Amorites, over

Deber, king of Eglon; who were all thrown in battle, and hanged by Joshua. After this overthrow, Joshua nameth Jabin, king of Hazor, and

Jobab, king of Madon, whom he also slaughtered, and took his cities; and this Jabin seemed to have some dominion over the rest, for it is said in the text, For Hazor beforetime was the head of all those kingdoms.

C

After these, Adonibezek, that notorious tyrant, is named, who confessed that he had cut off the thumbs of the hands and feet of seventy kings, enforcing them to gather crumbs under his table; who, after d Judah and Simeon had used the same execution upon himself, acknowledged it to be a just revenge of God: this king was carried to Jerusalem, where he died.

The last king named is Jabin the second, who, as it seemeth, had rebuilt Hazor, burnt by Joshua. For at such time as he employed Sisera against Israel, whom he oppressed twenty years, after the death of Ehud he inhabited Hazor. This Jabin, Barak (encouraged by Deborah) overthrew, and his captain Sisera had by Jael, the wife of f Heber the Kenite, a nail driven into his head while he slept in her tent; Jabin himself perishing afterwards in that war.

e

The Madianites had also their kings at times, but commonly mixed with the Moabites; and they held a corner of land in Nabathea, to the south-east of the Dead sea. They descended from Madian, Abraham's son by h Keturah. Raguel, surnamed Gethegleus, or Jethres, saith Josephus, called Jethro in Exodus, Kenis in the first of Judges, the son of Dathan, the grandchild of Jexanis, or Joksham, the great grandchild of Abraham by Keturah, was priest or prince of the Madianites by the Red sea, whose daughter or niece Moses married; and of whom I have spoken elsewhere more at large. This Jethro, if he were not the same with Hobab, must be his father; and this Hobab had seven

daughters. He guided Moses in the wilderness, and became one of the Israelites: of him descended the Kenites, so called of his father ↳ Raguel's surname, of which Kenites was Heber, which had peace with Jabin the second, even now remembered.

At such time as Saul invaded the Amalekites, he knowing the good affection of the Kenites to Israel, gave them warning to separate themselves: and yet the 1 Kenites had strong seats, and lived in the mountains of the deserts.

The kings of the Canaanites, and Madianites, and the Amalekites, as many as I find named, were these: 1. Hemor the Hevite of Sichem.

2. Arad of the south parts.

3. Sehon of Essebon.

4. Og of Basan.

5. Adonizedek the Jebusite, king of Jerusalem.

6. m Hoham of Hebron.

7. Piram of Jarmuth.

8. Japia of Lachis.

9. Debir of Eglon.

10. Jabin of Hazor.

11. n Jobab of Modon.

12. Adonibezek of Bezek, and

13. Jabin the second king of Hazor.

Of the Madianites these:

• Evi, or Evis.

Rekam, or Recem, who built Petra, the metropolis of Petræa, so called by the Greeks, and by Isaiah xvi. 1. and Selah, which is as much as Petra; and so also it is called, 2 Reg. xiv. 7. where it is also called Joktheel.

Zur, Hur, and Reba; P Oreb, Zeb, Zebah, Zalmunna. After the death of Barak, judge of Israel, the four last named of these Madianite kings vexed Israel seven years;

till they being put to flight by Gideon, two of them, to wit, Oreb and Zeb, were taken and slain by the Ephraimites, at the passage of Jordan, as in the 6th, 7th, and 8th of Judges it is written at large. Afterwards, in the pursuit of the rest, Gideon himself laid hands upon Zebah and Zalmana, or Zalmunna, and executed them, being prisoners; in which expedition of Gideon there perished 120,000 of the Madianites, and their confederates. Of the Idumeans, Moabites, and Ammonites, I will speak hereafter in the description of their territories.

SECT. III.

Of the Amalekites and Ismaelites.

OF the kings of the Amalekites and Ismaelites, I find few that are named; and though of the Ismaelites there were more in number than of the rest, (for they were multiplied into a greater nation, according to the promise of God made unto 1 Abraham,) yet the Amalekites, who together with the Midianites were numbered among them, were more renowned in Moses's time than the rest of the Ismaelites. So also were they when Saul governed Israel; for Saul pursued them from Sur into Havilah, to wit, over a great part of Arabia Petræa, and the desert. The reason to me seemeth to be this; that the twelve princes which came of Ismael were content to leave those barren deserts of Arabia Petræa, called Shur, Paran, and Sin, to the issue of Abraham by Keturah, that joined with them, (for so seem the Amalekites to have been, and so were the Madianites,) themselves taking possession of a better soil in Arabia the Happy, and about the mountains of Galaad in Arabia Petræa. For Nabaioth, the eldest of those twelve princes, planted that part of Arabia Petræa, which was very fruitful, though adjoining to the desert in which Moses wandered, afterwards called Nabathea; the same which neighboureth Judæa on the east side. They also peopled a province in Arabia the Happy, whereof the people were in aftertimes called Napathei, b changed into

p.

Kedar, the second of Ismael's sons, gave his own name to the east part of Basan, or Batanea, which was afterwards possessed by Manasseh, so much thereof as lay within the mountains Traconi or Gilead. Which nation Lampridius calleth Kedarens, and Pliny, Cedræans.

Adbeel sat down in the desert Arabia, near the mountains which divide it from the Happy; and gave name to the Adubens, which Ptolomy calleth Agubens.

Mibsam was the parent of the Masamancuses, near the mountain Zamath, in the same Arabia the Happy.

The Raabens were of Mishma, who joined to the Orchens, near the Arabian gulf, where Ptolomy setteth Zagmais.

t

Of Duma were the Dumeans, between the Adubens and Raabens, where the city Dumeth sometimes stood.

Of Massa the Massani, and of Hadar, or Chadar, the Athritæ, who bordered the Napatheans in the same Happy Arabia.

Thema begat the Themaneans among the Arabian mountains, where also the city of Thema is seated.

Of Jetur the Itureans, or Chamathens, of whom Tohu was king in David's time.

Of Naphri the Nubeian Arabians, inhabiting Syria Zoba; over whom Adadezer commanded while David ruled Israel.

Cadma, the last and twelfth of Ismael's sons, was the ancestor of the Cadmoneans, who were afterwards called Asitæ, because they worshipped the fire with the Babylonians.

The Amalekites gave their kings the name of Agag, as the Egyptians the name of Pharaoh to theirs, and the ancient Syrians Adad to theirs, and the Arabians, Nabatheans, Aretas, as names of honour.

The Amalekites were the first that fought with Moses, after he passed the "Red sea; when of all times they flourished most, and yet were vanquished.

s Plin. 1. 6. C. 28.

t Junius.

" Exod. xvii.

Afterwards they joined with the Canaanites, and beat the Israelites near Cades-barne. After the government of Othoniel, they joined them with the Moabites; after Barak with the Madianites, and invaded Israel. God commanded, that as soon as Israel had rest, they should root out the name of the Amalekites; which Saul executed in part, when he wasted them from the border of Egypt to the border of Chaldea, from Havilah to Shur.

In y David's time they took Ziklag in Simeon; but David followed them, and surprised them, recovering his prisoners and spoils. And yet, after David became king, they again vexed him, but to their own loss.

In Hezekiah's time, as many of them as joined to 2 Idumæa, were wasted and displanted by the children of Simeon.

SECT. IV.

Of the instauration of civility in Europe about these times, and of Prometheus and Atlas.

THERE lived at this time, and in the same age together with Moses, many men exceeding famous, as well in bodily strength as in all sorts of learning. And as the world was but even now enriched with the written law of the living God, so did art and civility (bred and fostered far off in the east and in Egypt) begin at this time to discover a passage into Europe, and into those parts of Greece neighbouring Asia and Judæa. For if Pelasgus, besides his bodily strength, was chosen king of Arcadia, because he taught those people to erect them simple cottages to defend them from rain and storm; and learned them withal to make a kind of meal and bread of acorns, who before lived for the most part by herbs and roots; we may thereby judge how poor and wretched those times were, and how falsely those nations have vaunted of those their antiquities, accompanied not only with civil learning, but with all other kinds of knowledge. And it was in this age of the world, as both Eusebius and a St. Augustine have observed, that Pro

x Numb. xiv.

y I Sam. xxx. 2 Sam. viii. 12.

a

1 Chron. iv.

Aug. 1. 18. c. 8. de Civit. Dei.