yet he lost the battle with 30,000 Christians, and his own. life. But I will stay my hand; for this first volume will not hold the repetition of God's judgments upon faithbreakers, be it against infidels, Turks, or Christians of divers religions. Lamentable it is, that the taking of oaths nowadays is rather made a matter of custom than of conscience.

It is also very remarkable, that it pleased God to leave so many cities of the Canaanites unconquered by Israel, to scourge and afflict them, by foreseeing their idolatry, and as it is said in the scriptures, e to be thorns in their eyes to prove them, and to teach them to make war. For these cities hereafter named did not only remain in the Canaanites' possession all the time of Joshua, but soon after his death the f children of Dan were beaten out of the plain countries, and enforced to inhabit the mountains, and places of hardest access. And those of Judah were not able to be masters of their own valleys, because, as it is written in Judges i. 19. the Canaanites had chariots of iron. And those principal cities which stood on the sea-side, adjoining unto 8 Judah, were still held by the remainder of the Anakims or Philistines; as Azzah, Gath, Asdod, out of one of which cities came Goliath, remembered in Samuel.

Neither did the children of Manasseh over Jordan expel the h Geshurites, nor the Maachathites, which inhabited the north parts of Basan, afterward Trachonitis.

Nor the Nephtalims possess themselves of Bethshemish, nor of Bethanah; but they enforced those Canaanites to pay them tribute. Neither did i Asher expel the Zidonians, nor those of Acho, or Acon, Athlab, Achzib, Heblah, Aphike, and Rehob, nor enforce them to tribute.

No more could Zabulon enjoy Kitron and Nahalol, but received tribute from them. Also the Canaanites dwelt in k Gezer among the Ephraims; and among the children of Manasseh, on the west of Jordan, the Canaanites held 1 Beth

Josh. xxiii. Judg. i. and iii. 2. f Judg. i. 34.

Josh. xi. 19. 1 Sam. xvii. 4.

b Josh. xiii. 13.

i Judg. i. 31.
k Josh. xvi. 10.
I Judg. i. 27.

shean, Taanach, Dor, Ibleam, and Megiddo; yea, Jerusalem itself did the Jebusites defend above four hundred years, even till David's time.

Now Joshua lived one hundred and ten years, eighteen of which he governed Israel, and then changed this life for a better. The time of his rule is not expressed in the scriptures, which causeth divers to conjecture diversely of the continuance. Josephus gives him five and twenty years; Seder Ollam Rabbi, the author of the Hebrew chronology, eight and twenty; and Masseus six and twenty; Maimonius, cited by Massius, fourteen; Joannes Lucidus, seventeen; Cajetanus ten; Eusebius giveth him seven and twenty, and so doth St. Augustine; Melancthon, two and thirty; Codoman, five and twenty. But whereas there passed 480 years from the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, unto the building of the temple, it is necessary that we allow to Joshua only eighteen of them, as finding the rest supplied otherwise, which to me seems the most likely, and, as I think, a well approved opinion.

The same necessity of retaining precisely 480 years from the departure out of Egypt unto the building of the temple, convinceth of error such as have inserted years between Joshua and Othoniel, of whom m Eusebius finds eight years, to which Arius Montanus adhereth, and for which he giveth his reason in his four and twentieth and last chapters upon Joshua: Bunting reckons it nine years, Bucholzer and Reusner but one, Codoman twenty, and Nicephorus no less than three and thirty; whereas, following the sure direction of these 480 years, there can be no void years found between Joshua and Othoniel, unless they be taken out of those eighteen ascribed unto Joshua by the account already specified. The praises and acts of Joshua are briefly written in the six and fortieth chapter of Ecclesiasticus, where, among many other things, it is said of him, Who was there before him like to him, for he fought the battles of the Lord? That he wrote the book called by this name, it was the opinion of Arius Montanus, because it is said in the last m Euseb. Præp. Evang.

chapter, verse 26. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; which seemeth rather to have been meant by the covenant which Joshua made with Israel in Sichem, where they all promised to serve and obey the Lord; which promise Joshua caused to be written in the book of the law; and of this opinion were Cajetan and Abulensis. Theodoret doth likewise conceive that the book of Joshua was collected out of an ancient volume, entitled, Liber Justorum, remembered by Joshua himself; and others, that it was the work of Samuel; for whereas Montanus groundeth his opinion upon these words of the 26th verse, And Joshua wrote these words, &c. this place hath nothing in it to prove it; for when the people had answered Joshua, n The Lord our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey; it followeth that Joshua made a covenant with the people, and wrote the same in the book of the law of God.

There lived at once with Joshua, Erichthonius in Attica, who taught that nation to yoke beasts together, thereby to till the ground with more ease and speed; and about the same time the fifty daughters of Danaus (as it is said) slew the fifty sons of Ægyptus, all but Lynceus, who succeeded Danaus, if the tale be true. There lived also with Joshua, Phoenix and Cadmus, and near the end of Joshua's life, Jupiter is said to have ravished Europa the daughter of Phoenix, (afterwards married to Asterius king of Creta,) and begat on her Minos, Radamanthus, and Sarpedon. But St. Augustine reports this ravishment to be committed by Xanthus, and yet they are more commonly taken for the sons of Jupiter. But it may be doubted whether P Minos was father to Deucalion, and Deucalion to Idomeneus, who was an old man at the war of Troy, and Sarpedon was in person a young or strong man at the same Trojan war. And so doth Nestor reckon up in the counsel of the Greeks, Theseus and Perithous for men of antiquity, and of ages past; Minos being yet more ancient than any of these. But hereof elsewhere.

" Josh. v. last verse, and xxiv. 24. O Lib. xviii. c. 12. de Civitate Dei.

P Homer, Odyss. and Iliad.

a Hom. Iliad. 1.

CHAP. VII.

Of the tribes of Israel that were planted in the borders of Phoenicia, with sundry stories depending upon those places.

SECT. I.

The proem to the description of the whole land of Canaan, with an exposition of the name of Syria.

THE story of the Judges ought to follow that of Joshua, after whom the commonwealth of the Jews was governed by kings, of which so many of them as ruled the ten tribes shall be remembered when we come to the description of Samaria: but because the land of Canaan, and the borders thereof, were the stages and theatres whereon the greatest part of the story past, with that which followeth, hath been acted, I think it very pertinent (for the better understanding of both) to make a geographical description of those regions; that all things therein performed, by the places known, may the better be understood and conceived. To which purpose (besides the addition of the neighbour countries) I have bestowed on every tribe his proper portion, and do shew what cities and places of strength were by the Jews obtained, and what numbers it pleased God to leave unconquered; by whom he might correct and scourge them, when, ungrateful for his many graces, they at sundry times forgat or neglected the Lord of all power, and adored those deaf and dead idols of the heathen: Divina bonitas, (saith St. Augustine,) ideo maxime irascitur in hoc sæculo, ne irascatur in futuro; et misericorditer temporalem adhibet severitatem, ne æternam juste inferat ultionem; "The "divine goodness is especially therefore angry in this world, " that it may not be angry in the world to come; and doth mercifully use temporal severity, that it may not justly "bring upon us eternal vengeance."

66

To the cities herein described, I have added a short story of the beginnings and ends of divers kingdoms and commonweals; and to help myself herein, I have perused divers of the best authors upon this subject; among whom,

because I find so great disagreement in many particulars, I have rather in such cases adventured to follow mine own reason, than to borrow any one of their old patterns.

And because Canaan, with Palæstina of the Philistines, and the lands of Og and Sihon kings of Basan, and the Arabian Amorites, were but small provinces of Syria; it shall be necessary first to divide and bound the general, and so descend to this particular, now called the Holy Land.

I Syria, now Soria, according to the largest description, and as it was anciently taken, embraced all those regions from the Euxine sea to the Red sea; and therefore were the Cappadocians, which look into Pontus, called s Leucosyrians, or white Syrians. But taking it shorter, and from the coast of Cilicia, which is the north border, unto Idumæa towards the south, Tigris towards the sun-rising, and the Mediterranean sea westward; it then containeth, besides Babylonia, Chaldea, Arabia the Desert, and Arabia Petræa, that region also which the Greeks call Mesopotamia, the Hebrews Syria; of the two rivers, to wit, Tigris and Euphrates, for so Aram-Naharaijm is expounded; also Padan Aram; that is, Jugum Syriæ, because the two rivers go along in it as it were in a yoke.

Edessa, sometimes Rages, now Rage, was the metropolis of this region of Syria. In Syria, taken largely, there were many small provinces, as Coelesyria, which the Latins call Syria Cava, because it lay in that fruitful valley between the mountains of Libanus and Anti-Libanus, in which the famous cities of Antioch, Laodicea, Apamea, with many others, were seated. Then Damascena, or Syria Libanica, taking name of the city " Damascus, and the mountains of Libanus, the regal seat of the Adades, the first kings of Syria. Adjoining to it was the province of Sophene, or * Syria Soba, Choba, or Zobal, over which Adadezer commanded in Solomon's time. Then Phoenicia and the people Syraphonices; and lastly, Syria Palæstina bordering Egypt,

Ptol. Asiæ Tab. 4. • Ptol. 5.

'Aurogallus.

u

" I Kings xi.

Herod. in Polym. Dion. 1. 27.