX. 16 — Tr.] [8 Ver. 15. — Dr. Cassel translates this clause: "when [aU ; i. e. Jehovah raised up Ehud as a deliverer, when] the sons of Israel sent a present by him to Eglon, the king of Moab." But it is altogether simpler and better to take the clause as an independent progressive sentence, as in the E. V. So Bachmann also. — Tr.] [4 Ver. 18. — rivCJ^ : dismissed them by accompanying them part of the way back, cf. Gen. xii. 20 ; xviii. 16 etc. — Tr.] [5 Ver. 19. — "inD"ll^T : Dr. Cassel translates, tr a secret word." But u errand " is better ; because like """^T 1 . it may be a word or message, or it may be a commission of a more active nature. Bachmann quotes ChytrKus : rem^ negoti inn secret urn habeo apuil te agendum. So, he goes on to remark, in ver. 20 tT ^S 2 srT S'~"^D7T, is not necessarily, f I have a word from God to say to thee ;' but may mean, f I have a commission from God to execute to thee.'" It would be preferable, therefore, to conform the English Version in ver. 20 to ver. 10, rather than the reverse. — Tr.] [*3 Ver. 20. — The rendering given above is Dr. Cassel's, except that he puts the verb l 2CT^) in (lie pluperfect, which can scarcely be approved. He translates rT"lp*?n i"V^l?3 by Obergeschoss des Kiihlhauses, which we can only represent bv the awkward phrase : tf upper story of the cooling-house." It would be better, however, to take H"^^ t ■- : as containing an adjective idea, descriptive of the 'abjak : " cool upper story." Cf. Bachmann. — Tr.] [7 Ver. 22. — The term ^'OtP'HS occurs only here, and is of exceedingly doubtful interpretation. Bachmann as ■umes that the St- S 1 which precedes it has Ehud for its subject, and then — by a course of reasoning far too length\ ind intricate to be here discussed — comes to the conclusion that 1i"ltt?*15 denotes a locality, which in the next vers* H more definitely indicated by ^"l^TDD. The latter term, he thinks, is best understood " ot the lattice-work by which the roof was inclosed, or rather of the inclosed platform of the roof itself." Accordingly he conceives the text to sav that Ehud issued forth from Eglon's private apartment" upon the flat roof, more definitely upou the incli *ed pUt *>rm or gallery ' — Tr.] CHAPTER III. 12-30. 73 [8 Ter. 29. — Dr. Cassel : angesetune Leule, cf. the Commentary ; but it seems better to hold fast to me E. ""» The «- ion is literally : ft fat men," :'. e. well-fed, lusty men, of great physical strength. So Bachmann also. — T».] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Vers. 12-14. And Jehovah encouraged Eg- lon, king of Moab. The second attack on Israel came likewise from the east, bnt from a point much nearer home than that from which the first by Aram .tad come. A warlike prince of Moab had formed a league for the occasion with neighbors north and south of him. For the sons of Amnion dwelt beyond the Jordan, east of the Dead Sea, above the Moabites ; while the hosts of Amalek roved lower down; to the southwest of Moab. Hitherto no actual conflict had occurred between Moab and Israel. But the order that " no Am- monite or Moabite shall enter into the congrega- tion of Jehovah" (Deut. xxiii. 4 (3)), sufficiently marks the antagonism that existed between them. The Moabites longed for the excellent oasis of the City of Palms. Jericho, it is true, was destroyed ; but the indestructible wealth of its splendid .-itv attracted them. They surprised Israel, now be- come dull and incapable. Neither in the land of Benjamin, where the battle was fought, nor from the neighboring tribes of Judab and Ephraim, did they meet with any energetic resistance. Prom the words " and they took possession of," in con- nection with the following narrative, it appears that Eglon had fixed his residence in the City of Palms. 1 This renders it probable that Eglon was not the king of all Moab, (whose principal seat was in Rabbath Moab.) but a Moabitish chieftain whom this successful expedition placed in posses sion of this fair territory west of the Jordan. Ver. 15. And Jehovah raised them up a deliverer, Ehud, the son of Grera, a Ben-jemini, a man weak of his right hand. "WHS . for which the LXX. read THS, Aod (Jerome has Eud) . It seems to me that the older derivation of this name from TlTT, giving it the sense of " one who praises," or "one who is praised" (gloriam aedpiens, Jerome), is to be unqualifiedly preferred to the later, proposed by Fiirst, from a conjectural roo» "fS. "HnS is related to Tin, TTTT, as 'H£> to be bright, is to ^H, V?n, and ]ilHS (Arabic, Hdrun) to "IH, "H^. Elsewhere I have already compared hod with the Sanskrit vad, S5w ielSw, litia, and the Gothic audags (Irene, p. 6 note.) At all events, as Ehud belongs to hod, so such names as Audo, Eudo, Heudo, seem to belong to audags (cf. Forstemann, Namenbuch, i. 162, 391). He was a Ben-jemini, of the tribe of Benjamin, as the Targum expressly adds. When the son of Jacob was born, his dying mother named him Benoni, " son of my sorrow ; " but his father, by way of euphemism, called him Ben-jamin, " son of good fortune" (Gen. xxxv. 18). Jamin came to signify " good fortune," only because it desig- nated the right side. The inhabitants of the holy land had the sea (jam-) on the right, hence called 1 [It certainly appears that he had done so temporarily, bat by no means that he had done so permanently. — Tr.] 2 The importance of this observation has been overlooked with reference to other lands as well as Palestine. The general fact that the sea-side was the right side, has been •distantly ignored. That was the reason why Jacob Grimm '.OescK. dr Deutschen Sprache, p. 990. etc.) failed to under- land why ancong the Indians, Romans, etc., the south side that side jamin, literally, sea-side ; and the high lands of Aram (or Sham, cf. Magyar, Altherth., p 228) on the left, hence semol, the left, from Sam. Different nations derived their expressions for right and left from conceptions peculiar to themselves. Thus 8e£i6s and dexter s are based on the idea of showing, pointing, with the right hand (Stim/vm) ; sinister, from sinus, on the action of laying the right hand on the side of the heart- The left hand has everywhere been regarded as the weaker, which, properly speaking, did not meld arms. When oriental custom placed the stranger on the left, it assigned him the seat of honor in so far as the left side seemed to be the weaker and less protected (cf. Xenoph. Cyrop, viii. 4 ; Meiners, Veber die Versch. der Menschennaturen, ii. 588). From the idea of weakness, sprang such terms as \at6s, hevus, Ger. link, [Eng. left], because that side is harmless, smooth, and gentle (cf. Alios, l p5 is to be taken. vD9 is always a carved image, y\inrT6v. The entire number of instances in which this word is used by Scripture writers fails to suggest any reason for thinking here of " stone-quarries," a definition which more- over does not appear to harmonize with the locality. But as the connection implies that the borders of Eglon's territory, which he had wrenched from Israel, were at the pesilim, we must understand by them the posts, o-ttjAui, stones, lapides sacri, which marked the line. In consequence of the honors everywhere paid them, these were considered Pesi- lim, idol images, just as at a later time the Herma, (ep/j.aKes. heaps of stone) were prohibited as idola- trous objects (cf. Aboda Sum, Mischna, 4). With this, the interpretation of the Targum. S^n^H^?, heaps of unhewn stones, may also be made to har- monize. 5 This border line was in the vicinity of 8 Hence they also translate Dit2 by atrreios, Ex. if 2, where, to be sure, it rather signifies ff beautiful."" 4 Transferred to God, Ex. xxiii. 15 : (r None shall appear before me empty." fi [To this interpretation of the pesffim, Bachmann (who agrees with our author in rejecting the commonly received " stooe-quarries '*) objects that it is not in accordance witlf CHAPTER III. 12-30. It Gilgal, which had not fallen into the hands of .Moab. Ewald has rightly insisted upon it that Gilgal must have lain northeast of Jericho [Gesch. des Volkes Israel, ii. 317). That this was the rela- tive position of Gilgal, and its direction from Jeri- cho, has already received confirmation from the first chapter of our Book. And said, I have a secret message. It could not be matter of surprise that Ehud did not make this request until his return. The ceremony of the public audience did not allow it to be made at that time. The presentation of the presents must have been so conducted as to impress the king with the conviction that Ehud was especially devoted to him. Signs of discontent and ill-will on the part of the subjugated people cannot have escaped the conqueror. The more highly would he value the devotion of one of the Israelitish leaders. That Ehud had sent his companions away, and had not returned until they had crossed the border, was easily explained as indicating that he had a matter to present in which he did not wish to be observed by them. All the more eager, therefore, was Eglon to hear that which Ehud seemed to hide from Israel. It was only by such a feint that Ehud could succeed in approaching the tyrant and ob- taining a private interview. Israel's deliverer must first seem to be its betrayer. The same artifice has been used by others. When the Persians wished to destroy the pseudo-Smerdis, and doubtingly con- sidered how they could pass the guards, Darius said that he wouid pretend to have a secret com- mission, concerning Persia, from his father to the king; adding, as Herodotus (iii. 72) says: "For when lying is necessary, lie " ! Who said, Silence ! Thereupon all that stood by him went out. Ehud does not demean him- self as if he wished that those present would depart. He appears to be on the point of telling his secret before them all. But this Eglon will not permit. Oriental maimers could not be more perfectly set forth. The king's injunction of silence (DH, 'st!) on Ehud, is of itself a sufficient command to those present to leave the room. Eglon must therefore have expected matters not to be heard by all ears. All who " stood " about him, went out. They were his servants (ver. 24), who do not sit when the king is present. " Happy are these thy servants," says the queen of Sheba to Solomon, " who stand continually before thee, and hear thy wisdom." In the Tiitinameh (translated by Rosen, i. 42, 43) it is said : " The King of Khorassan was once sitting in his palace, and before his throne stood the pillars of the empire, the servants of the crown, high and low, great and small," etc. Ver. 20. Now, he had seated himself in the upper story of the cooling-house. To un- derstand what part of the house is thus indicated, we have only to attend to the description of orien- tal architecture given by Shaw, in his Travels (i. 386, Edinb. edit. 1808). Down to the present day many oriental houses have a smaller one an- nexed to them, which sometimes rises one story higher than the main building. In Arabic as in Hebrew this is called alijah, and serves for purposes of entire seclusion or rest. " There is a door of communication from it into the gallery of the he usual meaning of the word. He thinks that the pesi- im were idolatrous images set up either by the apostate Israelites themselves, or by Eglon, " as boundary-marks of .be territory immediately subject to him, and as signs of his npremacy/' lie seems inclined to prefer the latter alter- aative, because of rf the fact that Ehud does not feel him- house, besides another which opens immediately, from a privy stairs, down into the porch or street] without giving the least disturbance to the house." The alijah of Eglon consisted of an inner chamber opening on an exposed balcony (fiHOO), fron- which a door led into the house itself (at present called dor or bait) Within the door of the alijah there was however still another apartment (""Hri, ver. 24), which served the purpose of a necessarv- house. Being high and freely accessible to cur- rents of air, the alijah was a cool retreat. Similar purposes were subserved in Germany by the per- gula;, balconies, galleries, arbors {Lauben), hence Luther's translation, Sommer-laube (summer-arbor or bower). He followed the rendering of theLXX. who have r$ Qepivtfi, while the Targum gives more prominence to the idea of repose (Sip 11 !? fTS, koitij). The public reception of the gifts had taken place in the house. Afterwards, while Ehud ac- companied his companions, the king had betaken himself to the alijah " which was for himself alone " (his private chamber). When Ehud returned he was received there, as he had anticipated. And Ehud said, I have a message from the Deity unto thee. Then he arose from his seat. C^H ,£$ 15^T is a commission from a higher be- ing. He does not say Jehovah, for this is the name of i he Israelitish God, with whom Eglon has noth- ing to do. We are not however to assume that the God of Eglon is meant ; for what can Ehud the Israelite announce from Chemosh ! It is therefore probable that by Elohim a superior prince is to be understood, whose liegeman or satrap Eg- lon was, as was already intimated above, — a hu- man possessor of majesty and authority. As it is not to be supposed that the capital of Moab was transferred from Rabbah to the small bit of terri- tory which had been acquired across the Jordan, Eglon in Jericho is not to be looked on as lord of all Moab. The relation in which he stood to the mother-country was most likely that of a vassal or feudal baron. That he is styled king does not contradict this. The potentates of single cities were all called " kings," as the Greeks called them Tvpavvoi, without on that account being anything more than dependents of more powerful states and princes. 1 It suits the role which Ehud wishes to be ascribed to him, that he should also have rela- tions with the transfluvial Moab, a fact which of course must be kept profoundly secret. Thus Eglon's rising is explained. The same honor was due to a message from the superior lord as to his presence. Like reverence was shown to royal let- ters even, as appears from the narrative of Herodo- tus concerning a message to Oroetes ; and from it, the fidelity of those whom the message concerned was inferred (Herod, iii. 128). The same mark of honor was paid to parents and aged persons. From this custom the ecclesiastical usage of standing dur- ing the reading of the Gospel, is also to be derived. Eglon rises out of respect for the D^rw.Jf? "O^. This has been the constant explanation. The di- verging view of Bertheau 2 does not commend itself. The Talmud — understanding the words, self and those with him secure until he has passed the pesilim." — Tr.] 1 Thus the king of Hazor was king paramount over all the kings of his vicinity (Josh. xi. 10). S [Bertheau says : t? Divining the pu l>ose of Ehud, hi rose up to defend himself." — Ta-J 76 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. however, of the God of Israel — already deduces from them the lesson, that if a stranger thus rose up to receive a message from God, much more is it the dutv of an Israelite so to do (Sanhedrin, 50 a). Vers. 21-24. Immediately Ehud put forth his left hand. Ehud made use of a pretext, in order to cause Eglon to rise. He was surer of his thrust if his victim stood. Eglon's attention must be wholly diverted, that the attack, entirely unre- sisted, might be the more effective. In such sud- den assaults, bulky people like Eglon are at a disadvantage. Cimber pressed closely on Cassar, as if to make most urgent entreaty for his brother (Plut., Caxar, 86). Parmenio was stabbed by Oleander, while cheerfully reading a letter (Cur- tius. vii. 2, 27). The instance most like Eglon's case, is that of King Henry III. of France. Clement, to secure an interview, had provided himself with a commission from a friend of the king. When he arrived, the king was sitting on his close-stool. Hoping to hear of an understand- ing with his opponents, Henry bade the messenger draw near ; whereupon the monk stabbed him in the abdomen (cf. Ranke, Franks- Gesch., i. 171). Ehud's thrust, though left-handed, was powerful. The dagger, together with its short handle, buried itself in the fat of the man, and came out behind. SHf signifies a flame ; then the blade of a sword, which glitters and burns like a flame. In a medi- eval writing, the following words occur : " Sin swert flaianieret an siner hant 1 (Miiller's Mitlelh. WBrterb., iii. 336). In technical language we also speak of flaming blades (yeflammten klinyen). And came out behind, rT3'"TO~l9n N2 S \ The ancient doubt as to this word, which occurs but once, and about which opinions are still divided, appears from the divergent renderings of the Sep- tuagint and the Targum. It is certain, however, in the first place, that the Greek rendering jrpocrraoa. can have little weight ; for it arose from the simi- larity of the word in the text to NT?!)"©, cur- rent at the time, and meaning irpoaTas, vestibule. In the second place, the addition of Ehud after the second S"*2 (ver. 23), shows that another sub- ject begins, and that therefore the first N**I2 can refer only to the sword, not to the man. Further, since i^5""l , ~2n j s provided with !"t local, it manifestly denotes that part of the body toward which the course of the sword was directed, while S1'*T testifies to the actual perforation of the body. Now, as the sword was thrust from before into the abdomen C\ ~2\ there would be no doubt as to the part where it emerged, even if the etymology, which has here to deal with an onomatopoetic word, did not make this perfectly plain. Parshedon is the Greek TrpujurSs, and belongs to the same family as the Lithuanian persti, Lettish pirst, Polish pierdziec, Russian fierdjet. Greek weptictv, Sanscrit pard, Latin prdere, Gothic jairtan, Old High German fe'rzan (cf. Pott, Etijmolog. Forsch., i. 245 ; Grimm. Worterh., iii. 1335). The sword emerged behind through the 1 ["His sword flamed in his hand." — Ta.] •2 [Robinson's map locates Et-Hdu not directly east, but southeast of Jericho, not north but south of Wady Heshban tcf. Bibl. R'S. i. 635). It appears that the words " directly tast " belong to Seetzen, and must in Hitter's opinion be made to conform to Robinson's location of El Helu. Cf. Wage's R! ter, Hi. 49. Van de Velde's map places El-Helu fundament. The king fell down without uttering a sound. Ehud did not delay, but went out un- hindered through the balcony. The attendant! had entirely withdrawn from the alijah : Ehud takes advantage of this circumstance, and locks the door to it, in order to delay the moment of discov- ery. The heedless conduct of the unsuspecting attendants supports his boldness. As soon how- ever as they see him go out, — an earlier return to their lord is not lawful, — they endeavor to enter the alijah. Ehud had gone away so calmly, that they suspect nothing. They are not even sur- prised when they find the doors fastened. Serarius has properly directed attention to the aversion felt by the ancients to the least degree of exposure when complying with the necessities of nature. This applies especially to kings, inasmuch as sub- jection to these necessities, too plainly proved them men. Of Pharaoh, the Jewish legend says that he wished to appear like a god, above the need of such things. " He covers his feet," is a euphe- mism, taken from the descent of the long garments (cf. Bochart, Hierozoicon, i. 677). Vers. 25-30. And they waited long, TO K?"I3. These words add the notion of displeasure and ill humor to the idea of waiting (cf. 2 Kgs. ii. 17 ; viii. II). At length they comprehend that something extraordinary must have taken place. They procure another key, with which they open the doors, and find their lord — dead. Ehud's arti- fice, however, had succeeded. While they delayed (Cn^narin, from niSnJS, morari, is onomato- poetic), he had got beyond the border, as far as Sei- rah. This place, which according to ver. 27 be- longed to the mountains of Ephraim, is unknown. It bounded the territories of Benjamin on the north. Ehud reached it by way of the border which ran by Gilgal, which shows that both these places were north of Jericho. It is evident that he had agreed with the Israelites to give the signal there, in case he were successful. His trumpet- blast was transmitted among the mountains. Is- rael flocked together, and heard of the unprece- dentedly fortunate deed. The people saw in it the firm resolve, which gives victory. The plan of battle had also been already determined by Ehud. It was of the last importance to cut the terrified and leaderless Moabites off from the assist- ance of their transjordanic friends. Hence, the first care of Israel is to seize the ford of the river. The ford in question was manifestly no other than that which, directly east of Jericho, half an hour north of Wady Heshban, is still in use. Seetzen called it el-Mokl'daa, Robinson el-Helu'* (Ritter xv. 484, 547, Gage's transl. iii. 4, 49). That the occupation of this ford decides the victorv, proves clearly that Eglon was not king of all Moab, but only of the Moab on this side of the Jordan. It was a terrible retri- bution, a sort of " Sicilian vespers." which Israel, rising up after long subjection, inflicted on Eglon and his people. The falling foes were men of might. 7^?^' tT'K expresses the distinction (das Ans?hn), s Tn EVS the warlike character and abilities, of the smitten enemies. Moab was southeast of Jericho, a short distance north of W. Heshban. _Ts.] 3 [Bebtheao: " ]pt£\ the fet,t. e. (In contrast with pet* sons of starved appearance) the well-fed and opulent man * cf. Latin ophrtus ; hence, the man of consequence." But compare note 8 under " Textual and Grammatical." — Tr.' CHAPTER III. 12-30. •horoughly vanquished, and Israel had rest for eighty years. The exploit of Ehud doubtless surpasses all sim- ilar deeds of ancient history in the purity of its motive, as well as in the energy and boldness of its execution. Harmodius and Aristogiton, however celebrated by the Athenians, were moved to kill Hipparehus by private interests (cf. Thucyd. vi. 56). Blind warrior-fury fills Mucins Scsevola, as also Theodotus (Polyb. v. 81), the would-be mur- derer of Ptolemseus, and they fail of success. Ehud was equally bold and pure. He risked his life for no interest of his own, but for his people. And not merely for the external freedom of his nation, but for the maintenance and honor of its divine religion, which was inseparably linked with freedom. It was against the mortal enemy of Is- rael — against one lying under the ban, and shut out from the congregation of Israel — that he lifted up his sword. He exposed himself to a fear- ful peril, in order, if successful, to give therewith a signal of courage and comfort to his people. To be sure, if he did not succeed, the hatred and op- pression of the enemy would increase in violence. But for that very reason men saw the more clearly that God had raised him up to be a deliverer. And yet, where in Israel are those praises of Ehud, which in Athens resounded for centuries in honor of Harmodius ? Scaevola's deed 1 is celebrated as one of the nation's heroic performances. The his- torian makes him say (Livy, xi. 12): "As an enemy have I slain the enemy." It is true, the remarkable act has had the honor of being minutely handed down, even to the least details of its prog- ress. But all this was to point out the sagacity and energy of the strong left-handed man. Not one word of praise is found. On the contrary — and this fact deserves attention — the remark usu- ally made of other Judges, is here wanting : it is not said that "the Spirit of Jehovah was upon him." Norisitsaid, asofOthniel, that he" judged Israel." Neither are we told that the rest and peace of Israel were connected with his life and death. Subsequent exegesis called him the Wolf, with which Benjamin is compared (Midrash, Ber. Rabba, cap. 89, p. 87 a). As the wolf throws him- self on his prey, so had Ehud thrown himself on Eglon. They saw in Ehud's deed the act of a mighty man, influenced by zeal for God ; but the u Spirit of Jehovah " inspires neither such artifice nor such murder. So much the less could the act of Ehud, however brilliant under the circumstances, be made to exculpate similar deeds. So much the less could the crimes that defile the pages of Chris- tian history, such as those committed against Henry III. and Henry IV., use it as a cover for themselves. 2 Although Eglon was a heathen, a foreigner, a tyrant, an enemy actually engaged in 1 In Plutarch's Parallels of Greek and Roman History (n. 2), the same history is given of a Greek, Neocles, who made an attempt against Xerxes like that of Scaevola against Porsenna. 2 Excellent remarks are found in the work of Hugo Gro- tius, De Jure Betli el Pads, lib. i cap. iv. (ed. Traj., 1773), p. 178. Serarius declines to treat the subject, under the feeble pretext of lack of time, p. 92. (Compare Bayle, Dietion- naire, 8. v. Mariana, ii. 2051, e.) 8 [Wordsworth : " Some have raised objections to this feet of Ehud, as censurable on moral grounds : and they lave described him as a r crafty Israelite,' taking aD unfair Advantage over an unwieldy corpulent Moabite ; others have ipologized for it, on the plea that it is not to be measured »y w*»at M»y call the standard of our ' enlightened modem hostilities, the Scripture speaks of Ehud only as a deliverer, but never of his deed as sprung from the Spirit of God. How much more disgraceful are murder and treason against one's own king, countrymen, and fellow Christians ! It was an in- sult to Christianity, a sin against the Holy Ghost when in answer to Clement's question, whether a priest might kill a tyrant, it was determined that " it was not a mortal sin. but only an irregularity " (Ranke, Franz. Gesch., i. 473) ; orwhen Pope Paul V. exclaimed, with reference to the murder of Henry IV. by Ravaillac : " Deus gentium fecit hoc, quia datus in reprobum sensum." Worse than *.h; dagger is such doctrine. 3 HOMTT.BTICAL AND PRACTICAL. Ehud, the Judge with the two-edged sword. — 1 . Israel was again in bondage on account of sin. And the compassion of God was not exhausted, although no deliverer came out of Judah. In the kingdom of God, the great and rich may indeed become instruments of God's will ; but his power is not confined to them. If no one arises in Judah. some one in Benjamin does. If it be not Othniel, Caleb's nephew, it is some unknown person who comes to rescue his people. Neither the name, nor the physique, is material. Deliverance may be begun with the left hand. 2. Ehud kills Eglon, the tyrant of Israel ; yet he is not properly a murderer, but only a warrior. However, it is better to conquer as Othniel and Gideon conquered. He did it, not for private re- venge, nor from fanaticism, but for the just freedom of Israel and its religion. He did it against Moab, and not against one who shared his own faith and country. God raised him up ; but yet the Word of God does not approve his deed. He was a de- liverer of Israel ; but there hangs a shadow never- theless over his official activity. Therefore, no murderous passion can appeal to him. By him no tyrant-murder, no political assassination, is excul- pated. And this not simply because in Christian states and churches there can be no Eglons or Moabs. — Starke : " The Jesuit principle that it is right to put an heretical prince out of the way, will never be valid until a person can be certain of having such a calling from God to it, as Ehud undoubtedly had." — His cause was pure; which cannot be said of any other assassination in his- tory, — Christian history not excepted, — down to the murder of the North American President Lin- coln ; not even of those instances which remind us (as Mallet, Altes und Xeues, p. 92, so beautifully did with reference to G. Sand, the murderer of Kotzebue) of the words of the Lord: "Fatlur, forgive them ; tor they know not what they do." Gerlach : We are not to think that "the dee 1 civilization ' compared with what they term the f barbarous temper of those times.' But surely these are low and un- worthy motives." He then quotes with approbation from Bp. SandersoD and Dr. Waterland, the gist of whose remarkl (Sanderson's however being made with immediate referenc* to the act of Phinehas, Num. xxv.) is, that the Lord raise, up deliverers for Israel, and divinely warranted their actions, which actions, however, form no precedents for those who have not similar divine authority. But it is surely not an improper question to ask, whether, when God raised up a hero, endowed him with faith and zeal, with strength and energy, to secure certain results, He also, jtlways and necessarily, suggested or even approved the met! Ida adopted not only as a whole but even in detail. — Te.] 78 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. of Ehud, in the manner of its accomplishment, is set be? .—" us as an example ; but we must also beware list, because the manner is no longer allow- able, we be led to deny the operation of the Holy Ghost by whom this "deliverer of his people was impelled. 3. Because Ehud's cause was pure, his deed was followed by peace and freedom. That can be said of no other similar deed. He first searched out the enemy in his hiding-place, and then triumphed over him in the battlefield. He shows himself, — 1, a true Israelite by faith ; 2, a true son of Benja- min, who was compared with the wolf, by his strength. He drew his sword, not for the sake of war, but of peace. Therefore, Israel had peace through him until he died. Ehud may not improperly be considered a type in spirit of him who likewise sprang from Benja- min — of Saul who first ravened like a wolf, but became patient and trustful like a Iamb ; of the Apostle who called the Word of God a two-edged sword that pierces through the conscience ; of Paul, whose symbol in the church is the sword through which as martyr he lost his own life, afte." he had saved the lives of thousands by the sword of the Spirit. Shamgar smites six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad. Chapter III. 31. 81 And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, which [and he] slew [smote] of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox-goad ; and he also [he, too,] delivered Israel. EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. After him. After his example. Following Ehud's example, 1 Shamgar smote the Philistines. That the expression is not to be taken of time, as if on the death of Ehud Shamgar had succeeded him, is evident from eh. iv. 1. Moreover, if that were the meaning, a statement of the years of Shamgar would not be absent. The hypothesis of Josephus, that he governed one year, is untena- ble. Accordingly, the other Jewish expositors have properly assigned the exploit of Shamgar to the time of Ehud, i. e. to the period of eighty years. Shamgar,'- the son of Anath. To what tribe he belonged, is not stated. If it be correct to con- nect njl? with mnDl?) Anathoth (cf. Kaplan, Erets Kedumim, ii. 142), it will follow that like Ehud he was of Benjamin, and defended the terri- tory of that tribe in the west against the Philis- tines, as Ehud did in the east against the Moabites. His whole history, as here given, consists of a sin- gle heroic exploit, in which he repulsed an attack of the Philistines with extraordinary strength. •* With an ox-goad. The Septuagint gives aporpoTrovs, by which it evidently means the plough- 1 [Bachmann observes that this and similar interpreta- tions of this expression, militate against the analogy of ch. x. 1, 3 ; xii. 8, 11, 13, in all which passages ^IfTS refers to the duration of the official or natural life of the pre- viously mentioned person- Appealing to ch. v. 6, where the "days of Shamgar" are described in such a way as to exclude the supposition that they belonged to the period of " rest " obtained by Kbud. he makes them synchronous with some part of the Canaauite oppression under Jabin. While the Cauaanites subjugated the northern part of the And. the Philistines attempted to extend their power in the south, which occasioned the conflicts of Shamgar with them. — Te.) 2 "HS^tP. The ancients translated it : Nomen Ad- ttena, " Name of a stranger." Ehud was the son of a cer- *am S"^3 Perhaps Shamgar also is somehow related to T" *»at name. handle, stiva, that part which the ploughman holds in his hand, and with which he guides the plough. 4 More correct, however, is the render- ing "ox-goad" (cf. Bochart, Hierozoicon, i. 385); S»"Virn V3~l% as the Targum has it. It was the •'prick" against which the oxen "kicked," when struck with it. The Greeks called it fioim-Aijf. With such an instrument, King Lycurgus is said to have attacked the wandering Bacchus and his followers 5 (II. vi. 135). There is a tradition in Holstein that in the Swedish time a peasant armed with a pole put to flight a multitude of Swedes who had entered his house and threatened to burn it (MullenhorT, Sagen, etc., p. 81). He delivered Israel. He procured victory for them, and assisted them over the danger of present and local subjugation. But to " deliver" is not to "judge." Nor is there any mention of the " Spirit of the Lord " in connection with him. HOMTLETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Shamgar the deliverer with the ox-goad. Coura- geous examples find worthy followers. Shamgar 8 [Bachmann' : " We are undoubtedly to think here of a marauding band like those brought to view in 1 Sam. xxx. 1 ff. aud Job i. 15. against whom Shamgar, either engaged at the moment in ploughing, or else seizing the first weapon that came to hand, proceeded with an ox-goad, with such •fleet as to strike down six hundred of them." — Tr.] 4 This interpretation of the LXX. has nothing to do (a* Bertheau thinks) with the reading HiT^H 12' ^2. 'tt - - . ■' found by Augustine. 6 This legend is copiously treated by Nonnus, on the basis of Horner's version of it. It is remarkable that al- though the scene is laid in " Arabia," Nonnus neverthe- less transfers the above-mentioned event and the city of Lycurgus to Carmel and the Erythraean Sea. It is doubt- less true, as Kohler observes ( Die Liottysiaka von Normm von Panopolis, Halle, 1853, pp. 78 77), that by 0ov7tAtj£ Nonnus appears to have understock an axt. The Romas poets also give an axe to Lycurgus CHAPTER IV. 1-11. 7S trode in Ehud's footsteps. One triumphs with a weapon, and put to flight the enemy whom some sword, the other with an implement of peace. I terror from God had scared. Hence we may infer, Bays Origen, that a judge of [Henry: 1. God can make those eminently the clnirch need not always carry a sword, and be serviceable to his glory and the church's good, full of severity and admonitions to repentance, but j whose extraction, education, and employment are should also be like a husbandman, "who, grad- very obscure. He that has the residue of the nally opening the earth with his plough, prepares i Spirit, could, when he pleased, make ploughmen it for the reception of good seed." I judges and generals, and fishermen apostles. 2. It Starke : When God wishes to terrify the I is no matter what the weapon is, if God direct and enemy, He needs not many men. nor strong de- fense and preparation for the purpose. — Gerlach : Shamgar's deed is probably to be viewed only as the effect of a sudden outbreak of holy enthusiasm, under the influence of which he seized the first best strengthen the arm. An ox-goad, when God pleases, shall do more than Goliath's sword. And sometimes He chooses to work by such unlikely means, that the excellency of the power may ap- pear to be of God. — Tk.J THIRD SECTION. THE SERVITUDE TO JABIN, KINO OP CANAAN. DEBORAH, THE FEMALE JUDGE OP FIERY SPIRIT, AND BARAK, THE MILITARY HERO. Ehud being dead, Israel falls back into evil-doing, and is given up to the tyranny of Jabin, king of Canaan. Deborah, the Prophetess, sumtnons Barak to undertake the work of deliverance. Chapter IV. 1-11. 1 And the children [sons] of Israel again did [continued to do] evil in the sight 2 of the Lord [Jehovah ;] when [and] Ehud was dead. And the Lord [Jehovah"; sold them [gave them up] into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan that reigned in Hazor, the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gen- 3 tiles [Harosheth-Hagojim]. And the children [sons] of Israel cried unto the Lord [Jehovah] ; for he had nine hundred chariots of iron ; and twenty years he mightily 4 oppressed the children [sons] of Israel. And Deborah, a prophetess, the witie of 5 Lapidoth, 1 she judged Israel at that time. And she dwelt [sat 2 ] under the palm-tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Beth-el in mount Ephraim : and the children [sons] 6 of Israel came up to her for judgment. And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh-naphtali. and said unto him. Hath not the Lord [Jehovah the] God of Israel commanded [thee], saying. Go. and draw toward mount Tabor, 3 and take with thee ten thousand men of the children [sons] of Naphtali, and of the 7 children [sous] of Zebulun ? And I will draw unto thee, to the river [brook] Kishon, Sisera the captain of Jabin's army, with 4 his chariots and his multitude; 8 and I will deliver him into thine hand? And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go 9 with me, then I wall go : but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go. And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding [but] the journey that thou takest [the expedition on which thou goest] shall not be for thine honour ; for the Lord [Jehovah] shall sell [give up] Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah 10 arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh. And Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh ; and he went up with ten thousand men at his feet : 6 and Deborah went 1 1 up with him. Now Heber the Kenite, which was of the children [sons] of Holiab the father- [brother-] in-law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the plain of Zaanaim [near Elon-Zaanannira], which is by Kedesh. 6 TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [I Ver. 4 — ilTP^V i""lt£*S: Dr. Cassel, taking the second of these words as an appellative, readers, — ein Weit t*n Feuergeist, a woman of fiery spirit, cf. his remarks below. The possibility of this rendf-ing cannot be defied ; bu( 80 lilE BOOK OF JUDGES. It is at least equally probable that the ordinary view which regards Lapidoth as a proper noun is correct. Bachm&nn points out that the succession of statements in this passage is exactly the same as iu " Miriam the prophetess, the sister ol Aaron," K Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum," rt Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Pbanuel," etc. These Instances create a presumption that in this case too the second statement after the name will be one of family relation- ship, which in the absence of positive proof the mere grammatical possibility of another view does not suffice to counter- vail. The feminine ending of Lapidoth creates as little difficulty as it does iu Naboth, and other instances of the same Bort. Of Lapidoth we have no knowledge whatever. The mention here made of him does not necessarily imply that he was still living. Cf. Ruth iv. 10 ; 1 Sam. xxvii. 3 ; etc. — Tb.] [ii Ver. 5. — n^^l'* • Bacbmann also translates ff sat " (sass), although he interprets " dwelt ; " cf. ch. x. 1 ; Joah. ii. 15 ; 2 Kgs. xxii. 14. " As according to the last of these passages the prophetess Huldah had her dwelling (S^HI fl^EE'V) in the second district of Jerusalem, so the prophetess Deborah had her dwelling (j""l^t£*V K^PP) under the' Palm of Deborah. '' — Te.] [S Ver. 6.— ""OFI Tt3 FQtPB 1 ! : Dr. Cassel, — Ziehe auf den Berg Tabor, proceed to Mount Tabor. 8o t-:t:-t 4iany others. For 2 with a verb of motion, cf. Ps. xxiv. 3. But inasmuch as TTtfD recurs immediately in ver 7, ind is there transitive, Bachmaun proposes to take it so here : go, draw sc. an army, to thyself or together, ou Moutt Tabor. Cf the Vulgate. — Tr.] [4 Ver. 7. — 133"l"i""lS1 : properly, " and (not, with) his chariots," etc., although Cassel also has mit. j"1S is the sign of the accusative, not the preposition, as appears from the fact that it has the copula " and " before it. — Te.] [S Ver. 10.— YO;H2 : if the subject of 7l? s T be Barak, as the E. V. and Dr. Cassel take it, Vb^PS can L T . _ . _ __ T . . . hardly mean anything else than tr on foot,'' as Dr. Cassel renders it ; cf. ver. 15. But the true construction — true, be- cause regular and leaving nothing to be supplied — is that which De Wette adopts: "and there went np, V*v3^S, ten thousand men. 1 ' In this construction, which harmonizes perfectly with the context, VvJHS evidently means "at his feet,'' i. e. as De Wette renders, "after him." — Tr ] [6 Ver. 11. — Dr. Cassel's translation adheres strictly to the order of the original : " And Heber, the Kenite, had severed himself from Kain, the sons of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent uear Elon-Zaanannim, by Kedesh. On the rendering " brother-in-law," instead of " father-in-law," cf. Keil, on Ex. ii. 18 ; Smith's BibL Diet. B. T. Hobab. — Te.] EXEGETICAL AMD DOCTRINAL. Ver. 1. And Ehud was dead : i.e. for Ehud was no more. That the eighty years of rest were also the years of Ehud's government is not indeed expressly stated, but seems nevertheless to be indi- cated in this verse. For "rest" is always coinci- dent with " obedience towards God;" and obedi- ence is maintained in Israel through the personal influence of the Judge. When he dies, the weak- ness of the people manifests itself anew. Hence, when we read that the people "continued to do evil, and Ehud was dead," this language must be understood to connect the cessation of rest with the death of Ehud. Shamgar — no mention being made of him here — must have performed his ex- ploit some time during the eighty years. The standing expression ^""D"!, " and they con- tinued," is to be regarded as noting the contin- uance of that fickleness which obtains among the people when not led by a person of divine enthusi- asm. They always enter afresh on courses whose inevitable issues they might long since have learned to know. The new generation learns nothing from the history of the past. "They continued," is. therefore, really equivalent to " they began anew." Vers. 2, 3. And Jehovah gave them up into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, etc. Joshua already had been obliged to sustain a violent eon- test with a Jabin. kiiii: of Hazor. He commanded a confederation of tribes, whose frontier reached as far ejuth as Dor (Tantura) on the coast, and the plains below the Sea of Tiberias. The battle )f Jabin with Joshua took place at the waters of Merom (Lake Huleh) ; and from that fact alone Josephus inferred that " Hazor lay above (vwtp- cf. Nagelsbach, Nachhom. Theoloyie, p. 183). The comparisot: with the Sphinx, instituted by Bochart (Phaleg, p 471 ), was not fortunate ; not even according to the notions of the grammarian Socrates, who repre 1 [From the same root with emsig, industrious, and and therefore the word which figuratively characterizes it. 4mri&', emmet, ant — Ta.] has, by a sort of attraction, a feminine, pot nasculini a [That if, apparently, the energy proceeds from a woman, plural given it. — Ta.l CHAPTER IV. 1-11 83 sented the Sphinx as a native soothsayer, who oc- casioned much harm because the Thebans did not understand her statutes (cf. Jaep, Die griechische Sphinx, p. 15). Ver. 5. She sat under the palm-tree of Deb- orah. Under the palm still known to the narrator as that of Deborah (cf. " Luther's oak," in Thiirin- gia). It is impossible to see why C. Botticher [Ueber den Baumhtltus der Hellenen, p. 523) should ■peak of " Deborah-palms." She sat under a large palm, public and free, accessible to all ; not like the German Velleda, who, according to Tacitus, sat in a tower, and to whom no one was admitted, in order to increase the veneration in which she was held. The palm was the common symbol of all Canaan ; it adorned the coins of both the Phoe- nicians (Movers, ii. 1, 7) and the Jews. 1 From these coins, carried far and wide by sailors — and not, as is generally assumed, from the appearance of the coast when approached from sea, which showed many other things besides palm-trees,— arose the custom of calling those who brought them Phoenicians (* Q?b Tl^ WIpO Op^nnStpnb ; and the sense is evidently that the families are to sacrifice the passover one after another (•"OttJO), each in its turn killing its own lamb. The same successive method is here en- joined by Deborah. Barak is to gather ten thou- sand men toward mount Tabor, one after another, in small squads. This interpretation of the word is strengthened by the obvious necessity of the case. The tyrant must hear nothing of the rising, until the hosts are assembled ; but how can their movements be concealed, unless they move in small companies ? For the same reason they are to assemble, not at Kedesh, but at a central point, readily accessible to the several tribes. Mount Tabor (JeM Tor), southwest of the Sea of Tibe- rias, is the most isolated point of Galilee, rising in the form of a cone above the plain, and visible at a great distance, though its height is only 1755 (according to Schubert, 1748) Par. feet. 3 Barak, however, is not to remain in his position on the mountain. If Sisera's tyranny is to be broken, its forces must be defeated in the plain ; for there the iron chariots of the enemy have their field of action. Hence, Deborah adds that Sisera will collect his army at the brook Kishon. in the plain of Jezreel. " And I " — she speaks in the " Spirit of Jeho- vah " — " will draw him unto thee, and deliver him into thine hand." Ver. 8. And Barak said. Barak has no doubt as to the truth of her words, nor does he fear the enemy ; but yet he will go only if Deborah go with him, not without her. Her presence legitimatizes the undertaking as divine. It shows the tribes he summons, that he seeks no interest of his own — that it is she who summons them. He wishes to stand forth as the executor merely of the command which comes through her. The attempt to draw a parallel between Deborah and Jeanne d'Arc, though it readily suggests itself, will only teach us to estimate the more clearly the peculiar character of the Jewish prophetess. The latter does not her- self draw the sword, for then she would not have needed Barak. Joan, like Deborah, spoke preg- nant words of truth, as when, on being told that " God could conquer without soldiers," she simply replied, " the soldiers will fight, and then God wifl give victory ; " but she fought only against the enemies of her country, not the enemies of her faith and spiritual life. It was a romantic faith in faith and energy, eager for the battle, confident of the vic- tory." — Te.] 2 The rendering of the Targum here is quite remarkable " And she sat in the city, in Ataroth Deborah." 8 Cf. Ritter, IV 393 [Pages Transl. ii. 311 ; also Rob. ii 351 ff.] 84 THE BOOR OF JUDGES. the right and truth of an earthly sseptre, for which the poor maiden fell : the voice which called Debo- rah to victory was the voice of the Universal Sove- reign. No trace of sentimentalism, like that of Dunois, can be discovered in Barak; neverthe- less, he voluntarily retires behind the authority of a woman, because God animates and inspires her. Vers. 9, 10. She said: the expedition on which thou goest, shall not be for thine hon- our ; for Jehovah will give Sisera into the hand of a woman. The victory will be ascribed, not to Barak, but to Deborah. It will be said, " a woman conquered Sisera." This is the first »nd obvious meaning of the words ; ' by the deed of Jael they were fulfilled in yet another sense. The honor of hewing down Sisera did not fall to Barak. Nevertheless, Barak insists on his con- dition. He will have the conflict sanctified by her presence. Something similar appears in Greek tradition : with reference to a battle in the Messe- nian war it is said (Pans. iv. 16), that " the soldiers fought bravely, because their Seers were present," And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh. For the sake of the great national cause, she leaves her peaceful palm ; and by her readiness to share in every danger, evidences the truth of her announcements. Kedesh, Barak's home, is the place from which directions are to be issued to the adjacent tribes. Thither she accom- panies him ; and thence he sends out his call to arms. Some authority for this purpose, he must have had long before : it is now supported by the sanction of the prophetess. When it is said, that he " called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh," it is evident that only the leaders are intended. It cannot be supposed that the troops, in whole or in part, were first marched up to Kedesh, and then back again, southward, to Tabor. In Kedesh, he imparts the plan to the heads of families. Led by these, the troops collect, descending on all sides from their mountains, like the Swiss against Aus- tria, and proceed towards Tabor — " on foot " O^^ 1 ^' * or tneT naTe neither chariots nor cav- alry. Their numbers constantly augment, till they arrive on Tabor, — Barak and Deborah always at their head. Ver. 1 1 . And Heber, the Kenite, had sev- ered himself from Kain, the sons of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses. We read above that the tribe of the Kenite, the father-in-law of Moses, decamped from Jericho with the tribe of Judah (eh. i. 16), and, while the latter carried on the war of conquest, settled in Arad. From there the family of Heber has separated itself. While one part of the tribe has sought a new home for itself below, in the extreme south of Judah, the other encamps high up, in the territory of Naph- tali. It is as if the touching attachment of this people to Israel still kept them located at the extremities of the Israelitish encampment, in order, 1 [This is the first and obvious meaning of the words, and it is very strange that Bachinauu should pronounce this interpretation, from which but for Jael no one would ever have dreamed of departing, impossible. — Tr.] 2 In giving Jethro seven names, homiletical applications were followed. Thus, Hobab was taken as a surname of Jethro, " because he was dear to God." (Jalkut, Judges^ 0.38.) 8 To pitch one's tent (t in the vicinity " of a place, is expressed by IV ; so here, ^17W IV • loGen.xxxviii. 1, >Khiy trrN--fx?. | as of old, to show them the way. Above, ch. i. 16 1 they are called " sons of the Kenite, the father-in law of Moses"; here, " Kain (cf. Num. xxiv. 22) the sons of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses.' Ancient expositions - have been the occasion of unnecessary confusion as to Jethro's name. )i~in means to contract affinity by marriage ; and, just as in German Schwiiher (father-in-law) and Sc/iwa- ger (brother-in-law) are at bottom one, so the He- brew "\!y^r\ may stand for both father-in-law and brother-in-law. The father-in-law of Moses was Jethro ; as priest, he was called Reuel ( 7SW1). He did not accompany Israel, but after his visit to Moses, went back to his own land (Ex. xviii. 27). His son Hobab, however (Num. x. 29), had re- mained with Israel ; and when he also would return home, Moses entreated him to abide with them, that he might be for eyes to them on the way, and promised him a share in whatever good might he in store for Israel. The proposal was accepted, and the promise was kept. In the north and south of Canaan, the Kenites had their seats. The} are here designated " sons of Hobab," because it was from him, the ancient guide of Israel, that they derived their position in the land. Heber's tent was in the vicinity of Kedesh, near Elon Zaananuim, 3 mentioned also at Josh. xix. 33, as a place on the border of Naphtali. The name may have originated from the sojourn of the Kenites ; a supposition which becomes necessary, if with an eye tiv of other versions give? tl the sense of ] JSCT, which is so rendered, Jer. j Iviii. 11 CHAPTER IV. 12-24. 85 offer him that cup whereof she dares not begin : without regard of her sex, she marches with him to Mount Tabor, and rejoices to be seen of the ten thousand of Israel. — Hexgstenberg ( Genuine- ness of the Pentateuch, ii. 101) : To grant succor through a woman was calculated to raise heaven- wards the thoughts of men, which are so prone to cleave to the earth. If the honor was due to God alone, they would be more disposed to show their gratitude by sincere conversion. That Barak was obliged to lean on Deborah, depended on the same law by which Gideon was chosen to be the deliv erer of Israel from the Midianites, though his fam ■ ily was the meanest in Manasseh. and himself the youngest in his father's house ; that law by which Gideon was divinely directed to take only three hundred men from the whole assembled host ; the women Deborah and Jael stand in the same cate- gory with the ox-goad of Shamgar. In all ages God is pleased to choose for his service the in considerable and the despised. — Tr.] The Battle of the Kishon. Sisera, defeated, seeks shelter in the tent of Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, and is slain by her. Chapter IV. 12-24. 12 And they shewed Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam was gone up to Mount 13 Tabor. And Sisera gathered [called] together all his chariots [his whole chariot- force], even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people that were with him, from Haroshetli of the Gentiles [Harosheth Hagojim] unto the river [brook] of Kishon. 14 And Deborah said unto Barak, Up ; for this is the day in which the Lord [Jehovah] hath delivered [delivereth] Sisera into thine hand : is [doth] not the Lord [Je- hovah] gone [go] out before thee ? So Barak went down from Mount Tabor, and 15 ten thousand men after him. And the Lord [Jehovah] discomfited [confounded] Sisera, and all his [the] chariots, and all his [the] host, with the edge of the sword ' before Barak ; so that [and] Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on 16 his feet. But [And] Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the host, unto Harosheth of the Gentiles [Harosheth Hagojim]: and all the host of Sisera fell 17 upon [by] the edge of the sword; and there was not a man left. Howbeit, Sisera fled 2 away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite : for there was 18 peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael went out to meet Sisera. and said unto him. Turn in, my lord, turn in to me ; fear not. And when he had turned [And he turned] in unto her into the tent, [and] she 19 covered him with a mantle. 3 And he said unto her. Give me. I pray thee, a little water to drink ; for I am thirsty. And site opened a bottle of milk [the milk-skin], and gavf 20 him drink, and covered him. Again [And] he said unto her. Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and inquire of thee, and say. Is 21 there any man here ? that thou shalt say, No. Then [And] Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the tent [the tent-pin], and took an [the] hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote [drove] the nail [pin] into his temples, and fastened it [and it pressed through] into the ground : for he was fast asleep, and weary. So 22 he died. 4 And behold, as [omit : as] Barak pursued Sisera, [and] Jael cam* out [went] to meet him, and said unto him. Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the 23 nail [pin] was in his temples. So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of 24 Canaan before the children [sons] of Israel. And the hand of the children [sons] of Israel prospered, and prevailed [grew continually heavier] against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 15. — ^*^n -> D V. Standing in connection with DrT s 1, these words are of somewhat difficult interpreta- v . : T t- 7 rion. Dr. Cassel's rejection of them will not commend itself to most critics ; nor is the provisional translation he givei of them, "in the conflict,'' exactly clear. The best view is probably that of Bachmann, that the expression denotes the peat operative cause by which Jehovah confounded the enemy. Barak's men, rushiug down from the mountain, and 86 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. idling suddenly on the hosts of Sisera, cutting down with remorseless sword all that stood in their way, threw the enemj ,nto utter confusion ; but the effect is rightly ascribed to Jehovah ) from whose Spirit both the impulse and the strength u execute proceeded. — Ta.] [i Ver. 17. — Dr. Cassel translates by the pluperfect : " had fled, " cf. below. But it seems better to retain *.ue indefi* nite perfect. The narrative left Sisera for a moment, in order in ver. 16 briefly to indicate the fate of the arm} , but now returns to him. Cf. 1 Kgs. xx. 30, and many similar instances. — Ta.J [3 Ver. 18. — nD^DH?. This word means a "covering ; " but exactly what sortof covering is uncertain. Dr. Cassel translates here by Kezcnluch, raincloth, perhaps to indicate its close, impervious texture. Br. Bachmaun thinks it was r( probably a rather large covering or mat of thick, soft material (perhaps skin or goat's-hair), on which a person lay down and in which he at the same time wrapped himself up, — a sort of mattrass and coverlet in one. Similar articles still form part of the furniture of the Bedouin's tent and the Fellah's dwelling."' He derives the word from T| r C = 7TTDD, in its usual sense to support, to leaD, specifically to recline at table. Accordingly the proper meaning of the word would be r supporting ; " then, concretely, that which supports or serves to recline upon. — Tr.] [4 Ver. 21. — Dr. Cassel : f[ and he — for weariness he had fallen fast asleep — died."' Keil : ff Now he was falleo into r deep sleep, and was wearied (i. e. from weariness he had fallen fast asleep) ; and so he died."' Similarly Bacbmauu. The clause S*li~n — P]3?*T is manifestly designed to set forth the circumstances which enabled Jael to approach Sisera unperceived ; consequently, the H for " of the English version is perfectly proper, and formally not less correct than Dr. Cassel's German, which was only designed to correct Luther's version : ■' he however, fell asleep, swooned away, and died." Dr. Wordsworth (p. 99) considers it a mistake to suppose that Jael "smote a nail into Siaera's head while he was asleep." He would render : "and he fell down astounded, and fainted away, and died." The passage is a curiosity in interpretation. — Ta.] EXEGETIUAL AND DOCTRINAL. Intensely vivid pictures, and of the highest his- torical clearness, are drawn in these simple sen- tences. The reader is conducted, in imagination, into the tumult of the battle, and stands horror- stricken in the tent of Jael. Ver. 12. And they told Sisera. Jabin was in Hazor, Sisera in Harosheth Hagojim. Since the tidings from Tabor come to Sisera, he must have been near the scene of action ; whilst Jabin appears to be at a distance from all the events nar- rated. Vers. 13, 14. And he called together, p?T*]. PPJ means properly, to cry; here, as in ver. 10, to assemble by crying, Kripirreiv : he mobilizes the troops quartered round about. Everything revolves about Sisera. He is the prominent, controlling personage ; commander, probably, of the mercena- ries, who on account of their mixed ' character, were also perhaps called Gojim. The chariots, which Sisera orders to be sent to the brook Kishon, must already have been in the plain, since other- wise they could not have been transported. Their head-quarters cannot have been anywhere else than at Beisan, where at the same time they commanded the best chariot and cavalry roads to the country beyond the Jordan. The plain of Jezreel to which he conducts them, is ground on which his army can properly unfold itself. He leads them to the southwest side of Tabor, where the mountain shows its greatest depression. It must have been his intention, in case Barak did not attack, to sur- round him on the mountain, and thus compel him to descend into the valley. But before the terrible chariot-force has well arranged itself, the Israel- itish army, fired with divine enthusiasm by Deb- orah, and led by Barak, charges down on the flanks of the enemy, and breaks up their battle ranks. Everything is thrown into confusion — panic terrors ensue, — everything turns to flight. die great captain has lost his head ; of all his 1 According to Ezekiel (ch. xxvii. 10), Paras, Lud. and Phut, were in the army of the king of Tyre, as mercenaries. The same prophet (ch. xxxviii. 5), addressing Gog, implies that he had Paras, Cush, and Phut, in his service. It is Mrtainly more reasonable to think of the Assyrian Cush (Cossaeans) as connected with the army of Gog, than of the African. In place of Gog and Magog, an ancient interpre- tation already puts Cimmerians and Scythians. In like strategic plans nothing remains ; only presence of mind enough is left him to seek salvation from destruction by not fleeing in his chariot, nor with the others. Vers. 15-24. And Jehovah confounded them Deborah had promised that God would no before them — as He went before Joshua, not visibly as an angel (as the Targum has it), but in the might of his Spirit, which He puts upon his heroes. It is by that quickening Spirit that, in their charge from the height, Barak becomes lightning, and Deborah a torch, by which the enemy is consumed. CrPI, •' He confounded them," as He confounded the host of the Egyptians (Ex. xiv. 24). When confusion enters the ranks of the chariots, all is lost. They are then worse than useless. God did this, that Israel might conquer. In the conflict. 2"JH" , 27. This is the only meaning which these words can have, if they prop- erly belong here. In that case, however, the phrase- ology S'irPE 1 ? .... ErPI is peculiar, and admits only of an artificial explanation. Ber- | theau's idea, that God is represented as a cham- pion hero with his sword, is altogether inadmissible. To me it seems likely that 2"' : rP' , p7 did not originally stand here at all, but slipped in from ver. 16, an error easily accounted for by the fact that the next word, *?-?, begins with the same letters. And Sisera lighted down off his chariot. Be- cause on that he was likely to he recognized. The bulk of the army, on account of the chariots, can only flee along the plain, back to Harosheth, whence they advanced. Sisera takes to his feet, in order to escape by other roads. He fore- sees that Barak will pursue the army, and look for him there. Therefore he secretly flees in a northern direction towards Hazor ; and gains thereby at all events the advantage that Barak seeks him in the other direction, towards Harosh- ii i:in ri<>i\ Symmachus explains the king of Elam, who in- vaded Palestine, to be the king of the Scythians. The his- torical fact that people of Scythian manners served iu the armies of the Phoenicians, may serve to render the existence of a Scythian colony at Beisan more probable at least, than it is on the basis of the traditions communicated by Pliny and others, which are only like similar stories current at Antioch and elsewhere. CHAPTER IV. 12-24. 8'< 8th. During the tumult in which his proud army Is shattered by the heroic deeds of Israel, he has succeeded in getting well on towards his destina- tion, and thinks himself to have found a safe hid- ing-place with a friend. The language is de- signedly chosen to indicate this order of events ' first, ver. 15, and Siserafled; then, ver. 16, Barak pursued; finally, ver. 17, Sisera had (led. — Be- tween Hebe'- the Kenite and Jabin there was peace ; the Kenite therefore had not shared the oppression under which Israel suffered. Consequently, Sisera could hope to find in his tent a little rest from the fatigue of his long-continued 1 exertions. Securer still was the shelter of the woman's tent. In that of Heber, he might have feared the violence of Barak : the tent of a woman no one enters with hostile purpose. He seems first to have made in- quiries. She meets him with friendly mien, invites him urgently, and quiets his apprehensions : " fear not," she says ; she prepares him a couch that he may rest himself, and covers him carefully with a close covering. The covering is called n3 > JpJP, a word which occurs only here. The derivations given in Bochart (Phaleg, 74$) and in the recent lexicons (Gesenius, Fiirst), throw no light on it. rO"»tp is the Syriac and Cbaldee S3!Ca hide, skin, leather; Arabic, ~\tST2 (cf. Freytag, Lex. Arab., iv., sub voce), ciliciuiit,saccus. This is finally indicated by those Greek versions (followed also by Augustine ; and cf. Rordarn, p. 83) which translate it Sfjifris ; for that means not only " hide," but also " leathern covering," and a female gar- ment, according to the Etymol. Magnum, where we read of a yvvi} peKaLvav BtpJHv 7ju, Will it not be treason on her part against the ancient covenant with Israel? Will he not, by virtue of his vigor and skill, collect fresh troops, and threaten Israel anew i Shall it be said, Jael saved the enemy of the people among whom she lived as among brothers, to their destruction ? The conflict in which she finds herself is great ; and none but a great and powerful soul could end it as she does. She will not allow him to escape — as he will do, if she refuse to harbor him ; and yet, she can harbor him only to destroy, — and that not without doing violence to ancient popular custom. She makes her decision. She scorns the reward which Sisera's safety might perhaps have brought her. She takes the nobler object into considera- tion — the freedom of a kindred nation, — and the older right preponderates. A ruthless warrior stands before her, the violator of a thousp.ud laws of right, and all hesitation vanishes. She has no sword with which to hew the oppressor down, and seizes the terrible weapon of womanly cunning, before which no law can stand. Besides, it has been noticed, even in modern times, that in gen- eral the women of those regions care less about the rights of hospitality than the men. Burkhardt in his wanderings had personal experience of this ( Hitter, xiv. 179). Jael, through her terrible deed, far surpasses similar female characters of other times and na- tions. Concerning the Greek Aretophila, of Cy- rene, Plutarch (On the Virtues of K own, n. 19) exclaims : " Her glorious deed raises her to the rank of the most ancient heroines ! " What was her deed ? By poison, lies, and perjury, she finally succeeded in overthrowing the tyrant who loved her, the husband who trusted her ! But she would never have risen to such an undertaking, had he not slain her first husband. Still more horrible is the Chriemhild of the German Nibelun- gen. She invites those whom she wishes to mur- der, from a great distance ; she not only violates the rights of hospitality, but her victims are her own relatives, countrymen, and friends. Jael has no by-ends, no personal wrong to avenge; the tyrant is a stranger to her, and not properly her enemy. But he is the oppressor of the freedom of the people of God, with whose life her own and that of her race have become identified. She does a demonlike deed, — but does it solely and purely in the service of general ideas. 9 fully. The salient points of his essay may, however, be stated in few words. He thinks it unquestionable that the language of Deborah, ch. iv. 9, "Jehovah shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman," is a prediction of the chieftain's destruction by Jael. This utterance of the prophetess can- not have been unknown to Jael. Hence, when the latter sees Sisera approach her tent for shelter, she at once obtains the clear and certain conviction that it is by her hands that he is to fall. She therefore acts under a divine commission. Her invitation to Sisera, her promise of proteclion, and her honorable entertainment of him, are not to be defended. But f: although she transcended the proper limits in the means she employed, it is not to be denied that the operation of THE BOOK OF JUDGES. It had not been necessary for her to kill him. Scarcely was her deed accomplished, before Barak, swift as lightning both in battle and in pursuit, appeared. But, since it was done, it served to manifest the faitnfcilness of the Kenite, and to in- crease the disgrace of Jabin. Barak had gained nothing by personally slaying the flying foe; only the honor of the hostile chieftain had been sub- served, if he had fallen by the sword of the hero. Filled with astonishment, Barak enters the tent of Jael — a noble subject for the painter's pencil ! ' — and before him lies the mighty Sisera, a dead man, nailed to the earth by a woman ! A victory thus begun, could not but end magnificently. Contin- ually more telling were the blows that fell on Jabin's head, until his power was annihilated. No other Jabin reigned in Hazor. His name is thrice repeated in verses 23 and 24, in order to emphasize its importance. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Deborah, the female Judge, full of fire, and Barak the hero. Israel's sin remains ever the same. When their hero dies, when the elders who have seen the works of God are no more, the younger generation apostatizes. So perverse and cowardly is the human heart ; and times do not change, nor experience teach it. — Staeke : Peace and too prosperous days are not long good for men. But the danger of the judgment becomes ever greater, the tyranny of sin ever stronger and nearer. The king of Aram, whom Othniel smote, was dis- tant ; the king of Moab, beyond the Jordan ; but the king of Hazor is in the midst of the land, possessed of unprecedented power. However, the greater the power of the enemy, the more manifest become the wonders of God's compassion. The deliverer raised up against Moab, though left- handed, is a man ; but against the master of nine hundred iron chariots, the battle is waged through a woman. Thus, 1. the heathen learn that victory comes not by horses or horsemen, but by the word of God ; and, 2. Israel is humbled, not only by the judgment, but also by the mercy, of God. There was no want of warlike men in Israel ; but lances break like rushes, when the heart is not courageous. Israel, with all its strong men, is im- ootent so long as it lacks faith in its God. Barak tile Spirit of God influenced her deed, nor that she acted from the impulse of the obedience of faith. It is. moreover, only from this point of view that we obtain an explanation of the fact that Deborah in her judgment (ch. v. 24 ff. ) so Botiroly overlooked the human weakness that clung to Jael's is a valiant hero, but a womatv must call him His name is "Lightning," and his deeds are mighty ; but the lightning is kindled by the fire- words of the prophetess. As Moses sings after the exodus, " The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name," so Deborah's word and song testify that God alone can save. To make this truth seen and believed by all, He lends his victory to a woman. Thus the vanity of men reveals itself, who ascribe to themselves that which belongs to God. Military readiness is of no avail, when readiness of spirit is not cherished. Not legions, but proph- ets, guard the kingdom of God. God only can conquer, and He suffers not men to prescribe the instruments of conquest. Barak was a valiant hero, for he was obedient. He followed, but did not begin. Hence, also, though he gained the victory in the field, he never- theless did not complete it. He took his impulse from a woman, — with Deborah, but not without her, he was willing to go where he went ; a wo- man likewise finished the victory, when Jael slew the leader of the enemy. He waited for the spirit which Deborah breathed into him ; not so did Jael wait for his sword to lay Sisera low. Hence, a woman's name became connected both with the beginning and the end of the great achievement. Thus God grants results according to the measure of courage. As we believe, so we have. If Barak had believed like Deborah, he would have been as near to God as she was. But the Spirit of God \ needs no soldiers to conquer. He glorifies, through his word, the despised things of the world. Jesus selected as disciples, not athletes, hut children of God who sought their Father. Put up thy sword, He said to Peter. When risen from the ' dead, it was to a woman that He first appeared. Starke : Holy men love holy company, for therein they find a great blessing. — The same : We with our distrust often close God's hands, so that but for our own actions, He would give us far more than He does ; for God is more inclined to give, than we to receive. — The same : So are men's hearts in the hands of God, that out of the timid He can make heroes, and out of heroes, cow- ards. — Gehlach : The holy faith that animates the deed of Jael, is of divine origin ; the ways and methods, however, of rude and savage times con- tinue in part until the time when all the promises of God in Christ shall be fulfilled. deed." Compare the remarks of Dean Stanley, Hist, of 'Ju Jewish Church, i. 365-370. — Tb.] 1 It is powerfully treated in the Bibtl in Bildem, p«V lished by Schnorr. CHAPTER V. 1-31. Deborah's Song of Triumph. Chapter V. 1-31. THE SUPERSCRIPTION. Verse 1. 1 Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day, saying, EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. The special sign of the prophetic spirit, is the use of lyrical expression. The praise of God, and the proclamation of his mighty deeds, burst from the firophets in the rapture of poetic visions. Their anguage is glowing and powerful, like a torch in the night. This lofty view of the nature of poetry shows itself everywhere. Poets, says Socrates, speak like men divinely inspired, like those who deliver oracles. Among the Romans, legendary- tradition (Liv. i. 7) told of an ancient prophetic nymph, Carmenta (from Carmen). Of no Judge is it expressly said that he was a prophet : this is affirmed of Deborah alone ; and she alone among them sang, — and that, not merely as Miriam, who with her women formed the responsive choir to Moses' song, but as Moses, the victor, himself. She sang, "'tT'ril. She was the creator of the eong. Quite parallel is the expression, Ex. xv. 1 : " then sang Moses and the sons of Israel " (^Ity), not " they sang." Moses, divinely inspired, com- posed the song, and the people sang it. The case was similar with Deborah. The feminine of the verb, with the following connective, "1, expresses the independent creation and the joint-execution of the Song; for already in the fourth chapter, Barak stands for the most part for the people them- selves. Thus, Barak has gone up to Mount Tabor ch. iv. 12 ; Sisera's army is thrown into confusion before Barak, ver. 15 ; Barak pursues, ver. 16 ; etc. Here also, therefore, Barak takes the place which in the Song of Moses the " children of Israel " oc- cupy. He and his men raise Deborah's hymn as their song of triumph ; and thus it becomes a na- tional hymn. Song is the noblest ornament which the nations of antiquity can devise for victory. They preserve its utterances tenaciously, both as evidences of their prowess, and as incentives to action in times of dishonor. In the days of Pau- sanias (in the second century after Christ), and therefore about 800 years after the event, the Messenians still sang a triumphal song of the time of Aristomenes (Pans. iv. 16). Perhaps the most interesting remnant of German recollections of Arminius, is the Westphalian popular song, still sung in the region of what was once the field of 1 [The author's version of the Song forms an essential part of his exposition, and we therefore substitute a transla- tion of it, aduaring as closely as practicable to his German, for the ordinary English text. For Dr. Cassel's rendering of H^n^, cf. "Textual and Grammatical,'' note 1, p. 23. In general, it will be seen that he does not anxiously aim at literalness. The black-faced letters are designed to imitate, rather than reproduce, the alliteration which in our author's riew forms a marked feature of the poem (see above). It victory (cf. Horkel, in Der Gesck. der Deutschen Vor- zeit, i. 257). In the case of Israel, whose victories are the steps in its national work, and the evi- dences of its religious truth, the interest of such a song is the greater, because there tradition moulded the conscience of the generations, and fidelity to its earliest history formed the conditions of the national calling, greatness, and glory. The form of the Song, as of the old Hebrew poetry generally, is that of free rhythm. The Song is a poetical stream : everywhere poetical, and yet untrammeled by any artistic division into strophes. Such a division, it is true, is not altogether want- ing ; but it is never made a rule. Consequently, efforts to force it systematically on the poem, while only traces of it show themselves, are all in vain. There is no want of finish ; introduction and con- clusion are well defined ; but the pauses subordi- nate themselves to the thoughts, and these unfold themselves free as the waves. The peculiar char- acter of the Song consists in the boldness of its imagery and the force of its unusual language. It appropriates, in a natural manner, all those forms which genuine poetry does not seek but produce ; but it appropriates them all with a freedom which endures none as a rule, yet without, like the nat- ural stream, violating harmony. The Song, then, has strophes, but they are not of equal measure ; it moves along in parallelisms, but with variations corresponding to the movement of the thought. The most interesting feature to be noticed, is the alliteration, which appears in the highest develop- ment and delicacy, as elsewhere only in the old Norse poems, but also with considerable freedom from restraint. It is important to notice this, because it testifies, more than any division into strophes that may exist, to the nature of the popu- lar song and its lyrical use. The divisions which the poem certainly shows, are determined only by its own course of thought.* They are : the praise of God, as introduction (vers. 2-5) ; the delinea- tion of the emergency (vers. 6-8); the call tc praise that the evil no longer exists (vers. 9-11) ; delineation of the victory and the victors (vers. 12- 23); the fate of the enemy (vers. 24-31). The renderings which distinguish the following trans- lation from the older versions extant, will be jus- tified under the several verses in which they occur. 1 may be useful to some readers to be referred to the follow ing readily accessible English versions of the Song : Robin- son's, with an extended commentary, in Bibl. Repository, 1831, p. 568 ; " Review of Hollmann on the Song of Deborah," Chris. Spectator (New Haven), ii. 307 ; Robbins, " The Song of Deborah." Bibliotheca Sacra, 1855, p- 597 ; Milman's version, in Hist, of the Jews, i. 292 ; Stanley's, in Jewish Church, i. 370. The whole special literature of the subject is given Ity Bachmann, i. 298 ff. — Tr.} 90 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. IXTKODVCTIOir. Vers. 2-5. 2 That in Israel wildly waved the hair In the people's self-devotion, — Praise God ! 3 Hear, O ye kings, give ear, O ye princes : I for God, 1 unto Him will I sing, I will strike the strings unto God, the Lord of Israel I 4 O God, at thy march from Seir, At thy going forth from Edom's fields, The earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, Tea, the clouds dropped down water. 5 The mountains were dismayed before God, Even this 2 Sinai, before God, the Lord of Israel. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 8. — Dr. Cassel : Ieh fiir Gott ; but the accents separate S 3DN from rTirPv, and there ippeare no good reason for disregarding them. The position and repetition of the subject ^wDS serve to bring the person of the Singet prominently into view, and that not in her character as woman, but as prophetess, filled with the Spirit of God, and there- fore entitled to challenge the attention of kings and princes. So Bachmann. — Tr.] [2 Ver. 5. — ^D nT : literally, « this Sinai.'' " Sinai is present to the poetic eye of Deborah " (Wordsworth). Dr. Cassel translates by the definite article, der Sinai. — TR.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 2. The above translation of ver. 2 1 differs from all earlier renderings, which however also differ more or less from each other. The most in- teresting among them is that of those Greek ver- sions which render " eV t<£ £p|acr8ai upxwytvs." It has been followed by a multitude of esteemed ex- positors (Schnurrer, Rosenmiiller, Ewald, Ber- theau, Bottger, Kemink) ; and yet it betrays its Egyptian origin, since in connection with ?T23 niyTS it thought only of the Egyptian Pha- raoh or king, and expounded accordingly. A simi- lar, more homiletical interpretation proceeds from the Targum. This was more naturally reminded of fT0y"W2, ukio, vindicta ; the Midrash, by speak- ing of the- cessation of the sufferings, whose pre- vious existence is implied in the necessity for ven- geance, shows that it adopts the same interpreta- tion. Teller also, perhaps unconsciously, arrived at the same explanation. The interpretation of Raschi, who takes 3?"7B as equivalent to Y~)!?.i and of those who suppose it equivalent to CO 7?, may, like various others, be passed over in silence. The natural exposition, which is always at the same time the poetical, has on all sides been overlooked. V"!" is undoubtedly (as in Arabic) the hair of .he head, and more particularly the long, waving nair, the coma,'- as appears from Ezek. xliv. 20. my^S? is its plural form, and is used in Deut. i bfcnapg rra-js visa : rnrr 0-13 cv STanrra t • :it at •-- : • : 2 That we must go back to the sense of this word, is also tdmitted by Keil ; but he attaches a meaning to it which t never has. [Kkil : /"ll- 1 "^ here means properly xxxii. 42, where blood is spoken of as flowing down from the hairy head &iM niS~jB BftHfl). Hence the verb 3?"]2, (cf. ko^v, to cultivate the hair), signifies "to make loose," to allow to "be- come wild," as when the hair flies wild aud loose about the neck; wherefore it is said of Aaron (Ex. xxxii. 25) that he had caused the people n3?^3, " to grow wild," and of the people that they " had grown wild " (57 1 ?)- The circum- stances under which the hair was allowed to grow, are well known. The person who makes a vow, who would be holy unto God, is directed (Num. vi. 5) to let his hair grow (2"7? O?). The in- stance of Samson, to which we shall come here- after, is familiar. The present occasion for this observance arose 037 313 .T^H?, * when the peo- ple consecrated themselves, devoted themselves (se devovit), to God, — the people, namely, who gave heed to the voice of Deborah, and placed themselves in the position of one who called himself holy unto God. Israel, through disobedience, had fallen into servitude. Those who followed Barak, had faith in God ; upon the strength of this faith they haz- arded their lives. They devoted themselves wholly as a sacrifice to God. The verse therefore exhibits a profound apprehension of the essential nature of the national life. It sets forth the ground of the very possibility of the Song, and therefore stands at its head. Israel could be victorious only by repentance and return to obedience. 4 The proph- etess delineates, poetically and with forcible beauty. comati, hairy persons, I. e. those who are endowed with strength. The champions in battle are meant, who by their prowess and valor preceded the people." — Tr] 8 The verb 213 occurs only in Exodus, Ezra, Chron- icles, and here. 4 The Targum, though merely paraphrastic, in Its spirl agrees entirely with this interpretation. CHAPTER V. 2-5. 91 the people's great act of self-devotion, when whole tribes give themselves to God, — their hair stream- ing, their hearts rejoicing, — and place their strength and trust in Him. They were the /capri- Koiiioivrts ' of a divine freedom. This interpreta- tion also brings the parallelism out clearly : 3?^?? stands in both causal and appositional correlation with 2 ^T2P'73. The preposition ? points out the condition of the people in which they conquered and sang. The Song is the people's consecration hymn, and praises God for the prosperous and suc- cessful issue with which He has crowned their vows. " Praise ye God," it exclaims, " for the long locks," — i. e. for and in the people's conse- cration. The result of every such consecration as God blesses, is his praise. And now, the nations must hear it ! The object of Israel's national pride, is its God. Hence, Israel's song of triumph is a call upon surrounding kings to hear what God did for his people when they gave themselves up to Him. 2 Ver. 3. Hear, O ye kings and princes. Both are expressions for the " mighty ones " among the nations, cf. Ps. ii. 2. D^TT are the great, the strong. Rosen manifestly answers to the Sanskrit vrisna (Benfey, i. 332), Old High German riso, giant. — Deborah proposes not merely to sing, but adds, I will play C'SW). As in the Psalms, sing- ing and playing are joined together, one repre- senting thought, the other sound. The action ex- pressed by "'ST, is performed on various instru- ments (cf. Ps. cxliv. 9, " ten-stringed lute "), chiefly on the cithern, a species of harp or lyre (Ps. xcviii. 5, etc.), but also with timbrels ami citherns (Ps. cxlix. 3, cf. Ps. lxxxi. 3). Miriam also accom- panied her antiphonal song with timbrels (tympanis, Ex. xv. 20), Jephthah's daughter used them as she came to meet her father (Jndg. xi. 34). Nor can they have failed as an accompaniment to the Song of our prophetess. Tympana (toph, timbrels) ap- pear in antiquity as the special instrument of im- passioned women (Creuzer, Symbolik, iii. 489). The derivation of the word ""?J is not clear. De- litzschis doubtless right in deciding (Psalter, i. 19) that it has nothing to do with the samar which signifies to "prune the vine." That samar re- minds one of the Greek 0711X71, a clasp and carving- knife. Simmer, to play (scil. mismor, \fitAfi6s), dis- tinguishes itself as an onomatopoetic word. The primitive Greek singer, whose contest with the muses in cithern-playing Homer already relates, was named Thamyris (II. ii. 594). Vers 4, 5. O God at thy inarch from Seir. An Israelitish song can praise God only by re- 1 [" Long-haired," cf. thfi Homeric KapTiKopovvras Axat- ov?, " long-haired Greeks," 11. ii. 11, etc. Among the later Greeks, long hair was the badge of freedom, and hence was oot allowed to slaves. See Smith's Diet. Antiquities, s. v. "Coma."— Tr.] 2 [Dr. Bachmann adopts the view of ver. 2 given by the LXX. according to the Alexandrine Codex : ee t(3 ap£air9ai ip^jyou? kv *Ierpa>j\, and translates, » that the leaders led," 9tc. Tho idea of tr leading " or t( going before," he says, pay be readily derived from the radical meaning of 3?^2, to break forth, " sc. into prominence (hen-orbrechen). His sriticism on our author's translation is as follows : c: To say nothing of the fact that the partitive (?) 7S~>t£T3 excites nrprise, standing as it does in parallelism with C3?, it may hearsing the history of Israel. For the fact that God is in its history constitutes the sole founda tion of Israel's national existence and rights ovef against other nations. But this immanence of God in the history of the people, manifests itself most wonderfully" in those events through which, as by steps, Israel became a nation. For not_ in Egypt, where Israel was a servant, was the nation born, nor through the exodus alone ; the nation- alitv of Israel is the child of the desert. There, through the self-revelation of God, Israel became a free people. The journey through the desert — of which Sinai was the central point, — by the giving of the law and the impartation of doctrine, by the wonderful provision of food and the gift of victory, and by the infliction of awful judgments, became one continuous act of divine revelation. Thus, Israel came forth from the desert a perfected nation. The prophetic insight of the Hebrew poets, at one clear glance, traces the desert-birth of the nation back to the manifest nearness of God as its cause All that happened to the people came from God. " The Lord came from Sinai," says the Song of Moses (Dent, xxxiii. 2), "and rose up from Seir ; He shined forth from Mount Paran." The 114th psalm (ver. 2) represents the exodus from Egypt as the beginning of Israel's nationality : " Then Judah became his sanctuary." Deborah takes Seir and Edom, whence Israel en tered history as a nation, as representatives of the whole desert ; which from her position was, even geographically, quite natural. The 68th Psalm, borrowing from this passage, at the same time ex- plains it by substituting more general terms for Seir and Edom : 3 " When thou wentest forth be- fore thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness." The wilderness was the theatre of the revelation of God. There He appeared to his people. Where is there another nation to whom this occurred ? " Hear, ye kings," cries the prophetess, what nation was ever raised up, in- structed, and led, bv the manifest presence of such a God? The earth trembled. The superior grandeur of Scriptural over the noblest Hellenic conceptions, is scarcely anywhere more clearly apparent. The earthquake, with Hesiod and others, is symbolic of conflict between the powers above and those below, between Zeus and Typhon : — ft Great Olympus trembled beneath the immortal feet Of the Ruler rising up. and hollow groaned the earth. The earth resounded, and the heavens around, and ttw floods of ocean." 4 To the prophetic spirit of Deborah, also, and of the Psalms, the earthquake becomes a powerful symbol ; but it is the symbol of the creature's well be doubted whether the expression taken in this sense would ever have been intelligible, notwithstanding the al- leged explanatory apposition of the second member of the verse ; at all events, in the language of the law 27^Q denotes, not an act, but a condition (the consequence of the *12V^~S^ *13?I*1, Num. vi. 5), such as at the beginning of the fulfillment of a vow of consecration — and to a begin- ning the reference would have to be here, — could have no existence." — Tr.] s For -pri&p TJiTIS^S, Ps- lxviii. substitute Tyar \DQb, and for rSis rn'trp t^V^ u has lia'tr^ ^vvs. 4 Hesiod, Theogon., v." 840, etc- 92 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. humility and awe on account of the sacred near- ness of God. For Israel's sake, God descended from on high ; the creature knows its Lord, and trembles. The earth trembles, 1 and " the heavens pour." (In the desert peninsula of Sinai the lat- ter is a wonder. Even at this day, the Bedouins cherish the superstition that Moses had in his possession the book which determines the fall of rain.) The heavens lose their brazen aridity; whatever is hard and unyielding, firm as rock and stone, becomes soft and liquid : ' 2 the moun- tains stagger, the rocks flow down like water G1TI3). The earthquake-belt that girdles the Mediterranean afforded numerous instances of such phenomena. Tremendous masses of rock have been shaken down from Mount Sinai by earth- quakes (Kitter xiv. 601, etc.). Even this Sinai. That is, Sinai especially, Sinai before all others is the mountain that shook when God descended, according to the statement, Ex. xix. 18; "and the whole mount quaked greatly." Thunders rolled and heavy clouds hung upon its summit (Ex. xix. 16). "The mountains saw thee," says Habakkuk (ch. iii. 10), "and they trembled ; the overflowing of the waters passed by." " What ailed you, ye mountains, that ye trembled like 1 Cf. Jer. x. 10; Joel iv. (iii.) 16, etc. lambs ? " asks the Psalmist, Ps. cxiv. 6 : " Before the Lord the earth trembled, before the God oi Jacob." These introductory ascriptions of praise to God, have no reference to the battle at the Kishon. They magnify the power and majesty of Israel's God, as manifested in the nation's earlier history Such is the God of Israel, the nations are told. Such is He who has chosen Israel for his people. It was there in the desert that they became his ; and for that reason the poet selects the scenes of the desert as the material of her praise. She speaks with great brevity : the 68th Psalm ampli- fies her conceptions. Very unfortunate is the conjecture (Biittger) that by Sinai Tabor is meant. It is altogether at variance with the spirit of the old covenant, which could never consent to make Sinai the representative of any less sacred moun- tain. Moreover, the battle was not on Tabor, but in the plain, near the Kishon. With ver. 5 closes that part of the Song by which the " kings and princes " are informed that the God whom the elements fear, has become the Lord of Israel. With ver. 6 the poetess first enters on the history of the state of aflairs which existed in Israel pre- vious to her great deed. 2 « The mountains melt like was," cf. Pa. xcril. 6. THE PREVIOUS DISTRESS. Vers. 6-8. After l the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, After the Helper's (Jael's) days, The highways were deserted, The traveller went in winding ways. Deserted were Israel's hamlets, 2 deserted, Till I Deborah rose up — rose up a mother in Israel. New gods had they got them 3 — therefore the press of war approached their gates ; 4 Among forty thousand in Israel was there found 6 or shield or spear ? TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 6 — On thia translation of 21, compare the author's remarks below. The justification they attempt, is, however too forced and artificial to be satisfactory. The passages cited in its support, are rather against it. For in Num. xiv. 11, It is the very fact that Israel's unbelief exists contemporaneously, in the presence, as it were, of mighty wonders, that makes it ao culpable. And so in the passages cited from Isaiah (ch. v. 25 ; ix. 11 (12) ; x. 4), it is the continuance of Je- hovah's auger while surrounded, so to speak, by the terrible evidences of previous punitive inflictions, that gives it itf full dreadfulness. It seems necessary, therefore, to take 2 here in the sense of " in," tf during." It is necessary, further, to place Shamgar not in, but after, the eighty years' rest procured by Ehud, cf. on ch. iii. 31 ; for while the tf land rested," such a state of affairs as Deborah here describes cannot have existed. He belongs to the period of the Canaanite oppres- sion in the north, and fougiit against the Philistiues who rose up in the south (so Bachmann and others). A single ex- ploit is told of him ; and the comparatively inferior position a-ssigned him in the Book of Judges, seems to warrant the conclusion that it was the only remarkable deed he did. That deed, however, was one which would make him universally known and held up as a great hero. Deborah seizes on this popular estimate of Shamgar, in order by contrast to heighten the glory of the divine deliverance just achieved. Such was your condition when your great hero lived, she says : but now, behold, what hath God wrought ! — The words ^V^ ^"^B, " in the days of Jael," contain another difficulty. It must strike every one as inappropriate that one who, so tar as we know, had only now become famous, and that by a deed of deliverance, namely, Jael, the slayer of Sisera, should be connected with the past misery. Dr. Cassel's sugges- tion that , 3?^ is to be taken as a surname or popular designation of some hero (see below), becomes therefore exceed- ingly attractive. But according to our view of 2, the hero thus designated cannot be Ehud, but must be Shamgar -Ta. [a Ver. 7 — }1THS. Gesenius and Fiirst define this word aa properly meaning, K rule, dominion ; " here, conewfte lot CHAPTER V. 5-8. ■' rulers, leaders." So also Bertheau, De Wette, Buusen, and similarly many previous expositors an i versions : LXX , Cod Vat. Svparoi, al. codd. 01 KpaTovvres (Cod. Al. simply transfers the word, and writes Qpdgutv) ; It. Veri potentes, Yulg./ortei. This undoubtedly yields a good sense ; but, as Bachmann points out, it rests on a meaning of th* root T~l2. which al though belonging to it in Arabic, it does not practically have in Hebrew. Moreover, it appears to be a hazardous pro ceeding to separate ]iT~12 from TIT^S in signification, if not (as Furst does) in root-relations. Accordingly, Bach mann and Keil, like our author and others, explain T'lTHS DT i""TT^2, and make it mean the " open country,'' or t( th« unwalled cities or villages of the open country." In this they only follow the Targum, Peshito, most of the Rabbins, and many earlier and later expositors. The form of the word shows that it is properly an abstract, cf. Ges. Gr, 83, 2 ; 84, 15 ; Ewald, 163, b, d. Keil and Cassel make it apply in the concrete to the cities, villages, or hamlets, Bachmann to the population, of the open country (Lnndvolk). The connection of the passage, he thinks, requires a personal, not local, Signification ; for as ver. 8 a corresponds to (or rather gives the ground of) ver. 6 c d, bo ver. 7 a (the cessation of ]1T~12) must correspond to ver. 8 b (the absence of shield and spear). He further argues that as in ver. 2, 7 b, and 8 6, 7SHtt?^21 refers to the people of Israel, it must also refer to them in ver. 7 a ; and, finally, that the signification 11 rural population,*' is more suitable in ver. 11. The ultimate result is the same whether one or the other interpretation be adopted ; yet, as Bachmann's arguments do not appear to have much force, and as the immediately preceding men- tion of highways leads the mind to think of local centres of population rather than of the population itself, we prefer to Interpret villages or hamlets. — Tr.] [8 Ver. 8- — Br. Cassel's translation conforms more closely to the original: Gewdhlt hatten sit neve Gbtter,—. " they had chosen new gods." The above English rendering was adopted in order to reproduce the alliteration of the German. -Tr.] (4 Ver. 8.— Z"Hl?tI7 Cnb 7S : literally, "then war (was at the) gates." Cnb is best explained as a verbal noun from piel, the vowel of the final syllable of the absolute CH/ being shortened because of the close connection with the following word, and the retraction of the tone being omitted on account of the toneless initial syllable of D^Vtt? (Bertheau, Keil, Bachmann). C^Vtt? may be genitive (in which case Cn7 must be in the construe! state) or accusative of place, which is more simple. — Te.] [5 Ver. S. — HS" 1 ^ - DS. According to Keil and others CS introduces a negative interrogatory. But as CS with simple, direct questions is rare, cf. Ges. Gr. 153, 2, Bachmann prefers to regard it as the CS of obtestation : « if shield or spear were seen ! " i. e. they were not seen. So also Bertheau, Gesenius, Furst (in their Lexicons), and many others. — Tb.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Vers. 6-8. After the days of Shamgar, "^Sl n3J2K7. The difficulty of the passage can scarcely be removed, if, as is usually done, the preposition 2 be taken in the sense of " in," " during." During the days of Shamgar such misery cannot have come upon Israel. The narrator could not in that case have said of him. ch. iii. 31, that he " delivered Israel," just as (ver. 15) he speaks of Ehud as a " deliverer." If Shamgar was no deliverer, how can it be said "and after him (or like him, i. e. Ehud, cf. on ch. iii. 31) was Shamgar 3 " It seems impossible to assume (as nevertheless Keil also does), that the poetess could say of the days of such a hero, that there was no resistance and defense, no sword or shield, in Israel. The disparaging connec- tion in which, were this assumption true, it would please her to exhibit the hero, is also wholly at va- riance with her spirit. To this must be added that, as was above shown to be probable, Shamgar's famous exploit and further activity fall within the eighty years of " rest " after Ehud. At all events, Shamgar's fame is related before the time in which Israel again begins to sin, and consequently again falls into servitude. It cannot therefore be other- wise understood, than that Deborah retraces the misery of her people up to the time of this last hero. " Since the days of Shamgar," i. e. upon and after his days, the highways began to be deserted. 1 1 The use of 2 in, in the sense of upon = after, cannot be considered surprising, when the poetical freedom of the ^nguage is taken into account. Even our German auf "upon " or "on "), of which Grimm says that in many »sefl it has appropriated the meaning of in, affords an m- tance of the same kind. To pass by other examples, we also say with equal propriety, ft in melen tagen " (in many Philologically, this form of expression is not with- out analogies. God says (Num. xiv. 11), "They believe not me, iTlPSn 732, in, i. e. after " all the wonders I have done among them." In the same manner we are to interpret vD2 in several passages of Isaiah (ch. ix. 11 (12); v. 25; x. 4): " the Syrians and Philistines devour Israel, — in all that, after all that, notwithstanding all that, his anger is not turned away." Thus the sense of our passage also becomes clear. Notwithstand- ing that the days of Shamgar have been, i. e. after them, misery began. His heroic deed against the Philistines, was the last great act performed by 1>- rael. But the author adds, " in, after, the days of Jael." That this cannot be the stout-hearted wo- man who slew Sisera, is self-evident, since Deborah, speaking of her contemporary, could not say " in the days of Jael." But apart from this, the Song itself (ver. 24) distinguishes this Jael by carefully designating her as the " wife of Heber, the Kenite. Moreover, Jael is properly a man's name. The other assumption, however, that Jael was a Judge, who lived before Deborah's time, rests on slender foundations. It is utterly inconceivable that the narrator, who communicates the Song of Deborah, had he so understood it, would not have told us something of this Judge Jael. He would at all events have inserted his name, at least in some such manner as that of Shamgar himself, of Elon the Zebulonite, and of Abdon (Judg. xii. 11-15), of days), and " nach vitlen tagtn " (after many days), not only when the reference is to the future, but even when it is tc the past. — Although Shamgar slew tte Philistines with an ox-goad, that fact cannot explain the non-employment of sword and lance in ver. S of the Song ; for, as Barak's heroes show (ch. iv. 16), there is no want of weapons, bu' of courage to use them. 94 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. whom nothing is reported beyond the general fact that the)- judged Israel. The only remaining sup- position, and one fully accordant with the poetic cast of the Song, is, that Jael was the knightly surname of Shamgar, or even more probably of Ehud. We know that Gideon is frequently men- tioned by his heroic name Jerubbaal, and that Sam- son is simply styled Bedan (1 Sam. xii. 11). That Jael might readily become the beautiful popular designation of a man so determined and rapid in his movements as Ehud, is evident, whether we take it to mean the Mountain-climber, the August One, the Prince, or the Rock-goat, whose facile ascent to the most inaccessible rocky heights is as- tonishing. Most probably, however, the name is connected with the word 7' , ^1n, to help. The same word, which is often used negatively concern- ing heathen gods (^ s^VV S7, " they help not," 1 Sam. xii. 21, Jer. ii. 8, etc.), is here employed positively to denote one who was a " Helper " of Israel in distress. The sense, moreover, becomes thus perfectly clear : " After the days of Shamgar, after the days of Jael (Ehud)," the people perished through their sins ; that is, as ch. iv. 1 asserts, and ver. 8 of this chapter confirms, — " they had chosen themselves new gods." The highways were deserted, jTimS, ^ ;"Tn: literally, they ceased to be highways. No one travelled on the public roads, because there was no security. The enemy plundered all through the country. He who was obliged to travel, sought out concealed by-paths, in order to elude the ty- rant and his bands. These few lines give a strik- ing picture of a land languishing under hostile oppression. TiT"J2 ^ v"jn, open places, hamlets, ceased to exist. I^T 1 ? * 3 tQe °P eu country, in dis- tinction from cities surrounded by walls and gates. One imagines himself to be reading a description of the condition of Germany in the 10th century, when the Magyars invaded the land (cf. Widukind, Sachs. Gesch. i. 32). Henry I. is celebrated as a builder of cities, especially because by fortifying open villages he rendered them more secure than formerly against the enemy. All ancient exposi- tors, Greek as well as Chaldee and later Rabbinic, consent to this explanation or "J1T"H2 i (cf. Schnur- rer, p. 46). Ver. 8 also agrees with it: no place without walls was any longer secure against the hostile weapons of those who oppressed Israel ; the conflict was pushed even to the very gates of the mountain fortresses. The attempt to make the word mean " princes," " leaders," labors under great difficulties ; which modern expositors, almost 1 Keil also has adopted it. 2 L Wordsworth : (t Until that 1 Deborah arose. Deborah, as an inspired person, looks at herself from an external point of view, and speaks of herself objectively, considering all her fcct6 as due, not to herself, but to the Spirit of God. She does not praise herself, but blesses God who acted in her : K> did Moses (see Num. xii. 3), and so Samuel (1 Sam. xii. 11). — Tr.) 8 1/olated interpretations of the Middle Ages, taken up by ft few moderns, and the subject in Elohim, as if " God had all of whom have adopted it, have by no means overcome. It raises an internal contradiction to connect ^in with I^T 1 ^' when taken in this sense. We can very properly say 1 v^n S^syi, " the hungry cease to be such," but not " princes." Of a banished dynasty there is no question. A Judge there was not; none therefore could cease to be. The lack of military virtue is first men- tioned in ver. 8. Situated as Israel was, the mis- ery of the people might be measured by the extent to which their fields and rural districts were devas- tated and rendered insecure. As to their " princes," their hereditary chiefs, they in fact still existed. Nor does the form of the word need any correction (cf. ver. 11). Till I arose (^3^27 IV for^Pi? ^Vj T?) a mother in Israel: - who, as it were, bore Israel anew. It was the regeneration of Israel's nation- ality that was secured at the Kishon. How came it about (she adds, ver. 8), that Israel had so fallen as to need a new mother ? They had chosen " new gods " for themselves. The eternal God. before whom the mountains trembled. Him they had for- saken. Hence the loss of all their strength. They were hard pressed, up to the very gates of their for- tresses. (QT?$ is not simply war, but an already victorious and consuming oppression.) Resistance in the open field there was none anywhere. Among forty thousand not one sought safety by means of sword and shield. 3 The poet says " m »• gods," not "other gods." The objective idea is of course the same, but not the subjective thought as here enter- tained. For Israel had from of old its everlast- ing God, — Him whose glory the poem had deline- ated at the outset. But instead of that God, Israel chose them new gods, whom they had not formerly known. There is a profoundly significant connec tion of thought between this passage and the Song of Moses, Dent, xxxii. 17. There the thought, which is here implied, lies fully open : " They shall sacrifice to gods whom they never knew, to new gods, that came newly up, whom their fathers feared not." The heathen gods of Canaan are in truth all new to Israel ; for then- own God had already chosen them in the desert, before ever they set foot in the land. Israel's recent ruin was the consequence of their serving these new gods. That all manliness had vanished, that servitude prevailed up to the gates of their fortresses, that they were shut out from highway, hamlet, and fountain, was the bitter fruit of their unfaithfulness to their an- cient God. Nor was deliverance possible, until, as the result of Deborah's efforts, the people became regenerated by means of the ancient truth. chosen new things.'' But ver. 8 itself opposes this construc- tion, to sav nothing of the contradiction which it involves with the whole course of thought. To adopt Kemink's correction, D tTSn, " God chose women," would only in- • T - ' crease the distortion of the hymn, which even without this would arise from the change of subject. That not Elohim but Jehovah, would be used, were God the subject, is re- marked by Bertheau (p. 88), who in his turn, however, un- fortunately gives a wrong sense to Elohim. CHAPTER V. 9-11. t>5 THE SVMM0N8 TO PRAISE GOD FOR DELirERAXCX. Vers. 9-11. 9 My heart (was) with the Orderers of Israel, Who devoted themselves among the people, — Praise God ! 10 Ye who ride on beautifully-saddled asses, Who sit on mats, And walk through ways, — Sing ! 11 Instead of the cry of the contending at the cisterns, They praise there the benefaction of God, The benefaction of his freedom in Israel, — When the People of God hastened down to the gates. EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 9. Deborah has delineated, first, the glori- ous majesty of God ; then, in contrast therewith, the ruin which overtook Israel because it forsook Him, and chose new gods who cannot help, till slie arose, a mother in Israel. With that she returns to the beginning. For what had she done? She had called on the people to turn back, and consecrate themselves to God. When everything lay pros- trate, Barak and his faithful followers hail taken the vows of God upon themselves. If Deborah had become a " strong one " (gibbor) in Israel, so had those who followed her inspiring call. If she speaks of herself as Deliverer, it is not without in- cluding those to whom she imparted her faithful and courageous " heart." Ver. 9 resumes ver. 2. The ground of all her praise, is that Israel turned again to God. This had been stated in ver. 2 ; here, by way of farther transition from ver. 7, she adds the expression " my heart : " she has in- fused the new spirit into Israel. She has imparted her heart to the people, as a mother to her children. The " heart " is the seat of divine inspirations and hopes ; it is the organ that praises, desires, and seeks after God. The contents of Deborah's heart flowed over into Israel. "If thou wilt go with me," says Barak, " then I will go." "My heart," she exclaims, " was with the orderers of Israel," with those who devoted themselves, so that they devoted themselves, when they devoted themselves as s 3i?n of Israel. 1 The explanation of H |?.(?n has been thought more difficult than it is. It has already been remarked above, that the duty of a Judge was to execute the mishpat, the law of Israel, according to the ordinances of Moses. Whenever a Judge reintroduced the observance of the law, Jivine order sprang up anew among the people. Now, PH and UStTp are ever conjoined (cf. Ex. xv. 25). " What nation is there," asks Deut. iv. 8, "that has such ehukkim and mishpalim?" "Hear, O Israel, "reiterates Moses, in Deut. v. 1, " the ehukkim and mishpatim which I speak in your sars." "Joshua made a covenant with the people (Josh. xxiv. 25), and set them chok and mishpat." What the Sho/jhet is for the mishpat, that the Chokek is for the chok. Both words have the same [1 In this sentence our author seems to combine two lifforent explanations of ^3 ,, eta., namely : 1- I imparted By spirit to the t( Orderers " of Israel, by virtue of which hey became such ; and, 2. My heart loves those who proved grammatical form ; both have the same historical relations. Whoever watched over the chok of Is- rael, was a chokek. They were the Orderers of Israel ; for chok is the " order " resulting from law. The men who followed Deborah, the leaders of the people, who staked their lives for Israel's nationality in God, were not shophetim, — for that word was already used in a definitely restricted sense ; but to the name chokekim, which the prophet- ess gives them, they were justly entitled. They were men of law and national order. Ver. 10. Praise God. The Song of Deborah is a hymn of praise to God : praise forms the key- note to all its variations. The refrain of ver. 2 is here repeated, because the thought of ver. 2 has come up in a new form. The arrangement of the poem is delicate and beautiful. Ver. 2 called on all to praise God. Thereupon she herself began to sing, ver. 3 : " I will praise ; " her own per- sonality comes to view in her song of God, and again in the saving power through which she became a mother of Israel. From ver. 9 she trans- fers the work of praise to others. The self-devo- tion of " her heart " had communicated itself to the people. "Praise God," she resumes; but now they are to sing who have been delivered, and en- joy the fruits of victory. The whole Song is a hymn of freedom. How extreme and miserable was the recent oppression ! The country was full of danger, intercourse interrupted, life enslaved. But now everything is free again. Every kind of movement is practicable. The highways are secure Therefore, praise is to employ all who enjoy this return of rest. Whoever now is able to travel, without being hindered, robbed, or put in peril of his life, is to thank God who restored him this privilege. They who can ride, rest, or walk in pe again — for now animals are not stolen, tents are not plundered, foot-travellers are not mur- dered, — are to know and proclaim the precious- ness of this new blessing. It is the habit of Bibli- cal writers to comprehend the various movements of persons under the terms " walking, standing, and sitting" (cf. Ps. i. 1). Here, where the freedom of the open country is spoken of, riding is naturally mentioned in the place of standing, which was in- cluded in the other expressions. The riders are represented as riding on iTHnS fTlinS. To themselves " Orderers," etc. The latter explanation, merely hinted at by Dr. Cassel, is that commonly adopted oy ex positore. Bachmann remarks that if the first idea had been intended, it would have been more clearly expressed Ta.] 90 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. nde on asses, was certainly a well-known custom (cf. Judg. x. 4; xii. 14)"; but the mention of " white," or as it is commonly rendered, " white- dappled " asses, would not be very suitable. Even though the connection of the word iTlTTlS with those roots which signify " to glisten," should be finally established, still "it will always seem more appropriate to refer it to the beautiful, ornamented coverings that served for saddles. But there seems to be also a philological affinity between tsachar and what the Greeks and Romans called crdypa, trdyii, sagma, 1 and the Germans saumsattel (pack- saddle). Asses, we know, carried burdens: pro- visions, corn, wine, etc. (Gen. xlii. 25; xlv. 23; 1 Sam. xxv. 18; cf. Bochart, Hieroz. i. 184). They are to this day the important beast of burden in Palestine ; and" to leave the ass unladen, even on 6teep mountain paths, is considered injurious (Ritter, xvii. 295). The Targum (Jonathan), in its rendering of Lev. xv. 9, uses the word criyi\ ; tor S3T, and not S3 iT, is to be read in its text at that place (a fact overlooked by Sachs, Beiirage zur £>pracl{f., note 2, 196). The thought suggests itself naturally that restored freedom and security must have been of special value to those who trans- ported important and costly articles. The passage becomes peculiarly significant, if brought into con- nection with the safety of traffic and intercourse, consequent upon the enemy's destruction. — And sit on mats. Since here also the blessings of free- dom are the subject of discourse, those only can be meant who were accustomed to sojourn in tents and tent-villages. " To spread the covering," and " to pitch the tent," are to this day equivalent expressions. " To sit on cloths," was the poetic phrase for dwelling in the open country, in ham- lets, oases, and on highways, without needing the protection of walls and fortifications. T^t? (mats) is undoubtedly a plural of T?, garment. It is in keeping with the make of ancient, especially of oriental dress, that the various terms for garment, covering, cloth, are more indefinite and inter- changeable than in modern times.' 2 Such, for in- stance, is the case with "13?, garment (Num. iv. 6-13) ; compare also HOS, covering (Dent. xxii. 12). For the establishment of this general signifi- cation of ] ,,= IQ) Teller has rendered meritorious service. In a manuscript note in a copy of his " Notte Critical," now in my possession, he directs attention to i/Mirtoy as a cognate word. At all events, that also has the double sense of garment and covering, or cloth. The same, as is well known, is the case with eVSiis and vestis. The word, mats (Latin, matta). in the translation above, is used merely for the sake of assonance ; a philological connection between it and the Hebrew word is not 1 For further philological comparisons, see Benfey, i. 433, anil Dieffeobach, Cellica, i. 85. 2 The same may be said of the use of the articles them- lelves. The popular custom of spreading out garments, like carpets or cloths, for persons to ride or walk over, is sufficiently familiar from the history of our Lord and the usages of both Greeks and Romans. 8 [It does not appear how a piel rT£Si"T can possibly be utained from a niphal i~t"3. The form C"!in!2, in the text, can only be derived from VVT^, either directly or Indirect 1\ . In the latter case it would be a denominative discoverable. — "ST").'!!"'? ' > 57i^> foot-travellers, on the proper public roads. They too are no longer driven to seek winding paths. All, whether they ride, sit, or walk, have become free. There- fore, sing praise to God ! ^n^, to celebrate in song, as the Psalmist uses it (Ps. cxlv. 5) : " Words of thy wonders will I sing" (nrVtpS). Ver. 11. The prophetess continues to depict the wonderful change from servitude to freedom While the enemy had the upper hand, there was security only within the gates ; up to the threshold of these, the inhabitants were hunted and pursued A lively conception of such a condition of society, may be obtained from the history of Germany from the 13th to the 16th century, when it often hap- pened that large cities were at war with theit neighbors. In Palestine, cities being built on hill- tops, water must be procured outside of the gates. It was at a well, at the time of water-drawing (Gen. xxiv. 11). that Eliezer met Rebecca, coming out of the city. In time of war, this water-draw- ing was a dangerous occupation. The crowd was great, and every one wished to be the first to get away. Consequently, there was no lack of con- tention and vociferation. How all that is changed ! Now the maidens draw leisurely and merrily, prais- ing God the while, who has restored quiet and security. The philological explanation agrees per- fectly with this exposition. Verse 11 does not de- pend on ver. 10; it introduces a new thought. □^np is to be taken or read as D^Viip, /. e . as participle of the piel HSH, to strive, quarrel, rixari (cf. Num. xxvi. 9 ; Ps. lx. 2 ; etc.), con- nected with the niphal i"^?* often used of persons who strive and contend with each other (Deut- xxv. 11 ; Ex.ii. 13 ; etc.). 3 The"voice" of those who thus contend is wont to attract attention ; aud a voice is now also heard : 'ISi'V Ett\ there they sing aloud, there resounds the song of those who praise the mercy of God. O^O? from H^P, piel, imperfect, 3d person, plural, to sound, to sing; Sanskrit, tana, t6vos, German tonen.) The harsh voice of contention is replaced by the sounds of praise. The burden of this praise ? The benefits ot God — the benefits which his all-disposing.arm has bestowed on Israel, in that, after their self-sur- render and return to Him, He has made them free again from the enemy. The consequence of his interposition is T^?, freedom : Israel is free again, and no longer depends on walls for safety. Tin? is derived from **?S, just as 1^211 from '?n. It contains the notion of that which is free, of freedom, as it is expressed by the prophet Zech- ariah, quite in the spirit of our Song, when he says from \*71, an arrow, aud would mean " archers ; " so Ber- theau, Keil. aud many other interpreters, both ancient and modern. Many, perhaps most expositors, however, prefei the direct derivation from rt-'H. to divide, but with va ' - T rious modifications of the radical idea. For a full discussion of the word and the interpretations it has received, see Bach mann, i. pp. 351-359 ; it must suffice here to say that he translates it, B*utetheilenden, " those who divide the spoil *' They (he explains) who frequent the places of drawing water are to praise the righteous acts of Jehovah, with the jovful voice of those who divide the spoil, cf. Isa. lx. 2 (8) — Tr.J CHAPTER V. 12-23. 97 (chipter ii. 8, 9 (4, 5)): "Jerusalem shall dwell open (JT!fT9, i. e. without walls) ; and I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of tire round about.' 11, — when they devoted themselves to God, VPJJ TH C ,- l_i?tS?7. When the people apostatized, they were When Israel devotes itself to God, it is at rest; pressed up to their very gates, and fled; when, by accordingly, after the deeds of the several Judges ' sell-surrender, they became a people of God, they are related, it is constantlv added, " and the land ™ shed boldl . v down to the g att ' s and through them. had rest." Then enemies are powerless ; exposed ' 1 he consequence ot the first was flight ; that ot the hamlets are secure; God is their protection. There, i se e° nd - impetuous attack. 1 In the fonner case, at the cisterns, they praise the goodness of God a " 10n r t0 , rt , v '"uusand there was not a man capa which manifests itself in this newly recovered free- bl ? ™ making resistance ; m the latter — and here ,j orn " with the bong enters on the delineation of the con- When the people of God hastened down to tliet. — it was a small band who threw themselves the gates. Here also the beauty of the internal ar- n P°}\ tUv ?¥"/• In vel ' s : 9_1 1 the prophetess, by rangement of the Songcomes prominently to view. P«"smg God tor freedom, mterrupted the progress Verse 8 says, they chose themselves new gods, ot her bon fe r * narrative, just as she does in vers. h< _.,.,; __,i, ,.,' ; 3-5 and in ver. 12, to which and the following verses " 7?* L U, "? ; verse 9 — interrupted by the we now pass on. praise of God, but resumed in the last line of ver. 1 [Keil and others connecc the last clause of ver. 11, not enemy (ver. 6 f.) — entered again into the plains of the land, with ver. 9 ; but with the immediately preceding praise for into the cities now relieved of enemies." Similarly, Bach- victory. fc Atter this victory," says Keil, " the people de- „ „ , x , . fc . » - . . •ended again to its gates, from the mountains and hiding- , mann ' Dr ' CaSSel S translatwa of W by > when Is pl»ces whither it had betaken itself for safety from the \ the ""S 8 of *« word.— Tn.) Delineation of tbe victors and the tiotomt. Vers. 12-23. 12 Awake, awake Deborah ! Awake, awake, compose the song ! Barak, arise ! — conquer thy conquest, Thou son of Abinoara ! 13 Then down against the robust rushed a remnant, The People of God rushed with me against the powerful. 1 14 From Ephraim's stock, the victors of Amalek ; After thee (marched) Benjamin against thy foes, 2 Masters came from Machir, Men skillful with the accountant's pencil 8 distinguished Zebulun. 15 But the first * in Issachar were with Deborah, Yea, Issachar was the basis of Barak. When into the valley his men threw themselves on foot, 6 — While by the brooks abode Reuben's great investigators. 6 16 Why sitt'st thou by the folds, listening to the shepherd's flute? By the brooks Reuben has great scrutinizers. 17 Gilead stays beyond the Jordan : But. Dan. how didst tliou sail n ships ! 7 Asher sils on the .sea shore, sheltered in his bays, 18 But Zebulon hazarded his soul unto death, With Naphtali, upon the high plain of the field. 19 Kings came to fight — Kings of Canaan fought, At Taanach and by Megiddo's waters. — Satisfaction-money 8 gained they none. 20 From heaven strove the stars. 9 They strove from their stations with Sisera. 21 Kishon's stream swept them away — A stream of succours was Kishon's stream, — Tread strongly on. my soul ! 10 22 When struck the sounding hoof of the rushing steed, 98 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. Of the flying strong ones ! n 23 The ban on Meroz, commands the messenger of God, the ban ! — The ban on its inhabitants ; Because they came not to the help of the people of God, Of the People of God against the powerful. 12 TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL, fi Ver. 13. — This rendering of ver. 13 supposes the Hebrew text to be pointed and divided thus : a^-nsb ma? tv ts A- ■ - : ■ T -T T : D"ni322 % b TV i"rijT DV |. . - • - T T ; So also the I AY (in Cod. Vat.) and many expositors. The most serious objection to it is, that as it is the easier read* Ing, the Masorites must have had strong traditional grounds for preferring one more difficult. The verse has been trans* Lated and interpreted in a great variety of ways ; but the view of Dr. Cassel commends itself strongly, especially when compared with ch. iv. 14. Our English version seems to take TT* as imperf. apoc. Piel from iTT"^, after the exam- ple of several Jewish grammarians and interpreters. — Tr.] [3 Ver. 14. — Dr. Oassel's rendering of the first line of ver. 14 — pb.DVS DttHtl? D^IQM *•?? — ls i Aux E f ra ' im*s Art, die Amalek sieger. It does not clearly appear how he would translate the passage literally, but the following would probably express his view : tr Out of Ephraim (came) their root (who were) against Amalek. 11 The "root,' 1 then, according to our author's exposition (see below), would be Joshua, in his relation to those whom he led to victory against " AmMek." So far as ti?"^tI7 is concerned, this interpretation has full as much in its favor as that which makes it mean (t dwelling-place." On the rendering of TPTp^V, see the commentary. The majority of expositors, would prob ably accept the rendering of the two lines given by Dr. Robinson (Bibl. Repos. 1831) : — "Out of Ephraim (came those) whose dwelling is by Amalek ; After thw fwasi Benjamin among thy hosts." But in a document the language ot whicn is so obscure as that of the Song of Deborah, much necessarily depends on the conception formed of the connection in which one passage stands with another. Now, while the majority of inter- preters assume that ver. 14 speaks of such aB took part in the war agaiust Jabin and Sisera, our author maintains that it dwells on the fame of those who did not take part in this war, in order by this comparison to exalt that of those who did. On the decision of this question the interpretation in detail of the whole verse depends. Which of the two conflict- ing views is true, is not a matter to be discussed here, but it is certain that ch. iv. is very favorable to our author^ side, cf. the com. belew. — Tr.] [8 Ver. 14. — The rendering of this line turns on ^23 IDDtZ?. The Targum. Peshito, and most ancient expositors, explain it of the r< stylus of the writer ; " while most moderns translate it " the staff of the leader. 1 ' Compare the remarki in the preceding note. — Tr.] . [4 Ver. 15. — Dr. Cassel nrobably reads ^™ 1tl7. with Bertheau, Keil, and most expositors. The preposition 3 after the construct state is not unusual in poetry, cf. 2 Sam. i. 21 ; Job xviii. 2 : etc. Some regard H 1t27 as an unusual plu- ral (cf. Ges. Gram. 87, 1. c), or as an archaic form of the construct (so Ewald, Gram. 211. c). — Tr.] [5 Ver. 15. — On V^H-?j compare fr Grammatical " note on ch. iv. 10 ; also ch. viii. 5 ; 2 Sam. xv. 17 ; etc.— Tr.] [6 Ver. 15. — D • ^PI7^ ; ^ r ' Cassel, Ergriindler. For ^7 ^"lpH, in the next verse, he has Ergriibler, which admirably reproduces both the paranomaaia and the irony of the original, ^ppfl and ^p - ^ are, of course, abstract nouns, followed by the genitive of the subject to which they pertain. — Tr.] [7 Ver. 17. — " Aber Dan, was zogst du auf Schiffen ans ! " Our author probably takes "A3 in its most usual sense, •' to sojourn : " to §cjourn in or on ships, readily suggesting the idea of sailing in ships. Most expositors translate ! " And Dan, why abides he at the ships? " The preposition less accusative is as easy or as difficult in one case as in the other. Tr.] [8 Ver. 19. — P]D3 ' ^3: Dr. Cassel, Geld zur Basse, ,f penance money," cf. the Commentary below. Bertheau, Keil, and others, takiug 3?^S in its Arabic sense of frustum (cf. the root 17^£3), translate : tr not a piece of silver did they take ; '■' but against the Hebrew use of the word. — Tr.] [9 Ver. 2C — Dr. Cassel. following many previous expositors, alters the Masoretic text division by transferring "the stars " from the second to the first clause. But it is justly objected to this change that it reduces the second clause to a mere repetition by which nothing is added to the idea already expressed in the first. In the next Hue, the word n* w?3 •ignifief , '* a causeway,' 1 '' highway." Dr. Cassel's rendering, St uteri, places, is manifestly chosen for the sake of allitera- tion : Sie stritten von ihrtn Statten mil Sisera; compare the English imitation above. — Tr.] [1*> Ver- 21 — TV **tT^l ^D^li^l. This line has been very variously interpreted. It is now generally agreed, how- ever, that it is an address of the Singer to herself. ^3~"^j^l is the jussive of the second person, cf. Ges. Gram. 48, ». ?"*J may either betaken as an adverbial accusative (=TV2\ or as the direct object after the verb. Dr. Cassel jfceides for the former, after Herder, Justi, Bertheau, Ewald, Keil ; Dr. Bachmann, with Schnurrer, Kohler, Holmann, »♦<■., prefers the latter, and takue T3? as the abstract for the concrete : "Tread down, my soul, the strong ones ! " cf. KohKiiu. in Bihl. Sacra. In either case, the incitement of the line may be directed to the continuation of the Song, or tf CHAPTER V. 12-23 99 the prosecution of the pursuit of the enemy. Bachmann prefers the latter ; but the former seems to us more itrUlng end appropriate. — Tr.] [11 Ter. 22. — Dr. Cassel: — Da dtr Jagenden Ross/iuf hallend aufsehlug, Der entjagendtn Starken. On the translation of TS by " when," cf. note 1, on p. 97. In the second line of the above rendering, the ]72 does no* come to its rights, and the suffix in Vn2S is neglected. The ]0 is causal, and the suffix V goes back to the col lective D-O of the first line, so that it seems necessary to explain Z^^SS of men, not, as our author (see below) of horses. The best rendering of the verse is probably that adopted, for substance, by Keil, Bachmann, and many others : — " Then the hoofs of the horses smote the ground, Because of the galloping of their valiant riders." The last expression may very well be taken ironically : "runaway heroes." On the repetition of nVin 1 !, to indicate continuance, see Ewald, Gram., 313 a ; cf. also Ges. Gram. 108, 4. — Tr.] [M Ver 23. — On the above translation of ver. 23 it is to be remarked, 1. That the word rendered " ban," is "HS, and does not, like £"ir"T, imply the actual destruction of the object against which it is aimed. 2. That with the LXX (Cod. Vat.) our author transfers ?HS from the second line to the first. On the construction of T1HK (which below but not here, he changes (with the IVY,) into ~|!PS), cf Ges. Gram. 131, 4 b. 3. That the expression " People of God ' Is our author's interpretation of what is meant by r coming to the help of Jthovati," cf. below. 4. That D"*~^232 is by most recent expositors rendered, :I among (or, with) heroes," namely, the warriors of IsraeL Compare the Septuagini and Vulgate ; the Targum takes 2 in the hostile sense. — Tr.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 12. With the words of ver. 11, "when the People of God hastened down to the gates," i. e. out to battle, the prophetess transfers herself into the midst of the conflict. Verse 12 presents a reminiscence of the battle song. It recalls the rallying cry. Wake up ! wake up ! ' *"flS from "W7, c f. I sa . li. 9.) "Awake, awake!" is ad- dressed to Deborah, urging her to fire the soldiery tcrough her song ; " arise ! " refers to Barak. For she sang, and Barak fought. *P3^ i ^W, " lead forth thy captives." To be able to carry away captives, was evidence of a complete victory. When Jerusalem and Samaria fell, the people were car- ried away prisoners. The captivity of the enemy ends the conflict. The reason why a perpetual ban of destruction was pronounced against the enemies who attacked the host of Israel, in the wilderness, near Arad, was not merely that they fought against Israel, but that they also " took some of them pris- oners" (Num. xxi. 1). The completeness of God's victory, as the 68th Psalm celebrates it, is indi- cated by the expression, ver. 19 (18) : "212? fTOn?, " thou hast carried away the captives." 1 Ver. 13. The prophetess now continues to depict the surprising contrasts that have arisen from Is- rael's return to God. A T , ~JIP, a remaining few, by no means all Israel, but a small band — like the rem- nant (C , ~T ,- '.t"') whom, according to the prophet loel (ch. ii. 32 (iii. 5)), God calls, — takes up the conflict with E ,-, .' , ' : TS. mighty ones. (Cf. my dis- cussion on Ps. viii. 2, in the Lirtherischen Zeitschr., 1860. "Mighty kings," OT^tM 3' 1 ? 1 ?'?, are slain by God, Ps. cxxxvi. 18). The next line runs parallel with this : " the people of God (""TVP DS) 1 [According to Bachmann the first half of ver. 12 con- tains the self-incitement of Deborah to begin the description •f the battle, while the second half actually enters or the leecripUoo with a reminiscence of ch. iv. 14. — Tr.] charges against 2 gibborim." Gibborim are warlike men of gigantic strength. It is applied here to enemies, as elsewhere to Nimrod, who also was an enemy. In the view of Scripture, God alone is the true Gibbor (Deut. x. 17, etc.). Usually, the gib- liorim conquer ; but here the result is that of which Isaiah speaks (ch. xlix. 25), "the captives of the giblior are tak"n away from him." There is a pe- culiar beauty in Deborah's mode of stating her own share in the war : " the People of God rushed for me ( > 7) against heroes." For my sake, she sings, at my call, with me, did they hazard the conflict with men of superior strength. Vers. 14-16. It was truly a "remnant" that fought at the Kishon against Sisera. It was only a part of all Israel that was entitled to the honor of being styled the " People of God." A special renown must henceforth attach to those tribes who took part in the war, just as the Athenians never lost the glory of having alone gained the battle of Marathon. In Israel, as in Hellas, rivalries ob- tained between the different tribes. Considerations like these afford the proper introduction to ver. 14. Expositors have made its difficulties altogether in- surmountable, by supposing that all the tribes here named assisted Barak.' But this supposition is utterly untenable: 1. The statement of eh. iv. i= positive and definite, that only Zebulun and Naph tali fought on the plains of Issachar. It is more- over corroborated by the fact that, from her resi- dence on Mount Ephraim, Deborah sends to just those tribes, because the oppression under which Israel suffered bore heaviest on them. 2. The question whether Ephraim and Benjamin took par in the war, could not have been overlooked liy the narrator ; for the direction of the march which he had to trace was altogether different from what, had they been combatants, it would have been. And why, in that case, would it have been neces- sary for Deborah to go with Barak to Kedesh 1 3. It is contradicted by ver. 14 itself. Machir means s Q ,| "iS332 -p\ cf. jodg. vu. 9, rrinsa "H ; also Judg. vii. 13. 3 Keil also has adopted this view. 100 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. Gileail proper. 1 Manasseh as a whole cannot be intended by it (cf. the word IT"!*). It is for the very purpose of designating a part that the term " Machir " is employed. But Deborah herself says. ver. 17, that Gilead did not take part in the cam- paign- ^ or would it beat all apparent why Zebu- Inn should be described by two different attributes (vers. 14 and 18), in relation to the same event. 4. If those tribes took part in the conflict, why does vi r. 18 sp ak only of Zebulun ami Xuphtali ! The Plataeans, who alone stood by the Athenians in the day of battle, were not thus forgotten. The most ancient Jewish expositors, however, already perceived the more correct view to be taken of the verse : it is to be historically interpreted. The poet's mind, like the action itself, moves over the northern territory of Israel. The tribes of Judah and Simeon lie altogether beyond her present field of vision. Bat with the aucient glory of those tribes, whose territories stretched onward from Mount | xx. 2 5 ; 1 Ephraim — from the spot where she herself resided, xxxvi. 3 (Gen. 1. 2.3). It is only by supposing that the re- nown of Zebulun also, is one which existed pre vious to the war, that what is here said can be brought into easy and proper connection with what is said in ver. 18. Zebulun. formerlv known onh near the border of Benjamin, — she compares that of the conquerors whom she led on. Each tribe had its own glorious traditions. Xo doubt, ex- claims the prophetess, Ephraim is renowned, for out of him sprang he who was against Amalek. The ancients rightly understood this of Joshua, the conqueror of Amalek,- the pride of Ephraim, who was buried among them, and on whom, un- questionably, the Ephraimites always founded their claim to the leadership among the tribes. — 'T~?Q^' Tp^O^a "pCTja, after thee, Benjamin against thine enemies. Since tP£^2j?3 (Aram. plur. c. suffix) manifestly answers to P ;B5rr the ?. which with the latter means "against,'' must be taken in the same sense with the former. This is con- firmed by the fact that the plural of 33? is always :! applied to the " heathen," the " nations," and car- ries with it the idea of hostility against Israel. tJ'S^V means the hostile nations who stand ar- rayed against thee, — "thy heathen," so to speak, " thine enemies." " After thee," says the prophetess to Ephraim, " Benjamin advanced against thine enemies " — Benjamin, who bears the name of Wolf (Gen. xlix. 27). It is the fame of Ehud, that renders Benjamin illustrious. The old expositors understood these utterances of Deborah, concern- ing Benjamin and the other tribes, as prophetic. But such an explanation cannot be accepted. A prophetess who looked into the boundless and in- definite future, could not have compared tribe with tribe in a manner possible only when dealing with the facts of history. — By the side of the warlike fame of Ephraim and Benjamin, the prophetess places the peaceful renown of Machir and Zebulun. How far the sons of Machir distinguished them- selves as mechokekhn, orderers of the law, we have. it is true, no information. But it is to be noticed that what is told of Jair, Judg. x. 4, connects itself witb a Jair who lived as early as the time ofMoses (Num. xxxii 41). The sons of Machir were born '' upon the knees " of their grandfather Joseph 1 Num. xxxii. 39 ; cf. Josh xvii. 3. 2 « In the land of Ephraim " there was a Mount of Ama- wk, cf. Judg. xii. 16. J [" Always '' is too strong ; cf. Gen. xlviii. 4 ; Lev. xxi. I; B*k. xviii. 18. — Tr] 4 As in conflicts of the Bedouin tribes, the Arab women it the present time stili stand in the rear, and encourage for his IE"? »3»3 D'OtpiE), experts with the ciphering-pencil, had now become a people coura- geous unto death. Zebulun was a commercial tribe, like Zidon. The purple-trade especially occupied them. Consequently, the art of the Sopher, i. e. writing, reading, and ciphering, could not fail tfl be extensively practiced in this tribe. The Sophi r appears also in Phoenician inscriptions ; Gesenius compares him with the quaestors of Carthage, held an office next in importance to that of the Suffetes ( Minium. Phonic., 173). A like important office was held by the iiopheriin at the court.- of the Jewish kimrs. They are always named in con- junction with the high-priest (cf. 2 Sam. viii. 17; Kgs iv. 3; 1 Chron. x\iii- 16; 1-a. 2 Kgs. xix. 2). The Sopher and the high-priest count the money found in the offering box. 2 Kgs. xii. 10 (11). Kin- Jn-iah sends his Sopher Shaphan QEtr, cf. JSS^bfc?. Elizaphaii, a Zcbulonite, Num. xxxiv. 25) to the priest- It is he who reads the sacred book, which the priest has found, to the king (2 Kgs. xxii. 8). The com- mander-in-chief ha- a Sophi r who eiiniUs the army (2 Kgs. xxv. 19; Jer. lii. 25). The uncle of David is celebrated as a wise man and a Sopher (1 Chron. xxvii. .32). The Psalmist praises the stylus of a ready Sopher (Ps. xlv. 1 (2)). The ac tivitv of a Sopher is everywhere pacific in its nature, demanding sagacity, and presupposing knowledge. The stylus, 12??, of the Psalmist, is the same as Deborah's I22E?, staff. It was an honor to Zebu- lun, that in the tribe there were able Sopherim, who could make the art which commerce had caused to flourish among them, subserve the internal and higher life of Israel. The word E'StjTS suggests a forcible picture; we see the writer artistically drawing the letters with his stylus. This consti- tuted the ancient renown of the tribe. But the victory with Deborah at the Kishon, will not less highly exalt those who had a part in it. That thought forms the transition to ver. 15. Issachar. it is true, had not shared in the battle ; but that did not diminish the significance of the tribe. Their territory was the theatre of the decision. Very much depended upon the attitude they as- sumed. Were the battle lost, Is&achar must first bear the consequences. Nevertheless, their chiefs decided to hearken to Deborah. " The princes in Issachar were with Deborah." They surrounded Deborah, while Barak plunged into the valley. As Moses did not himself take the field against Amalek, but intrusted Joshua with the conduct of the bat- tle while he prayed on the mount, so Deborah stood behind the battle-ranks, surrounded by Issa- char, uttering blessings, or in case discouragement showed itself. 4 urging, encouraging, inspiriting, in a manner similar perhaps to that which the German women were wont to adopt. 5 It has been well ob- the combatants by their zataqit (singing). Cf. Wetzsrein Hauran. 145. 5 This was still done by the women of the crusaders in the battle near Dorylaum. as Petrus Trudebod informs Ul (Gesta Dei pir Francos, p. 782): " FemitUE nostra in ilia die f iterant notos in refugittm .... eon/ortantts not fbniter pugiumtes a vims protigenies." Cf. WUken, tiesck der Kreuzz., i. 155. CHAPTER V. 12-23. 101 lerved that in the expression P"^3 ?- "12ETB? V. the word ]3 is not the particle, but the noun. (Sehntirrerwas the first to adduce this from among various opinions collected together in the com- mentary of R. Tanchum.) 1? signifies the base, the pedestal (cf. Ex. xxx. 18); and in truth Issachar was this for the whole battle. It was fought on his territory, an 1 his men formed the reserve of Barak, when that chieftain threw him- self into the valley. ^313 nbt£7 p^r? ex- presses the storm-like rapidity of Barak's move- ment. The Ptial !"lvU? is to be taken in the sense of the Greek middle voice. — Presently the thought occurs to the prophetess that still other neighbor- ing tribes could have helped, Reuben, namely, and Gilead, beyond the Jordan, Dan at its sources, Asher on the coast; but their assistance did not come. Deborah does not blame the distant tribes, as Judah, Simeon, Ephraim, Benjamin. Gad. but only the near ones. Reuben at that time cannot have dwelt to the east of the Dead Sea, but accord- ing to Num. xxxii. 26, etc., must have had a more northerly location, reaching as far up as the banks of the Jabbok. 1 There he must have dwelt, pas- turing his herds by his brooks. fYlBv 3, plural of 11272, like ^/?, brook, stream (cf. my exposi- tion of Ps. i. Luther. Zeitschr., 1859, p. 537). Reu- ben, like the tribes beyond the Jordan generally, had been called on by Barak to take part in the war against Sisera. In like manner was Sparta summoned by Athens, before Marathon. And like Sparta, Reuben considered long. Hence the de- risive description of the men of Reuben as "'i'pn 2? and 2!? v !?i?'7, investigators and scrutinizers. They reflect upon the necessity and feasibility of acting, till the time for it is past. Reuben sits between tbe folds, and prefers to listen to the shep- herd's flute, c-ns rnp-itp. njrngj, pi pe, flute, from P~'t£.\ nibilare, to whistle, to hiss, ac- cording to the root and form of the name, is noth- ing else than the syrinx, pipe, whose invention Hellenic mythology ascribed to Pan. What is here said of Reuben, that he amuses himself with listening to the herdsmen's flutes OTH? is properly the herd), is the same that Homer says, Iliad, xviii. 525 : " vofiries repn6fi.evoi ffvpiy^i." Ver. 17. And Gilead tarries beyond Jordan. The fact that what is here said of Gilead might be equally applied to Reuben, i-itice both dwelt beyond the Jordan, is suggestive of the excuse which Gil- ead may have urged in distinction from Reuben. Reuben reflected ; but Gilead denied that the efforts of Barak concerned him : did he not live beyond the Jordan ? But Dan, how didst thou sail in ships ! - lewish tradition places the occurrence related in 1 Only those tribes can have been censured who stood In close geographical connection with Naphtali and Zebulun, not those whose position inclined them to southern alliances. Ephraim,' Benjamin. Judah. and Simeon, receive no censure ; but Asher, Dan. and Gilead, do. How could Reuben be blamed, while Judah was not, if his seat were below at the Dead Sea? 2 iHVJN, used only of sea-going vessels, cf. Prov xxx. 8 [But C"!™"'^ assuredly means height, an elevation 19 ch. xviii. before the time of Deborah. And to all appearance this seems to be the right view. For in its southern possessions the tribe of Dan did no hold the sea-coast (Judg. i. 34). Moreover, how should Deborah complain of the want of assistance from southern Dan, when she entered no such complaint against Judah ! If, however. Dan had already removed to the vicinity of Naphtali, the complaint was very natuial. The old expositors explain that " Dan had shipped his goods ana chattels in order to cross the Jordan." But this is less simple than the supposition that Dan, like Zebulun, was engaged with the Phoenicians (Tyre) in maritime commerce, or at least pretended to be, as a reason for refusing Barak's summons. What renders this interpretation the more probable, is the fact that Deborah speaks next of Asher, " who dwells on the sea-shore." Jabin, king of Hazor, cannot have domineered over the coast, where the powerful maritime cities were in the ascendency. Therefore Asher also had nothing to suffer from him. He dwells securely in his harbors. It is noteworthy that what the singer here says of Asher, the blessing of Jacob says in the same words of Zebulun, 12^ C&l ^inb, with an additional clause, however, concerning the pursuit of navigation. Ver. 18. This verse puts it beyond all doubt that only Zebulun and Naphtali engaged actively in the conflict ; for only to them refers the declara- tion that they " hazarded their souls unto death." (For the sake of the poetical parallelism Naphtali is put at the head of the second member, instead of making " Zebulun and Naphtali " the composite subject of the whole distich.) Their faith in Deb- orah's word was so firm, that they dared risk the unequal conflict even in the Dalle)/ (" the high-plain of the field"). Therein consisted the uncommon sacrifice of these tribes. Hitherto. Israel had always given up the valleys (cf. Judg. i. 19, 34), because it could not overcome disciplined armies and chariots. Even down to the time of the latei kings, it was considered invincible on the moun- tains (1 Kgs. xx. 2.3), which fact however implies that in the valleys it still continued to be other- wise. Hence, ■"'"TCE' *!31~73 is to be understood, not of the " heights," but of the surface, of the field. 3 It was a fearful battle-crisis : a few against so many, a band of footmen against a host of iron chariots, a handful of mountaineers on the plain, a few tribal chieftains against the mighty. Ver. 19. Kings came. This is to be under- stood figuratively, of eminent and powerful mili- tary leaders : Sisera was no king. 4 S; H-?? ^V? •T^?, gain of money they obtained not. This is usually understood only of the booty, which the enemy hoped to obtain, but failed to get. But the troops of Zebulun and Naphtali can scarcely have appeared to promise a booty rich in money. It is therefore probable that the meaning of the proph- above the general level, not surface. In connection with the facts of tbe history, the expression, it seems to me, can only mean either Mount Tabor or the higher parts of the plain of Esdraelon, as the gathering-place of th* warriors, where they in thought and intention '' scorned their lives. 7 * So Bachmann and many other expositors. — Tr.] 4 [On Taanach and Megiddo see at ch. i. 27. The ' F waters of Megiddo " undoubtedly refers to the Kishon The Kishon valley was in like manner tailed the Valley of Megiddc, 2 Chron. xxxv. 22 ; Zech. xii 11. Cf. RoV BM Rts., u. 330. — Tb_] 102 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. etess includes something else. We know from instances of later times, that when the people did not feel themselves strong enough to cope with a threatening enemy, they sought to buy him off with money. Thus, in the reign of Rehoboam, Shishuk, king of Egvpt, took away- all the treasures of the temple (1 Kgs. xiy. 26). "Asa gave all the remain- ing gold and silver to Benhadad of Damascus (I Ivg's. xv. IS). Menahem collected a large amount of money in order to persuade the king of Assyria to turn" back (2 Kgs. xv. 20). Sisera was not so successful. He neither obtained composition- money before the campaign, nor did he secure any booty" after it. The troops and their leaders who had accompanied him, gained no profit from this expedition. Profit is the prominent idea in 3?~3 : hence the Chaldee Paraphrast usually puts " Mam- mon " for it. Vers. 20-22. From heaven fought the stars. Josephus has introduced into his narrative of this victory, the description of a thunder-storm, accom- panied by wind and hail, by which the enemy were thrown into confusion. It is one of those prag- matical endeavors by which he seeks to facilitate belief for his Hellenic readers, and to make the miraculous more natural. The occasion for it was given by the expression, ch. iv. 15, "and God con- founded them." The presence and effect of thun- der and hail were inferred, by comparison, from two other passages, where a similar divinely- wrought confusion of the enemy is related. Thus in Josh. x. 10, 11, when Joshua fights against the enemy, it is said : " And the Lord confounded them, and as they fled cast down great hailstones upon them, that they died." So also 1 Sam. vii. 10 : " And the Lord thundered with a great thun- der on that day, and confounded the Philistines." But there appears to be no necessity whatever for transferring these occurrences into our pas^iLM 1 . The narrator is rather thinking of Ex. xiv. 24. which speaks of Pharaoh's confusion by ( iod with- out thunder and hail. Nor is there any need of thunder and hail to confound an army. The eon- fusion of Rosbach (Nov. 5, 1757) was not caused by the intervention of a storm. All that appears from the statements of ch. iv. and the Song of Deborah alone, is, that Barak and his faithful fol- lowers made a violent and sudden attack, before the numerous chariots had been placed in battle- array. This was done as night was coming on. When Joshua fought, sun and moon assisted him (Josh. x. 12) : on Barak, the stars shone brightly, — which does not make a thunder-storm probable. Consistently with Israelitish conceptions, the help of the stars can only be understood of their shin- ing. 1 Joshua also had come upon his enemies 1 [Bertheau takes the words " the stars fought," as fig- urative language, expressive of divine assistance. ' f From the decisive victory it is certain that God was with Israel and fought in the midst of them, ver. 13 [read according to the Masoretic text division] ; that He himself threw the hostile host into confusion, ch iv. 15 ; and that the strong arm of a higher Power directed the course of the battle. All this ia clearly and vividly present to the mind of the Singer. Filled with the thoughts of God's wonderful aid, and venturing under the impulses of a bold enthusiasm to give definite representation of his distinctly recognized yet mysterious work on earth and in the midst of men, it is to her as if the heavens, the eternal dwelling-place of the holy God, had bowed themselves down to earth, or — to use the language of the text — as if the stars, forsaking their usual orbits, had fought against Sisera. Quite similar is the Imagery in I's xviii." The same view is adopted by Bach- mann and many others. — Ta.] suddenly (CSH2, Josh. x. 9). Gideon, too, thre* himself upon the hostile camp in the night. But not the stars alone assisted Barak in his heroic course. As the enemy, either for attack or in flight, wished to cross the Kishon, in the direction from Taanach and Megiddo, the swollen stream swept many of them into the arms of death. " The brook Kishon snatched (^2"J?) them away." (H~!2> in its Semitic forms, corresponds to the Indo-Germanic forms rapere, Ger. raffen, Sanskrit, rup.) It thus came to the help of Israel, and became a C^Q^lp 7PI3, brook of succors. In whs sense the Kishon should be especially called a brook of " ancient days," as many explain , S3 : nf7i cannot be made out, not at least from Scripture.' 2 The rendering " brook of battles," has little ground in philology. The repetition of " brook Kishon," is doubtless intended to suggest a definition of what sort of a stream the Kishon was for Israel on that day. It was not merely the scene of battle, but an instrument of help against the foe. O^Ji? has frequently this sense, especially in poetical language. In Ps. lxxix. 8 the poet prays, " Let thy mercy come speedily to our help " (W^r? 1 :) ; cf. Ps. lix. 1 1 ; xxi. 4. But in Deu- teronomy, also, ch. xxiii. 5, it is said of Amnion and Moab that they did not help Israel with bread and water (OOO^ ^O^p'fcO). Kedumim is the plural of aform Q^liJ- TheKishon — thusexults the poet — showed itself a helpful stream. The statement that it snatched the enemies away, pre- supposes its swollen condition. It is only after the rainy season that the Kishon runs full ; for which reason the LXX. call it x«'M<«. winter-flowing. In summer it is for the most part dried up ; but in the spring it sends down a rushing flood. Ritter (xvi. 704, Gage's Transl. iv. 351) adduces the fact that on the i6th of April, 1799, in a conflict be- tween the French and Turks, many of the latter perished in its raging waters. Hence we may infer that the time of Barak's battle is to be fixed in the latter part of April or the beginning of May. The Feast of Weeks fell in the same season. 8 Immedi- ately after the narrative in Exodus, it is intimated that the manifestation on Sinai occurred in the beginning of the third month, and consequently coincided with the Feast of Weeks. The occur- rence of the battle in a season devoted to such commemorations, explains with peculiar emphasis the opening lines of the Song, concerning the om- nipotence of God on Sinai, " vy^ien the earth trem- a [Bachmann, who adopts this interpretation, explains it from the fact " that the ancient wonder of the Red Sea appears to repeat itself at the Kishon. As in the whole of the present wonderful deliverance Deborah beholds a re- newal of the glorious occurrences at Sinai (ver. 4), so she finds in the experience of Sisera 's army at the Kishon a renewal of that which befell the Egyptians at the Red Sea ; and thus the Kishon in her view takes the place of the Red Sea which that ancient wonder had rendered famous." Far fetched ; although suggested by several earlier Rabbini- cal and ecclesiastical expositors. — Ta.] 8 A Jewish hymn of the Middle Ages, by R. Mair, still sung in the synagogues, at the Passover (LW Shemurbn), transports the battle into the Passover night ; for which, however, it has no chronological grounds, but only the the- ological principle that all achievements of freedom wen accomplished in that night. CHAPTER V. 24-31. 103 tied." The ancients had a not ungrounded tradi tion, — to prove which this is not the place, — for regarding the Ixviiith Psalm as a song for the Feast 3f Weeks ; and it is just that psalm which incor- porated into itself the introductory parts of Debo- rah's Song. While singing, the prophetess sees herself trans- ported into the tumult of the battle. The stream rushes violently onward, — the perishing foes con- tend with its whirling eddies. The roar of the conflict, its battle-cries, and shouts of victory, are around her. In the midst of her Song, she ad- dresses her own soul, as the Greeks addressed their muse, with words of animation and refreshment : Tread vigorously on, my soul ! Her genius hovers over the valley of conflict ; her ear feels the hoof- strokes of the flying foes, who, panic stricken before Israel, furiously dash off into flight. What a tri- umph ! the " strong ones " (C' , "1 , 2S) run away ! ^n^T is to run fast, used of a horse's trot, like the Sanskrit dru, Greek Spavat (SidpouTKw). Q"'~]' , 3^, as Bochart already remarked (Hieroz. i. 99), is probably used here, as in Jer. viii. 16 ; xlvii. 3, of (he war-horses, who with their rattling chariots ran wildly off. In that case, the might of the steeds stands representatively for that of the war- riors themselves. Ver. 23. The flying enemy had not succeeded even in escaping, if all places of the surrounding country had done their duty. The prophetess utters sentence of condemnation against the inhab- itants of Meroz, because they rendered no assist- ance. Their aid had probably been important in the pursuit. Hence, their conduct is referred to here, — before the blessing upon Jael. The verse 1 It is altogether erroneous to take 0^11^2^ here of the heroes of Israel. For just therein consisted the faith- lessness of the inhabitants of Meroz, that though Israel was threatened by heroes and mighty men, they offered no uriit&nce. first introduces a messenger of God, crying " Curse ye Meroz, curse it ! " and then continues itself " Cursed are its inhabitants." The " messenger of God " is the singer herself, sent by the Spirit of God to consummate the victorious achievement In obedience to the Spirit's prompting, she with Barak pronounces the national ban against the faithless city. For it came not to the help of God (njn* H"^ 1 ?), that is, to the help of the njn^ CV, the People of God, as in vers. 11 and 13. It left the cause and the good gifts of God to their fate, when they were endangered in battle against heroes. 1 The greater the responsibility, the severer the punishment. The higher the cause to be served, the blacker the treason that abandons it. To ascertain, at this date, the site of Meroz can hardly be possible. It has indeed been sup- posed to be identical with a place on Robinson's, map, southwest of Endor, 2 called Kefr Musr (cf. Ritter, xv. 399 [Gage's Trans], ii. 316]) ; but nei- ther the name of the place is certain, nor its situa tion entirely suitable; and, finally, considering the popnlar odium which the Song of Deborah affixed to the name, it is by no means probable that it re- mained unchanged, and actually perpetuated itself. Procopius confirms this surmise, when he observes (Reland, Palttstina, p. 896), that concerning the name he had found nothing anywhere, not even in Hebrew expositions. The curse itself most proba- bly implied, as in Josh, vi., the utter destruction of the place, although nothing further is said of it. In later times, this verse became a locus classicus for the Talmudic exposition of the ban against persons and things {Mono 1 Katan, 16, a ; Shebnoth, 36, a; Selden, dr. Synedriis, p. 84, etc.). 2 The battle took place south of £ndor. That Barak in his swift descent from the heights met the enemy there first, appears from the remarkable statement of Ps. lxxxiii. 10 which speaks of Endor as a point of the battle-field. THB FATE OF THE BNXMT. Vers. 24-31. ii Blessed among women be Jael, The wife of Heber, the Kenite, Blessed among women of the tents ! 25 He asks for water, she gives him milk, In a beautiful bowl she carries him cream. 26 With her left she takes the nail, 1 With her right the heavy hammer, Swings it over Sisera, smites his head, Crashes through, and transpierces his temples. 9 27 At her feet he curls himself and falls. At her feet he lies, curls himself again, and falls, And as he curls himself again, falls — dead ! 8 28 Through the window she looks, at the lattice laments the mother of Sisera : Why lingers his car so long, Why stay the steps of his chariots ? 104 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. 29 Wise ladies answer her,* Herself also refutes her own words : 30 Will they not find booty and divide it ? Two maidens for each man ; Booty of purple robes for Sisera, Yea, booty of purple robes ! Color-embroidered vestments, two for each neck of the captured 1 • 31 So may all thy foes fall, O God, But those who love thee rise as the sun in his strength ! And the land rested forty years. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. p. Ver. 26- — The rendering of m^ by tf her left hand," — if admissible at all, — must be justified by the assumption of an intended contrast with HT^^ in the next line. The form POn /tETl, according to Gesenius, Gram. 47, 3, 3 Is an improper use of the 3d plural for the 3d singular ; according to Green, 88, p. 119, it stands for PTSn^tTj 7 ! "her hand, she puts it forth ; " according to Ewald, 191 c, it is simply the 3d fem. sg. HT'tpi 7 ), with an additional feminine characteristic (("73) in order to distinguish it from the 3d masc. singular. Ewald's view is also adopted by Bertheau, Keil, and (in the main, by) Bachmann, and is probably the true one. — Tr.] [2 Ver. 26. — Dr. Cassel's rendering of the last two lines of this verse is as follows : — Schwingt ihn auf Sisra, schldgt ihn an^s Haupt, Schmettert nach und durchhohrt thin die Schl&fe. We have endeavored to reproduce his alliteration as nearly as possible, but have nevertheless lost the paranomaaia of J"1D 'H with n*1^2^n, hammer, in the preceding line, for which our author has Schldgel, mallet, beetle. The awful energy of the lines, and their onomatopoetic character, may be distantly and somewhat inelegantly imitated in English, thus — " She hammers Sisera, mashes his head, Smashes (him), and crashes through his temples.*' — Tr.] [8 Ver. 27. — The above translation of this verse disregards the Masoretic text-division (according to which 2Dtt?, " he lies," belongs to the first line), and takes ""IT S3 in a temporal instead of local sense. The radical meaning of j?~^3 is probably " to bend or contract one's self " (cf. Ges. Lex., Keil, Bachmann), the usual sense " to kneel '" being derivative. The mortally wounded Sisera, pinned to the ground (ch. iv. 21), involuntarily curls himself together, as Dr. Cassel says — i. e. brings his knees forward and upward. But Dr. Cass**rs idea that this involuntary muscular contrac- tion was repeated three times is inconsistent with the proper local sense of "ItCHS, an d with the repeated ?3. Dr. Cassel, it is true, seeks to avoid the latter difficulty by supposing (see the com. below) that Sisera rt seeks to rise, aud falls back ; " but how could he rise so as to fall back when his head was pinned to the ground ? It is altogether more likely that in this song of victory, V— 3 is used as in military language (and perhaps not without a touch of con- temptuous irony), for " to die," (t to be slain," in this sense, ■ £3, like ir«TT«iVj cadere, and our " fall," is frequently used, cf the Lexica. The repetition of the idea of the first line in the second and third springs from the great interest of the singer in the destruction of the much-dreaded chieftain, and serves to intensify the impression to be produced on those who hear her. Accordingly, we would render : — At her feet he curls himself, he falls, he lies. At her feet he curls himself, he falls ! Where he curls himself, there he falls — destroyed. So also Bertheau, Keil, Bachmann. For ]^3, in the sense of "at " cf. remarks of Hengstenberg on Zech. xiii. 6, in Christ ol. iv. 106, Edinb. edition. — Tr.] [4 Ver. 29. — The above translation neglects both the suffix in i""Pj""n "")££.'', and the construct state of "11 pIH (fem. of 02n). In 7132^7 i^l Dr. Cassel apparently finds the 3d fem. siug. imperf. with the suffix of the 3d fem Bing. But as the subject is plural, it is better to take nSD^i^l as standing for n^^DVj-l. The accented e in the latter form seeks to strengthen itself by doubling the following consonant, in which case the ^ naturally Cilia away, although it may also remain, as in Mic. vii. 10. Cf. Ewald, Gram. 17 c. The true rendering of the second line of this verse is much disputed. According to Keil the sense of the line is : " Sisera's mother, however, does not allow herself to be quieted by the speeches of her wise ladies, but repeats the anxious question, Why does Sisera delay to tome ? " le and Bachmann translate the verse thus : — f( The wise ones of her princesses answer: — But she repeats to herself her words — ". — Tr.] [6 Ver. 30. — On our author's text-division in this verse, see the Commentary below. Bachmann, who ad'ierwi to Um Masoretic punctuation, translates as follows: — CHAPTER V. 24-31. 105 " Will they not find, divide booty ? A maiden, two maidens for the head of a man, Booty of colored garments for Sisera. Booty of colored garments, (of) variegated work, A colored garment, two variegated for the neck of the booty.'' Tm.] KXEQBTICAL AND DOCTRINAL. The closing part of Deborah's Song has justly been regarded as a specimen of poetical representa- tion that cannot be surpassed. In it the singer shows that she is a woman. The triumph with which Jael's deed is praised and Sisera's mother mocked, evinces an almost passionate mental exal- tation. The picture of Sisera's death is drawn with startling vividness. On the back ground of a divine enthusiasm, there rises an ecstatic delight in the deed of one woman, and in the misery of another, such as springs up in none but a woman's heart. That which in heathen female characters becomes demoniac in its nature, is in Deborah purified by the divine thoughts which animate her. >.'o subjective interest, no pri- vate feeling, no personal passion, influences her ; the highest interests of her God and people rill her soul. It is not her triumph, but that of her ever- living Maker, that she celebrates; and yet at the height of its exultation her Song breaks out in a mood by which the woman might be recognized, even if neither name nor other information on the authorship had been handed down to us. That which especially gives to the conclusion of the Song its great value and attractiveness, is the fact that from it the geunineness of the whole becomes even more psychologically than grammatically evident — that the mantic power of a prophetic woman, unweakened and in the full glow of its burning ecstasy, is nowhere else filled and con- trolled as it is here, by rational enthusiasm born of an objective, divinely-given truth. How well it was said of her, that she was a " woman of a fiery spirit'' (ch. iv. 4), becomes here most manifest. The more terrible the tyranny, the more common- place the enemy, the more intensely burns her soul in her song of victory. The glowing heat of her prophetic enthusiasm shines through the irony, with which she places the vain pride of unbelieving enemies over against the almighty power of God. It is not an irony of hatred, disfiguring the face with scornful smiles, but such as springs from the consciousness that God's wisdom and power are superior to all heroes and heathen. Verse 'J.'!, pro- nouncing the ban against Meroz, says, " thus pro- claims the messenger of God." The name of God is the source of all power and authority. Apos- tasy from God incurs the ban ; whoever helps to advance his works, is blessed. Vers. 24, 25. Blessed among women be Jael. Meroz did not come to (lie help of the people of God. Jael came, though a woman ; and not of Israel, but a dweller in tents. The name of her hus- band is mentioned to distinguish her from others of the same name, and also to give him an inter- est in the fame of his wife. Accordingly, for her sake, he also has obtained a place in the records of history. The blessing which she enjoys before ill women " in the tent," ;'. e. before all who like Herself and the Kenites wandered about in tents, ifter the manner of nomads, she did not win by accident. She made an energetic use of her oppor- tunity. She deceives the flying Sisera by the 1 [When soured. See Winer's Htatwiirlerbuch, i. 648. -IE.] signs of homage which she presents to him. He asks only for water; she offers him milk, and, as was befitting with such a guest, D'H V; TN -?~2, in a bowl such as princes use. She takes the handsome show-bowl, not used on ordinary occa- sions, and hands him HSQn. This word, which also signifies butter, expresses in general the more solid forms of milk. Here, where it stands par- allel with 2 vll, it signifies, in harmony with the " show-bowl," the best milk, the cream. There is absolutely nothing to suggest the opinion of older expositors (Schnurrer, p. 83, received by Herder also) that she wished to intoxicate him "with the milk. Moreover, we need not assume that the milk was camel-milk; and, at all events, the intox- icating property of that milk ' must have been known to Sisera. Before Bochart (cf. Serarius, p. 145), Junius and Tremellius had already ex- pressed the opinion, approved by Scaliger, that in '9P the Latin simpulum reappears. But saph, sephfl, are Hebrew forms of a widely-diffused term tor round, scooped-out vessels, whether of larger or smaller size, and may be recognized in the Greek (TKa -i?a. wti-ib D^nnnh crn -• NTJtpD 1 ? WJZ? bbttf 3 - D^as bbttf 4 - .bbt» ^N^b D\-,ep-i »22 nnp-i 5 - t t •• : - : • - t': • - v t': - Victors found their greatest satisfaction and joy in the booty. Hence. Moses also makes Pharaoh say (Ex. xv. 9) : "I will pursue, I will divide the spoil." The women took for granted that Sisera will find f/lS?!??) much booty, and that conse- quently a division will commence. Lines 2-5 point out the method of the division. First (line 2) each man gets two maidens, or women. Then the garments are divided. But how this was done, depends upon the explanation of line 5, particu- larly of the words bbttf 'HN-ISb. The difficulty 8 under which expositors labored, originated in their failing to perceive that ^7?' me tns the booty of maidens mentioned in line 2. It cannot be denied that •- vtC* is booty of persons as well as of things, cf. Num. xxxi. 11. Zech. ii. 13(9) says, "They become a spoil to those who have served them." In Isa. x. 2, widows are called '7*?' c '"- ^ er - xx '- 9, as also Jer. 1. 10, where the Chaldeans are spoken of as booty. An entirely analogous error used to be made in interpreting the celebrated chorus in the Antigone of Sophocles : — "Eoujs av'iKCLTt ixa.xa.Vi "Epws, os if KTT}Liaai iriTrrets * the word KT-fiLiao-i being understood, not of " the unfree," but always of things (cf. Weimar. Jahr- buck fur Deutsche Lit, ii. 359). The "unfree" booty consists of men. animals, and things. So here, ^7"" ^.^V arc t' le necks of the women taken as booty. For each neck two cloths are allowed. Thus the D^nEI?"] HOp^ of line 5 corresponds to the E^rrerH crn of line 2. The division was thus systematized. As many women as each had, 4 rn^S D^lWl. The mother replies herself to her T '.'T-; • t own words, corrects herself. She does not answer tin others, — an interpretation neither philologically congruous nor in harmony with the fact that they have not said any- thing which the mother would wish to refute. Cf. Job, xxxv. 4, and Prov. xxii. 21. 5 The following passage from a letter written by the Em- peror Claudius II., after his great victory over the Goths, may serve to confirm our explanation of ver. 30 : " Tanlum mutierum crpu?uts, ur binas et ternns mulieres viclitr sibi wiles possit aifjunzere.'- Trcbellius Potlio, cap. Till. 6 Observable also in Keil's exposition CHAPTER V. 24-31. 101 io many times did he receive two cloths (for doubt- less the dual form here really signifies the dual number). Now, it must not De overlooked that nS2(7^ is used only in connection with the division of the cloths according to the number of maidens. Elsewhere also (Ezek. xxvi. 16, excepted) i"l^l?~] appears as an article of female adornment, cf. Ps. xlv. 15, for instance; also in Ezek. xvi. 13, the figure is that of a woman. This confirms the above division, and explains the expression of line 3: S-JP"pb CMS bbtt'. The D^SaS which the chieftain is to receive, are distinguished from the O^nOp"], which fall to the maidens. The latter are beautifully-colored female dress-cloths ; • the former belong to Sisera, and are therefore to be taken as purple garments- It is true, 372S, in itself, means only to dip, i. e. to dye ; but the spirit of the passage invites us to think not of merely colored, but of purple-colored garments, ref ejoxV- Such garments were worn by princes in battle (cf. Judg. riii. 26), and distinguished kings and rulers ; by reason of which it was an honor for Mordecai to wear them (Esth. viii. 1 5 ; cf. Rosenmiiller, Morgenland, iii. 37). It is a proud thought for Sisera's mother, that the princely gar- ments belong to her son. The repetition of the words C , 3J2" ,£l£ (line 4) is to be taken as expressive of this her joy. The women do not speak, as has perhaps been supposed, of what they themselves shall receive, but simply represent to themselves how much time must be consumed in dividing so much booty among so many persons, in order to explain that which so greatly needed explanation — the delay of Sisera. We omit recounting the various different expo- sitions of this section. Nor is room allowed us to notice the manifold endeavors that have been made to analyze the arrangement of the whole Song. Neither Roster's, nor Ewald's, nor Bertheau s division holds good. Le Clerc attempted to ar- range the Song according to endings of similar sound, — an attempt that must necessarily fail. On the other hand, alliteration is of such frequent occurrence, as to betray more than anything else the presence of conscious art. Since the Song, however, is not built up of regular strophes, it of course cannot be subject tu the same regular laws which govern the Scandinavian poems. But the alliterative form, in its perfect freedom, enhances the power of the Song to an extraordinary degree. It resembles in its effects the pebble-stones of the brook, over which the current flows with aug- mented force. It would transcend the limits of our present task to institute a comparison between the various productions of the Hebrew muse with ref- erence to this alliterative form. Let it suffice, that in the rendering of the original we have endeav- ored to give prominence to the delicacy of the alliteration as it appears in this Song of Deborah. And the land rested forty years. These words do not belong to the Song ; but connect themselves with the prose narrative, at ch. iv. 24, nto which the poem was inserted. 1 [This general explanation of ("IQp"!, as cloth or gar- ments " worked in colors," is probably to be preferred to the more definite "embroidered in colors," adopted by Dr. Cassel in his translat ; on of the passage. Keil ton Ex. xxvi. 36) remarks tha' n the -inly passage where the verb Cp"^ HOMILET1CAL AND PRACTICAL. Deborah, the prophetic Singer. After the vic- tory, Deborah sings a noble song, and thereby enables us to recognize that the spirit which ani- mates her is the spirit of prophecy. The other Judges conquer like herself, but they have left us no songs of victory. But, indeed, they are not said to have been prophets. Only prophetic tongues can sing. True poetry is a sacred art. For that reason, all prophecy is a sublime hymn on judgment and divine redemption. Whatever the prophet sees, he proclaims and sings to the harp of faith. What they believed, that they spake. The wonderful works of God are always spoken of and preached with other tongues and in ecstatic song. Thus, from David's time till now, the church of God has sung. Hallelujah is the key note of all church-hymns. But, just as Deborah, like Moses and M'riam, sang among the people, so the prophecy of song is not confined within the limits of the church. All popular poetry is the product of popular faith. The decay of literature is bound up in the decay of prophetic inspiration. Rhymes and verbal dec- orations do not rouse the masses. But when the jubilant heart, redeemed, strikes up its Easter-song, then every pulse will brat responses. Starke : Although God has not committed the regular office of preaching to women, he has nev ertheless many times imparted his prophetic Spirit to them, and through them has spoken great things. — The same : All who share in the bene- fits of God, should also join in bringing Him praise and thanksgiving. — Gerlach : An age in which this sublime, high-wrought, and spirited song could be composed, though full of restless and wildly antagonistic movements, was certainly not without deep and living consciousness of the high and glorious calling of the covenant-people. [Wordsworth : We have a song of victory in Exodus ; we have a song of victory in Numbers ; we have a song of victory in Deuteronomy ; we have this song of victory in Judges ; we have a song of victory in the first of Samuel ; we have a song of victory in the second of Samuel ; we have the song of Zacharias, and the Magnificat, or Song of the Blessed Virgin, and the song of Simeon, in the Gospel ; and all these songs are preludes to the new song, the song of Moses and of the Lamb, which the Saints of the Church glorified, from all nations, will sing, at the crystal sea, with the harps of God, when all the enemies of Christ and his Church will have been subdued, and their victory will he consummated forever (Rev. xiv. 1-3; xv. 2-4). — The same (on ver. 17): Here, in Dan and Asher, is the second hindrance to zeal for (iod's cause; the other was that in the case of Reuben — comparative distance from the scene of danger, and rural occupation (see vers. 15, 16). They who live in commercial and maritime cities, engaged in worldly business, are tempted to prefer their own worldly interest to the cause of God and his Church. They who thus act, imitate Dan, and forfeit the blessing of Deborah. They also who live in country villages, removed from the din of controversy, and engaged in farming and other occurs, Ps. exxxix. 15, it signifies " to weave." Robinson (KM Repos., i. 610) says: "The verb Q|T^, both in Hebrew and Arabic, signifies to diversify, make variegated, sc. in color; and is not necessarily applied tr needlework.' Cf. also Bachmann, in toe. — Te.] 108 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. rural occupations, have strong temptations to live merely to themselves, and to stand aloof from their brethren, and not to listen to Deborah's voice, and Tiot to flock to Barak's standard, and fight God's battle together with them against the heresy and infidelity which assail his Church. — The same Jon ver. 18) : Zebulun and Naphtali, in " Galilee of the Gentiles," sent forth champions to the Lord's battle against the enemies of the Hebrew Church ; and their land was afterwards honored as the scene of Christ's preaching (see Matt. iv. 13), and gave birth to many of the Apostles, the first champions of the Christian Church against the spiritual Sise- ras of this world. — The same (on ver. 31 ) : Aftei the stirring emotions of the tempest of the ele- ments, ami the rush of the combatants, and the din of arms, and shock of battle, described with wonderful energy in this divine poem, the land had rest; a beautiful contrast, and an emblem of the peaceful calm which will prevail when the storms of this world will be lulled in the Sabbath of Eter- nity. — Henry : And well had it been if, when the churches and the tribes had rest, they had been edified, and had walked in the fear of the Lord. — Tr.] FOURTH SECTION. INCURSIONS AND OPPRESSIONS OF THE MIDIANITES. GIDEON, THE JUDGE WHO REFUSES TO BE KING. The Midianites invade the land seven years. Israel cries to Jehovah, and is an swered through a prophet, who reminds them of their sins. Chapter VI. 1-10. 1 And the children [sons] of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord [Jehovah] : 2 and the Lord [Jehovah] delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed [was strong] against [over] Israel : and because of the Midianites the children [sons] of Israel made them the dens [grottoes] which 3 are in the mountains, and [the] caves, and [the] strong holds. And so it was, when Israel had sown [his fields], that the Midianites came up. and the Amalekites, and the children [sons] of the east, even they came up against them [and passed 4 over them] : J And they encamped against [upon] them, and destroyed [ruined] the increase [produce, cf. Deut. xxxii. 22] of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza ; [> and left no sustenance - for [in] Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers [locusts] for multitude ; for both they and their camels were without number : and they 6 entered into the land to destroy [ruin] it. And Israel was greatly impoverished [reduced] because of the iNIidianites ; and the children [sons] of Israel cried unto 7 the Lord [Jehovah]. And it came to pass, when the children [sons] of Israel 8 cried unto the Lord [Jehovah] because of the Midianites, That the Lord [Jehovah] sent a prophet unto the children [sons] of Israel, which [and he] said unto them. Thus saith the Lord [Jehovah, the] God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt [cf. 1 Sam. x. 18] and brought you forth out of the house of bondage [Ex. xiii. 3] ; 9 And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drave them out from before you, and gave you their land ; 10 And I said unto you, I am the Lord [Jehovah] your God ; fear not [ye shall not fear, i. e. reverence] the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell : but ye have not obeyed my voice. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. 1 Ver. 8 — V ;V ?\?y) : literally. " canie up upon him,'* or, ft came up against him." Dr. Cassel supplies «in*tfi? T T T : " T after 3?HT, and accordingly makes "him 1 ' refer to "field." But although this rendering suits the connection admlra- -T bly well, it cannot be supposed that the Hebrew writer would have left the accusative after V" 1 ^ unexpressed if he had CHAPTER VI. 1-10. 109 Intended to refer back to it by means of a pronoun, especially when the latter could so readily be referred to anothej noun. V73? ^V^?"! simply adds the idea of hostility, which the preceding H *V left unexpressed. In like man her. CrP sV , in the next verse, explains that the " encamping " was " against " Israel — had hostile purposes in view. — Tr.] [- Ver. 4. — PPntD : Br. Cassel, Lebensmitteln, "means of life." So also Keil : "They left no provisions (produce Df the field) in Israei, and neither sheep, nor cattle, nor ass." Dr. Cassel, in a foot-note, gives a simple reference to 2 Chron. xiv. 12 (13), where, however, the word unquestionably means anything "alive." Bertheau adopts that mean, lug here ; but cf. ch. xvii. 10. — Tr.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 1 . And Jehovah delivered them into the hand of Midian. Of the death of Deborah ami Barak, no mention is made ; the peace which their great deeds procured lasted forty years. But those deeds were already forgotten again ; and with them the God whose Spirit had begotten them. Then fresh bondage and misery came, and reminded the people of Him who alone can save. Numerous tribes of eastern nomads invaded, plundered, and devastated the land. The transjordanic tribes could at that time offer them no such resistance as, ac- cording to 1 Chron. v. 10, 19, they were able, at a later date, to make against the Hagarites, Jetur, Nephish, and Nodab. The present invaders are called Midian, and appear in league with Amalek and the " sons of the east." The Midianites are wandering tribes in the desert of Sinai, in the neighborhood of the Moabites, answering both in name and manner of life to the Bedouins. In the constantly occurring interchange of J2 and 3 (m and b) in the Semitic dialects, the Arabic tongue seems to prefer the 2, while the Hebrew inclines to the O ( c f. Timnath and Tibneh). The Bedouin derives his name from the Arabic !"I^S2, the desert ; an expression of which the Hebrew T^i to be desolate and waste, readily reminds one. The derivation from "12"TO, formerly current, is too artificial, since the prominent idea of the term Bedouin is not a reference to pasture lands, but to the desert. The name Midian manifestly belongs to the same root — 7"H53 being the same as p'Gi primitive Bedawin, who, like the Towara of the present day (Ritter, xiv. 937), engaged in the carrying trade between the Euphrates and Egypt, and in general pillage. Not all desert tribes boast the same descent, as in fact the Ishmaelites and the Midianites did not belong to the same familv ; both, however, followed similar modes of life, and hence are sometimes designated by one and the same name (Gen. xxxvii. 25, 28; Judg. viii. 22, 1 A Madian near the Arabian Gulf is mentioned by Abulfeda; cf. Geogr., ed. Paris, p. 86 ; Arnold, in Herzog's ReoMncykl., i. 463. 2 [Keil : " The power of the Midianites and their con- federates bore so heavily on the Israelites, that these f made for themselves the clefts which are in the mountains, and the caves, and the strongholds,' those, namely, which were afterwards (at the time when our Book was written) every- where to be found in the land, and in times of war offered secure places of refuge. This is indicated by the definite article before iTl~iri3D and the other su >stantives. The T : • words, c they made for themselves,' are not at variance Irith the fact that in the limestone mountains of Palestine Jaere exist many natural caves For, on the one hand, hey do not affirm that all the caves found in the land were 24). They are dwellers in tents, as contrasted with those who till the earth or dwell in cities. Ver. 2. And the sons of Israel made them the grottoes which are in the mountains, and the eaves and the strongholds. The word for grottoes is DIT^O, and an entirely satisfactory desci'iption of them is given by Wetzstein (Hau- ran, p. 45) : "At some rocky, elevated, and dry place, a shaft was sunk obliquely into the earth; and at a depth of about twenty-five fathoms, strtets were run oft' straight, and from six to eight paces wide, in the sides of which the dwellings were ex- cavated. At various points these streets were ex- tended to double their ordinary width, and the roof was pierced with airholes, more or less numer- ous according to the extent of the place. These airholes are at present called rfisen, plural rawasin (windows)." From this may be seen how accu- rately Rasclii and Kimchi explained the above word, when they made it mean "caves with air-holes like windows." The remark of R. Tanchum is like- wise correct, that watchmen were employed, who gave alarm signals when the enemy approached. As soon as these were given, the ploughmen and herds hurried quickly into the earth, and were secure. Commonly, says Wetzstein, these excavations had a second place of exit ; and consequently, in a region whose inhabitants are liable to constant attacks from the desert (he speaks of the Hauran), are regardeil as strongholds. Quite appropriate, apparently, is the rendering of that Greek version which translates r"Hn3SD by fj.dv$pa, an inclosed space, a fold, stable. In later times, eastern monks, who lived in such grottoes, called the cloister itself fj.di'Spa.- Vers. 3, 4. Till thou come unto Gaza. 3 They were expeditions for plunder and devastation, such as the Bedouin tribes of the present day are still accustomed to undertake against hostile commu- nities. 4 Their general direction was towards the plain. The invaders, however, did not content themselves with ruining the growing crops from east to west, but also scoured the land towards the south. Gaza, moreover, formerly as in later times, was the great bazaar of stolen wares, brought to- made at that time by the Israelites, nor on the other does ntl'27, to make, exclude the use of natural caves for pur- poses of safety, since it applies not only to the digging and laying out of new caves, but also to the fitting up of nat- ural oues For the rest, these clefts, caves, and strongholds, were to serve, not merely as hiding-places foi the fugitive Israelites, but much more as places of conceal- ment and security for their property and the necessaries of life. For the Midianites, like genuine Bedouins, were more intent on plunder and pillage, and the desolation of th< country, than on the destruction of the people.'' — Tr.] 3 On Gaza, cf. the Com. on ch. xvi. 1. 4 [See Thomson. The Lan.il ami the Book, ii. 163 ; Kitto Daily Bible Illustrations, Moses an i the *udges t p. 340, et« — Tr.1 110 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. gether there by the Bedouins from their expedi- tions (Ritter, xiv. 924 ).' Ver. 5. As locusts (Sept. ixpis, cf. //. xxi. 12) for multitude: a comparison suggestive both of their numbers and of the effects of their presence. The Midianite deva-tation was like that bv locusts. In Hauran, says Wetzstein, various plagues are found ; the locust is bad, but the worst are the Bedouins (p. 43). A Bedouin said to him : " The Ruwala have become like the hosts of God," ■'. e., numerous as the locusts, for these are culled Gtintid Allah (Hauran, p. 138). — Camels without num- ber. In such extravagant hyperbolisms the speech of Orientals has always abounded. When Burk- hardt asked a Bedouin, who belonged to a tribe of three hundred tents, how many brothers he had, throwing a handful of sand into the air, he re- plied, " equally numberless." The invaders' object was not to gather the harvest, but only to destroy What they needed, they had with them — cattle, tents, and camels. Vers. 6-10. And the sons of Israel cried unto Jehovah. When the people were brought low (v5J3)' they repented. Distress teaches prayer. With Israel repentance went hand in hand with the remembrance of their former strength. They lose themselves when they lose their God ; they find themselves when they turn to Him. This the prophet sets before them. The words put into the mouth of the unknown preacher, reproduce the old penitential discourse. In various but similar forms that discourse ever reappears ; for it rests on Mosaic warnings and declarations whose truth all the fortunes of Israel confirm. For the first time, however, the verb ^*!?^t to fear, elsewhere used only with reference to God, is here connected with heathen gods ; but only to point out the fact that disobedient Israel has yielded to idol gods the reverence which it owed to the eternal God. When such rebukes are gladly heard by the people, deliverance is near at hand. When "they believe themselves to have de- served such admonitions and punishments, they again believe God. In accepting the judge, we se- cure the deliverer. Such is the historical experience of all ages. H0MILET1CAL AND PRACTICAL. Israel had again apostatized, notwithstanding 1 [Bertheau : n Since the expeditions of eastern tribes follow the same plan at every repetition, and since, accord- ing to ver. 33, they encamped in the valley of Jezreel, and moreover made their incursion with their herds and camels, It is evident that they must have entered the country by the one great connecting road between the East and Pales- tine victory and the song of Deborah. Sailer " When one has drunk, he turns his back upon the fountain ; but it is only the ingrate who do?s this." Israel was altogether as it had been for- merly, but God's judgment assumes a new form. Greater than ever was the humiliation. Israel was not simply oppressed by a tyranny like that of Sisera, who was in the land, but it was like a slave who toils for a foreign master. Had it accomplished its task ? Midian came and seized the fruit. So he who falls away from God who gives, must for that very reason serve sin, which takes. — Starke : The strongest fortress, defense, and weapon, with which in danger we can protect ourselves, is prayer. [Bp. Hall: During the former tyranny, Deb- orah was permitted to judge Israel under a palm- tree; under this, not so much as private habita- tions will be allowed to Israel. Then, the seat of judgment was in sight of the sun ; now, their ver) dwellings must be secret under the ecrth. They that rejected the protection of God, are glad to seek to the mountains for shelter; and as they had savagely abused themselves, so they are fain to creep into dens and caves of the rocks, like wild creatures, for safeguard. God had sown spiritual seed amongst them, and they suffered their hea thenish neighbors to pull it up by the roots ; and now, no sooner can they sow their material seed, but Midianites and Amalekites are ready by force to destroy it. As they inwardly dealt with God, so God deals outwardly by them ; their eyes may tell them what their souls have done ; yet that God whose mercy is above the worst of our sin, sends first his prophet with a message of reproof, and then his angel with a message of deliverance. The Israelites had smarted enough with their ser- vitude, yet God sends them a sharp rebuke. It is a good sign w r hen God chides us ; his round repre- hensions are ever gracious forerunners of mercy ; whereas, his silent connivance at the wicked argues deep and secret displeasure ; the prophet made way for the angel, reproof for deliverance, humil iation for comfort. — Henry: Sin dispirits men, and makes them sneak into dens and caves. The day will come, when chief captains and mighty men will call in vain to rocks and mountains to hide them. — Tr.1 tine, which crosses the depression of the Jordan near Beth- shean, and issues into the plain of Jezreel. The extension of their inroads thence, is indicated by the fact that Gaza, at the southwestern extremity of the land, is named as the limit of their advance.'' Cf. Dr. CaBsel's remarks on ver. 11, p. 111. — Tr.] The Angel of Jehovah appears to Gideon, and comm'ssions him to deliver Israel. Chapter VI. 11-24. 11 And there came an angel of the Lord [Jehovahj, and sat under an [the] oak which rvas [is] in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abi-ezrite : and his son Gideon threshed [was threshing] 1 wheat by [in] the wine-press, to hide it from the 12 Midianites. And the angel of the Lord [Jehovah] appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord [Jehovah] is with thee, thou mighty man of valour [valiant '3 hero]. And Gideon said unto him, O [Pray.] my Lord, if the Lord [Jehovah] be CHAPTER VI. 11-24. Ill with us, why then is all this befallen us ? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord [Jehovah] bring us up from Egypt ; but now the Lord [Jehovah] hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of 14 the Midianites. And the Lord [Jehovah] looked upon [turned towards] him, anc said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save [and save thou] Israel from the 15 hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee? And he said unto him, [Pray,] my Lord, 2 wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor [the most insignificant] in Manasseh, and I am the least [youngest] in my father's house. 16 And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto him, Surely [Nay, but] I will be with thee, and 17 thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that [it is] thou [who] talkest with 18 me. Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come [again] unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again. 19 And Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour : the flesh he put in a [the] basket, and he put the broth in a [the] pet, and 20 brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it. And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this 21 [that] rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so. Then [And] the angel of the Lord [Jehovah] put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes ; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then [And] the angel of the Lord 22 [Jehovah] departed [disappeared] out of his sight, And when [omit : when] Gideon perceived that he ivas an angel of the Lord [Jehovah, and] Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God [Jehovah] ! for because 8 I have seen an angel of the Lord [Jehovah] 23 face to face. And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto him, Peace be unto thee ; fear 24 not : thou shalt not die. Then [And] Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord [Jehovah], and called it Jehovah-shalom [Jehovah (is) Peace] : unto this day it i$ yet in Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 11. — Literally, " was beating " (tTpn) sc. with a stiek, paPSifav- The more usual word for threshing is tC*l^T. Threshing was generally done by treading with oxen, or by means of a dragdike machine drawn over the grain by oxeu or other animals. But for small quantities, and for certain minor seeds (Isa. xxviii. 27), a stick was used, cf. Ruth ii. 17 — Tr.] [2 Ver. 15. — S 3"TS : thus pointed, this word always refers to God, and the possessive suffix (for such **" 18 most probably) is lost sight of. tf From the words in ver. 15 Gideon perceived that he who talked with him was not a mere man. Hence, he now no longer says : f Pray, my lord ' (^DIS, ver. 13), but, f Pray. Lord ' (^3~TS, God the Lord)." So Keil Dr. Cassel apparently points the text here as in ver. 13, for he translates " My Lord." Compare what he says on ver. 17. — Tr.] [3 Ver. 22 — 13" 73? _, *3 : tr for therefore,' 1 " for on tbia account." Dr. Cassel renders it here by also, " so then " (illative). But the phrase regularly indicates the ground or reason for what goes before, cf. Gen. xviii. 5 ; xix. 8 ; xxxlii- 10 ; etc : and Ewald, Grain 353 a. Gideon's thought is : " Woe is me 1 for therefore — seii. to give me cause for my apprehension of danger — have I seen." etc. Cf. Bertheau and Keil. The E. V. would be rendered accurate enough hy striking out either "for" or "because." — Tr.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 11. In Ophrah. The place is expressly designated as belonging to the family of Abiezer, to distinguish it from another Ophrah in Benja- min (Josh, xviii. 13), Abiezer was a son of Ma- nasseh, whose seacs were on this side the Jordan (.Tosh. xvii. 2). To the western half tribe of Ma- nasseh, belonged also Beth-shean (Scythopolis), Jihleam, Taanach, Megiddo, the fertile districts if the plain of Jezreel. Manasseh therefore suf- (■red especially, when the Midianites crossed the Jordan near Beisan, in order to desolate the land. From vers. 33-35 it may be inferred that Ophrah was situated in the northwestern part of the plain, «i the direction of Dora, which likewise belongs to Manasseh. Since the enemy, after crossing the Jordan, encamped in Jezreel, and Gideon invoked assistance against them from Asher, Naphtali, and Zebulun, this inference may be considered tolera- bly certain. That Asher was called on, shows that Ophvah was in the West, and the appeal to Naph- tali and Zebulun indicates that it lay to the north ; since otherwise the army of Midian would have prevented a junction. Ophrah was inhabited by a branch of the family of Abiezer, at whose head Joash stood ; but among them dwelt others* C">"yn 'KnS, "themenof the city," ver. 27), who were probably of the original inhabitants whom Manasseh had suffered to remain. Under the oak, H^SH Hnjjl. Septnagint 112 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. I reoefiivBos (interchangeable with repe&ivSos), the terebinth. The Targums have SS3t2-12, oak. H7S and ]i vS are evidently different species of the same stately tree, and probably differ from each other as the quercus and ilex. The oak and tere- binth are too little alike to make it probable that they had almost the same name, flex is clearly a cognate term. Bottiger's remarks about an "ancestral terebinth," and a "sacred tree" under which "Jehoyah appears" (Baumkultm der Hel- lenen, p. 521), have no support in the passages in which those trees are mentioned. The magnificent tree afforded a grateful shade, and therefore in- vited persons to sit and rest beneath it. Whoever knows the East, knows also how to estimate the value of shade ; 1 though indeed everywhere a 'arge tree near a homestead or in a village, be- comes the meeting and resting-place of the inhab- itants as well as the traveller. Besides, the tree in Ophrah has nothing whatever to do with what farther happens. The whole section in Bottiger's book is a misunderstanding. The tree is men- tioned here only to make it appear natural that a stranger could seat himself under it without draw- ing special attention and exciting surprise. And his son Gideon was threshing wheat in the wine-press. In German, also, " wine-press " (Kelter) sometimes stands for the place in which the pressing is done, as well as for the vat into which the wine flows. The same is the case in Hebrew. While J~l? is the press-house or place, 2!£. stands for the vat; but they are frequently interchanged. Here it is of course the place, of which Gideon makes use to thresh wheat ; thresh- ing on exposed threshing-floors being avoided on account of the pillaging propensities of the Mid- ianites. Here that had again come to pass which Deborah lamented, and the cure of which she had celebrated in her song — there was no T^Q, no open country, in the land. Vers. 12, 'l3. And the Angel of Jehovah ap- peared unto him. Hitherto JTJfT TJsVo always signified a human messenger of God (cf. ch. ii. 1 ; v. 23). Here it is otherwise. The mention of a " prophet of Jehovah " in ver. 8, already indicated that the TIS7O now spoken of, is not a human messenger. That hint is now rendered plain and unmistakable by the phrase V7S M"1*1, there "appeared" to him, which is only used when the invisible divine nature becomes visible. As Gideon looked up, a stranger stood before him, — who, while exhibiting nothing unusual in his outward appearance, must yet have had about him that which commanded reverence. This stranger greeted him. Jehovah (is) with thee, thou valiant hero- Gideon cannot have referred this greeting merely to heroic deeds of war. It is much rather the evi- dent pleasure of the stranger in the nervous energy and vigor with which he threshes, to which with a sense of shame he replies. True, indeed, he is conscious of strength and energy ; but of what avail are they? Is it not matter of shame that he cannot even thresh his wheat on the threshing- floor ' Hence his respectfully spoken answer: No, nylorJ; (iod i- not with me; for were He with 1 Clearly and charmingly apparent in Geu. xviii. 1-4. - Kf.il : " In this thy strength, t. e., in the strength vhtch thou now host, since Jehoyah is with thee. The us, would such things come upon us ? would I bt driven to thresh wheat in the wine-press ? But this answer shows that he believed God ; from the greeting (iTjiT) he had perceived that he stood in the presence of one of the friends and confessors of God. It shows, also, that his courageous heart had long demurred against Israel's dishonor. The national tradition of Israel's ancient glory was not vet extinct. The deliverance from Egypt was the beginning of Israel's nationality and freedom Doubtless, says the strong man, then, as our fath- ers tell us, God was with Israel, and freed us from Egypt; but now — we are unable to defend our- selves against the pillaging Bedouins ! The doubt which he thus utters, does not spring from an un- believing and pusillanimous soul. He gladly be- lieved and delighted in what was told of other days. His lament is that of a patriot, not of a traitor. Because such is his character, he has been found eligible to become the deliverer of Israel. The Angel therefore comes to him, and says : — Vers. 14-16. Go thou in this thy etrength 3 . ... do not I send thee? The dinere&v^ be- tween Gideon's call and that of former heroes, must be carefully observed. Of Othniel it is said, that the " Spirit of Jehovah " was with him ; Ehud is " raised up " to be " a deliverer ; " Barak is called through the prophetess. The latter hero does not immediately proceed to victory. He refuses to go, unless Deborah go with him. In Gideon's ciise much more is done. An angel of God assumes the human form in order to call him. He conde- scends to work miracles before him. How much more, apparently, than Deborah had to contend with, must here be overcome by the angel! The grounds of this difference have been profoundly indicated in the preceding narrative. What was the all-important qualification demanded of one who should be a deliverer of Israel > Decided and undivided faith in God. Faith in God was the root of national freedom in Israel. Whatever energy and enthusiasm the love of country called out among the Greeks and Romans ; that,' faith in (iod called out in Israel. Israel existed in God, or not at all. The hero, therefore, who would fight for Israel, must thoroughly believe in God. This faith, undivided, unwavering, not looking to earthly things, and unconcerned about life or danger — a perfect unit with itself in devotion to God. and therefore hostile to the idol gods, the representa- tives of the enemies — this faith the call must find in him whom it selected for the work of deliver- ance. The men hitherto called did not come from the same tribes. Othniel was of Judah ; Ehud of Benjamin. In these tribes, the worship of the true God was less mixed with that of the false gods, because here the old inhabitants had been obliged to yield. Barak was of Naphtali, where idolatry, though existing in many places along side of the true worship, did certainly not prevail as in Ma- nasseh. Precisely those places which constituted the richest portion of this half tribe, and which consequently suffered most from the inroads of Midian, namely, the cities of the plain, had never, as the narrator expressly recorded, been vacated by the original inhabitants. They had continued to dwell in Beth-shean, Taanach, Megiddo, Jibleam and Dor (ch. i. 27). Here altars 'of Baal raised themselves everywhere, fully authorized and per- fectly unrestrained. Amid such surroundings, the demonstrative 'this' refers to the strength now imparted to him through the divine promise." — Tr.] CHAPTER VI. 11-24. Ill position of the faithful is a difficult one at all times, but especially in evil days, when Baal seems to triumph. Their hearts become saddened ; and the contrast between the former glory, in which they so gladly believe, and the present impotence, un- mans and confuses them. If the modest soul of Gideon is to be prepared for bold hazards in behalf of the truth of God, he must first be fully con- vinced that God is still what He was anciently in Israel ; that He still works wonders, and in them reveals his love for the nation. In his home and in his city he is surrounded by idolatry. He, the youngest, is to assume an attitude of authority towards all. That he may do this boldly and con- dently, the heavenly visitant must inspire him with a divine enthusiasm which shall rise superior to the suggestions of common prudence. [The way to this is opened by the promise, " But I will be with thee! " which is at the same time a chal- lenge to test the speaker. — Tr.] The narrative could not, in so few sentences, teach the love of God, which will thus be tested, more beautifully. Gideon is no presumptuous doubter. It is his humility that requires the miracle. He builds no expectations on his personal strength. If God will show that He is truly "with him," he is ready to do everything. He asks much, because he deems himself altogether insufficient. Ver. 17. Then give me a sign that thou art He who talketh with me. The angel appeared to Gideon as man ; otherwise he could neither have seen him, nor offered him food. His appearance must have been venerable ; for Gideon always ad- dresses him deferentially and humbly, with the words ""^nS ""S, "Pray, my lord." Now, when this stranger says, " I send thee — I will be with thee," and that without adding who He is, Gideon could hardly fail to conclude that He who addressed him was a supernatural being ; especially as these words were used in answer to his own, " if Jehovah were with us." It is, therefore, very instructive that the doubtful Gideon asks for a sign to know " whether thou art he who speaks with me," i. e., whether thou art one who can say, " I am with thee," and not to know " whether thou art God," a thought which he is not yet prepared to enter- tain. Vers. 18-20. Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come again unto thee. Gideon is not vet convinced ; but nevertheless the word that has been spoken burns within him. The remark in ver. 14, "")5?3, and Jehovah turned towards him," was doubtless intended to intimate that the heav- enly visitant turned his face, beaming with the light of holiness, full upon Gideon. Gideon feels the breath of divinity, — but certain he is not. Should the apparition now depart, he would be in twofold dread. He will gladly do whatever is commanded — but, is the commander God ? He thinks to solve this question by means of the duties of hospitality which devolve on him. Hence he prays him to remain, until he has entertained him. He is not so poor, but that he can offer a kid and something more to a guest. Flocks of goats still form a considerable part of Palestinian wealth, and tind excellent pasturage in the plain of Jezreel. Time permits Gideon to prepare only unleavened 1 The aame explanation 19 adopted by Josephus and Philo, and is not to be rejected as Delitzsch ( Genesis, p. 383) Mid others have done. Genesis sviii. to ver. 12 speaks only »f K men." But as they only seemed to be men, so they anly seemed to eat The instance of the risen Saviour is cakes ; but the supply is bountiful, for he uses at ephah (i. e., a measure containing about 1994 according to others 1985, or only 1014, Par. cubic inches, cf. Bijckh, Metrologische Untersuchungen, p. 261) of flour in their preparation. That which appears singular, is the statement that he put th« flesh in the basket ( /D). Wherever else this word occurs, it denotes a bread-basket. The explana- tion is, that Gideon was unwilling to call a ser- vant, and hence used the basket for both bread and meat. He requires, however, a separate " pot " for the broth, which the basket cannot hold. He thinks now that by this meal he will learn to know his guest. Celestials, according to popular belief, took no earthly food. The angel who appears to Manoah, says (ch. xiii. 16) : " I will not eat of tin bread." True, of the angels who came to Abra ham (Gen. xviii. 8), it is said, " and they did eat ; ! but the Targum explains, " they seemed to him to eat." 1 This belief has no resemblance to the Homeric conception, according to which the gods though they eat not bread or drink wine (Iliad, t, •'541), do nevertheless, like mortals, stretch forlh their hands after ambrosia and nectar. The angels, like all that is divine in the Bible, have their spir- itual abode in heaven, with nothing earthly about them, consequently with no corporeal wants. The explanation of Ps. lxxviii. 25, as if """^SK ErH meant bread such as angels feed on, is erroneous (unhappily, it has been again put forth by Boh- mer, in flerzog's Realencykl. iv. 20) ; the words have long since been properly explained ( by Heng- stenberg and Delitzsch) of the manna, which came from heaven, i. e., from on high. Hence, as late as the author of Tobias, the angel is made to say (Tob. xii. 19) : " I have neither eaten nor drunk, but ye have seen an apparition." Nor did Gideon err in his expectations. His guest does not eat. In verse 20, CTl 3WH T[S -"2 once takes the place ni?T TTS r 5 ? 5 but the rule that in the Book of Judges Jehovah stands regularly for the God of Israel, Elohim for the gods of the heathen, is not thereby destroyed. This is shown by the article prefixed to Elohim. The reason for the interchange in this passage lies in the fact that the nature of the angel, as a divine being, here begins to declare itself. In order to describe the angel who speaks to Gideon as the messenger of that unity from which the multitude of the angels pro- ceeds (hence 2 , n7S), the narrator introduces the term QV! '^V 1 - He thereby explains how the angel in his individual appearance, can neverthe- less contain in himself the power of God. The Angel of Jehovah, he means to say, is none other than an angel of the Elohim ; hence, He, the mes- senger, speaks as Jehovah. Vers. 21-24. And the Angel of Jehovah put forth the end of his staff. The angel, like a traveller, but also like the prophets, like Moses and Elijah, carried a staff. They also used it, as he does, to work miracles. Among the Greeks likewise, the staff, in the hands of iEscilapius and Hermes, for instance, is the symbol of the divine power to awaken and subdue. 2 The angel touches not to be adduced, for angels before Christ were not born like Christ. 2 On the subversion of the staff as a symbol of blessing! into an instrument of sorcery, cf. my Eddiseken Studien p. 76. 114 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. the flesh and bread, and they ascend in fire. What was brought as a gift to the guest, is accepted by fire as a sacrifice. Fire is the element in which divine power and grace reveal themselves. A flame of fire passed between the parts of Abraham's sac- rifice (Gen. xv. 17). Fire came down on the offer- ings of Solomon, when he had made an end of praying, and consumed them (2 Chron. vii. 1). Fire fell from heaven in answer to Elijah's prayer that the Lord would make it manifest that He was God in Israel, and consumed the sacrifice before the eyes of the rebellious people (1 Kgs. xviii. 38). To give a similar sign, the angel now touched the flesh and cakes. By the fire which blazed up, and by_ the disappearance of his visitor, Gideon per- ceived that his gnest was actually a celestial bemg, who had called down fire from above. He was perfectly convinced. No doubt could any longer maintain itself, and in place of it fear seized upon him. And Gideon said, Ah Lord Jehovah ! Gid- eon makes this exclamation, because, like Manoah (ch. xiii. 22), he thinks that he must die; for he has seen what oidinarily no living man does see. This view is deeply rooted in the Israelitish idea of God, and directly opposed to Hellenic concep- tions. In fact, heathenism, as pantheism, knows of no real partition-wall between the individual gods and men (cf. Nagelsbach, Homer. Theologie, p. 141) ; but between the God who inhabits the invisible and eternal, and man who dwells in the world of sense, there was seen to be an absolute difference. Every human being is too sinful, and too much under the dominion of sense, to en- dure the immediate glory of the Incomprehensible. He cannot see God, to whom " to see " means to receive the light of the sun into eyes of flesh. When, therefore, Moses, notwithstanding that he spake with God, as friend converses with friend ( Kx. xxxiii 11), would see his glory, the answer was (ver. 20) : "Thou canst not see my face; for no man sees me, and continues to live." It is implied in this idea, that only the living man can- not see God, that to see Him is to die. That, therefore, the dead can see Him, is an inference close at hand, and important for the 0. T. doc- trine concerning the soul and immortality. — Gid- eon, however, has no cause for lamentation, for after all he has only seen the man. Jacob's life also was preserved, for his wrestling had been with " the man " (Gen. xxxii. 24, 31 (30)). " No man hath seen God at any time" (John i. 18). When, therefore, Philip says, " Show us the Father," Jesus answers : " He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father" (John xiv. 9). Hence, a voice is heard — the voice of the now unseen God — say- ing: "Fear not; thou shalt not die ! " It was for the very purpose that Gideon might live, that the angel had not appeared as God. The wife of Manoah wisely draws this same conclusion herself (ch. xih. 23). And God speaks "Peace " to him. Where peace is, there is no occasion for fear ; for peace is the fruit of reconciliation. The divine messenger did not come to punish Israel still fur- ther, but to bring them help. When He comes to save, He must have previously forgiven. This for- giveness is the " peace." So Gideon understands it, when he builds an altar, and calls it DlbC.' niit^, God-Peace, i, e., the Peace of God. Humility and 1 l\iii : " The design of this altar .... is indi- s&ted lu the name given to it. It was not to serve for sac- rifices, but as a memorial and witness of the theophany rrucnaufed to Gideon, and of his experience that Jehovah penitence prompt him to this. Above, in ver. 13 when he was not yet certain that God had ap- peared to him, he had said nothing to indicate that i was Israel's own fault that God was not with them Of this he becomes conscious while standing in the presence of the divine messenger. The fear that to see God involves death, rests first of all on the moral ground of conscious sinfulness. Undoubt- ing faith is ever followed by true repentance, namely, love for truth. Gideon builds his altar to the Peace of God, i. e., to his own reconciliation with God, and salvation from the judgment of God. 1 The narrator seizes on this penitential feeling of Gideon's, to which he joyfully conse- crated his altar, and by means of it continues the thread of his story. The altar was known to the author as still extant in his time. HOJULETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Israel repented, and God's compassion renewed itself. Manifold as nature is the help of God. It is not confined to one method ; but its wonderi become greater as Israel's bondage becomes more abject. It was a great thing to select a woman to be the deliverer of Israel. This woman, however, had grown up in the Spirit of Jehovah ; she was a prophetess already, accustomed to counsel the peo- ple. The choice of Gideon was therefore still more extraordinary. He was not only the youngest in the least family, but he belonged to a city in which the heathen had for the most part remained. Idolatry prevailed, invading even his father's house. God took him like a brand from the fire, to make him the deliverer of his people. So God converted his Apostle, from amidst the multitude of enemies and their plots, on the way to Damascus. So Luther went forth from his cloister to preach the gospel of freedom. God calls whoever He will, and no school, faculty, or coterie, limits the field of his election. Starke : When we think that God is farthest from us, that in displeasure He has entirely left us, then with his grace and almighty help He is nearest to us. — The same: Even in solitude the pious Christian is not alone, for God is always near him. God does not err in his calling. Gideon was the right man, though he himself did not believe it. He desires a sign, not from unbelief, but hu- mility. He who thus desires a miracle, believes in miracles. He desires it not to be a proof of God, but of himself. To him the censure of Jesus does not apply : " Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe ; " for those wished them as grounds of faith in Jesus, Gideon as evidence that him- self was the right man. Gideon's humility was evidence of his strength. — Hedinger: Conceit and pride do not lead man to God, but humility and lowliness do. Thus Gideon believed the angel whom he beheld vanishing toward heaven ; the Jews did not believe Jesus, when He wrought miracles and rose from the dead. But Gideon's eye was the humility with which he looked at himself. When Christians do not believe, it is because of pride which does not see itself. It is not for want of a theophany that many do not believe ; for all have seen angels, if their heart be with God. " For the angel of th« is Peace, t. «., does not desire to destroy Israel in his wrath but cherishes thoughts of peace." Cf. Hengstenberg. Dist on Pint. ii. p. 34. — Ta.) CHAPTER VI. 25-32. 115 Lord encarapeth round about them that fear Him, and celivereth them" (Vs. xxxiv. 8). Starke : Even the strongest faith has always something of weakness in it. — Lisco : From ver. 14 Gideon seems already to hare perceived who it was that spake with him. His answer is the lan- guage not so much of unbelief as of modesty. — Geklach : His prayer was not dictated by unbe- lief, but by a childlike, reverential acknowledgment of the weakness of his faith, as in the case of Abraham. [Bp. Hall (ver. 11) : What shifts nature will make to live ! that we could be so careful to lay up spiritual food for our souls, out of the "each of those spiritual Midianites ! we could not but live in despite of all adversaries. — The same (ver. 13) : The valiant man was here weak, weak in faith, weak in discourse, whilst he argues God's absence by affliction, his presence by deliverances, and the unlikelihood of success by his own inabil- ity — all gross inconsequences. — Scott : Talents suited for peculiar services may for a time be buried in obscurity; but in due season the Lord will take the candle from " under the bushel," and place it "on a candlestick," to give light to all around ; and that time must be waited for, by those who feel their hearts glow with desires of usefulness which at present they have no oppor- tunity of executing. — Tk.] Gideon destroys the altar of Baal, and builds one to Jehovah. His father, Joash, defends him against the idolaters. His new name, Jerubbaal. Chapter VI. 25-32. 25 And it came to pass the same [that] night, that the Lord [Jehovah] said unto him, Take thy father's young [ox] bullock, even [and] l the second bullock of seven years old, and throw [pull] down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and 26 cut down the grove [Asherah] that is by [upon] it : And build an altar unto the Lord [Jehovah] thy God upon the top of this rock [fortification], in the ordered place, 2 and take the second bullock, and offer a burnt-sacrifice with the wood of the 27 grove [Asherah] which thou shalt cut down. Then [And] Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the Lord [Jehovah] had said unto him : and so it was, because he feared his father's household, and the men of the city, that he could 28 not do it by clay, that he did it by night. 3 And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was cast down, and the grove [Asherah] was cut down that was by [upon] it, and the second bullock was offered 29 upon the altar that ivas built. And they said one to another, who hath done this thing ? And when [omit : when] they inquired and asked [searched], [and] they 30 said, Gideon the son of Joash hath done this thing. Then the men of the city said unto Joash. Bring out thy son, that he may die : because he hath cast down the altar of Baal, and because he hath cut down the grove [Asherah] that ivas by 31 [upon] it. And Joash said unto all that stood against [about] him, Will ye plead [contend] for Baal ? will ye save him ? he that will plead [contendeth] for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning ; 4 if he be a god, let him plead [con- 32 tend] for himself, because one [he] hath cast down his altar. Therefore on that day he [they] called him Jerubbaal, saying, Let Baal plead [contend] against him, because he hath thrown down his altar. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. p. Ver. 26. — Bertheau and Wordsworth also find two bullocks in the text. " The original text," says the latte. , " seeme clearly to speak of two bullocks, and the ancient versions appear to distinguish them (see Sept., Vulg., Syriae. Arabic)?' De Wette and Bunsen, too, render ;r and,*' not "even." Keil argues, that "if God had commanded Gideon to take two bullocks, He would surely also have told him what he was to do with both." But does He not tell him plainly enough in the words, " and pull down the altar of Baal ? " See the commentary, below. — Tr.j [2 Ver. 26. — rO^l^S. Our author's translation of this word, " on the forward edge," is too precarious to allow of its introduction into the text. It probably means : ''with the arrangement of wood '' (cf. below). On the use of *£ in this sense, see Ges. I>x., a. v., B. 2, a. — Tr.] [8 Ver. 27. —The E. V. is singularly awkward here. Dr. Cassel : "and as, on account of the house of his father and (he men of the city, he feared to do it by day, he did it by night." — Tr.] [4 Ver. 31. — Dr Cassel translates the foregoing clause thus : t( he that contendeth for him, let him die! W»it fcU doming ; " etc. Keil interprets similarly. — Tk. J 116 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 25. And it came to pass that night. "Ye have honored false gods instead of the eter- nal God," the prophet had said above, " and there- fore are come under the yoke." For apart from its God, the maintenance of Israel's nationality is an unnecessary thing. If they attach themselves to the gods of the nations, they must also wear their fetters. Only when they believe the Eternal is freedom either necessary or possible. The war against the oppressors, must begin against the gods of the oppressors. Gideon, fully convinced of the truth of Israel's God, cannot summon to battle against the enemy, while an altar of Baal stands in his father's own village. Israel's watchword in every contest is, " God with us ; " but before that word can kindle the hearts of the people, it must have been preceded by another — " Down with Baal ! " This truth God himself enunciates in the valiant soul of Gideon. For now, being wholly tilled with divine tire, he will delay no longer. But, only he who fears not Baal will find confi- dence among the people. The vigorous blows of his axe against the Asherah are the clearest proofs of his own faith. Such a faith kindles faith. Ac- cordingly, Gideon must begin the liberation of Israel in Iris own house. Whoever will be truly free, must commence with himself and by his own lire-side — that is truth for all ages. Take the ox-bulloek, etc. Under divine inspi- ration, Gideon is as energetic as he is prudent. He neither delays, nor hastens overmuch. He chooses night for what he has to do, not from cow- ardice, but to insure a successful issue. By day, an outcry and contest would be inevitable, and would terrify the undecided. An accomplished fact makes an impression, and gives courage. His task is a twofold one : he must first tear down, then build up. The abominations of Baal must be thrown down. The altars of Baal, as the superior sun-god, were located on heights or elevated situa- tions. They were built of stone, sometimes also of wood or earth (2 Kgs. xxiii. 15), and were of considerable massiveness. Erected upon them, " planted " (V®n N?, Deut. xvi. 21 ), stood a tree, or trunk of a tree, covered with all manner of symbols. This was consecrated to Astarte, the fruitful, subordinate night-goddess. Such an im- age was that of Artemis in Ephesus, black (like the earth), fastened to the ground, and full about the breasts, to symbolize the fostering love of the earth. In other places, where the Greeks met with similar figures, Sparta, Byzantium, and elsewhere (cf. Gerhard, Griech. My'thol. § 3.32, 4. vol. i. p. 343), they were dedicated to Artemis Orthia, or Orthosia. In this name (opBis, straight), that of the Asherah (from " | E?M, to be straight) was long since recognized (cf. Zorn, Biblioth. Antiquar., p. 383). Asherah was the straight and erect idol of Astarte ; the symbol of her sensual attributes. Its phallic character made it the object of utter abhor- rence and detestation to the pure and chaste worship of Jehovah. And in truth the worship at Sparta (Paus. iii. 16, 7) did not differ essentially from that on Mt. Carmel (1 Kgs. xviii. 28). This idol was a common ornament of the altars of Baal, 1 1 VbS ~ltt?K rnt£?Sn. Hence they always occur top the? of. 1 Kgs. xiv. 23 ;' xvi. 33 ; 2 Kgs. xvii. 16 ; xii. I ; xiili. 16. J [Wordsworth : " Gideon, though not a priest, was by means of which these represented the worshif of nature in its completeness. Hence it is, thai we find Baal and Astarte joined together, as well as Baal and Asherah. Accordingly, Asherah and Astarte are not indeed altogether identical, as was formerly supposed ; but neither are they, as Movert thought (Phoeniz. i. 561, etc.), different divinities. Asherah was the Astarte Orthia, the image which expressed the ideas represented by the goddess ; but it was not, and need not be, the only image of the goddess. Without adducing here the many passages of Scripture in which Asherah and Astarte occur, the foregoing observations may suffice to explain every one of them. It will be found, upon reviewing them, that while persons could indeed worship Astarte, it was only Asherah which they could make for themselves, and again destroy. In form and idea, Baal and Astarte presented the per feet contrast to the living and creative God. Gid- eon, therefore, if he is to build up Israel anew, must begin with the overthrow of their idols. But this was not so slight an undertaking as to be within his own sole powers of execution. He needs men and carts for the purpose. He must wrench the altar of Baal out of its grooves, and throw it down ; tear out the Asherah, and cut it to pieces. In their place (tins is expressed by the 'TT'Ib "this," of ver. 26), he is to erect an altar to the Eternal God. For this he cannot use the pol- luted fragments of the altar of Baal. He must bring pure earth and stones with him, out of which to construct it- Hence he uses ten servants to assist him, and a cart. Take the ox-bullock which belongs to thy father, etc. The altar of Baal had been erected on his father's estate. The guilt of his father's house must be first atoned for. Therefore his cat- tle are to be taken. ~fitE>n "IS, ox-bullock, is not a young bullock, and does not answer to "^S ]?. It is rather the first bullock of the herd, the "leader;" for even the second, being seven years old, is no longer young. Hesiod advises agricul- turists to provide themselves two plough-bullocks of nine years old ( Works and Days, 447). In Homer, bullocks of five years are offered and slaughtered (II. ii. 403 ; Odyss. xix. 420). Down to the present day, the bullock of the plain of Jez- reel and the Kishon surpasses, in size and strength, the same animal in the southern parts of the land (cf. Ritter, xvi. 703). Tins first bullock, this head of the herd, answers in a sense to the head of the family, which is Joash ; it must help to destroy the altar which belongs to the latter. But as Gideon is not simply to destroy, but also to build up, the second bullock must also be taken, to be offered upon the new altar, in a fire made of the wood of the Asherah. The flames for which the idol must furnish the material — and we may thence infer how considerable a log of wood it was, — must serve to present an offering to the Eternal God. 2 Vers. 26-29. On the top of the fortification, on the forward edge, Tll'SH tPH") 7V : not the rock, near which God first appeared to Gideon. It was stated at the outset, that Israel made them- selves grottoes, caves, and fortifications against the made a priest for the occasion — as Manoah afterwards wat (ch. xiii. 19) — by the special command or God, who showi his divine independence and sovereign authority by making priests of whom he will, and by ordering altars to be buiit where he will. Cf. Hengst.. Pentateuch, ii. 48." — Tb ] CHAPTER VI. 25-32. in roemy. Some such place of protection and de- fense we are here to understand by the term T157D. Upon this, the altar of Baal, the helper who could not help, had reared itself. In its place, an altar of the true Helper, the Eternal God, was now built, and placed nD^l??32, on the forward edge. This word occurs repeatedly in the first book of Samuel, in the sense of '■ battle-array." It an- swers to the Latin aaes, and indicates that attitude of armies in which they turn their offensive sides toward each other ; so that we are told ( 1 Sam. xvii. 21) that Israel and the Philistines had arranged themselves nDHSO PrOp 1 ? nanjD. Now, as acies came to signify battle-array because of the sharp side which this presented, so n3"^5?i as here used of the fortification, can only signify its forward edge. 1 The place where Gideon had to work was within the jurisdiction of Joash, but at some distance from the city, since otherwise the inhabitants would scarcely have remained ignorant of his proceedings till the next morning. Ver 30. And the men of the city said unto Joash. Although the altar belonged to Joash, the people of the city nevertheless think themselves entitled to sit in judgment on the insult offered to Baal. Baal worshippers are not tolerant. The disposition of Joash however, seems even before this to have been similar to that of Gideon. For when it is said that Gideon feared to do his work by day, among all those whom he considers, his father is not mentioned, though he must be the most directly concerned. The same inference may- be drawn from the energetic and ironical answer which he gives the men of the city. There is nothing to support Bertheau's conjecture that Joash held the office of a judge. He is the head of the family ; as such, he is required to deliver up Gideon, guilty of crime towards Baal. Joash is not merely indisposed to do this, but even threatens to use violence against any one who takes the cause of Baal upon himself. A few such forcible words were enough to quiet the people of the city. Israel had fallen into such deep torpidity and self- oblivion, that their enemies dared to demand of a father the life of his son, because he had done that which it was the duty of every Israelite to do. The first energetic resistance changes the position of parties, and puts the enemy to flight. Ver. 31. And Joash said, "Will ye contend for Baal? In a similar manner,' 2 Lucian ridicules the heathenism of his day, by representing Jupiter as laughed at for letting the sacriligious thieves depart from Olympia, untouched by his thunder- bolts, although they had cut from his statue the golden locks of hairs, each of which weighed six minas (in Jupiter Tragoedus)- It lies in the nature 1 [Km.- " rO™"??' 'with the preparation (Zuriis- ru/ig).' The explanation of this word is doubtful. Since |T32 is used (1 Kgs. xv. 22) with 3 of the building ma- terial, Studer and Bertbeau understand HO"^^ of the t t-: - materials of the overthrown Baal-altar, out of which Gideon was to build the altar to Jehovah — Studer applying the worl more particularly to the stone of the altar itself. Bertheau to the materials, especially the pieces of wood, lying on the altar, ready to be used in offering sacrifices. Bat they are certainly wrong ; for neither does r"0^3?72 T t -: - uean building material or pieces of wood, nor does the iefinite article, which here precedes it, point to the altar ^f Baal. The verb 7J" 1 !? occurs not only quite frequently of heathenism to identify God and the symbol which represents Him, since in general whatever testifies of God, every sensible manifestation of Deity, is made Deity itself by it. Joash ridicules the idea of his heathen neighbors, that the destruc- tion of his alter is an insult to Baal. On the prin- ciples of heathenism, Baal's protection of his altar or the contrary, will demonstrate whether he is oi is not. If he is able to take care of his own altar, Joash mockingly argues, it is an insult for another to undertake it for him. In this case, not he who injures, but he who would defend his altar, denies his deity. The latter first deserves to die. Many expositors have connected "IpHH "T3J, " till morn- ing," with nHS'P, "let him die," which is against the sense of Joash's speech. As to the destroyer of the altar, he says, we know not yet whether he has deserved death ; wait till morning, and let us see whether Baal himself will do anything. But he who would take Baal's place, and put the othei to death, he deserves punishment at once ; for he denies that Baal has any power at all, and by con- sequence that he exists. Wait till morning, if he be a god, he will contend for himself, because he hath cast down his altar. Joash denies that the altar belonged to him, although ver. 25 states that it did. The altar, he says, belongs to its god : let him see to it. The result of these words must have been, to make it evident to the men of the city that Joash and his house would have nothing more to do with Baal. For this they knew full well, that their Baal would do nothing :o Gideon. It is one af the characteristic illusions of heathen- ism in a.l ages, that it does not itself believe in that for which it spends its zeal. Ver. 32. And at that time they named him Jerubbaal, that is, Baal will contend with him, for he hath thrown down his altar. Why ex- positors have not been content with this significant explanation, it is impossible to see. 3 It sets forth the utter impotence of Baal, and the mockery which it excited. Had Gideon been named " Con- tender with Baal," it would have implied the exist- ence of Baal. But if he was called, " Baal will contend with him, avenge himself on him," and thus by his life, presence, and prosperity, strikingly manifested the impotence of the idol-god, who could not take vengeance on him, then his name itself was full of the triumph of the Israelitish spirit over its opponents. Baal can do nothing. Baal loill do nothing, when his altars are ovet thrown. Baal is not: Israel has no occasion to fear. The superstition that he will avenge him- self on his enemies, is idle. Of that, Jerubbaal affords living proof. In vain did Baal's servants wait for vengeance to overtake Gideon — it came not ; the hero only becomes greater and more tri- of the arrangement of the wood upon the altar (Gen. xxii. 9 ; Lev. i. 7, and elsewhere), but also of the preparation ol the altar for the sacrifice (Num. xxiii. 4). Accordingly, 7"T^-**T^ can scarcely be understood otherwise than ol T t -: - the preparation of the altar to be built for the sacrificial action, in the sense: f Build the altar with the preparation (equipment) required for the sacrifice " According to what follows, this preparation consisted in piling up the wood ol the Asherah on the altar to consume the burnt-offering ol Gideon."— Tr] 2 The same idea underlies the Jewish legends ot Abrft ham's destruction of the idols in his father's house. Cf Beer, Leben Abraham^, Leipzig, 1869. p. 10. 8 geil has come back to it. !18 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. Bmphant. The name is therefore of greater eth- ical significance, than has been generally supposed. This fact secured its perpetuation and popular use. Even believers in the eternal God are deeply im- bued with superstitious fear of Baal, which forbids them to do anything against him. How idle this fear is, Gideon shows. Samuel in his farewell ad- dress speaks of Gideon as Jerubbaal (1 Sam. xii. 11 ) ; while Joab, speaking of Abimelech, calls him "son of Jerubbosheth"(2 Sam. xi. 21). J""lt273 is a term of reproach for Baal (Hos. ix. 10). ' Any connection between the name Jerubbaal and that of a god Jaribolos, discovered on Palmyrene in- scriptions, is not to be thought of. First, for the self-evident reason, that no heathen god can possi- bly be called Jerubbaal ; and secondly, because the like-sounding Jar can be better explained from T]^> the moon, thus suggesting a moon-baal (cf. Corpus Insc. Gru-c. iii. n. 4502, etc. ; Rifter, xvii. 1531, etc.). It is interesting to notice that Gideon's proper name, 'pyjS, appropriately expresses the act with which lie began his career. I?}2 is equiv- alent to the Latin caedere, to fell. Deut. vii. 5 says : " Their altars ye shall throw down their asherahs ye shall fell (I^V^P, cf. Deut. xii. 3). The same word is used (2 Chron. xiv. 2 ; xxxi. 1 ) of the felling of the Asherah, and Isa. ix. 9, of the felling of trees. Gideon, therefore, is the Feller, Casor (Caesar). HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. After the miracle of his election, Gideon enters on his calling. Othniel begins his official career in battle, Gideon in his own house. He must test at home his courage against foes abroad. Before he can proclaim the call of God against the ene- mies of Israel, who are inflicted on account of the prevalent idolatry, he must throw down the altar of Baal in his father's house. The most difficult battle is to be fought first. Nearest neighbors are the worst adversaries. But he dares it because he believes God, and wins. So, when preachers of the gospel reap no fruit and gain no victory, it is often because they have not yet overthrown the altars in their own houses. The road to the hearts of the congregation, is over the ruins of the min- ister's own Baal. — Starke: Christian friend, thou also hast a Baal in thine own heart, namely, evil concupiscence. Wilt thou please the Lord, first tear that idol down. But Gideon must not merely tear down, but also build up ; not only destroy the old altar, but also sacrifice on the new. Tearing down is of itself no proof of devotion ; for an enemy's enemy is not always a friend. The spirit that onlv de- nies, is an evil spirit. Divine truth is positive. Building involves confession; hence, to build up (edify) is to proclaim our confession and to preach the gospel of Him who is Yea and Amen. So did the Apostle not merely undermine the idolatry of Diana, but build up the church in Ephesus. Boniface, the Apostle of the Germans, not only cut down the oaks of heathenism, but founded churches. All churches are Gideon-altars, dedi- cated to Him who overthrew death, that He might bnild up the New Jerusalem. — Starke : He who 1 On the names Ishbosheth and Mephibosheth, compare tor the present my article on lahbosheth in Herzog's foal- would truly reform, must not only abolish, bo put something better in its place. Gideon's sacrifice was to be consumed by the. wood of the idol-image. The sole use which can be made of wooden gods, is to kindle a sacrifice to the true God. The wood was not unholy, liut only the heart that fashioned it into an idol-image. The mountains on which the people worshipped were not unholy, but only the people who erected idols upon them. All sacrificial flames arise from the wood of idols previously worshipped. So the Apostle consumed his zeal as persecutor in the burning zeal of love. When the heart burns with longings after its Saviour, the flames consume the worldly idols which it formerly served. When prayer rises like the smoke of sacrifice, it springs from penitence in which old sins are burned to ashes. Gideon is obedient to every direction, and is crowned with success. Notwithstanding apparent danger, obedience to God conducts only to happy issues. The most painful injunction is laid on Abraham ; he obeys, and it turns to salvation. The enemies seek to slay Gideon ; but they are sent home with derision. Gideon not only threw down the altar in his father's house, but also won his father's heart for God. So, confession of Christ often draws after it the hearts of parents. It is salvation, even if the first be last. However late, if at last men only come to God ! — Lisco : The father had evidently derived new courage from his son's bold exploit of faith, and declares war to the idolaters, if they touch his son. — Gereach : The hold deed of the son inspired the father also with new faith and courage. Hence, in this strife, Joash dared to judge as faith demanded. And Gideon was called Jerubbaal. The hero is the wonderful type of the militant church : militant, that is, against unbelief, not engaged in internal warfare. His name proclaimed that Baal is noth- ing and can do nothing; but that God's word is irresistable. Hence, it is a symbol of encourage- ment for all who confess the truth. He who fears and hesitates, does not love ; but for him who has courage, Baal is vanished. Gideon threw down his altar, and built another for God, not for the stones' sake, but for Israel's benefit. Every Chris- tian is a Jerubbaal, so long as instead of self- righteousness, he gives a place in his heart to the Cross. Thus, many in our days, who have more fear of man than courage in God. are put to shame by Jerubbaal. They exercise discretion, regard their position, look to their income, defer to supe- riors, and wish to please all, — but only he who seeks to please God alone, loses nothing and gains all. — Starke : As names given to men in mem- ory of their good deeds are an honor to them, so to their adversaries they are a disgrace. — Gerlach : Henceforth the life and well-being of Gideon be- came an actual proof of the nothingness of idol- atry ; hence he receives the name Jerubbaal from the mouth of his father. [Bp. Hall : The wood of Baal's grove must be used to burn a sacrifice unto God. When it was once cut down, God's detestation and their danger ceased. The good creatures of God that have been profaned to idolatry, may, in a change of their use, be employed to the" holy service of their Maker. — Wordsworth : The Parthenons and Pantheons of heathen antiquity have been consecrated into Basilicas and Churches of Christ. — Hexrt : Gid- encyhl. vii- 88, where, however, the printer has erroneous!* pat bv2o np for b^2 :r-in. CHAPTER VI. 33-40. 118 eon, as a type of Christ, must first save his people from their sins, then from their enemies. — The iame : It is good to appear for God when we are called to it, though there be few or none to second us, because God can incline the hearts of these to stand by us, from whom we little expect it. — Tb. The Midianite marauders being encamped in the Plain of Jezreel, the Spirit of Jeho- vah takes possession of Gideon. The double sign of the fleece. Chapter VI. 33-40. 33 Then [And] all the Midianites, and the Amalekites, and the children [sons] of the east were gathered together, and went over, and pitched [encamped] in the 34 valley [plain] of Jezreel. But [And] the Spirit of the Lord [Jehovah] came upon 35 Gideon, and he blew a [the] trumpet ; and Abi-ezer was gathered after him. And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh ; who also was gathered after him and he sent messengers unto Asher. and unto Zebulun. and unto NaphtaJi ; ana 36 they came up to meet them. 1 And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel 37 by my hand, as thou hast said. Behold. I will [omit : will] put a fleece of wool in the [threshing] floor: and if the dew [shall] be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth [ground] besides, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by 38 my hand, as thou hast said. And it was so : for [and when] he rose up early on the morrow, and [he] thrust [pressed -] the fleece together, and wringed 2 the [omit : 39 the] dew out of the fleece, a [the 3 ] bowl-full of water. And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot [kindled] against me, and I will speak but this once : let me prove [try], I pray thee, but this once with the fleece ; let it now be dry 40 only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night : for [and] it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. 1 1 Ver. 35. — CHS^n / " to meet them,"' i. *.. Gideon aud the Manassites alreadv in the field. Dr. Cassel (De Wette, t t ' : • ' nlflo) substitutes " him."' The LXX. change the number at the other end of the sentence, probably because they thought that the mountaineers of Asher and Naphtali, descending into the plain, did not make a good subject for 77^37. to go up, and render: *o'i ive'^i) eit mivdvrriaiv airiK. As to what may be called the " military '' meaning of HjI', cf. the Com. on ch. i. 1, p. 26. — Te.] p Ver. 38. — The words rendered " thrust together " and " wringed " by the E. V., are ~ !T S 1 (from -|!ft) and \"D** (from H"Q). Dr. Cassel translates the first by " wringing."' the second by " pressing."' The difference between them seems to be slight, if any. In the test, one clause expresses the action, the other the result. The primary idea ot "lift, according to Gesenius, is " to straiten, to bring into a narrow compass ; " that of HUO. " to suck."' The action ol wringing, though likely enough to be used by Gideon, is not expressed by either term. However, it lies nearer ~fflT than 71VT3. De Wette: Er drur.ktt ■ die Wolle aut, und pressle Tliau aus der Schvr, etc. — Tr.) T T [8 Ver. 38. — 725H, tf '/"" bowl," namely, the one he used to receive the water. On the " bowl," compare our au thcr's remarks on cb. v. 25. — Tr.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Vers. 33-35. It was high time that a new spirit oe3tirred itself in Israel. The Bedouin hordes already pressed forward again from the desert re- gions beyond the Jordan, and were settling down, Ako a heavy cloud, on the plain of Jezreel. Gid- eon, by his bold deed against Baal, and because the idol-god did nothing whatever to avenge the Insult to its altar, had acquired authority and dis- tinction among his people. As now the enemy who oppressed and plundered Israel was near, the Spirit of God filled him, literally, " put him on.'" What he had done against the altar of Baal in his father's house, that he would attempt against the enemy in the open field. He sounds the trumpet on the mountains. Though the youngest in his family, and that the least in Manasseh, the people obeyed his call, and ranged themselves under him (V^nS^ — such power is there in one courageous deed, in the vigorous resolution of one man in a 120 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. servile age. Even Asher, who had held back from Barak, furnished men. Xor were the brave sons of Zebulun and Naphtali wanting on this occasion In a short time Gideon stood at the head of a rot inconsiderable army. Ver. 36. And Gideon said unto God. The success thus far enjoyed by Gideon, has not lifted him up. He cannot yet believe that he is called to conduct so great an undertaking. He is aware also of the dangers to which he exposes his house and country. True, the divine manifestation which roused his soul, is still acting on him. But time, even a few eventful days, envelops such memories in shadowy dimness. In his humility, he is seized by a longing for renewed certainty. He desires to be assured, whether it was indeed destined for him to become the deliverer. He has recourse to no superstitious use of the lot. He turns in prayer to the God who has already shown his wonders to him, and who, as angel, has conversed with him. Now, as in ver. 20. where the angel manifests his supernatural character, the narrator used Elohim, with the article, because from Jehovah alone, who is the true Elohim, the only one to whom this name justly belongs, angels proceed ; so here again, when Gideon asks for a new sign, he makes him pray to " the Elohim," and continues to employ this term as long as he speaks of the miracle. Vers. 37-40. Behold, I put a fleece of wool in the threshing-floor. The sign he asks for is such as would naturally suggest itself to a person in rural life. The holy land is favored with heavy, fertilizing dews, which impart to its fields that beautiful and juicy verdure, by which it forms so grateful a contrast with the dry and dewless steppes on which nothing but the palm grows (cf. Ritter, xv. 157; xvi. 42, etc. [Gage's Transl. ii. 164]). Wool, spread on the open threshing-floor, especially attracts the dew. Gideon proposes to consider it a divine affirmative sign, if only the wool absorb dew, while the ground around be dry. It takes place. He finds the wool wet; after wringing C^!*?> from "AT = "flS) the fleece, and pressing it (VEE! from TOa = VSn), he can fill a whole bowl full with the water ; the ground round about is dry. Though very remarkable, he thinks never- theless, that it mav possibly be explained on nat- ural principles. Perhaps the dew, already dried up from the ground, was only longer retained by the fleece. In his humility and necessity for assur- ance, and in the purity of his conscience, which is known to God, he ventures once more to appeal to God. If now the reverse were to take place, leav- ing the wool dry and the ground wet, there could be no doubt that God had wrought a miracle No other explanation would be possible. This also comes to pass, and Gideon knows now beyond all doubt, that God is with him. The naivete of an uncommon depth of thought reveals itself in this choice of a sign for which the hero asks. Faith in God's omnipotence lies at its base. Such a request could only be made by one who knew that the whole creation was in the hands of God. Relying an the grace and power of God, he casts lots with the independent laws of nature. The childlike faith which animates him, sounds the depths of an unfathomable wisdom. Hence, in the ancient church, his miraculous sign became the tvpe of thfl highest and most wonderful miracle known to the church, the birth of Jesus from the Virgin Mary. Origen already speaks of the advent of the Son of God as the fall of the divine dew The develop- ment of this type in pictures and customs, I have elsewhere attempted to trace, whither I must here refer the reader ( WeUmachten, p. 248, etc.). HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Geelach : Gideon does not " put on " the Spirit of the Lord, but the Spirit puts him on. He clothes him, as with a suit of armor, so that in his strength he becomes invulnerable, invincible. [Bp. Hall : Of all the instruments that God did use in so great a work, I find none so weak as Gideon, who yet of all others was styled valiant. The same : The former miracle was strong enough to carry Gideon through his first exploit of ruin- ating the idolatrous grove and altar ; but now, when he saw the swarm of the Midianites and Amalekites about his ears, he calls for new aid ; and, not trusting to the Abiezrites, and his other thousands of Israel, he runs to God for a further assurance of victory. The refuge was good, but the manner of seeking it savors of distrust. There is nothing more easy than to be valiant when no peril appeareth ; but when evils assail us upon equal terms, it is hard, and commendable, not to be dismayed. If God had made that proclamation now, which afterwards was commanded to be made by Gideon, "Let the timorous depart," I doubt whether Israel had not wanted a guide : yet how willing is the Almighty to satify our weak desires! What tasks is He content to be set by our infirm- ity ! — Keil : Gideon's prayer for a sign sprang not from want of faith in God's promise of vic- tory, but from the weakness of the flesh, which paralyzes the faith and energy of the spirit, and often makes the servants of God so anxious and timorous that God must assist them by miracles. Gideon knew himself and his own strength, and that for victory over the enemy this would not suffice. — Scott : Even they who have the Spirit of God, and by the trumpet of the gospel call others to the conflict, cannot always keep out dis- quieting fears, in circumstances of peculiar dan- ger and difficulty. In this struggle against invol- untary unbelief, the Lord himself, the Author and Finisher of his people's faith, is their refuge; to Him they make application, and He will help them ; and when they are encouraged, they will lie enabled to strengthen their brethren. — Bush : The result went, 1. To illustrate the divine conde- scension. God, instead of being offended with his servant, kindly acceded to his request. A fellow creature who had given such solemn promises, would have been quite indignant at finding his veracity seemingly called in question 2. To show the efficacy of prayer. It was prayer that prevailed in this instance. With great hn mility and much tenderness of spirit, Gidom b» sought the divine interposition. — Th ] CHAPTER VTI. 1-8. 121 Gideon in the field. His numerous army reduced, by divinely prescribed tests, t» three hundred men. Chapter VII. 1-8. 1 Then [And] Jei ubbaal (who is Gideon) and all the people that were with him, rose up early and pitched [encamped] beside the well of Harod [near En-Harod] : so that [and] the host [camp] of the Midianites were [was] on the north side of 2 them by the hill of Moreh, in the valley. 1 And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand 3 hath saved me. Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early [turn away] from Mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand ; and 4 there remained ten thousand. And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto Gideon, The peo- ple are yet too many ; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there ; and it shall be that of whom I say unto thee, This [one] shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee ; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, This [one] shall > not go with thee, the same shall not go. So he brought down the people unto the water : and the Lord [Jehovah] said unto Gideon ; Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself ; likewise every 6 one that boweth down upon his knees to drink. And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men : but all the rest 7 of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water. And the Lord [Jeho- vah] said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand : and let all the other people go every man 8 unto his place. So the people [And they] took [the] victuals [from the people] in their hand, and their trumpets ; 2 and he sent all the rest of Israel every man unto his tent, and retained those three hundred men. And the host [camp] of Midian was beneath him in the valley. TEXTDAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 1. — Dr. Cassel, taking ^7 in the last clause of this Terse (and also in ver. 8) as if it were V3C^, renders thus : f( And he had the camp of Midian before him in the valley, to the north of the hill Moreh." The E. V. is more correct. Literally rendered, the clause says that "the camp of Midian was to him (Gideon) on the north, at OD. cf. Ges. Lex. s. v., 3, h) the hill of Moreh, in the valley.' 1 — Tr.] [2 Ver. 8. — On the rendering of this clause, see the commentary below. Keil translates similarly (" of the people," Instead of "from the people "),aud remarks: " C3?rT cannot be subject, partly on account of the sense — for the three hundred who are without doubt the subject, cf. ver 16, cannot be called C3?i"T in distinction of ^K"1C£?^ tL^K /3 T T •• T : * T -partly also on account of the H~T^""jHS. which would then, against the rule, be without the article, cf. Ges. Gram. 117, 2. Rather read C.VT1 illl'TIS, as Sept. and Targum." So also Bertheau. — Te.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 1. And they encamped near En Harod. The great probability that Ophrah is to be sought somewhere to the northwest of Jczreel (the modern Zerin), has already been indicated above. The oattle also must be located in the same region, as appears from the course of the flight, related farther oi/. The camp of Midian was in the valley, to the north of a hill. Now, since we are told that Gideon's ;amp was on a hill (ver. 4), below which, and north of another, Midian was encamped, it is evident that Gideon occupied a position north of Midian, and had that part of the plain of Jezrecl in which the enemy lay, below him, towards the south. The leight near which the hostile army was posted, is called the Hill Moreh. Moreh (n"TlO, from fT^), signifies indicator, pointer, overseer and teacher. The mountain must have commanded a free view of the valley. This applies exactly to the Tell el Mutsellim, described by Robinson (Bill. Res. iii. 117|. He says : " The prospect from the Tell is a noble one, embracing the whole of the glorious plain, than which there is not a richer upon earth. It was now extensively covered with fields of grain ; with many tracts of grass, like meadows; . . . Zerin (Jezreel) ipas distinctly in view, bearing S. 74° E." To this must be added that the Arabic Mutsellim has essentially the same mean ing as Moreh, namely, overseer, district-governor, etc. The peculiar position of the Tell has probablj 122 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. given it the same kind and degree of importance in all ages. A little north of Tell Mutsellim, Robin- eon's map has a Tell Kireh, which may mark the position of Gideon ; for that must have been very near and not high, since Gideon could descend from it and hurry back in a brief space of the same night. It may be suggested, at least, that Kireh has some similarity of sound with Charod (Harod). 1 Ver. 2. The people that are with thee are too many. Victory over Midian, and deliverance from their yoke, would avail Israel nothing, if they did not g'ain the tirm conviction that God is their Helper. The least chance of a natural explanation, 60 excites the pride of man, that he forgets God. Whatever Gideon had hitherto experienced, his vocation as well as the fulfillment of his petitions, was granted in view of his humility, which would not let him think anything great of himself. The number of warriors with which he conquers must be so small, that the miraculous character of the victory shall be evident to everybody. This belief in divine intervention will make Israel free ; for not the winning of a battle, but only obedience toward God can keep it so. Ver. 3. Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn back and depart from Mount Gilead. 2 The narrative is evidently very condensed ; for it connects the result of the proclamation immediately with God's command to Gideon to make it, without mentioning its execution by him. By reason of this brevity, sundry obscurities arise, both here and farther on, which it is difficult to clear up. The words t^an inn "fe^.T, ■' and turn away from Mount Gilead," have long given offense, and occasioned various unnecessary conjectures. ~I2?\ it is true, occurs only in this passage ; but it is mani- festly cognate with iT^ s QI2, circle, crown. Hence, that the verb means to turn away or about, is cer- tain, especially as the Greek a Gilead, which would be a very unfortunate substitution. For, in the first place," the battle did not occur at Mount 1 [Bertheau assumes that En Cbarod is the same fountain as the modern AinJalud, flowing from the base of Gilboa, see Rob. Bibl. Res. ii. 323. Aceordingly, Gilboa would be the mountain on which Gideon was eneamped, and Little Her- mon (on which see Rob. ii. 326} would answer to Moreh. On this combination Keil remarks, that " although possible, it is very uncertain, and scarcely reconcilable with the statements of ver. 23 tf. and ch. viii. 4, as to the road taken by the defeated Midianites." — Tr.] ■2 Epaminondas, when advancing against the Spartans at Leuctra, observed the unreliable character of some confed- erates. To prevent being endangered by them, he caused it to be proclaimed, that " Whoever of the Boeotians wished to withdraw, were at liberty to do so." Polyaenus, ii. 3. S Under this view, the conjectures adopted by Benfey (Gt. Or- i. 579; ii. 367) fall away of themselves. 4 [The German is : " Wer feize se-i, trolte sichvam Berge." The author then adds: "The German ilrollen, trollen. has in tact a similar origin- It means l to turn one's self ; " rlrol is that which is turned, also a "coil." Sieh trolltn [Eng- lish to pack one's self], is proverbially equivalent to tak- ing one's departure, recedere. Cf. Grimm, WGrterbitch, ii. W29, etc."— Tr.1 Gilboa ; and in the next place, by this reading the peculiar feature of the sentence would be lost. Tc be sure, Gilead does not here mean the country of that name east of the Jordan. Indeed, it does not seem to indicate a country at all, but rather the character of the militant tribe. Gideon belongs to the tribe of Manasseh. From Manasseh likewise descended Gilead, a son of Machir (Num. xxvi. 29) ; and the sons of Machir took possession of Gilead (Num. xxxii. 40). Nevertheless, the Song of Deborah distinguishes between Machir and Gil- ead. The name Machir there represents the peace- able character of the tribe : Gilead stands for its military spirit. Joshua xvii. 1 affirms expressly that Gilead was a "man of war." From Gilead heroes like Jephthah descend. Jehu also is reck- oned to it. a The valor of Jabesh Gilead is well known. In a bad sense, Hosea (ch. vi. S) speaks of Gilead as the home of wild and savage men. Here, therefore, Gilead stands in very significant contrast with T"7 • " ' e ' him," cries the hero, " who is cowardly and fearful depart from the mountain of Gilead, who (as Jephthah said) takes his life in his hand, unterrified before the foe." 7 For the rest, however, the name Gilead was not confined to the east-Jordanic country. This ap- pears from ch. xii. 4, where we read that the Ephraimites called the Gileadites fugitives of Eph- raim, " for Gilead was between Epliraim and Manasseh." Now, Ephraim's territorial posses- sions were all west of the Jordan. From this, there- fore, and from the fact that the western half tribe of Manasseh and the tribe of Ephraim were partly interlocated (cf. Josh. xvii. 8-10), it is evident that the names of the eastern Gilead were also in vogue on this side the Jordan. He who would be with Gilead, must be no ' TTI1 (trembler): out of 32,000 men, 22,000 perceive this, and retire. That numbers do not decide in battle, is a fact abundantly established by the history of ancient nations ; nor has modern warfare, though it deals in the life and blood of the masses, brought dis- credit upon it. It is a fine remark which Tacitus (Annal. xiv. 36, 3) puts into the mouth of Sue- tonius : Etiam in nudtis hgionibus, paucos esse qui proelia projUyarent — " even with many legions, it is always the few who win the battle." The instance adduced by Serarius from Livy (xxix. 1), has no proper relation to that before us. It would be more suitable to instance Leonidas, if it be true, as He- rodotus (vii. 220) intimates, that at the battle of 5 Dathe proposes to read ad montetn, and Michaelis to point "^nE, " quickly," instead of "intt, " from the mountain." Neither proposition can be entertained (cf. Doderlein, Tkeol. Biblinlh., iii. 326). 6 [By the ancient Jewish expositors, cf. Dr. Cassel's article on Jehu in Herzog's Realencykl. vi. 466. " In so doing they probably explained son of Nimshi (^ITDS) as son of a Manassite (*t£3^5), i- «• a son out of the tribe of Manas- seh." — Te.] 7 [Ewald ( Gesch. Israel's, ii. 500, note) has the followinj on this proclamation : " From the unusual words and their rounding, it is easy to perceive that they contain an ancient proverb, which in its literal sense would be especially ap- propriate to the tribe of Manasseh. " Mount Gilead," the place of Jacob's severest struggles (Gen. xxxi. etc.), may very well, from patriarchal times, have become a proverbial equivalent for " scene of conflict," which is manifestly all that the name here means. And Manasseh was the very tribe which had often found that for them also Gilead was a place of battle, cf p. 391."— Tu.] CHAPTER VTI. 1-ft. 128 Thermopylas he dismissed his confederates because he knew tiiem to be deficient in bravery ; in relation to which, however, Plutarch's vehement criticism is to be considered (cf. Kaltwasser, in Pint. Morn!. Abhandl., vi. 732). Noteworthy is the imitation of Gideon's history in a North-German legend (MuHenhoff, Sagen, etc. p. 426). In that as in many other legends, magic takes the place of God." Vers. 4. Bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there. There is no lack of water in this region. Ponds, wells, and bodies of standing water, are described by Robin- eon {Bibt. Res. iii. 115, 116). Beside these, Gideon had the Kishon behind him, which in the rainy 6eason is full of water. Vers. 5-7. Every one that lappeth of the water. The meaning of this test, the second which Gideon was to apply, is obscured by the brevity of the narrative. The question is, What characteristic did it show in the 300 men, that they did not drink water kneeling, but lapped it with their tongues, like dogs. Bertheau has followed the view of Josephus (Ant. v. 6, 3), which makes those who drink after the manner of dogs to be the faint- hearted. According to this view, the victory is the more wonderful, because it was gained by the timid and fearful. But this explanation does not accord with the traditional exegesis of the Jews, as handed down by others. Moreover, it contradicts the spirit of the whole narrative. When Gideon was chosen, it was for the very reason that he was a " valiant hero " (ch. vi. 12). All those who were deficient in courage were sent home by the procla- mation (ver. 3). If faint-heartedness were de- manded, the brave should have been dismissed. Finally, God saves by few, indeed, if they trust in Him, but not by cravens. Cowardice is a negative quality, unable even to trust. To do wonders with cowards, is a contradiction in adjecto ; for if they fight, they are no longer cowards. Cowardice is a condition of soul which cannot become the medium of divine deeds ; for even the valiant few, when they attack the many and conquer, are strong only because of their divine confidence. Besides, it is plainly implied that all those who now went with Gideon, were resolute for war. The Jewish in- terpretation, communicated by Raschi, is evidently far more profound. Gideon, it says, can ascertain the religious antecedents of his men from the way in which they prepare to drink. Idolators were ac- customed to pray kneeling before their idols. On this account, kneeling, even as a mere bodily pos- ture, had become unpopular and ominous in Israel, and was avoided as much as possible. Hence, he who in order to drink throws himself on his knees, shows thereby, in a perfectly free and natural man- ner, that this posture is nothing unusual to him ; whereas those who have never been accustomed to kneel, feel no need of doing it now, and as naturally refrain from it. It would have been difficult for Gideon to have ascertained, in any other way, what had been the attitude of his men towards idolatry. While quenching their eager thirst, all deliberation being forgotten, they freely and un- restrainedly indicate to what posture they were habituated. It is a principle pervading the legen- dary lore of all nations, that who and what a person is, can only be ascertained by observing him when 1 The same popular belief recurs in various forms ; in many of which the rudeness and ndictti of the manner conceals the profundity of the thought. Cf. Grimm, Kin- iermarchen, ii. 229 ; Miillenhoff, Sagen, p. 384. 'i An image of heathenism an i Israel, which from incon under no constraint of any kind. 1 The queen of» Northern legend exchanges dresses with her maid ; but she who is not the queen, is recognized by hei drinking (cf. Simrock, Quellendes Sltaksp. iii. 171 ) That which is here in Scripture accepted with ref- erence to religious life and its recognition, popular literature applies to the keen discriminating observ- ance of social life. — This view of the mark afforded by the act of kneeling, is not opposed by the fact that in the temple the worshipper bowed himself before God. It is announced to Elijah (1 Kgs. xix. 18), that only 7,000 shall be left: "All the knoes which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." To bow the knee is an honor due to God alone. Hence, Mor- decai refuses to kneel to a man (Esth. iii. 5). Hence, God proclaims by the prophet (Isa. xlv. 23) : " Unto me every knee shall bow." The three hundred — this is what God makes Gideon to know — have never kneeled before Baal ; they are clean men ; and with clean vessels, men, and animals, God is accustomed to do wonderful things. Mid- ian's idolatrous people shall be smitten only by such as have always been free from their idols. However satisfactory and in harmony with the Biblical spirit this explanation may be as it stands, let something nevertheless be added to it. Verse 5 says : itrs? cttn-]^ •iaitrba pV-nrs bs "ob iniW y?r\ nb^n pS\ In verse 6 the phraseology changes ; it speaks of those who Z:rr2- U f< D"P5 Cppbpn. Now, as they would naturally use the hollow hand to take up the water and carry it to the mouth, thus making it answer to the concave tongne of a dog, it is evident that we must so understand the words quoted from ver. 5, as if it read: t^STr-ja IT? p> -|£fej b'Z w ; ba nbjn pb; -igjfc»3> » a ii who sip water with their hands, as the dog with his tongue." However that may be, the circumstance must not be overlooked that a comparison with the sipping of a dog is here instituted ; for if the comparison had no special significance, it would have sufficed to distinguish between those who drank standing and those who drank kneeling. It was the percep- tion of this, doubtless, which induced the common reference to what JElian (Hist. Anim., vi. 53) says of the dogs of Egypt, that for tear of crocodiles they drink quickly, while running. And from this arose the view, already confuted, that the three hundred who imitated the lapping of dogs, were spiritless and cowardly. But the comparison must be viewed more profoundly. Those Egyptian dogs are the type, not of cowardice, but of caution. It is known that the crocodiles of the Nile were not the only ones of their kind eager to seize on dogs ; those of Centra! America (the Cayman alligator) are not less so. In Cuba, likewise, dogs will not drink from rivers, lest their greedy foe might suddenly spring on them (cf. Oken. "Naturgesch., vi. 666). The croco- dile is the image of the adversary ; against whom they are on their guard, who do not so drink, that from eagerness to quench their thirst, they fall into his hands. 2 Sensual haste would forget the threat- ening danger. To these considerations, add the follovt'ing : ■ The heroic achievement of the three hundred is a surprise, in which they throw thera- siderate thirst for enjoyment, so often falls into the jaws of sin. The godly rejoice with trembling, and enjoy with watchfulness, that they may not become a prey to th« enemy. '■'■ The most remarkable confirmation of this narrative 124 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. selves, as it were, into the jaws of the sleeping foe. Now, the ancients tell of an animal, " sim- ilar to a dog," which, hostile to the crocodile, throws itself into the jaws of the reptile when asleep, and kills it internally. This animal, called Hydras, or 1VH3N (cf. Phys- St/rus, ed. Tychsen, cap. xxxi. p. 170), has been rightly considered to be the Ichneumon, the crocodile's worst enemy. Its name signifies, " Tracker." Tracking, Ixveiew, is the special gift of dogs. Among five animals before whom the strong must fear, the Talmud (Sabbat, 77, b) names the fTO 1 ??, 1 from 3^5, dog, as being a terror of the IH^!?, crocodile. The band who drink like the Egyptian dog, per- form a deed similar to that which the dog-like animal has ascribed to it. They throw themselves upon the sleeper; and, courageous though few, become the terror of the mighty foe. If it may be assumed that for the sake of such hints the simili- tude of the sipping dog was chosen for the three hundred companions of Gideon, the whole passage, it must be allowed, becomes beautiful and clear. He who has never inclined to idolatry, who has exercised caution against hostile blandishments and mastered his own desires, — he, like the ani- mal before alluded to, will be fitted, notwithstand- ing his weakness, to surprise and overcome the enemy, how strong soever he be. The similitude. in this view, is analogous to various other sig- nificant psychological propositions, expressive of fundamental moral principles. 2 Ver. 8. They took the victuals from the peo- ple in their hands. The words of the original are : nys QV11 rnSTlS TIRM. Offense has naturally been taken at ^"J'-r. '■ instead of which nii", in the stat. constr., was to be expected. The older Jewish expositors endeavored to support the unusual form by a similar one in Ps. xlv. 5, >^}3¥1 P!Tr? ; but the two are not exactly parallel, either in sense or form, to say nothing of Olshausen's proposal to emend the latter passage also. On the other hand, it is certainly surprising that JT1S is not found in a single manuscript, although it was so natural to substitute it in effect, as was done by the ancient versions. Nor is it clear that H12 can be read. 3 It is not to be assumed that the three hundred men took all the provisions of the other thousands. It would be quite impossible to compre- hend how the former were benefited by such super- abundance, or how the latter could dispense with all means of subsistence. The sense can only be that the three hundred took their provisions out of the supplies for the whole army. As the great body of the army was about to leave them, this little troop took from the common stores as much as they needed. We are not therefore to correct PHS into HIS, but to supply 7» before EVn. The matter is further explained by the addition D7t^* From the common stores of the supply- tonsidered in its symbolic import, is found in a German legend, communicated by Birlinger ( Votkslhumliehes aus Schwaben, i. il6), in which the she-wolf recognizes as gen- muc only those among her young who drink water, while ■be regards those who lap like dogs as young wolf-dogs, knd her worst enemies. Accordingly, dogs who lap, in the train, they look what they needed for themselves in their own hands, for the others were going away The ca6e was not much different with the tram- pets. The three hundred needed one each ; so many had therefore to be taken from the people There is nothing to show, nor is it to be assumed, that the other thousands kept none at all, or that at the outset the whole ten thousand had onl} three hundred trumpets. The three hundred took from the body of the army what, according to their numbers, they needed to venture the battle. — The others Gideon dismissed, " every one to his tent.' To be dismissed, or to go to the tents, is the stand- ing formula by which the cessation of the mobile condition of the army is indicated. The peoplt are free from military "duty ; but they do not appear to have entirely disbanded. He retained the three hundred. With these he intended to give battle ; and the conflict was near at hand, for the hostile army lay before him in the valley below. H0M1LETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Starke : Christianity requires manliness ; away, therefore, with those who always plead the weak- ness of the flesh. — The same : It matters little how insignificant we are considered, if we only conquer. — The same : We should regard, not the means which God uses for our physical and spirit- ual deliverance, but the God who uses them. — The same : Though men do nothing, but only stand in the order appointed, God by his omnip- otence can effect more than when they work their busiest. — Gerlach : God's genuine soldiers never seek their strength in numbers, nor ever weaken their ranks by the reception of half-hearted, sloth- ful, and timorous persons. In times of peace, they may for love's sake hold fellowship with many ; but when battle is to be waged for the Lord, it is necessary to get rid of all those who could only weaken the host. [Be. Hall: Gideon's army must be lessened Who are so fit to be cashiered as the fearful ? God bids him, therefore, proclaim license for all faint hearts to leave the field. An ill instrument may shame a good work. God will not glorify himself by cowards. As the timorous shall be without the gates of heaven, so shall they be without the lists of God's field. Although it was not their courage that should save Israel, yet without their courage God would not serve Himself of them. Chris- tianity requires men ; for if our spiritual diffi- culties meet not with high spirits, instead of whet- ting our fortitude, they quell it. — The same: But now, who can but bless himself to find of two and thirty thousand Israelites, two and twenty thousand cowards? Yet all these in Gideon's march, made as fair a flourish of courage as the boldest. Who can trust the faces of men, that sees in the army of Israel above two for one tim- orous ! — Scott : Many who have real faith and grace are unfit for special services, and unable to bear peculiar trials, from which therefore the Lord will exempt them ; and to which He will appoint manner which Gideon wishes to see imitated by his faithful ones, are the enemies of the rapacious wolf. 1 [Women vermis aqitatilis, qui insrredilur aitres piscium majorum. Buxtorff, Lex. Talm. — Tr.] 2 Cf. my Essay on Den armen Htinrkk, in the Weim Jahrbuck fur Deutsche Spracke, i. 410. 8 Keil is among those who propose to adopt it CHAPTER VII. 9-11. 125 tliose to whom He has given superior hardiness, boldness, and firmness of spirit ; and very trivia] incidents will sometimes make a discovery of men's capacities and dispositions, and show wio are ant! who are not to be depended on in arduous under takings. — Tr.] Gideon is directed to advance against the enemy ; but to increase his confidence he i$ authorized to make a previous visit to the hostile encampment. Chapter VII. 9-11. 9 And it came to pass the same night, that the Lord [Jehovah] said unto him, Arise, get thee down unto [descend against] the host [camp] ; for I have deliv 10 ered it into thine hand. But if thou [yet] fear to go down, go thou [first] with 11 Phurah thy servant down to the host [camp] : And thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down unto [against] the host [camp]. Then went he down with Phurah his servant unto the outside of the armed men that were in the host [camp]. EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL Ver. 9. Arise, descend ! The three hundred who are with Gideon are enough. The hero may venture the assault with them. The hosts of Miilian, despite their numbers, will not withstand their enthusiasm of faith. Not fortune, but God, will help the brave. There is no more time for delay. The harvest waits for the reaper; of that Gideon may convince himself. Let him hear what they say, and he will learn that they are more in dread than to be dreaded. The command addressed to Gideon in this verse, bids him make a general assault with all his men (which Bertheau has failed to perceive). It is only when the undertaking still appears too venturesome to him, that he is bidden first to convince himself of the spirit which rules in the camp of Midian. Again and again does the narrative inculcate the lesson that victory re- sults only from full, undivided, unbroken, and en- thusiastic confidence. Every shadow of hesitation is removed by God, before the hero advances to his great exploit. Ver. 10. Go thou with Phurah thy servant. The case of Diomed, who according to Homer (//. x. 220), ventures into the camp of the Trojans, is not altogether analogous. 1 Diomed is to find out what the Trojans ate doing, and design to do ; Gideon is only to learn the spirit of his enemy, as they freely converse together. Diomed also desires a companion, " for two going together better ob- serve what is profitable." Gideon's servant goes with him, not for this purpose, but that he also may hear what Gideon hears, and may testify to his fellow soldiers of what Gideon tells them, so that they may follow with the same assured courage with which he leads. The two commands are very clearly distinguished. Gideon with his troop were to advance " against " (2, as in ch. v. 13) the ;ncampment ; but Gideon and his servant are to 1 In the inn ff Zur Hohen Schul" in Ulm, there is still Ihown a portrait of QustaTUS Adolphus, as during the war he appeared, disguised, in that city, as a spy, which is only % legend. In like manner, it is told of Alfred the Great ** go " unto " (b^l) it. — The name Phurah OTJQ), does not occur elsewhere. Pere (K"^S or T5) is a wild ass, onager, an animal much talked of and greatly dreaded among the Orientals. Here, how- ever, the Masorites have pointed the same radicals ^ "^S ; according to which the name of the servant, as signifying " Branch " (T^W?)' was not un- aptly chosen "!?? means both boy and servant or attendant. Ver. 11. As far as the line (limit) of the van- guard to the camp, D^EJCnn ni'p'bs. The meaning of D^ti'Srin j s obscure, although the rendering of the LXX. at Josh. i. 14 affords a hint toward a probable explanation. ^X?n is the small of the back, above the hips (lumbus, lumbi quinque inferiores spina vertebral), about which the girdle, zona, was worn. The chamushim were not, however, simply those who were girdled anu equipped, but as the LXX. indicate in the passage referred to, the ei/favot, the we/Z-girdled ; which term the Greeks also used to designate the light- armed troops, who were everywhere in use as van and rear guards. Among many passages in Herodotus, Thueydides, Xenophon, and others, it will be sufficient to quote the following from the Cyropaedia (v. 3, 56), as illustrating this use of the Greek word : "On irpb TTavros rou arpartvp-aTos ire- £ous ev^dji/ovs .... Trpot/ncfjLirev. The same position as vanguard is, according to Josh. i. 14, oc- cupied in the Israelitish host by the two and a half trans-Jordanic tribes : " Ye shall march before your brethren as chamushim." These tribes had left their families beyond the Jordan, and were there- fore freer and lighter, expeditiores. To the same class of soldiery belonged the chamushim, to whom England, that in order to inspect for himself the situation o the Danes, he entered their camp as a harper. Uuiua, Hist, of Eng. i. 68. .lb THE BOOK OF JUDGES. Gideon approached. They formed the outer rim of the encampment, and beyond them Gideon did not venture to proceed, if for no other reason, for 1 [Bertheau says, indeed, that the ehcanushim numbered 135,000 men, cf ch. viii. 10 ; but by the chamuskim, he, like most scholars, understands not the vanguard of the hostile army, but the whole body of fighting men in the triny. "The eastern tribes,'' he says, "had invaded the land with their herds and tents, i. e. families, ch. vi. 5. Among such nomadic tribes, the warriors, called D^tf^rT want of time. What Bertheau says about 135,OOC men who constituted this body, 1 is like his whole explanation of the passage, a misapprehension. or Z"**-! ^\ Josh. iv. 12, 13, are distinguished from the body of the people. The former, in view of the impending battle, were not scattered among the mass of the people, bu* were collected together in the camp to the number of 135, 000." — Tk.] Gideon and his attendant secretly visit the hostile camp. The dream of the soldier ana its interpretation. The night-surprise, confusion, and pursuit. Chapter VII. 12-25. 12 And the Midianites, and the Amalekites, and all the children [sons] of the east, lay along in the valley like grasshoppers [locusts] for multitude ; and their cam- 13 els were without number, as the sand by the sea-side for multitude. And when Gideon was come, behold, there ivas a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and lo, a [round] cake of barley -bread tumbled into [rolled itself against] the host [camp] of Midian, and came unto a [the] tent [i. e. the tents ; the singular, used collectively], and smote it that it fell, and overturned it that 14 the tent \j. e. all the tents] lay along. And his fellow answered, and said, This is noth- ing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a [the] man of Israel :for [omit : 15 for] into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host [camp]. And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host [camp] of Israel, and said. Arise ; for the Lord 16 [Jehovah] hath delivered into your hand the host [camp] of Midian. And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man's 17 hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps [torches] within the pitchers. And he said unto them, Look on me, and do likewise : and behold, when I come to the outside of the 18 camp, it shall be that as I do, so shall ye do. When I blow with a [the] trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of all the 19 camp, and say, The sword of the Lord [Jehovah], and of Gideon. So Gideon, and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the outside of the camp in the be- ginning of the middle watch ; and they had but newly set the watch : and they blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers that were in their hands. And the three com- panies blew the trumpets [ail at once], and brake the pitchers, and held [took] the lamps [torches] in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal : and they cried, The sword of the Lord [Jehovah], and of Gideon. And they stood every man in his place round about the camp ; and all the host [camp] ran [was 22 thrown into commotion], and cried, and tied. And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and [meanwhile] the Lord [Jehovah] set every man's sword against his fellow, even through- out [and against] all the host [camp] : and the host [camp] fled to Beth-sluttah [the House of Acacias] in [toward] Zererath [Zererah], and [omit: and] to the 23 border [edge] of Abel-meholah, unto [near] Tabbath. And the men of Israel gathered themselves together out of Naphtali, and out of Asher, and out of all Manas- 24 seh, and pursued after the Midianites. And Gideon sent messengers throughout all Mount Ephraim, saying, Come down against the Midianites, and take [seize] before them the waters unto Beth-barah and [the] Jordan. Then all the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and took [seized] the waters unto Beth-barah and [the] 25 Jordan. And they took two princes of the Midianites, Oreb and Zeeb [Raven and Wolf] ; and they slew Oreb upon [at] the rock Oreb [Raven's Rock], and Zeeb they 20 21 slew at the wine-press of Zeeb [Wolfs Press heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on [from and pursued Midian, and brought the the other side [of the] Jordan. CHAPTER VII. 12-25. 127 EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 12. And Martian and Amalek. The pregnant and musing character of the style of our Book, notwithstanding its entire simplicity and artlessness, shows itself especially in the episode concerning Gideon. In order to emphasize the contrast which they present to the scanty means of Israel — the handful of men who followed Gideon — the countless numbers and vast resources of the enemy are once more pointed out. On one side, there are three hundred men, on foot ; on the other, a multitude numerous as an army of locusts, riders on camels countless as the sands of the sea-shore (cf. above, on ch. vi. 5). This contrast must needs be insisted on here, that so the wonderful help of God may stand out in bold relief ; that Israel may learn that victory comes not of numbers, but is the gift of God, and that in all their conflicts, it is the spirit of God who endows their enemies with victorious courage, that He may chasten his people, or fills them with fear and confusion, notwithstand- ing their multitude and might, that Israel may be delivered. God governs man's free will. He turns the hearts of men according to his wisdom. He raises the courage of the few and small to victory, and brings the proud and great to grief. It is his work that Gideon with three hundred men dares attack the enormous multitude ; his doing that, as the soldier's dream and its interpretation indicate, sad forebodings fill the heart of the proud and mighty foe, and cause it to faint before the com- ing conflict. Ver. 13. And as Gideon came, behold, a man told a dream. From the enemy's dream, Gideon will learn the frame of mind in which they are. For this end he was to go into the encampment, thereby to perfect his own confidence. Jehovah is God of the heathen also. Although they do not believe in Him, they are yet instruments in his hand. It was He who, without their knowing it, raised them up and directed their way. They did not learn to know Him from his works ; and yet He shone above them, like the sun concealed by clouds ar.d vapors. The manifest God they fail to see by day ; but the Hidden and Unknown they seek in dreams. All heathenism is, to a certain extent, a great dream ; and it is in accordance with its nature, that as all nations dream, so all are dis- posed to find in dreams the indications of a hidden truth. Their interpreters did not know the God of Truth in himself; but He who turns the nations as water-courses, fills their hearts, when He pleases, with visions and interpretations which have their rise in truth. Hence, when in Scripture, God fre- quently favors heathen with dreams of truth, He does not thereby sanctify every dream ; but only uses dreams to influence the men whom He takes under the guidance of his wisdom, — the Philistine king, for instance, Laban the Aramaean, the Egyp- tian baker and butler, — because they already look on dreams as such as hiding a divine mystery. Dreams appeared the more significant, when great events were manifestly at hand. And in the condi- tion of mental excitement which under such circum- stances seizes on men, they are natural and to be expected. Thus elsewhere also we hear of dreams by generals before battle. Leonidas, Plutarch (on Herodotus) tells us, had a dream before the battle 1 Josephus also understands it thus : ft avBptoTrot^ aftpui- foi»." His further interpretation, however, can scarcely be followed. 2 [Cf. Thomson. The Land and the Book, ii. 166 Te.] • [Wordsworth : " The tent was an expressive emblem of Thermopylae, which disclosed to him the future destinies of Greece and Thebes. Xerxes had a dream previous to his Greek campaign ; and Gus- t.ivus Adolphus is said to have dreamed before the battle of Leipzig, that he was wrestling with Tilly (Joh. Schett'er, Sfemorab. Suet. Gentis, p. 23). It was not unknown to the Midianites that Gideon, though but a contemned foe, lay encamped on the mountain. The peculiar dream must therefore the more impress the soldier who dreamed it. A round barley-loaf rolled itself. The narra- tive, notwithstanding its simplicity and brevity, is very vivid and forcible. The animated i"!3n recurs three times. The dream itself also portrays the contrast with which it has to do, with uncommon clearness. The barley-loaf is the symbol of wretch- edness and poverty, 1 over against the luxurv and wealth of Midian. Indigent Bedouins, who have nothing else, at this day still subsist on barley- bread, which they sometimes dip in goat's fat (Ritter, xiv. 1003). 2 The cake or loaf is here called 'V?> a term variously explained. The definition of Gesenius, who derives it from '7^? = ' /|, to roll, seems to be the most likely. The mention of the round form of the loaf was neces sary to bring its rolling vividly before the imag- ination, since all loaves were not round. The Aral is of the desert, according to Niebuhr, take a round lump of dough, and bury it in hot coals, until they think it baked. Then they knock oflf the ashes, and eat it {Beschreib. Arab. p. 52). Such a wretched loaf is that which the Mid- ianite sees rolling in his dream. It signifies Gideon and Israel, who, by reason of their ene- mies, were reduced to poverty and distress (ch. vi. 4). It comes rolling "against" the encamp- ment C'Snn?), not " in " it, as the expositors have it; for the dream depicts the coming event. And it eame to the tent, vHSH IV. The tent — with the article. It would be an error to think here, with Bertheau, who follows Josephus, of the tent of the king ; for there were several kings. The tent of the dream stands collectively for all the tents of the encampment ; for the very idea of the dream is that the rolling loaf comes into collision with the tents in general. One tent after another is struck by it, falls, and is turned upside down. 'U^^ '-J"!i and " the tent," al" the tents, one after another, lay overturned. Bj this venaphal, the narrator recapitulates, as it were the foiling of the several tents, which in the vivid dream vision, in which all notions of time and space are forgotten, appeared like the downfall of a single tent? Ver. 14. And his fellow answered. The fact that a true interpretation is given by one comrade to the other, must be specially noted. The first has not asked, but only related; the other is no sooth-sayer, but only a companion. So much the more significant is the frame of mind in which the interpretation originates. For there exists no visi- ble ground for thinking it possible that, notwith- standing their great power, Midian may be deliv- ered into the hands of a man like Gideon. But of the Midianites, being nomads ; their tent was their all in ail. Their wives, their children, their cattle, their goods their vesture, their treasure, were all collected Id it aac* abont it." — Ta.] 128 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. ivhat does exist, is an evil conscience. Through seven years Midian had plundered and trodden Israel. This is the first time, in all these years, that resistance is attempted. That in spite of dis- tress and numerical weakness, Israel ventures now to begin a war, must of itself excite attention and make an impression. How long had it been, since Israel had unfurled the banners of its God ! Proud tvranny is already startled at the prospect of resist- ance from a few faithful ones. 1 According to Herodotus (vii. 16), Artaban says to Xerxes : " Men are wont to be visited in sleep by images of what they have thought on during the day." The prin- ciple applies in this case to both dreamer and in- terpreter. Dream and interpretation both reflect the forebodings of an evil conscience, which God is about to judge. The interpreter compares the rolling loaf with the sword of Gideon. (The hith- pael of T[2n, here applied to that which symbol- ized the sword of Gideon (ver. 13), is also used by the sacred writer of the sword which kept the en- trance to the garden of Eden. Gen. iii. 24.) He it is — continues the interpreter — who rises up against the domination of Midian : does he venture on this, and dreamest thou thus, — be sure that his God (hence the article with Elohim, since without the article it also designates their gods) has deliv- ered Midian into his power. Ver. 15. 'When Gideon heard this. What Gideon hears is not merely the interpretation of a dream which confirms his brightest hopes. The dream is one which his enemies have, and the in- terpretation is their own. He hears in it an ex- pression of the tone and mood of their minds. He learns that the confidence of the enemy is already broken by the reflection that Israel's Lord is once more in the field. Astonished and adoring, he and his attendant hear this wonder, as great and real as any other that God has shown him. They feel that God lias done this — they see that He is leader and victor — with thanksgiving they bow before Him. 3 Vers. 16-18. And he divided the three hun- dred men. Encouraged, Gideon hastens to act. He divides his band into three companies, so as to be able to surround the hostile encampment (cf. ver. 21). He bids the two companies who are to take their stations on the other sides, to attend to his signal, and gives them the battle-cry. Now, as to this cry, though ver. 18 gives it, " Of Jehovah and of Gideon," yet, since ver. 20 has, " Sword of Jehovah and of Gideon," it is evident that in the former verse the word " sword " is to be supplied. For the two companies who were to wait tor the trumpet-blast of Gideon and those with him, could not understand the words of the distant cry, and 1 JSschylus (Per.stp, 1SS, etc.) represents poetically the forebodings and dreams of Atossa concerning the impeud- *ng disaster of Xerxes ; but the moral view, that such dreams were inspired by the evil conscience of the conquest- loving tyrant, and that the insignificant people triumphed through God, is wanting. ■2 [Our author treats ^nntt^l as a plural, and trans- lates : " t/tey worshipped." The form is undoubtedly singu- lar, cf. Gen. xxiii. 7; xxiv. 52; etc., and is so regarded by- most grammarians. Ges. Grain. 75 Rem. 18 ; Green, 176, 1 Fiirst, however, both in his Lexicon and in his Hebrew Concordance treats it as plural. In his Lexicon, 5. v. nflt^, he says : (t HlPi-ltE^ i plural, sometimes Tnrnt£ >> , in pause ^nFltP\ sometimes !\inplK7''." — Te.] 3 [Dr. Thomson remarks (i. §■ B. ii. 166) : " I have often Men the small oil lamp of the natives carried in a f pitcher ' yet they also shouted, " Sword of Jehovah and of Gideon " (ver. 20). Moreover, the command must have been executed as it was given ; and hence the fact that according to ver. 20 Gideon's own com- pany joined in the longer form, proves that to have been originally given. The cry itself is very ex- prcssive. It tells the Midianites that the sword of the God whose people and faith they have op- pressed, and of the man whose insignificance they have despised, whose family they have injured, und who through God becomes their conqueror, is about to be swung over their heads. Vera. 19-21. And Gideon came to the border line of the camp about the beginning of the middle watch. From the mention of the middle watch, it has been justly inferred that the night must be considered as divided into three watches. It was still deep in the night when Gideon under took the surprise. The middle watch was just begun ; the sentinels, it is added, with good rea- son, had just (^T^) been set — for as the middle watch advanced, the army would begin to stir Prodigious was the alarm that seized on Midian, when suddenly the trumpets clanged, the pitchers crashed, the thundering battle-cry broke out, the torches 3 blazed Accounts are not wanting in the history of other nations, of similar stratagems adopted by bold generals. Tacitus ex- presses himself on this subject after his own man- ner (Annal. i. 68, 4) : " The clangor of trumpets and the glitter of arms (sontts tubaruin,fulgor armo- rum) easily become destructive to a foe who thinks only of a few, half-armed opponents ; the more unexpected the alarm, the greater the loss (cade- bant ut rebus secundis avidi, ita adversis incauti)." So the Roman Minucius Rufus terrified the Scor- disci, by causing trumpets to be blown from among the mountains round about, the sound of which, echoed by the rocks, spread fear and terror (Fron- tinus, Stratagematicon, ii. 3). The ancients named such surprises Panic terrors, because Pan put the enemies of Dionysus to flight with his horns 4 (cf Polyrenus, Stnitegem. i. and ii.). The terror which seized on Midian was in truth a terror from God. This the simple narrative sets forth most classically. Ver. 16 had already stated that all had trumpets in their hands, and pitchers, with torches, whereby no hand was left free to use the sword. Ver. 20 says, still more explicitly, " they had the torches in their left, and the trumpets in their right hands." They did not use the sword, but only cried, " Sword of Jehovah and of Gideon." (Not, however, as if Gideon were put on a parallel with God: pS"^?^ is to be or earthern vessel at night." But the ^^2^ of thii history can scarcely be H oil lamps," for which nTTD would be more appropriate. A better explanation is sug- gested by the following note in Smith's Bible Diet. (Art. Gideon) : tf It is curious to find ' lamps and pitchers ' in use for a similar purpose at this very day in the streets of Cairo. The Zabit or Azha of the police carries with him at night, *a torch which burns, soon after it is lighted, without a flame, excepting when it is waved through the air, when it suddenly blazes forth ; it therefore answers the same purpose as our dark lantern. The burning end u sorm rimes concealed in a smnii pot or jar, or covered with something else, when not required to give light (Lane, Mod Egypt., i. ch. iv.).' "— Tr.] 4 A similar maneuver terrified the inhabitants of Her* seum in Actaaia, when Diotas besieged them. Polysenus, ii. 36. CHAPTER VII. 12-25. 12S taken as supplementing the preceding words — '' even that committed to Gideon ; " for Gideon was the visible bearer of God's sword.) Hence, also, ver. 21 says : " They stood (the troops of Gideon) round about the encampment; " ;'. e., they stand, not otherwise attacking, but simply blowing their trumpets; yet the enemy takes to "running" (V7t- staU( is contrasted with TlCl'*!). Just as in Joshua's time the walls of Jericho fell, while the trumpets of Israel sounded, so here it is — ' " These blew, those fled." Terror and disorder ruled the hour in the Midianitish camp. In the darkness and confusion, they no longer knew what they did. Hence, ver. 22 states that "while the three hundred blew the trumpets" — this is inten- tionally repeated, and shows that they scarcely needed a sword against Midian — the Midianites thought themselves attacked by enemies, and raged among themselves, for "Jehovah had set every man's sword against his fellow, and against the whole camp," or as we say, in cases of great con- fusion, " All against one, one against all." Ver. 22. And the host fled to Beth-shittah (the House of Acacias), towards Zererah, to the edge of Abel-meholah, near Tabbath. The direction of the flight, and the situation of the places named, can only be inferred from the con- nection and from a comparison of other passages. The mention of the places must have had a local significance for the reader who was acquainted with their situation. From ch. viii. we learn that the Midianites did not flee in one body, but in several divisions. This is as might be expected, seeing the army was composed of different tribes — Mid- ianites, Amalekites, and " Sons of the East." This separation in flight is also indicated by the statement of the places to which they fled. .First, they are said to have fled " to Beth-shittah, towards Zererah," by which one line of flight is given. When it is further said that they fled " to the edge of Abel-meholah, near Tabbath," the intention cannot be to prolong the first line, which is already terminated by the phrase " towards Zererah," but a second is indicated. This also explains the measures adopted by Gideon. Being unable to follow both himself, he calls on Ephraim to cut off the other line of flight. The enemy's effort was to gain the fords of the Jordan. That one through which kings Zebah and Zalmunna must have passed (ch. viii. 5), seeing they had the start of the others, is evidently indicated by nrnnSi " to- wards Zererah." Many codices have ^ti^H^^' ' toward Zeredah," dalelh being substituted for resh. Kimchi, however, expressly calls attention to the two r's. But even in the earliest times Zeredah was read instead of Zererah, as appears from 2 Chron. iv. 17, where we find niH^IS. From the same passage compared with 1 Kgs. vii. 46, it is evident that Zeredah was identified with 1'THV- Zorthan. From both it appears to have •>een situated in the vicinity of the Jordan, not 7ervfar from Beth-shean (Beisan) ; and from Josh. *i. 15, 16, it may lie inferred that near it there was • ford through the river. This explains why Midian took this line. They approached the river from the direction of Beth-shittah. Bertheau did well to connect this place with the modern village Shutta, mentioned by Robinson (ii. 356), and sit- uateil in the vicinity of Beth-shean. Keifs ob- jection that it lies north of Gilboa, is of no force nmler our view of the localities as above indicated. Zorthan (Zarthan) is mentioned in connection with a Succoth on this side the Jordan (1 Kgs. vii. 46). To this day the Jordan is passed near some ruins, not far from Beisan, which are supposed to indi- cate the site of Succoth (Ritter, xv. 446). The other line of fugitives took a more southerly direc- tion, "towards the edge of Abel-meholah." The name of this place, celebrated as the birth-place of the prophet Elisha, has been preserved in the Onomasticon of Eusebius as A/3tA^a€/iai (ed. Par- they, p. 8). The fact that a ilCE?. edge or strand, is spoken of, indicates perhaps the presence of a wady. And in tact, coming down from Beisan or Z. mi, the first western tributary of the Jordan met with, is a Wady el-Maleh (cf. Ritter, xviii. 432-448, in several passages). The fugitives are further said to have come to the edge of Abel- meholah "near Tabbath." There is still a city Tubas, not far from Wady Maleh, usually consid- ered to be the Thebez of the history of Abimelech (ch. ix. 50), for which, however, there is no com- pulsory ground. Vers. 23-25. Gideon had a definite plan of pur- suit. To carry it out, he required more men than the three hundred who had stood with him in the victory. The troops whom he had collected from Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali (ch. vi. 35), though subsequently dismissed, had not yet disbanded. They now returned (Zebulun only is not named), and assisted in the pursuit. But to overtake the Midianites on their fleet camels was not an easy matter. If not intercepted, those of them who were hastening southward, would get as safely over the Jordan as kings Zebah and Zal munnahad done near Beisan (at Zorthan). Gideon had foreseen this, and had early sent a message to Ephraim, over whose territory the fugitive host was passing, to " seize the waters as far as Beth- barah and the Jordan." Ephraim acted promptly, and a part of the Midianites were cut oft". The " waters " can only mean some western tributaries of the Jordan ; for Gideon's object is to prevent that body of the enemy which by his pursuit he has thus far kept away from the river, from gain- ing the lower fords and crossing over. He there- fore desires " the waters " to be seized " to Beth- barah." This name Beth-barah cannot well have originated from Beth-abarah (Ford-house). It does not appear that the letter i? has been dropped out of rn^SV^SJ. Besides, if Beth-ba- rah meant " Ford-house," the direction " to Beth- barah " would have been superfluous ; lor in that case the seizure of the Jordan would have included that of the " waters " and the ford. On the other hand, it was important to provide for the occupa- tion of the " waters," or the particular stream in- tended, along its whole length to its source ; lest, while it was guarded below, the enemy should cross it above. Beth-barah is therefore, with Eusebius and Jerome {Onomast., p. 104), to be explained as "House of the Spring," "Well-house" (from "1S3 or "Q), by which the narrative becomei clear and intelligible. Therewith, also fall all at- tempts to identify this Beth-barah with the Beth- abarah of Origen's reading at John i. 28 ; for that lay beyond the Jordan. Origen was, however, led by a right critical feeling Instead of a Bethany, the people of his day doubtless spoke of a Beth- abarah in that region ; and this, philologically and in fact, was one and the same with Bethany. Foi this trans-Jiirdanic Bethanv — not to be confounded 130 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. with that near Jerusalem — is to be derived from Bttft-ain, as Beth-abarah from Beth-beer, and like the latter signifies "House of the Spring,'' — a point to which I formerly directed attention in my " Bericld Ubtrr Renan (Berlin, 1*64). The Ephraimites, to their great glory, captured the two Midianite princes Orel) and Zeeb. It was the reward of their prompt obedience. Very sug- gestive are the names, under which these two princes of the desert had perhaps been especially dreaded — " Wolf" and " Raven." Among other nations also, these animals, frequenters of desolate places, and eager attendants on battle-fields, have furnished surnames for noted warriors. The Arabs, because the raven follows in the wake of caravans, call him Ebal-Mirkal, Father of the Swift Camel, or Ibn-B'rsun, Son of the Sumpter- horse. Noteworthy, at all events, is the conjunc- tion of " Raven and Wolf." Coupled in the same way, we find them sacred to the Scandinavian Odin. Both ravens and wolves were also conse- crated to Apollo. In the early Roman legends the woodpecker (pictts) takes the place of the raven as companion of the wolf, and both belong to the God of War (ef. my Sctiamir, Erf. 1856, p. 103). The Arabs give to both the bird and the quad- ruped the common name Ibnol-Erdh, Son of the Earth (Hammer, Namen der Aratier, p. 48). The fame of the deed perpetuated itself in local designations, and the Raven's Rock and Wolfs Wine-press commemorate the disgrace of Midian. The Odyssea likewise speaks of a Raven's rock in Ithaca (xiii. 408), which name the scholiast derives from a fallen hunter (cf. Bochart, Hiero- zoicon, ii. 203 ) ; and the use of the German Raben- slein} is undeniably analogous. In the other name, the term jekeb (3|7.'\ wine-press) is borrowed f. om the hollow form of the object ; hence, the name is here equivalent to Wolf's-hole. Similar historical allusions are supposed by the German Muse to lie concealed in Worms (from Wurme, slain by Siegfried) and in Drachenfels (cf. Grimm, D. Heldens., pp. 155, 316). In Hauran, Wetzstein heard the name el-Gurab, the Raven, applied to a spent volcano (p. 16) ; and Castle Kerek, at the south end of the Dead Sea, was called Hisnal-gorab, Raven's-castle (Ritter, xiv. 1042). The important remark in ver. 25, that the heads of the two princes were brought to Gideon " from beyond the Jordan," induces the hope that the name and location of the " Raven's-rock " may yet be traced. The " waters " which Ephraim occu- pied, must have been those now known as Wady el- Faria. Below this wady, there is to this day a much used ford (Ritter, xv. 449) ; while over against it, on the eastern bank of the Jordan, there is the steep height of Jebcl Ajlun, overlooking the Ghor, and commanding the confluent valleys ( Rit- ter, xv. 369). On this height there are the ruins of a castle, of which Ibrahim Pasha still availed himself to hold the robber hordes in check, and which (according to the reports of various travel- lers on this yet but imperfectly known locality) bore the name of Kalaat-er Rabbad, or Rabua. The Ephraimites, charged with the occupation of the .Jordan, had crossed over and seized on this im- portant point in order fully to command the Jor- 'lin valley. Here they captured the princes " Raven und Wolf." The " Raven's-rock " was still known by this name in the time of Isaiah (see ch. x. 26) ; 1 A place of this name occurs in Carinthia as early as the elevemn century (Forstemann, ii. 768). and in the corrupted designation Rabua, a sinr ilarity of sound with Oreb or Gorab may be traced. The exploit was swift and fortunate. Gideon in his pursuit was still on this side of the Jordan ; while he was making a halt before crossing over, the Ephraimites were already returning in triumph from the opposite shore, bringing with them the heads of the slain princes. All other explanations, as found among others in Bertheau and Keil also, fail to harmonize satisfactorily with the connection. The narrator designedly adds the words " from beyond Jordan," that the reader may know that Ephraim had gained the great triumph, before Gideon could so much as cross the river. This passing remark helps to prepare the reader for the opening narrative of ch. viii. It foreshadows the pride and selfishness of Ephraim. Finally, that Ephraim was beyond the Jordan, and there cap- tured the hostile chieftains, is evident even from the words (ver. 25), " they pursued Midian ; " for aa they held the Jordan and " the waters," they could only pursue those who had passed the river. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. After his first victory over idolatry in his father's house, Gideon has courage for the second, over enemies in the field. He seeks the few, not the many. He knows that help comes from God, not from the multitude ; and because he knows this, he conquers. The countless host of enemies vanishes like dust — not because of his three hun- dred : the terrors of God dissolve them, and turn them against each other. Doubtless, Gideon was also a hero of the sword ; but first God's deed — then man's. Therefore he succeeds in everything, from first to last. Gideon is not envious of God, as Ephraim is of him. To God belongs the glory, first and last. [Bp. Hall : Now, when we would look that Gideon should give charge of whetting their swords, and sharping their spears, and fitting their armor, he only gives order for empty pitchers, and lights, and trumpets. The cracking of these pitchers shall break in pieces this Midianitish clay ; the kindling of these lights shall extinguish the light of Midian ; these trumpets sound no other than a soul-peal to all the host of Midian : there shall need nothing but noise and light to confound this innumerable army. And if the pitchers, and brands, and trumpets of Gideon, did so daunt and dismay the proud troops of Midian and Amalek, who can we think shall be able to stand before the last ter- ror, wherein the trumpet of the archangel shall sound, and the heavens shall pass away with a noise, and the elements shall be on a flame about our ears ? — The same : Those two and twenty thousand Israelites that slipped away for fear, when the fearful Midianites fled, can pursue and kill them, and can follow them at the heels, whom they durst not look at in the face. Our flight gives ad- vantage to the feeblest adversary, whereas our re sistance foileth the greatest. — Scott: In this world, the wicked are often left under the power of their own delusions and the fury of their mad passions, to avenge the cause of God on each other : a period is approaching, when we may expect that the persecuting foes of Christianity will destroy one another, whilst the host of Israel shall look on. and have nothing to do but to blow the trumpet of the gospel. — Wordsworth: Gideon las only three hundred men, and Christ's church is called " a little flock," and their foes are innumerable ; but theii CHAPTER VTII. 1-3. 131 eonntless myriads melt away, dispersed by the breath of God. — The same : The prinees of Mid- ian represent the spiritual enemies of the Church. Is it by chance that they were called Oreb, the Ra- ven, and Zeeb, the Wolf? The Raven is contrasted with the Dove in the history of the Flood (see Gen. viii. 7) as an unclean bird (cf. Lev. xi. 15) ; and 'n the N. T. the Wolf is the emblem of those false teachers who tear and devour the flock of Christ. — Theodoret (as quoted by Wordsworth) : Gideon overcame Midian with unarmed soldiers, bearing only trumpets, torches, and pitchers. So Christ overcame the world by unarmed apostles, bearing the trumpet of preaching and the torch of miracles -Tb.1 Ephraim 's proud complaint and Gideon's wise forbearance. Chapter VIII. 1-3. 3 1 And the men of Ephraim said unto him, Why hast thou served us thus, that thou calledst us not when [didst not call out 1 to us that] thou wentest [wast going] to tight with [against] the Midianites ? and they did chide [quarrel] with him sharply 2 [vehemently]. And he said unto them, What have I done now in comparison of you 'i Is not the gleaning of the grapes [omit : of the grapes] of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abi-ezer ? God hath delivered into your hands 2 the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb : and what was I able to do in comparison of you ? Then their anger [excitement] s was [omit : was] abated toward [against] him, when he had [omit : had] said that. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. 1 Ver 1 n!D7n N 3 *C • im."0|? ''^w^^ It is not necessary to take ^3 in a temporal sense, which at t : - t • t ':•:■: all events it has very seldom. The nl^"^|7 is followed by the objective clause of that which the persons addressed are notified of. [2 Ver. 3. — « Into your hands," with emphasis. Hence the Hebrew puts it first : " Into your hands (lit. hand) God fare the princes of Midian," etc. — Ta.J 8 Ver. 3. — Cn^ nn2^, like P^S j ^"^n, Ps. xxxvii. 8. TVH denotes violent, panting excitement EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. In his dealing with puffed-up Ephraim, even more than by his victories, Gideon approves him- self as a true warrior of God, wiser in his humility than his dazzled countrymen in their pride. The service rendered by Ephraim in slaying Oreb and Zeeb, was after all of but secondary merit. They had only smitten an already shattered and terri- fied enemy : had only captured the game which another had chased into their hands. Where was Ephraim when Midian in full force encamped him- self in the country ? But inferior merit is the more arrogant. The tribe is so intoxicated by the easy victory over the two princes, that it presumes to reprimand Gideon for beginning a war without them, and thus undertaking to deprive them of the laurels which thev would certainly have won. So little does Ephraim understand the true strength viith which Israel has conquered, that he accounts it an insult to himself on the part of the smaller Iribe to have conquered without him. The pride of the mighty men ol the world could not be more clearly depicted. They contend with him vehe- mently (HiTtna), just as the men of Nineveh, re- penting, " cry vehemently " ('T^T'7?> Jon. iii. 8) unto God. They address the great hero fiercely and vociferously. His answer is admirable. He might have humbled them by a few words about his deed ; but he will have no strife where Israel needs unity. He says nothing of his own great victory. He does not irritate them by referring to their previous inactivity, although their tribe was so great ; or by reminding them that after all he had sent them the word which enabled them to capture an enemy whom he was pursuing. On the contrary, he quiets them by extolling their great merits'. He may not conceal that the victory was gained without them ; but, his vintage, is it not less than their gleaning ? What comparison is there between his spoils and theirs 1 He, still on this side the Jordan ; they, already adorned with the trophies of the " Raven and Wolf!" He lets them know, however, who it is that really gives victory, namely Elohim. But here also the nice discrimination shows itself, with which the terms Jehovah, ha-Elohim, and Elohim alternate, ac- cording to the spiritual position of the persons ad dressed or spoken of. To Ephraim, Gideon says that Elohim gave them victory — as he sometimes gives it even to heathen. He uses this term be cause they lacked humility and faith to know that Jehovah, "ha-Elohim, the true God of Israel, gives strength to his people, and that, thus endowed, il is of no consequence whether the militant tribe be great or small (cf. ver. 6, etc.). ■What have I done now in comparison with you? The vain tribe, which only smarted at the thought that an insignificant member of ManasseV 132 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. should reap greater glory than Ephraim, is quieted when this person himself disclaims the glory. Vanity that prides itself on seeming merits, is al- ways contracted. The Ephraimites do not under- stand the modesty of Gideon, which, in denying, as it were, his own real merits, necessarily pours the contempt of irony on their pretended deserts. But Gideon's object is gained. They allow them- selves to he pacified, and go home to bask them- selves in the sunshine of their achievements. Gid- eon, for his part, teaches that victory alone does not suffice to save a people ; but that he is the real hero who is truly humble, and for the sake of peace overcomes himself. To conquer, he must know how to bend. The narrative stands here in its proper place. It does not presuppose anything that happened later ; but connects, historically and morally, what goes before and what follows after. Gideon is still in the midst of his campaign, when Ephraim attacks him with its pride. But his subsequent career of victory, speaks louder than envy. Tne statement of Josephus {Ant. v. 6, 6), that Ephraim was afterwards punished for its pride, rests on no Scriptural authority ; but the confusion to which they are put by the subsequent deeds of Gideon, to whom after all they were indebted for their own achievement also, is a discipline of the sharpest kind. H05HLETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Ephraim is jealous of Gideon. Jealousy is a quality which only seeks its own. It is a charac- teristic of unbelief, which envies God his power and love Starke : He acts wisely, who prefers to forego 6omewhat of his own rights, rather than by a con- trary course to invite the opposition of others, and bo debar himself from attaining a greater good. — Gerlach : Gideon's answer, as modest as it was prudent, quiets the Ephraimites. He appears here, as afterwards, as a high-minded man, free from low ambition and domineering tendencies. [Bp. Hall: I did not hear the Ephraimites offering themselves into the front of the army be- fore the fight, and now they are ready to fight with Gideon because they were not called to fight with Midian : I hear them expostulating after it. After the exploit done, cowards are valiant. Their quar- rel was, that they were not called. It had been a greater praise of their valor to have gone unbidden . . . . None speak so big in the end of the fray as the fearfullest. — The same: Ephraim flies upon Gideon, whilst the Midianites fly from him ; when Gideon should be pursuing his enemies, lie is pur- sued by brethren, and now is glad to spend that wind in pacifying of his own, which should have been bestowed in the slaughter of a common ad- versary. It is a wonder if Satan surfer us to be quiet at home, whilst we are exercised with wars abroad. Had not Gideon learned to speak fair, as well as to smite, he had found work enough from the swords of Joseph's sons ; his good words are as victorious as his sword; his pacification of friends, better than his execution of enemies. — Scott : In those things which pertain to the truth, authority, and glory of God, Christians should be unmoved as the sturdy oak ; but in the little concerns of their own interest or reputation, they should re- semble the pliant willow, that yields to every gust. — Henry : Very great and good men must expect to have their patience tried, by the unkindnesses and follies even of those they serve, and must not think it strange. — Bush: The incidents men- tioned afford a striking illustration of two emphatic declarations of Scripture : 1. That " only by pride cometh contention ; " and, 2. That " for every right work a man is envied of his neighbor." — Tr.] Succoth and Penuel refuse supplies to Gideon while in pursuit of the Midianitisk kings. The kings surprised and captured. The punishment of the traitorous cities and the captured kings. Chapter VIII. 4-21. 4 And Gideon came to [the] Jordan, and passed over, he, and the three hundred 5 men that were with him, faint [hungry], yet pursuing them [omit : them]. And he said unto the men of Succoth, Give, I pray you, loaves of bread unto the people that follow me : for they be faint [hungry], and I am pursuing after Zebah and Zal- 6 munna, kings of Midian. And the princes of Succoth said, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now [already] in thine hand, 1 that we should give bread unto thine 7 army ? And Gideon said, Therefore when the Lord [Jehovah] hath delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into mine hand, then I will tear [thresh] your flesh with the 8 [omit : the] thorns of the wilderness and with briers. And he went up thence to Penuel, and spake unto them likewise : and the men of Penuel answered him as 9 the men of Succoth had answered him. And he spake also unto the men of Penuel, saying, When I come again [return] in peace, I will break [tear] down I j this tower. Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor, and their hosts [host] 2 with them, about fifteen thousand men, all that were left of all the hosts [host] of the children [sons] of the east : for [and] there fell [had fallen] an hundred ami CHAPTER VTTI. 4-21. 13? 11 twenty thousand men that drew sword. And Gideon went up by the way of them that dwelt [dwell] in tents on the east of Nohah and Jogbehah, and smote the host ■ 12 for [while] the host was [thought itself] secure. And when [omit: when] Zebah and Zalmnnna fled, [and] he pursued after them, and took the two kings of Midian, 13 Zebah and Zalmunna, and discomfited [terrified] all the host. And Gideon the son of Joash returned from [the] battle [war] before the sun was up [from the Ascent 14 of the Sun]. 3 And [he] caught a young man [a boy] of the men of Succoth, and inquired of him : and he described unto [wrote down for] him the princes of Suc- 15 coth, and the elders thereof, even threescore and seventeen men. And he came unto the men of Succoth, and said. Behold Zebah and Zalmunna, with [as to" whom ye did upbraid [mock] me, saying, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now [already] in thine hand, that we should give bread unto thy men that are 16 weary [hungry]? And he took the elders of the city, and thorns of the wilderness, 17 and briers, and with them he taught [gave a. lesson to] the men of Succoth. And he 18 beat [tore] down the tower of Penuel, and slew the men of the city. Then said he [And he said] unto Zebah and Zalmunna, What manner of men were they whom ye slew at Tabor ? And they answered, As thou art, so were they ; each one 19 resembled [looked like] the children [sons] of a king. And he said, They were my brethren, even the sons of my mother : as the Lord [Jehovah] liveth, if ye had 20 saved them alive, I would not slay you. And he said unto Jether his first-born, Up, and slay them. But the youth [boy] drew not his sword : for he feared, 21 because [for] he was yet a youth [boy]. Then Zebah and Zalmunna said. Rise thou, and fall upon [strike] us : for as the man is, so is his strength. And Gideon arose, and slew Zebah and Zalmunna, and took away the ornaments [moons] that were on their camels' necks. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. p Ver. 6. — Dr. Cassel : " Hast thou the fist of Zebah and Zalmunna already in thy hand," etc. Bertheau and Keil, In their commentaries, have the same rendering, merely changing Luther's plural, Sind die Faiiste, to the singular. F)3 is properly the hollow hand, the palm ; accordingly the Dutch Version renders, rather awkwardly to be sure, (( Ij dan the handpalm van Zebah en Tsalmuna alreede in uwe hand," etc. The word rt fist," even if it did not somewhat titer the metaphor involved, lacks dignity in modern English, although it avoids the tameness of using tc hand " twice. For an independent version, De Wette*s would be better : f( Hast thou then Zebah and Zalmunna already in thy hand." etc. — Te.] p Ver. 10. — CH'Sna : singular, with plural suftlx. Cf. Qes. Gram. Sect. 93, 9. — Tr.] f3 Ver. 13. — ^"T'n n^37?7^?. The above rendering takes no account of the "7. " At " would be better than K from." It is literally, " from at " the ascent of the sun. It indicates the point to which Qideon came, and at which he turned back. — Tr.1 EXE8ETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 4-9. And Gideon came to the Jordan. The pride of Ephraim was not the only incident by which Gideon was taught that the liberation of his people required more than victory over its ene- mies : that its servitude consisted not merely in external subjection, but much more in the internal bondage of sin and unbelief. Gideon also experi- ences the truth, which the political history of all ages demonstrates, that the friends of the people and its true interests, do not always find their natural supporters in the people itself. Instead of confederates, they find obstructors and opponents. Was not Gideon's a national achievement, for the freedom and happiness of all ? Is it not for all that he risks his life ? For whom does he wage war even to extermination with Midian. but for all Israel ? Was it anything unreasonable, that he asked Succoth. a considerable city, for some bread for the men who, notwithstanding the many hard- ships endured, had not ceased to follow their en- thusiastic leader ? — The Septuagint justly puts ■xipjtvrcr, hungry, for CS^V. The same word (H?.^ is used by Esau, when he returns from the chase, and sees the dish of lentiles (Gen. xxv. 30). Had the men been wearied, they could not have prosecuted the pursuit. But nutritious food would strengthen them. For that they longed. The term is not specific, like — V"^, but signifies need of physical nourishment. It includes thirst as well as hunger (cf. Job xxii. 7). — But what did Suc- coth ? Instead of compassion and patriotic sym- pathy, it consulted its own petty interests. Sue coth believed not; nor, consequently, saw God's hand in Gideon's victories. Materialism, which rather than risk a loss, will serve a foreign tyrant, is here depicted to the life. The magistracy of Succoth consider, not the duty to assist, but the danger which may result from such a siding with Gideon as would be implied in rendering him aid. For, not to mention that a quantity of bread costs something — and it is noticeable that while Gideon modestly intercedes for his " followers " ( y?"25) they talk of his band as a host (^TS^" ), — then is a chance that Gideon may fail in his expedition 134 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. Zebah and Zalmimna may possibly conquer and take vengeance. So do slaves speculate. Not so thought the German cities in 1813, when, driven by the hand of God, Napoleon fled from Russia; % disposition which, in spite of Davoust and Van- damme, brought victory to those cities. " Hast thou," they ask mockingly, " the fist of the kings already in thy hand 1 " The full hand, H?i must be seized, in order to apply the fetters to captives. This is the second time that Gideon encounters such folly among his people. But he instantly perceives that humility and gentleness like those shown towards Ephraim, would here be out of place. Ephraim had at all events done something, and had not refused assistance. Here were cow- ardice and treason combined. He does not, how- ever, chastise them at once. Therein also he shows a soul penetrated by spiritual strength. He will not manifest personal resentment ; he will show them that they have offended against the cause of God. He is sure of victory ; but before he pun- ishes them, they shall see that finished, the accom- plishment of which they now doubt. When he shall appear before Succoth with Zebah and Zal- munna in fetters, they will no doubt be glad to give him bread ; but then he will give them that to which now on his king-chase through the desert they refer him — he will thresh them with " thorns of the desert and with barkanim." Owing to the brevity of the narrative, which only gives the lead- ing speeches, while it omits all transitions, it is not altogether clear why Gideon's threat against the inhabitants of Succoth takes the precise form of " thorns." The ingenious Kimchi thought that it was a play on the name of the city, since ^3^ (by the constant Chaldee substitution of O for tt\ n|D, plur. niSD) means a thorn (Job xl. 31 ; cf. T\ip, plural D"3tP). He even thinks that the name of the city may perhaps have been derived from this word. But, though such a word-play might not have been altogether at variance with the spirit of antiquity, it can scarcely be supposed to have such controlling influence in our passage. For then why is not the word '"'StC' used by Gid- eon ? But instead of it, other and rather remote terms are chosen. The choice of the punishment denounced seems to have a deeper reason. The magistracy of Succoth refuses bread : is not that of itself a mocking reference to the food which the desert affords ? But what does Gideon find there? That which can nourish, not men, but at best only the camel, that marvel of the desert — acacia- thorns, thistles, tarfa-needles, springing up amid sand and rock. Shall he thresh these like grain, in order to bake bread ? He requites their mock- ery, by promising with such thorns to belabor their flesh. Hence, the most probable explanation of Cpi^" 1 ? w ''l continue to be that, which, after the constant exegetical tradition of the Jews, makes it thistles or thorns (Raschi explains it by the French ronces, briers), and the same as those already indi- cated by " thorns of the desert." The idea sug- gests itself that kotse hamidbar mav only precede barkanim by way of explanation ; in which case J~W1 would have the sense of " namely : " " thorns i Analogies to this word, such as pd\os, thorn - : Spdxot (cf. p'i6ii'',s and ppa&ivos, ptyos and frtgits), cannot here be [briber investigated, in Scandinavian dialects, rhamnus, thortibiish, is called sttbark or geitbark. of the desert, namely barkanim." 1 For that Barka (Barca) designates stony syrtes, may be considered as made out (see on ch. i. 4). The thorns meant are probably those of the acacia, called talh by the Arabs, which cover the ground to such an extent, that many Arabs are accustomed to carry thorn- extractors about them (cf. Bitter, xiv. 207, 336). That the threatened chastisement corresponds to the expressions made use of by the ungrateful citi- zens in reply to Gideon's request, is evident from the fact that, though he receives the same treat- ment from the inhabitants of Penuel, he does not threaten them with the same punishment. These, who deemed themselves secure in their tower, he promises to tear down that bulwark of their pride. DiblfQ ^iltfa : not exactly, when I return in peace ; but, when I return prosperously, with suc- cess and victory. Vers. 10-12. And Zebah and Zahnunna were in Karkor. We are yet to trace the course of Gideon's pursuit. Succoth lay beyond the Jordan, for he came to it after crossing the river (ver. 4 ; cf. Josh. xiii. 27). It was, moreover, south of the Jabbok (Zerka), for the scene of Jacob's wrestling was north of that stream, he alone having re- mained behind, while his people had crossed over (Gen. xxxii. 23, 24). The place of the wrestling was afterwards occupied by Penuel. When morn- ing had come, Jacob passed over the stream at Penuel (Gen. xxxii. 31), joined his family, met Esau, and afterwards came to Succoth, which was therefore south of the Jabbok. This position of Succoth agrees with that in which we left Gideon at his meeting with Ephraim. That tribe had guarded the Wady el Faria and the fords in its neighborhood. It was in the vicinity of this Wady that they met with Gideon, prosecuting the pur- suit, and brought him the heads of the captured princes. Now, if he passed over at this point, he would land south of the Jabbok, and reach Succoth first. He then crossed the Jabbok, and came to Penuel. The hiding-place of the terrified enemy- was no secret to him. There is in Hauran an almost unassailable place of refuge for the robber tribes — the volcanic rock-desert of Safa (both in the wider and narrower sense), concerning which some very valuable information is given by Wetz- stein. It embraces a fertile district, "a Ruhbeh, Paradise," for some months of the year, which is almost as inaccessible as Paradise. Says Wetz- stein (Hauran, p. 15, etc.) : " Here is the strong- hold of the Gejat, and Staye, and all the tribes of the eastern slope of the Hauran mountains." The people of Syria have a proverbial expression which says, " he fled into the Wa'r of the Safa," ;'. e., into an unassailable refuge. The Ruhbeh can only be reached by two roads, from the north and thesouth. The northern is especially dangerous ; even in our own days hostile tribes have made inroads at Rigin el Mara. The Safa, and the whole of this terrible, rock-walled asylum, is what we are here to understand by the term Ip"?^ Karkor For this word signifies ruins, destruction : cf. Num xxiv. 17: "he destroys — " 1 i2T2') — all the sons of Sheth." The same verb is used, Is. xxii. 5, of the destruction of walls ; and in Talmudic as well as modern Hebrew WJflpli] means destruction a 2 Eusebius (Onomast., Perthey, p. 252) does not say tha: this Karkor and Carcaria near Petra are one and the samj place. Nor can they Dm the same, although the namet nia> be similarly explained CHAPTER VIII. 4-21. 135 Snch being the situation and topography of the place, the significance of the brief statement that the kings were in Karkor, becomes manifest. It not only explains the sense of security felt by the enemy, but also and especially displays the bold- ness, endurance, wisdom, and energy, with which Gideon followed them into their hiding-place. We can still trace his route ; for it passed to the east of Nobah and Jogbehah. Nobah is the same as Kenath (Num. xxxii. 42), which again is the Ka- natha of Roman times, and the Kanvat of the present. He who is north of the Jabbok, and passes east of Kanvat, if he be in search of an enemy retired to his hiding-place, must be bound for the Safa. But Jogbehah also can be identified. Since Gideon's way is said to have gone to the east of" Nobah and Jogbehah," 1 the latter must have lain farther north than the other, and there is thus the more reason for regarding it as the same with Johbah, the Shobah of Seetzen, Shuhubali of Buckingham (cf. Ritter, xv. 881), and Shubbah of Wetzstein. Gideon's attack was so unexpected and sudden, that a renewed attempt at flight fails (ver. 12). The host, it is said, T^nn : terror seized it, so that no resistance was offered, and the army sur- rendered. The celerity of this victorious career, and its results, finds many parallels in the history of the desert tribes. When Mehemct Ali, in 1815, fought against Asyr in Arabia, he pursued the defeated enemy with such haste, that all his stores of subsistence had to be left behind, and he him- self was at last reduced to a diet of dates. But he was rewarded for this by the capture of the chiefs of his adversaries, and many others went over to him (cf. Ritter, xii. 932). But that for which no parallels can be adduced, is Gideon's aim, his cause for war, and the fewness of his enthusiastic warriors compared with the overwhelming num- bers arrayed against him to the last. Even if the 120,00(1, lost by ilidian in the course of their defeat, from the Hill of Moreh to Karkor, were a round number, a stream of blood nevertheless marked the track of the smitten tyrants, as it marked that of Napoleon's retreat from Russia. It was proba- bly from prisoners and wounded left behind, at Stations of Death, that Gideon learned the secret way into the rocky asylum, called " hell " by Ara- bic" poets, on account of its volcanic formations, and now become a place of judgment for a seven years' oppression (ch. vi. 1 ; compare the period of 1806-1813 in German history). Vers. 13-17. And Gideon, the son of Joash, returned from the "war from the Ascent of the Sun. The addition Son of Joash, is here put to Gideon's name for the first time since his rising against idolatry. The glory of having finished the conflict, accrues to the family and name of Joash, because in the hour of danger he had sided with his son. For that the conflict is ended, was already indicated by ver. 10, which said that " all that were left" of the "whole host" were in Karkor. The victory over this remnant ended, not merely a battle, but HOrOSH, the war. The hero can now turn back, but not yet to his own house. He must first settle accounts with Succoth and Penuel. He comes to Succoth first. Had he returned the way hi. went, he must have reached Penuel first. 1 Greek texts have a corrupt form *Irye0aA. The Syrian f ersion of Paul of Tela does not have the name at all (Rbr- lam, p. 169). 2 For which the Jewish expositors decide, because they issigu the previcus expedition to the night-time. His design was evidently to surprise both places, but chiefly Succoth, so that when he came to pun- ish, the scourge might fall only on the persona who had deserved it. Bearing this in mind, the connection makes it clear that 3~]nr7 n^l'S -? is not to be taken as a note of time,- sunrise, but of locality. It is designed to explain how Gideon comes to reach Succoth first, and from a direction from which the inhabitants did not expect him. Gideon everywhere displays that great quality of a general, the skill to baffle the calculations of his adversary. What sort of a locality " Maaleh Ha cheres " was, the following hypothesis may perhaps indicate with some degree of probability. Succoth lay in the valley of the Jordan, the Ghor, PP?? (Josh. xiii. 27). The expression i" 1 !?^^ can only be used in connection with mountains (cf. "Maa- leh Akrabbim," ch. i. 36). The heights from which Gideon descended in order to reach Succoth, were the mountains east of the Jordan, which unfortunately are yet too little known. About the names, also, which in earlier and later periods they bore, we are very much in the dark. Now, in the territory of Reuben, we find (Josh. xiii. 19) a " Tsereth Hashachar on the Mountain of the Val- ley." The name D~0 signifies the sun. " Sun- rise " (!"HTD) always indicates the cast side. Ac- cordingly, in the passage just cited, we have a Tsereth Hashachar, ;'. e.. " Spleudorof the Dawn," on the mountains of the Ghor, in the east. It may therefore be assumed with great probability that the name " Ascent of the Sun " also was borne by the heights of the mountains east of the Jordan, whether those mountains were named " Sun " or " Sunrise" on local, or what is more probable on religious grounds. As Gideon appeared quite unexpectedly, he succeeded in laying hold, unnoticed, of a boy, whe wrote down for him the names of those whu com- posed the magistracy of the city. It is not with- out interest to observe that the boy HP^ could write, that he knew the names of the authorities, and that these numbered seven and seventy, of whom seven or five may be regarded as C^K', princes, and seventy or seventy-two as elders. If the government of the city was in the hands of certain families, the boy would not find it difficult to give their names. The astonishment and terror of the inhabitants were doubtless great. The more haughty they had formerly been, the more terrified were they now. It is to be carefully noted that Gideon's purpose is to punish only the rulers of Succoth, and that after he has done it, the remark is made: HiSD "tt^N HN S"tV - "he taught the men of Succoth a lesson." This alone shows that the reading E?7t-' " ne threshed," already proposed by Serarius, and again by Ber- theau, is not to be approved. For the fact that " he took the elders of the city and the thorns," makes it clear that he cannot have chastised the people of Succoth. But he " made them — the whole people, — to know : " gave them a lesson which showed how badly their rulers had acted, and what penalties such distrust and selfishness 8 That 37"T^1 need not necessarily be written I'TVl (Bertheau), and is found elsewhere, has already been justly remarked by Keil, who refers to Num. xvi 6, and Job xxxii. 7. 136 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. entail (which has been well apprehended by the Jewish expositors). At Penuel, however, which, having heard of the visitation of Succoth, had the folly to defend itself, the traitors lost their lives. It is truly admirable, how finely the narrative, with all its plainness, brings out the specially decisive points of view. Gideon went first to Succoth, be- cause he did not wish to punish all the inhabitants, and it became necessary therefore to surprise the city, lest the guilty should escape, and to " catch a boy," who unreservedly gives him their names. His purpose as to Penuel requires no surprise — the tower cannot run away; and it is the folly of the inhabitants, that in defending it, they lose their lives as well as their tower. Vers. 18-21. And he said to Zebah and Zal- munna. This took place on his arrival at home, i. e. in Israel, for his son Jether was present, who, being but a boy, cannot have shared in the heroic expedition. The place cannot, however, be defi- nitely determined ; perhaps it was his old battle- field, the plain of Jezreel, where the people came flocking together, in order to behold the terrible kings in fetters. The closing scene of Gideon's dealings with these robber-kings, like every other in his history, is worthy of a hero who has been raised up to bat- tle with the sword and mete out punishment. To spare the lives of enemies, especially of enemies so barbarous and cruel as these, was not the custom of antiquity, least of all in the east. Pyrrhus (in Seneca) says : l Lex nulla capto parcit aut paenam impedit; and even Josephus (Ant. ix. 4, 3) makes Elisha say — what, however, he never did say — that it is right to kill captives taken in a just war. But Gideon, who respects the royalty of his cap- tives, enemies though they be, would gladly spare them, and believes himself obliged at least to show them why he cannot do it. Through this circum- stance, we hear of an occurrence otherwise un- known — a fact which may suggest and cause us to regret how much other information has perhaps failed to reach us. The kings, it seems, had caught and slain on Mount Tabor the brothers of Gideon, sons of the same mother 2 as well as father with himself. It is probable that this took place after some earlier battle, engaged in by Manasseh — but without God's help — against the invaders. They were put to death, though only engaged in de- fending their native land, and though — as Zebah and Zalmunna flatteringly say — they looked like Gideon, like men of royal blood. In their persons, therefore, " kingly bearing," stately presence and chivalrous valor, had not been respected ; and shall Gideon spare those who were robbers and murder- ers of seven years' standing ? Impossible ! Gid- eon's sword has been whetted for the very purpose of administering righteous judgment. WhenTur- nus entreated /Eneas for his life, the latter, remem- bering that the former had slain Pallas, the son of Evander, and "funis wxensus et ira terribilis," ex- claimed, '" PaUas te immolat," etc., and thrust the spear into his heart (sEneid, xii. 949). And yet Turnus was a native of the country, and fought against aliens, and Pallas was neither son nor 1 Cf. Grotius. Dt Jure Pads et Belli, lib. iii. 4, 10. 2 [Bush : " In countries where polygamy is tolerated, the ties of brotherhood are, as might be expected, much more rlose and tender between those who are born of the same Qiother, than those who are connected only as the children of the same father. This explains why ( son of my mother ' was among the Ilebrews, as now among the Arabs and others, a far more endearing expression than that of ' my brother." 'r ttie general sense "' The same remarks hold brother of ^Eneas. The intimation that the fam ily of Joash had previously already bled for Israel, throws a new light on the question why of all uieii Gideon was selected to be the conqueror. How- ever, notwithstanding their ill deserts, he does not treat his captives cruelly. He neither makes them objects of taunt or insult, nor uses them for pur- poses of ostentation and self-glorification. He does not load them with ignominy, as Sapor is said to have done to the Roman Emperor Valerian, and, according to the legend in Eutychius, Galerius to a Sapor, and Tamerlane to Bajazet. 3 The honor of the captives was sufficiently consulted, even when Gideon wished to make his eldest son the executor of his sentence. But he, a boy, and ap- parently of timid bearing, shrinks from drawing his sword against the mighty foemen, still distin- guished by royal state and show. And truly, they must have been terrible warriors ; they ask not for life, as Turnus and Homeric warriors do, but de sire to be slain by the hand of an equal, and not to be hacked and hewn by the sword of a boy ; for, say they, "as the man, so is his strength." They have no other request to make than that Gideon will kill them himself; and he complies with it — they fall by his sword. The "moons " which have hitherto ornamented their camels' necks, he now takes off; an evidence that even in captivity they have experienced kingly treatment. That lie does not take them oft' until after the kings are dead, indicates that they are the special insignia of roy- alty, and crescent-shaped. Thus, according to Philostratus (lib. ii. cap. 1), Apollonius of Tvana received the convoy of a camel from the Persian king, which headed the train, and by a golden ornament on its face indicated its royal ownership. In the poem of Statius (cf. Bochart, Hierozoicon, i. 17) the horse of Parthenopanis, the fabled assail- ant of Thebes, wears crescent-shaped ornaments (lunata monilia). Mention is made of an Arabic expression, which speaks of " moon-shaped camel ornaments " (Ritter, xii. 486). The ornament, in its peculiar shape, was evidently an escutcheon of the ancient Ishmaelites, who were worshippers of the moon (Herod, iii. 8), as Scripture also speaks of a son of Joktan, the progenitor of many Arab tribes, whose name was Jerah, moon (Gen. x. 26). The crescent of the Arabizing Ottomans of mod- ern times may be referred to it as to its original. For the lurnuce also, which adorned the shoes of ancient Roman senators and nobles, and whose significance was obscure even to antiquity (l'lnt. Quest. Horn., 73), had only the shape of the half- moon. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. [Henry : "Faint and yet pursuing;" much fatigued with what they had done, yet eager to do more. Our spiritual warfare must thus be prose- cuted with what strength we have, though but lit tie; it is many a time the true Christian's case, faint- ing, yet pursuing. — Bi\ Hall: It is hard if those who tight the wars of God may not have necessary relief; that whilst the enemy dies by them, they also of the tribes of Western Africa. Speaking of polygamy and family life amoug them, the Rev. J. G. Auei observe* (Spirit of Missims for 1867, p. 729): rr Children cleave tc their mother more than to their fattier, and a full brochel or sister is called r my mother's child/ " — Tr.J 8 [On the first of these stories, see Gibbon's Decline^ ete. Milman's ed., Boston, i 319 ; on the second, vol. vi. 271 note 68 ; on the third, vi. 267-71, with Milman's nofe m p 271. — Tr.J CHAPTER VIII. 22-32. 137 ihould die by famine. If they had labored for God at home in peace, they had been worthy of main- tenance ; how much more now that danger is added to their toil? — The same: Those that tight tor our souls against spiritual powers, may challenge bread from us ; and it is shameless un- thankfulness to deny it. The same (on the punishment of Succoth) : I now hath wrestled against God and takes a fall they see God avenged, which would not believe Hiir delivering. — Wordsworth: They who now de- spise the mercy of Christ as the Lamb, will here- after feel the wrath of Christ as the Lion (Rev. v. 5). — Bush : The whole of this remarkable trans- action tends to inspire us with confidence in God, and to encourage our exertions in his cause ; but know not whether more to commend Gideon's wis- j there are two lessons especially which we shall dc dom and moderation in the proceedings, than hi> well to learn from it : 1. To prosecute our spiritual resolution and justice in the execution of this busi- . warfare under all discouragements ourselves ; and ness. I do not see him ran furiously into the city, | 2. To be careful to put no discouragements in the and kill the next; his sword has not been so way of others. God is indignant with those who drunken with blood, that it should know no dif- 1 would weaken the hands of his people, ference ; but he writes down the names of the Bp. Hall : The slaughter of Gideon's brethren princes, and singles them forth for revenge. — The i was not the greatest sin of the Midianitish kings ; same: It is like, the citizens of Succoth would have been glad to succor Gideon, if their rulers had not forbidden. They must therefore escape, while their princes perish. — The same (on Renuel) : The place where Jacob wrestled with God and prevailed, [yet] this alone shall kill them, when the rest [of their sins] expected an unjust remission. How many lewd men hath God paid with some one sin for all the rest ! — Scott : Sins long forgotten must be accounted for to God. — Tr.] Gideon refuses to be king. Prepares an ephod, which is followed by evil const' quences. Gideon's death and burial. Chapter VIII. 22-32. 22 Then [And] the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son's son also : for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Mid- 23 ian. And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son 24 rule over you : the Lord [Jehovah] shall rule over you. And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that you would give me every man the ear- rings [the ring] ' of his prey. (For they had golden ear-rings [rings], because 25 [for] they were Ishmaelites.) And they answered, We will willingly give therh. And they spread a garment, 2 and did cast therein every man the ear-rings [ring] 26 of his prey. And the weight of the golden ear-rings [rings] that he requested, was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold ; beside [apart from the] orna- ments [moons], and [the] collars [ear-drops], and [the] purple raiment [garments] that was \_were~\ on the kings of Midian, and beside [apart from] the chains [col- 27 lars] that were about their camels' necks. And Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah : and all Israel went thither [omit : thither] a whoring after it [there] : which thing [and it i. e. the ephod] became a snare unto 28 Gideon, and to his house. Thus was Midian subdued [But Midian was humbled] before the children [sons] of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no more. 29 And the country was in quietness 3 forty years in the days of Gideon. And Jerub- 30 baal the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house. And Gideon had three 31 score and ten sons of his body begotten : for he had many wives. And his concu bine that was in Shechem, she also bare him a son, whose name he [they] 4 called 32 Abimelech. And Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abi-eerites. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 24. — CT3, ring ; whether ear-ring or nose-ring, the word itself does not declare. Cassel and De Wette both render it by the singular (De Wette, Okrring). It is used as a collective, and simply indicates the claas of ornaments Jesired, without any reference to the number which each man was supposed to have, or was expected to give. This jidefinite singular is best rendered in English by the plural, as in E. V. — Tr.] [2 Ver. 25. — n vttt£?n : Dr. Cassel, ein Gewand, ct a garment.'' The definite article simply indicates the gar- sent used on the occasion. The term 71 ^dP, though also used in the general sense of garment and raiment, i 138 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. ipecially applied to the outer garment, the mantle or cloak, cf. Bib. Diet., s. v. " Dress.' 1 Being a four-cornered piet* of cloth, it was quite suitable for the present purpose. — Tb.] [8 Ver. 28. — V^Si"! tiptTi^l, "and the land rested." The JE. V. departs herefrom its own previous render ings, see ch. iii. 11, 30 ; ? 31, where the Hebrew has the same words. — Tr.] [4 Ver. 31. — "i^lTTlS Dti. ,! *T Dr Oassel : man. nannte seinen Namen. Bertheau also tabes CtE^I as th« indeterminate 3d pers! ^see ties. (Jr. 137, 3), and says : " the name sounds like a nickname, given him because his lord •hip was of such brief duration, and he so very far from being Father of a King." The difficulty is that the text give! no hint of a change of subject. But cf. the commentary below, and Keil's view in note on p. 140. — Ta-1 EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. An extraordinary victory had been gained — a triumph without a parallel. A glory surrounds Gideon in the eyes of Israel, such as had distin- guished no one else within the memory of men. Who can stand beside him 1 How has the arro- gance and vain-glory of Ephraim been put to shame ! Having caught a couple of princes, already fleeing for their lives, they ceased from the couflict, though still far from finished. Gideon, whose courage began, and whose untiring en- ergy prosecuted the war, has also finished it. He has captured and destroyed, not princes P"?.^ 1 ) merely, but — as the narrative emphatically inti- mates — the kings CO?S) themselves. And what kings ! The chiefs of all Midian. Kings, there- fore, whose defeat and capture was of the greatest consequence, as the narrative sufficiently indicates by the constant repetition of their names. Their names, also, like those of the " princes," are pe- culiar ; those were borrowed from animals, these from •' sacrifice" and " carved work." The latter therefore indicate perhaps the conjunction of priestly with royal authority. Nor did Gideon smite the hostile armies in his own country merely, but he ventured far into a strange land. To pur- sue a great army into the rock desert, and as it were drag the enemy out of his hiding-place, was an exploit of the most astounding character. Who but Gideon would have dared to enter the terrible Harra, there to seize his royal prey ? Apart from this, how imposing his assurance, his wisdom, his moderation and strength! If men admired the discreetness of his answer to Ephraim, they were startled by the punishment of Succoth and Penuel, md the terrible recompense meted out to the dngs. Success carries the day with the people : tow surprising, grand, and dazzling was its form an this occasion ! The people feel that now they have a man among them, who towers, not physi- cally, but in soul and spirit, far above them all. No wonder that Israel, gathered from all quarters to see the hero and his captures, urgently presses him, and says : — Ycr. 22. Rule over us, thou, thy son, and thy son's son. This is the language of gratitude and admiration. Excited, and, like all multitudes, easilv carried away by momentary impulses of joy and approval, they offer him the supreme authority, and even propose "to make it hereditary. It is only done, however, in a storm of excitement. Nor do thev propose that he shall be their "n!?P, but their ^tro — not their King, but their Imperator. What thev desire is to be not only for his honor, but also for "their welfare. His family is to continue forever the champion of Israel. But in this vehement urgency of the moment, the people show how little they comprehend, notwithstanding this and many Mher great events of their history, to whom they »r> really indebted for victory. They show that they regard the strength by which Gideon has con- quered to be physical, rather than moral. Thou shalt rule, for thou hast delivered us from Midian. They fail to perceive the contradiction to which they give utterance when they talk of an hereditary "Judge," or as they word it, "ruler." It belongs to the essence of a Judge, that he oe raised up by the Spirit, and filled with the strength of God. He is God's military ambassador to a people that has no king. Not the people, but God, had made Gideon what he was — their military leader and commander. His children will not be able to lead the nation, unless they also are called by God. The kingship is hereditary, because it rests on the broad basis of established order, and not merely on the endowments of extraordinary persons. The divinely inspired imperator can at most transmit only his treasures. It was not without a purpose that the narrative told of the timid boy, Jether, Gideon's first-born. Will he — if God do not call him — be able to smite the Midianites i and if he be not able, will the men of Israel obey him ! None the less great, however, was the temptation for Gideon. He on whom but recently Ephraim looked superciliously down, has now the offer of dominion over Israel laid at his feet. It requires more strength to resist the allurements of proffered power, than to defeat an enemy. But Gideon is a great man, greater than Washington, to whom absolute dominion was not offered, and who ac- cepted the Presidency because he would obey " the voice of the people," saying as he did so, that " no people could be more bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men, than the people of the United States " (cf. Marshall's Lift of \\ ashimjton, ii. 146). Ver. 23. And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you : Jehovah shall rule over you. God — not "Elohim," but "Jehovah," the God of Israel — is your only Imperator. With this he repels the idea that he was the sole and real con- queror, as also the supposition that any others than those whom God calls can be of service. He declares, moreover, that God must be obeyed, because He is the Ruler ; and that as in this war against Midian victory was gained only because bis ( Gideon's) orders were followed, so victory will always be contingent on obedience to God. With these words Gideon worthily crowns his heroic deeds ; and there he should have stopped. But the moment that he connects the cause of God with a measure of his own, albeit with the best intentions, he falls into error, and without design- ing it leads the people astray. Vers. 24-26. Give me, "every man, the ring of his booty. Since the rings were taken from men. they must be understood to be ear-rings, th< use of which, especially among the ancients, was to a great extent common to both men and women. In Ceylon and among the Burmese, the perfora- tion of the ears is to this day, for both sexes, a relig- ious ceremony ; just as the habit of wea.-ing rings CHAPTER VIII. 22-32. 139 did not have its origin solely in desire for finery. The ohservations of modem travellers among the Arabs, are confined to female ornaments, but " sons " also wore such rings as are here men- tioned, even among the Israelites (Ex. xxxii. 2). Plautus (Pamulus, v. 2, 32) says jeeringly of the Carthaginians : "Digitos in manibus non habent, quia inceduntcum annularis auribus" (cf. Serarius). The explanation, " they had golden rings, for they were Ishmaelites," 1 is to be referred, not to the rings, but to the material of which they were made. It calls attention to the love of finery and splendor which then as now characterized the Arab tribes, 3 and at the same time accounts for the wealth of gold implied in the possession of so many rings of that metal by the Midianitish army. Gold is still extensively used by the Arabs for the same pur- poses (cf. Ritter, xiv. 415, etc.; xv. 828, etc.). The army must have been pervaded by thorough, even though temporary, enthusiasm for their heroic leader, since they willingly gave up the most val- uable part of the booty, without knowing but that he wanted it for personal use. Accordingly, an abundance of gold rings were brought together. Now, tor the first time, was Israel astounded at the magnitude of the spoil ; now was it seen that the man who formerly ranked his harvest second to the gleaning of Ephraim, had obtained glory and wealth beyond comparison. For not only were 1,700 shekels of gold handed over Co him at this time, but to him also belonged (for ver. 26 speaks only of his possessions) the moons (ver. 21), the niE'tSj), and the purple garments of the kings, and the decorations of their camels. The iTlS^lM are ear-pendants, made of pearls and precious stones, 3 peculiar to their kings, in distinction from the simple rings worn by all other Midianites. The name signifies a " drop," which the pearl resembled. The Greek (rraKdy/uov, with which Gesenius compares it, I have met with only in Plautus (Menechmei, iii. 3) as stalaamia. The monument of Cyrus was adorned with ear-pend- ants of precious stones (Arrian, vi. 29). Proco- pius represents the Persian king Pherozes with a costly pearl hanging from his right ear (Brisson, De Regno Pers., p. 83). Among the Indians, persons of distinction wore precious stones in their ears (Curtius, viii. 9, 21). In the Ramayana it is stated, that in Ayodhya no one was without ear- pendants (akundali) and other ornaments (Bohlen, Alles Indien, ii. 170). — Great wealth stood now at Gideon's command ; but he had no thought of ap- propriating the gifts of the men of Israel to him- self. All that he retained was the booty which had fallen to him from the Midianitish kings. Hannibal also, caused the rings of the Roman knights who fell at Cannae to be collected by the 1 [Bertheau : " Ishmaelites is the general name of a number of tribes, among whom the Midianites, though according to Gen. xxv. 2. not descended from Ishmael, but from Keturah, were also reckoned, cf Gen. xxxvii. 25, 28 ; xxxix. 1." — See also above, on ch. vi. 1. — Tr] '2 [Wellsted ("Reissn in Arabien,'' i. 224. quoted by Keil) : — "The women in Oman squander considerable sums in the purchase of silver ornaments, and their children are literally laden with them. I have sometimes counted fifteen ear- rings on each side, and head, breast, arms, and ankles, were idorued with equal profusion." — Tr.] 8 In Silius Italicus also (Punica, xii. 231), we find, (f In litre lapis, rubris advectus ob oris." * [Keil . t; It is not necessary so to understand this, as .'/ the 1. 7 00 shekels (fifty lbs.) of gold were worked up into he ephod, but only that the expense of making it was peck (Liv. xxiii. 12), — but Gideon has no Punic ends in view. Vers. 27, 28. And Gideon made an ephod thereof. 4 The high-priestly significance of the ephod is clearly explained in Ex. xxviii. It is the special sacred garment, by which Aaron and his sons are distinguished as priests. With the ephod, the breastplate is connected, fastened to it by strings, and not to be displaced (Ex. xxviii. 28). This garment, with the breastplate, the high priest wears in the sanctuary. With it therefore are connected the Urim and Thummim, through which divine instructions are imparted, and to which, after the death of Moses and Joshua, Israel applies for directions. It is this high-priestly char acter of the ephod, and the gift of prophetic com- munication through the Urim and Thummim of its breastplate (cf. 1 Sam. xxx. 7j, that explains the consecration of such a garment by Gideon. Its procurement is closely connected with the words : " Jehovah shall rule over you." The people has been saved by God's revelation of Himself to Gid eon. To his service, therefore, the choicest of the spoil must be devoted. Nut on man, but on Him, is hope to be built. He will say what the people are to do. Through the priestly ephod, the heav- enly King will speak, and rule his obedient people. The consecration of the ephod, therefore, as that with which the Urim and Thummitn are connected, expresses the truth that God governs ; and is Gid- eon's declaration that He, and not any human Imperator, is to be honored. Thus far, Gideon's action was blameless, and worthy of his faith. But he "deposited 6 the ephod in his city, in Ophrah." Now, Ophrah was not the seat of the common sanctuary, the taber- nacle, nor of the national priesthood. And thougn the priestly family of that day may have been in a decline, though the tribe of Ephraim, among whom it had at that time its principal seat, gave unequiv- ocal evidence of unbelieving pride, on which ac count alone Gideon might hesitate to commit the oracle to their keeping ; yet, all these reasons, however indicative of spiritual wisdom, were no 4 suttieient to authorize the consecration of an ephod and the establishment of a priesthood, in Ophrah It was the inauguration of a separate sanctuary, the establishment, so to speak, of an opposition ephod, under the controlling influence of Gideon The ecclesiastical centre of Israel was thus severed from the tabernacle. The hero, notwithstanding his personal fidelity to God, evinces herein concep- tions of Israel's calling too subjective to be secure against disastrous error. The result soon makes this apparent. And all Israel went a whoring after it. The expositions of recent interpreters, who ascribe to Gideon the erection of a golden calf, are founded defrayed with this money." — Wordsworth : " The im mense quantity of gold was probably bestowed not only on the robe itself, but on the chains and ouches, and settings of the stones on the shoulders, and on the breastplate, and on the setting of the stones therein ; and perhaps also in the purchase of the precious stones for the shoulders, and for the workmanship of the whole.'' — Tr.] 5 j" s 1. On this word compare Keil on this passage [Kei! remarks: " ^HS 2£ s 1 does not say, he set it up ; but may as well meAn, he preserved it, in his city Ophrah, 3 s -tin is nowhere used of the erection of an image oi statue : and signifies, not only to place, but also to lay down (e. g ch. vi. 37), and to let stand, leave behind, Gen xxxiii. 15." — Tr.] 140 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. n utter misapprehension. The use of rings by Aaron in casting his idol, was simply the result of his having no other gold, and has surely no ten- dency to establish a necessary connection between the collection of rings and the casting of golden calves. The establishment by the recreant Micah, in the closing part of our Book, of " an ephod and a graven image," is itself evidence that he who only consecrated an ephod, did not erect an image. Gideon, with the words "Jehovah shall rule! " on his lips, cannot intend to give up that for which he has risked his life — fidelity towards the God who will have no graven images. The erection of an idol image is the worst of sins. It was from that very sin that Gideon had delivered his people ; he was the Contender against Baal, the destroyer of idol altars, — the man who would not even suf- fer himself to be made Imperator, an idol of the people. Gideon continues faithful to the moment of his death, which he reaches in a good old age. If, nevertheless, Israel goes a w T horing after the ephod, this was no part of Gideon's wish ; still, the snare was of his laying, because he placed the ephod "in his own house." He thought that by that means the people would better remember from what distress they had been delivered ; but it is the nature of the multitude to pervert even faith into superstition. They come to Ophrah with worship and prayer for direction, because this particular ephod is there — not because they seek to honor God, but because this is Gideon's ephod. They regard not the word which issues from the breast- plate to him who believes in God, but only the fact that the ephod is made of the spoils of Midian. Thus they turn Gideon's faith into superstition ; and Israel's moral strength, instead of being in- creased, is weakened. The unwholesome desire has been excited to present worship, not in the customary place, but wherever the subjective sense of novelty allures the worshipper. If Gideon had not consecrated the ephod in his house, it had not become a snare for Israel. It helped him indeed to retain the leadership of Israel, under the su- premacy of Jehovah ; but by it, discarding as it did the lawful priesthood, he led the people astray into an historical subjectivism instead of establish- ing them in their objective faith, and thus prepared the way for apostasy. For what but apostasy could follow at his death, when the popular faith became thus connected with his person, his govern- ment, and the ephod in his house 1 The hero erred, when he also made himself a priest. His house fell, because he undertook to make it a tem- ple for the people. The ephod with the breast- plate became a snare, because the God of Israel is not to be led by Gideon, but Gideon by Him — even though there be no ephod in his house. 1 The renewed apostasy, however, for which the way was thus prepared, manifested itself only in the sequel. As long as Gideon lived, his powerful spirit kept the enemy in fear, and the people at rest. The effects of his achievement lasted forty years, although the hero, refusing dominion, had retired as a private person to his house and stayed there, — unlike Washington, who, though at the 1 With this explanation of the ephod and its conse- quences, the old Jewish expositors agree. The Midrash {Jalkut. ii. n 64) gives a profound hint, when it opposed '.he tribe-feeling of Gideon, as a member of Manasseh, to hat of Ephraim However, even that was already regarded !£ a species of " unclean service." 2 [Reil interprets the name as meaning " Father of a King'' (Kiiniosvalrr), and says: " i^tTVIS Ctt"} end of the war he returned with " inexpressibU delight" to his country-seat at Mount Vernon on the Potomac, yet soon left it again, to become President of the new republic. Vers. 29—32. And Jerubbaal, the son of Joash, went and dwelt in bis own house The surname Jerubbaal has not again called tor attention, since the events which gave rise to it. But now, that Gideon's work is finished, the nar- rative, with a subtilty of thought that is surprising, speaks of him under this name. It was given him because he had overthrown the altar of Baal, foi which the superstitious populace expected to see the vengeance of Baal overtake him (ch. vi. 32). The result shows that Baal is nothing. Gideon has smitten him and his servants, and is covered with success and glory. " There goes " — so speak the people among themselves — "Jerubbaal into his house ; the greatest man in Israel, because he smote Baal." Baal is impotent against the faith- ful and valiant. Victory constantly attends his enemies, for God is with them. May this truth never be forgotten by our own people and princes ! As long as he continued to live, Gideon had every- thing that ministered to fame and happiness in Israel — many sons, peace, riches, and a " good old age." The last expression is used of no one else but Abraham (Gen. xxv. 8) ; for of David it is employed not by the Book of Kings, but only by the late Chronicles (1 Chron. xxix. 28). The "goodness " of his old age consisted in his seeing the blessed results of his great deed of faith, con- tinuing unbroken and unchanged as long as he lived. Nevertheless, the narrative already hints at the shadow which after his death darkened his house. In Shechem, a concubine bore him a son, whom they called Abimelech. Ctt'*], I think, re- fers not to Gideon, but indefinitely to those about the concubine ; for it was in Shechem that the name originated. Gideon, who would not " rule," much less be king, would not have named his son, " My Father is King." On the other hand, it was but natural that the vanity of the concubine, wheu she bore a son to the great Gideon, the man of royal reputation and distinction, would gladly consent to have him named Abimelech.'- This vanity of Shechem is the foundation of the coming trag- edy. Of no previous hero has the account been so extended. It is even mentioned that he was buried in his father's sepulchre, in the family vault. That also is a sign of his happy and peaceful end. Here also, as always at the close, the name of the hero's father is associated with his own, as a tribute of honor for the support he once afforded his son (ch. vi. 31); beyond this, however, nothing is recorded of him. Gideon, as conqueror, dwelt no longer in his father's house, but in his own (ver. 2. loose, worthless] and light [wanton, reckless] persons, which [and they] followed him. And he went unto his father's house at Ophrah, and slew his brethren the sons of Jerubbaal. being threescore and ten persons, upon one stone : notwithstanding, yet [and only] Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left; for he hid himself. And all the men [lords] of Shechem gathered together, and all the house of Millo [all Beth-millo], and went and made Abimelech king, by the plain [oak] of the pillar [monument] :! that was in [is near] Shechem. And when [omit : when! they told it to Jotham, [and] he went and stood in fon] the top of CHAPTER IX. 1-21. 143 mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken 3 unto me, ye men [lords] of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you. 4 The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them ; and they said unto the 9 olive-tree, Reign thou over us. But the olive-tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, 5 wherewith by me they honour God and man, 6 and go to be promoted 1 [go to wave] over the trees ? And the trees said to the fig-tree, Come thou, and 11 reign over us. But the tig-tree said unto them, Should I forsake 5 my sweetness, 12 and my good fruit, and go to be promoted [to wave] over the trees? Then said 13 the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us. And the vine said unto them. Should I leave 5 my wine [must], which cheereth God and man, and go to be 1 4 promoted [to wave] over the trees ? Then said all the trees unto the bramble 15 [thornbush]. Come thou, and reign over us. And the bramble [thornbush] said unto the trees, If in truth [;. e. in good earnest] ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust [take shelter] in my shadow : and [but] if not, let fire 16 come out of the bramble [thornbush], and devour the cedars of Lebanon. Now therefore, if ye have done truly and sincerely, in that ye have made Abimelech king, and if ye have dealt well with Jerubbaal and his house, and have done unto him ac- 17 cording to the deserving of his hands : (For my father fought for you, and adven- 18 tured his life far/ and delivered you out of the hand of Midian : And ye are risen up against my father's house this day, and have slain his sons, three score and ten persons, upon one stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his maid-servant, king over the men [lords] of Shechem, because he is your brother :) If ye then have dealt truly and sincerely with Jerubbaal and with his house this day, then re- 20 joice ye in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you : But if not, let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the men [lords] of Shechem, and the house of Millo [and Beth-millo] ; and let fire come out from the men [lords] of Shechem, 21 and from the house of Millo [from Beth-millo], and devour Abimelech. And Jotham ran away, and fled, and went to Beer, and dwelt there, for fear of Abime- lech his brother. 19 TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 2.-^253 : used interchangeably with N tMS, cf. ver. 46 with 49; 2 Sam. rri. 12, with ii. 4, 5. See also th xx. 5, and Josh. xxiv. 11. Dr. Cassel : Hen-en; De VVette, and many others, Burger, "citizens." — Ta.l p Ver. 2. — The E. V. unnecessarily departs from the order of the Hebrew, and thereby obscures the antithesis which is primarily between "seventy " and. "one," and secondarily between "sons of Jerubbaal" and "your bone and flesh," thus : " Which is better for you, that seventy men, all sons of Jerubbaal. rule over you, or that one man rule over you T Remember, also," etc. — Tr.J [3 Ver. 6. — Keil: " The explanation of 3»J3 T>?S is doubtful. 22?2, anything 'set up,' is in Isa. xxix. 3 a military post [garrison], but may also mean a monument, and designates here 'probably the great stone set up {Josh. xxiv. 261 under the oak or terebinth near Shechem (cf. Gen. xxxv. 4)." De Wettc also renders: Denkmal-Eichc, "monument- oak."— Tr.J [4 Ver. 7 Dr. Cassel translates : " and may God hear you." This is very well, but hardly in the sense in which he takes it. see below. Whether we translate as in the E. V., or as Dr. Cassel, the realization of the second member of th» address must be regarded as contingent upon that of the first. — Tr.J [5 Vers. 9, 11, 13. — ^C^VIS VlVinn. According to Ewald (Gram., 51c.) MjlVrnn is a contracted hiphil form (for ^71.07171), tne eecon( l ^ being dropped in order to avoid the concurrence of too many gutturals, and the resulting inn (cf. Ges. Gr. 22, 4) being changed into IPI""? in order to distinguish the interrogative particle more sharply. Others regard it as hophal (see Green, 53, 2, b). But as there are no traces anywhere else of either of these conjugations in this verb, it is commonly viewed as a simple kal form = ^ijlyinn. Keil seeks to explain the anomalous vowel under PT by saying that " the obscure o-sound is substituted for the regular a in order to facilitate the pronunciation of successive guttural syllables." Dr. Cassel renders : " Have I then lost [better : given up] my fatness? " But as the notion of futurity must manifestly be contained in tile following ^np^rT^ the ordinary rendering, " Should 1 give up ? " is preferable. — Ta. ] [6 Ver. 9. — D^traSI Cribs s n??? ^2"ltrS : "which God and men honor (esteem) in me." Coinpar* rer. 13. Dr. Cassei renders as the E. V. — Tr.] [7 Ver. 17. — "T230 itt?3VnS Tf^tTfl : literally, « cast his life from before (him) ; cf. the marginal reading oi he E. V. : i. e. " d'is'r garded'his own life." — Tb.| * EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 1. Shechem was a chief city in Ephraim cf. Josh. xxjv. 1). That tribe still continued to he jealous of the consideration to which under Gideon Manasseh had attained. Though Gideon was now dead, the ephod was still in Ophrah, and the house of Gideon continued to hold a certain 144 THE BOOK OF JUDGES degree of authority. The narrative distinguishes between the sons of Gideon and Abimelech. While ch. viii. 30 states that Gideon had seventy sons by " many wives " (0 N tM), ver. 31 remarks that the mother of Abimelech was a concubine (ti'ST^Q), in Shechem. 1 Just this son, an Ephra- imite on his mother's side, bore the name of Abimelech, " My Father is King." The origin of that lust after power, which manifests itself in his wild and ambitious heart, is thus psychologically explained. Vers. 2, 3. For they said, He is our brother. Abimelech, when he turned to Shechem with his criminal plans, was perfectly acquainted with the vain-glorious lust after power indulged in by the Ephraimites. He knew that it irritated them, to hear of the " rule of the seventy sons of Gideon." Gideon, it is true, desired no dominion, nor could his sons exercise it; but the centre of distinction was nevertheless at Ophrah, in his house, where the ephod was. The negotiations into which Abim- elech now enters with Shechem are very instruc- tive. They show, first, that the distinction which the ephod conferred on the house of Gideon, al- though it implied no claim to dominion, properly speaking, was yet the very thing which, by excit- ing envy, became a snare to that house ; and, sec- ondly, that Shechem, as Gideon's heir, will never- theless not surrender this distinction, but desires to transfer it to one of its own people. The nar- rative is throughout of a tragic cast. Precisely those things which should exhort to greatness and faithfulness, are shamefully metamorphosed by sin into incentives to treason and mischief. In the hearts of the " lords of Shechem," no voice of truth or justice raises itself against the unnatural plan of Abimelech. They convict him not of falsehood, by pointing out that his brothers do not exercise dominion, but support his project, because he is their brother, and by him they will rule. It is manifest that the whole of Shechem is morally depraved. As Abimelech, so his kindred ; and as they, so all the Shechemites were disposed. Vers. 4, 5. And they gave him seventy sil- ver - pieces out of the house of Baal - berith. Israel was forbidden to enter into covenant (berith) with the nations round about (cf. ch. ii. 2). The first symptom of apostasy among them, was al- ways the inclination to remove the barriers be- tween themselves and their heathen neighbors. The concessions required to make the establish- ment of covenant relations possible, were alto- gether one-sided : it was always Israel, and Israel only, that surrendered any part of its faith. The worship of a Baal-berith was the symbol of fellow- ship with the heathen, whereby the command to make no covenants was violated. His temple was the point of union for both parties. The support of Abimelech in his undertaking came from all the worshippers of Baal-berith ; for was it not di- rected against the house of Jerubbaal, the declared enemy of Baal I Such being its character, it had 1 .lotham, also, speaks of Abimelech, with special con- tempt, as the "son of the slave-woman" (ver. 18). 2 [Kgii. : " Millo is unquestionably the name of the for- treSB or citadel of the city of Shechem, the same with the Towel of Shechem in vers. 46-49. The word Wivtt (Millo), as also the Cbaldee Sj"VvO, 'filling,' signifies a rampart formed of two walls, the space between which is filled up 1 with rubblah. There was also a Millo at Jeru- salem ? SWm. v. 9 ■ 1 Kgs. ix. 15. c All the house of Millo,' moreover a proper claim on the treasures of the temple of Baal-berith. What a disgrace, when the son of the " Baal-vanquisher " takes money from the temple of that same Baal, for the pur pose of murdering his brothers ! What a victory of Satan over the youthful votary of ambition ! And cheap enough was the price of blood. The idle rabble who hired themselves as body-guard to Abimelech, received a silver-piece, )'. e. a shekel, for the head of each of Gideon's sons. Howevei vague the impression we get of a piece of money in that age by computing its equivalent in our coin, it is nevertheless frightful to think how little it cost (scarcely more than half a dollar) to pro- cure the performance of the most hom'nie deed. And he slew bis brethren. Abimelech is a perfect type of the tyrant, as he frequently appears in Greek history, continental and insular, and also, in more recent times, on Italian soil. Machiavelli (Prince, ch. viii.) says, that "whoever seizes a crown, unjustly and violently, must, if cruelty be necessary, exercise it to the full at once, in order to avoid the necessity of beginning it anew every day." In support of this maxim, he refers, first to Agathocles, and then to the petty tyrant of Fermo, Oliverotto, who in order to become master of the city, caused his uncle, who was also his foster-father, friend, and benefactor, to be traitor- ously slain at a banquet. — Only one escaped, the youngest, Jotham by name. The confession of Jehovah, which this nr.me of his youngest son im- plies, evidences the constant piety and faithfulness of Gideon, and confirms our conjecture that not he, but Shechem, invented the name Abimelech. Ver. 6. And all the lords of Shechem held an assembly. Gideon's sons being murdered, an election of a king now takes place. As the elec- tors, so then' king. The noble undertaking had succeeded ; the house of Gideon was destroyed. What a contrast! After the glorious victory over Midian, Gideon, though urgently besought by the men of many tribes, will not consent to continue to be even their imperator ; now, the Shechemites raise the assassin of his brothers to the dignity of a king ! A kingship like that of the heathen cities on the coast, with no law, but with plenty of blood, without the oil of consecration, but steeped in sin, is thus violently and vain-gloriously set up by Shechem and its fortress (Beth-Millo 2 ) ; and that too, with a reckless hardihood as great as that which characterized the preliminary murders, in a spot consecrated by sacred memories. There where Joshua, before he died (Josh. xxiv. 25, 26), made a covenant with the people on God's behalf, where he had solemnly bound them to the observ- ance of the law, and where they had promised to obey God alone, — there, at the great stone, set up by Joshua under the oak, two apostate, self-seek- ing cities, stained with murder and unbelief, elect a son of Jerubbaal, who suffered himself to be bought in the interest of Baal, to be their king ! For the coronation, the narrative tells us, took place 2^t? p7S DV, at the monument-oak. are all the inhabitants of the citadel, the same who in ver. 46 are spoken of as * all the citizens of Migdol or the Tower.'" Berthead : "The high plateau of Mt. Geriziui, by which the city (Shechem) is commanded, seems to offer the most suitable site for this Millo, as it also did for later fortifications (Rob. 11. 277, 278, comp. p. 294). This location of the fortress, at some little distance from the city, which lay in the narrow valley, would explain the distinction con- stantly maintained in our chapter between the inhabitants of Shechem and the house, i. e. population, of Millo or th« Tower.'' — Te.] CHAPTER IX. 1-81. 115 near Shechem." 1 And though nothing farther is said about the placet it may nevertheless be in- ferred, from the connection and the tragic charac- ter of the occurrence, that the narrator, in bring- ing its locality to the mind of the reader, designs to make the shameful character of the transaction more strikingly evident, just as throughout this passage he constantly writes Jerubbaal, not Gid- eon, in order to render more prominent the con- trast between these servants and that great victor of BaaL- Ver. 7. And they told it to Jotham. While the preparations for the coronation are in progress, tii'.ngs of them are brought to Jotham, the last scion of the stock of Gideon. What shall he do ? The whole nation is fallen into listlessness and in- activity. The horrible massacre has called forth no rising. Even those tribes who had perhaps heard of it, but took no part in it, continue quies- cent. Sin has dulled every nerve of courage and gratitude. The son of the hero still receives in- telligence; a few helpers are with him in his flight ; a few others perhaps sigh with him in secret : but beyond this, he is alone. The spirit, however, of his father, has not left him. While be- low they crown the fratricide, he appears above, on the rock, like an impersonation of conscience. So the modern poet, with like grandeur of conception, makes Tell appear on the rock above the tyrant. Jotham's arrow, however, is not sped from the fatal bow, but from a noble spirit. It is the arrow of parabolic discourse, dipped in personal grief and divine retribution, that he sends down among them. Mount Gerizim was the mount of blessing ( Dent xxvii. 12) ; but through the sin of Shechem, it becomes, in the parable ot Jotham, a mount of judgment. Its present name, already borne in the Middle Ages, is el Tur (the Mountain). It rises to a height of eight hundred feet above the present Nablus (Rob. ii. 276). Jotham probably appeared on some projecting point, near enough to De heard, and distant enough to be not easily caught. 3 Hearken unto me, he says, and may God hear you. He wishes them to hear his par- able, as he desires God ( Elohim) to hear the coron- ation rejoicings that rise up from the valley. Vers. 8-21. The parable belongs to the most re- markable productions of Israelitish life, not only on account of its political significance, but also for what may be called its literary character. Fable and so-called apologue are of oriental, non-Israel- itish, as also non-Grecian, origin. They spring from a pantheism in which trees and animals fur- nished symbols for expressing the popular ideas. Although rooted in the religious vivification of nature, their employment was nevertheless brought 1 2--£p is most probably to be taken as rOv*E or ■■* [Kmo ( Daily Bible Illustrations : Moses and the Judges, T>. 365] : — "It will occur to the reader to ask what right the people of Shechem had to nominate a king, by their pole authority. In the first place, it must be remembered that the laud had formerly been governed by a number of petty kings, ruling over some strong town and its immedi- ate district and dependent villages; and it is likely that the Shechemites claimed no more than to appoint Abimelech as such a king over themselves, assuming that they for them- selves, whatever might be the view of others, had a right to choose a king to reign over them. Besides, Shechem was one of the chief towns of Epbraim ; and that proud *ud powerful tribe always claimed to take the leading part In public affairs, if not to determine the course of the other tribes — except, perhaps, of those connected with Judah in 10 to maturity by the pressure cf social necessities In the East, fable and tale were always the weap- ons of mind against violence and tyranny (cf. my Edrlischen Studien, p. 15). They furnished the people with individual consolation against general misery. In their original appearance among the Greeks also, they fail not to exhibit this character. In the same wav, Jotham speaks to the tyrants of Shechem in this popular language, which all un- derstand. He does not speak like a prophet, for he is none, and Baal has stopped the ears of his auditors. He does not even speak of the power and mighty deeds of Jehovah, from whom his own name is derived. He speaks of " Elohim " and his retributions — of the Deity in the general sense in which the heathen also acknowledge him. He speaks altogether in their language, popularly, with popular wisdom. But what a difference be- tween the moral strength which justifies Jotham to put forth his parable, and (for instance) the motives of the Greek Archilochus. There we hear the wounded vanity of a rejected suitor ; here, one solitary voice of indignation and truth against the tyrant and murderer. By this moral motive, Jo- tham elevates the parable to the level of the divine word, and furnishes the first illustration of how a popular form of discourse, the offspring of directly opposite principles, could be employed for moral purposes, and (in the parables of Christ) become a medium for the highest doctrines and mysteries. Jotham gives a parable and points out its applica- tion (from ver. 16 onward) ; but also apart from the latter, the narrative conveys an independent political idea with a force which has scarcely been equaled by any subsequent expression of it. It manifests a political consciousness so mature, as to surprise one who looks at the apparently simple and common-place relations of the time and peo- ple. The trees will have a king. No reason is given, but the history of Israel, to which reference is had, furnishes one. People felt that in the dangers of war, one common leadership was important. They supposed that their frequent sufferings at the hands ot Moab and Midian, were owing to defects in their form of government. They would have a king, in order to be able, as in their folly they think they shall be, to dispense with obedience to the commands of God. Gideon says : God is your Ruler. The apostate people will rill his place with a king, and think that in their selection, they act in accordance with the will of God. Offers of kingly dignity are seldom refused. Solon, properly speaking, never received a tender of royalty ; and Otto, Duke of Saxony, the father of Henry I. was already too old to bear such a the south. It was under the influence of this desire for supremacy, that the revolt agaiust the house of David was organized in that tribe, and resulted in the establishment of the separate kingdom for the ten tribes, in which Eph- raini had the chief influence. Indeed, that establishment of a separate monarchy was accomplished at this very plac* where Abimelech is now declared king. Taking all this into account, it may seem reasonable to conclude that the Shechemites had the support of the tribe in this transae tion, or might at least reckon with reasonable confidence upou its uot being withheld. Then, again, a king chosen at Shechem, and supported by this powerful tribe, might reasonably calculate that the other tribes would soon givt in their adhesion, seeing that, in the time of his lather their monarchical predilections had been so strongly mani fested." — Tr.] 8 [Cf. Thomson, The Land and the Boole, ii. 209. — Tb 146 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. burden as Widukind says. Ipse vero quasi jam yravior jnnis recusabat imperii otitis). The good trees, however, notwithstanding their strength, will no; be elected; they deem the species of roy- alty which is offered them, too insignificant to warrant the sacrifice of what they already possess. The olive tree, fig tree, and grape-vine, enjoy suffi- cient honor, happiness, and distinction, not to prefer this sort of coronation to their present ac- tivity. They will rather continue in a condition which secures their personal worth, than go to " wave over the trees. It is a beautiful image of popular favor, uncertain, unequal, affected by every wind, which is afforded by the branches of trees, never at rest, always waving. The proffered roy- alty is dependent on popular favor. It is a royalty which must bend to every breeze, if it would avoid a fall. For they to whom the office is offered, are too noble to use the means necessary to maintain their authority when popular favor deserts them. They must first have lost their nobility of nature, before they can follow the call now made to them. It was a noble king of recent times, who, from similar motives, strenuously resisted to accept what was offered him. It is very significant that this doctrine proceeds from Jotham, the son of Gideon. He has his eye. of course, on the refusal of the crown by his father ; only he brings the negative side of that refusal into special prominence. He makes it evident that even then the fickle and discordant character of popular favor and popular will was thoroughly ap- prehended. But one needed to be the son of a divinely called hero, to be able to set forth with cutting force the unprincipled conduct of revolu- tionary malcontents. Against a true kingship, as afterwards established in Israel, and which in its idea forms the highest perfection of the theocracy, Jotham says nothing. The people that applies to Samuel for a king, is a very different one from these criminal Shechemites, who attempt to get a king in opposition to God. These latter, for this reison, can only use a king who has nothing to lose, and is worthy of them : whose fit symbol is (he thorn-bush. Sin loves arbitrariness ; therefore they deserve a tyrant. The thorn-bush is the type of persons who, after they have accepted power ottered by bloody hands, are qualified to preserve it by bloody means. " The aesthetic beauty of the parable is also to be noted. Trees afford the best representation of a republic ; each tree has its own sphere of action, and no one is in a position to exercise any special influence over the others. Whoever among them would attempt this in the character of king, must, so to speak, leave the soil in which he is planted, and hover over them all. Their will would then be for him, what otherwise the nourishing earth is for all. Any productive tree would thereby lose its fruit. For the unfruitful thorn-bush alone, the office would involve no loss. The fable is especi- ally beautiful as typical of Israelitish relations. The tribes are all equal. Like the trees, they all receive their strength from God. If they with- draw themselves from Him, in order to crown the thorn-bush, they will experience that which issues from the thorn-bush — namely, fire. The profound significance of the parable is in- , xhaustible. Its truth is of perpetual recurrence. More than once was Israel in the position of the Shechemites; then especially, when He whose king- Join is not of this world, refused to be a king. Then, too, Herod and Pilate became friends. _ The thorn-hush seemed to be king when it encircled the head of the Crucified. But Israel experienced what is here denounced: a fire went forth, and consumed city and people, temple and fortress. And they said to the olive-tree. The olive tree is already a king among trees in his own right ; hence, Columella calls it " the first among trees." His product is used to honor both " God and man." His oil consecrates " kings and priests," and feeds the light that burns in the sanc- tuary of God. The olive tree is the symbol of peaceful royalty ; its leaf and branch are signs of reconciliation and peace : hence, Israel in its divine glory is compared to the "beautiful olive tree" (Hos. xiv. 6). Denying the request of the trees, the olive tree says : " Have I then lost (""W/iPUj an unusual form, which with Keil I regard as a simple Kal) my oil, that I should wave over the trees ? " Has Israel then lost its life of peace in God. its sacred anointing through God's servants, its pious light and life in God's law 1 Has it grown poor as to its God, that it must suffer itself to be governed by heathen arts ? The product of the olive tree and the deeds of Abimelech stand in the shaipest contrast with each other. The same result follows an application to the fig tree. This also is a symbol of that divine peace which fills the land when God governs. The an- cients believed that if a wild, untamed bullock were fastened to a fig tree, he would become quiet and gentle (Plutarch, Symposion, lib. vi. quaest. 10). Athens, on similar symbolical grounds, had a sa- cred fig tree as well as olive tree. In Scripture, especially, the fig tree appears as a symbol of holy peace, as the prophet Micah says (ch. iv. 4) : " They shall sit every man under his vine and fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid." So Jotham makes the fig tree say suggestively : Have I then — Israel — lost the possibility of sit- ting in the peace of God 1 Was there not an abun- dance of rest and happiness during forty years un- der Gideon 1 shall I surrender all that in order to fall into the arbitrariness of sin ! For it can act like Shechem only when the peace of God no longer exists ; but, in that case, it withers away, like the fig tree rebuked by Christ, and ceases to bring forth fruit. The same is true of the grape-vine. The oriental vine attains the height of elms and cedars, and af- fords a grateful shade. Hence it is the widely- diffused symbol of government, as that which gives peace and comfort. " The mountains," says the Psalmist (lxxx. 11), "are covered with the shadow of it." A golden vine canopied the throne of the Persian monarch. Vines of gold were frequently presented to kings in recognition of their sov- ereignty (cf. my essay, Der Goldene Thron Sa- lomo's, in Wiss. Bericht, i. p. 124). A celebrated golden vine, mention of which is made by Tacitus also, stood in the temple at Jerusalem. Tht Mishna says of it : At the entrance to the temple porch there stood a golden vine, trained on poles ; whenever any one consecrated anything, he conse- crated it as " leaf" or " grape." Elieser b. R. Zadok related, that once it was so vast, that 300 priests were necessary to take it away (Mishna. Middot. iii. 8). The olive tree said that with him God and men were "honored;" the vine expresses the same thing when he speaks of the "joy " which " God and men " find in him. Usually all that is said of wine is, that " it makes glad the heart of man ; " it is, however, also over w ne, and wine only, thitt CHAPTER IX 1-21. M'l the " blessing of God "is pronounced, 1 and Mel- chizedek, as " priest of the Most High God," brings "bread and -wine" (Gen. xiv. 18). Nevertheless, the phrase " God and men," is probably to be re- garded as proverbial, and as signifying that wine cheers all persons, not excepting the highest and noblest. Since the Middle Ages, we [Germans] use the expression Gott und die Welt — God and the world — -in a similar manner. Hartmann von Aue (in his Iwein, ver. 262) says: Verlegeniu mtlezekeit ist gate und der werlle kit (mouldering idleness is offensive to God and the world). The transition from the shade-giving vine to the thorn-bush presents us with a very striking con- trast. It is indeed in connection with the thorn- bush, that the narrative displays its nicest shading. While the trees say i^3 TO to the olive tree, and S D ./Q to the fig tree and vine, unusual forms of the imperative which convey, as it seems to me, the idea of a respectful petition, they address the thorn-bush in common style : ^"^V Tj7^. When it comes to calling on the thorn-bush to be king, the respect whichVas felt for the olive tree and his compeers, has no longer any place. It may also be remarked that the shady vine is often at no great distance from the thorn-bush. Not unfre- quently, even at this day, fertile wine-hills in the holy land, rejoicing also in olive and fig trees, are" hedged in by thorn-bushes (cf. Rosenmiiller, Morgenland, on Prov. xv. 19). And the thorn-bush said : If you really anoint me king over you. There lies in this the sharpest censure for the trees. The thorn-bush it- self can scarcely believe that its election as king is honestly meant (•"I 1 ??*?)- Equally striking is it, that Jotham makes the thorn-bush speak of the trees as wishing to " anoint " him. Anoint with what? With oil. But the "oil tree" has al- ready refused to be king over such subjects ! The idea is : they anoint with oil, the symbol of peace, while they have murder and the opposite of peace in their hearts. — The thorn-bush declares his readi- ness to give them all he has. They are at liberty to shelter themselves in his shadow. But he gives no protection against the sun, and his branches are mil of thorns. In case of disobedience and apostasy, he will cause fire to go forth, and with- out respect of persons consume all rebels, even the cedars of Lebanon. For these are his only arts and abilities — to prick and to burn. jEsop has a fable (No. 8) which teaches a similar moral, al- beit playfully weakened. It treats of the " Fox and the Thom-bush." The fox, to save himself yom falling, lays hold of the thorn-bush, and gets dreadfully torn by the sharp needles. In answer «o his outcry, the thorn-bush says : How canst *hou hope to lay hold of me, who am accustomed only to lay hold of others. Jotham' s application in ver. 16 forms a perfect parallel to the speech of the thorn-bush in ver. 15. A minute explanation, that the Shechemites are .he tree*; that the heroes who heretofore bene- fited Israel (not merely Gideon, nor as the Rabbis think, Othniel and Barak only), correspond to the alive tree and his equals; and that the thorn-bush means Abimelech, is altogether unnecessary. The scene which he delineates, is it not transpiring be- fore him in the valley below ? All he needs to do, 1 [The third cup at the Passover meal was called the 11 Cup of Blessing," because it was accompanied by a prayer tf praisi aud thanksgiving. Cf. 1 Cor. x. 16. — Tr.] is to call their attention to the certainty that the threatening of the thorn-bush will be fulfilled on them ; for that is yet future. As the thorn-bush says to the trees, " If' you honestly anoint me king," so Jotham, with crush- ing irony, says to the people : If now you have acted honestly and sincerely in making Abime- lech king. The heathen, as well as the worship- pers of the true God, believed that good or evil deeds are recompensed by good or evil results Even when the Persian Oroetes unlawfully mur- ders the tyrant Polycrates, and afterwards perishes himself in a similar manner, Herodotus (iii. 128) remarks : " Thus did the avenging spirits of Poly- crates the Samian overtake him." It was main- tained that the tyrant Agathocles had perished on the same day in which he had committed his hor- rible treason against his confederate Ophelias. This belief, prevalent even among heathen, pointed out the most vulnerable side of conscience. Though they turn away from the altar of Jehovah, they will not be able to escape the law of Etohim, who is even now listening to their loud acclamations. If they think — such is the bitter irony of Jotham's indignant heart — that the collective trees (ver. 14, ^r?"7 ?' can niean it honestly, when they anoint a thorn-bush, then they also, perhaps, acted " honestly and sincerely " when they called Abime- lech their king, slew the house of the hero who regarded not his own life to save them, and crowned the murderer, the son of the bondwoman. Such " honesty and virtue " will not fail of their ap propriate recompense. The words of the thorn- bush will be fulfilled. The sequel will show the reward. Israel will then perceive the enormity of that which in its present state of moral prostration it allows to pass unchallenged. If such a horrible deed can be deemed "good," he repeats — and the repetition marks the intensity of his grief — then may you rejoice in Abimelech, as now down there in the valley you (hypocritically) shout for joy -, but if not then may you experience what it means to have the thorn-bush for king! Then will sin dissolve what sin began ; crime will dissever what treason bound together. Then will fire from the thorn-bush consume the sinful trees, and fire from the trees the tyrannical king. Thus he spake, and thus they heard. But sin and excitement drowned the voice of conscience. The friendship between them and their king, and the joy they felt in him, were yet young. Israel kept silence, and Jotham, the hero's son, fled to Beer. Where this place lay, cannot be determined. Probably in the south — near the desert, which would afford the fugitive security against Abimelech's persecution. Of Jotham, nothing more is known ; but from amidst the tragedy which throws its dark shadows over the house of his father, his discourse sounds forth, an imperishable call to repentance, addressed to the world in the language of the world, and an ad- monisher to kings and nations of the certainty cf retribution. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Abimelech the Fratricide. Gideon doubtless ex celled in power all previous Judges ; the deliver ance wrought out by him surpassed all previous deliverances. This fact perhaps helps to explain the greatness of the shadow that fell upon the land after his death. The story of Abimelech displays before us a terrible contrast to the government of Gideon It exhibits strength attended by the mosi 148 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. abominable lust after power, energy with ungod- liness, victorious talents with utter criminality. Such was the contrast offered by Abimelech with the memory of his father, in whom strength was united to humility, energy to piety, and victory to righteousness. The history of Abimelech teaches that siu (1) forgets good deeds; and (2) inspires misdeeds ; but also, (3) that one abomination punishes another, even to destruction. If Gideon had not taken a concubine, this misery would not have come upon Israel ! Why did he take her, and from Shechem, a city whose character he must have known ! Why did he allow her son to be called " My Father is King ! " The little weak- nesses of a great man, become the great tempta- tions of small men. Against the murderous fury of sin, there is no protection. The true sons of Gideon were peaceable. They were sons of a hero, but not trained to bloodshedding (ch. viii. 20). Thev had among them the ephod, reminder of Gideon's victory. They were related to Abim- elech, related more closely than the Shechemites ; for they were his brothers, and brothers by such a father: but it availed them nothing. "Piety," says the great poet (Goethe), " is a close bond, but ungodliness still closer." The hand once lifted up to murder, does not spare its own brothers. Bloodthirstiness beclouds both eye and heart. It makes no distinction. Thus, sin lies lurking at the door, until its victim bids it enter. Abime- lech's conduct has found imitators among Chris- tians. The murderous deeds committed since his day, some of them at the bidding of church author- ities, lie like a blood-cloud over the face of his- tory. Only the love of Jesus Christ can penetrate through it, with the sunbeam of his reconciliation. Abimelech was tyrant, and Jotham must flee. The bloody knife reigns and the spirit which speaks in parables and lives in faith is banished. But Abimelech comes to shame, smitten by a des- perate woman (ver. 53), while Jotham's parable, like a winged arrow, pierces all fratricides, from Abimelech down to Richard III. of England. While Abimelech, a false king, passed on, bur- dened by a load of hatred, Jotham spent his life, as befitted a mourner, in a profound quiet. Seb. Schmidt says, that " God knows how to give peace and safety to those who innocently become faint- hearted, although men fail to espouse their righte- ous causes." Such is the preaching of the word of God concerning the world's condition, (1) when a Gideon reigns; (2) when an Abimelech rules. The government of the faithful is the salvation of all; and likewise sin is the destruction of men, not excepting those who commit it. There is a judg- ment. God is not mocked. Starke : Those are ignoble souls, who seek to reach an office, not through their own gifts and virtues, but through the favor and influence of their friends. — The same : To lift one's self up by unlawful and sinful means, is sure to bring a curse. The same : Good men are all alike in this, that they do what is godly and righteous, because they know well that *hore is but one godliness and one righteousness. — The same : The unity of bad men can speedily be changed, by the judgment of God, into enmity and mutual destruction. — Ger- lach : Jotham stands forth like a warning prophet, who interprets coming events before they occur, and who is at the same time a sign that the Lord has not left the faith of Gideon unrewarded, not- withstanding the terrible judgment that overtakes his house. [Bp. Hall : Those that are most unwotthy of honor, are hottest in the chase of it ; whilst the consciousness of better deserts bids men sit still, and stay to be either importuned or neglected. There can be no greater sign of unfitness, than vehement suit. It is hard to say whether there be more pride or arrogance in ambition. — The same : The Shechemites are fit brokers for Abimelech : that city which once betrayed itself to utter depopulation, in yielding to the suit of Hamor, now betrays itself and all Israel in yield- ing to the request of Abimelech. — The same : Natural respects are the most dangerous corrupt- ers of all elections. What hope can there be of worthy superiors in any free people, where near- ness of blood carries it from fitness of disposition 1 Whilst they say, " He is our brother," they are enemies to themselves and Israel. — The same : Who would not now think that Abimelech should find a hell in his breast, after so barbarous and un- natural a massacre 1 and yet, behold, he is as sense- less as the stone upon which the blood of his seventy brethren was spilt. Where ambition hath possessed itself thoroughly of the soul, it turns the heart into steel, and makes it incapable of a con- science. Ail sins will easily down with the man that is resolved to rise. — Henry : Way being thus made for Abimelech's election, the men of Shechem proceed to choose him king. God was not con- sulted, there was no advising with the priest, or with their brethren of any other city or tribe, though it was designed he should rule over Israel. — Scott : If parents could foresee their children's sufferings, their joy in them would be often turned into lamentations ; we may therefore be thankful that we cannot penetrate futurity, and are re- minded to commit those whom we most love into the hands of the Lord, and to attend to our pres- ent duty, casting our care upon Him, respecting ourselves and them. — Bush : The general moral of Jotham's parable is, (1.) That weak and worth- less men are ever forward to thrust themselves into power, while the wise and good are more prone to decline it. (2.) That they who unduly affect honor, and they who unjustly confer it, will prove sources of misery to each other. — Kitto : There are in- deed legitimate objects of the highest ambition, and of the most exalted aspirations. Crowns and kingdoms lie beneath the feet of him who pursues with steady pace his high career toward the city of the Great King, where he knows there is laid up for him a crown of glory that fadeth not away — a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will bestow upon all that love oil appearing. — Tr.] CHAPTER IX. 22-30. 149 Discord between Abimelech and Sheehem. The intrigue of Goal. Chapter IX. 22-30. 22 When [And] Abimelech had [omit : had] reigned [held sway] three years over 23 Israel, [.]' Then [And] God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men [lords] of Sheehem ; and the men [lords] of Sheehem dealt treacherously with 24 Abimelech : That the cruelty [violence] done to the three-score and ten sons of Jerubbaal might come, and their blood be laid upon Abimelech their brother which slew them, and upon the men [lords] of Sheehem which aided him [strengthened 25 his hands] in [for] the killing of his brethren. And the men [lords] of Sheehem set Hers in wait [ambuscades] for l him in the top of the mountains, and they 26 robbed all that came along that way by them : and it was told Abimelech. And Gaal the son of Ebed came with his brethren [on an expedition], and went over to [passed over into] Sheehem : and the men [lords] of Sheehem put their confidence 27 in him. And they went out into the fields, and gathered their vineyards [held vin- tage], and trode the grapes, and made merry [prepared harvest-feasts], and went 28 into the house of their god, and did eat and drink, and cursed Abimelech. And Gaal the son of Ebed said, Who is Abimelech, and who is Sheehem, that we should serve him ? is not he the [a] son of Jerubbaal ? and \_is not] Zebul his officer ? serve the men of Hamor the father of Sheehem : for why should we serve him ? 3 29 And would to God this people were under my hand ! then would I remove Abim- 30 elech. And he said to Abimelech, Increase 8 thine army, and come out. And when [omit : when] Zebul the ruler [prefect] of the city heard the words of Gaal the son of Ebed, [and] his anger was kindled. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 26. — i ?. Ksn. : ' Dai. incommodi ; to his disadvantage." Cf. the Commentary. — Tb-] [2 Ver. 28. — De Wette : :t Why should we serve him, we? " The position of ^UHjH at the end of the sentence, ttarks the speaker's indignation at the thought of Sheehem 's serving a son of Jerubbaal. — Tb-] [8 Ver. 29. — The pronunciation PIS"! (with seghol) is perhaps designed to give to the imperative piel form the strengthening effect of the ending PT - found with the other imperative (HK-il), hut of which 7\* verba do not Jdmit. Cf. Ewald, Gram. p. 511, note. — Tb,.) EXEQETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 22. And Abimelech held sway. The narrator says not, " he reigned " (?T . O), nor " he ruled " fo&ti), but "127*1 : Abimelech was nothing but a "^t?. He is not acknowledged either aB a rightful king, or as a military chieftain of Israel : he is only a usurper, whom his adherents have clothed with arrogated power. And though his authority is said to have been "over Israel," this does not mean that it extended over the whole nation. The history shows that his authority did not extend beyond the narrow circle of the moun- tains of Ephraim. Deference and consideration were doubtless paid him in more extended regions, for these no fait accompli, whether it be good or evil, ever fails to command. Ver. 2.3. And God sent an evil spirit. Friend- ship among the wicked is only a league of vice against others. In itself it cannot stand. Wick- edness, says Hesiod, prepares its own punishment. Abimelech, it seems, ruled three years in peace. Plutarch, in his noble treatise on the purposes of the Deity in so often delaying the retribution due to crime, finds the ground of it in the wisdom of Providence, which knows the opportune moment for punishment. Here, as in other passages where he speaks of unholy men, our narrator names the recompensing deity Elohim, not Jehovah. Elo- him sends the evil spirit of discord among them ; for the undeviating law by which sin punishes it- self, is grounded in the very nature of the Deitv It would be the destruction of the justice and truth of the divine government, if worthlessness escaped its recompense. The moral universe is so consti- tuted as to ensure evil fruits to evil deeds. The experience which here presents itself is one of the most common in the history of states and individ- uals. It is the type of all unnatural conspiracies against right, and of their issue. It is moreover demonstrative of the perfect clearness with which the divine government of the world is apprehended in the Book of Judges, that the falling out of vice with itself, and the stopping up by wickedness of the natural sources < > t it> own advantage, are rep- resented as the action of an evil spirit sent by Elo- him. 1 Sheehem now seeks to deal with Abime- lech, as heretofore it helped him to deal with the sons of Gideon. Treason began, and treason ends, the catastrophe. Ver. 24. That the violence .... might come home. The twofold expression of the t " A something is meant which operates upon the in- neither a disposition, nor yet a demon.'' Hoffmann, Schrifi .ehertual nature (das Geistige Wesen) of mau ; therefore, beweis, i. 109 150 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. •bought, first by Wub, and then by VPiWb, serves to give it emphasis. The whole history is related so fully, only to show Israel that there is such a thing as retributive justice, — that sin bears its guilt and punishment. Blood comes home to murderers as guilt. Who did ever experience this more terribly than Israel itself, when it slew Him who was more than Gideon and his sons ! That which this narrative exhibits as coming on Abim- elech and Sheehem in the course of three years, the history of the world, has manifestly fulfilled through centuries on those who cried, " His blood be on us and on our children ! " Both are pun- ished. Abimelech and Sheehem ; for both are equally guilty. So likewise both Jerusalem suf- fered, and the empire by which Pilate was ap- pointed. Ver. 25. And they laid ambuscades for him . What it was that gave immediate occasion for dis- cord, is not communicated. But Sheehem found that it had deceived itself, in thinking that Abime- lech's elevation would make itself the virtual ruler. It had fallen into the hands of an iron despot, against whom the cowardly and pleasure-loving Shechemites did not dare openly to rise. They resorted therefore to underhanded stratagems to make him odious. For the robberies committed from places of concealment become perfectly in- te.ligible, and fall moreover into harmonious con- tuition with the expression : n???^i they dealt treacherously" (ver. 23), when they are regarded as carried on by the Shechemites, but in such a manner as to make them appear to be ordered or instigated by Abimelech. Through them he had become a murderer; they would now make him seem to be a robber and highwayman. But Abimelech received intelligence of the deception. Henceforth, the peace between them was broken ; and people such as are here portrayed, know very well that now it is time to be on their guard against each other. Vers. 26-28. And Gaal Ben-Ebed came. An adventurer, probably a Shechemite, whose name ' perhaps already expresses the popular contempt into which the braggart subsequently fell, having come to the city with his followers, the Shechemites thought that in him they had found a party-leader who could protect them against Abimelech. Ac- cordingly, they held their vintage, celebrated their harvest-home with songs of rejoicing (D , 7 : ' v ^')> and then observed the customary sacrificial ban- quet in the temple of their god. The narrative seeks to exhibit the dramatic contrast between the present jubilant enjoyment and the approaching terrible issue, the present boldness and the subse- quent cowardice, the passing luxury and the im- pending death and destruction. Such sacrificial feasts, particularly as connected with the temple of the " Covenant-God," were also known else- where (ef. Dion, fln/t'cora.iv.25, on the " covenant- feast" at Ephesus; cf. K. F. Hermann, R. A. der Griechen, ed. Stark. § 66, 4). Among all nations, says Athenseus (lib. v. p. 192), every meal was re- ferred to (iod, and He was honored with song and praise. But these feasters in the temple at Sheehem had no thought of religion. To them applies what Plutarch says, in the introduction to I [The author, by writing Ben (Ebed) instead of trans- lating it u he did in the text, seems to intimate that the whole name, Gaal Ben-Ebed, was perhaps the expression >f subsequent contempt. Gaal, from p2, to abhor, to his Symposium :" when barbarity and immoralit betake themselves to wine, the banquet comes to t disastrous end." The fumes of wine make these men rash and thoughtless. That which they ha. hitherto kept secret, they now divulge. Maledic- tions against Abimelech make themselves heard. The scene enables us to estimate aright the polit- ical wisdom of the Corinthian Tyrant Periander, when he forbade social feasts to his opponents The speech of the poltroon Gaal is especially re- markable. The episode in which the narrator ao quaints us with the divine judgment on Abimelech affords at the same time a glance into the hidden springs of political life in a city like Sheehem. Let us serve the men of Hamor, the father of Sheehem. The apostasy of Israel, after the death of Gideon, in Sheehem took the form of a covenant entered into with the remaining heathen. The contrast between heathenism and the relig- ious life of Israel was founded in the existence and the characters of national and local idol gods over against the true God of Israel. The covenant be- tween the heathen and the apostate Israelites in Sheehem, found its expression in the election of Abimelech as king, on the ground that on the one hand he was Shechem's brother, and on the other Gideon's son. This covenant now breaks up. The wine -heated Gaal pronounces the word: even Abimelech is still too much of Israel. '* By what right," he says, " does Abimelech command our homage 1 Is he not always still a son of Jerub- baal, the enemy of our god ? " The reaction of heathenism must be made complete. Sheehem must hold fast to its own ancestors. The families who trace their descent from the heathen Hamor (Gen. xxxiv.) i. e. those who de:>ire to banish all Israelitish traditions, must be the masters ! The offspring of Hamor, the heathen progenitor, must not serve the descendants of Jacob ! When the Tyrant of Sicyon 2 sought to throw off the influ- ence of Argos, he expelled from the city the wor- ship of Adrastus, the primitive Arrive hero. That was his way of declaring himself independent. Is he not a son of Jerubbaal P and is not Zebul his overseer? Zebul, who in ver. 3u is called the "prefect of the city," was not of the party who now feasted. He evidently belonged to tlie Israelites, who. though they had made a cove- nant with the heathenism of Sheehem, were not willing to serve the children of Hamor. He be- longed 'o the upper families of the city ; and Gaal in his drunken audacity, disci >ses the idea that he also must be overthrown, "because Abimelech's tool." Vers. 29, 30. Verse 29 give s the further speech of Gaal in a very vivid and forcible manner. " O that some one would give this people into my hands! then would I quickly remove Abime- lech ! That is directed against Zebul. What Gaal means, is, that if he were prefect of the city, as Zebul is, he would make short work with Abim- elech. And he said to Abimelech, Increase thine army, and come out. Gaal does not actually say this to Abimelech, nor does he cause it to 1* said to him, as many expositors think, for Abimelech hears of it for the first time through Zebul. It is only an animated apostrophe to Abimelech, in which Gaal boastingly challenges Abimelech to loathe, means loathing, Gesenius. Lex. : Ben-Ebed, Son of a Slave. Cf. ver. 18, where Jothani speaks of Abimelech aj a son of Gideon's bondwoman. — Tr.J 2 [Clistheuea. See Herod., v. 67, and Grote, Hist, r* Greece, iii. 33, seq. — Te.] CHAPTER IX. 31-41. 151 prepare himself as if he were present. The in- habitants of Shechem, between their potations, doubtless applauded Gaal, which had the usual effect of emboldening the wine-heated orator. But this drunken jubilation resulted in the ruin of Shechem ; for it reached the ears of Zebul. His anger kindled ; for his own overthrow, he learned, was to be connected with that of Abimelech. The narrative, in its admirable simplicity, allows us clearly to trace the advancing progress of that fatal destiny, in which secret treachery and open dissipation, boasting and jealousy, conspire to- gether to precipitate a righteous doom upon the city. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. [Bp. Hall : The prosperity of the wicked is but short and tickle. A stolen crown, though it may look fair, cannot be made of any but brittle stuff. All life is uncertain ; but wickedness overruns nature. — The same: It had been pity that the Shcchemites should have been plagued by any othc; hand than Abimclech's. They raised him unjustly to the throne; they are the first that feel the weight of his sceptre. The foolish bird limes herself with that which grew from her own excre- tion. Who wonders to see the kind peasant stung with his own snake' — The same: How could Abimelech hope tor fidelity of them, whom he had made and found traitors to his father's blood 1 Nc man knows how to be sure of him that is uncon- scionable. He that hath been unfaithful tu one, knows the way tu be perfidious, and is only fit for his trust that is worthy to be deceived; whereas faithfulness, beside the present good, lays aground of further assurance. The friendship that is be- gun in evil cannot stand : wickedness, both of its own nature anil through the curse of God. is ever unsteady. — The same: If the men of Shechem had abandoned their false god with their false king, and out of a serious remorse and desire of satisfaction for their idolatry and blood, had op- posed this tyrant, and preferred Jotham to his throne, there might have been both warrant for their quarrel, and hope of success; but now. if Abimelech lie a wicked usurper, yet the Shechem- ites are idolatrous traitors. — The same: When the quarrel is betwixt God and Satan, there is no doubt of the issue ; but when one devil fights with another, what certainty is there of the victory ? — Tr.1 Abimelech appears before Shechem. GaaVs defeat and expulsion. Chapter IX.. 31-41. 31 And lie sent messengers unto Abimelech privily, saying, Behold, Gaal the son of Ebed, and his brethren, be come to Shechem ; and behold, they fortify [excite] 32 the city against thee. Now therefore up by night, thou, and the people that is 33 with thee, and lie in wait in the field : And it shall be, that in the morning, as soon as the sun is up, thou shalt rise early, and set [move] upon the city ; and behold, when [omit: when] he and the people that is with him [will] come out against [to] thee, [and] then mayest [shalt] thou do to them as thou shalt find occasion. 34 And Abimelech rose up, and all the people that tvere with him, by night, and they 35 laid wait against [near] Shechem in four companies. And Gaal the son of Ebed went out. and stood in the entering [at the entrance] of the gate of the city : and [loi] Abimelech rose up, and the people that were with him. from lying in wait 36 [from their place of ambush]. And when [omit: when] Gaal saw the people, [and] he said to Zebul, Behold, there come people down from the top [tops] of the moun tains. And Zebul said unto him, Thou seest the shadow of the mountains as if 37 they were men. And Gaal spake again, and said. See. there [also] come people down by the middle [from the height] of the land, and another [one] company come along by the plain of Meonenim [cometh from the way of the Magicians' Grove]. 38 Then said Zebul unto him, Where is now thy mouth, wherewith thou saidst. Who is Abimelech, that we should serve him? is not this the people that thou hast des- 39 pised ? go out, I pray now, and fight with them. And Gaal went out before [at 40 the head of ] the men [lords] of Shechem, and fought with Abimelech. And Abime- lech chased him, and he fled before him, and many were overthrown and wounded tl [many fell slain], even unto the entering [entrance] of the gate. And Abimelech dwelt [remained J at Arurnah : and Zebul thrust out Gaal and his brethren, that they should not dwell in Shechem. EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 31. And he sent secretly, n?2~iri2- Although the form ^ Q"]H (cf. iTEHEO is an unusual one, the connection suggests, not the name of a place, but the fact that Zebul, though " prefect of the city," concealed his measure from the citi zens. The messengers whom he sent must have 152 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. gone " secretly " (as the Sept. and Targum trans- late), since Gaal had not learned of their going (ver. 36). How were such intercourse, as ver. 36 implies, possible between Zebul and Gaal, if Zebul's cooperation with Abimelech against Gaal had been publicly known i Nor is Zebul to be regarded as one of Abimelech's generals, but as a Shecheiuite magistrate, wlio is incensed because Gaal plots his own overthrow. It may be confidently assumed that if H!3~iJ were the name of a place, ver. 34 would read : " And Abimelech rose up, i"TO~)WD, from Tormah." nO"1£l, however, conveys not only the idea of secrecy, but of secrecy combined with deceit, secret deceit ; and such was certainly the character of Zebul's act. 1 It is also to be no- ticed that in his message Zebul does not accuse the city, but only Gaal as exciting the city against Abimelech. As magistrate, he does not wish to bring the wrath of Abimelech upon the city, but only upon his rival. Very graphic is the expres- sion Q , ^-£> commonly used of besiegers. Gaal and his brethren, says Zebul, press the city like be- siegers, to induce it to rise against thee. Their expulsion is therefore all that is necessary. But since this is not the whole truth — for Shechem, as we have seen, first elected Gaal because it had al- ready offended against Abimelech — it is evident that Zebul's policy of exciting Abimelech against Gaal only, is dictated by regard to his own inter- ests. Vers. 32-41. And move upon the city. The place of Abimelech's abode is not given ; but he was in the midst of his army. He must have been some distance from Shechem, since he needed a part of the night (ver. 32) to get within easy reach of it He is to place himself in ambush, so as not to be prematurely observed. Abimelech follows the counsel. In the morning, Gaal and Zebul naturally betake themselves to the gate of the city : Gaal, because it h;id become his business to watch over Shechem ; Zebul, because of his office as magistrate. Gaal, who has no misgivings — for he has slept away the effects of the wine — sees troops descending from the mountains. Zebul thinks it yet too soon to tell him the truth ; he will give Abimelech time first to bring up all his forces ; and therefore deceives and at the same time mocks 1 [Keu : .. nD~I.FI3 : either with deceit (nt3~in. t : t : t , : t ' from (™TQ"^V i. ?. exercising deceit, inasmuch as he had t t ' listened quietly and apparently with approbation to the speech of Gaal ; or, in Tormah, — noting a locality, — in which case nQ"!^! would be an error of transcription for "!J3"1M = na^lS Cver 41). The LXX and the Tar- Gaal by saying, " It is the shadow of the moun- tains that thou seest." Immediately, however, a body of troops is seen advancing whose identity as such cannot be mistaken. By the " tops of the mountains " we are to understand the more dis- tant mountains; by the "height ("WSto) of the land," a nearer hill, in the immediate vicinity of the city (the "navel" of the land); and by the " Elon Meonenim," a dusky forest ("Magicians' Grove "), against the near horizon. From all these points, commanding the avenues to the city, troops of soldiers advanced, to the consternation of Gaal and the surprise of the citizens. Now Zebul throws off his mask, and reminds Gaal of his previous au- dacity. The latter is compelled to try his fortunes in battle. At the head of the " lords of Shechem," he inarches out against Abimelech. But he is far from being a match for him. He is utterly unable to stand his ground. A terrible rout begins. Gaal saves himself through the open gate ; but the road, up to the very threshold of the gate, is cov- ered with the slain. His boasting has a miserable end. His authority is gone. Zebul, who pre- viously did not dare insist on his expulsion, now carries it through. He persuades the timid and terrified Shechemites that they will thus allay the anger of Abimelech. He believes it himself; for he has carefully thrown the whole blame on Gaal. Abimelech's conduct seems to favor this persua- sion ; lor he does not prosecute the attack, but re- tires to Arumah. 2 But what a delusion ! The banished Gaal is the only one who escapes destruc- tion. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. [Bp. Hall : Never any man was so ill, as not to have oome favorers : Abimelech hath a Zebul in the midst of Shechem. Lightly all treasons are betrayed, even with some of their own. — Henry-' Proud and haughty people are often made, in a little time, to dread those whom they had most despised. Justly are the insolent thus insulted over. — The same: Most people judge of men's fitness for business by their success, anc he that does not speed well, is concluded not to dc well. Gaal's interest in Shechem is soon at an end, nor do we ever hear of him anv more. — Tr.] gum take the word as a common noun : h> Kpvfi, secretly j so Raschi, and most of the older expositors, while R. Kim- chi, the Elder, decides for its being a nom. propr. No certain decision can be arrived at." — Tr.J 2 The site of Arumah cannot be definitely determined. The probability, however, is that it was somewhere on the hills, not in the immediate vicinity of Shechem, but yet near enough for the sudden assault on Shechem which fol- lowed. The destruction of Shechem, and burning of the " Tower of Shechem" The siegt of Thebez, and Abimelech's death. Chapter IX. 42-57. 42 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the people went out into the field ; and 13 they told Abimelech. And he took the [t. t. his] people, and divided them into three CHAPTER IX 42-57. 153 companies, and laid wait in the field, and looked, and behold, the people were come [coming] forth out of the city ; and he rose up against them, and smote them. 44 And Abimelech, and the company [companies] that was [were] with him, rushed forward, 1 and stood [placed themselves] in the entering [at the entrance] of the gate of the city : and the two other companies ran [advanced] upon all the pt ople 45 that were in the fields, and slew them. And Abimelech fought against the city all that day ; and he took the city, and slew the people that was therein, and beat 46 [tore] down the city, and sowed it with salt. And when all the men [lords] of the tower of Shechem heard that, they entered into an [the] hold - of the house of the 47 god Berith [house of El-Berith]. And it was told Abimelech, that all the men 48 [lords] of the tower of Shechem were gathered together [there]. And Abimelech gat him up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the people that were with him ; and Abim- elech took an axe in his hand, and cut down a bough from the trees, and took it [lifted it up], and laid it on his shoulder, and said unto the people that were with 49 liim. What ye have seen me do, make haste, and do as I have done. And all the people likewise cut down [off] every man his bough, and followed Abimelech, and put them to the hold, and set the hold on fire upon 3 them : so that [and] all the 00 men of the tower of Shechem died also, about a thousand men and women. Then went Abimelech to Thebez, and encamped against [laid siege to] Thebez, and took it. 51 But there was a strong tower within [in the midst of] the city, and thither tied all the men and women, and all they [the lords] of the city, and shut it to [after] them, 52 and gat them up to the top [roof] of the tower. And Abimelech came unto the tower, and fought against it, and went hard [approached] unto the door of the tower 53 to burn it with fire. And a certain woman cast a piece of a [cast an upper] mill- stone upon Abimelech's head, and all to [omit : all to] 4 brake his skull 6 [to pieces]. 54 Then he called hastily unto the young man his armour-bearer, and said unto him, Draw thy sword, and slay me [put me to death], that men say not of me, A woman 55 slew him. And his young man thrust him through, and he died. And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they departed every man unto his 56 place. Thus God rendered [caused to return] the wickedness of Abimelech, which 57 he did unto his father, in slaying his seventy brethren : And all the evil of the men of Shechem did God render [cause to return] upon their heads : and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. \l Ver. 44. — ^t^tPS : spread out, sc. in hostile array. The same word occurs ver. 33 ; and in both places seems to -ootrast the expanded form of a body of men freely advancing, with its contraction when lying in ambush. The verse is somewhat difficult. Dr. Cassel renders it as follows : " And Abimelech and the companies that were with him, spread themselves out. Part stood [took their stand] at the entrance of the gate of the city, and two companies threw them- selves on all that were in the field, and slew them." — Ta.] [2 Ver. 46. — rP"^¥. Tue meaning of this word is doubtful. Our author renders it Halle ; De Wette, Veslt, strong hold ; Keil suggests Zicinger (cf. arx, from arcto), citadel, fortress ; while according to Bertheau, ver. 49 (where he would render: and they put the boughs on the r"P™^, and infer thence that the place bearing this name was /oip|, "rather implies a cellar-like place, some sort of hollow. Cf. 1 Sam. xiii. 6, the only other passage where the word occurs, and where it is coiyoined with caves and clefts of the rocks." — Ta.] [3 Ver. 49. — E<"P .2 : Cassel, n vrith them, 1 ' i. e. the boughs. But this rendering will scarcely find favor. De Wette: "over them." i". e. the people in the ?"1^V. — Tr.] [4 Ver. 53. — " All to brake," is old English for "entirely brake." Cf. Webster, Did., under "all," adv. — Ta.) [6 Ver. 53. — "IP .'3 '2, from H /3 V2, is undoubtedly to be read *lj?ly3^2, which reading, according to Bex iieau and Keil, is found in the edition of it. Nora, Mantua, 1742-44. — Tr.] EXEOETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Vers. 42—44. The people went out into the Held. Sin is blind, and must be, for only repent- ance opens the eyes. The people of Shechem, not to silence it by persuading himself that the guilt tc which he shuts his own eyes is also unseen by others. He thinks only of sin and its pleasure, not of its punishment. The Shechemites have for- 1 gotten, to their own hurt, what Jotham told them. withstanding their treasonable practices, actually | The thorn-bush emiia fire, and consumes those who hink that the matter is now settled, and that Abim- despise it. Abimelech only tarries in his concealed eleeh is content with the banishment of Gaal. It height, until he has inspired the foolish Shechem- is a constant characteristic of the natural man, ites with confidence. With true Punic strategy, ±at he either does not hear his conscience, or seeks he allures them to the open fields, tlwre to attenr 154 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. to their labor, as if all were peace, and nothing more were to be feared. Caught in the snare, their retreat is cut off. One of Abimelech's com- panies holds the gate, while others deal destruction to all in the fields. Similar strategies are told of Hamilcar, the Carthaginian, against Agrigentum, and of Hannibal against Saguntum (Frontinus, lib. iii. 10, 1 ). Ver. 45. He destroyed the city and sowed it with salt. Notwithstanding Abimelech's sangui- nary disposition, it would be difficult to account for his savage treatment of Shechem, if we did not remember that the city stood in the covenant of Baal-berith with him. The very money that as- sisted him to the throne, had been taken from the temple of this god. Now, among oriental nations, as among others, infidelity to covenant obligations was the greatest of crimes. The God of Israel, also, who made his divine covenant with the nation, says (Dent. iv. 23) : " Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of Jehovah your God, which he made with you. For Jehovah your God is a consuming tire, a jealous God." He utters the threat (Lev. xxvi. 25): "I will bring the sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant." In the book of the prophet Ezek- iel (ch. xvii. 15) we read: " He hath broken the covenant, and shall he be delivered > " This covenant with Jehovah, Abimelech has desecrated in the most horrible manner. Does he fear no punishment for that transgression 2 But the natural man, who lightly breaks the covenant of his God, nevertheless claims the terrible right of punishing those who have failed in duty toward himself, with a severity greater than that threat- ened by God. The breach of a covenant born of blood and sin, is visited with vengeance like a " consuming tire." Shechem is razed to the ground, and salt is strewn over its site. The usual explanation of this proceeding, of which no other instance occurs, 1 is, that by it Abimelech in- tends to declare Shechem an unfruitful land, a land of salt, as it were (nn?J3). But this expla- nation, although accepted by all recent expositors, does not appear to be satisfactory. For to make tlie land unfruitful, he neither intends, nor, if he did, were he able ; for no one will think of such a salting as would actually bring about this result.' 2 He can only intend to say, that this city, being un- faithful to its covenants, and forgetful of its oaths, lias ceased to exist, and is never more to be known as a city. When Joshua inflicted a similar de- struction on Jericho, he swore that it should never be rebuilt (Josh. vi. 26). Abimelech makes the same declaration in the act of strewing salt; for salt is the symbol of an oath, just as among all na- tions, not excepting the dull tribes of Siberia, it was the symbol of covenants. The salt which he strewed over Shechem intimated both the cause and the perpetuity of the vengeance inflicted. A fate still worse, but less deserved, was suffered by 1 [In Scripture, the author means, of course. The fol- lowing instances in comparatively recent times, probably mere imitations of what from this passage is usually assumed to have been an ancient custom, are noted by Wordsworth : " When Milan was tiken in x. D. 1162, it was sown with lalt (Sigonius) ; and the house of Admiral Coligny. mur- dered in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, a. d. 1572, was. r>> .he command of Charles IX., king of France, sown with sal . "— Tk.) j [Wordsworth docs however: " Sowed it with salt, to OeFtroy its fertility, and to make it barren fcr ever, like Sclotn, comp. Pliny, xxxi. 7." But this idea is not at all ocve-^sar* to the common explana'ion (as given by Bertheau, the descendants of the Milesian Branchidse who had betrayed the treasures of the temple of Apollo, at Didymi, into the hands of Xerxes, and had ob- tained through him a city in Persia. Alexander, coming upon this city, gave it up to the vengeance of the Milesians in his army. These destroyed it to its very foundations, killed all the inhabitants, so that not a trace of them remained, and tore up the groves by their roots, so that, as Curtius says (vii. 5, 34), " vasta solitudo et sterilis humus Knquere- tur." Shechem's destruction was not so bad as that : and it was afterwards rebuilt (1 Kgs. xii. 25). Vers. 46-49. And the lords of the Tower of Shechem heard of it. Still more cowardly than that of the Shechemites, is the conduct of the men of the Tower of Shechem. They venture no resistance at all, but run for safety to the temple- asylum of El-Berith. The House of El, here men- tioned, cannot well be the same with the House of Baal hitherto spoken of. The matter probably stands thus : Under the covenant entered into by Israel and the heathen, both parties served the Covenant-Deity, the Israelites in the temple of El- Berith, the heathen in that of Baal-Berith. Aside from this difference of locality, the worship was perhaps identical ; and the covenant itself was al- ready a sin. It would however be an error, to suppose that during such times of apostasy all dis- tinction between Israel and the heathen ceased to exist. Abimelech still continued to be an Israel- ite : and the inhabitants of the Tower of Shechem probably expected to find greater security in the House of El-Berith than could be looked for in the asylum of a wholly heathen temple. The place to which they retired, is called n ,_ ]~! and is prob- ably a hall of the temple 3 (like ^5 >; ^> ustJ to tlenote a special part of the temple at Jerusalem). The sanctuary privileges of temples were very great among all nations ; and, as is well known with reference to the temple at Ephesus, were not seldom misused. In order to destroy Pausaniaa without violating the rights of sanctuary, the doors of the temple of Minerva, at Sparta, in which he had taken refuge, were built up, and the roof taken off " that under the open sky he might more quickly perish " (Corn. Xepos, Paus- ch. 5). Abimelech re- sorted to more terrible means. He ascended the neighboring wooded hill, Mount Zalmon — so named from its forest-shades, — and hewed off a multitude of boughs, himself being the first to swing the axe. (The plural, niCT^, stands for all the axes that were used.) These boughs were piled up about the building, and all its inmates perished in the flames. A like deed is related by Herodotus (iv. 164) of Arcesilaus : a number of Cyrenieans hav- ing taken refuge in a tower, he heaped wood around it, and burned them to death. It is a species of violence which, especially among the northern nations, has been practiced oftener than Keil, Bush) that the act was designed symbolically to turn the city into a sait-desert. Our author's explanation does not conflict with that of his predecessors, but rather com- pletes it. — Te.] 3 The extent of the temple building which this implies is not unparalleled. The temple of Diana in Samos wai so large as to afford sanctuary to the 300 Coreyraean boyi whom Periander dispatched to Alyathes. king of L}dia. for eunuchs, and yet leave room for choirs of Samian youth M execute certain religious dances before them, ingeniously invented as a means of conveying food to them (Herod, iii 48). CHAPTER IX. 42-57. 156 jnce, — as, for instance, by king Olaf (Tryggves- son), who burned in this manner all the warlocks of his land (Snorro, Heimgskringla, Saga vi. ch. 69). In connection with these events, a number of topographical references to the region of Shechem, which prove that the narrator was an eye-witness, but which although alluding to permanent land- marks, as mountain, valley, and forest, are yet not easily traced. Migdal (Tower of) Shechem, how- ever, may be confidently assumed to be the same as Beth (House of) Millo (vers. 6, 20). Abime- lech's wrath against it is thus readily understood ; for its inhabitants had taken part in his election at the Monument-Oak, and had now doubtless made common cause with those of Lower Shechem. For it is perhaps safe to assume that the places were related to each other as Upper and Lower Shechem. Migdal Shechem, as the Acropolis, was a little city by itself, and might have ventured on further resistance ; but its people preferred to pray for mercy, which Abimelech was not the man to exercise. Vers. 50-5-3. And Abimelech -went to Thebez. Since the course of the narrative leads to the in- ference that Abimelech's march upon this city formed part of his vengeance on Shechem, its lo- cation must be sought for at a very short distance from that place. The opinion of recent expositors and travellers (Robinson, Berggren, cf. Hitter, xv. 44S [Gage's Transl. ii. 341]), who identify Thebez with the modern Tubas at the head of Wady el- Malih, does not therefore appear to be altogether certain. To me, Tubas has appeared more suit- able for Tabbath (ch. vii. 22). Thebez must have been closely connected with Shechem. Since, in accordance with Jotham's parable, the two miser- able associates, Abimelech and Shechem. perish by each other, and since Abimelech finds his end at Thebez, the inhabitants of the latter must have been among those who at first patronized Abime- lech. Thebez was built in circular form, like the Grecian Thebaj, for it had its Tower in the centre. Its inhabitants preferred desperate battle to mercy ; but they were already on the verge of destruction, when Abimelech {"inter confertissimos violentissime dimiccms," righting furiously in the thickest of the crowd, as Justin says of Pyrrhus) was struck on the head by a mill-stone, which crushed his skull. It appears that the inhabitants of Thebez were prepared for a lengthy siege, since along with pro- visions they had also brought a hand-mil] into the tower. Such a mill consisted of a movable upper (23~!> wagon, Eng. runner, Germ. Laufer), and of an immovable, nether stone (i"l\Pinri PH5), on which the other turned. The duty of grinding generally devolved on women. Abimelech falls, as the Jewish expositors say, by a stone, as on a etone he had murdered his brothers. Other usurp- er^ also have met with the same fate. When in 1190, impious men sought to destroy the poor Jews, who had taken refuge in the royal castle at York, one of the ringleaders of the mob fell, crushed by a stone (Milman, Hist, of the Jews, iii. 242). Ver. 54. That men say not, A woman slew him. Poof Abimelech, in the moment of his fall, thinks of nothing save that his death will be iscribed to a woman ; an end which has at all imes be»n considered inglorious. To his latest oreath, men were to be deceived by appearances. for though his attendant gave him the finishing stroke, it was nevertheless the woman that killed him. And, as 2 Sam. xi. 21 shows, he was not able to avert the dreaded infamy. Still, this utter- ance also goes to show the warlike spirit of the fallen man. Energy, valor, and iron strength were inherited characteristics of the son, not un worthy of his heroic father. He towers, at all events, far above the cowardly Shechemites, the braggart Gaal, and the intriguing Zebul. If am- bition and unrestrained fury had not stupefied his conscience; if, like Gideon, he had learned to serve and to suffer; had faithfully tarried the call of his God, and had not sought to found by the sword what only God's Spirit can establish, it might have been said of him, as of the noblest : "he judged, delivered his people." As it was, he is never even named by the title " King " which he arrogated to himself; and Jewish tradition exalts the heathen king Abimelech of Abraham's time, above the valiant son of Gideon. Vers. 55-57. "When the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead. In Abimelech's death, also, we may read the fate of tyrants. Hij attendant thrusts him through without hesitation, and the dead chieftain is forsaken by all. The interest created by his person and his wages, is gone. How much more beautiful is the otherwise so tragical death of Saul ! His attendant, influ- enced by reverence, refuses to kill him, and finally follows him in voluntary death. The songs of David celebrate his memory : Abimelech's enitaph is his brother Jotham's curse ! HOMII.ETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Compare on p. 147. [Bp. Hall: the just successions of the re- venges of God ! Gideon's ephod is punished with the blood of his sons ; the blood of his sons is shed by the procurement of the Shechemites ; the blood of the Shechemites is shed by Abimelech ; the blood of Abimelech is spilt by a woman. The re- taliations of God are sure and just. — The same : The pursued Shechemites fly to the house of their god Berith : now they are safe ; that place is at once a fort and a sanctuary. Whither should we fly in our distress, but to our God ? And now this refuge shall teach them what a god they have served. — The same : Now, according to the prophecy of Jotham, a fire goes out of the bram- ble, and consumes these cedars, and their eternal flames begin in the house of their Berith. The confusion of wicked men rises out of the false deities which they have doted on. — Henky What inventions men have to destroy one an other! — The same: About 1,000 men and women perished in these flames, many of whom, probably, were no way concerned in the quarrel, nor meddled with either side ; men of factious tur- bulent spirits, perish not alone in their iniquity, but involve many more, that follow them in their simplicity, in the same calamity with them. — Wordsworth : Many powerful enemies of God and of his people, afte'r victorious acts of oppres- sion, have been overthrown at last by weak instru- ments, even bv women : Sisera, by DeNjrah and Jael; Haman, by Esther ; Holofernes, b) T udith; and the Church," by the power of the Seed, over- comes the world. — Bush : The end of Abimelech suggests the remark, 1. That they who thirst for blood, God will at last give them their own blood to drink. 2. The weak, in God's hand, can confound the mightv ; and those who walk in pride. He is able to abase. 3. They who in life consulted only their pride and ambition, will usually die as the) 156 THE 500K OF JUDGES. lived, more solicitous that their honor should be preserved on earth, than that their souls be saved from hell. (4.) The methods proud men take to se- cure a great name, often only serve to perpetuatt their infamy. — Taj SIXTH SECTION. TWO JUDGES IN QUIET, PEACEFUL TIMES ! TOLA OF ISSACHAB AND JAIB TEE OILEADITE. The Judgeships of Tola and Jair. Chapter X. 1-5. 1 And after Abimelech there arose to defend [deliver] Israel, Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar ; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim. 2 And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir. 3 And after him arose Jair, a [the] Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and two years. 4 And he had thirty sons [,] that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, [those] which are called Havoth-jair [the circles of Jair] unto this day, which are in 5 the land of Gilead. And Jair died, and was buried in Camon. Jerubbaal ? " The names Tola and Puah, as borne by sons of Issachar, are already found in Gen. xlvi. 13. They became established in the families of that tribe, and frequently recur. It was just so in German families, especially of the Middle Ages. Particular names were peculiar to particu- lar families. (Instead of HS'lS, Puah, we have H^f, Puvah, in Gen. xlvi. 13 and Num. xxvi. 23, though not in all MSS. 1 Chr. vii. 1 has HhWS, Puah.) These names indicate a certain industry, which, it may be inferred, must have been carried on in Issachar. Tola (3771FI) is the Kermes- worm (coccus ilicis), from which the crimson, or deep scarlet color (^tS nS^l-l), of which we read so much in connection with the tabernacle, was derived ; and Puah is Chaldee for rubia tincto- rum, or madder red (cf. Buxtortf", sub voce). We shall not err, perhaps, if we conjecture that the third name also is added because of its agree- ment in meaning with the two preceding. For Dodo, if we derive it from "PfTj dud, instead of "Vn, dod, cousin, means "pot," or "vessel," a prominent utensil in the preparation of dyes. 1 Names of this kind, it is well known, are not un- frequent in the East. Hammer (Namen der Amber) even adduces the name Fihr, which signifies the stone used for grinding perfumes. He dwelt in Shamir, on Mount Ephraim. The centre of his judicial activity was permanently fixed in Ephraim. As to Shamir, this name (on its import, compare my treatise Schtimir, Erf. 1856) may be identified with Shemer, name of the owner of the hill on which king Omri afterwards built Shomeron, Samaria (1 Kgs. xvi. 24). Vers. 3-5. And after him arose Jair, the 1 On the vessels excavated in the sandstone, which Wilde, Voyage in the Mediterranean, Dublin, 1840, ii ] 48 ff »ere used in **]e preparation of the purple dye at Tyre, see quoted by Ritter, xvii. 372. EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 1. And after Abimelech there arose Tola, the son of Puah, the son of Dodo. The record of this man's life contains no stirring ac- tions, like those of Abimelech, but tells of some- thing better. He "delivered" and "judged" Israel. This, however, always presupposes re- newed consciousness of sin on the part of Israel, and return to the living God. It is probable that the horrible deeds and the terrible end of Abime- lech and Shechem made such an impression upon the conscience of Israel, as to open the way for de- liverance. Under this view, the words " after Abime- lech " receive a deeper significance ; and the rea- son why the history of that personage was so copi- ously narrated becomes still more evident. That which at other times was the result of terrors from without, is this time brought abi ut by the civil catastrophe within. The deliverer's name was " Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo." The mention of father and grandfather both, is unusual, and occurs in the case of no other Judge. It was therefore nat- ural, that already at an early date, and also, it would seem, by the Masora, " ben Dodo " was taken appellatively, as meaning " Son of his Un- cle or Cousin." The " his" in that case must re- fer to Abimelech ; and Tola would have to be re- garded as the son of a brother or a sister of Gideon. The son of Gideon's brother, he cannot have been (although this is just the relation indicated by an- cient expositions, cf. Xhe-jrarpadeAtpovot' the LXX.); for he belonged not to Manasseh, but to Issachar. If ;i >i*ter of Gideon had married a man of the tribe of Issachar, this person might indeed have be<*n eallrd an uncle (dod) of Abimelech. But if such were the relation, is it not more likely that the writer would have said, " Son of the sister of CHAPTER X. 1-5. 157 tfileadite. Just as Tola was a family-name in [s&ofhar, so was Jair in Gilead. The ancestor of this Jair was the son of Manasseh, whose name was associated with the acquisition of the greatest part of the territory in possession of the eastern half-tribe of Manasseh. Machir, it is stated, Num. x.xxii. 39-41 , took Gilead, and " Jair, son of Manas- aeh," the " circles," which were afterwards called the ' ' circles of Jair." It has already been pointed out in connection with our explanation of the name Hiv- ite (Chivi), that chavah, (plur. chavoth, Eng. Ver. Havoth), means "circle," from the form in which those villages to which it is applied were laid out (see on ch. iii. 3). It would, therefore, involve a twofold error to explain Havoth-Jair, as modern expositors do, by making it analogous to such Ger- man names &3 Eisleben and Aschersleben ; for, in the first place, chavah does not mean " life " here ; and, secondly, in such names as the above, the German teben does not mean vita but mansio. By these "circles of Jair" we are evidently to understand the whole of the present western Hau- ran, reaching as far as Jebel Hauran, for Kenath (the present Kenawath) is reckoned among the sixty cities of Jair (1 Chr. ii. 23 ; 1 Kgs. iv. 13). Wetzstein's conjecture [Hauran, p. 101), that these cities are only sixty tent-villages of the nomadic order, is by no means to be accepted ; for the books of Kings and Chronicles are conversant with great cities, with walls and brazen bars, in the region that " pertained to Jair." The objection that if such cities had existed, the Assyrians could not have subjected the two and a half tribes so readily, is not borne out. In the first place, because the ac- counts of this conquest are very brief and scanty ; and in the second place, because the history of all ages teaches us, that when the Spirit has left a peo- ple, neither fortresses nor " steep heights " avail to detain the enemy. At all events, the Assyrian suc- cesses do not prove that the architectural remains of the Hauran cannot in their elements be referred back to the time of the Amorites and Israelites. Without at present entering into any discussion of this subject, we hold the contrary to be highly probable, even though, at the places which would here come into consideration, more recent build- ings bear the stamp of more recent times. Indeed, it seems to me, that just as it was possible to iden- tify Kenath, Salcan, Golan, etc., so the name Jair also is in existence to this day. I find it in the name of the city called " Aere " by Burckhardt, "Eera" by Seetzen, and " Ire " by Wetzstein. It is still the seat of an influential (l)ruse) chieftain. Ritter (xv. 944) warns us against confounding it with the Aera which the Itinerary of Antonine puts in the place of the present Szanamein ; but it were more proper to say that the repeated occur- rence of the name, should be regarded as evidence that the whole region was once called " Jair's cir- cles." The narrator's remark that the cities of Jair " are called Havoth Jair unto this day," has been sup- posed to conflict with the statement of the Penta- teuch, wherein this name is derived from the first Jair (cf. Hengst., Pent. ii. 193). With regard to some other names of places, such an exchange of 1 fin the text, Dr. Ca9sel renders anb by " those,' 1 rhile here he writes " of those." The first rendering may oe defended, but the second is as doubtful as it is unneces- sary. If the intention be to avoid ail appearance of con- Jict with the Pentateuch, this is just as effectually reached by the unimpeachable version of De Wette : Man nennet Ur Jait't Diijfej />.■.«. nuf diften Tag — they are called Jair's one derivation for another, may perhaps be made out ; but here it is quite impossible that one should have taken place. The narrator, who keeps the Pentateuch constantly before his eyes, designs only to remind the reader of what was there stated. In themselves, his words would have been entirely in- sufficient to explain the origin of the designation Havoth-Jair, seeing the discourse was about " cities " (O v 7^?). Moreover, the number of these cities, at a later date, was reckoned at sixty, whereas here mention is made of only thirty. The sentence is indeed peculiar on account of the double CH7; for which reason a few codices read it but once. But the word does not bear the same sense in both cases. The second CH7, introduces an explana- tory clause ; so that the meaning of the sentence is this : " thirty cities belonged to them (3(7^' °J those (Crib) 1 which (the relative "ItTN is fre- quently omitted) are called Havoth-Jair unto this day." The closing words of this sentence ("unto this day") are evidently a mere verbal citation from Deut. iii. 14 ; for no other occasion exists here, where the question is only of Jair's distin- guished position, for their use. Jair, by his strength and virtue, had diffused his family over one half of the entire district, with which his an cient progenitor had long ago associated his own name. And he had thirty sons, who rode on thirty asses, and had thirty cities. The paronomasia between n"HJ37, asses, and the rare form C'TJV. for " cities," authorizes the conjecture that we have here a sentence from a song of praise in honor of Jair and his prosperous fortune. That which is celebrated is, not that he possessed thirty asses — what would that be to a man who had thirty cities ? — but that he was the father of thirty sons, all of whom enjoyed the honor and distinc- tion implied in the statement that they rode upon asses. They rode, that is to say, not merely as men of quality — the usual explanation, — but as chiefs, governors, and judges. It was peculiar to such persons especially that they made use of the ass, as the animal of peace. Their very appear- ance on this animal, was expressive of their calling to reconcile and pacify. The sons of Jairs judged their thirty cities. This is something not given to all rich fathers ; it was a happiness which not even Samuel the Priest was destined to enjoy. Jair was buried in Camon, doubtless one of the thirty cities of Hauran. The farther and more thorough investigation is carried in the country- east of the Jordan, the more instructive will its re- sults become. Perhaps we may take the Sahwed el-Kamh, on Wetzstein's map, not far from Ire (Jair), for the Camon of the text. However little may be told of many of the Judges of Israel, of their place of burial information is given. The whole land was to be, as it were, a, memorial hall, by which the people are reminded of the men whc brought help in distress, when they repented, and which may also teach them to know that all men, Villages unto this day. -lS~ip^ is the indeterminate 3d per. plural, and (as is remarked by Bertheau and Keil} doee not at all affirm that the name was now first given. CH; is the dative of that to which the name is given, and stand* first for the sake of emphasis ; " they had thirty cities precisely those cities people call Havath-Jair." — Ttt.J 156 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. however valiant, die, and that only the one, eter- nal God survives in deathless existence. But how inadequate monuments and sepulchres are to preserve energy and piety among the people, that the following section once more teaches. HOM1LETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Two judges in times of quiet. After the terrible storm, comes a calm. For half a century Tola and Jair judge Israel, without committing frightful wrongs, or performing enviable deeds. The great- ness of Gideon's times, and the baseness of Abime- lech's, are both exhausted. An unknown, but happy, generation lives and works in peace under pious Judges. No enemy threatens, the word of God is quick and active, the country prospers, commerce flourishes. A quiet life is rich in seeds. Amid the silence of repose, the germs of spring prepare themselves. It is a type of the Kingdom in the future, when through the eternal calm only the anthems of adoring choirs will be heard, like the voices of nightingales resounding through the night. So, it is not given to every one to live a quiet peaceful life, undisturbed by political and social alarms. Let him who enjoys it, not envy the fame with which publicity surrounds great names. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength says the prophet (Isa. xxx. 15). Starke : To govern a nation well in times of peace, is not less praiseworthy than to carry on wars and overcome enemies. — Lisco : Tola saved his people, not indeed by wars and victims, but by right and justice, by the concord and peace which he restored in Israel. [Scott : The removal of hardened sinners, by a righteous God, often makes way for reformation and public tranquillity, and proves a great mercy to those who survive. — Wordsworth: The time in which they |Y. e. Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon] judged Israel amounted to seventy years, but the Holy Spirit does not record a single act done by any one of them ; and thus He leads us to look forward and upward to another life, and to that heavenly chronicle which is written with indelible characters in the memory of God Him- self, and is ever open to his divine eye. — Ta.] SEVENTH SECTION. THE OPPRESSION OP THE MIDIAKITES. JEPHTHAH, THE JUDQB OP THE TOW. Renewed apostasy and punishment. Awakening and repentance. Chapter X. 6-16. 6 And the children [sons] of Israel did evil again [continued to do evil] in the sight of the Lord [JehovahJ, and served [the] Baalim, and [the] Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria [Aram], and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children [sons] of Amnion, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the 7 Lord [Jehovah], and served not Him. And the anger of the Lord [Jehovah] was hot [kindled] against Israel, and he sold [delivered] them into the hands of the Phil- 8 istines, and into the hands of the children [sons] of Ammon. And that year they vexed and oppressed the children [sons] of Israel eighteen years, 1 all the chil- dren of Israel that were on the other side Jordan in the land of the Amorites, 9 which is in Gilead. Moreover, the children [sons] of Ammon passed over [the] Jordan, to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house 10 of Ephraim : so that Israel was sore distressed.' 2 And the children [sons] of Israel cried unto the Lord [Jehovah], saying, We have sinned against thee, both [namely], because we have forsaken our God, and also [omit : also ; read : have] served [the] 11 Baalim. And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto the children [sons] of Israel, Did not / deliver you from the Egyptians [from Mizraim. i. e. Egypt], and from the Amorites, 12 from the children [sons] of Ammon, and from the Philistines? 8 The Zidonians also [And when the Sidonians], and the Amalekites, and the Maonites did oppress 13 you ; [,] and ye cried to me, and [then] I delivered you out of their hand. Yet ye have forsaken me, and served other gods : wherefore I will deliver you no more 14 Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen ; let them deliver you in the time 15 of your tribulation [distress]. And the children [sons] of Israel said unto the Lord [Jehovah], We have sirned : do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thef ; CHAPTER X. 6-16. 159 I C deliver us only, we pray thee, this day. And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the Lord [Jehovah] : and his soul was grieved for fen dured no longer] the misery of Israel. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [I Ver. 8. — Dr. Cassel translates this clause as follows (reading r"T3*?J3, instead of n^^S, see the Continental? T T - ' T T - ' below) : rf And they vexed and plagued the sons of Israel, as this y«ar, eighteen years long," etc. The better way is to repeat the idea of the verbs after" eighteen years," thus : ft And they broke and crushed the sons of Israel in that year; eighteen years did they oppress all the sons of Israel who were beyond the Jordan," etc. VV^ and t^H couie from the same root, and are synonyms used to strengthen the idea. — Te.] [2 Ver. 9. — Literally : " and it became exceedingly strait to Israel," cf. ch. ii. 15. On the use of the fern, gender (H^PH, from "H^l in impersonal constructions, see Green, Gram., 243, 3. — TR-] [3 Ver. 11. — For Dr. Cassel's rendering of this verse, see the comments on it. The sentence is anacoluthic in the original ; the construction being changed at the beginning of the next verse. — Tb.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 6. Ajid the sons of Israel continued to do the evil in the sight of Jehovah. Sin and forgiveness are the hinges of all history, especially of the history of Israel, including in that term the spiritual Israel of modern times. They follow each other like night and morning. As soon as the prayers and faith of a great man cease from among the people, and the earth is heaped over his grave, the new generation breaks loose, like an unrestrained youth. After Jair's death, idolatry spreads far and wide. Israel plays the harlot, in the east with Aram, in the west with the Phoeni- cians, in the southeast with Moab and Amnion, in the southwest with the Philistines. Those gods are named first, whose people have already op- pressed Israel, and have been turned back by men of God. First, the Baalim and Ashtaroth, whose service Gideon especially, the Jerubbaal, overthrew (eh. vi. 25) ; next, the gods of Aram, whose king was defeated by the hero Othniel ; then, the gods of Zidon, the mention of whom — since Zidon, the metropolis, stood for all Phoenicia, i, e. Canaan — reminds us of the victory of Deborah and Barak over Jabin, king of Canaan ; and finally, the gods of Moab, smitten by Ehud. Israel served these gods, although they were unable to stand before the eternal God. And beside these, it now also serves the gods of the Ammonites and Philistines. These also will first cause it to experience oppres- sion ; but then, though only after long penance, become the occasion of divine displays of grace and mercy to Israel. In truth, this " young " Israel serves all gods, except only the living and the true. It runs after every superstition, every delusion, tve^y sensual gratification, every self-deception, but forgets the truth and peace of God. It seeks false friends, and forsakes the true. Vers. 7-10. And He delivered them into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the sons of Amnion. As far as their sufferings and conflicts with the western nations are con- cerned, these are related subsequently under the his- tory of Samson. The chastisement which they ex- perience by means of Amnion, leads the way. This falls especially upon the people east of the "Jordan, the neighbors of Ammon ; and the enervating and 1 [On this translation, see note 1 under (t Textual and 3rammatieal." Dr. Cassel evidently takes S^nPT H^tt 1 ■ t ■* T ( this vear," to mean the first year of the oppression. 0th- weakening effects of sin and unbelief become clearly manifest in the fact that one of the most valiant of the Israelitish tribes, Gilead, the home, as it were, of heroes, is not able successfully to oppose the enemy. Israel is pressed, plagued, plundered ; " as in the first year, 1 so through eighteen years " (for n3Q?a read J"T31|>3). The inflictions to which they were obliged to submit one year, the spoliation of their harvests, the plundering of their villages, the imposition of tribute, are repeated year after year, eighteen times. The manifest weakness of Israel, the dismemberment of the na- tion, so that one tribe finds no help from any other (ch. xii. 2), emboldens the oppressor. Ammon passes over the Jordan, and attacks Israel in the heart of its most powerful tribes, without meeting resistance. But how came Israel into such a con- dition of disruption ? Whence this inability to unite its forces against the overbearing enemy ! This question has already been answered in ver. 6. The people has forsaken the one God, and worships many idol gods. Falling away from the national faith, it has fallen into the disintegration of egoism. The tribes are divided by their special J idols, their respective evil consciences, and by local selfishness. Only one thing is common to all,— despondency and powerlessness ; for the ideal spirit of the theocratic people, the source of union and courage, is wanting. Hence, after long dis- tress, they ail share in a common feeling of repen- tance. They come now to the tabernacle, long neglected — for while attending at near and local idol temples, they have forgotten to visit the Hous& of God — and say : we have sinned. Vers. 11, 12. And Jehovah said to the sons of Israel, Not from Mizraim (Egypt), and from the Amorite, from the sons of Ammon, and from the Philistines ! It is the Priest who an- swers the people, in the name of God, through Urim and Tbummim, as in ch. i. 1 . It has been observed that in ver. 6 seven different national idols are enumerated as having been served by Israel, and that in vers. U and 12 seven nations are named, out of whose hand Israel had been delivered. The number seven is symbolical of consummation and completion. All false gods, whom Israel has fool- ishly served, are included with those that are likely. Hitherto, apostasy and servitude have always fol- lowed the death of the Judge. If the present case were an exception, the narrator would certainly have noted it as such. The use of the word " this," would perhaps be •rs (Usher, Bush, etc.) make it the last year both of the j quiUi plai[li jf m could haTe a g i lnce at the sources from ippresnion and of Jair's life. But this is altogether un- WQich the Darrator here draws. — Te.) 160 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. n.imed in ver. 6, from the northeast and southeast, the northwest and southwest. Such, undoubtedly, is likewise the sense uf vers. 11 and 12. To Israel's prayer for deliverance from Amnion in the land of the Amorite, and from the Philistines, God re- plies, reproachfully : that Israel bears itself as if it had sinned for the first time, and asked deliverance in consideration of its repentance. But, says God, from of old I have liberated you from all the na- tions that surround you, — from Egypt first, and from every nation that troubled you — east, west, north, and south, — in turn. The voice of God speaks not in the style of narrative, but in the tone of impassioned discourse. Under general descriptions, it comprehends, with rhetorical vigor, special occurrences. It introduces the Ammonites, Philistines, and Amorites, immediately after Egypt, because these nations are now in question. Have I not already, since your exodus from Egypt, given you peace, even from these very Philistines (Ex. xiii. 17), Ammonites (Num. xxi. 24). and Amorites (Num. xxi. 21 ff) > Thereupon, the discourse passes over into another construction ; for from the ancient part it turns now to events of more recent times. In those early times, when Moses led you, you saw no oppression, but only victory. Later, when Zi- donians, Amalekites, and Maonites oppressed you, I helped you at your cry. All three names in- dicate only in a general way, the quarters from which the more recent attacks had come. Since Joshua's death, Israel had experienced only one attack from the north and northeast, all others had come from the east and southwest. That from the north, \ias the act of Jabin, king of Canaan. It is true, that in the narrative of Barak's victory, the name Zidonians does not occur ; but Zidon is in emphatic language the representative, the mother, as she is called, of Phoenicia, i. e. Canaan. In a like gen- eral sense do Amalek and Maon here stand for those eastern tribes from whose predatory incur- sions Israel had suffered; for Amalek, the earliest and most implacable enemy of Israel, assisted both Midian and Moab in their attacks. Thus also, the mention of Maon becomes intelligible. Modern ex- positors (even Keil) consider the Septuagint read- ing MaSiaji (Midian) to be the correct one. We cannot adopt this view ; for this reason, if no other, that difficult readings are to be preferred to plain ones. Maon is the name of the southeast- ern wilderness, familiar to us from David's history. The name has evidently been preserved in the Maon of Arabia Petraea (cf. Ritter, xiv. 1005). Amalek and Maon represent the Bedouin tribes, who from this quarter attacked Israel. Every point from which Israel could be assailed has thus been included; for the first three nations, Philis- tines, Ammonites, and Amorites, range from the southwest to the northeast, just as the other three, Zidonians, Amalekites, and Maonites, reach from the northwest to the southeast. Vers, 13-16. Go, and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen. From all nations, says the voice of God, have I liberated you. It has been demonstrated to you that I am your true De- liverer, and that all the tribes round about you are your enemies, especially when they perceive that you have forsaken Me. Every part of your land teaches this lesson; and yet you apostatize always anew. I have chosen you without any merit on your part, to be a great nation, and you have left Me ; go, therefore, in this your time of need, and get you help from the idol gods whom vou have chosen in my place. This answer cuts ihe sharper, because the idols to whose service Is- rael apostatized, were identical with the very na- tions by whom they were oppressed. For every idol was national or local in its character. God speaks here with a sorrow like that of a human father who addresses an inconsiderate child. Noth ing but a sharp goad of reprehension and threat- ening will drive it to serious and thorough consid- eration. But though inconsiderate, it neverthe- less continues to be a child. The father, thougL for the present he disown it, cannot in good earnest intend to abandon it altogether. And, in truth, Israel did not miscalculate. When they not only confessed their sins, but even wdthout any visible assistance, imitated Gideon, and in faith remc ed their idol altars, the anger of their Father was at an end. The phrase 1tt??3 ~ , ?M^13, elsewhere employed of men (cf. Num. xxi. 4, where the peo- ple find the way of the wilderness too long), is here applied with artless beauty to Israel's tender Father. " His soul became too short " for the misery of Israel, i. e. the misery of the penitent people endured too long for Him. He could no longer bring himself to cherish anger against them. The love of God is no rigid human consistency: it is eternal freedom. Man's parental love is its image, albeit an image obscured by sin. The par- able of the Prodigal Son, especially, gives us some conception of the wonderful inconsistency of God, by which after chastisement He recalls the penitent sinner to himself. Nothing but the freedom of God's love — ever right as well as free — secures the world's existence. Love — as only God loves ; love, which loves for God's sake ; love, that par- dons the penitent offender seven and seventy times, — is true consistency. Put away the strange gods, and the withered stock will become green again. This Israel experiences anew, and first in Gilead. This notice, however brief, of the removal of all strange gods, and of Israel's return to Jehovah, ia the necessary, intimately connected, introduction to the narrative of the deeds of Jephthah. It is in- dispensable to the understanding of his victory and suffering. It explains, moreover, why in the nar- rative concerning him, only the name Jehovah ap- pears. It teaches us to consider the nature and measure of that lite in which God, once lost but found again, reigns and rules. HOMILETICAb AND PRACTICAL. Apostasy and Repentance. Neither Deborah's jubilant song of triumph, nor Gideon's exulting trumpet notes, could secure succeeding generations of Israel against renewed apostasy. It reappeared even after a season of quiet piety. But equally sure was the coming of divine judgments. They came from all sides, in ever-growing severity and magnitude. The gods of the heathen brought no help, — for they were nothing ; and yet for their sake had Israel betrayed its living God. Then Israel began seriously to reflect. They not merely wept, they did works of true repentance. And whenever, bv prayer and actions, they call upon their merciful God, He, like a tender father, cannot withstand them. He hears and answers. Not so do men act toward each other ; and yet they arc called on to walk in the footsteps of Christ. What wonder that men find their kindness ill re- quited, when God experiences a similar treatment ! lint how then dare they cherish anger, when be- sought for reconciliation ! If God was moved CHAPTER X. 17,18. 161 how can we remain untouched? Anil yetgrudge- bearing is a characteristic against which even pious Christians bear no grudge. The sinless God tor- gives, and gives ever anew, — and witnesses of God, men of 'theological pursuits, cherish ill-will and rancor lor years ' " How well, my friend, in God thou livest, Appears from how thy debtor thou forgivest." Starke : Men are very changeable and incon- stant, and prone to decline from the right way ; neither sufficiently moved by kindness, nor in- fluenced by punishment. — The same : True re- pentance consists not in words but in deeds. — Ijisco : Israel confesses its guilt and ill-desert and gives itself wholly up to God's will and right eons chastening ; yet, full of faith, asks for mer- ciful, albeit unmerited, deliverance. — Gerlach : That the Lord first declares that He will no longer help Israel, afterwards, however, takes compassion on them and makes their cause his own, is a rep- resentation which repeats itself frequently in the Old Testament. Each of its opposite elements is true and consistent with the other, as soon as we call to mind that God, notwithstanding his eter- nity and unchangeableneis, lives with and loves his people in time, and under human forms and conditions. Repentance followed by energy, concord, and mutual confidence. Chapter X. 17, 18. 17 Then [And] the children [sons] of Atnmon were gathered together, and en- camped in Gilead. And the children [sons] of Israel assembled themselves to- 18 gether, and encamped in Mizpeh [Mizpah]. And the people and princes [the people (namely) the chief's] of Gilead said one to another, What man is he [Who is the man] that will [doth] begin to fight against the children [sons] of Ammon ? he shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. exegetical and doctrinal. The call of Gideon to be a deliverer took place just when the national distress was at its greatest height, and Midian had entered on a new expedi- tion of pillage and plunder. A like coincidence marked the present crisis. The sons of Amnion were just making a new incursion into Gilead, when they met with a new spirit. The signature of apostasy and sin, is discewd and weakness, despon- dency and self-seeking, issuing in failure and dis- aster, whenever action be undertaken. The sign of conversion and true penitence is concord and con- fidence, leading, by God's assistance, to victory. Ver. 1 7 . And the sons of Amnion were gath- ered together .... the sons of Israel also assembled themselves. The phrase " sons of Is- rael " does not always include all the tribes. The men of any single tribe may be so designated. The narrator uses the expression here, however, in or- der to intimate that though Gilead alone actually engages in the war it is nevertheless done as Is- rael, according to the mind and spirit of the whole nation. As soon as Israel repents, the collective national spirit, the consciousness of national unity through the calling of God, reawakes in each of the tribes. The localities at which the respective armies are said to have assembled and prepared for the conflict, will be considered under ch. xi. 29. Ver. 18. And the body of the nobles of Gil- 1 [Dr Cassel evidently takes D^il as Stat, const. Scarcely correct. First, because of the article (cf. Gefl. 3ram. 119, 2); and, secondly, because QV never stands 11 ead said. The hitherto cowed Israelites assembled themselves ; but that was not all : they were more- over united in all they did. The narrative says expressly ~^7? ^J? E3JH, " the people of the nobles of Gilead," i. e. all, without exception. 1 No envious, self-seeking voice of protest or dissent was heard. In times in which distress is recognized with real repentance, private interests cease to gov- ern. People then begin to honor truth and actual merit. No deference is then paid to personal vanity, family connections, or wealth; but, all by- views and self-seeking being set aside, he is sought after who renders service. The nobles of Gilead could not more clearly indicate their new temper, than by unitedly promising to subordinate them- selves to him who begins to render the banners of Israel once more victorious, as their head. It is to be noted that they say, '' whoso beginntth to fight against the sons of Ammon." In him who first again gains an advantage over the enemy in battle, it will be manifest that God is with him. He, accordingly, is to be, not what Gideon's legions desired him to become, their ^tt'O, ruler, nor what the sinful people of Shechem made of Abimeleth, their 'iT!?P, king, but their B7M"\ leader. Him, who conquers with God, they desire to follow unanimously, as a common head. And this one soon appeared. for the mere notion of totality. It is better to take ^""l^? IV /D as standing in apposition to DVH ; "the people (namely) the chiefs of Gilead," i. e. the people through theb chiefe, as represented by them. — Tft.] 162 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. The previous history and exile of Jephthah. His recall by the elders of Gilead. Chapter XL 1-11. 1 Now [And] Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour [a valiant hero], 2 and he was the son of an harlot : and Gilead begat Jephthah. And Gilead's wife bare him sons ; and his [the] wife's sons grew up, and they thrust [drove] out Jephthah, and said unto him. Thou shalt not inherit in our father's house ; for 3 thou art the son of a strange [another] woman. Then [And] Jephthah tied from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob : and there were gathered [there gath- ered themselves] vain men [lit. empty men, i. «. adventurers] 1 to Jephthah, and went out 4 with him. And it came to pass in process of [after a considerable] time, that the 5 children [sons] of Amnion made war against [with] Israel. And it was so, that when the children [sons] of Amnion made war against [with] Israel, the elders of 6 Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob : And they said unto Jephthah Come, and be our captain, that we may [and let us] fight with the children [sonsj 7 of Amnion. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father's house ? and why are ye come unto me now when 8 ye are in distress ? And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and light against the children 9 [sons] of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. And Jeph- thah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home [back] again to fight against the children [sons] of Ammon, and the Lord [Jehovah] deliver them 10 before me. shall I [then I will] be your head ? [.] And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The Lord [Jehovah] be witness [lit. hearer] between us, if we 11 do not so according to thy words [word]. Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people' 2 made [placed] him [for a] head and captain over them: and Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord [Jehovah] in Mizpeh [Miz- pah]. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. rl Ver. 3 — D*p^H, Dr. Cassel here (cf. ch. Ix. 4) renders, lots Leuu, loose, unsettled persons. In his article on « Jephthah ! * in Herzog's Real-Enryk/opd'lic t vi. 466, he describes them as — * people who had nothing to lose. Tha character and condition of such persons is more definitely described in 1 Sam. xxii. 2, where distressed persons, embar- rassed debtors, and men of wild dispositions, are said to have attached themselves to the fugitive David." To prevent erroneous inferences, it is necessary to add the next sentence : « But that Jephthah, like David, engaged in marauding expeditions, cannot be proved." — Tr.1 T2 Ver. 11. — DVn Dr. Cassel : Gesammtheit — « the collective body," — evidently with reference to his previous L T T rendering in ch. x. 18. Cf. note 1, p. 161. — Tb..] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. The story of Jephthah is one of the most re- markable episodes of the Sacred Scriptures. But al the same time it is one of those episodes which, from being too exclusively considered in the charac- ter of disconnected fragments, have been subjected both anciently and in modern times, to the most sin- gular misapprehensions and distortions. It gives the moral likeness of an Israelitish tribe, in the time of its awakening and return to God. Manasseh is again the cooperating tribe, — not the western half, '■"■vever, but the eastern, its equal in warlike spirit the time of his success and greatness, it is he alone who keeps and upholds the divine life in the na- tion. The history of Jephthah furnishes a different picture. Gilead too had sinned, but it had repented. The whole people had put away its false gods, before it found its hero. This hero, on his part, finds himself supported hy a spiritually awakened tribe, thoroughly animated vith the spirit of faith and obedience toward Jehovah. Every part of the picture is projected on a background of true piety. Jephthah is the hero, the leader, the head of the tribe: but he is not the onlv one whose eves are (1 Chr. v. 24) and strength, but holding a relation fixed on God ; the whole tribe, like members of :o the hero who appears among them different I the head, obey the same attraction. It is only be- from that formerly held by the other toward Oid- . cause this background was ignored, i. e. because eon. When Gideon entered on his work, every- the connection between chapters x. and xi. was thing depended on his own personality. No di- ! overlooked, that the principal incident in the his- rine awakening had preceded, not even in his own I tory of Jephthah has from the earliest times given .itv. In his own house, there was an altar to be] rise to such singular explanations. lestroyed. The number of those who deserved to Vers. 1,2. And Jephthah the Gileadite was tic his followers was only three hundred. Even in I a valiant hero. The same terms were aoplied M CHAPTER XL 1-11. 163 Gideon by the Messenger of God (eh. vi. 12). The nobles of Gilead had determined (ch. x. 18) to elect as their leader, him who should give evidence that God is with him, by beginning to wage successful warfare. Thereupon the narrative proceeds : " And Jephthah was a valiant hero." It was he joncernine whom they learned that he answered their description. His history is then related. A noble of Gilead had begotten him by a public har- lot, and taken him into his house. The name of the father is unknown. In the statement: " Gil- ead begat Jephthah ; " and also when we read of the "wife of Gilead;" the term "Gilead," as trit e name, takes the place of the unknown per- son il name. Not, indeed, as if " Gilead " could not be a personal name ; but if it were, Jephthah would have' been designated as " son of Gilead." and not as a " Gileadite," without any paternal surname, as he is styled at the first mention, when he enters on the scene, and at the last, when he dies (ch. xii. 7). This conclusion is strength- ened by a comparison with the names of other he- rn,-- ; with that of his predecessor Gideon, for in- stance, who is constantly styled the " son of Jja>h : " and also, among others, with that of one of his successors, " Elon the Zebulonite (ch. xii. 1 1), as to whom there can be no doubt that he was of the tribe of Zebulun, and had no more definite patronymic. — The father, subsequently, had other sons by his lawful wife. These, when they had grown up, and their father had died, expelled Gideon from the house, although the eldest ; for, said they, — Thou art the son of another woman (HtffS /"HPN). "Other" is here to be taken in a bad sense, as in the expression "other (acherim) gods." As those are spurious gods, so " another ishah " is a spurious wife. The expulsion of Jephthah was a base act ; for his father had reared him in his house, and left him there, and he was the oldest child. The act cannot be compared with the re- moval of Ishmael and the sons of Keturah from the house of Abraham. Those the father himself dismissed with presents. But Jephthah's father had kept him in the house, and had thus signified his purpose to treat him as a son. Nevertheless, Jephthah could obtain no redress from the " elders of Gilead " (ver. 7). If he had been the son of one who was properly a wife, his brothers would doubt- less have been obliged to admit him to a share in the inheritance ; for Rachel, the ancestress of Gil- ead, had also several co-wives, whose sons — of whom, be it observed in passing, Gad in Gilead was one — inherited as well as Joseph himself. But they maintained that his mother had not been a wife of their father at all, not even one of sec- ondary rank, — that she was nothing but an harlot. On the ground of bastardy, they could drive him out of the house; and at that time, no voice raised itself in Gilead but that of mockery and hatred toward Jephthah. Such being the case te fled. Ver. 3. And dwelt in the land of Tob- The name Tob is found again in 2 Sam. x. 6, in connection with a war of the Ammonites against king David. Its subsequent mention in the Books of its Mac&iuees (I. ch. v. 13; II. xii. 17), asTai|3, Toil/?, affords no material assistance to any attempt at identification. But since Jephthah flees thither as to an asylum ; and since adventurers collect about him there, as in a region of safety, whence ne is able to make successful expeditions, we may be justified perhaps to hazard a conjecture which would tend to increase our knowledge of the Hau- ran. Erets tob (3112^7!^?) means good land, and fertile, as Canaan is said to be (Ex. iii. 8). The best land in Hauran, still named from its fertility, and with which Wetzstein has made us again ac- quainted, is the Ruhbeh, in eastern Hauran. Its name signifies, " fertile cornfield." It is the best land in Syria. It is still the seat of Bedouin tribes, who extend their pillaging expeditions far and wide. Of the present tribes, Wetzstein relates that they frequently combine with the Zubed, whose name reminds us of the Zabadeans ( 1 Mace. xii. 31). Their land is an excellent place of refuge, difficult of attack, and easily defended. At the head of adventurous persons whom the report which soon went out concerning his valor, had collected about him, he made warlike expedi- tions like those of David (1 Sam. xxii. 2), directed, as David's were also, against the enemies of his nation. Of the son of Jesse, it is true, we know for certain that, notwithstanding his banishment, he attacked and defeated the Philistines (cf. 1 Sam. xxiii. 1 ff.) ; but though we have no such direct statements concerning Jephthah, we yet have good grounds for concluding that his expeditions were directed against the Ammonites. For he evinced himself to be a mighty hero ; and the Gil- eaditish nobles had pledged themselves to elect him as their head who should initiate victories over Amnion. Therefore, when their choice falls on Jephthah, it must be because they have heard of his deeds in the land of Tob against this enemy. — Modern writers, especially, have made a real Abal- lino of Jephthah, steeped in blood and pillage. The character belongs to him as little as to David. Though banished, he was a valiant guerilla chief- tain of his people against their enemies. He was the complete opposite of an Abimelech. The lat- ter sought adventurers (D N i7*T?) for a wicked deed ; to Jephthah, as to David, they come of their own accord and subordinate themselves to him. Abime- lech was without cause an enemy of his father's house, and dipped his sword in the blood of his own brothers. Jephthah, hanished and persecuted by his brothers, turned his strength against the enemies of Israel ; and when recalled, cherished neither revenge nor grudge in his heart. Abime- lech had fallen away from God ; Jephthah was his faithful servant. All this appears from his words and conduct. Vers. 4-6. And after a considerable time it came to pass that the sons of Ammon made war with Israel. It was during the time of sin and impenitence, that Jephthah was driven away by violence and hatred. He returned as an elderly man, with a grown-up daughter. The Ammonit- ish conflict and oppression lasted eighteen years. The flight of Jephthah to Tob occurred probably some time previous to the beginning of these troubles. In the course of these years he had acquired fame, rest, house, and possessions. He had found God. and God was with him. If this were not his character, he would not have met the ■• elders of Gilead " as he did. Meanwhile, how ever, another spirit had asserted itself in Gilead also. For it is the sign of new life, that the elders of Gilead do not shun the humiliation of going to Jephthah. To be sure, they must have been in- formed that he also served no strange gods ; for how otherwise could he be of service to them ? In any case, however, it was no small matter to go tc 1B4 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. the hei o whom, not his brothers only, but they also, the judges, had once ignominiousiy driven forth, and now sav to him : Come with us, and be our captain! (^2j?: a leader in war, and according to later usage in peace also. ) Vers. 7-9. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did ye not hate me. and expel me out of my father's house ? The interview be- tween him and the elders affords a striking proof of the subduing influence which the confession of God exercises, even over persons of vigorous and warlike spirits. Jephthah's speech does not conceal the reproach, that after the hard treatment he re- ceived, they should have invited him back before this, not first now when they are in distress. He speaks in a strain similar to that in which the voice of God itself had recently addressed Israel (ch. x. 11). And nobly do " the elders " answer him. For that very reason, say they, because we are in dis- tress, do we come to thee. Such being the fact, thou wilt surely come. Did matters stand differ- ently, thou wouldest probably (and not unjustly) refuse; but as it is, we call thee to go with us to fight, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. The satisfaction thus made to Jephthah is indeed great ; but the danger and responsibility to which he is invited are not less eminent. His answer, nevertheless, exhibits no longer any trace of sensitiveness or pride. If his tribe call him to fight, he will obey their summons — as all heroes have ever done, who loved their native land. He, however, does it under a yet nobler impulse. Un- der other circumstances — such is the underlying thought — I would not have come to be your head. If you were now as heretofore, who would wish to come ! for far as it is from being a blessing to the trees when the thorn-bush reigns, so far is it from pleasing to a noble mind to rule over thorn-bushes. But since you come to get me to fight with you against Amnion — full of a new spirit, so that I can cherish the hope that God will deliver the enemy before me — 1 consent to be your head. It is not to be overlooked that Jephthah speaks of "Jehovah," not of "Elohim," and that he places the issue in God's hand ; for, as ch. x. teaches, Gilead had learned to see that only God can help. Jephthah is called because God's Spirit is recog- nized in him. Verse 9 has often been taken as a question ; a construction which Keil has already, and very properly, rejected. 1 The position of affairs has altogether erroneously been so appre bended, as if Jephthah were fearful lest, after vic- tory achieved, they would then no longer recog- nize him as head, and wished to assure himself on this point beforehand. This view originates in the failure to perceive the spiritual background on which the action is projected. Jephthah is not a man who will be their head at any cost. There is no trace of ambition in his language. He is will- ing to be their head, if they are such members as will insure the blessing of God. Whoever knows his countrymen as he knew them, and has himself turned to God, will not be willing to be their leader, unless they have become other than they were. For that reason he says : If you bring me back, in order truly and unitedly to fight Am- nion, and be worthy of God's blessing, — in that ;ase, I will be your head. The guaranty of vic- 1 [Xeil observes that the reply of the elders in ver. 10, .Ttf3?3 }3 tT*"0"1T, "presupposes an affirmative, not ._ i .. ' : t : • ' pa interrogative utterance ou the pait of Jephthah.'' The tory is sought by this valiant man, not in his owt courage, but in the worthiness of the warriors be- fore God. Ver. 10. Jehovah be a hearer between us. if we do not so according to thy word. They invoke God, whom they have penitently supplica- ted, as witness ; they swear by Him that they will do whatever Jephthah will command. They give him thereby a guaranty, not only that as soldiers they will obey their general, but also that in theii conduct towards God they will be guided by their leader's instruction and direction. For not in military discipline only, but much rather in the moral and religious spirit by which Israel is ani- mated, lies his hope of victory. Ver. 11. And Jephthah spake all his words before Jehovah in Mizpah. Jephthah goes along , the people — the collective nobility — make him head and leader ; but not by means of sin and dis- honor, as Abimelech became king. Jephthah re- ceives his appointment from the hand of God. In the spirit of God, he enters on his work. As chief tain, it devolves on him to tell his people what course must be pursued : he does it in the presence of God. It is the ancient God of Israel before whom, at Mizpah, where the people are encamped, he issues his regulations, addresses, and military orders. On Mizpah, see at ch. xi. 29. Keil has justly repelled the idea that the expres- sion '"'J'"'? ^S?^) "before Jehovah," necessarily implies a solemn sacrificial ceremony. But, on the other hand, the impossibility of such a solemnity cannot be maintained. Whatever the ceremonial may have been, the meaning is, that Jephthah, iu speaking all his words before God, thereby con- fessed Jehovah and his law, in contradistinction to heathenism and idolatry. In the spirit of this con fession, he entered on his office. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. The manner in which divine compassion fills men with his Spirit, for the salvation of Israel, is wonderful. The inquiry into the origin of the he- roes who suddenly arise in Israel, and in nations generally, to deliver and save, is one which leads down into the profoundest depths of divine wisdom. The selection of every Israelitish Judge is a new sign of compassion, but also of corrective chasten- ing. For presumption and self-sufficiency were al- ways at the bottom of their apostasies. Hence, in the selection of the Judges, the admonition to humility becomes continually more urgent. Israel is made" to know that God chooses whom He wills, and raises from the dust him whom the people will place at their head. They have already ex- perienced this in the cases of Ehud, the left-handed, of Deborah, a woman, of Gideon, the youngest and least of his family. All these, however, had been well-born persons, connected with the people by normal relations. In Jephthah's case, the choice becomes still more extraordinary- A bastard, an exile and adventurer, must be gone after. The magnates of the land must humble themselves to bring the exile home, to submit themselves to him, and make him the head of the tribe. That they do it, is proof of their repentance; that the choice is just, is shown by the result. ^22K (ver. 9) is simply the emphatic correlativ* of the pn ceding □£!**• — TV] CHAPTER XI. 12-28. 165 Thus, many a stone, rejected by the builders, has, typically, even before Christ, become the head of the corner. Unbelief deprives a nation of judg- ment. To discern spirits, is a work to be done only by an inward life in God. Sin expels whom- soever it cannot overcome ; but penitence recalls him, whenever it perceives the ground of its own distress. Only he, however, returns without a grudge in his heart, who shares in the penitence. Stakke : Men are accustomed to go the near- est way ; but God commonly takes a roundabout way, when He designs to make one noble and great. 1 — The same : Happy he, who in all he speaks and does looks with holy reverence, even though it be not expressed in words, to the omnis- cient and omnipresent God ; for this is the true foundation of all faithfulness and integrity. [Bp. Hall : The common gifts of God respect not the parentage or blood, but are indifferently scattered where He pleases to let them fall. The 1 [Bp. tT*T.r. : « Men love to go the nearest way, and often fail. God commonly goes about, and in his own time comes surely home." — Tr.J choice of the Almighty is not guided by oul rules: as in spiritual, so in earthly things, it is not in him that willeth. — Scott : As the sins of par- ents so often occasion disgrace and hardship to their children, this should unite with higher mo- tives, to induce men to govern their passions ac cording to the law of God. — Blsh : The pre- tense of legal right, is often a mere cover to the foulest wrongs and injuries. — Henry : The chil dren of Israel were assembled and encamped, en. x. 17 ; but, like a body without a head, they owned they could not fight without a commander. So necessary it is to all societies that there be Mime te rule, and others to obey, rather than that every man be his own master. Blessed be God for go\ eminent, for a good government ! — Bp. Hall (on ver. 7) : Can we look for any other answer from God than this ? Did ye not drive me out of your houses, out of your hearts, in the time of your health and jollity ? Did ye not plead the strict- ness of my charge, and the weight of my yoke ? Did not your willful sins expel me from your souls ' What do you now, crouching and creeping to ma in the evil day 1 — Te.] Jephthah's diplomatic negotiations with the king of Ammon. Chapter XI. 12-28. 12 And Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children [sons] of Ammon, saying, "What hast thou to do with me [What is there between me and thee], that 13 thou art come against [uuto] me to tight in my land? And the king of the chil- dren [sons] of Ammon answered unto the messengers of Jephthah, Because 1 Israel took away my land, when they [he] came up out of Egypt, from Arnon even unto [the] Jabbok, and unto [the] Jordan : now therefore restore those lands again 14 peaceably. And Jephthah sent messengers again unto the king of the children 15 [sons] of Ammon : And said unto him. Thus saith Jephthah, Israel took not away 16 the land of Moab, nor the land of the children [sons] of Ammon : But [For] when Israel [they] came up from Egypt, and [then Israel] walked through the wilderness 17 unto the Red Sea, and came to Kadesh ; [.] Then [And] Israel " sent messen- gers unto the king' of Edom, saying, Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land : b but the king of Edom would not hearken [hearkened not] thereto. And in like manner they sent unto the king of Moab ; but he would not consent. And Is- 18 rael abode in Kadesh. Then they went along through the wilderness, and com- passed c the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, and came by [on] the east side d of [to] the land of Moab, and pitched [encamped] on the other [yonder] side of Ar- non, but came not within the border of Moab : for Anion was [is] the border of 19 Moab. e And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites/ the king of Heshbon ; and Israel said unto him, Let us pass, we pray thee, through 20 thy lands unto my place. But Sihon trusted not Israel to pass through his coast [territory] : but Sihon gathered all his people together,* and [they] 21 pitched [encamped] in Jahaz, and [he] fought against [with] Israel.' And the Lord [Jehovah, the] God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they smote them;* so [and] Israel possessed [took possession t Ver. 18. — Num. xxi. 13. / Ver. 19 —Num. xxi. 21. g Ver. 19. — Num. xxi. 22 has rP3VW for ' a Ver. 17- — The words printed in blackfaced type are ound in Num. XX. and xxi. The first part of ver. 17 is from Num. XX. 14, except that there tf Moses '' takes the place of '' Israel.'" On the other hand, the expression, " Thus saith thy brother Israel,-' there used, is here wanting. '' Ver. 17. — Num. xx. 17 ; only, rt let me pass,' 1 is there read, " let us pass." c Ver. 18 — Num. xxi. 4 has 32D7. d Ver 18— Num xxi 11 -may: S3. ^ Ver. 20. — Num. xxi. 23. i Ver. 20 — Num. xxi. 23. the words " they encamped ' being substituted for " he came." k Ver. 21 — Num. xxi. 24 ; " Israel smote him." 166 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. 22 of, 1. 1 conquered] all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country. And they possessed [conquered] all the coasts [the entire territory] of the Amorites, from Arnon even unto [the] Jabbok, and from the wilderness even unto [the] Jordan. 23 So now the Lord [Jehovah, the] God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess [dispossess] 2 it [i. «• the people 24 Israel ] ? Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess ? So whomsoever [whatsoever] the Lord [Jehovah] our God shall drive out from 25 before us [shall give us to possess], them [that] will we possess. And now art thou any thing better than Balak the son of Zippor king of Moab ? did he ever strive 26 against [litigate with] 3 Israel, or did he ever fight against them, [?] While [Since] Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns [daughter-cities], and in Aroer [Aror] and her towns [daughter-cities], and in all the cities that be along by the coasts [banks] of Arnon [there have passed] three hundred years ? [;] why therefore did ye not recover 27 them within that time ? Wherefore I have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong to war against me : the Lord [Jehovah] the Judge be judge this day be 28 tween the children [sons] of Israel and the children [sons] of Ammon. Howbeit, the king of the children [sons] of Ammon hearkened not unto the words of Jeph- thah which he sent him. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. II Ver. 13. — Dr. Cassel omits rt Because." **3, in this place, may be either the sign of a direct quotation, as which H would be sufficiently indicated by a colon after " Jephthah " ; or a causal conjunction (E. V., De Wette). If the latter, the sentence is elliptical : " We have much to do with each other," or, ,: I am come to fight against thee," because, etc. — Tb-I [2 Ver. 23. — ilSUT^P, lit. " seize him." " The construction of W^ with the accusative of the people,' say« Keil, "arises from the T fact that in order to seize upon a land, it is necessary first to overpower the people that inhabits It." ' Both he and Bertheau, however, refer the suffix to " the Amorite," and are then obliged to make the Amorite stand for the " land of the Amorite." — Te.] [3 Ver. 25. — D >_ ) to contend in words, to plead before a judge. Dr. Cassel translates by rcchten, to litigate, which must here of course be taken in a derivative sense. — Ta.] EXE8ETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 12. The peaceable negotiations into which Jephthah, before he proceeds to war, enters with Ammon, demonstrate — and the less successful such efforts usually are, the more characteristically — the truly God-fearing character of the new chief- tain. The Ammonites were a strong and valiant people (cf. Num. xxi.; Deut. ii. 20, 21); but it was not on this account 'that he sought to negotiate with them once more. The Ammonites were de- scended from Lot, the nephew of Abraham ; and Israel, on their journey to Canaan, had not been allowed to assail them (Deut. ii. 19). Jephthah, before he draws the sword, wishes to free himself from everv liability to be truthfully charged with the violation of ancient and sacred prescriptions. He desires to have a clear, divine right towar, in case Ammon will not desist from its hostile pur- poses. He hopes for victory, not through strength of arms, but through the righteousness of his cause. This he would secure ; so that he may leave it to God to decide between the parties. What is there between me and thee, ^yTIO Tjbl. A proverbial form of speech, which may serve the most divergent states of mind to express and introduce any effort to repel and ward off. While it might here be rendered, " What wilt thou ''. what have I done to thee 1 " in the mouth of the prophet Elisha, repelling the unholy king (2 Kgs. iii. 13), it means, " How comest thou to me ! I know thee not I" and in that of the woman whose sorrow for the loss of her child breaks out afresh when she sees Elijah (1 Kgs. xvii. 18), " Ala* let me alone, stay away ! " The Gospel translates it by ti 4/j.ol Kal o-oi : in which form it appears in the celebrated passage, John ii. 4, where Jesus speaks to .Mary. But it has there not the haish sense, " What have I to do with thee ! " (which it has not even here in the message of Jephthah), but only expresses a hurried request for silence, for his " hour was not yet come." Ver. 13. Israel took away my land. For a question of right, Ammon, like other robbers and conquerors, was not at all prepared ; but since it is put, the hostile king cannot well evade it. Rea- sons, however, have never been wanting to justify measures of violence. Although unacquainted with the arts of modern state-craft, ancient nations, as well as those of later times, understood how to base the demands of their desires on historical wrongs. . Only, such claims, when preferred by nations like the Ammonites, usually did not wear even the appearance of truth. The king of Am- mon seeks to excuse his present war against Israel, by asserting that when Israel came up out of Egypt they took from him the territory between Arnon, Jabbok, and Jordan, about coextensive with the inheritance of Reuben and Gad. It was utterly untrue. For when Israel went forth out of Egypt, this territory was in the hands of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon (Num. xxi.). This king, it is true, had obtained it by conquest ; but not so much from Ammon as from Moab, even though some connection of the Am- monites with the conquered lands is to be inferred from Josh. xiii. 25. Israel itself had fought wilt CHAPTER XI. 12- 167 neither M >ab nor Amnion, taken nothing from them, nor even crossed their borders. Jephthah does not fail to reduce this false pre- tense to its nothingness ; for it was of the utmost importance in his view to make it manifest that the war, on the side of the Ammonites, was thoroughly unjust. The memoir which he sends to the king of Ammon, is as clear as it is instructive. It shows the existence of a historical consciousness in the Israel of that day, asserting itself as soon as the people became converted to God. For only a be- lieving people is instructed and strengthened by history. Jephthah unfolds a piece of the history of Israel in the desert. It has been asked, in what relation the statements here made stand to those contained in the Pentateuch. The answer is, that the message of Jephthah makes a free use of the statements of the Pentateuch. Vers. 1 5-2S. Thus saith Jephthah. This in- troduction to ver. 15 already indicates the free combination by Jephthah, of statements derived from the ancient records. That which is of pecul- iar interest in this document, and strongly evinces its originality, is, that while the turns of the lan- guage and the various verbal repetitions (already pointed out in the text) indicate the source whence it was borrowed, its departures from that source evidence the freedom with which the material is used for the end in view. Nothing is said which is not contained in the Pentateuch ; only a few facts, of present pertinence, are brought forward and freely emphasized. Bertheau is inaccurate, when he thinks that the statement in ver. 17, con- cerning Israel's sending to Moab to ask for passage through their land and Moab's refusal, is alto- gether new. For in the first place the perfect equality of Edom and Moab as regards the policy pursued towards them by Moses, is already inti- mated in Deut. ii. 9 ; and in the next place, ver. 29 of the same chapter makes Moses request Sihon to give a passage to Israel through his land, and that he will not do " as the sons of Esan and the Moabites did," to wit, deny them. That which connects ver. 29 with ver. 28 (Deut. ii.), is not that Esau and Moab had granted what Moses now requests of Sihon, but that they had not allowed his petition, by reason of which he is compelled to demand it of Sihon. 1 Here, therefore, it is plainly intimated, that Moab also refused a passage. This fact, Jephthah clothes in his own language, and weaves into his exact narrative with the selfsame design with which Moses alluded to it in the pas- sage already quoted, namely, to prove that Israel was compelled by necessity to take its way through 1 [This interpretation of Deut. ii. 29, which would clear It of all appearance of conflict with Num. xx. 14-20, is un- fortunately not supported by the language of the original. The natural rendering of the text is substantially that of the E. V. : '' Thou shalt sell me food for money, that I may eat ; and thou shalt give me water for money, that I may irink ; only I will pass through on my feet: as did uato ne the sons of Esau who dwell in Seir, and the Moabites who dwell in Ar: until I pass over Jordan, into the land which Jehovah our God giveth us.'- The reader's first thought is, that the conduct 'of Edom and Moab is referred to as a precedent covering both parts of the present request to Sihon : r ' Sell me food and grant me a passage — as Edom And Moab did, so do thou." But history relates that Bdom denied a passage, and that Israel made a detour iround the Edomite territories. May we then regard the precedent as referring only to the matter of supplies ? and the clause which recalls it to the memory of Sihon, as occu- py ag a place after that which a logical arrangement of the clauses would assign it ? This supposition, by no means anlikely in itself, seem* to be favored by the construction the land of the Amorite. The same tracing of events to their causes, leads Jephthah in ver. 20 to say of Sihon : " he trusted not Israel," whereas Num. xxi. 23 merely says : "he permitted not." Jephthah seeks to give additional emphasis to the tact, that if Sihon lost his land, the fault lay not with Israel. Sihon could not but see that no other passage remained tor Israel ; but he refused to credit the peaceable words of Moses. His dis- tru-t was his ruin. Further: instead of the ex- pression, " until I pass over Jordan, into the land which Jehovah our God giveth us " (Deut. ii. 29) Jephthah writes, " let us pass through thy land (t, my place." At that time, he means to say, the Canaan this side the Jordan was Israel's destina- tion ; for not till after that — and this is why he changes the phraseology — did God give us Canaan beyond the Jordan also. For the same reason he substitutes " Israel " for "Moses" in the expres- sion, " And Moses sent messengers" (Num. xx. 14). Over against Ammon, he brings Israel into view as a national personality. On the basis of this historical review, Jephthah in a few sentences places the unrighteousness of his demands before the king of Ammon. What, therefore, Jehovah our God allowed us to conquer — that thou wilt possess? thou, who hadst no claims to it at any time, since, properly speaking, it was never thine? If any party could maintain a claim, it was Moab; but Balak, the king of Moab, never raised it, nor did he make war on that account. The conquest, by virtue of which Israel held the land, was not the result of wrongful violence, but of a war rashly induced by the enemy himself. God gave the victory and the land. A more solid title than that which secures to Israel the country between the Arnon and the Jabbok, there cannot be. Or has Ammon a better for his own possession ? Were they not taken by force of arms from the Zamzummim ( Deut. ii. 21 ) ! or, as Jephthah expresses it, " were they not given thee by Chemosh, thy god i " He makes use of Am- nion's own form of thought and expression. Che- mosh (the desolater, from 2*^3 = ITS'?) is the God of War. As such, he can here represent the god of Amnion, although usually regarded as the Moabitish deity ; for it is the martial method in which Ammon obtained his land on which the stress is laid. Chemosh is war personified, hence especially honored by the Moabites, whose Ar Moab, the later Areopolis, is evidently related to the Greek Ares - ( Mars) . Hence also the represen- tation of him on extant specimens of ancient Are- of the sentence. It does not, however, relieve the passage of all difficulty. For it still leaves the implication that Edom and Moab sold food and water to Israel, whereas ac- cording to Num. xx. 20 they refused to do that also. Keil therefore argues that this refusal was made when Israel was on the western boundary of Edom, where the oharacter of the mountains made it easy to repulse an army ; but that when Israel had reached their eastern boundary, where the mountains sink down into vast elevated plains, and pre sent no difficulty to an invading army, the Edomites took counsel of prudence, and instead of offering hostilities to the Israelites, contented themselves with the profitable sale of what would otherwise have been taken by force. This is at least a plausible explanation, although not founded on historical evidence, unless, what is by no means improb- able, Deut. ii. 2-9 is designed to explain the course of nc- tuat events by a statement of divine instructions. — Tr.] •i Hence, the name Aroer proves also that the worship o, the '' War-god " obtained in Ammon as well as in Moab. For a city of that name existed in the territories of each of these nations. 168 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. opolitan coins, where he appears with a sword in Jus right, and a lance and shield in his.left hand, with torches on either side (Eckhel, Doctr. Nummor, iii. 394 ; .Movers, Phonizier,i. 334). Jejihthah is sincere in this reference to the title by which Ammon holds his land. He does not dispute a claim grounded on ancient conquest. For in Deut. ii. 21, also, it is remarked, from a purely Israelitish point of view, that "Jehovah gave the land to the sons of Ammon for a possession." Quite rightly too; inasmuch as Jehovah is the! God of all nations. But as Jephthah desires to 6peak intelligibly and forcibly to Ammon, who does not understand the world-wide government of Jehovah, he connects the same sentiment with the name of Chemosh, to whom Ammon traces back his warlike deeds and claims. 1 He thereby points out, in the most striking and conclusive manner, that if Ammon refuses to recognize the rights of Israel to its territory, he at the same . time undermines, in principle, his own right to the [ country he inhabits. Aside from this, 300 years | have passed since Israel first dwelt in Heshbon, Aroer, and on the banks of the Arnon. The state- ment exhibits a fine geographical arrangement : j Heshbon, as capital of the ancient kingdom, is put . first ; then, to the north of it, Aroer (or Aror, prob- ' ably so called to distinguish it from the southern Aroer) in Gad, over against the capital of Ammon ; and finally, in the south, the cities on the Arnon. Possession, so long undisputed, cannot now be called in question. Jephthah concludes, therefore, that on his side no wrong had been committed ; but Ammon seeks a quarrel — may God decide be- tween them! But Ammon hearkened not — a proof how little the best and most righteous state papers avail, when men are destitute of good in- tentions. On the other hand, let this exposition of Jephthah be a model for all litigating nations, and teach them not only to claim, but truly to have, right and justice on their side. For God, the judge, is witness and hearer for all. HOMJLETICAL AND PRACTICAL. [I'. H. S. : Jephthah as Diplomatist — a noble model for modern imitation. His document is, 1. Straightforward and convincing by its truthful- i [Wordsworth : l It does not 6eem that Jephthah is here usiog the language of insult to the Ammonites, but is giving them a courteous reply. He appears to recognize Chemosh as a local deity ; and he speaks of the Lord as the ness; 2. Firm in its maintenance of righteous claims ; yet, withal, 3. Winning and conciliating in its tone. — The most upright diplomacy ma\ fail to avert war; but it is nevertheless powerful for the right. Israel doubtless fought better, and with higher feelings, when it saw the righteousness of its cause so nobly set forth ; while the enemy must have been proportionably depressed by con- victions of an opposite character. — Jephthah's di- plomacy as contrasted with that of the king of Moab. Alas, that representatives of Christian nations should so often imitate the heathen king rather than the Hebrew Judge, and that Christian nations should uphold them in it ! Henry : Jephthah did not delight in war, though a mighty man of valor, but was willing to prevent it by a peaceable accommodation. War should be the last remedy, not to be used till all other methods of ending matters in variance have been tried in vain. This rule should also be ob- served in going to law. The sword of justice, as the sword of war, must not be appealed to till the contending parties have first endeavored by gentler means to understand one another, and to accom- modate matters in variance (1 Cor. vi. 1). — The same : (on vers. 17, IS) : Those that conduct them- selves inoffensively, may take the comfort of it, and plead it against those that charge them with in- justice and wrong. Our righteousness will answer for us in time to come, and will " put to silence the ignorance of foolish men." — The same : One in- stance of the honor and respect we owe to God. as our God, is. rightly to possess that which He gives us to possess, receive it from Him, use it for Him, keep it for his sake, and part with it when He calls for it. — The same : (on vers. 27, 28) : War is an appeal to heaven, to God the Judge of all, to whom the issues of it belong. If doubtful rights be dis- puted. He is thereby requested to determine them ; if manifest rights be invaded or denied, He is thereby applied to to vindicate what is just, and punish .vhat is wrong. As the sword of justice was made for lawless and disobedient persons (1 Tim. i. 9). so was the sword of war for lawless and disobedient princes and nations. In war, therefore, the eye must be ever up to God; and it must always lie thought a dangerous thing to desire or expect that God should patronize unrighteousness. — Tr.J God of Israel, and as our God ; and calls Israel nis //rw/»e He regards Him [speaks of Him ?] as a national deity, bu does not claim universal dominion for Him- ' — Tr j Jephthah proceeds to the conflict. He vows a vow unto Jehovah. Chapter XI. 29-33. 29 30 *1 Then the Spirit of the Lord [Jehovah] came upon Jephthah, and he passed over [through] Gilead, and [namely,] Manasseh, and passed over [through] Mizpeh of Gilead [Mizpeh-Gilead], and from Mizpeh of Gilead [Mizpeh-Gilead] he passed over unto [against] the children [sons] of Ammon. And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord [Jehovah], and said, If thou shalt without fail ' deliver the children sons] of Ammon into mine hands. Then it shall be, that whatsoever conieth forth out] of the doors of my house to meet me. when I return in peace from the chil- dren fsons] of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's [Jehovah's], and I will offer i/ 32 33 CHAPTER XI. 29-33. 1(!9 up for a burnt-offering. So [And] Jephthah passed over unto the children [sons" of Ammon to fight against them : and the Lord [Jehovah] delivered them into his hands. And he smote them from Aroer even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards [unto Abel Keramim], with a very great slaughter. Thus the children [sons] of Ammon were subdued before the children [sons] of Israel. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 30. — It would be better, perhaps, with Dr. Cassel to omit the words " without fail." The Hebrew infinitive before the finite verb serves to intensify the latter ; but the endeavor to give its value in a translation, is very apt to re lult in the suggestion of thoughts or shades of thought foreign to the original. Cf. Ges. Gram. 131, 3, a. — Tr.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Vers. 29, 33. Noble words are followed by splendid deeds. It is, however, no easy matter to determine the geographical arena in which the his- tory of Jephthah is enacted. The sons of Israel, according to ch. x. 17, assembled themselves in Mizpah. To Mizpah also, Jephthah is brought from the land of Tob : and there he utters his words before Jehovah (ch. xi. 11). This Mizpah cannot be identical with Mizpeh-Gilead ; for, ac- cording to ver. 29, Jephthah " proceeded — namely, from Mizpah — through Gilead, even through that part of it which belonged to Manasseh, thence to Mizpeh-Gilead, and from Mizpeh-Gilead against the sons of Ammon." The position of Mrzpeh- Gilead may be probably determined. According to Josh. xiii. 26, there was in the territory of Gad a place called Ramath ha-Mizpeh. This place, the same doubtless which is elsewhere called Ramoth- Gilead (1 Kgs. iv. 13) and Ramoth in Gilead (Josh. xxi. 38), a possession of the Levites, and dis- tinguished as a city of refuge (Josh. xxi. 8 if.), is with great probability referred to the site of the present es-Salt, in modern times the only important place south of the Jabbok, the central point of the Belka, and meeting-place of all its roads ( Bitter, xv. 1 1 22). Being built around the sides of a steep hill, which is still crowned with a castle, this place answers very well to a city bearing the name Ra- moth (Height). It is still a place of refuge; and, as Seetzen relates, those who flee thither, are, ac- cording to ancient custom, protected by the inhab- itants, even at the risk of their own lives. Now, as Ramoth ha-Mizpeh may be compared with es- Salt, so Mizpeh or ha-Mizpeh Gilead with what in modern times is called el-Belka. 1 If this be al- lowed, the point of departure of Jephthah's course of victory is plain. From Mizpeh-Gilead he pressed forward against the enemy, and smote him " from Aroer" (ver. 33). Now, according to Josh. xiii. 25, Aroer lay over against Rabbath Ammon (at present Amman), the capital of the Ammonites, and its position may therefore not improperly be compared with that of the modern Aireh. The places " unto " which Jephthah smote the enemy, Minnith and Abel Keramim, can scarcely be dis- covered. They only indicate the wealth and cul- tivation of the now desolate land. Minnith sup- 1 [El-Belka is a modern division of the east-jordanic ter- ritory, and is bounded by Wady Zerka (the Jabbok) on the north, and by Wady Mojeb (the Arnon) on the south. It is evident, therefore, that our author regards Mizpeh-Gilead is the name of a district, not of a city. The reasoning from 'he identification of Ramoth-Mizpeh with es-Salt to that of Mizpeh-Gilead with el-Belka, is not 80 clear, but seems to je this : Since Ramoth-Mizpeh is also called Ramoth-Gilead •nd Ramoth in Gilead, it is to be inferred that Mizpeh, like Silead, indicates the district in which Ramath is situated, rith this difference, however, that Mizpeh is more definite, plied Tyre with wheat (Ezek. xxvii. 17). As to Abel Keramim (Meadow of Vineyards), it implies the vicinity of the Ammonitish capital, whose ruins, and also many of its coins, still exhibit the grape-bunch prominent among their ornaments (Ritter, xv. 1152, 1157). But with all this, Miz- pah, whence Jephthah and his men set out to go to es-Salt and Aireh, pursuing their march through Gilead, more definitely, through the Gilead of Manasseh, north of the Jabbok, remains yet unde- termined. Although it does not occur again, it must yet have been a place of some importance. Inasmuch as it has a name which characterizes its situation only in a general way, it may in later times have bome a different one. It seems to agree most nearly with what in Josh. xi. 3 is called the " land of Mizpeh," — " the Hivite under Hermon in the land of Mizpeh." For, as is also stated 1 Chr. v. 23, " the half tribe of Manasseh dwelt in the land of Bashan, as far as Baal-Hermon, and Senir, and Mt. Hermon." Now, the Bella of later times, so named on account of the similarity of its situation to the Macedonian city of the same name — it lay on a height, surrounded by water — is said formerly to have been called Buds, still in agreement with the Macedonian city, which lay in the district Bottiaeis. A similarity of sound be- tween the name Butis and Mizpah could only then be found, if it might be assumed that as Timnah was also called Timnatah, so Mizpah had also been called Mizpatah. It would at all events be worth while to fix, even conjecturally, upon the place where the great hero prepared himself for his victory. As he enters on the conflict, the Spirit of Jehovah rests upon him. He has given the de- cision into Jehovah's hands ; he looks to Him for victory ; and to Him he makes a vow. Vers. 30-32. This vow has been the subject ol the most singular misapprehensions; and yet, rightly understood, it crowns the deep piety of this hero of God. Jephthah perceives the full significance of the course on which he decides. He knows how greatly victory will strengthen faith in God throughout all the tribes. He sees a new Israel rise up. The people have trustingly committed themselves to his leadership, and he has uttered all his " words before Jehovah." In this state of mind, he bows himself before his God (1 Sam. i. 28), and makes a vow.'- To the national being only a division of Gilead. But Ramoth may be identified with es-Salt in the Belka : hence the ancipnt district Mizpeh may be compared with the modern province el-Belka. — Tr.] 2 For the history of the exegesis, and its characteristic points, I refer to my article "Jephthah. '" in Herzog's Real- Eneyklopddie, the materials of which cannot here be repro- duced, but the drift of which is here. I trust, provided with fresh support. The other recent literature on the subject is indicated by Keil, who justly explains that the assuuiption of a spiritual sacrifice is almost imperatively demanded. The opinions of the church fathers are collected in the Coi> LTO THE BOOK OF JUDGES. spirit which expresses itself in the Bible, tows are the signs and expression of the deepest self-sur- render to God. Jacob makes vows to be fulfilled ju his prosperous return home (Gen. xxviii. 20 ff.). Iii the Psalms, " to pay one's vows," has become synonymous with " to live in God" (Ps. lxi. 8; oxvi. 16 ff.). The prophet describes the coming salvation of the nations by saying that they shall " make vows and perform them " (Isa. xix. 21). And this idea is deeply grounded in truth: for in the vows which man makes to God, there is evi- dently expressed a living faith in the divine om- nipotence and omniscience. Man expects from Him, and would fain give to Him. The more one feels himself to have received from God, the more will he desire to consecrate to Him. Such is the feeling under which Jephthah makes his vow to Jehovah. He promises that if God grant him victory, and he return home crowned with success, ' then that which goeth forth from the doors of my house to meet me, shall be Jehovah's, and I will present it as a whole burnt-offer- ing." He makes this vow from the fullness of his conviction that victory belongs to God alone, and from the fullness of his love, which would give to God that which belongs to Him as the author of success. He would make it known to God, that he regards Him, and not himself, as the command- er-in-chief. There exists, therefore, a profound connection between the words, " when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon," and the expres- sion, " whatsoever cometh forth to meet me ; " and it is essential to the right understanding of the vow that this be borne in mind. Victory will awaken great rejoicings among the people. They will meet the returning victor with loud acclama- tions of gladness. They will receive him with gifts and adornments, with garlands and dances. Such receptions were customary among all nations. The multitude scattered roses, myrtles, 1 and per- fumes. Similar customs obtained in Israel ( 1 Sam. xviii. 6). Jephthah will be celebrated and praised. But not to him — to God, belongs the honor! That which is consecrated to him, belongs, wholly and entirely, to God. This is the first ground of his vow. Jephthah's overflowing heart knows not what to consecrate. He feels that nothing is suf- ficient to be presented to God. But all things are subject to God's disposal. Therefore, whatever comes forth over the threshold of his house to meet him, when he returns victorious, — it shall be for God. He will have no part in it. By this first ground of the vow, its analogy with heathen narratives is so far limited, that there is here no talk of a sacrifice to consist of just the first - whom he meets, and the first alone. Nor is it necessary to assume that N3£ "!#£ HS'Vn, " that which goeth forth," must be understood to mean only one person. It is as little necessary as that in Num. xxx. 3 (2), where vows are treated of, the words nieutary of Serarius. Bertheau's decision for an actual sacrificial death, may probably be explained by the supposi- tion that he did not view the transaction freely and inde- pendently, but only with reference to the opinions of others, a proceeding of too frequent occurrence. 1 Ct. Gerhard, Amerlesem griecn. YiisengemdWe^ i. 130, 186. '2 Which is the decisive point in the legends concerning us, aB told by Servius, and Alexander, as related by Valerius Maximus (vii. 3 ; cf. my article in Herzog, vi. 172). This also is the turning point in a series of later, es- pecially Herman, popular tales, in which the tf first" is not so muoh freely promised to, as demanded by, the demon power who, for that price, has supported or delivered the VQp NSVH, " that which proceedeth out of hit mouth," must mean one word. The participle is in the singular on account of its neutral signification. This indefiniteness is the peculiar characteristic of the votive formula. Equally indefinite is the mean- ing of the verb SH^ ("goeth forth"), which may be used of persons and things, men and animals (cf. Gen.ix. 10). But the occasion of the vow shows also that Jephthah must have thought of persons as com- ing forth to meet him. At all events, he cannot have thought that precisely a lamb or an ox would come forth from his doors to meet him. Notwithstanding the breadth of the vow, notwithstanding all its indefi- niteness, which is left, as it were, to be tilled out by God himself, the chieftain must have thought of persons coming to meet him ; for they come forth on account of the victory, and for that reason may be given to God who gives the triumph. Doubt- less, the abundance of his love is as boundless as that of his faith. As little as he analyzes the let- ter, by which God's victorious might enters his heart, so little does his vow separate and individ- ualize the objects of the former. He calculates not — raises no difficulties : whatever comes to meet him, that he will give to God. But as surely as this does not include things beyond the range of possible contingencies, so surely must he have had some thoughts as to who might meet him on a vic- torious return home. And if he was aware that not only oxen and lambs might come out to meet him — for such a limitation would contradict the breadth of the vow itself — he was equally aware that not everything which might come forth, could be offered up like oxen and lambs. Due stress being laid on the fact that the meet- ing is contemplated as one taking place in conse- quence of victory, there is suggested, for the fur- ther understanding of the vow, a second point of view, not yet properly considered. Jephthah's war is a national war against Ammon. The freedom and rights, which Israel had received from Jeho- vah, are thereby vindicated. The negotiations about the claims to certain lands, set up by Ammon, and refuted by Jephthah. have not been related in vain. They exhibit the God of Israel in his abso- lute greatness, over against Chemosh, the false de- ity of the Ammonites. Israel has repented ; and it is not one man, but the whole tribe, that is rep- resented as beseeching Jehovah for help. To bring out this contrast between Jehovah and the gods of the heathen, the history of Israel, which rests on the power and will of Jehovah, is referred to in a free and living way. Jephthah is conversant with the divine record. He calls on Jehovah to decide as judge between himself and Ammon (ver. 27), just as in his dealings with the Gileadites he ap- peals to Him as " Hearer " (ver. 11). He utters his words " before Jehovah," and the " Spirit of Je- hovah " comes upon him. The name " Elohim " person from whom the sacrifice is required. This tf first " ia usually the person most beloved by him who, to his great regret, has made the promise (cf. Mulleuhoff, Sagen, pp. 384, 386. 395; Sommer, Sagen, pp. 87, 131). Sometimes, the " first human being '' is successfully rescued from the devil — for it is he who appears in Christian legends — by the substitution of au anima,. In one of MiillenhttTs legends (p. 162, Anmerk.) a dog becomes the ''first ; " in Grimm's Mylkologie, p. 973 (cf. Wolf, Deutsche Sagen, p. 417, etc.), it is a goat. No doubt, a mistaken exposition of Jephthah 'I vow, had its intiueuce here. It is, therefore, the more im- portant to insist that in the vow nothing is said of ft firm one who may meet the returning conqueror. CHAPTER XL 39-38. 171 j not used, — for that Amnion considers applicable to kis gods also, — but always that name which in- rolves the distinctive faith of Israel, namely, Je- hovah. All through, Jephthah is represented as Familiar with the Mosaic institutes, and imbued with their spirit; and this just because the his- tory deals with a national war against Amnion. The vow also, which Jephthah makes, is modeled by this contrast between Israel and Amnion. The tribes descended from Lot are especially notorious for the nature of their idolatrous worship. The abominations practiced by Amnion and Moab in honor of Milcom (as they called Molech) and Chemosh, are sufficiently familiar from the history of Israel under the kings (1 Kgs. xi. 7, etc.). The sacrifice of human beings, particularly children, formed a terrible part of their worship. They burned and slaughtered those whom they loved, in token of devotion and surrender to the dreaded de- mon. The same practices were generally diffused among the Phoenicians (cf. Movers, i. 302). On great national occasions, such as war or pestilence, parents vowed to sacrifice their children on the public altars. In the Second Book of Kings jeh. iii. 27) we have the horrible story of the king of Moab, who slaughtered his eldest son on the walls of his city. Without entering farther into this terrible superstition, the explanation of which by Movers is not exhaustive, thus much it is nec- essary to say here : that the sacrifices it required were regarded by the nations who offered them, as the highest expression of their self-surrender to the idol-god. Hence, it is only upon the background of tliis practice, that the offering of Isaac by Abra- ham can be rightly understood. Abraham is put to the proof, whether he will show the same free and obedient self-surrender. As soon as he has dune that, it is made clear that such sacrifices God does not desire. A similar contrast is unquestionably exhibited in the vow of Jephthah ; only, here the reference is specially to Amnion. Jephthah appears before Jehovah with devotion and readiness to make sac- rifices not inferior to that of which idolaters boast themselves. He promises to present to God what- ever -hall come to meet him. In the form of a tow, and with indefinite fullness, he declares his readiness to resign whatsoever God himself, by his providential orderings, shall mark out. It is pre- cisely in this that the conscious opposition of the vow to the abominable sacrifices of the Ammon- ites expresses itself. The highest self-abnegation is displayed ; but in connection with it. the will of God is sought after, (jod himself will determine what is acceptable to Him ; and Jephthah knows that this God has said: " When thou art come into the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee, thou ihalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire (which was the Molech- worship of the Ammonites) ; . . . . for every one that doeth these things, is an abomination unto Jehovah ; and because of these abominations doth Jehovah thy God drive them out from before thee" (Deut. xviii. 9 ffi). To the expulsion of the nations by God, in favor of Israel, Jephthah 1 him- 1 That it is just Jephthah, and he as the hero of law and faith, who presents this contrast with Ammon and hu- man sacrifices, those expositors have overlooked, who, in ipite of the God who was with him, describe this very Jeph- nau as a barbarous transgressor of law. - Our exposition puts no new and strained interpreta- self formerly appealed. We conclude, therefore that the very formula of this vow, made on the eve of war with Ammon, excludes the idea of a human sacrifice. The sacrificial system of Israel stands through- out in marked contrast with the Canaanitish Mo- lech service. Its animal sacrifices are the spiritual symbols which it opposes to the abominations of Canaan. To see this, it is only necessary to refer once more to the sacrifice of Abraham. God says to him : Offer me Isaac for a whole burnt-offering (n/3?v); and when Abraham is about to give Isaac wholly up, an animal is substituted for him (Gen. xxii. 2, 10 ff). Since that time, nbi? (burnt-offering or whole burnt-offering) is the typ- ical and technical terra for an animal sacrifice, symbolical of perfect surrender and consecration to God. The offerings which were thus named, were wholly consumed by fire. Nothing was left of them. Hence, precisely 71 ^ 3?. in its sense of ani- mal sacrifice, presented a strong contrast with the worship of the Ammonites, for among them hu- man beings were offered up in the same manner as the Israelites offered animals. When Gideon is directed to destroy the altar of Baal, he is at the same time commanded to offer a bullock as a whole burnt-offering (i~l -13?) on an altar to be erected by himself, and to consume it with the wood of the Asherah (ch. vi. 26). 2 Such also is the whole burnt-offering (n ?3?), to offer which permission is given to Manoah, the father of Samson, without any mention being made of the animal (ch. xiii. 16). The influence of wor ship on language in Israel, brought it about that ^7?' to offer, signifies the offering of an animal which is to be wholly consumed in the sacred fire. It is therefore significant and instructive, when in Jephthah's vow we find the expression : " It shall be Jehovah's, and I will present it as a whole burnt offering (i°1v3?). In no other instance in which the bringing of a whole burnt-offering is spoken of, is the additional expression, " it shall be Jeho- vah's," made use of, not even in the instances of Gideon and Manoah, although this of Jephthah is chronologically enclosed between them. How strangelv would it have sounded, if it had been said to Gideon : " Take the bullock ; it shall be- long to Jehovah, and thou shalt present it as a whole burnt-offering. For the bullock is presented in order that Gideon may belong to God. It is offered, not for itself, but for men. It is placed on the altar of God, just because it is the property of man. It is foreign to the spirit of Biblical Ian guage and life to say of a sacrificial animal, " it shall belong to God," for the reason that the ani mal comes to hold a religious relation to God, only because it belongs to man, and is offered in man's behalf. An animal belonging to God, in » religious sense, without being offered up, is incon ceivable. At least, it cannot be permitted to : ve. Very important for this subject, is the passage in Ex. xiii. 12, 13. It is there commanded that, when Israel shall have come into Canaan, every tions on ~1~TD and il .13?. but leaves them to be under stood in their general and well known Biblical acceptation — n /13? being here the symbol of a spiritual truth, whil« yet it ignores animal sacrifices as little as does H3I*, w Ps. li. 21 (19). 172 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. first-born shall be set apart unto Jehovah, both the firstlings of every beast " which thou hast " (f 1 ? iT.iT. ">??]?)> and the first-born of man. The firstling of snch animals as cannot be offered, the ass, for instance, is to be redeemed with money ; or, if the owner do not wish to redeem it, he must kill it. The first-born of man, however, must be redeemed. The first-born animal is moreover set apart for God only on account of man, its owner. This substitutionary " belonging to God," it can only represent in death. Hence the expression, " it shall belong to God," is never used of animals, but they are said to be " offered." On the con- trary, it can be applied only to human beings ; " he shall belong to God," shall live for God. conscious of his own free will and of the divine Spirit, which consciousness is wanting in animals. Scripture itself gives this explanation, Num. iii. 12, where it is said : " Behold, I have taken the Levites from among the sons of Israel, instead of all the first- born ; therefore, the Levites belong to me (l^} E*.? 1 ?'? I|1 ?)." The Levites belong to God for all Israel through their life ; the first-born of animals, through their sacrificial death. Accordingly, Han- nah also, when she makes her vow to God, says, that if a son be granted her, she will give him unto Jehovah ; and when she brings him to the taberna- cle, that he is " lent unto Jehovah (Hyp;? 71NK?, 1 Sam. i. 28) as long as he liveth." We perceive, therefore, that in the words of Jcphthah, "it shall' be Jehovah's, and I will pre- sent it as a whole burnt-ottering," there can be no mere tautology. The two clauses do not coincide in meaning ; they cannot stand the one for the other. It is necessary, however, to attend to every word of this remarkable verse. For the vow is a con- tract, every point of which has its importance, and in which not only one being is thought of, but in which all creatures, human beings as well as brute beasts, the few or the many, that may come forth to meet Jephthah, are included, and each is con- secrated as his kind permits. The vow speaks of whatsoever cometh forth " out of the doors of my house." Many will come to meet him, but he can offer only of that which is his ; over the rest he has no power of disposition. His promise extends to what comes out of his own house ; and not to anything that comes accidentally, but to what comes "to meet him." It must come forth for the purpose of receiving him. But even then, the vow becomes binding only when he returns crowned with victory and salvation (D1 "273), and that, not over any and every foe, but over Amnion. If thus he be permitted to return, then whatever meets him " shall be Jehovah's, and he will present it as a whole burnt-ottering." The promise must necessarily be expressed with the greatest exactitude. This was demanded by the requirement of the law, that he who makes a vow " shall keep and perform that which is gone out of his lips, even as he vowed" (Deut. xxiii. 24 [23] ; Num. xxx. 2). Had Jephthah thought only of animals, he would merely have employed the formula usual in such cases — "and I will present t unto thee as a whole burnt-ottering." It would not have been sufficient to have said, " it shal belong to Jehovah," because an animal belongs tt God in this sense only when sacrificed for men Precisely the insertion of the words, " it shall belong to Jehovah," proves, therefore, that ho thought also of human beings. The generality and iireadth of the vow makes both clauses neces- sary, since either one alone would not have cov- ered both men and animals. The first was inap- plicable to animals, the second to human beings. Both being used, the one explains and limits the other. The main stress lies on the words, " it shall belong to Jehovah," for therein is suggested the ground of the vow. They also stand first. Were human beings in question ? then the first clause went into full operation; and the second taught that a life " belonging to God " must be one as fully with- drawn from this earthly life as is the sacrificial vie tim not redeemed according to law ; while the first limited the second, by intimating that a human being need not be actually offered up, as the letter of the promise seemed to require, but that the im- portant point is that it belong wholly to God. God demands no vows. It is no sin, when none are made. But when one has been made, it must be kept. Jephthah obtains the victory : God does his part ; and the trying hour soon comes in which Jephthah must do his. But, as in battle, so in the hour of private distress, he approves himself, and triumphs, albeit with tears. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Jephthah is deeply impressed with the extraor- dinary nature of the call he has received. For it is only because he is humble, that he is called. Gideon, in his slight estimate of himself, asks of God to show him miraculous signs on such objects as he points out. Jephthah, regarding the under- taking as great and himself as small, would fain give to God whatever He himself shall elect. His vow is the offspring of his humility. It is pressed out of him by the extraordinary calling which is imposed upon him. His love values nothing so highly, that he should not leave it to God to decide what shall be given up ; but the will of God often goes sorely against the heart. So deeply, also, does every truly humble man feel his calling as Christian and as citizen. " It is difficult to be a Christian." says the heart, terrified at itself. And yet, for him who has been redeemed through penitence and faith, it is so easy. He only would give all, who knows that he must re- ceive all. But the love of the soul that gives itself up, is stronger than its own strength. No true vow is made to the Lord without self-crucifixion. God's ways are incomprehensible. Whom He loves, He chastens. We are ready to give. Him everything; but when He takes, wo weep. A broken heart is more pleasing to Him than sacri- fice No Passion, no Gospel. Geklach : The design of this history (concern- ing the vow) is not so much to set forth the rude- ness of the age, or the dangers of rashly made vows, as rather to show how Israel was saved from its enemies by the faith of Jephthah, ar d how the service of the true God was restored under th« heaviest sacrifices of the faithful. CHAPTER XI. 34-40. 173 Jeho- sons] Jepkthah, returning victoriously, is met by his daughter. The fulfillment of his vow Chapter XI. 34-40. 34 And Jephthah came to Mizpeh [Mizpah] unto his house, and behold, his daugh- ter came [comes] out to meet him with timbrels and with dances : and she was his 35 only child ; beside her ' he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter ! thou hast brought [thou bringest] me very low, and thou art one of them [the only one] ■ that trouble [afliicteth] me : for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord [Jehovah], 36 and I cannot go back. And she said unto him, My father, if [omit : if] thou hast [hast thou] opened thy mouth unto the Lord [Jehovah], [then] do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth ; forasmuch as the Lord "" vah] hath taken 3 vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children 37 of Ammon. And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for [to] me Let me alone two months, that I may go up and down [may go and descend] 6 upon the mountains, and bewail [weep over] my virginity, I and my fellows [com- 38 panions]. And he said, Go. And he sent her away [dismissed her] for two months : and she went with her companions, and bewailed [wept over] her vir- 39 ginity upon the mountains. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had 40 vowed : and she knew no man. And it was [became] a custom in Israel, That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament [praise] the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a [the] year. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 34. — ^372TD for H2ST2, because the neutral conception "child" floats before the writer'a mind, cf. Ber- V » ' TV"' th. mu. The explanation of ^373D by ex se, implying that Jephthah, though he had no other child of his own, had itep-children, would, as Bertheau says, be tf unworthy of mention," were it not suggested in the margin of the E. V — Tb.] [2 Ver. 35. — ^D3?2 j"T^n might be rendered : tf thou art among those who afflict me. 1 ' But the H is prob- ably the so-called 2 essentia! (Keil), and simply ascribes the characteristic of a class to the daughter (cf. Ges. Gram. 154, 3, a). Dr. Cassel's " only " is not expressed in the original, but is readily suggested by the contrast, of the sad scene with all the other relations of the moment. — Ta.J [8 Ver. 36. — nt£7^7, lit. " done,"' with evident reference to the same word used just before : tf do, since Jehovah hath T T ' done," cf. the Commentary. — Tr.] [i Ver. 37 —Dr. Cassel makes this clause refer to the fulfillment of the vow, and renders : ft Let this thing be done onto me. only let me alone two months," etc. But it clearly introduces the request for a brief period of delay, and is rightly rendered by the E. V., with which Bertheau, Keil, De Wette agree, cf. the Commentary. — Tr.] [6 Ver. 37. — "*n~T~l N 1, " descend," i. e. from the elevated situation of Mizpah (cf. on vers. 29, 33), to the neighbor- ing lower hills and valleys (Keil). T^ does not mean to " wander up and down," a rendering suggested only by the ao- tt parent incongruity of tc descending " upon the " mountains." — Tr.] exegetical and DOCTRINAL. j dances, to celebrate her father's victory ! He sees her, and is struck with horror. It is hie only Vers. 34-36. And behold, his daughter comes chi | d . and h!s vow tears her frora his arm8j and out to meet him. A great victory had been makes him childless. Broad as his vow was, he gained. The national enemy was thoroughly sub- never t h oug ht that he could, even if he would, in- dued. All Gilead was in a joyful uproar. The c]llde her in it This again appears f rom tne cir- return of the victorious hero is a triumphal prog- cumstance| already adverted to, that the victory ress ; but when he approaches his home, his vow and the vow are aga i nst Ammon. The heathen re wives a most painful and unexpected definition "It shall be God's, and not belong to the victor" — so runs the vow — " whatsoever comes out of my house to meet me." And here is his daughter x>ming towards him, with tambourines and choral i [Dr. Cassel manifestly views Jepbthah'e vow as sui feneris — not belonging to the class of vows treated of promised or sacrificed their first-born sons. Ac- cording to the Mosaic law, also, the first-born males (C , "?3*) belong to God. The same law permitted only male 1 victims to be presented as ions there made. Jephthah proposes a whole burnt-offering — spiritual indeed so far as it? possible human subjects arf !*v xxvii 1 ff. and therefore not falling under the provis- ] concerned, but still bound by the law of whole burnt-offer 174 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. whole burnt-offerings (Lev. i. 3). Jephthah's de- sign was to testify that he gave himself up to his God as entirely as the Ammonites imagined them- selves to do to their idols. He would have conse- crated his first-born son to God — Abraham's child, also, was a boy, — but he. had none. Hence, he expresses his self-renunciation in the form of a vow, in which he leaves it to God to select whatever should be most precious in his eyes. But of his daughter he did not think. It never even occurred to him that she might come forth to meet him ; for that was usually done only by women 1 (C N tP3, Ex. xv. 20 ; 1 Sam. xviii. 6), not by maidens, who remained within the house ; and Jephthah's daugh- ter was yet a rOVI?, virgin. But this daughter was worthy of her father. The victory was so great, that she breaks through the restraints of custom, and, like Miriam (the same terms are used here as on the occasion of Moses' song of victory, Ex. xv. 20), goes forth to meet the conqueror. As soon as Jephthah sees her, he recognizes the will of God. His vow is accepted ; but comprehen- sive as he consciously made it, it is God who now first interprets it for him in all its fullness. The hero had made the vow in this indefinite form, be- cause he had nu only and dearly loved son like Isaac. True, he had a daughter ; but he deemed himself debarred from consecrating her, and there fore makes his vow. God now teaches him that he looks not at the sex of the consecrated, but at the heart of the consecrator. However compre- hensive Jephthah's vow, without his daughter it would at most have cost him money or propertv, but his heart would have offered no sacrifice. God teaches him that He delights not in he-goats and oxen ; 2 that that which pleases Him is a broken heart. His heart breaks within him, when he sees his daughter. She is his darling, his sole orna- ment, the light of his house, the jewel of his heart ; and from her he must separate. He comes home the greatest in Israel ; he now feels himself the poorest. But he perceives that this is the real ful- fillment of his vow ; that God cares not for monev or property. The highest offering, which God values, is a chastened heart. Obedience is better than sacrifice. The life is not in the letter : every contract with God must be kept in the spirit. Jephthah's faith revealed itself before the battle. That God was with him, was proved by his victorv. But his entire self-surrender to God approves itself still more beautifully after the battle. For he conquers himself. He bowed himself reverently be- fore God, before the decision was given ; but his deepest piety manifests itself afterwards. He gives his own people, he gives Amnion and Moab, an instance of the power of an Israelite to perform the vows he has made. He suffers his vow to bind him, but does not attempt to bind it. He inter- ings. Now, that law requires that offerings shalt be of the mule geDder ; whereas ordinary vows might embrace fe- males, Lev. xxvii. 4. This view will impart clearness to some of our author's sen euces farther on, where he inti- mates that Jephthah could not redeem his daughter with- out t-iking ' f refuge behind external formulae," i. e. without Interpreting the vow, as if it belonged to a class of vows to which it was not originally meant to belong. — Tr.] 1 [Fraitfn, by which the author evidently means mar- Tint women. But D^tTS bears no such restricted sense, if. tli'S Lex. s. v. Morcnver. thai maidens were confined to the house is a proposition decidedly negatived by all we xnnn of the position of the female sex among the Hebrews, tec Bible Diet., art f * Women.'" — Tr.] - Ai'iHiiently similar thoughts, \t i9 true, are suggested prets it, not according to the letter, but the spirit Lev. xxvii. 4, 5 prescribes the way in which a woman, concerning whom a vow has been made, is to be redeemed. But his only little daughter, who comes to meet him, he cannot protect. Sine* God leads her forth towards him, He cannot in- tend an ottering of ten shekels (Lev. xxvii. 5). His pious soul does not take, refuge behind external formulas ; as we read in connection with heathen vows and bad promises. 3 He recognizes the fact that, since his only, dearly loved child comes to meet him, God demands of' him all the love which he cherishes for her, and ali the pain which it will cost him to part with her. And in this conviction, he hesitates not for an instant. He believes like Abraham : and, like him, albeit with a bleeding heart, makes full surrender of what God requires. The scene of Jephthah's meeting with his daughter has no equal in pathetic power. Her we see advancing with a radiant face, giving voice to her jubilant heart, surrounded by dancing com- panions, and longing to hear her father's happy- greeting ; while he, in the midst of sounding tim- brels and triumphant shouts — hides his face for agony ! What might have been a moment of loud- est jubilation, is become one of the deepest sorrow. That on which his imagination had fondly dwelt as the crowning point of his joy — the honor with which he could encircle the head of his only child, his virgin-daughter, now the first in all the nation — was instantly transformed into the heaviest woe. " my daughter, deeply hast thou caused me to bow, and thou alone distressest me." He borrows the words perhaps from the panegyrical song in which she celebrates him as " having caused the enemy to kneel, 4 and to be distressed ; " and in the extremity of his grief applies them to his child, thus suddenly astonished and struck dumb in the midst of her joy. " But," continues the hero, though his heart weeps, " I have opened my mouth unto Jehovah, and I cannot go back." I promised God in the spirit of sincerity, and must perform it in the same spirit. And there is not in all an- tiquity, no, nor yet in Holy Scripture, an instance of a maiden uttering a more beautiful, more pro- foundly pathetic word, than that which Jephthah's daughter, a hero's daughter, a true child of Israel, speaks to her father, even while as yet she knows not the purport of the vow : " Hast thou opened thy mouth to Jehovah, then do according to that which proceeded out of thy mouth ; for Jehovah also hath done according to thy word, and hath taken vengeance on thy enemies." She neither deprecates nor laments, gives no start, exhibits no despair — does nothing to make her faiher waver ; but, on the contrary, encourages him, refers him to what God has done, and bids him do as he has promised, not to think, as he might perhaps be tempted to do, of change or modification in her from a heathen point of view, not only by such examples as that of Iphigenia (cf. Cicero, .P 1 . his family disappears. The highest happiness in Israel, to have children, and thus to see one's name or house continued, will not be his. The dearest of all beings, his only child, is dead to him The same sorrow, and in accordance with ancient feelings with even greater severity, if that were possible, falls on the virgin daughter herself. An unmar- ried life was equivalent to death for the maid°n» of ancient Israel. For the bud withers away. Con- jugal love and duty, the blossoms of lite, do not appear. Unmarried maidens have no place in the life of the state. Marriage forms the crown of normal family life. The psalm (lxxviii. 63) notes it as part of the utmost popular misery, that " the fire f*of war) consumes the young men, and the maidens are not celebrated " (in marriage songs). Analogous sentiments are frequent in the life of ancient nations. The Brahminism of India looks upon a childless condition as in the highest degree disgraceful A woman is always in need of manly guidance and protection ; be it as daughter from her father, as wife from her husband, or as mother from her sons (cf. Bohlen, Altes Indien, ii 141 ff.). The laws of Lycurgus concerning marriage, and their penalties against men who did not marry, are familiar. Noteworthy, with reference to the cus- toms of Asia Minor, is an episode in the history of Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos. Being urgently warned bv his daughter against leaving his island to go to Oroetus, who was on the continent, he be- came angry, and threatened her, that in case of his safe return home, she should long afterwards continue to be a virgin ; to which the dutiful daugh- ter replied, that she would gladly remain virgin much longer still, if only she did not lose hei father (Herod, iii. 124). And weep over my virginity. Not, then, it appears, to mourn her own untimely death. If she was to die, it would have been unnatural to ask for a space of two months to be spent on the moun- tains in weeping. In that case, why depart with her maiden companions ? why not remain at home with her father i A person expecting death and ready for it, would ask no time for lamentation. Such a one dies, and is lamented by others. But Jephthah's daughter is to live — a virgin life, to which no honor is paid, from which no blossoms spring — a life of stillness and seclusion. No nup- tial song shall praise, no husband honor, no child grace her. This weeping of viigins. 1 because they remain without the praise of wedlock, is character- istic of the naive manners and candid, unaffected purity of ancient life through wide-extended cir- cles. Sophocles, in " King (Edipus " (ver. 1504), , makes the father express his fears that " age will consume his children, fruitless and unmarried." it was customary to do in pathetic and elegiac terms Wenzig, West- Slav. Uarchauchalz, pp. 13,311. 176 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. Electra, in the tragedy which bears her name, says of Chrysothemis (ver. 962 f.) : " Well mayest thou lament that thou must grow old so long in unmar- ried jovlessness ; " just as she is herself commis- erated by Orestes (ver. 1185) : " Oh, the years of unmarried, anxious life which thou hast lived." In many other instances of virgins who must die or have died, the fact of their dying unmarried is lamented. So, for example, in the beautiful in- scription of the Anthology (cf. Herder, Werke, xx. 73) : " Dear daughter, thou wentest so early, and ere I adorned thy bridal couch, down to the yellow stream under the shades," and in the plaint of Polyxena (Euripides, Hecuba, ver. 414): "Un- married, without nuptial song, which nevertheless is my due." The daughter of Jephthah laments not that she must die as a virgin, but with her maiden companions bewails her virginity itself. From year to year the daughters of Israel go to celebrate in songs (^307' c f- ch. v. 11) the daughter of Jephthah. Of this festival 1 nothing further is known. A reflection of the feelings it expressed might, however, be found in very ancient analogies. After the maiden, with her companions, has wept on the mountains for two months, over the vain promise of her youth, she returns to her father. The mountains are the abode of a pure and elevated solitude, in which her own chaste heart and those of her companions can open themselves without being overheard- On mountains, also, and in unfrequented pasture-lands and forests, abode the Greek Artemis, the virgin who goes about alone, without companions, like the moon in the sky- It was on account of this her virginity, that Greek maidens celebrated her in many places with song and dance ; from which practice she derived the name Artemis Hijmnia, especially current in the mountains of Arcadia. The hymns were sung by virgin-choirs (cf. Welcker, Griech. Mythol. i. 585). A similar festival was de- voted to Artemis on Mount Taygetus. At Caryas, also in Laconia, festive choral dances were yearly executed in her honor (Pans. iii. 10). The virgin goddess was also called Hecaerge ('Exaepyri), and Opis or Oupis ffln-is or Oujtis). 0^17705 is the song of praise, with which, especially in Delos, and in accordance with peculiar myths, virgins celebrated the chaste Oupis, and brought her, as soon as they married, a lock, of their hair (Callim. in DA. ver. 292 ; Pans. i. 43). The same custom was observed at Megara with reference to Iphinoe, who died a virgin (Pans. i. 43). Here also tradition leads us back to Artemis, who is styled protectress of her father. That it is the attributes of chastity and virginity which are thus celebrated, is indicated 1 On the statement of Epiphanius, that a festival of the laughter of Jephthah was still celebrated in his time, com- pare my article in Herzng, p. 476. '2 Hengsteuberg, in his valuable essay on Jephthah's vow (Pentateuch, ii. 1U5 IT.), seeks to explain the daughter's des- tiny by means of an institute of holy women, into which ihe perhaps entered. This is not the place to treat that subject, which must be referred to 1 Sam. ii. 22. This much only seems to me to be certain, that by the mSD^» Ex. xxxviii. 8 and 1 Sain ii. 22, we are not to understand miaistermg women. It must be remarked, in general, that Ihe fundamental signification of SI2— is, not mililare. but T T to be in a multitude. 11 From this the idea of the .""l^SD**, the hosts, in heaven and on earth, is derived. pOti* derives itB meaning tf host, 11 not from military disci- pline, but from tlie assembling of a multitude at one place. by the transfer of the custom in honor of a man. in the legend of Hippolytus. " Him," Euripido makes Artemis say, " shall virgins ever praise iu lyric songs ; " and locks of hair were dedicated to him bv Trcezenian brides (cf. Euripides, Htppol. ver. 1425; Pans. ii. 32). These observances are a reflection of the narra- tive concerning Jephthah's daughter, for the reason that they present us with virgin festivals, and with songs to the goddess who did not die, but remained a virgin. In point of fact, the existence of such festivals points to conceptions of life under whose influence woman, contrary to the common rule, lived in a state of virginity. The circumstance, also, that it became a custom in Israel to " praise " the daughter of Jephthah four days in every year, is itself a proof that the practice did not refer to a maiden who had been put to death. For what would there have been to praise in what was not necessarily dependent on her own free will > As in Artemis, so in her, it is voluntary, self-guarded chastity that is praised, just as Hippolytus also is not celebrated because he died unmarried, but be- cause his life fell a sacrifice to his virtuous con- tinence. And he did with her according to his vow, and she knew no man. Had she been put to death, that fact must here have been indicated in some way. The narrator would have said, " and he presented her as a sacrifice at the altar in Miz- pah," or, " and she died, having known no man," or some other similar formula. At all events, it does not "stand there in the text," as Luther wrote, that she was offered in sacrifice. Much rather does this sentence show the contrary. For its second clause is explanatory of the nature and purport of the vow as it was fulfilled. The end to which it looked was the very thing which it is stated was actually secured, that she should know no man. 2 On any other interpretation, the addi- tion of this clause would be inexplicable and ques- tionable. For the fact that she was a virgin in her father's house, has already been twice brought for- ward. Moreover, it is surely not an event of very rare occurrence, for young women to die before they are married. And why should the narrator have hesitated to speak of the transaction in such terms as properly and plainly described it ? In other cases he does not fail to speak of the most fearful aberrations just as they are. The truth is, the whole narrative derives its mighty charm only from the mysterious, and at that time in Israel very extraordinary fact, that the daughter of the great hero, for whom a life of brilliant happiness opened itself, spent her days in solitude and vir- ginity. 8 Death, even unnatural, was nothing un- The women of the passages alluded to are therefore not ministering women, but persons who collected together at the tabernacle for purposes of prayer, requests, and thanks- giving, like the wives of Elkanah (1 Sam. i.), or to consult with and inquire of the priests. Some, of course, were more instant and continuous in their attendance than others (cf. Kimchi on 1 Sam. ii. 22). At all events, they were women who were either married or widowed. But the history of Jephthah's daughter is related as something extraordinary. Her virginity must remain intact. On this account she is la mented, and a festival is celebrated for her sake. These are uncommon matters, not to be harmonized with the idea of a familiarly known institute. Even among the Talmudists, a female ascetic is a phenomenon unheard of and unapproved {Sola, 22 a). 8 Nor is it necessary to assume anything more to explain the lament of the daughter or the grief of the bereaved father. Even Roman fathers took it sorrowfully, when their daughters became vestal virgins, notwithstanding the ert-a' CHAPTER XII. 1-7. 177 common. But a life such as Jephth;ih's daughter henceforth lived, was at that time unparalleled in Israel, and affords therefore profound instruction, not to be overlooked because issuing from the silence of retirement. Jephthah performs his vow. That which comes to meet him, even when it proves to be his daugh- ter, he consecrates entirely to God, as a true offer- ing of righteousness (cf. Ps. li. 21 : PlrprpT VbST rh^V). He fulfills his vow so fully as to put it beyond his own reach to annul or commute its purport. For he fulfills, as he vowed, volun- tarily ; no one called on him to make his promise good. The background of the history, without which it cannot be understood, is life in and with God. The providence to which the hero commits the definition of his vow, is that of Jehovah. And it ( tod leads his daughter forth to meet him, and tint:- in her receives the highest object in the gift of Jephthah, the consecration of which she becomes the subject cannot be of a nature opposed to God. The event throws a brightness over the life of perpetual virginity which rescues it from ignominy and dishonor. Jephthah 's daughter typically exem- plifies the truth that a virgin life, if it be consecra- ted to God, is not such an utter abnormity, as until then it had appeared. In Jephthah's fulfillment of his vow and the consequent unmarried life of his daughter, there is a foreshadowing of those evangelical thoughts by means of which the Apos- tle liberates woman from the dread of remaining nnwedded. Not, however, that we are to look here for the germ or type of the nunnery system ; 1 but for an example of belonging wholly to God, and of living unmarried, without being burdened or placed in a false position. That Jephthah through his vow became the occasion of such an example, is already some miti- gation of his fate. He. has become the father, not of children who inherited his house, but of count- less virgins who learned from his daughter to remain free and wholly devoted to God. Jephthah is a truly tragic hero. His youth endures perse- cution. His strength grows in exile. His victory and fame veil themselves in desolation when his only daughter leaves his home. But everywhere he is great. Whatever befalls, he comes out con- queror at last. God is always the object of his faith. He suffers more than Gideon ; but what he does at last does not become a snare to Israel. He also had no successors in his office of wisdom and heroism — just as Gideon, and Samson, and Sam- honor of such a vocation. They were glad to leave such honors to the children of freedmen (Sueton. Aug. 31 ; Dio Cass. 55, p. 563). 1 On this point, compare my article in Herzog, p. 474, note. 2 Poets, unfortunately, have almost without exception considered a sacrificial death more poetical, and have thus done serious injustice to the memory of Jephthah. It was done, among others, by Dante (Paradise, v. 661, who herein uel had none ; but it was not his fault that he had them not. His daughter, who resembled a Miriam, gave herself up to God. 2 HOMILKTICAL AND PRACTICAL. Jephthah's call was extraordinary : extraordi- nary also is the manner of his own endurance and his daughter's obedience. He parts with her, though deeply afflicted. He yields, though pos- sessed of secular power. His daughter comforts him, though herself the greatest loser. Isaac did not know that he was to be the sacrifice; but Jephthah's daughter knows it, and is content. 1 . Thus it appears that a child who loves its father, can also love God. In true devotion ol children to parents, there lies a germ of the like relation to God. The daughter of Jephthah loves her father so dearly, that for his sake she calmly submits to that which he has vowed to God. It is written : Honor thy father and mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. To Jephthah's daughter this was fulfilled in the spirit Her memory has never faded from the books of Israel, nor from the heaven of God, where all sorrows are redeemed. 2. Jephthah might have conquered without a vow ; but having vowed before his victory, he ful- fills it after the same. Faithfulness to his word is man's greatest wisdom, even though he moisten it with tears. Faithfulness towards a sin is inconceiv- able ; because unfaithfulness lies in the nature of sin. Faithfulness has the promise : be thou faith- ful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life. 3. Jephthah's daughter does not die like one sacrificed to Molech : she dies to the world. She loses a thousand joys that are sweet as love. But no one ever dies to the world and lives to God, without experiencing sorrow. A virgin life is a nameless life, as Jephthah's daughter is nameless in Scripture. But the happiness of this world is not indispensable ; and like the solitary flower, the unmarried woman can belong to her God, in whose heaven they neither give nor are given in mar riage. Geklach : That the Judges whom God raised up, when they thus offered to the Lord even that which they held most dear, did not deliver the es- tranged and deeply fallen people in a merely out- ward sense, is shown by this act of believing sur- render. followed the Catholic exegesis of his day (cf. my article in Herzog, p. 470). To be sure, Herder did the same. Lord Byron also, in his Hebrew Melodies (see a translation of his poems in Klein's Volhshattnder, for 1854, p 47). The names in Handel's Oratorio seem to have been borrowed from ths poem of Buchanan, published in Strasburg, 1568. Cf. Godeke, Pamp/iilus GengenbacK, p. 672. In Faber's Hit- torischer Luslgarten (Augsburg and Frankfort, 1702), the daughter is called t( Jephtina." Etphraim's proud and envious conduct towards Jephthah. Chapter XIT. 1-7. I And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and went northward [pro ceeded to Zaphon], and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over [Why 12 178 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. didst thou pass on — proceed— ] to fight against the children [sons] of Amnion, and 2 didst not call us to go with thee ? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire. And Jephthah said unto them, I and my people were at great strife [in a severe conflict] with the children [sons] of Amnion ; and when [omit : when] I called you, [and] ye 3 delivered me not out of their hands [hand]. And when I saw that ye delivered i/ie not, I put my life in my hands [hand], and passed over [on] against the children [sous] of Amnion, and the Lord [Jehovah] delivered them into my hand : where- 4 fore then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me ? Then [And] Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim : and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they [had] said, ye Gileadites are fugi- tives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites [fugitives of 5 Ephraim are ye Gilead, in Ephraim and Manasseh], And the Gileadites took the passages [fords] of [the] Jordan before the Ephraimites [toward Ephraim] : and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped [the fugitives of Ephraim], said, Let me go over ; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite ? 6 If he said, Nay ; Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth : and he said Sibboleth : for he could not 1 frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him and slew [slaugh- tered] him at the passages [fords] of [the] Jordan. And there fell at that time of the 7 Ephraimites forty and two thousand. And Jephthah judged Israel six years : then died Jephthah the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 6. — (t Could not," is too strong. K i:ii. : }^3n, stands elliptically for ^ V "P^n, to apply the mind, tc give heed. Cf. 1 Sam. xxiii. 22 ; 1 Chr. xxviii. 2, with 2 Chr. xii. 14 ; xxx. 19." — Tk.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. The victory of Jephthah is followed by a repeti- tion of what took place after Gideon's heroic achievement. The overbearing pride of the chief tribe, Ephraim, vents itself in each instance against the victor who has risen up within the smaller tribe, and has become the saviour of the people. Now as then the presumptuous jealousy of the tribe complains that it has not been invited to take part But this apparent eagerness for war was hypocritical. The thing really desired was a share in the booty and the results of success. Ephraim would help to reap, where it had not sown. The injustice of the tribe was even greater on this occa- sion than in the time of Gideon. For then it really did render some little assistance, albeit only after Gideon had first led the way. But here it had been called on for help, and" had stayed at home. As soon, however, as victory had been ob- tained, it came with threats and war. But it was not so successful now as with Gideon. That hero, when they clamored against him, was still in pur- suit of the enemy, and was obliged, for the sake of his own success, to allay their pride and pre- sumption by gentleness. Jephthah had no reason for submitting to such arrogance. Nor did the Ephraimites come with words only ; they were pre- pared to use force. They derided the people, and thought that with arms in their hands they could chastise Gilead and humble Jephthah. They will set his house on fire over his head. Then Jephthah shows that he is not only a hero against enemies, but also the Judge in Israel. It is his authority which he tries and proves by chastising Ephraim. Hut here also, as in his dealings with the sons of Amnion, he first establishes the righteousness of hi- conduct by clear words. However, if sinful Ephraim had cared for righteousness, it would in io case have entered on this course. It relied on riolence, like Ammon ; and like Ajnmon it experi- enced the chastisement of violence. No Judge of whom the history tells us inflicts such chastisement and exercises such power within the nation as well as against alien enemies, as does Jephthah. But it was needed ; and the humiliation of Ephraim for its sin was less severe than it might otherwise have proved, because the punishment came in the time of Israel's freedom, and not at the expense of that freedom. Ver. 1. And proceeded to Zaphon. The older Jewish expositors, whom Ewald and Keil have followed, already found in n2"12^J, not direction toward the north, but the name of a city, which lay beyond the Jordan in the tribe of Gad (Josh, xiii. 27). This interpretation rests on the require- ments of the context. For in order to explain verses 4 and 5, Ephraim must have advanced across the Jordan. The remark in the Jerusalem Tal- mud (Skwiith, 9, 2), which identifies Zaphon with VTOJ?, Amathus, Aemath, cf. Amateh (cf. Ritter, xv. 1031), is therefore altogether suitable. For this city was still known in later times as a strong point on the Jordan, as Josephus repeatedly states. The Onomasticon, also (ed. Parthey, p. 26), says concerning it, that it lay beyond the Jordan, to the south of Pella ; for Ritter's oversight, who supposes that the Onomasticon identifies Amathus with another Aemath in the tribe of Reuben, is not to be concurred in. Amathus, according to its stated distance from Pella (in vigesimo primr. milliario), could not lie in the tribe of Reuben — which agrees so far with the fact that Zaphon was in Gad. Ver. 2. And Jephthah said unto them. It was not related above that Jephthah called on the tribe of Ephraim to assist, as he here reminds them ; but that he would do so, was to be expected. But even if he had not done so, what was there lu justify Ephraim in its contention and war ! Jeph- thah's answer is not defiant : it allows that Gilead would gladly have accepted help, if only a helper had been at hand. Jephthah would gladlj hav« CHAPTER XII. 1-7. 17! fielded the precedence in victory to Ephraim, if Ephraim had only wielded arras against the enemy as bravely as it now uses words against its brethren. But when he saw that there was no deliverer, he put his life in his hand, and God gave the victory. Did not Jephthah devote his dearest possession in order to obtain from God the victory for which he entreated Him ? The Midrash has a thought in this connection, which, when disengaged from its unhistorical wrap- pings, is judicious and profound. It says that for the things which befell Israel under Jephthah only the priests were to blame. Why did they not annul the vow of Jephthah ! Why did they not restrain Ephraim from civil war ! It is manifest that a truth is here suggested which applies to all times. It is undoubtedly the duty of persons equipped with spiritual power, to lift up their voices for peace, and especially to labor for concord be- tween the single tribe and all Israel. If they neg- lect this duty, their candlestick — this also the Midrash intimates — will sooner or later be over- thrown. Ver. 3 Wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day to fight against me ? Ephraim's attempt is actually more culpable than Ammon's. In itself considered, civil war between cognate tribes is a disgrace, which can only spring from ungodliness.' But the sin of Ephraim, when it proposes to burn the house of Jephthah, is still further aggravated by the fact that it is directed against the restorer of the divine law and the de- liverer of Israel. It is moral and national treason. The Spartans also, under all sorts of pretext*, had left Athens to face alone the advancing Persians. But when the battle at Marathon had been won, the auxiliary troops who arrived too late to be of service, praised and applauded the heroism of Athens (Herod, vi. 120). Jephthah dwells on the injustice of Ephraim, who would not indeed tight against Ammon, but now (" this day ") undertakes to make war on him (he always stands personally for his people), in order to excuse his armed resist- ance. Ephraim now receives the punishment which properly it had already deserved at Gideon's hands. It is totally defeated by the hero; and its men find themselves entered on a calamitous flight. Vers. 4, 5. And the men of Gilead smote Ephraim. It was not Jephthah, as the fine repre- sentation gives us to remark, who prosecuted the bloody pursuit. He contented himself with chas tising Ephraim according to its presumption ; but the people of Gilead had been exasperated by the contempt of the Ephraimites. It is true that the sentence in which the ground of the wrath of the Gileadites over an utterance of the Ephraimites is expressed, is not easily expounded : *1~^^ N 2 ornBN tpna "rsba OCiH n-n^si ^bs !T"2J; Tpna. For it is not at once apparent how the Gileadites could be called "fugitives of Ephraim," seeing they were descendants of Manas- seh. A closer inspection, however, makes this in- telligible. Ephraim raised a claim to participate in war, only in the cases of Gideon and Jephthah, not in those of the other Judges. It is manifest, therefore, that it based its claim upon the fact that Gideon and Jephthah belonged to Manasseh, its own sister-tribe. At any rate, the House of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, had from of old a con- sciousness of a certain unity of its own. It treated is one with Joshua (Josh. xvii. 14 ft".). It entered .ogether into Its territory (Judg. i. 22). Under king Solomon it was under a common administra- tive officer (1 Kgs. xi. 2S). Now, in the " House of Joseph " Ephraim had the chief voice ; for Ma nasseh was divided, and its possessions lay scattered among other tribes. Hence, it could with some plausibility claim it as its right that no division of the House of Joseph should undertake a warlike expedition without its participation. Nor do Gid- eon and Jephthah deny this right. " We did call thee," says the latter ; " but thou didst not come." Only the manner in which Ephraim raised its claim was sinful, unjust, and arrogant. For it raised it, not in the time of distress, but for the sake of the booty; and instead of applauding a great achievement, it indulged in derision, which exasperated the warriors of Gilead. For in storm- ing at Jephthah for not calling it, it denies to Gil- ead every right of separate action. " How can Gilead presume to exercise tribal functions, and set a prince and judge over Israel ? " " Gilead is no community at all," but only a " set of fugitives," who act as if they were a tribe, whereas in fact they belong elsewhere. They use the word peletim (fugitives) by way of contumely, just as among the Greeks ipvyds meant both fugitive and ban- ished- Ye are " fugitives of Ephraim," taunted the Ephraimites, and would set yourselves up as an independent principality. In so saying, Ephraim arrogantly put itself in the place of the House of Joseph, to which Gilead also belonged, since it was the son of Maehir of Manasseh. " Gilead belongs in the midst of Ephraim and Manasseh." This addition was intended to add point to what pre- ceded. Gilead is nothing by itself, has no tribal rights ; it belongs to the House of Joseph. This was true, indeed; and Gilead's descendants lived on both sides of the river (Num. xxvi. 30 ff.) ; but " fugitives " they were not. The half-tribe of Ma- nasseh beyond "the Jordan was as independent as any other tribe ; and in the war against Amnion Gilead proper was doubtless joined by men of other tribes, especially Gad. It was therefore no wonder that the men of Gilead became greatly exasperated, and did not spare the Ephraimites even in theii flight. Jephthah only defeated them ; but the mul titude slew them like enemies, and gave no quarter. Thus, sin and contumely beget passion and cru- elty. The discord of brethren inflicts the deepest wounds. Nowhere does hatred rise higher, than where concord is natural. Ver. 6. Then said they to him, Say Shib- boleth. Ephraim meets with remarkable expe- riences at the fords of the Jordan. In Gideon's time, it gained easy victory there over the Midian- ites whom that hero chased into their hands ; now it is itself chased thither and there put to death In the outset, its men had taunted Gilead with the term " fugitives of Ephraim," and now they are themselves in very truth 0^9fc? ''©V?. Before they prided themselves upon their tribe name Eph- raim, which they haughtily used for the whole House of Joseph ; and now, when an Ephraimite came to the stream, he is fain to deny his tribe in order to save his life. The enraged men of Gilead will not suffer one Ephraimite to cross the river; hence the requisition of every one who wished to pass over, to say Shibboleth, which no Ephraimite could do, for he could only say Sibboletn. What " Shibboleth " meant, is of minor importance ; but as its enunciation was required at the river, and in order to pass it, it may be assumed that the Gilead- ites thought rather of' the signification " stream than " ear," both of which the wr 'd has. Evep 180 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. Ephraimite in this extremity had the feeling after- wards depicted in the Psalm (lxix. 3 [2] ) : " I am tome into depths of waters, and the stream over- Bows me." 'OOBtatlJ nVstn. — When, during the Flemish war, the insurrection against the French broke out, May 25. 1302, the gates were guarded, and no one was suffered to pass out, ex- cept such as were able to say, " Salt ende friend," which words no Frenchman could pronounce. ( Mensel, Gesch. von Frankr. ii. 134 ; Schmidt, Gesch. "on Frankr. i. 682). And there fell at that time of the Ephraim- ites forty and two thousand. The number 42 (7 times 6) appears to be not far removed from around number; but its occurrence is associated with severe and well-merited judgments on sin. As here 42,000 sinful Ephraimites fall, so 42 of the mockers of the prophet Elijah are killed by bears (2 Kgs. ii. 24); and when the judgment of God breaks forth over the house of Ahab, 42 breth- ren of Ahaziah are put to death by Jehu (2 Kgs. x. 14). Ver. 7. And he was buried in one of the cities of Gilead. Herein the mournful lot of Jephthah, resulting from the surrender of his daughter, shows itself. He had no heir, as he had had no inheritance. He was the first and the last in his house. The greatness of his deeds is proved by the fact that they were nevertheless re- membered ; for in what city he was buried was not known, just as to us Mizpah, the place where he had his home, is also unknown, and as the place of his birth is not mentioned. It is not known what his father's name was ; it is not known where his own grave is. " Gilead " begat him, and Gil- ead received his corpse. He shares no father's tomb, and no son shares his. He was a gnat hero who lived and died solitary ; only faith in God was with him. Six years he ruled ; when thev were finished, his rest from labor and sorrow began. His name did not return ; Gilead's power rose not again : but he was not forgotten in Israel. His sorrow and victory are typical — so the older expositors suggest — of Him who said : " Not my will, but thine, be done ! " HOUILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Jephthah's vocation was extraordinary, and equally extraordinary was his fate. He gave up everything to God for his people ; and yet at last the envy of his countrymen pursues him. They threaten to burn his house, which for their sake he has made desolate. He makes no boast of this, however ; yet exercises discipline with a strong hand. Six years he judged, and in the seventh rested from "an office that had brought him so much grief. 1. Prior to success friends are few; but after- wards all wish to share in it. While there is dan- ger, he who takes the lead is called valorous ; after the victory, usurper. Sin regards not the offerings which the' warrior brings, but only the results which ne has obtained. The evil will not assist in sowing ; but yet wonld fain participate in the harvest. 2. Life offers nothing to such as serve not God, even though one rise as high as Jephthah. If 1 [Dr. Wordsworth looks on Jephthah as '■ one who does Silghty deeds in an irrt^utar manner, at a time when those persons who are placed in authority by God, and who ought to employ God's appointed means in a regular way, are faith- less to their trust, aud neglect their duty to Go»' and his Church. Uis work may be compared to- that of the Wes- Jephthah had not rebuilt the altar of Jehovah in Israel, he had been happier in the desert and the silence of seclusion. The charm of life must be sought in the gospel. Life is short ; and though prolonged, full of trouble. Every religion builds its altar for eternity. For Him who has wrought six days for his Saviour, and confessed Him, there opens on the seventh the Sabbath of eternity. Starke : The godly are never long without a cross : they are tried at home and abroad ; with- out is fighting, within is fear (2 Cor. vii. 5). — Sailer : The gospel without suffering belongs to heaven ; suffering without the gospel, to hell ; the gospel with suffering, to earth. [ Henry : It is an ill thing to fasten names or characters of reproach on persons or countries, as is common, especially on those who lie under out- ward disadvantages ; it often occasions quarrels of ill consequences, as here. See likewise what a mischievous thing an abusive tongue is. — Words- worth : Here we see a specimen of that evil spirit of envy and pride which has shown itself in the Church of God. They who are in high place in the Church, like Ephraim, sometimes stand aloof in the time of danger. And when others of lower estate have stepped into the gap, and have stood in the breach, and braved the danger, and have fought the battle and gained the victory, as Jephthah the Gileadite did (the man of Gilead, which was not a tribe of Israel), then they are angry and jealous, and insult them with proud words, and even proscribe and taunt them with being runaways and deserters, and yet daring to claim a place among the tribes of Israel. Has not this haughty and bitter language of scorn and dis- dain been the language of some in the greatest west- ern church of Christendom against the churches of the reformation ? Has it not sometimes been the language of some in the Church of England towards separatists from herself? Schism doubt less is a sin ; but it is sometimes caused by the en forcement of anti-scriptural terms of communion, as it is by the Church of Rome ; and the sin of the schism is hers. It is often occasioned (though not justified) by spiritual languor and lethargy in the Church of God. Zeal for God and for the truth is good wherever it be found. Let the churches of Christ stand forth in the hour of danger and tight boldly the good fight against the Ammonites of error and unbelief. Then the irregular guerrilla warfare of separatist 1 Jephthahs and their Gilead- ites will be unnecessary, and they will fight side by side under the banner of Ephraim. — Tub same : The Gileadites did not slay the Ephraim- ites because they did not agree with them in pro- nunciation, but "because they were Ephraimites, which was discovered by their different pronuncia- tion. The strifes in the Church of God lie deeper than differences of expression in ritual observances or formularies of faith. They lie in the heart, which is depraved by the evil" passions of envy, hatred, and malice ; and slight differences in ex- ternals arc often the occasions for eliciting the deep rooted prejudices of depraved will, and the malignant feelings of unsanctified hearts. Let the heart be purified by the Holy Spirit of peace, and the lips will move" in harmony and love. — The same : That river which in the days of Joshua leys and Whitefields," etc. see on ch. xi. 1. The definition ot " irregularity " here given, applies to all the Judges. In a certain sense, they were all irregular ; but that Jena thah was so in any special sense is abundantly refuted 1>J Dr. CasseUs exposition. — Tr-1 CHAPTER XII. 8-15. 181 had been divided bv God's power and mercy, in order that all the tribes might pass over together into Canaan, the type i>." heaven, is now made the scene of carnage "between Gilead and Ephraim. In the Church h spirit, became themselves dependent on them. Dan had already been long unable to hold its ground anywhere except on the mountains {ch. i. 34). Now, the Philistines were powerful and free in all the Danite cities. Chapter x. 15 f. tells of the earnest repentance of the sons of Israel before God. But such a statement is not made here, al- though the history of a new Judge is introduced. Everywhere else the narrative, before it relates the mighty deeds of a Shophet, premises that Israel had cried unto God, and that consequently God had taken pity upon them. Now, unless it be assumed that ch. x. 15 refers also to Dan and Judah, as in ver. fi the Philistines are likewise already spoken of, it is remarkable that the narrative of Samson's exploits is not preceded by a similar remark. It is a point worthy of special notice. For since the story of Israel's apostasy is repeated, that of its repentance would likewise have been repeated. That which he does not relate, the narrator must have believed to have had no existence. And in fact no such repentance can have taken place at this time in Dan and Judah, as we read of in Gil- tad. The history of the hero, whose deeds are about to be related, proves this. If, then, such a mau nevertheless arose, the compassion which God thereby manifested toward Israel, was doubtless called forth by the few, scattered here and there, who sought after and acknowledged Him. The power which shows itself in the history of Sam- son's activity is of a similarly isolated, individual character. It is only disconnected deliverances which Israel receives through him. It is no entirt national renovation, such as were brought about by former Judges within their fields of action. Herein the history of Samson differs entirely from the events of Othniel's, Ehud's, Barak's, Gideon's, and Jephthah's times, just as he himself differs from those heroes. Jephthab also speaks as an individual I, when he treats with the enemy; he was in fact the national I, for his will was the will of the people, his repentance their repentance. He can say, " I and my people," (ch. xii. 2) : his people have made him their prince. Samson is an indi- vidual without a people ; a mighty I, but no prince ; a single person, consecrated to God, and made the instrument of his Spirit almost without his own will ; whereas Jephthab and his people are one in penitential disposition and trust in God. Hence, the circumstance that, although Samson was a Judge, and announced by an angel of God, it is nevertheless not recorded that before his ad- vent the " sons of Israel had cried to God," affords an introductory thought important for the right apprehension of the peculiar and remarkable nar- ratives in which the new hero appears. An angel foretells the birth of Samson. Chapter XIIL 2-7. 2 And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose 3 name was Manoah ; and his wife was barren, and bare not. And the [an] angel of the Lord [Jehovah] appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold, now, 4 thou art barren, and bearest not : but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son. Now therefore [And now] beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine, nor strong drink, 5 and eat not any unclean thing : For lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son ; and no razor shall come on his head : for the child [boy] shall be a Nazarite unto [of] God from the womb : and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of 6 the Philistines. Then [And] the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, and his countenance [appearance] was like the countenance [appearance] of an angel of God, very terrible [august] : but [and] 7 I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name : But [And] he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing : for the child [boy] shall be a Naza- rite to [of] God from the womb to the day of his death. EXEIiUVICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Vers. 2, 3. And there was a certain man of Borah. In the times of Israel's penitence, men -ose up filled with the Spirit of God ; when this was not the case, God had to bring forth the hero for himself. Samson's election was unlike that of any other Judge. Concerning Othniel and Ehud, t is simply said, " and God set them up as deliver- irs" (CiTl). Barak was called through Deborah, who was a prophetess. An " angel of God " came also to liberate the people from Midian ; but he came to Gideon, a man of valor already proved. Jephthah's case has just been considered. The election of Samson presents an altogether different phase. He is chosen before he is born. An angel of God comes, not to him, but to his mother. Jeph- thah is recognized by Gilead as the right man, be- cause he has begun (vP*) to triumph over the en- emy. In Samson's case, it i? predicted to hi 134 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. mother that her son " shall begin " iTT) to de- liver Israe 1 .. The father of Samson was of Zorah (see below on ver. 25), of the race of Dan; whence Samson is also called Bedan (1 Sam. xii. 11). He bears the beautiful name Manoah, " Rest," equivalent to the Greek "Hcruxos, Hesyehius, — a name sufficient- ly peculiar for the father of so restless a spirit as Samson. The name of his wife is not given. Jew- ish tradition {Haha Bathra, 91) derives her from the tribe Judah, and with reference to 1 Chron. iv. ), names her Zelelponi or Hazelelponi. The parents were at first childless. The mother was barren, as Sarah was before her. But it is not related of her, any more than of Sarah, that she prayed for a son. This can only be inferred from the similar instance of Hannah (1 Sam. i. 10) ; but it does not appear, that, like Hannah, sh ■ made a vow. Nor is it said of her and Manoah that they were old, as in the eases of Sarah and Elizabeth (Luke i. 7). They were pious, uncomplaining people, who lived in retirement, and had hitherto borne their childless condition with trustful resignation. Nevertheless, it was this childless condition that peculiarly adapted the wife for the right reception of the an- nouncement which is made to her. The jov which it inspires prepares her fully for the sacrifice which it requires. It holds out a scarcely hoped for hap- piness, which she will gladly purchase with the restraints imposed upon her. " But this is not the only ground why she is chosen. An announce- ment like that made to her requires faith in the re- ceiver. The pious disposition of the parents shows itself in this faith, by which, less troubled with doubt than Sarah and Zacharias, they receive as certain that which is announced to them. Ver. 4. And now beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor intoxicating drink. For Samson, the child that is to be born to her, shall be a "Nazir of God." The ideas which here come to light, are of uncommon instructiveness. They reveal a surprisingly free and discriminating conception of the life and wants of the Israel of that time. Far- reaching thoughts, which still influence the Chris- tian Church of our own day, are reflected in them. I. The law of the Nazarite and his vow, in Num. yi., rests upon the great presuppositions which are implied in Israel's calling. In Ex. xix. 6, God says to Israel, " Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation;" but he precedes it (ver. 5) by the words, " Ye shall be a possession unto me out of all nations, for all the earth is mine." All nations are God's ; but among them, Israel was to be his holy people ; and the law expresses in sym- bolic actions the moral ideas through which Israel exhibits itself as holy and consecrated. Within the holy nation, the priests occupy the same relation which the nation holds to the world. Their service, in sacrifice, prayer, and atonement, expresses es- pecially consecration and nearness to God. More- over, with respect to this service they have likewise a law, whose external command represents the in- ternal idea of their consecration. The command to Aaron is, that the priests, when they go into the tab- iiiiaele. are not to drink wine nor strong drink, in Jider that they may be able to distinguish between holy and unholy, and to teach the children of Israel [Lev. x. 9); for wine is a mocker (Prov. xx. 1). Win..', says Isaiah, with reference to the priesthood of his day (ch. xxviii. 7), has drowned all priestlj consecration. The consequences of intoxication show themselves not only in a man like Nabal ( I Sam. xxv. 36), but also in the case of a pious man like Lot. That death is the wages of sin, the Old Testa- ment teaches on every page. The priests are to abstain from wine, lest they die. Hence, also, they are not to touch a corpse, for it has the nature of sin and uncleanness (Lev. xxi. 1), and the priests- are to be holy. But although the special official priesthood was given by law to the tribe of Levi, holiness and consecration of life were not limited to that tribe : every one, no matter what his tribe, can consecrate himself to God, and without the aid of office, visibly realize the general priesthood in his own person. It is the peculiarity of the law, that it expresses every internal religious emotion by- means of a visible act. It obliges the inward life to allow itself to be visibly recognized. All Israel was to be holy ; but when an Israelite, in a con- dition of special spiritual exaltation, rising above the common connection between God and the peo- ple, as mediated by the priests, vowed himself to God, this act also was made the subject of ordi- nances, by which the Nazir, as he who thus vowed was called, was distinguished from other men, and held to special obligations. Hence, an Israelite can vow himself to God for a time, and is accord- ingly during that time holy to God in an especial sense (Num. yi. 8). Without holding any priestly office, he enters into a free and sacred service before God. Hence, during the whole time of his vow, he is forbidden to touch wine or strong drink, as if he were constantly officiating in the tabernacle, al- though the priests, when not actually engaged in service, were under no restraint. The" priests, gen- erally forbidden to touch a corpse, are yet allowed to do so in the case of a blood relative (Lev. xxi. 1 ft") ; but the Nazir, who is to look upon himself as if he were ever in the sanctuary, from which every impurity is excluded, is not to' know any ex- ception. He may not touch the dead body of'even father or mother. Yea, he is himself, as it were, a temple or altar of God, as appears from the per- sonal mark by which he is distinguished. The priest comes only to the altar ; and is forbidden to wear the signs of the idolaters on his hair and beard (Lev. xxi. 5), and is moreover distinguished by his clothing. The Nazir is in the congregation, his clothing is not different from that of others ; but he is himself an altar; and therefore, as over an altar, so over his body, and over the head of that body, no iron may be lifted up. " When thou makest an altar of stone," says Moses, " thou shalt not build it of hewn stone ; "for if thou lift up thy iron ' upon it, thou hast desecrated it " ( Ex. xx. 25). Accordingly, Joshua built an altar of stones " over which no man had lifted up any iron " (Josh. viii. 31). The reason for this prohibition is grounded, not in the nature of stone, but in the symbolical significance of iron. Iron, as the Mishnah observes {Middoth, iii. 4), must not even touch the altar ; for iron is used to shorten lite, but the altar to lengthen it (comp. my treatise Schamir, pp. 57, 58). It is well known that other ancient nations regarded iron in the same way. The Egyptians called it " Typhon's Bones " (Plutarch, de Osirid. cap. lxii). Iron, according to the oracle (Fausan. iii. 3,4), is the image of evil, because it is used in bat- l (The Enilish version renders, "tool." The word is I is justified by Josh. viii. 81, where, with evident reference U -7C, 'n 'he sense of '•chisel." The interpretation "iron" Es - "■ 25, 7T""!? is substituted for 3~in, — Tb.'' CHAPTERS XIII. 2-7. 18c tie. 1 When, therefore, it was enjoined upon the Nazir to let no knife come upon his head during the time of his vow, the ground of the injunction was lujne other than this : that since the Nazir. like the altar, is holy and consecrate to God, iron, the instrument of death and terror, must not touch him.' 2 The Nazir is a walking altar of God ; and his flowing hair is the visible token of his consecration, reminding botli himself and the people of the sacred vows he has assumed. It is the proper mark of the Nazir, as the linen garment is that of the Levite. By it he is known, and from it probably comes his name. It may be assumed that the signification " to devote one's self, to abstain from," of the verb "ITJi belongs to it only in consequence of the dis- tinction attached to the "'"'TJ. It seems to me that A'azir is equivalent to Kapr)Kop6aiv, long-haired, Cin- sinnatus, curly-haired, or Harfagr (Haralld hinn Harfagri). For it has been justly remarked that in Num. vi. the term Nazir is already accepted as a familiar expression. It may be compared with the Latin cirrus, curl, lock, or tuft of hair (ef. aesaries = cararies) ; for comparative philology shows that in most verbs beginning with -, this letter is a spe- jifie Hebrew prefix to the root, so that ~^?3' to guard, to keep, may be compared with T-qpecu ; 7122, to bear, with r\dw; ti'TO. brass, with as: tUTO, serpent, with the onomatopoetic zischen, to hiss ; DnD with gemrre ; ?T1 -with satire, etc. The word ".!■? would then get its signification diadem, orna- ment (cf. "IJ, in the same sense), just as the Greek kou.ho's, derived from /coVrj, i\ofiew, comes to signify adornment. To trace the original etymological identity of cirrus, cicinnus, and the Sanskrit kikura, with the Hebrew nazir, or to inquire whether the terms £i'»puu,eu, to shave one's self, and Ktipeiv, to cut the hair, are connected with the same root, would be out of place here. Precisely those terms which designate objects of primitive interest to man, are most deeply imbedded in the general philological treasures of all nations. But not to pursue these speculations any farther, it must already appear probable, that the use of nazir in Lev. xxv. 5, where it is applied to the untrimmed vine of the sabbatic vear, is to be explained by reference not to the Nazaritic custom of human beings, vowing and consecrating themselves to God, but to the original meaning of the root. The Sabbath-year being time belonging to God (Lev. xxv. 4), no knife was ap- plied during its course to the vine, which from that circumstance was named nazir. This would have been an unsuitable designation, if it had been derived from the vows assumed by the human Nazir; for such subjective activity could not be ascribed to the vine. It was the objective appear- ance of the Nazir, who, whether man or vine, was holy, and therefore had not been touched by the knife, which gave rise to the name. The name suggests the unshaven condition, the long hair, of the Nazarite, not primarily his consecration, al- -hough the sacred character of the person, through 1 The following is said to have been uttered by Apollo- nius of Tyana : fr Let the iron spare the hair of a wise man. For it is not right that it should touch a place where lie the lources of all the senses, whence all sacred sounds and voices psue and praters proceed, and the word of wisdom inter- prets ' — Pbilo«trut., Yit. Apolion.. viii 6. the law, gave sanctity to the name and set it apart from common uses, just as the rite of circumcision was indebted for its name (Hv^), not to the sac. ramental character of the rite, but to the mere act of cutting OIO, 2 (cf. Jer. vii. 29), was the proper mark of the Nazir, because regularly set apart for this purpose by the law. To sanctify the natural life, is the very thing at which the law constantly aims. By its institutions its spiritual requisitions are ren- dered visible and personal. The circumcision of the foreskin is after all but the national image of cir- cumcision of the heart, and the Nazaritic institute is the symbol of the general priesthood, in which no sin or impurity is to sully the free service of God. But the visible character in which each of these conceptions appeared, was more than a subjective, mutable image : it w T as a definite and unchange- able law. It was, to a certain extent, a sacrament- It is instructive to see how the relation of spirit and law aft'ects Biblical language and conceptions. The wearing of long hair, a purely natural act, is first, by spiritual ideas, raised into an expression of the general priesthood, in which man is a living altar ; but when long hair has become characteristic of the sacred Nazir, whose duty it is to keep far from im- purity, a new verb is derived from his name, with the sole spiritual signification of " withholding one's self from what is unclean." The same process may be noted in connection with circumcision. Origi- nally elevated into a sacrament by the intervention of spiritual ideas, incorporated into the law, it affords occasion for the transfer of its name to the spiritual conceptions of the circumcision of tongue and heart. But especially remarkable is the appre- hension of the relation between spirit and law in the history of Samson. II. Why was it necessary for the hero who should begin to deliver Israel, to be a Nazir ? Why was the same election and education not necessary in the cases of the other great judges, as, for instance, Gideon and Jephthah ? Were then those heroes not spiritual Nazarites, who gave their lives to the service of God ? May we not understand the open- ing words of Deborah's Song as indicating their spiritual consecration to Jehovah : " That in Israel waved the hair, in the people's self-devotion" (see on ch. v. 2) ? No doubt; and for that very reason Samson is distinguished from them. For those men arose in times when the tribes of Israel them selves repented and turned their hearts to God. In Samson's day, the situation was different. Dan and Judah were oppressed, but not repentant. An up- rising from within through faith, is not to be ex- pected. It is brought about, therefore, as it were from without, by means of the law. The power of the objective, spiritual law manifests itself. It becomes an organ of deliverance, when the sub- jective source of freedom no longer flows. The angel would have found no Gideon. A prophetess like Deborah, there was not. But the law abides ; it is independent of the current popular spirit. It is thus the last sure medium through which the help of God can come to Israel. This significance i 2 Hence, we cannot agree with the explanations cited and proposed in Oehler's article on the N«siranf, in Herzog's En- tyklaparfie (x. 208). A poem by .Max Letteris, on the " Lockl jf the Nazarite," in Jo'oivuz BlUtlunkranz, p. 239, has ei> tirely missed the idea of the *Bzaiitic institution. 186 THE BOCK OF JUDGES. Bf the law, and its objective power, is very in- Itructively set forth before the people in the person of Samson. It is this also which, from Samson onward, becomes the ruling force in the vocation And appointment of deliverers, until the kingship is established, which by the objective rite of priestly anointing, changes David the shepherd-boy into David the victorious ruler. And this instruction concerning the law as a whole, is imparted through the medium of the special law concerning the Nazir, because it is here that the relation to be pointed out comes most clearly to new. For precisely the Na- zariteship is, according to the Biblical law", the out- flow of unrequired, voluntary consecration to God on the part of an individual. No doubt, to a cer- tain extent, the earlier heroes, though not Nazar- ites in form, were such self-devoted men. Bat heroes such as they do not arise in times when the absence of penitence and faith dulls the prophets and Nazarites (cf. Amos, ii. 12). Hence, the his- tory of Samson teaches that Israel would have had nothing to hope for from the Nazariteship, if it had had no other than subjective validity. When faith is wanting among the people, no man becomes a Na- zir ; but the objective law can make of the Nazir, a man. In Samson's case, the Nazariteship makes the hero, the long hair characterizes his strength, the renunciations of the mother consecrate the child. Samson, a Nazarite from his birth and with- out his own will, becomes what he is only as such, and continues to he a hero only so long as he con- tinues to be a Nazarite. The Nazariteship is first, everything else second, in him. Its power over him is so objective, that it already operates on him be- fore he is born, before anything like free conscious- ness can be thought of. The command addresses not him whom it concerns, but his mother, and she, during her pregnancy, becomes a female Nazir, in order that her son may be able to become a hero. It is this that properly distinguishes Samson from the other heroes ; and its occasion appears in the fact that the narrator could not, as at other times, introduce his story by stating that the tribes had persistently "cried unto God." III. The Mishnah (Nazir, i. 2) already distin- guishes between a perpetual Nazarite and a Samson- Nazarite. And in fact, the Nazariteship of Samson is unique, has never repeated itself, and never can repeat itself; for it is conditioned by the history of his age. Samuel also is consecrated "by his mother's 'ow that he shall belong to God, and that no razor shall come upon his head; but there is nothing to show that the mother observed the Nazaritic rules in her own person, nor is anything said about anv virtue in long hair in connection with Samuel. Hannah was wholly self-moved in the making of her vow. The case of John the Baptist likewise stancU entirely by itself. Here, the birth of the child is indeed announced by an angel, but his character as a Nazarite is expressed in language altogether peculiar : " He shall be great in the sight speaking, a vow to be like Samson, is impossible For Samson's vow began not with himself, bul with his mother. According to the law in the 6th chapter of Numbers, an Israelite could take a vow upon himself for a longer or, like the four friends of James (Acts xxi. 23), for a shorter period. When the time was expired, he shaved himself, and brought an ottering. But no one could vow tc be like Samson. It was indeed within the power of a mother to promise to bring up her child like Samson, but even then she had no right to expect the same results as in the case of Samson. It is precisely the impotence of human subjectivity that is demonstrated by Samson's history. It cannot be the wish of all mothers to have Samson-children, when they suffer the hair of their offspring to grow. The angel's announcement, through which the spirit in the law begins to operate even in the maternal womb, is the original source of strength. The Spirit of God operates on mother and son, through the Nazariteship as its organ. The power of the Nazir, the holy influence of the law, opens the man himself; the outflow of divine consecra- tion into the life of the consecrated cannot take place without the Spirit of God. The theological doctrine of the preparatory history of Samson, is just this : that while the law in its' immutable ob- jectivity is placed over against the subjective forces of prophecy and heroic inspiration, yet it can never of itself, but only by virtue of the" Spirit of God pervading and quickening it, become the organ of deliverance. ot the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink." John will be great before God, and because of that greatness will drink no wine. Nothing is said about long hair, and the origin of John's vow is placed, not in the act of another, but in the strength with which God had endowed himself. The Mishnah puts it as a possible case that a person should vow to be a Nazarite like Samson ; that is, the vow is hypothetically so limited that, while it requires him who makes it to wear his hair long, je is not required to bring sacrifices for defilement. Such a vow was named after Samson, because a Dart of his life was imitated by it. But properly The Nazaritic institute is the image of the gen- eral priesthood, of the fact that outside of the tribe of Levi, it is possible for man to belong whollv to God. The visible acts which it prescribes, repre- sent, as in a figure, the purity and sinlessness of the heart consecrated to God. In the case of Samson, this Nazariteship begins from his mother's womb. Were it in the power of a sou born of human par- ents, to be sinless through the law, Samson the Nazarite ought to have been sinless. But only Christ is the true Nazarite in spirit, whose life re- alizes the purity of the idea, and whose free love, rooted in God, continues among men from the womb until death. Jacob, the dying patriarch, an- nounced a blessing " on the head of Joseph and on the crown of the head of the Nazir of his brethren " (Gen. xlix. 26) ; and there is no reason to doubt that the primitive Christian consciousness inter- preted the expression "Nazir of his brethren " not of Joseph, but found in the " and " a link connectin» the blessing of Joseph with the person of Him who was a Nazir of the brethren of Joseph. It saw in the passage a prophecy of the Messiah, who though not descended from Levi, was yet the true holy and consecrated high-priest. Hence, the opinion that in the language of the evangelist Matthew (ii. 23), " that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nafapatos," reference is made to the VHK "VTJ, the " Nazir of his breth- ren," is not to be hastily set aside. Remarkable, at all events, is it that the ancient Jewish interpre- tation, when Jacob after the blessing on Dan (Gen. xlix. 17) adds the words: "I wait for thy salva- tion, Jehovah!" conceives him to glance from the nearer but transient deliverance by Samson, to the more distant but eternal redemption of Messiah (Beresc.h. Rabba, p. 86 c ; cf. the 1'argums on the passage) ; and that, as already mentioned, the mother of Samson, in 1 Chron. iv. 3, is named Hazelelponi or Zelelponi, i. e., " the shadow falls on me," which may be compared with the words o' CHAPTER Xin. 2-7. 187 3ie angel to the mother of Jesus : " the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." Ver. 5. And let no razor come upon his head. Here, and in the history of Samuel, the razor is called nTID, whereas in Num. ti. 4 ^5F1 is used. Both terms come from the same stem m^J, mi- TT ' dare, to uncover, as it were novare, to renew, whence also novacula, sharp knife, razor. There appears to be less ground for comparison with the Greek ,ua/5- oov, Latin marra, the signification " spade" being too far removed. On the other hand, a certain re- lationship of '"'"J3? with the Greek £vpov, Sanskrit khsrhura, shears, may not be altogether denied. He shall begin. For the Philistines oppressed Israel forty years, and Samson judged his people only twenty. Samson began to restore victory to Israel, he did not make it full and final. The angel of God who calls the hero out of the womb of his mother, knows that he will not finish that for which God nevertheless gave him strength. He knows it, and therefore does not speak as he did to Gideon : " Thou shalt deliver Israel " (ch. vi. 14). Vers. 6, 7. And the woman came and told her husband. Before telling him what the angel had said, she excuses herself for having obtained no particular information about the bearer of the announcement. She should have asked him whence he was, but dared not ; for he was a " man of God," with the look of an " angel of God." The angel appeared in human form ; but there was an imposing splendor about him, which terrified the woman. Such, probably, had also been the case in Gideon's experience. In her narrative she sup- plies what we do not find in ver. 5, that the child's character, as a Nazir of God, is to last from the womb until " the day of his death." HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. The grace of God shows itself constantly more wondrously. It was to be made ever clearer in Israel that all salvation comes from God, and that without God there is no peace. With God all things are possible. He can raise up children for himself out of stones. His works are independent of human presuppositions and conditions. He has no need of antecedent historical conditions in order to raise up men. When in times of impenitence even vessels are wanting, He creates the vessels He needs. How differently God proceeds in the election of grace from the methods human thought would conceive, is shown by the history of all previous Judges. The deliverer arises there where the nat- ural understanding would never have looked for him. But Samson God raises up in a manner in which no man ever conjectured the growth of a hero to take place. The other Judges He selected as men : Samson He brought up to be a hero. The earlier Judges were to a certain extent pre- pared for their work even before their election. Ehud had the abilities of a Benjaminite, Deborah was a prophetess, Gideon a strong man, Jephthah i successful military leader. When the Spirit of God came upon them, they became Deliverers and Judges. In Samson, God made it known that his grace is able to save Israel even when such persons are not to be found. Before birth, He consecrate; the child, through his Spirit, to be a Nazarite Hence grows a hero. Earlier Judges were able, like Ehud, to perform single-handed exploits ; but they achieved deliver- ance only in connection with the people. They were all military leaders of Israel, and had to stand at the head of pious hosts. In Samson it is seen that this also is not indispensable. Only in- dividuals among the people were penitent ; the tribes, as such, were unbelieving. Therefore the Spirit raised up a single man to be Judge : he alone, without army and without people, fought and delivered. For this reason, the ancient, deeply thinking church regarded Samson especially as a type of the history of Christ. His birth was similar to that of Jesus. Like the eternal Word who became flesh, he was typically born and consecrated of the Spirit. In Christ, also, it is his sinlessness that presupposes his office as Saviour. The birth of Christ determines his resurrection. He must be born from heaven in order to return to heaven. No one can ascend into heaven but He who came down from heaven. There was also no penitence in Israel when Christ was born. A few sought the promised Messiah in the prophets. Christ did not come to put himself at the head of a host of believers ; but alone, as He was, so He stood among the people. He performs his entire work alone. He needs no legions of angels. His work is unique ; and He, the worker, is a solitary hero. Every believing heart treads in the footsteps of Christ. Fellowship is good in Christian work, but not essential. A Christian can live alone, if he be with Christ. Starke : God eares for his people when they are in misery, and often thinks of their redemption before they think of it themselves. — The same ■ God connects his grace and gifts with mean things, in order to make men know that everything is to be ascribed to the grace of God, and not to the merits of men. [Bp. Hall : If Manoah's wife had not beeD barren, the angel had not been sent to her. Afflic- tions have this advantage, that thev occasion God to show that mercy to us, whereof the prosperous are incapable. It would not beseem a mother U> be so indulgent to a healthful child as to a sick. — The same : Nature pleads for liberty, religion for restraint. Not that there is more uncleanness in the grape than in the fountain, but that wine finds more uncleanness in us than water, and that the high feed is not so fit for devotion as abstinence. — Wordsworth : Samson is a type of Christ: and in all those things where Samson fails, there Christ excels. Samson began to deliver Israel but did not effect their deliverance (see ch. xiii. 1 , xv. 20). He declined from his good beginnings; and fell away first into sin, and then into the hands of the enemy. But Christ not only begar to deliver Israel, but was able to say on the cross " It is Jinished." — Tb.] 188 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. Manoah, believing, yet desirous of confirmation, prays that the "Man of God" may return, and is heard. Chapter XIII. 8-23. 8 Then [And] Manoah entreated the Lord [Jehovah], and said, my Lord [Pray, Lord — c£ ch. vi. 16], let the man of God which thou didst send come again 9 unto us, aud teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born. 1 And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah ; and the angel of God came again unto the woman as she sat in the field : but Manoah her husband was not with her. 10 And the woman made haste, and ran, and shewed [informed] her husband, and said unto him, Behold, the man hath appeared unto me, that came unto me the other 11 day. And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said unto him, Art thou the man that spakest unto the woman? And he said, I am. 12 And Manoah said, Now let [When now] thy words come to pass. [,] How [how] 13 shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him? 2 And the angel of the Lord [Jehovah] said unto .Manoah. Of all that I said unto the woman, let her be- 14 ware. She may not eat of any thing that cometh of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing : all that I commanded her let her 15 observe. And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord [Jehovah], I pray thee, let us detain thee, until we shall have made [and make] ready a kid for [lit before] 16 thee. And the angel of the Lord [Jehovah] said unto Manoah, Though thou de- tain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou wilt offer [prepare] a burnt- offering, thou must [omit : thou must] offer it unto the Lord [Jehovah]. For 17 Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the Lord [Jehovah]. And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord [Jehovah], What is thy name, 8 that when thy sayings 18 come [word comes] to pass, we may do thee honour ? And the angel of the Lord [Jehovah] said unto him. Why askest thou thus [omit : thus] after my name, 19 seeing [and] it is secret \_Peli, Wonderful] ? So [Aud] Manoah took a [the] kid, with a [and the] meat-offering, and offered it upon a [the] rock unto the Lord [Jehovah] ; and the angel did wondrously [and he caused a wonder to take 20 place], and Manoah and his wife looked on. For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the Lord [Jehovah] ascended in the flame of the altar, and Manoah and his wife looked on it [omit: it], 21 and fell on their faces to the ground. But [And] the angel of the Lord [Jehovah] did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was 22 an angel of the Lord [Jehovah]. And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely 23 die, because we have seen God [Elohim]. But his wife said unto him, If the Lord [Jehovah] were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands, neither would he have shewed us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. [1 Ver. 8. — *7 v^TT. Thi3 form may be the imperfect of pual, with the article used as a relative ; but It is prob- ibly more correct, with Keil (after Ewald, 169 <1 ), to regard it as the pual participle, the preformative 72 being failerj away. Even then, however, the more regular mode of writing would be "T- *n, — Tr.] [2 Ver. 12- — Dr. Cagflel renders the clause more literally : " What will be the manner of the boy, and his doing 7 ' ; But the rendering of the E. V. correctly interprets the lauguage of the original, and agrees with our author's exposi- tion Whatever obscurity there may appear to be in ver. 12, is removed by ver. 8 ; for it is clear that the petition pre- ferred in ver. 12 can be no other than that made in ver. 8. "J373H tT -t*'^2 is the statute or precept (cf. the monastia term "rule") to be obierved with regard to the boy — the right treatment of him by his parents; and, similarly, JintTV^ is that which they are to do to him. The genitives are genitives of the object, cf. Ues Gram. 114, 2 ; 121, i. — fa'.]" [8 Ver. 17. — " TJ^2t£' ^12 ; properly quit nomin tuunl. equivaUnt to quis nominarr ^ asks after the person, HQ tfter the nature, the quality, see Ewald, 325 a." (Keil). — Tr.1 CHAPTER XIII. 8-23. 181, EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Vers. 8 ff. And Manoah entreated Jehovah. The narrative affords a pleasing view of the child- like piety of an Israelitish husband and wife under the old covenant. The adventure with the angel takes upon the whole the same course as the similar incident in the life of Gideon (cf. on ch. vi). The angel here comes and goes as there, yields to entreaties to tarry, receives an offering, disappears in the flame. But the present passage discloses also new and beautiful features, growing out of the mutual rela- tions of Manoah and his wife. The peculiar char- acteristics of both husband and wife are most deli- cately drawn. Manoah is a pious man, he knows how to seek God in prayer, and is not unbelieving ; but the statements of his wife do not appear to him to be sure enough, he would gladly have them confirmed. And for the instruction and strength- ening of Israel, that faith may be full and strong, not being compelled to content itself with the testimony of one woman only to the wonderful event, — God, having respect to the unawakened condition of the people, allows himself to be en- treated. 1 But although Manoah sees in the second appearance of the angel the fulfillment of his prayer, he still recognizes in him nothing but a man (tf'S). And truly, nothing is more difficult for man, even though he prays, than to receive the fulfillment of prayer ! The believing obedience of Manoah to the commands touching his wife's con- duct with reference to the promised child, although he conceives them to be delivered by no other than a man, indicates that the coming and preaching of such a man, here spoken of as a "man of God," was nothing unusual. There had probably been a lack only of such obedience as Manoah here shows him. What is more surprising, is. that even when the angel declines to eat of his bread, Manoah yet does not perceive that his visitor is not a man. He had intended, according to the manner of an- cient hospitality, as known also to Homer, first to entertain his guest, and then to inquire after his home and name. Such inquiries have interest, and afford guarantees, only in the case of a man. But even the answer concerning the "wonderful " name, does not yet excite his attention. It is only after the angel's disappearance in the flame that he perceives, — what, however, none but a believ- ing heart could perceive, — that he who had just departed was not a man. The wife shows herself more receptive and sensitive to the presence of a divine being. To her, the stranger's appearance, J ven at his first visit, seemed like that of an angel. .\t his second visit also, she speaks of his coining in language usually applied to angels, — -" Behold, he hath appeared unto me (fS"13, ver. 10). She had needed no proof or explanation. She asks no questions, but knows what he has said to her heart ; anj hence, she also is in no dread when now it becomes manifest that it was indeed an angel of God. Her husband is apprehensive of death ; she is of good courage, and infers the con- trary. She had long since foreboded the truth, and belongs to the number of those women of sacred history whose sensitive hearts enabled them to feel and see divine secrets, and whose appear- ince is the more attractive, the more unbelieving »nd unreceptive the times are, in which, as here, 1 "" ' TJIV*!, as in Gen. xxv. 21 ; Ex. viii. 25- angels reveal themselves to women rather than to men. For although it is Manoah who prays that the man of God may come again, he appears not to him, but again to the wife. He waits, however, while she, intuitively certain that though feelings of reverence do not allow her to entreat him tc tarry, he will nevertheless do so, hastens to call her husband. Vers. 12, 13. And Manoah said, 'When now thy words come to pass, what wiL. be the man- ner of the boy and his doing ? It is peculiar that notwithstanding the plain words told him by his wife, Manoah cannot rest satisfied with them. Doubtless, it could not but appear singular to him, that his wife tells him of what she is to do, although the call to be a Nazir pertains to the son whose birth is promised. Of such directions, the Mosaic statute contained no traces. It appeared to him as if the report of his wife must contain a misun- derstanding on this point. He therefore asks twice, what is to be done with the child, since hitherto he had principally heard only what the mother is to do. Hence, the angel answers him plainly : " What I commanded the mother, that do!" Nor eat any unclean thing. It had already been said in ver. 4, " Thou shalt drink neither wine nor intoxicating drink, nor eat any thing unclean." The older expositors identified this prohibition as to food and drink with that imposed on Nazarites in Num. vi. 4. But this is not altogether accurate, as appears from ver. 14 of our passage. Express mention is here made of all that Num. vi. 4 forbade to be eaten, namely, everything that comes from the vine, and yet it is added, " nor eat any un- clean thing." Num. vi. does not speak at all of anything " unclean," as forbidden to the Nazarite, because no Israelite was allowed to eat what was unclean. Here the angel adds this injunction, first, because it was a time in which much of the law and customs of Israel had perhaps fallen into neglect; and, secondly, in order to serve to Ma- noah and his wife as an explanation of all that was enjoined upon the latter. The wife was to abstain from the use of everything that can render unclean, because a holy and pure consecration was to rest on him whom she was to bring forth. Vers. 17 ff. Why askest thou after my name, and it is Peli ? Renewed attention must con- stantly be directed to the nice discrimination with which the designations Jehovah, Elohim, and the Elohim, are used in the narrative. Whenever the narrator speaks, he always writes Jehovah. Con- cerning Samson, the expression (ver. 5) is, that he will be a Nazir of Elohim ; because there Elohim in- dicates the general divine afflatus by which he is to be surrounded, and is the term also used in Num. vi. 7 : " For the consecration of his God (~>T2 VH7S) is upon his head." When the believing parents first speak, they speak, as in Judg. vi. 20 (see above), of the man or angel of " the God," :. e., the God of Israel (vers. 6, 8). Especially, however, do they characterize themselves in vers. 22 and 23. Manoah anticipates death, "for we have seen Elohim," a divine being in general. The wife, impressed by the appearance and announce- ment, says : " If Jehovah were pleased to kill us, he would not have accepted our offerings." When- ever full Faith returns in Israel, the full name of Israel's God, Jehovah, returns with it. But when Manoah asks the atgel for his name, the reply is not, Jehovah, but ^ 5B The Masors iyo THE BOOK OF JUDGES. reads V?, Peli ; later authorities (cf. Keil inloc.), y S 2, Pilei. In either case, the word is adjective, but identical in meaning with ^!?-- In Isa. ix. 5 (6), it is said : " Unto us a child is born, and hi? name is S./B." His name is Wonder, Wonder- worker. Isa. xxix. 14, which passage serves lit- erally to explain our present passage, Bays : "75 i ^7yt' I will continue to show myself doing won- ders to this people, doing wonder upon wonder." The epithet of wonder points to the power of him to whom it is applied. He who is a wonder, does wonders. In Isa. ix. 5 (6) the child is named Pele, not as a passive wonder, but as active ; all its epithets are active : Pele, Counsellor, Mighty God, Father, Prince. Hence, here the angel also calls himself Peli, Wonder-worker. For what he does appears extraordinary. A child was chosen in the matrix, and endued with the power of doing wonders. God testifies in times of distress that He saves Israel by wonders, and does not cease, even in their ruin, to interest himself wonderfully in their behalf. Ordi- nary means of salvation are wanting. God ever again manifests himself in Israel as the S75"ntE'J?, "the wonder-worker," as He is styled Ex. xv. 11. As such He gives his name in ver. 18, and shows his power in ver. 19, when He reveals himself in the wonderful manner of his vanishing away : for the expression N^BO^^'he caused a wonder"), in the latter verse, refers back to ^SyB, Peli, of ver. 18. The name Manoah had not understood; but in the deed he recognized the God of wonders. The key to the whole narrative is contained in this word. It sets forth that Israel's preservation and deliverance rest not in itself, but in the grace of Him who is wonderful and does wonders beyond all understanding, not merely in nature, but also in human life and history. Those explanations are therefore wholly insufficient, which render the word by " secret " or " ineffable." From the old Jewish point of view, this interpretation is intelligible; for to them the external ineffableness of the name Je- hovah appeared to be its chief characteristic. Jacob, when he wrestled with the angel, asked after his name. " Why askest thou ? " replied the angel, and gave it not. As he wrestled in the night, so he gave no name. Here the unseen corresponds with the unnamed. But in the instance of Samson's parents, the angel is seen. What he says and does is manifest and visible. It is stated with emphasis, that both " saw " (C > S~')- If the angel, by sav- ing, " Why askest thou after my name ? " had de- signed to refuse an answer to Manoah's question, he would have contented himself with these words. But he gives him a name, and that name teaches that Manoah is to attend rather to the message than the manner of him who brings it. If from the word " Peli " Manoah was to learn that the name for which he asked was " ineffable," he would on hearing it have already perceived that the messen- ger was no man, for there was only One to whose name this could apply. But it was not till after- wards that Manoah made this discovery. The angel, however, does not design, in this manner to reveal himself. As in the case of Gideon, so here, the deed is to show who the announcer was. There- fore, with fresh kindness, he gives him the name he bears. Angels on earth are always named from their mission and work. The Word of the New Covenant, likewise, when He became flesh, was called Christ Jesus, from his work. The angel in saying " Peli," gave one of the names of God, — that name to which his work here testified (^7-^ mtt'l?^;. Manoah received it as the name of a man, as later a man occurs named Pelaiah (i"TS vB, Neh. viii. 7). HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Starke : The names of God are of great cir- cumference and vast importance, and enclose many secrets. Nomina Dei non sunt nominalia, sed realia. — Lisco : ".My name is wonderful," mysterious, whose depths of meaning can only be guessed at by human thought, never fully comprehended. [Bush : The petition of Manoah reminds us also that the care of children is a great concern, and that those who have the parental relation in prospect can make no more suitable prayer at the throne of grace than that of the pious Danite on this occasion. Who upon the eve of becoming parents have not need to say, as said Manoah, " Teach us what we shall do to the child that shall be born." — Bp. Hall: He that before sent his angel unasked, will much more send him again upon entreaty. — The same : We can never feast the angels better, than with our hearty sacrifices to God. — Bosh (on ver. 23) : This was a just mode of arguing; for such mercies were both evidences and pledges of God's love ; and therefore were rather to be con- sidered as earnests of future blessings, than as har- bingers of ill. The woman in this showed herself not only the strongest believer, but the wisest reasoner. The incidents related may teach us, ( 1 ) That in times of dark and discouraging provi- dences or sore temptations we should remember the past experience of God's goodness as a ground of present support. " Account the long suffering of God to be salvation." He that hath so kindly helped us and dealt with us hitherto, means not to destroy us at last. (2) That the sinner oppressed with a sense of his deserts has no reason to despair. Let him remember what Christ has done for him by his bloody sacrifice, and read in it a sure pr »of, that he does rot design his death. — Tk.] CHAPTER XIII. 24, 25. 191 The birth and growth of Samson. Chapter XIII. 24, 25. 24 And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson [Shimshon]. And the 25 child [boy] grew, and the Lord [Jehovah] blessed him. And the Spirit of the Lord [Jehovah] began to move him at times [omit : at times] in the camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol. EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 24. And called his name Shimshon. The Septuagint has Sa^cei/, Samson ; Josephus also, j (Antiq. v. S, 4). This pronunciation refers to the ancient derivation of the name from £ , Xj?E!:\ the sun, just as "tt-'Pt? 1 (Shimshai, Ezra iv. 8) is pro-i nounced Samsai (Samurai; according to the Vat. i Cud. 2afi. 82). That some writers find a sun-god in this interpretation, is no reason for giving it up;' 2 espe- ciallv when this is done, in a manner as bold as it confused, as by Xork [Bibl. Myth., ii. 405), who goes so far as to compare a father of Adonis, "Manes" (?'.'), with Manoah, and drags in the " Almanack " besides. The Mosaic law forbade to make idol images of wood and stone as repre- sentations of nature ; but the use of spiritual, figurative images drawn from sun and moon, is constantly characteristic of Scripture. Notwith- standing all nature-worship as connected with the fun, and its censure in Scripture, God Himself is 1 On other similar forms, cf. Selden, De Diis Syrts Synt. i. 225. ■i As little reason as there is to doubt the etymology of leliodorus, because the author of the *Ettuopica, fiishop called the " Sun of Righteousness. " The false syncretisms to which more recent times are in- clined, have their origin in the failure to separate rightly the fundamental ideas of Biblical and of heathen life. The celebrated Armenian family of the Amaduni considered itself to be of Jewish extraction. It descends, says Moses Chorenensis (lib. ii. cap. lvii ed. de Florival. i. 283), from Samson, the son of Manoah. " II est vrai, qu'on voit encore aujourd'- hui la meme chose dans la race des Amaduni, car ce sont des hommes robustes," etc. A parallel to this is afforded by the Vilkina-legend, which places at the head of its narratives the powerful knight Samson, dark of complexion, like an Oriental, with " hair and beard black as pitch " (cf. the edi- tion by von der Hagen, i. 4), and from whom the mighty race of the Amelungen springs (cf. W. Grimm, Die Deutsche HeUbnsaye , p. 264). Ver. _'5- And the Spirit of Jehovah began to move him. The fulfillment had taken place. The son had been born. He grew up under the bless- ing of God. His flourishing strength, his great- ness of spirit, are the consequences of this blessing. But the consecration which was on his head, and which through the abstinence of his mother he had already received in the earliest moments of corporal formation and growth, was a power which imparted to him not only physical strength, but also spiritual impulses. No angel ever comes to Samson ; God never talks with him ; no appear- ances, like those to his parents, occur to him. Whatever he carries in his soul and in his mem- bers, he has received from the consecration that is upon his head. It is from this source that he derives that elevation of spirit which raises him above the level of common life, and urges him on to deeds of heroism. In the camp of Dan, between Zorah and Esh- taol. Zorah was Samson's native place, always appears in juxtaposition with Eshtaol (Josh. xv. 33; xix. 41), and was inhabited by Danites and men of Judah. Its site is recognized in the Tell of Sur'a, from whose summit Hobinson had a fine and extensive view (BiU. Res. iii. 153). For Esh- taol no probable conjecture has yet been offered. The "Camp of Dan " (cf. ch. xviii. 12) was a place between the two cities, both of which are 1 located by the Onomosticon in the region north of Eleutheropolis. Eusebius in mentioning Eshtaol says, ""T.vBcv oiouhto Sa/x^crdiv," thence Samson set out, which Jerome corrected into, " ubi mortuus est Samson," where Samson died. The " Camp ,)f Dan," if it were not a regular military post, must at all events have had warlike recollections con- Ueliodore of Tricka, calls himself a " descendant of Uelios," from the fact that he belonged to Emesa, tbe city f a cele brated temple of the sun (lib. x. at the close) is-; THE BOOK OF JUDGES. nected with its name and hill-top situation (cf. ch. i. 34). It was there that the passion for exploits against the Philistines first seized on Samson. The expression, n i™l ^nip], •' the spirit began," manifestly answers to the ;H* SVT, " he shall begin," of ver. 5. The young man was first seized upon by the Spirit of God, 'Q3??/. The opera- tion which this word E3?Q expresses is not an organic work of faith, such as Gideon or Jephthah perform. It is an impulsive inspiration ; the sud- den ebullition of a spiritual force, which, as in the ;ase of the Seer it manifests itself in words, in that of Samson breaks forth into action. But yet it is no demoniac paroxysm, nor the drunken madness of a Bacchant or the frenzy of a rude Berserker but the sober movement of the Spirit of God, which, while giving heroic power, also governed it. How little mythical the history is, is evinced by the fact that, according to the narrator, the place is still known where the young man first became conscious that he had another calling than to assist his father at home in the field. The Spirit of God thrusts him out into public activity. His father's house becomes too narrow for him. His public career begins. What that career is to be, is yet to be revealed to him. But he is driven out, and he goes. From the Camp of Dan he issues forth, a youthful hero, like Parcival, in quest of adventure. With what result, is related farther on. The opening step of Samson's career : his unlawful desire to marry a daughter of the Philistines overruled by God for Israel's good. Chapter XIV. 1-4. 1 And Samson went down to Timnath [Timnathah], and saw a woman in Tim- 2 nath [Timnathah] of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath [Timnathah] 3 of the daughters of the Philistines : now therefore get her for me to wife. Then [And] his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines ? And Samson said unto h,s father, Get her for 4 me ; for she pleaseth me well [is pleasing in my eyes]. But [And] his father and his mother knew not that it teas of the Lord [Jehovah], that [for] he sought an occasion against [from] the Philistines : for at that time the Philistines had do- minion [were lording it] over Israel. EXEQETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 1. And Samson went down to Tinman. Timnah or Timnathah, the present Tibneh, sit- uated to the southwest of Zorah, at the confluence o( Wady Sunn with Wady Surar (Ritter, xvi. 116; [Gage's Tran-1. iii. 241 J), on the border of the tribe jf Judah (Josh. xv. 10), was assigned by Joshua to the tribe of Dan (Josh. xix. 43), but had fallen into the hands of the Philistines. Ver. 2, 3. Get her for me to wife. The history of Samson abounds with instructive notices of the social life of the times. The women lead a free life, not shut up, as they are in the East of the present day. The stranger can see the beauty of the daughters of the land. But Samson cannot yet dispense with the permission of his parents. He is yet in their house, unmarried, a ~fln2. From the choice of Samson, and his mode of life, there comes to view, in the first place, the prevalent, though un- lawful, admixture of Israelitish and heathen fatni- iiis and customs. But the barriers raised by differ- ence of nationality are nevertheless manifest. The parents at tiist refuse their consent to Samson's choice ; but they cannot resist his prayer. He is 1 [K >:i i : It is true that in Ex xxxiv. 16 and Deut. vii. 3 f. } to marriages with daughters of the Philistines. For tti« inly marriages with Cauaanitish woolen are expressly for- bidden ; but the ground of the prohibition extended equally their only son, — and such a son ! full of strength and youthful promise, — therefore it gives them pain. 1 Ver. 4. And his father and his mother knew not. If the mother kept in her heart the saying that her son would begin to deliver Israel, his strength and gifts doubtless awakened many hopes within her. But his wish to marry a Philistine maiden, seemed to destroy every expectation. He who when in his mother's womb was already con- secrated to be a Nazarite, desires to enter into cov- enant with those who have not even the consecra- tion of circumcision, — and that against the law! He who was endowed to he a deliverer and cham- pion of Israel against the national enemies, shall he become a friend of the tyrants, a member of one of their families ? For the parents knew not. — That this was of Jehovah, for it became an occasion of assaying the Philistines ; and at that time the Philistines ruled over Israel. The parents could not but be painfully affected, fur they knew not what the consequence would be But although ignorant on this point, they never- theless yielded. They unconsciously submit to 'hi stronger spirit of Samson; and thus their indul same reason, in Josh. xiii. 3, the Philistines also are reck oned am'-ng the Cauaanites. — Tr.] CHAPTER XIV 1-4. 193 gence united with the unconscious longing of their 6on to bring about the fulfillment of what the angel had announced. The career of Samson is an historical drama without a parallel. Its dark background is the national life out of which he emerges, Israel is under Philistine oppression, because of sin and consequent enervation. It is not without resent- ment against the enemy, but it lacks spirit. It prefers slavish peace to a freedom worth making sacrifices for. It hates the national enemies, but it holds illicit intercourse with them. Such a national life in itself can beget no heroes, nor use them when they exist. The influence of this national life is evident in Samson himself. He lias uncqualed spirit, strength, and courage; but he is alone. The young man finds no sympathy, at which to kindle himself. There are no patriots in search of heroes. There is no national sorrow, that waits longingly for deliver- ance and a deliverer, and in consequence thereof recognizes him when he appears. On the contrary, luxury and sensuality prevail, eating away the heart of the rising generation ; for national char- acter also is wanting, by which, conscious of their power, Israel's youth might clearly recognize their proper goal. Samson too had perished in sensu- ality, which does not distinguish between friend and foe ; but his genius has a seal that cannot be broken. The consecration on his head preserves in his soul an impulse that cannot miss its goal. The law of this consecration is freedom. For free- dom's sake, it lends him strength and spirit. Han- nibal's father made him when but a boy swear everlasting war against the Romans. Samson, as Nazarite from his birth, is borne onward, less con- sciously, but even more surely, to a hatred with which he is not acquainted, and to wrath and bat- tle for the freedom of Israel. Samson is without an army, without a congenial popular spirit, without sympathy and courage on the part of his countrymen, — not even Gideon's three hundred are with him ; he has no teacher and spiritual leader; he is alone, and moreover exposed to every temptation to which gigantic strength and corporal beauty give rise; but in his consecration to God he has a guidance that does not lead astray. Hence, that by which others are fettered and subjected, becomes for him the means of attaining his destiny. The paths on which others go to destruction, for him become highways of vic- tory and of strength. It is an act of national trea- Bon, when he takes a Philistine wife ; and yet for him, it becomes the occasion for deeds in behalf of national freedom. There is no historical drama in which the no- bility and invincible destiny of a great personality, reveal themselves so luminously as in the life of Samson. It is well known that in the history and fiction of all nations, as in the heroic poems of all ages, love for women has formed a chief motive for con- flict and adventure. Even the circumstance which throws so great a charm over the lives and contests of the heroes to whom it appertains, that their love breaks through the confines of their own nation or pam , and attaches itself ;o women who live within the circle of the enemy, is constantly recurring But in those narratives, as also in the Persian legend, where Rudabe, the mother of Rustem, is the daughter of her Iranian lover's hereditary foeman, and as in Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, in Borneo and Juliet, and in the dramas of Schiller, — love is the central point and principal motive. Politi- cal barriers, national hatreds, ancient passions, all must yield to love, whether it ends in joy or trag' edy. How different is its position in the history of Samson ! The antagonism between Israel and the Philistines is justified and commanded. Truth cannot intermix itself with idolatry. The over- leaping by sensuality of the spiritual barriers be- tween the two, is the cause of Israel's sunken con- dition. That love through which Samson desires the maiden of Timnah, can be no jovful goal. Hence, the relation of his inborn heroism to love shows itself to be very different from that which obtains in heathenism and romance. There, the exploits of heroism become the occasions of love ; for Samson, romance becomes the occasion of hero- ism. There, love overleaps the lines that separate nationalities ; in Samson's case, it becomes the oc- casion by which he becomes mindful of the separa- tion. Elsewhere, weakness, sensuality, enjoyment, become the snares which bind the inflamed hero ; but for Samson, they become only the occasion for rending asunder the fetters, and for understanding the purpose for which he is endowed with divine strength. And at that time the Philistines ruled over Israel. The addition of this remark is by no means superfluous. It serves to indicate the back- ground of all Samson's deeds. The mere fact that the Philistines ruled, demonstrated Israel's apos- tasy and punishment ; that they continued to rule, was evidence of Israel's powerlessness and ina- bility to repent. It was because they ruled, and Israel was without repentance, that Samson ap- pears so different from Gideon and Jephthah. In the midst of the Philistine supremacy, he enters on his single-handed conflict with them. Notwith- standing that they ruled by means of Israel's own sin, the objective power of the divine law and spirit evinces itself in the hero-nature of Samson, almost against his own will. HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL. [Bush: "I wish," says an old divine, " tha» Manoah and his wife could speak so loud that all our Israel could hear them." By nothing is the heart of a pious parent more grieved than by the prospect of the unequal yoking of his children with profane or irreligious partners ; for he knows that nothing is so likely to prove injurious to their spiritual interests, and subject them to heartrend- ing trials. — Bp. Hall : As it becomes not children to be forward in their choice, so parents may not be too peremptory in their denials. It is not safe for children to overrun parents in settling their affections ; nor for parents (where the impediments are not very material ) to come short of their chil- dren, when the affections are once settled : the one is disobedience; the other may be tyranny. — Tb.] i94 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. Samson goes down to Timnah, with his parents, to speak with his bride-elect. On the way, he meets and tears a young lion. Chapter XIV. 5-9. 5 Then went Samson [And Samson went] down, and his father and his mother, t* Timnath [Timnathah], and [they] came to the vineyards of Timnath [Timnathahj 6 and behold, a young lion roared against him [came to meet him, roaring]. And the Spirit of the Lord [Jehovah] came mightily [suddenly] upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent [as one rends] a kid, and he had nothing in his hand 7 but [and] he told not his father or his mother what he had done. And he went down, and talked with the woman ; and she pleased Samson well [was pleasing in 8 the eyes of Samson]. And after a time he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion : and behold, there was a swarm of bees and 9 honey in the carcass of the lion. And he took thereof in his hands, and went on [,] eating [as he went], and came to his father and mother, and he gave them, and they did eat : but he told not them [them not] that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion. EXEQETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 5. And Samson went down, with his father and mother, to Timnathah. The parents give way ; at all events, they now first go down, with Samson, to see the maiden, and ascertain more about her. The proper object of the journey appears from ver. 7, where we are told that Sam- son " talked with the woman, and she pleased him." Hitherto he had only seen her (ver. 1). His par- ents urge him to " speak with her," in order to convince himself of her character; 1 and he de- termines to do so. On this account, the statement of ver. 3 is repeated in ver. 7 : " she pleased him " now, after speaking with her, as formerly after seeing her ; he therefore persists in his suit, and appoints the time of his marriage. The hope of the parents that the woman, by her want of agree- ableness and spirit, would discourage their son, is not realized. No such want seems to have existed, so far as he was concerned. And a young lion came to meet him, roaring. Samson went to Timnathah to look for a wife, not to engage in a lion-hunt. The comparison of his lion-right with that of Hercules in Nemea, is alto- gether superficial and uncritical ; and the idea that his victory is to be regarded as the first of twelve exploits, 2 has no foundation either in his spirit or history. The Nemean victory, as I hope yet to show elsewhere, is the expression of a mythical symbolism, and is accordingly, to a certain extent, an epos complete in itself. Samson's conflict with the lion is an incidental occurrence. It was neither the object of his expedition originally, nor did it come to be its central point of interest afterwards. The chief difference between the two stories lies in the totally dift'erent vocations of the heroes : Her- cules wrestles with beasts, conquers the hostility which, according to the Hellenic myth, inheres in Nature ; Samson is a conqueror of men, a national nero who triumphs over the enemies of his people and their faith, a champion of freedom, whose urength is so great that he can well afford to ex- 1 Of. Abarbanel in Incum. The offense of such mar- riages, the later Jews, with reference to Samson and Solo- mon, sought to avoid by assuming that the heathen had 3*UA«d their women to be converted to the true religion. pend a little portion of it in a passing encounter with a lion. Samson is not elected to take the field against lions and foxes, — that would never have given him a name in the history of Israel ; but his strength and dexterity are great enough to enable him to make use of even lions and foxes, dead or alive, as means of his national conflict. Among his exploits, only the blows are reckoned, which he inflicted on the Philistines, — not the oc- casional means which he employed in their deliv- ery. As little as David's royal vocation was rooted in the battles of his shepherd days with lions and bears, so little was Samson's destiny as a hero the outgrowth of his victory over the lion whom he did not seek, but who quite unexpectedly roared out against him. He had left his parents a little space, and when near the vine hills of Timnathah had entered into a wilderness skirting the road, when the monster rushed upon him. Ver. 6. And the Spirit of Jehovah came upon him, rrn nb?Fn. The peculiar force of nb^ is, that it expresses the fortunateness of an occur- rence, its happening just at the right time. In the very moment of need, the "Spirit of Jehovah" came upon him. In five passages where the ex- pression " Spirit of Jehovah" occurs (ch. iii. 10; vi. 34; xi. 29; xiii. 25, and here), the Chaldee translation renders it " spirit of heroic strength " (geburah) ; for God also is a Gibbor, a Hero, and the translator wishes in this way to distinguish between the spirit of prophecy, the spirit of divine speech, which was also a spirit of God (cf. e. g., the ' Targum on Num. xxiv. 2-xxvii. 11, and also 1 Sam. x. 6, etc., HSU? rffl~l), and the spirit of heroic action. But the original, very justly, makes no distinction ; for in the view of divine doctrine all that man does is referred to the Spirit-source. Nothing succeeds without God. Samson needs that moral strength which does not fear the lion. The might, not of his arms, but of his soul, was of the first importance. For courageous undertak- ings, there is need of divine inspirations. Hence, Cf. Danz, Baplismus Proselylorum, § 26 ; MeuBchen, Nov. Test, in Talm., p. 263. 2 This idea has been set forthwith special plausibility by Bertheau, and is justly and ably combated by Keil. CHAPTER XIV. 5-9. 195 the attack of Samson on the lion is here ascribed to an impulse of the Spirit of God, as well as Jephthah's resolution to attack Ammon in his own country (ch. xi. 29). And it is to be further noted, that in every case the expression is, not the Spirit of Elohim, but the Spirit of Jehovah ; for it was He on whom Israel was to believe, and from whom, for his own glory and the salvation of Israel, proceeded the power which Samson pos- sessed against the enemies who knew not Jeho- vah. And he rent him. It was a terrible lion that came to meet him : a *^ s S?i a term especially used when the rapacious and bloodthirsty nature of the lion is to be indicated. Bochart explains the compound name i~^ , ^!S 1*23 very beautifully by means of C^-TJ? ,- 12, especially here, where the fierceness of the lion is opposed to the weakness of a hoedus, kid of the goats. VDW is equivalent to o'x'C"', to rend asunder. As the lion comes rushing towards him, Samson awaits him, seizes him, and rends his jaws asunder. And this he did as easily as if it were a kid of the goats. For the remark, " as one rends a kid," does not imply that it was customary always to rend kids in this man- ner, but simply means that a kid could not have been more easily overcome than this powerful lion was. According to some ancient statements, Her- cules choked the Nemean lion in his arms ; and it is undoubtedly with reference to this that Josephus Bays of Samson also, that he strangled (Syx e ') tn e monster. According to a French romance, Iwain, the romantic hero of the Round Table, derived his epithet, " Knight of the Lion," from the fact that after a long struggle he had choked a lion : " il prist Lionian parmi la gorge as poinz .... si l'estrangla." Cf. Holland, Chretien de Troyes, p. 361. And he had nothing in his hand. He had gone forth to look for a wife, not expecting a battle. If, however, it be nevertheless surprising that a young man like Samson carried no weapons, we are to seek for the reason of it in the domina- tion of the Philistines. Those tyrants suffered no weapons in the hands of the conquered, and hin- dered and prohibited the introduction of them and the traffic in them (cf. 1 Sam. xiii. 20). The sus- picion of the enemy had found matter enough for its exercise, if young men like Samson had come armed into their cities. But even without arms, the heroic strength of Samson everywhere evinces itself; for not iron, but the Spirit, gives victory. Pausanias (vi. 5) tells of Polydamas, a hero of Scotussa in Elis, who lived about 400 b. c, that he overcame a great and strong lion on Olympus, without a weapon of any kind. And he told not his father or his mother what he had done. It is certainly instructive to institute a comparison between Samson and the numerous lion-conquerors of history and tradition. For it reveals Samson's greatness of soul in a most significant way. To him, the victory over the lion is precisely not one of the twelve labors which in the Heraclean mythus is glorified by tra- dition and art. He wears no lion's skin in conse- quence of it. He makes so little ado about it, that he does not even inform his parents of it, probably in order not to startle them at the thought of the danger to which he has been exposed. For, at that time, he could ni t yet have thought of his ■ubsequent fanciful conceit. There is nothing un- usual about his appearance and demeanor, when he again overtakes them. He exhibits neither ex- citement nor uncommon elation. The divine spirit that slumbered in him has just been active ; but the deed he performed under its impulse appeared to him, as great deeds always do to great souls, to have nothing of a surprising character about it, but to be perfectly natural. Others are impresses to astonishment by what to such persons are but natural life utterances. What we call geniality, what in Samson appears as the result of divine consecration, cannot exhibit itself more beauti- fully. It is the fullness of spirit and strength in men, out of which exploit and heroism flow as streams flow from their sources. To this very day, it is only small spirits, albeit often in thick books, who watch like griffons over each little thought that occurs to them, fearing to lose the mirror in which they see themselves reflected, and the lion-skin with which proprietorship invests them. Of Samson's victory nothing had ever beea heard, had it not furnished him with the meani for indulging in a national raillery against the Philistines. ■What subjects of ostentation these conflicts with lions have everywhere been. Neither the great Macedonian nor the Roman Emperors, could dis pense with them. An Alexandrian poet procured for himself a life-long pension from the Emperor Hadrian, by showing him a flowering lotus sprung from the blood of a lion whom the Emperor had slain. (More definite references to this and fol- lowing passages, as also discussions of them, will be contained in my Hierozoicon. Other material, being already found in Bochart and the older com- mentators (cf. Serarius ad locum), may here be passed over.) The extravagance of the later writ- ers of romance, both eastern and western, was nc longer content with common lion-encounters fo. their heroes. The Arabian Antar conquers a lion although the hero's feet are fettered. For Rustem and Wolfdieterich such exploits are performed even by their horses. It was only when the crusades put the knightly spirit to the test in the land of the lion, that Europeans experienced the historical terribleness of such conflicts. And few of them had the strength and resoluteness of Godfrey of Bouillon, who stood his ground against a bear, or of the bold and powerful Wicker von Schwaben, who, near Joppa, killed a great lion with the sword in his hand (Albert Aquensis, vii. 70; Wilken, Gesch. der KreuzzUae, ii. 109). Yet these men are not myths, because such deeds are ascribed to them ; nor do we suspect only mythical echoes in the stories that are told of them. The deed of Samson is executed with such ease and freedom, and represented with such simplicity and naturalness, that if the narrative were not historical, it would be impossible to account for its origin. And yet, according to some, it is a myth- ical reflection of the legend concerning Hercules. The theories of these critics have their false basis in the Hellenistic one-sidedness by which the rela- tion, according to which the myth must receive its symbols from nature and history, is often quite reversed, so that historical life-utterances are at- tenuated into ideas and mythical phantasies. It is as easy to show that every lion-conqueror, down to Ge'rard of our own days, — yea, that all menag- eries to the contrary "notwithstanding, the lion himself must be declared mythical, as it is to prove that Samson's encounter with a lion, in a region where the animal was then indigenous, related without the least approach to ostentation, and p3r 196 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. formed in the greatness of an unassuming spirit, cannot be historical. Ver. 8. And after a time he returned. The betrothal had taken place, the wedding was to fol- low. 1 Samson and his parents descended the same road again. As the hero came to the spot where on their recent journey he turned off from the road, and had the adventure with the lion, the in- cident came again into his mind, and he turned aside once more, in order to see what had become of the dead lion. Then he found that a swarm of bees had settled themselves in the skeleton of the beast. The swarm of bees is significantly spoken of as the , ~}3'!T HIV, the congregation of bees. Com- monly, f"IT5 designates the congregation of the Israelitish people, as regulated by the law. It is only on account of its wonderful social organiza- tion that a swarm of bees, but no other brute multitude," was denoted by the same name. 3 polio, in his work on Hieroglyphics (lib. i. 6 informs us that when the Egyptians wished to pic- ture the idea of a people of law (irf&riviov \aiv), they did it by the figure of a bee. • The skeleton of the lion had been thoroughly dried up by the heat, for which process, as Oed- mann 4 long ago remarked, scarcely twenty-four hours are required in the East. In this case many days had intervened. That bees readily settle in situ:itions like the present, long since freed from all offensive odors, is well known from what ex- positors have adduced from Bochart and others. The instance of the swarm found settled in the head of the slain Onesilaus, in Amathus, may also, familiar as it is, be alluded to (Herodot. v. 114). The opinion of the ancients, that bees originate out of the carcasses of steers, wasps out of those of asses, and other insects out of dead horses and mules, may perhaps have some connection with the observation of phenomena like that which here met Samson's eye (cf. Voss, Idololatria, lib. iv. p. 556, and others). Bees must have a place of refuge from the weather. It has been observed, in recent times, that at present the bees of southern Palestine are smaller in size, and of a lighter yellow brown color than those of Germany (Ritter, xvi. 283). The term tT?7, honey, is connected with i"H13?, bee (by an interchange of r and s). It is a re- markable fact, to which I have already directed attention in my Berlin Wochenblatt, 1863, that our German [and by consequence, our English] names for wax and honey are perfectly identical with the Semitic terms for the same objects, although in an inverted relation. The Hebrew tC?? (pronounce : dvash), honey, answers to the German Wachs (O. H. G. wahs), English, "wax;" and the Hebrew 33T? (donacj), wax, to the German Honig (konec) English, " honey ; " and this is the only proper ex- planation to be given of the etymology of these German words. Ver. 9. And he took thereof. The word rm, according to my view, has nothing to do eithei with a signification " to tread," or with the idea of "seizing," "making one's self master of; " but has preserved its original meaning in the later usus linguae of the Mishna and Talmud, where it bears the signification " to draw out," as bread is drawn out of the oven. The examples given by Buxtorff are borrowed from the Aruch of R. Na- than (172 a), where they may be found still more plain. Of bread in the oven it is said, nTH 7D2 ini31, " it is drawn out and put into the basket." R. Nathan also justly explains our pas- sage by this signification. For Samson, in like manner, drew the honeycomb out of the hive, and put it on the palm of his hand (H?)- Kimchi takes it in the same way (in his dictionary of roots, sub voce, near the close). Hence also, m~H3, mirda, is the oven-fork, with which things Hora- j are drawn out of the fire, Latin rutabulum. It is easily seen that a widely diffused root comes to view here (comp. forms like rutrum, rutelhtm, from eruo, erutum, Greek pva), f5uT77p, pi/o-Ta£a>, etc.). He drew out the honey, and as he had no other vessel, took it on his hand, and refreshed himself with it in the heat of the day, as Jonathan strengthened himself with it after the battle (1 Sam. xiv. 29). He also gave to his parents, who likewise relished it; but neither did he now tell them whence he had taken it. It would have in- volved telling them the history of the encounter with the lion ; and though they might not now have been terrified by it, they would doubtless have caused a great deal of talk about it. Roskoff, 5 in his book Die Simsonssage und der Herahlesmythus, 1860, p. 65, thinks that the cir- cumstance of Samson's eating of honey taken from the lion's skeleton, is a proof that the rule by which the Nazarite was required to abstain from anything unclean had not yet received its later extension, and that consequently the Mosaic law was not yet in existence. We cannot regard this position as very well founded. For this reason, if no other, that the Book which is intimately ac- quainted with the Mosaic law, relates this act of Samson without the addition of any explanatory remark. And it has very good reason for adding no explanation ; for the objection proceeds upon a view of Samson's Nazaritie character which is for- eign to the Book, and greatly affects the proper understanding of his history. The truth is, the hero was not at all such a Nazarite as the sixth chapter of Numbers contemplates. The introduc- tion to his history clearly shows that definite pre- scriptions concerning food and drink were given onlv to his mother; concerning himself, 6 nothing more is said than that no razor is to come upon his head. It is only upon this latter obligation, as the history shows, that the strength of his Naz- ariteship depends. The Nazariteship, abstractly considered, is an image of the general priesthood. On Samson particularly there rests a glimmer of that gospel freedom, with reference to which the Apostle says to the disciples : " All things are 1 The assumption of earlier expositors, that an interval of a year must elapse between betrothal and marriage, is after all but an arbitrary one. S [Tbe exception in Ps. lxviii. 31 (30), is only apparent. C^^SM jTT3?, H the congregation of bullocks," like the beast of the reed,'' Is a metaphorical mode of designating body of men — Ta., 8 Hence also the Sept. crwaywyi- 4 Venn ischt e Samml. aus der Natur/cunde, vi. 135. Roeen- muller, Morgtnland, No. 462. 6 On a general refutation of whom we canoot here enter He agrees in his results, for the most part, with BertheM and Ewald. 6 Jerusalem Talmud, "Nazir," cap. 1, Hal. 2, etc. CHAPTER XIV. 10-14. 19" yours." From the consecration of his spirit, Sam- >on has a typical strength by which to the pure all things are pure. Samson can do everything, and that, as the ancients explained of their Samson- Nazarite. without sin-offerings ; only one thing he may not do, — desecrate this his consecration, sin against this spirit itself. But this his freedom is naturally held within bounds by his calling. It must have war against the Philistines for its cause and goal. The Apostle's meaning is, All things are yours, if ye be Christ's. Samson may do everything, when the honor of his God against the hereditary enemy is at stake. This freedom was given him, not that he might live riotously, as with Delilah — for which reason he fell — but only to do battle. Herein lies the key to the profound observation of the narrator, when the parents of Samson did not approve of his proposed marriage with the woman of Timnah : " They knew not that this was an occasion from God." The whole Samson was an occasion from God against the Philistines. It is therefore also with a profound purpose that the hero himself is not commanded to abstain from wine and unclean things. He is born, to a certain extent, in a state of pure conse- cration, in which for the ends of this consecration everything becomes pure to him. He continues to be the hero, even when he eats that which is un- clean, and marries foreign women, which yet, according to ch. iii. 6, forms one of the causes of divine judgments ; but he falls, when in divulging his secret he does that which, though not in itself forbidden, profanes his consecration. Samson's character, in that spiritual freedom which makes war on the Philistines, is a type of the true Christian freedom, — so long as it does not consume itself. It would therefore lead to useless hair-splitting, to inquire whether it was right in Samson to bring of the honey to his parents without telling them whence he had taken it. He brought it as an evi- dence of his childlike heart, and committed no wrong. It was a Talmudic question, whether the honey was unclean, although the rule enjoined on Samson's mother extended only to the time of her son's birth. He was silent about the history of the honey, in order to avoid boasting. HOIOLETICAL AND PRACTICAL. Samson is stronger than lions and more cun- ning than foxes. He must be this in order to conquer the Philistines. For there is no one to assist him. The Philistines have enervated, terri- fied, desecrated Israel. Israel, on their account, has no more faith in its faith. It is afraid of the strength of its own spirit. Desirous of peace al any price, it has surrendered even its own senti- ments and beliefs. Beautiful, on this account, is the use which the ancient church made of Samson the Lion-slayer as a type of Christ. The rending lion is also an image of Satan, the destroyer of men. As Sam- son rends the lion's jaws asunder with his hands, so Christ tears to pieces the kingdom of Satan and death. Hence the old custom of putting the picture of Samson the Lion-conqueror on church doors. But that lion who goes about seeking to snatc v us away from Christ is still ever terrible. The batiie with him is still daily new. The victory, however, is sure, if only we believe in the conquest of the true Samson. But if we have the Spirit only on our tongues, and not in our souls, we shall never conquer like Him. Only faith will enable us to stand. But every victory flows with honey; and with it we refresh father and mother. Every new victory strengthens the old love. Starke : They who do the greatest works, maka the least noise and boasting about them. Enmity and war are easily begun, but not so easily ended. The Philistines could readily make an enemy of Samson, but to make a friend of him was more difficult. — The Same : Christian, imitate, not Samson's deed, but his faith and obedience. — Li sco : Samson's life and deeds can be rightly judged only when viewed, not as those of a private person, but as the activity of a theocratic deliverer and judge. [Wordsworth : " He told not his father or his mother," though they were not far from him at the time (ver. 5). So our Lord would not that any one should spread abroad his fame. He said, " Tell no man " (Matt. viii. 4 ; xvi. 20). Hitherto, then, Samson, in his spiritual gifts, in his self- dedication to God, in his strength, courage, and victory, and in his meekness and humility, is an eminent type of Christ. But afterwards he de- generates, and becomes in many respects a contrast to Him. And thus, in comparing the type and the antitype, we have both encouragement and warning, especially as to the right use to be made of spiritual gifts, and as to the danger of their abuse. — Bp. Hall : The mercies of God are ill bestowed upon us, if we cannot step aside to view the monuments of his deliverances; dangers may be at once past and forgotten. As Samson had not found his honeycomb, if he had not turned aside to see his lion, so we shall lose the comfoi t of God's benefits, if we do not renew our perils by meditation. — Tr.] Samson's wedding-feast. He proposes a riddle to his companions. Chapter XIV. 10-14. \ 10 So [And] his father went down unto the woman: and Samson made there a 11 feast; for so used [it is customary for] the young men to do. And it came to pass, when they saw him, that they brought [chose] thirty companions to be with 12 him. And Samson said unto them, I will now put forth a riddle unto you : if ye can certainly [if ye indeed] declare it me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, the! I will give you thirty sheets [shirts] l and thirty change [changes] 198 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. 13 of garments But if ye cannot declare it me, then shall ye give me thirty sheets [shirts] and thirty change [changes] of garments. And they said unto him, Put 14 forth thy riddle, that we may hear it. And he said unto them, Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they could not in three days expound the riddle. TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL. II Ver. 12. — C^S^D. Dr. Cassel translates this word by the general term Gewandt, garments. He apparently con« riders the only distinction between the C2TO and the D'HISl ]"ft bfl, to be that between common and more costly garments (see below). But the D^^Tp are probably under-garments, tunica, shirts, made of a fine linen. The deri- vation of the word I'HD. and whether it be related to the Greek o-iVoW (Sept.), can hardly be determined. — Th.] EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL. Ver. 10. And his father went down unto the woman. The whole narrative is full of naive de- lineations of manners and customs. The father's present visit to the maiden is in his son's behalf, and expresses the parental approbation of Sam- son's marriage engagement. That the parents of the bride were consulted about the marriage is not indicated in any way, although we know that the father was still living (cf. ch. xv. 6). Arewe to suppose that among the Philistines an application to the parents was unnecessary ? Did not Isaac, through Eliezer, make suit for Rebecca to her father ? and Jacob to Laban ? Was not the same custom current also among other, heathen nations ? Is not the young woman in the nuptial song of Catullus (Carmen, xii. ver. 61) exhorted that it is the father and mother who must be obeyed % 1 The Philistine women seem really to have enjoyed a position of great social freedom. They are seen on the street, and are visited by men, without being on that account regarded as " harlots." And Samson made there a feast ; for such is the custom of young men. He did not take her with him into his father's house, 2 after the mar- riage was settled, but remained in Timnah, and there gave the feast. Among the Philistines it was customary for the bridegroom (~fln3) to arrange the banquet. At the wedding of Cana, also, de- scribed by St. John (eh. ii. 10), the bridegroom seems to have been the entertainer. But this was not the ease when Laban gave his daughter to Jacob, or when Tobias married the daughter of Raguel (Tobit, viii. 19). In those instances, the parents of the bride give the feast. Marriage feasts were much liked among all na- tions. When, in the Odyssey (iv. 3), Telemachus comes to king Menelaus, the latter is just cele- brating the nuptial feasts of his children. Among the Romans, the name repolia 3 was in use for the entertainments which (according to Festus) were given on the dav after the marriage at the new husband's house (cf. Horace, Sat. ii. 60). Plutarch makes the question, Why even law-givers have appointed a certain degree of luxury to be ob- served in connection with such feasts, a subject of discussion in his Symposium (lib. iv.quaest. 3). Sam- son's marriage-celebration lasted seven days. The parents-in-law of Tobias, in their joy, appropriated fourteen days. But down to late times luxury and lensuality are more characteristic of such feasts 1 (Juibus parert necesse est. 2 Because she was an alien He does not impose upon his father's house that in which he allows himself. That would have been an insrlt to the law and customs of linai. than is compatible with their proper observance Neither the spirit of Samson, nor the piety of Tobias fills and governs them, albeit in some in- stances the duration of those ancient celebrations may be rivaled. We hardly seem to have taken a long leap backward, when in the fourteenth century we hear it provided by the Ravensburg Regulation concerning weddings, that " the nuptial celebration shall only last till the next day, no longer" (Bir- linger, VolksthOmlkhes, ii. 399)"; or when, in 1643, the Wurtzburg bishop, John Philip, orders that the custom of protracting banquets through three days be discontinued, "as a useless and hurtful expense" (Schaltjahr, i. 445). For even in our day, like excesses occur, wherever there is money and wantonness. So late as ten years ago, it was stated that in Swabia the feasting attendant upon a village wedding still frequently lasted from four to five days (Meier, Schwab. Sagen, p. 479). Ver. 1 1 . And when they saw him, they chose thirty companions, "who were with him. A bridegroom is like a king's son. His wedding is his coronation. Hence, also, crown and chaplet are not wanting for the wedded pair. For the same reason they have also a following. These are ancient, universally diffused ideas, which it would lead us too far to collect together from all nations and languages. In comparatively recent times, the Jews have minutely traced the analogy of the bridegroom with the king, through all the customs pertaining to them respectively, even to the point of calling attention to the fact that ]'"jn and TJ?p have each three letters. (On the proofs that "pOv nOll "\r\r\, compare the litnrgir^I works, of which Tania, ed. Cremona, 1565, p. '.30, and Taschbaz, of R. Meier of Rotenburg, p. 45, may here be especially cited. ) Accordingly, the QniS~3, "when they saw him," is to be so understood, that when Samson ap- peared, i. e. publicly, both at the time of the mar- riage, concerning the manner of which nothing is said, and during the seven festive days, it was always with a retinue of thirty companions, some- what as in our day brides are still attended by suites of bridesmaids. ^npf 1, and they chose. It was customary, no doubt, when a daughter or son of the city was married, for the bridegroom to provide himse'ii with a retinue. As Samson was a stranger, his 8 "An after drinking." The Sept. renders n£!t5?3 (ver. 10) by norm, a drinking. 4 Cf. Jalkut, Shophelim, n. 70, p. 11 c. CHAPTER XIV. 10-14. 199 bride and her father told him whom to invite, and therefore the writer says " they chose." The num- ber of young men chosen was thirty. Samson's parents seem to have been in good circumstances, and hence the bridegroom appeared not without splendor, as the giver of a seven days' feast. That thirty was the unvarying number, cannot be main- tained. The ancients had a philosophical num- ber, which they called the "wedding," and which consisted of five or six. (Both chosen on account of their being formed from 2X3 and 2+3, one even, the other odd.) But 5 X 6 is also = 30. 1 In later times, also, the Jews had many brides'- men. In Worms, their number had been restricted to eight. The later Jews called such a brides'- man 'p2t£7B7, which term does not, however, come from the Syriac, as Sachs thought (BeitrOge, i. 82), but is only the Hebraized form of sponsor (other- wise auspex, paranymphios, cf. Matt. ix. 15). — The idea of Josephus, which Bertheau adopts, that the thirty young men were to watch Samson, is to be rejected. For, in the first place, nothing was as yet known concerning Samson that could render him so seriously suspected ; and, in the next place, it is manifest from ver. 15, that they were invited on the part of the bridegroom himself. Vers. 12, 13. I will put forth a riddle unto you. The custom of propounding riddles for amusement is very ancient. The acuteness which exercised itself therein, was, as it were, the coun- terpart of that which invented the language of figure, signs, and symbols. For it brought to light again the secrets which the latter had locked up. " In ancient times," says Plutarch, " the Greeks were already in the habit of propounding riddles to each other." It is related of the maiden Cleob- uline, the daughter of a wise man, that she was so ingenious, as to play with riddles as if they were dice, propounding or solving them with equal ease. The banquet of the seven wise men, in Plu- tarch, shows the high estimation in which the diversion was held ; and Cleodemns, the physician, who was unskillful at solving riddles, is not un- aptly rebuked by iEsop, for holding such occupa- tion to be suitable only for girls when engaged in knitting girdles and hoods, but not for intelligent men. Athenajus, also, in his work (pp. 453—459), cites large extracts from the book of Clearchus on riddles, and adds, " that the unraveling of such riddles is very similar to the pursuit of philosophy, and that therefore their solution, as a sign of wis- dom, is held in favor, and deemed an appropriate mode of entertainment at table." We, however, pass fcy these examples from Clearchus, not only because they were already brought to the notice of expositors by Bochart, but especially because in the case of Samson's riddle the real stake at •ssue is higher than a garland for the winner, or the drinking of a forfeit-cup 2 by the loser. It evokes a stern conflict. Then I will give you thirty garments (C , 3' , "Tp) and thirty changes of raiment (CIS? nt" 1 , n). With this explanation, the more recent expositors would probably agree. By a " change " of rai- ment we are to understand a dress of state — a 1 Cf. Plutarch, on the doctrine of the Timtzus concern- ing the origin of souls. 2 [That is, a cup of unmixed wine, or of wine mixed ivith salt-water, to be emptied at one draught. See Smith's Diet. Antiq., s. v. t( Symposium." It will be remembered that the Greeks always mingled water with their wine. Tfcey considered it not only unhealthy, but ban irous, to Sunday suit, as we would say — for which the every-day dress may be exchanged on festive occa sions. The Targum, however, has another expla- nation, which deserves to be mentioned. Like the Septuagint and Josephus, it translates H-VO (changes) by n > 7l2^iS, 0-T0A77; assuming thereby for *17n, a signification which indeed it sometimes seems to have, namely, to fight, to wound (Sept iraraffO'eii', TtTpuHTKeiv). For ot6\t\ is the classical term for a soldier's dress. In like manner, it translates Q'O'Hp by Q^DlvS, i. e. balteus, the girdle or belt which the soldier buckled around his body (cf. 2 K. v. 23). — It was thus no small price that was put upon the solution of the riddle. But in other cases also it was probably not un- usual for large sums to be staked. Thus, if we are to believe Dius, quoted by Josephus (Antiq. viii. 5, 3 ; cf. Jablonski, Pantheon JEgypt., Proleg., p. cxiv), Solomon and Hiram lost a great deal of money to each other. Plutarch relates how that the Ethiopian king staked many cities and villages on a riddle propounded to Amasis, and would have won them, had not the philosophical Bias come to the aid of the Egyptian monarch. It was in con- sequence of solving a riddle that the legendary Persian hero was permitted to marry Rudabe, the mother of Rustem. According to ancient Scandi- navian law, criminals could save themselves from death by means of a riddle (Olin Dalin, Gesch. Schwede?ts, German, i. 155). The same idea oc- curs in German riddle-books (Simrock, Rttthsel- buch, p. 463; Menzel, d. Dichtung, i. 427). — King Heidrik in Ridgotland had a severe war with Gester Blinde, king in Gothland. Finally, he challenged him to solve riddles. The latter in voked Odin, and conquered (Olin Dalin, i. 186). Ver. 14. Out of the consumer came material for consumption, and out of the terrible came sweetness. The translator must take care not to destroy the ambiguity of the term 7DS, consumer. For this reason, the rendering of De Wette and Arnheim, " vom Fresser kommt Frass " [from the feeder comes feed], is not good ; for, on the one hand. Frass [feed, a term used onlv for the food of beasts] 3 is not applicable to the honey which is meant, and on the other hand, human beings [do not feed, but] eat. Ewald's rendering, " aus dem Esser kam ein Essen " [out of the eater came an eating, i. e. something eatable], is unsuitable, be- cause the lion, who is meant, is not an Esser, eater, nor yet as Bertheau renders, a Speiser [both terms being used of human beings only]. Equally erro- neous is it to translate ^ by " sour." For the antithesis between this word and P^HO is here to be taken in a wider sense, so as to give rise to a second equivoque : for p1i~lC means not only " sweet," but metaphorically also " pleasant," agreeable. The ingenuity of the riddle consists precisely in this, that the ambiguity both of its Ian guage and contents can be turned in every direc tion, and thus conceals the answer. It is like a knot whose right end cannot be found, — a figure drink clear wine, which may suggest an explanation of the above-mentioned penalty. — Tr.] 3 [In German, the act of eating on the part of beasts If called Jressen ; on the part of human beings, essen Of speisen. The nearest approach we have to this distinctioi in English is between feeding and eating. — Tr.] 200 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. from which the sense of the Hebrew "TVT, to pro- pose a riddle, as also that of the Greek yp7