A.M. 2755. latter interpreted as significant of the complete overthrow of their B.C. 1249. army. Returning to the camp, the general drew out his men, and of the advanced upon the Midianites at the commencement of the middle watch of the night; when suddenly breaking their pitchers, and sounding their trumpets, they exclaimed, "The sword of the Lord, Destruction and of Gideon!" This unusual sound and appearance at the dead Midianites. of night, spread instant consternation throughout the Midianitish camp; every one smote his fellow, incapable of distinguishing each other in the darkness, and impelled to mutual slaughter by a spirit of infatuation from the Lord; and the whole host fled in different directions with the utmost precipitation. While Gideon warmly pursued them, he despatched messengers into Mount Ephraim, and the vicinity, requiring the adoption of measures to secure without delay the passes of the river Jordan, to intercept the enemy's retreat. Two Midianitish princes, Oreb and Zeeb, soon fell into the hands of their pursuers, and were immediately decapitated. Gideon, with his three hundred men, having crossed Jordan, "faint, yet pursuing," applied to the towns of Succoth and Penuel for a supply of provisions; but meeting with a refusal, he went forward, leaving only a threat of exercising upon them an exemplary retaliation at his return. The two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, being at Karkor, with fifteen thousand of their own troops, and as many of their confederates as had survived this disastrous flight, the Israelitish hero suddenly attacked and dispersed them, taking captive the kings. He hastened back in triumph to the two cities that had refused him provisions, and ridiculed his inferiority of force; the princes of Succoth he tore in pieces with thorns and briers; the inhabitants of Penuel he slew, and demolished their fortifications. As Zebah and Zalmunna had slain his brethren at Tabor, Gideon desired his son Jether to fall upon them; but his youthful timidity left the hero to execute his vengeance with his own hands. These instances of zeal induced the people to solicit his acceptance of the supreme authority, proposing to secure the succession to his posterity; his impression, however, of the true nature of that government under which they lived, and the guilt of usurping the divine dominion, led him at once to decline their offer, and to satisfy himself with merely taking the golden ear-rings, with the other ornaments and apparel of the Midianitish sovereigns, and the chains with which their superstition, no less than their vanity, invested the necks of their camels. Of these materials, he formed an ephod, which he placed as a memorial of his successes in the city of Ophrah; but it afterwards proved a snare to his family, and to the tribes, who perverted it to idolatrous purposes. Gideon had many wives, by whom he had seventy Abimelech. sons, and one named Abimelech, by a concubine at Shechem. He had given so effectual a blow to the enemies of his country, that it enjoyed forty years of tranquillity during his administration, and he expired at Ophrah at an advanced age. But no sooner had they A.M. 2795. closed his sepulchre, than the Israelites revolted from God, addicted B.C. 1209. themselves to the worship of Baalberith, and superadded to their other impieties the basest ingratitude towards the family of their late deliverer. made king. At length Abimelech, full of ambitious projects, repaired to Abimelech Shechem, where he obtained the interest of his family connections to support his claims to royalty, and after putting an effectual end to the rivalry of his seventy brethren at Ophrah, by murdering them, with the single exception of Jotham, who contrived to escape, the fratricide returned to receive the dignity of king from a people who ought rather to have promoted him to a scaffold. As soon as Jotham was informed of this proceeding, he hastened to the top of Mount Gerizim, whence he overlooked Shechem, and addressed the inhabitants in a parable, descriptive of the great superiority of the Jotham's modest Gideon above the vain aspirant whom their votes had parabie. elevated to royal power, comparing the one to a bramble, and the other to the olive-tree. The parable of Jotham, the most ancient in the world, is also one of the greatest beauty. Its force, point, simplicity, adaptation to the feelings of the speaker, and the circumstances which had overwhelmed him with indignation, impart to it the most touching pathos. He glances at the services rendered by his father to an ungrateful people-the humility which had characterized him in his glorious career-- -the mean birth, the cruel qualities, and the boundless ambition of Abimelech—and concludes with a burst of indignant passion, calculated to move the most insensible heart. Antiquity, afterwards so fruitful in parables, can produce few things that equal, and none that surpass, this first specimen of figurative reproof and instruction. Jotham's remonstrance, however, does not seem at the time to have produced any considerable effect; but at the expiration of three years, the sin of Abimelech began to find its punishment; his subjects became universally dissatisfied, and even formed a plan of assassination. One Gaal, the son of Ebed, at this crisis insinuated himself into their confidence, assumed a temporary government, protected their agricultural labours, and promoted by his example, that spirit of dissipation which accords with an unsettled and factious state of public affairs. In the absence of Abimelech, Zebul, who acted for him, communicated all that passed; the threats of Gaal and his companions, and the measures which they had already adopted, by fortifying the city, to exclude him for ever from the sovereignty. Abimelech hastened by forced marches all night, and invested the city in four companies. Gaal went out to meet him, but was soon defeated. The next day the attack was renewed: Zebul procured the expulsion of Gaal; Abimelech pressed into the gates, carried the place, and utterly destroyed it: the inhabitants perished miserably; a thousand of them were burned by the conqueror and his associates, A.M. 2798. in a fort belonging to the temple of their god, whither they had fled B.C. 1206. for refuge. The neighbouring town of Thebez having united in the Tola. Jair, &c. revolt, Abimelech immediately assaulted and took it, but the inhabitants endeavoured to secure themselves in a tower. He attempted to set this also on fire; but a woman cast a piece of millstone upon the head of Abimelech, which fractured his scull, so that he had only time to desire his armour-bearer to despatch him, that he might be saved from the dishonour of so ignominious a death. The Israelites instantly dispersed, and the civil commotion subsided. TOLA, the son of Puah, of the tribe of Issachar, next succeeded to the government, which he held with seeming credit to himself A.M. 2821. during three-and-twenty years. After him JAIR, a Gileadite, judged B.C. 1183. Israel two-and-twenty years. He was intent upon the aggrandisement of his own family, and suffered the people to relapse into so corrupt a state, that there was not an idol of any neighbouring nation which they did not worship: in consequence of which they were delivered up by providence to the power of the Philistines and the Ammonites. Jephthah. Punishment, as on former occasions of a similar kind, restored them to their senses; and becoming deeply humbled for their transgressions, a new deliverer was raised up in the person of JEPHTHAH. He was the son of Gilead, by a concubine: and when A.M. 2843. his father was dead, the sons of his wife expelled him from their B.C. 1161. society, on the ground of his illegitimate birth, which disqualified him for a common inheritance. He accordingly took up his residence in the land of Tob, a place nowhere else mentioned, but probably situated near Gilead, at the entrance of Arabia Deserta. In process of time the Ammonites sought an occasion of war, and the Gileadites sent their chiefs to solicit Jephthah to head their forces. He at first reproached them for their past disrespectful treatment; but at length agreed to accept the command, upon condition of their engaging to confer the government upon him, in case of success. His first measure was to send an embassy to the king of Ammon, to demand an explanation of the cause of his hostility; to which an answer was returned, intimating his title to a land of which he had been unjustly deprived during the journey of the Israelites from Egypt: to which Jephthah replied, that the Amorites, who were the original proprietors of the country, had been dispossessed by the successful arms of his ancestors, in consequence of their refusal to allow the Israelites to pass through it; and that the right to the continued possession of what conquest had conferred upon them, and a conquest obtained under the special direction of heaven, had never been disputed, till his unwarrantable invasion, for the period of three hundred years. This negotiation was, however, closed by the determination of the king of Ammon at all events to prosecute the war. Jephthah, therefore, immediately made the necessary arrangements, under the direction of a supernatural influence; and, according to the religious rash vow. custom of the times, pledged himself in a vow to God, that if he A.M. 2843. should be favoured with success, whatever came forth of the doors B.c. 1161. of his house to meet him upon his return, should be devoted to the Jephthah's Lord as a burnt-offering. His most sanguine expectations were speedily accomplished, in a complete victory over the enemy, with a general slaughter. Upon his return to his house at Mizpeh, to his inexpressible sorrow, his daughter, an only child, came out to meet him with those congratulations which from the nature of his vow must have awakened the deepest anguish; but whether to fulfil it he really sacrificed her, is an historical question, that has occasioned many and vehement disputations.1 After these transactions, a disturbance of a different nature, and A.M. 2861. quite unexpected, arose from the resentful feelings of the Ephrai- B.C. 1143. mites, and involved Jephthah in great embarrassment. They fancied themselves neglected in the summons which had been issued to unite against the late invaders of the country, and threatened to set his house on fire to revenge the insult. They had expressed a similar jealousy on a former occasion, and had been pacified; but now they were so perverse that Jephthah found it necessary to resort to arms; and, having conquered them in battle, he took possession of the passes of Jordan, whither if any one came, and they discovered him to be an Ephraimite, which was ascertained by his pronunciation of the word Shibboleth, he was slain. On this fatal day forty-two thousand perished. Thus, after an honourable A.M. 2867. administration of public affairs for six years, Jephthah died, and B.C. 1137. was buried in one of the cities of Gilead. and Abdon. Of his next three successors, IBZAN of Bethlehem, who judged Ibzan. Elon Israel seven years, ELON, a Zebulunite, who held the government ten years, and ABDON, the son of Hillel, a Pirathonite, who ruled eight years, nothing remarkable is recorded, excepting that the first and the last had numerous families. It is again said of the Israelites, that they "did evil in the sight of the Lord;" and in consequence of this defection, they were 1 Although it is not possible here to recapitulate the various arguments adduced by opposite writers on this great question, we acknowledge ourselves disposed to submit to the judgment of our readers as our opinion, upon the whole, that she was not sacrificed, but consecrated. 1. Because such an offering would have been impious; human sacrifices being held up always in the Scriptures as most abhorrent to God. 2. Because a provision was made in the Jewish law for the redemption of that which was not suitable for a burnt-offering, at a price expressly stipulated in the law. 3. Because the original text does not require any such conclusion; the Hebrew particle vau signifying or, as well as and: Jephthah's vow will then read, "it shall surely be the Lord's; or, I will offer it up for a burnt-offering" i.e. supposing it to be A.M. 2892. delivered up to the oppression of the Philistines forty years; for B.C. 1112. although these enemies were very inconsiderable in point of num Samson. bers, in comparison with the Hebrew nation, having only five cities of any magnitude, yet were they the appointed scourge of the rebellious people of God, who determined to display his interposing authority and providence, by the feebleness of the human agent employed to execute his purposes of punishment, as well as by the grandeur of his miraculous manifestations in dispensing victory, to Israel. Once more a person of a singular character was raised up to effect a new deliverance. The circumstances of his birth, the course of his life, and the manner of his death, were all extraordinary. SAMSON was the son of Manoah, a Danite, whose wife was assured by a celestial visitant, that the barrenness which had so long occasioned her very painful anxieties, should be removed; and as it was the divine intention to bestow a child upon them, he gave directions respecting her own mode of living, which was to be abstemious, and the consecration of her future son as a Nazarite from the womb; a term applied to those who were separated, either voluntarily or by their parents, to a life of mortification and hardship, with a view to accomplish some important design. She A.M. 2863. hastened to communicate the pleasing intelligence to her husband, B.C. 1141. who entreated God to permit the return of the messenger, whom he His first exploits. supposed to be an ordinary prophet; but his second visit was to his wife, in the solitude of the field. She immediately went in search of Manoah, to whom the same injunctions were repeated with those which had been previously given to his partner; after which the truth of the prediction, and the real character of the stranger, were attested by a miraculous disappearance in the flame of a meatoffering. Samson, the son of this pious pair, gave frequent indications of his martial spirit in his youth, and is expressly said to have been blessed by the Lord, and at times moved by his Spirit. (Judges xiii. 24, 25.) At a maturer age he fell in love with a Philistine woman at Timnath, from a connection with whom his parents in vain endeavoured to dissuade him, ignorant at the time that this was a secret arrangement of Providence to accomplish important purposes. Their objections, however, soon yielded to parental fondness, and they accompanied him to Timnath, in order to negotiate the projected union. On the journey he had an opportunity of displaying his strength and heroism, by destroying a lion; though it was done in some bye-path into which he had turned, and for the present he concealed the exploit from his parents. Upon his return some time afterwards to consummate the marriage, he found a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion; for though, as naturalists have observed, these insects are averse to flesh, and to any offensive smell, it is easy to believe that in so sultry a climate the moisture was quickly exhaled from the carcass, leaving nothing but a dry skeleton, |
