WARS--IDOLATRY--STORY OF RUTH--DEBORAH'S HEROISM--GIDEON

WARS--IDOLATRY--STORY OF RUTH--DEBORAH'S HEROISM--GIDEON
ISRAEL CONTINUALLY RETURNS TO IDOLATRY
From Joshua to Samuel (a period of about four hundred and seventy-four years) the condition of the Israelites varied according as the fundamental law of the state was observed or transgressed, exactly as Moses had predicted, and as the sanctions of the law had determined.
HEATHEN FRIENDSHIPS
The last admonitions of Joshua, and the solemn renewal of the covenant with Jehovah, failed to produce all the effect intended. That generation, indeed, never suffered idolatry to become predominant, but still they were very negligent with respect to the expulsion of the Canaanites. Only a few tribes made war upon them, and even they were soon weary of the contest. They spare their dangerous and corrupting neighbors, and, contrary to express statute, were satisfied with making them tributary. They even became connected with them by unlawful marriages, and then it was no longer easy for them to exterminate or banish the near relatives of their own families. The Hebrews thus rendered the execution of so severe a law in a manner impossible, and wove for themselves the web in which they were afterward entangled. Their Canaanitish relatives invited them to their festivals, where not only lascivious songs were sung in honor of the gods, but fornication and unnatural lusts were indulged in as part of the divine service. These debaucheries, then consecrated by the religious customs of all nations, were gratifying to the sensual appetites; and the subject of Jehovah too readily submitted himself to such deities, so highly honored by his connections, and worshipped in all the neighboring nations. At first, probably, a symbolical representation of Jehovah was set up, but this was soon transferred to an idol, or was invoked as an idol by others. Idolatrous images were afterward set up, together with the image of Jehovah, and the Israelites fondly imagined that they should be the more prosperous if they rendered homage to the ancient gods of the land. The propensity to idolatry, which was predominant in all the rest of the world, thus spread itself among the chosen people like a plague. From time to time idolatry was publicly professed, and this national treachery to their king, Jehovah, always brought with it national misfortunes.
REPEATED SPIRITUAL CYCLE
However, it does not appear that any form of idolatry was openly tolerated until that generation was extinct, which, under Joshua, had sworn anew to the covenant with Jehovah. After that the rulers were unable or unwilling any longer to prevent the public worship of pagan deities. But the Hebrews, rendered effeminate by this voluptuous religion, and forsaken by their king, Jehovah, were no longer able to contend with their foes, and were forced to bend their necks under a foreign yoke. In this humiliating and painful subjection to a conquering people, they called to mind their deliverance from Egypt, the ancient kindnesses of Jehovah, the promises and threatenings of the law: then they forsook their idols, who could afford them no help--they returned to the sacred tabernacle, and then found a deliverer who freed them from their bondage. The reformation was generally of no longer duration than the life of the deliverer. As soon as that generation was extinct, idolatry again crept in by the same way, and soon became predominant. Then followed subjection and oppression under the yoke of some neighboring people, until a second reformation prepared them for a new deliverance. Between these extremes of prosperity and adversity, the consequences of their fidelity or treachery to their divine king, the Hebrew nation was continually fluctuating until the time of Samuel. Such were the arrangements of Providence, that as soon as idolatry gained the ascendancy, some one the neighboring nations grew powerful, acquired the preponderance, and subjected the Hebrews. Jehovah always permitted their oppressions to become sufficiently severe to arouse them from their slumbers, to remind them of the sanctions of the law, and to turn them again to their God and king. Then a hero arose, inspired the people with courage, defeated their enemies, abolished idolatry, and reestablished the authority of Jehovah. As the Hebrews, in the course of time, became more obstinate in their idolatry, so each subsequent oppression of the nation was always more severe than the preceding. So difficult was it, as mankind were then situated, to preserve a knowledge of the trite God in the world, although so repeatedly and so expressly revealed, and in so high a degree made manifest to the senses.[233]
[233] Jahn, b. iii. sect 20
After this general view of the whole period above referred to, we may proceed to the historical details from which that view is collected.
ADONI-BEZEK CAPTURED
Soon after the death of Joshua, and while the contemporary elders still lived, the Israelites made some vigorous and successful exertions to extend their territory. The most remarkable of these exertions was that made by the tribe of Judah, assisted by that of Simeon. They slew ten thousand Canaanites and Perizzites in the territory of Bezek, the king of which, Adoni-bezek (literally, “my lord of Bezek”), contrived to make his escape; but he was pursued and taken, when the conquerors cut off his thumbs and great toes. Now this, at the first view, was a barbarous act. It was not a mode in which the Hebrews were wont to treat their captives; and the reason for it--that it was intended as an act of just retaliation, or, as we should say, of poetic justice--appears from the bitter remark of Adoni-bezek himself--“Three score and ten kings, having their thumbs and great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me.” This proves that, as we have already on more than one occasion intimated, the war practices of the Israelites especially in the treatment of their captives--were not more barbarous, and, in many respects, less barbarous, than those of their contemporaries; and that even their polished neighbors, the Egyptians, were not in this respect above them. Adoni-bezek died soon after at Jerusalem, to which place he was taken by the conquerors. They at this time had possession of the lower part of that town, and soon after succeeded in taking the upper city, upon Mount Zion, which the Jebusites had hitherto retained. They sacked it and burned it with fire. But as we afterward again find it in the occupation of the Jebusites, down to the time of David, it seems they took advantage of some one of the subsequent oppressions of Israel to recover the site and rebuild the upper city.
Eleazar the high-priest, as we have seen, did not long survive Joshua; and the remnant of the seventy elders, originally appointed by Moses to assist him in the government of the nation, soon followed them to the tomb. While these venerable persons lived, the Israelites remained faithful to their divine king and to his laws.
But soon after their death the beginnings of corruption appeared. A timely attempt was made to check its progress by the remonstrances and threatenings of a prophet from Gilgal. But although they quailed under the rebuke which was there administered, the effect was but temporary. The downward course which the nation had taken was speedily resumed; and it is strikingly illustrated by some circumstances which the author of the book of Judges has given in an appendix contained in the last five chapters of that book, but which we shall find it more convenient to introduce here in their proper chronological place.
MICAH AS EXAMPLE OF IDOLATRY
The history of Micah furnishes a very interesting example of the extent to which even Israelites, well disposed in the main, had become familiarized with superstitious and idolatrous practices, and the curious manner in which they managed to make a monstrous and most unseemly alliance between the true doctrine in which they had been brought up, and the erroneous notions which they had imbibed.
A woman of Ephraim had, through a mistaken zeal, dedicated a large quantity of silver (about five hundred and fifty ounces) to the Lord, intending that her son should make therewith a teraph, in the hope that by this means she might procure to her house the blessings of One who had absolutely forbidden all worship by images. Her son Micah knew not of this sacred appropriation of the money, and took it for the use of the house. But on learning its destination, and hearing his mother lay her curse upon the sacrilegious person by whom she supposed it had been stolen, he became alarmed, and restored her the silver; and received it again from her with directions to give effect to her intention. This he did. He provided a teraph, and all things necessary to the performance of religious services before it, including vestments for a priest. He set apart one of his own sons as priest, until he should be able to procure a Levite to take that character. He had not long to wait. It would seem that the dues of the Levites were not properly paid at this time; for a young Levite, who had lived at Bethlehem, felt himself obliged to leave that place and seek elsewhere a subsistence. Happening to call at Micah's house, he gladly accepted that person's offer to remain and act as priest for the recompense of his victuals, with two suits of clothes (one probably sacerdotal), and eleven shekels of silver. Micah was delighted at this completion of his establishment, and, with most marvellous infatuation, cried, “Now I know Jehovah will bless me, seeing I have a Levite to be my priest.” Things went on tranquilly for a time. But it happened that the tribe of Dan could not get possession of more than the hilly part of its territory, as the Amorites retained the plain, which was the most rich and valuable part. They therefore sought elsewhere an equivalent territory which might be more easily acquired. Having ascertained that this might be found in the remote but wealthy and peaceable town and district of Laish, near the sources of the Jordan, a body of six hundred men was sent to get possession of it. From the persons they had previously sent to explore the country, they had heard of Micah's establishment; and so far from manifesting any surprise or indignation, they viewed the matter much in the same light as Micah did himself. They envied him his idol and his priest, and resolved to deprive him of both, and take them to their new settlement. They did so, notwithstanding the protests and outcries of the owner: and as for the Levite, he was easily persuaded to prefer the priesthood of a clan to that of a single family. His descendants continued long after to exercise the priestly office, in connection with this idol, at Dan, which was the name the conquerors gave to the town of Laish: and it is lamentable to have to add, that there is good reason to suspect that this Levite was no other than a grandson of Moses.
BENJAMIN BRINGS CIVIL WAR
It would seem that the tribe of Benjamin had much the start of the other tribes in the moral corruption, in the infamous vices, which resulted from the looseness of their religious notions, and from the contaminating example of the heathen, with whom they were surrounded and intermixed.
A Levite of Mount Ephraim was on his way home with his wife, whom he was bringing back from her father's house in Bethlehem; and, on the approach of night, he entered the town of Gibeah, in Benjamin, to tarry till the next morning. As the custom of the travelers was, he remained in the street till some one should invite them to his house. But in that wicked place no hospitable notice was taken of them until an old man, himself from Mount Ephraim, but living there, invited them to his home. In the night that house was besieged by the men of the place, after the same fashion and for the same purpose as that of Lot had been, when he entertained the angels in Sodom. The efforts of the aged host to turn them from their purpose were unavailing; and, as a last resource, the Levite, in the hope of diverting them from their abominable purpose, put forth his wife into the street. She was grievously maltreated by these vile people until the morning, when they left her. She then went and lay down at the door of the house in which her lord lay; and when he afterward opened it--she was dead. The Levite laid the corpse upon his beast and hastened to his home.
There was a rather mysterious custom, in calling an assembly, by sending to the different bodies or persons which were to compose it, a portion of a divided beast (see 1 Samuel 11:7); and it then became awfully imperative upon the party which received the bloody missive to obey the call which it intimated. To give a horrible intensity to the custom in this case, the Levite--a man of obviously peculiar character--divided his wife's body into twelve parts, and sent one portion to each of the tribes of Israel. The horror-struck tribes, on receiving their portion of the body, and hearing the statement which the messengers, delivered, agreed that such a thing, had not before been heard of in Israel, and hastened to the place of meeting, which; was Mizpeh.
In the great audience there assembled, the Levite declared his wrongs; which, when they had heard, the thousands of Israel vowed not to return to their homes until they had brought the offenders to condign punishment. And to express the earnestness of their purpose, they appointed one tenth of their whole number to bring in provisions for the rest, that the want of victuals might not, as often happens in Oriental warfare, oblige them to disperse before their object was accomplished. But, in the first instance, they sent messengers throughout the tribe of Benjamin, explaining the occasion of their assembling, and demanding that the offenders should be delivered up to justice. This the Benjamites were so far from granting that the whole tribe made common cause with the people of Gibeah, and all its force was called out to repel any attempt which the other tribes might make against them. Considering that the force of the eleven tribes amounted to four hundred thousand able men, whereas the Benjamites could bring together no more than twenty-six thousand, the hardihood of this resistance is well worthy of remark, if it does not, make out the claim of the Benjamites to that character for indomitable courage which they appear to have acquired. Probably the influence of that acknowledged character upon their opponents, together with their own peculiar skill in the use of the sling, formed their main reliance. Among them were seven hundred left-handed men who could sling stones to a hair's breadth and not miss.
ISRAELITES CONSULT GOD
The Israelites committed one fatal oversight in this undertaking. Although the affair was of such grave importance, they neglected to consult their divine King, without whose permission they ought not to have supposed themselves authorized to act as they did. They first decided on war, and then only consulted him as to the manner it should be conducted. The consequence was that they were twice defeated by the Benjamites, who sallied from the town of Gibeah against them. Corrected by this experience, they applied in a proper manner to learn the will of their King; and then the victory was promised to them.
AMBUSH AGAINST BENJAMIN
In their next attempt the Israelites resorted to the same familiar stratagem of ambuscade and of pretended flight, when the besieged sallied forth against them, as that whereby the town of Ai had been taken by Joshua, and with precisely the same result. Eighteen thousand Benjamites, “men of valor,” were “trodden down with ease” by the vast host which now enclosed them. The rest endeavored to escape to the wilderness, but were all overtaken and destroyed, with the exception of six hundred who found shelter among the rocks of Rimmon. The conquerors then went through the land, subjecting it to military execution. They set on fire all the towns to which they came, and put to the sword the men, the cattle, and all that came to hand.
BENJAMIN ALMOST EXTINCT
But when the heat of the conflict and execution had subsided, the national and clannish feelings of the Israelites were shocked at the reflection that they had extinguished a tribe in Israel. It was true that six hundred men remained alive among the rocks of Rimmon; but it was not clear how the race of Benjamin could be continued through them, as, at the very commencement of the undertaking, the Israelites had solemnly sworn that they would not give their daughters in marriage to the Benjamites. They had now leisure to repent of this vow; although, with reference to the vile propensities exhibited by the people of Gibeah, it was quite natural that in the first excitement such a vow should have been taken.
WIVES FOUND FOR BENJAMIN
But now they were sincerely anxious to find means of repairing their error, and to provide the survivors with wives, that the house of Benjamin might not be wholly lost. It was found that the summons whereby the tribes had been assembled had been unheeded by the men of Jabesh-Gilead, whereby they had exposed themselves to the terrible doom which the very act of summons denounced against the disobedient. That doom was inflicted, save that all the virgins were spared to be wives for the Benjamites. But as these were still insufficient, the unprovided Benjamites were secretly advised to he in wait in the vineyards near Shiloh, when they attended the next annual festival at the tabernacle; and when the young women of the place came out in dances, as at such times they were wont, they might seize and carry off the number they required. The men followed this advice. And when the fathers and brothers of the stolen maidens began to raise an outcry, the elders, by whom the measure had been counselled, interposed to pacify them, and persuaded them to over look the matter, in consideration of the difficulties by which the case was surrounded The Benjamites then returned to their desolated cities, and rebuilt and re-occupied them as they were able. But from this time Benjamin was the least, although not the least distinguished, of all the tribes.
OTHNIEL
At length (B.C. 1572) the idolatries and demoralization of the Israelites had become so rank, that a fiery trial was judged necessary for their correction. A king named Cusban-risbathaim, reigning in Mesopotamia, had extended his power far on this side the Euphrates. He now advanced into Canaan, and, either by victory or menace, rendered the Hebrews tributary. They remained under severe bondage for eight years. At the end of that time, Othniel--that relative of Caleb who has already been mentioned--was incited to put himself at the head of the people and attempt their deliverance. The garrisons which the Mesopotamians had left in the country were suddenly surprised and slain; the armies of Israel again appeared in the field, and, although at first few in number, they fought at every point the troops opposed to them; and when their numbers were increased by the reinforcements which poured in from all quarters on the first news of probable success, they hazarded a general action, in which they obtained a complete victory over the Mesopotamians, and drove them beyond the Euphrates.[234]
[234] This paragraph is partly from Josephus, whose account is here in agreement with, while it fills up, the brief notice which the Book of Judges offers.
Othniel remained the acknowledged judge, or regent, of the divine king for forty years. During his administration, the people remained faithful to their God and king, and consequently prospered. But when the beneficial control which Othniel exercised was withdrawn by his death, they fell again into idolatry and crime, and new afflictions became needful to them.
EHUD
The instruments of their punishment, this time, were the Moabites. By a long peace, this nation had recovered from the defeats which they had suffered from the Amorites before the time of Moses; and, perceiving that the Israelites were not invincible, Eglon, the king of Moab, formed, a confederacy with the Ammonites and Amalekites, and, with this help, made an attack upon them--probably under the same pretences which we shall find to have been employed on a subsequent occasion. He defeated the idolatrous Hebrews in battle, subdued the tribes beyond Jordan, and the southern tribes on this side the river; and established himself in Jericho, which he must have found a convenient post for intercepting, or at least checking, the communications between the eastern and western tribes. At that place the conquered tribes were obliged to bring him presents, or, in other words, to pay a periodical tribute. This subjection to a king who resided among them was still more oppressive than that from which they had been delivered by Othniel; and it continued more than twice as long--that is, for eighteen years. This oppression must have been particularly heavy upon the tribe of Benjamin, as it was their territory to which Jericho belonged, and which was therefore encumbered by the presence of the court of the conqueror. It was natural that those whose necks were the most galled by the yoke, should make the first effort to shake it oft Accordingly, the next deliverer was of the tribe of Benjamin. His name was Ehud, one of those left-handed men--or rather, perhaps, men who could use the left hand with as much ease and power as the right--for which this tribe seems to have been remarkable. He conducted a deputation which bore from the Israelites the customary tributes to the king. It seemed that men with weapons were not admitted to the king's presence: but Ehud had a two-edged dagger under his garment; but as he wore it on the right side, where it is worn by no right-handed man, its presence was not suspected. When he had left the presence and dismissed his people, Ehud went on as far as the carved images which had been placed at Gilgal. The sight of these images, which the Moabites had probably set up by the sacred monument of stones which the Israelites had there set up, seems to have revived the perhaps faltering zeal of the Benjamite, and he returned to Jericho and to the presence of the king, and intimated that he had a secret message to deliver. The king then withdrew with him to his “summer-parlor,” which seems to have been such a detached or otherwise pleasantly-situated apartment as are still usually found in the mansions and gardens of the East, and to which the master retires to enjoy a freer air, and more open prospects, than any other part of his dwelling commands, and where also he usually withdraws to enjoy his siesta during the heat of the day. It is strictly a private apartment, which no one enters without being specially invited; and accordingly it is said of this, that it was an apartment “which he had for himself alone.” As the king sat in this parlor, Ehud approached him, saying, “I have a message from God to thee.” On hearing that sacred name, the king rose from his seat, and Ehud availed himself of the opportunity of burying his dagger in his bowels. The Benjamite then withdrew quietly, bolting after him the door of the summer-parlor; and as such parlors usually communicate by a private stair with the porch, without the necessity of passing into or through the interior parts of the mansion, there was nothing to impede his egress, unless the porters at the outer gate had seen cause for suspicion.
The scripture, as is frequently the case, mentions this as, an historical fact, without commendatory or reprehensive remark; and we have no right to infer the approbation which is not expressed. No doubt Ehud's deed was a murder; and the only excuse for it is to be found in its public object, and in the fact that the notions of the East have always been, and are now far more lax on this point than those which Christian civilization has produced in Europe. There all means of getting rid of a public enemy, whom the arm of the law can not reach, are considered just and proper. No one can read a few pages of any oriental history without being fully aware of this; and it is by oriental notions, rather than by our own, that the act of Ehud must, to a certain extent, be judged.
The servants of Eglon supposed that their lord was taking his afternoon sleep in his summer-parlor, and hence a considerable time elapsed before his assassination was discovered.
In the meantime, Ehud was able to make known the death of the king, and to collect a body of men, with whom be went down to seize the fords of the Jordan, that the Moabites in Canaan might neither receive reinforcements from their own country nor escape to it. Confounded by the death of their king, they were easily overcome. All who were on this side the Jordan, ten thousand in number, were destroyed--not one escaped. This deliverance secured for Israel a repose of eighty years, terminating in the year B.C. 1426, being 182 years after the passage of the Jordan.
At or toward the end of this period of eighty years, a first attempt was made by the Philistines to bring the southern tribes under their yoke. But they were unable to accomplish their design, having been repulsed on their first advance, with the loss of six hundred men, by Shamgar and other husbandmen, who fought with ox-goads,[235] being then employed in the cultivation of the fields.
[235] “At Khan Leban the country people were now everywhere at plough in the fields in order to sow cotton. Twas observable that in plowing they used goads of an extraordinary size; upon measuring of several, I found them to be about eight feet long, and, at the bigger end, six inches in circumference. They are armed at the lesser end with a sharp prickle for driving the oxen; and at the other end with a small spade or paddle of iron, strong and massy, to clear the plough from the clay that encumbers it in working. May we not hence conjecture that it was with such a goad as one of these that Shamgar made that prodigious slaughter? I am confident that whoever should see one of these implements will judge it to be a weapon not less fit, perhaps fitter, than a sword for such an execution. Goads of this sort I always saw used hereabouts, and also in Syria: and the reason is because the same single person both drives the oxen and also holds and manages the plough, which makes it necessary to use such a goad as is described above to avoid the incumbrance of two instruments”--Maundrell, 110.
RUTH
It is about this time that the story of Ruth, which occupies a separate book in the Hebrew scriptures, is placed by Usher and other chronologers. Being episodical, and only slightly connected with the historical narrative, we can not follow the details of this beautiful story; but the intimations of the state of society, and of the manners and ideas of the times, which it contains, are, even historically, of too much importance to be overlooked.
The scene of the principal part of the story is in Bethlehem of Judah.
A famine in the land drives an inhabitant of this town, with his wife and two sons, to the land of Moab, which, in consequence of the victories under Ehud, seems to have been at this time in some sort of subjection to the Israelites. The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's Naomi, and the sons were called Mahlon and Chilion. The woman lost her husband and two sons in the land of Moab, but the childless wives of her sons, who had married in that land, remained with her. One was called
Summer Parlor on the Nile

Orpah, and the other Ruth. At the end of ten years, Naomi determined to return home, but, with beautiful disinterestedness, exhorted the widows of her two sons to remain in their own land with their well-provided friends, and not go to be partakers of her destitution. Orpah accordingly remained: but nothing could overcome the devoted attachment of Ruth to the mother of her lost husband. To the really touching representations of Naomi, her still more touching reply was, “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.” This strong and unmistakable expression of most beautiful and true affections, could not be repelled by Naomi. They took their homeward way together.
It was barley harvest when Naomi and Ruth arrived at Bethlehem. Ruth, anxious to provide in any little way for their joint subsistence, soon bethought herself of going forth to seek permission to glean in some harvest field. It happened that the field where she asked and obtained this permission, from the overseer of the reapers, belonged to Boaz, a person of large possessions in these parts. Boaz himself came in the course of the day, to view the progress of the harvest. He greeted his reapers, “Jehovah be with you;” and they answered him, “Jehovah bless thee.” His attention was attracted toward Ruth, and he inquired concerning her of his overseer, who told him that this was “The Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the land of Moab,” and related how she had applied for leave to glean after the reapers. Boaz then himself accosted her, and kindly charged her not to go elsewhere, but to remain in his fields, and keep company with his maidens till the harvest was over. He had enjoined his young men not to molest her. If she were athirst she might go and drink freely from the vessels of water provided for the use of the reapers. Ruth was astonished at all this kindness, and fell at his feet, expressing her thanks and her surprise that he should take such kind notice of a stranger. But he said, “It has been fully shown me, all that thou hast done to thy mother-in-law, since the death of thy husband; and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knowest not heretofore. Jehovah recompense thy deed: and a full recompense be given to thee from Jehovah, the God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.” She answered, “Let me find favor to thy sight, my lord, for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid, though I be not like one of thine handmaidens.”
When the meal-time of the harvest people came round, Boaz invited her to draw near and eat of the bread, and dip her morsel in the vinegar with them. He also handed her some new corn parched, which was considered rather a luxury, and therefore Ruth reserved part of it for Naomi.
All these little incidents, beautifully descriptive of the innocent old customs of harvest time, bring strongly before the mind of one who has studied the antiquities of Egypt, the agricultural scenes depicted in the grottoes of Eleithuias, in which so many of the usages of Egyptian agriculture are represented. There we see the different processes of cutting with the reaping hook, and of plucking up the stalks; gleaners; water refrigerating in porous jars (placed on stands) for the refreshment of the reapers; the reapers quenching their thirst; and women bearing away the vessels in which drink has been brought to them at their labor.
When Ruth returned home in the evening with the result of her day's gleaning an ephah of barley-Naomi was anxious to know how it happened that her labors had been so prosperous: and when she heard the name of Boaz, she remarked that he was a near kinsman of the family; and advised that, according to his wish, Ruth should confine her gleaning to his fields. So Ruth gleaned in the fields of Boaz, until the end not only of the barley, but of the wheat harvest.
When the harvest was over, Naomi, who was anxious for the rest and welfare of the good and devoted creature who had been more than a daughter to her, acquainted her with what had lately engaged her thoughts. She said that Boaz was so near of kin that he came under the operation of the levirate law, which required that when a man died childless, his next of kin should marry the widow, in order that the first child born from this union should be counted as the son of the deceased, and inherit as his heir. It was, therefore, no less her duty than a circumstance highly calculated to promote her welfare, that Boaz should be reminded of the obligation which devolved upon him.
Market at Gate But as it was not wished to press the matter upon him, if he were averse to it, it was necessary that the claim should, in the first instance, be privately made. In such a case, Ruth, a stranger very imperfectly acquainted with the laws and habits of the Israelites, could only submit herself to Naomi's guidance. She told Ruth that Boaz was engaged in winnowing his barley in the thrashing-floor; which, of course; was nothing more than a properly leveled place in the open air. Naomi conjectured he would rest there at night, and told Ruth to mark the spot to which he withdrew, and advance to claim the protection he was bound to render. All happened as Naomi had foreseen. Boaz, after he had supped, withdrew to sleep at the end of the heap of corn; and after he had lain down, Ruth advanced and placed herself at his feet: and when he awoke at midnight, and with much astonishment, asked who she was, she answered, “I am Ruth, thy handmaid: take therefore thy handmaid under thy protection, for thou art a near kinsman.” Those who, measuring all things by their own small and current standards, regard as improper or indelicate this procedure of one
“Who feared no evil, for she knew no sin,”
need only hear answer of Boaz to be satisfied. “Blessed be thou, of Jehovah, my daughter .... And now, my daughter, fear not: for all my fellow-citizens do know that thou art a virtuous woman.” He added, however, that there was a person in the town more nearly related to her deceased husband; and on-him properly the levirate duty devolved: but if he declined it, then it fell to himself, and he would certainly undertake it. It being too late for Ruth to return home, Boaz desired her to remain in the thrashing-floor for the night. Early in the morning he dismissed her, after having filled her veil with corn to take to Naomi.
In those times, and long after, it was customary to transact all business of a public nature and to administer justice in the gates. When there was little use of written documents, this gave to every transaction the binding obligation which the presence of many witnesses involved; and thus also justice was easily and speedily administered among the people, at the hours when they passed to and fro between the fields and the city. And such hours were, for this reason; those at which the judges and elders gave their attendance in the gates.
Boaz therefore went up to the gate; and requested ten of the elders, there present, to sit down with him as witnesses of what was to take place. When the “near kinsman” passed by, he called him to sit down with them. He then questioned him as to his willingness “to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.” This he was not willing to do, “lest he should mar his own inheritance.” and therefore he was glad to relinquish his prior claim to Boaz, which he did by the significant action of drawing off his own shoe and giving it to him. This action was usual in all transactions of this nature, and it may well be interpreted by the familiar idiom which would express Boaz as being made, by this act and with reference to this particular question, to stand in the shoes of the person who had transferred to him his rights and duties. Boaz then declared all the people there present at the gate to be witnesses of this transfer, and they responded, “We are witnesses.” After this Boaz took Ruth to be his wife; and the fruit of this union was Obed, the grandfather of David, of whom, according to the flesh, came the Savior of the world.
From the repose which this narrative offers, one turns reluctantly to renewed scenes of war, oppression, and wrong.
DEBORAH
It may be doubted that the authority--such as it was--of any of the judges extended over all the tribes. Hardly any of the oppressions to which the Israelites were subject appear to have been general, and in most cases the authority of the judge appears to have been confined to the tribes he had been instrumental in delivering from their oppressors. There is, for instance, not the least reason to suppose that tie authority of Ehud extended over the northern tribes, which had not been effected by the oppression of the Moabites, from which he delivered the south and east. The eighty years of good conduct which followed this deliverance, is therefore only to be understood as exhibited by the tribes which were then delivered. The northern tribes, and in some degree those of the center and the west, were meanwhile falling into those evil practices, from which it was necessary that distress and sorrow should bring them back. And therefore they were distressed.
The northern Canaanites had, in the course of time, recovered from the effects of that great overthrow which they sustained in the time of Joshua. A new Jabin, reigning like his predecessor in Hazor, by the lake Merom, rose into great power. His general, Sisera, was an able and successful warrior; and his powerful military force contained not fewer than nine hundred of those iron-armed chariots of war which the Israelites regarded with so much dread. With such a force he was enabled, for the punishment of their sins, to reduce the northern tribes to subjection, and hold them tributary. Considering the character of the power which now prevailed over them, there is reason to conclude that this was the severest of all the oppressions to which Israel had hitherto been subject. The song of Deborah conveys some intimations of their miserable condition. The villages and open homesteads, which were continually liable to be pillaged, and the inhabitants insulted and wronged by the Canaanites, were deserted throughout the land, and the people found it necessary to congregate in the walled towns. Travelling was unsafe; in consequence of which the high-ways were deserted, and those who were obliged to go from one place to another, found it necessary to journey in bye roads and unfrequented paths. At the places to which it was necessary to resort for water, they were waylaid and robbed, wounded, or slain: and, to crown all, they were disarmed; among forty thousand in Israel, a shield or spear was not to be found. The details of this picture are exactly such as are offered by the condition of any oppressed or subjugated population, at this day, in the east. The government itself maybe content with its tribute; but it will be obliged to wink at, because unable to prevent, the far greater grievances, the exactions, robberies, insults, woundings, deaths, to which the people are subjected by the inferior officers of government, by bands of licentious soldiers, and by an adverse and triumphant populace--all of whom look upon them as their prey and spoil, as things made only to be trampled on. Such oppression the Israelites endured for twenty years. They then remembered that, to them, trouble was the punishment of sin; and that there was one able and willing to deliver them, if they would but turn themselves unto him. They did turn, and their deliverance was certain from that hour.
In those days a pious and able woman, well acquainted with the divine law, became an important person in Israel. Her name was Deborah, and she abode under a palm tree in the southern part of Ephraim. Her high character for piety and wisdom occasioned the Israelites to resort to her for counsel and for justice; and it is not unlikely that her salutary influence contributed to move the people to that repentance which prepared the way for their deliverance. When their punishment had thus wrought its intended object, the divine king made known to the prophetess his intention to deliver the house of Israel from its bondage; but seeing that she, as a woman, could not personally lead the Israelites to battle, she sent to a person of the tribe of Naphtali, named Barak, and communicated to him the instructions she had received. These were, that he should bring together, at Mount Tabor, ten thousand men of the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun, and with them give battle to the forces of King Jabin. Barak, being fully aware of the difficulty of assembling and arming a respectable force, and recollecting the greatness of that power he was to oppose, rather shrunk from the enterprise. He, however, offered to undertake it, if Deborah would afford him the benefit of her influential presence, but not else. She consented; but, to rebuke the weakness of his faith, she prophesied that Sisera--the fearsome captain of King Jabin's host--should not be slain in fight with him, or be taken captive by him, but should fall by a woman's hand.
They went into the north together, and the required number of men from Naphtali and Zebulun readily obeyed their call and marched to Mount Tabor. These two tribes had probably been selected on the ground that they were likely to engage more readily in this service, in consequence of their vicinity to the metropolitan seat of the oppressing power having rendered the yoke of servitude more galling and irritating to them than to the other tribes.
JAEL KILLS SISERA
As soon as Jabin's general, Sisera, heard of the Hebrew force assembled on Mount Tabor, he brought forth his nine hundred chariots, and assembled his whole arm I not doubting to surround and cut in pieces a body of men so comparatively small. The Hebrews were in general much afraid of war-chariots, to drawn battles in open plains they were unaccustomed, and the disparity of numbers was in this instance very great. Yet, encouraged by the assurances of victory which Deborah conveyed, Barak did not await the assault of Sisera, but marched his men down from the mountain into the open plain, and fell impetuously upon the adverse host. In Oriental warfare the result of the first shock usually decides the battle, and the army is lost which then gives way or has its ranks broken. So it was now. At the first shock the vast army of Sisera was seized with a panic terror. The soldiers threw away their arms, and sought only how they might escape; while the chariots, drawn by terrified horses, impeded the retreat of the fugitives, and added to the confusion and the loss. The carnage among the Canaanites was horrible; and, besides those who perished by the sword, vast numbers of them were swept away by the sudden over flow of the river Kishon. Sisera himself fled in his chariot across the plain of Esdraelon; but, fearing that his chariot rendered him too conspicuous, he dismounted and continued his flight on foot. At last he came to a nomad encampment, belonging to Heber the Kenite, one of the descendants of those of the family and clan of Jethro, who, with the brother-in-law of Moses, entered the land of Canaan with the Israelites, and enjoyed the privilege of pasturing their flocks in its plains. Heber was from home, but his wife knew the illustrious fugitive, and offered him the protection of her tent. This, as the Kenites had been neutral in the war, Sisera did not hesitate to accept. He knew that the tent of a Bedouin, and especially the woman's portion of it, was a sanctuary, which the owner would sooner perish than allow to be violated, and that infamy worse than death awaited him who allowed injury to befall the guest or fugitive who was admitted to its shelter. Being athirst, Sisera asked for water; but instead of this she gave him sour milk--the best beverage an Arab tent contains, and the refreshing qualities of which are well known to those who have travelled in the East. This, with his fatigue, disposed Sisera to sleep. As he slept, the thought occurred to Jael (that was the woman's name) that the greatest enemy of the now victorious Israelites lay helpless before her; and that it was in her power to win great favor from the victors, by anticipating the almost certain death which awaited the chief captain of Jabin's host. Having no weapon, she took a mallet and one of the long nails by which the tent cords are fastened to the ground, and stealing softly to the place where he lay, she smote the nail into his temple, pinning his head to the ground. Barak, passing that way soon after, in pursuit, was called in by Jael, and he beheld the redoubled Sisera dead at his feet slain ignominiously by a woman's hand. He might then have pondered whether, had Sisera been the victor and himself the fugitive, the same fate might not have been his own. When we reflect that “there was peace between Jabin, king of Hazor, and the house of Heber the Kenite,” and that it was in the knowledge that he deserved no wrong at their hands, that Sisera accepted the shelter which Jael offered; and when, moreover, we consider that the emir, Jael's husband, had no interest in the result, save that of standing well with the victorious party, it will be difficult to find any other motive than that which we have assigned-the desire to win the favor of the victors--for an act so grossly opposed to all those notions of honor among tent dwellers on which Sisera had relied for his safety. It was a most treacherous and cruel murder, wanting all those extenuations which were applicable to the assassination of King Eglon by Ehud.
The time is gone by when commentators or historians might venture to justify this deed. Our extended acquaintance with the East enables us to know that those Orientals whose principles would allow them to applaud the act of Ehud, would regard with horror the murder, in his sleep, of a confiding and friendly guest, to whom the sacred shelter of the tent had been offered. That Deborah, as a prophetess, was enabled to foretell the fall of Sisera by a woman's hand, does not convey the divine sanction of this deed, but only manifests the divine foreknowledge and that the same Deborah, in her triumphant song, blesses Jael for this act, only indicates the feeling, in the first excitement of victory, of one who had far more cause to rejoice at the death of Sisera than Jael had to inflict it.
DEBORAH'S SONG
The triumphant song of Deborah has attracted great and deserved attention as a noble “specimen of the perfectly sublime ode.” The design of this ode seems to be twofold, religious and political: first, to thank God for the recent deliverance of Israel from Canaanitish bondage and oppression; and, next, to celebrate the zeal and alacrity with which some of the tribes volunteered their services against the common enemy; and to censure the lukewarmness and apathy of others who stayed at home, and thus betrayed the public cause; and, by this contrast and exposure, to heal those fatal divisions among the tribes which were so injurious to the public weal. It consists of three parts--first, the exordium, containing an appeal to past times, where Israel was under the special protection of Jehovah, as compared with their late disastrous condition; next, a recital of the circumstances which preceded and those that accompanied the victory; lastly, a fuller description of the concluding event, the death of Sisera, and the disappointed hopes of his mother for his triumphant return. The admired conclusion is thus--
“The mother of Sisera gazed through the window,
Through the lattice she, lamenting, cried,
'Why is his chariot so long in coming?[236]
Wherefore linger the steps of his steeds?'
Her wise ladies answered their mistress,
Yea, she returned answer to herself--
'Have they not sped, and are dividing the spoil?
To every chief man a damsel or two?
To Sisera a spoil of various colors,
A spoil of various-colored embroidery,
A spoil of various-colored embroideries for the neck.'--
So let thine enemies perish, O Jehovah!
But let they who love thee become
As the sun going forth in his strength.”[237]
[236] The original is highly figurative; “Why is his chariot ashamed to come?”
[237] “The first sentences exhibit a striking picture of maternal solicitude, and of a mind suspended and agitated between hope and fear. Immediately, impatient of delay, she anticipates the consolations of her friends; and, her mind being somewhat elevated, she boasts with all the levity of a fond female--
'Vast in her hopes and giddy with success.'
Let us here observe how well adapted every sentiment, every word, is to the character of the speaker. She makes no account of the slaughter of the enemy, of the valor and conduct of the conqueror, of the multitude of the captives, but
'Burns with a female thirst of prey and spoils.'
Nothing is omitted which is calculated to attract and engage the passions of a vain and trifling woman, staves, gold, and rich apparel. Nor is she satisfied with the bare enumeration of them, she repeats, she amplifies, she heightens every circumstance; she seems to have the very plunder in her immediate possession; she pause and contemplates every particular. To add to the beauty of this passage, there is also an uncommon neatness in the versification; great force, accuracy and perspicuity in the diction; and the utmost elegance in the repetitions, which, notwithstanding their apparent redundancy, are conducted with the most perfect brevity. In the end, the fatal disappointment of female hope and credulity, tacitly insinuated by the unexpected apostrophe--
'So let thine enemies perish, O Jehovah!'
is expressed more forcibly by this very silence of the person who was just speaking, that it could possibly have been by all the powers of language”-Lowth.
From the animadversions[238] which this ode contains, it is easy to collect that only those tribes which were actually subject to the oppression, and even only those on which the oppression the most heavily fell, were willing to disturb themselves by engaging in warlike operations against the oppressor. It does not appear that the southern tribes and the tribes beyond Jordan were directly affected by the subjugation of the northern tribes; and even of those under tribute, the tribes more remote from the seat of King Jabin seem to have been more at ease than the others. All these were loath to come forward on this occasion; and, in general, we find that, among the Hebrews of this early period, there was little if any of that high-spirited and honorable abhorrence of a foreign yoke, which is, under God, the surest safeguard of a nation's independence. It was not the yoke itself they hated, but its physical weight upon their shoulders; and that weight must be very heavy before they could be roused to any great effort to shake it from them. The iron which entered their souls in Egypt still rusted there.
[238] Harsh criticisms or disapprovals
These sectional divisions--or rather this want of a general and sympathizing union among the several members of the house of Israel--were the obvious secondary cause of the miseries and oppressions under which different portions of that great body did from time to time fall; and this disunion itself was the natural and inevitable result of the neglect of the law, as a whole, and especially of those provisions which were, in their proper operation, admirably calculated to keep the tribes united together as one nation. It would be ridiculous to say that the theocratic policy was a failure. That which was not fairly and fully tried can not be said to fail. Ruin to the people did not come from the system itself: and that ruin did come from the neglect of its conditions, rather shows how well that system was calculated to form a happy and united people.
FORTY YEARS OF PEACE
The victory of Deborah and Barak over Sisera gave to Israel a long repose from the aggressions of the nations west of the Jordan; for although their peace began again to be disturbed after forty years (in 1336 B.C.), the invasion was then from the east.
At the latter end of the forty years which followed the victory over Sisera, the Israelites had again relapsed into their evil and idolatrous habits. This was particularly the case of the tribes beyond Jordan, whose repose had been of longer duration than that of the western tribes, for it does not appear that the oppressions of King Jabin had extended to them.
FOREIGN INSURGENCE
Their punishment was this time particularly heavy, and came from an unexpected quarter. The pastoral tribes dwelling on the borders of the land and in the eastern deserts--the Midianites, Amalekites, with other tribes of Arabia--came swarming into the land “like locusts,” with countless flocks and herds, and pitching their tents in the plains and valleys. Arriving by the time the products of the soil began to be gathered in, they remained until the final ingatherings of the year, when the advance of winter warned them to withdraw into their deserts. Thus their cattle grew fat upon the rich pastures of the land, while those of Israel were starved; and the men themselves lived merrily upon the grain which the Hebrews had sowed, and upon the fruits which they had cultivated: and as, besides this deprivation of the sustenance for which they had labored, such lawless crews are always ready for any kind of great or small robbery and exaction, the Israelites were obliged to abandon the open country, and to resort to the walled towns, to entrench themselves in strongholds, and even to seek the shelter of the caves among the mountains. Even those who ventured to remain in occupation of their own allotments, were afraid to have it known that they had in their possession any of the produce of their own fields. All this while it does not appear that there was any open war, or any military operations. The invaders bore all before them, and had entirely their own way, by the mere force of the intimidating impressions which their numbers created. Countries or districts bordering on the desert are still subject to similar visitations, where the local government is not strong enough to prevent them, or where the preoccupation of the border soil by Arabs in the state of semi-cultivators, does not form an obstacle (as it does not so always) to the incursions of pure Bedouins. Down to a very recent date the very country east of the Jordan, which suffered the most on the present occasion, suffered much from the periodical sojourn and severe exactions of the Bedouin tribes.
MIDIANITE INCURSIONS
These incursions of the Midianites were repeated for seven years. By this time the oppression had become so heavy that the Israelites, finding by bitter experience the insufficiency of all other help, cried to Him who had delivered them of old: their cry was heard. A prophet was commissioned to point out to them that their disobedience had been the cause of their sufferings, and to give to them the promise of a new deliverance.
GIDEON CALLED BY GOD
The hero this time appointed to act for a deliverance of Israel, was Gideon of Manasseh. His family was exposed to the general suffering occasioned by the presence of the Bedouin tribes,-so much so, that having retained possession of some corn, they dared not thrash it out for use in the ordinary thrashing-floor, but, to conceal it from the knowledge or suspicion of the invaders, were obliged to perform this operation silently and secretly, in so unusual a place as the vineyard, near the wine-press. The thrashing-floors were watched by the Midianites at this time, when the harvests had been gathered in; but no regard was paid to the vineyards, as the season of ripe grapes was far off. Gideon was engaged in this service when “the angel of Jehovah” appeared to him standing under an oak which grew there. When apprized of his vocation to deliver Israel, the modest husbandman would have excused himself on the ground of his wanting that eminence of station which so important a service appeared to demand; and when silenced by the emphatic “I will be with thee” from his heavenly visitant, he still sought to have some certain tokens whereby he might feel assured, and be enabled to convey the assurance to others, that his call was indeed from God. Accordingly, a succession of signal miracles were wrought to satisfy his mind and to confirm his faith. The refection of kid's-flesh and bread, which the hospitable Gideon quickly got ready for the stranger, was, as he directed, laid upon a rock before him, and when he touched it with the end of his staff, a spontaneous fire arose by which it was consumed, as a sacrifice, and at the same time the stranger disappeared. After this, at the special desire of Gideon, “a sign” of his own choosing was granted to him. A fleece which he laid upon the thrashing-floor (in the open air) was saturated with dew, while the soil around was all dry; and again, condescending to his prayer, the Lord was pleased to reverse this miracle, by exempting the fleece alone from the dewy moisture which bespread the ground; Gideon was satisfied.
GIDEON DESTROYS HEATHEN TEMPLES
Yet the family from which the deliverer was chosen was not less tainted by the sins than visited by the punishments of Israel; for Joash, the father of Gideon, had erected an altar to Baal, at Ophrah, the town of his residence, at which the people of that place rendered their idolatrous services to that idol. This altar Gideon was directed to destroy, and in its place to erect, over the rock on which his offering had been consumed, an altar to Jehovah. It would seem that Joash himself was brought back to his fealty to Jehovah by the first of the miracles we have related, of which, probably, Gideon was not the sole witness: for when the men of Ophrah, early in the following morning, arose to render their worship to Baal, and, finding his altar overthrown, demanded the death of Gideon, his father stood forward to vindicate his conduct. He undauntedly retorted the sentence of death against the idolaters themselves, for their apostasy from Jehovah. By demanding the punishment of Gideon for his act against Baal, they recognized in fact the fairness of the punishments denounced by the law against those individuals of cities which turned away from Jehovah to serve other gods; and this, coupled with the derision of Joash at the impotency of Baal to vindicate or avenge his own cause, so wrought upon the people of that place, that they were among the foremost to gather to him when he sounded the trumpet of war. He then sent messengers throughout his own tribe of Manasseh (oil both sides the Jordan), as well as through those of Asher, Naphtali, and Zebulon. And so cheerfully was the call obeyed, that Gideon soon found himself at the head of thirty-two thousand men. With this force Gideon marched to the mountains of Gilboa, where he found vast multitudes of the enemy encamped before him in the plain of Esdraelon. This fine plain had probably been before their favorite resort; but they seem to have congregated there in unusual numbers as soon as they heard of Gideon's preparations. And now that the people might have no cause to attribute their deliverance to their own numbers and prowess, it pleased the divine King of Israel to reduce this important army to a mere handful of spirited men. In the first place, Gideon was directed to proclaim liberty for all who now, in sight of the enemy, were fearful and faint-hearted, to return to their own homes. This proclamation, according to the law (Deuteronomy 20:8), ought in all cases to have been made; but it seems that from some reason or other (perhaps either from ignorance of the law, or from supposing that it was not intended to apply to such a case as the present), it would not have been made by Gideon without the special command which he received. Such a law, or practice, however inapplicable, or even ruinous, it might prove under the military systems and tactics of modern Europe, was well calculated to act beneficially in the warfare of those early times; for as everything then depended on the individual courage and prowess of those engaged, “the faint-hearted” were more likely to damage than assist those on whose side they appeared; as their conduct was tolerably certain to bring about results fatal to themselves, and discouraging to their more valorous companions. In the present instance the result was, that although the men composing the army of Gideon had come forward voluntarily, above two thirds of them were so intimidated in the actual presence of danger, that they took advantage of this permission to depart to their own homes. Of the thirty-two thousand, only ten thousand remained with Gideon. Yet as these were men of valor, as evinced by their determination to remain, room for vain-glorious boastings was still left, and therefore Gideon was informed that the number was still too large, and that a further reduction must be made. The process of this second selection was very curious. All those were dismissed who, in drinking at the watering-place, stooped down to drink in large draughts of water at the surface; but those who merely “lapped” the water, or took it up in the hollow of their hands to drink, were retained. The different methods of drinking have been supposed to have distinguished the self-indulgent--from the more manly and active men. The latter--those who took up the water in their hollowed hands--were but three hundred out of the ten thousand; and these were declared sufficient for the enterprise.
SURVEY OF MIDIANITE CAMP
The night after this, Gideon, with his faithful follower Phurah, went down to the camp of the enemy, in consequence of an intimation that he would there hear matter for his encouragement. What he heard was one soldier, just awakened, telling a dream to his companions. He had dreamed that he saw a barley-cake roll down from the hills to the Midianitish camp, where it overthrew the first tent to which it came. The interpretation which the other gave was--“This is none other than the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel, into whose hand God delivereth Midian and the whole camp.”
Several facts are indicated by this incident; such as the stress generally laid upon dreams in that age, as indicative of contingent results--the honor attached to the office of, spy, as one of danger, and which was therefore, as in the Mosaic age, as assigned to, or undertaken by, the very chief persons in the army--and the truly Oriental want of sentinels and pickets, even in the face of the enemy. This indeed may have been noticed on many former occasions; and to this astonishing neglect of a precaution which seems to us so obvious and so simple, may be attributed the facility and success of those sudden surprises of which we so often read in the military history of those early ages.
GIDEON'S COMPANY ATTACKS
Gideon no sooner heard the dream and its interpretation than he understood find accepted the sign. He returned to his own small band, and proceeded to carry into immediate execution a remarkable stratagem which had already been suggested to him. He divided his three hundred men into three companies. Every man was provided with a trumpet in one hand, and in the other a pitcher containing alighted lamp. They were then stationed in silence and darkness at different points on the outside of the enemy's camp. Then, on a signal given by Gideon, all the three companies, at the same instant, blew their trumpets, exposed their lamps, broke the pitchers which had concealed them, and then continued shouting, “The sword of Jehovah and of Gideon!”[239] The terrible din and crash which thus suddenly broke in upon the stillness of midnight, with the equally sudden blaze of light from three hundred lamps, which illumined its darkness, struck an instant panic into the vast host of Midian, suggesting to them that the lamp-bearing trumpeters (whose numbers must have been greatly magnified in the confused apprehension of men just awakened) were but the advanced guard of the Hebrew host whom they were lighting to the attack on the camp. They therefore fled in all directions, through the openings between the three companies. In their midnight flight, not doubting that the Hebrews had fallen upon them, they mistook friends for foes, and vast multitudes of them perished by each other's swords. The survivors, in their further flight, came up with the several parties which had been dismissed by Gideon to their homes, and these committed a terrible slaughter among the fugitives. Gideon also sent messengers desiring the Ephraimites to seize the various fords of the Jordan, between the two lakes, and thereby prevent the escape of any of the fugitives eastward, which was the direction they would naturally take. In this terrible overthrow no less than one hundred and twenty thousand of the various tribes of “the children of the east” perished; and so completely were the Midianites subdued, that from that time they were never able “to lift up their heads any more.”
[239] The hint of this watchword was taken from the interpretation of the Midianitish soldier's dream, “the sword of Gideon,” to which Gideon, with equal piety and modesty, prefixed, “the sword of Jehovah.”
THE BATTLE FINISHED
A remnant of fifteen thousand, headed by their emirs, Zebah and Zalmunna, managed to escape across the river (probably before the Ephraimites had seized the fords), and having reached a distance where they deemed themselves safe from further pursuit, they ventured to encamp. But Gideon himself, with his faithful three hundred, continued the pursuit even to that distance--even into the land of the tent-dwellers -and falling suddenly upon the camp, which lay carelessly secure, the already scared Midianites were completely overthrown. The two emirs themselves were taken alive and brought before Gideon. He had formed, for those times, the singularly generous intention to spare their lives; but when he gathered, from their own lips, that they had created a case of blood-revenge between himself and them, by putting to death, near Mount Tabor, his brethren, “the sons of his own mother,”[240] he, as the legal avenger of their blood, slew these emirs with his own hand.
[240] The emphasis lies in the probability that his father had children by other wives than Gideon's mother. To be her children, therefore, constituted a far dearer tie than to be his father's children in the general sense.
GIDEON'S CHARACTER
Gideon seems to have been a man eminently qualified for the high and difficult station to which he was called. Firm even to sternness, where the exhibition of the stronger qualities seemed necessary, and in war “a mighty man of valor,” we are called upon in his case, more frequently than in any other which has occurred, to admire his truly courteous and self-retreating character, and that nice and difficult tact--difficult, because spontaneously natural--in the management of men, which is a rarer and finer species of judgment, and by which he was intuitively taught to say the properest word, and do the properest deed at the most proper time. This is the true secret of his ultimate popularity and influence, which much exceeded that enjoyed by any judge before him. Some instances of the qualities which we have indicated have already appeared, and others will presently occur.
EPHRAIM OFFENDED
The Ephraimites who had guarded the Jordan, having performed all that their duty required, hastened to join Gideon in the pursuit of the Midianites. They met him on his return, and laid before him the heads of Oreb and Zeeb,[241] two emirs of Midian, whom they had taken and slain. This tribe of Ephraim, which was, after that of Judah, the most important in Israel, was exceedingly jealous of its superiority, and was, therefore, not a little annoyed that an obscure Abiezrite should have undertaken so great an enterprise as that now happily completed, without consulting them. They now took occasion to remonstrate with him sharply on the subject, but were soon pacified by his modest and good-tempered answer. “How little have I done now in comparison with you,” he said. “Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer? God hath delivered up the; princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb; and what have I been able to do in comparison with you?” Gideon knew what Solomon taught long after, “A soft answer turneth away wrath.”
[241] The names mean crow and wolf. It would seem that the chiefs of the Midianites (like the North American Indians) took the names of animals as significant of qualities to which they aspired.
GIDEON'S IDOLATRY
When he had crossed the Jordan in pursuit of the fugitives, he was anxious to obtain for his small band”--faint, yet pursuing”--refreshments from the town of Succoth, which he passed, and afterward from that of Peniel; but he was in both cases refused. The inhabitants seem to have been fearful of bringing upon themselves the vengeance of the Midianites, to whom they had for seven years been subject, and against whom they held it to be very unlikely that he would succeed with so small a force. They not only refused, but added insult to injury. Instead of chastising them on the spot, he coolly told both that he would do so on his return; and he now kept his promise. Coming upon Succoth by surprise, before the sun was up, he took the chief persons of Succoth, and, as he lead threatened, scourged them to death with thorns and briars. Of Peniel he made a still severer example, for he beat down the fortress-tower of that city, and put to death the men belonging to it. The Israelites, in the warmth of their gratitude, offered to make Gideon their king, and to continue the crown to his descendants. This proposal, which clearly shows how unmindful the Israelites had become of the great political principle of the theocracy with which they were so unwarrantably ready to dispense, was nobly rejected by Gideon, who replied to it in the true spirit of the theocracy: “I will not reign over you, neither shall my son rein over you; Jehovah, he shall reign over you.” But while thus alive to the true political character of the Mosaic institutions, he was not equally cognizant of the religious obligations of that system. When he was called to his great work at Ophrah, he had been instructed to build an altar on the rock on which his offering had been accepted, and himself to offer sacrifices there. This probably led him to conclude that it would be right to form a religious establishment at that spot, for the worship of God by sacrifice. A more perfect acquaintance with the principles of the law would have taught him otherwise. However, to this object he applied the produce of the golden ear-rings of the Midianites, which, at his special request (not unlike that of Aaron, Exodus 32:2), were cheerfully granted to him by the army as his share of the spoil. The weight being one thousand seven hundred shekels, the gold thus obtained must have been worth upward of fifteen thousand dollars of our money; and the “ephod” which he is described as having made with it, probably included not only “the priests' dress,” as the word signifies, but a regular sacerdotal establishment in his own town, where sacrifices might be constantly offered. For this purpose such a sum as he applied to it must have been fully requisite. It has been disputed whether Gideon himself, officiated as priest, or, like Micah, engaged a Levite for that purpose. The latter seems the more likely supposition, unless from having been once directed to offer sacrifice, Gideon concluded he had a superior claim to discharge that office.
However well intended this establishment may have been in the first instance, this was a most mistaken and dangerous step, resembling, in its principle, the establishment which the Danites had formed in the north. It infringed upon the peculiar claims of Shiloh, the seat of the Divine Presence; and the result of these and all attempts to form separate establishments affords ample illustration of the design with which the formal worship of God by sacrifice was confined to one particular locality, It proved “a snare to Gideon and his family,” in worshiping the true God in an improper manner. It became popular to “all Israel;” who resorted to Ophrah to render that worship and service which was due only at the sacred tabernacle; and, with the predisposition to idolatry, it is not wonderful that, free at this place from the restraint and supervision which the worship at Shiloh imposed, the service at this place soon became associated with idolatrous ideas and objects, until at last it degenerated into rank idolatry after the death of Gideon. He survived and ruled Israel forty years after his victory over the Midianites, and during all this time the tranquillity of Israel appears to have been undisturbed.