29. § 3. Principal Events

§ 3. Principal Events

1. The two events which are narrated in the appendix to the book of Judges, as examples of the licentiousness which prevailed during this period, belong to the time shortly after Joshua’s death. This determination of time can be subject to no doubt, since, according to Judges 20:28, Phinehas, the contemporary of Joshua, was then still high priest. The first event, the making of an image by Micah, is worthy of special note, because it shows us the transition from the pure worship of Jehovah, as it existed in the time of Joshua even among the masses, to idolatry, to which the inwardly faithless portion of the nation abandoned themselves far into the period of the judges, but in such a way that they always sought after some mediation between it and the worship of Jehovah. Here we have not to do with the ἐκλογή but rather with such as represent the worse tendency. Micah, who first had the image made, is a thief, upon whom the curse of a mother rests; and the Danites, who appropriate it in a thievish way, are rude associates bent on adventure. And yet we find Jehovah here, and nothing but Jehovah. At a later period, persons of their disposition would certainly have given themselves up to the worship of Baal and of Ashera. Private worship—in this also we see that we are still near the God-fearing and legal time of Joshua—appears throughout as an imitation of the public worship of Jehovah, which alone makes its origin comprehensible. There are four objects named as having been made by Micah,—a graven image, a molten image, ephod, and teraphim. But we infer from several passages that these objects, though separable, were joined together. The cast served as a pedestal for the image. With the ephod the image was clothed, and in the pocket of the ephod were the teraphim. The image served as a substitute for the ark of the covenant in the sanctuary; the ephod was an imitation of the ephod of the high priest; the teraphim served instead of the twelve precious stones which formed the foundation of the Urim and Thummim, a spiritual thing, and were present in the חשׁן. Instead of the high priest, Micah hires a Levite. At the close of the narrative it is stated that the image of Micah remained among the sons of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land. To this determination of time another more obvious one runs parallel, from which it receives its light, viz. all the days that the house of God was in Shiloh. Since the tabernacle of the covenant remained in Shiloh till the capture of the ark by the Philistines, and was then transferred to Nob, the “captivity of the land” can only refer to that Philistine catastrophe. Just at this time we find a most suitable opportunity for the abandonment of the illegal worship in Dan. Towards the end of the period of the Philistines the great reformation under Samuel took place, in which every illegal worship was laid aside; comp. 1 Samuel 7:4. The second event, the war of extermination against the Benjamites, caused by the shameful deed of the inhabitants of Gibeah, is remarkable in so far as it shows us that in the time immediately after Joshua the national unity still continued among Israel. The nation rose up with great energy en masse. We find the basis of this still existing national unity in the continuance of a considerable fund of pious disposition. That the lusts through which Israel afterwards fell into sin were already at that time springing up, we learn from the example of a whole town, which in moral degeneracy had already sunk to the depth of Sodomites, and from the conduct of the Benjamites, whose horror of sin is so weak, that it is outweighed by a morbid sense of honour, by displeasure,—conduct which arouses the interference of the whole nation in what was supposed to be the private affair of the tribe. In the mass of the nation, however, this horror is exceptionally strong. They fear lest they should call down the judgments of God upon themselves in omitting to punish the wickedness. Bertheau excellently remarks: “The community indeed waged war—a fearful war—against their own flesh and blood; but when under the kings do we find Israel so unanimously, vigorously, and earnestly undertaking the most difficult warfare for the highest possessions? Here we feel the influence of the elevated time of Moses and Joshua.” It appears strange that the tribes at first suffer a double defeat, notwithstanding the righteousness of their cause and the fact that they fought in the service of the Lord and at His command. We find an explanation of this on a closer consideration of the account in Judges 20:18 ff. At first they only go up (to the place where the ark of the covenant was, and the high priest), and ask. Then they go up, and weep and ask. Finally, they go up, not merely ambassadors, but all the sons of Israel, the whole nation, and weep and sit there before the Lord, and fast and bring burnt-offerings and peace-offerings. In this gradation we have the explanation of the varying result. At first they are impenitent, then there is a slight beginning of repentance, and finally it is complete. To the righteousness of the cause, which Israel thought sufficient, was now added individual righteousness, and the victory was theirs. The event affords a glimpse into the working of God’s retributive justice. Lightfoot makes an excellent remark on this subject, only that he takes too narrow a view of the guilt of Israel, when he makes it to consist mainly in not punishing the illegal worship of which the former narrative treats. Postquam deus usus erat Benjamine ad exsequendum judicium suum contra Israelem ob non punitam idololatriam, utitur porro Israele ad puniendum Benjaminitam ob Gibeam judicio non permissam. In an awful manner the divine retribution was made manifest in what befell the Levitical concubine, who may be regarded as a type of Israel. She had been faithless to her husband in secret, and must now serve to satisfy the coarse desires of the inhabitants of Gibeah, till she dies. The conduct of Israel towards the Benjamites has been very falsely judged, when it has been attributed to motives of barbarous cruelty and revenge. The question in Judges 20:28, “Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother?” shows how far the thought of carnal revenge was removed from the people, even after they had sustained the most trying loss. They would willingly have given up the thing, but thought it necessary to fulfil the duty pointed out to them by the Lord, that the curse might not pass over from those who were guilty to them. This is evident from the words which they use to the Benjamites before the commencement of the battle, “that we may put away evil from Israel,” which contain a verbal reference to the command so frequently reiterated in Deuteronomy; comp. Deuteronomy 13:5, Deuteronomy 17:7. After what happened, we find an expression of the deepest sorrow in Judges 21:3 : “Lord God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to-day one tribe lacking in Israel?” They weep before the Lord. That what was done to the Benjamites was חרם—the same on a large scale as was now done to the evil-doers on a small scale—appears from Judges 21:11, according to which the inhabitants of Jabesh in Gilead were punished with the חרם, because they drew back from the holy war, and by their refusal to take part in punishing the sinners revealed their own love for sin. “And this is the thing that ye shall do, Ye shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman that hath lain by man” (תחרימו). The analogous treatment of the inhabitants of Jabesh is here expressly characterized as a curse. This and the proceedings taken against Benjamin are based on the passage Deuteronomy 13:12 ff., which forms the key to the whole thing. We here learn how an Israelitish town, which had incurred the guilt of worshipping other gods, was cursed with all that was in it, after the deed had been carefully investigated,—men and cattle were slain with the edge of the sword, and all the spoil burnt, “that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of His anger, and show thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as He hath sworn unto thy fathers.” “Quod admodum rigidum et severum mandatum, illi jam exsecuti sunt,” says Michaelis. In the account of the treatment of the Benjamites and of the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead, we have verbal reference to this law, in accordance with the invariable habit of the authors of the book of Judges and the books of Samuel, who never actually quote, but have the law constantly in their mind, and by verbal reference to it indicate their judgment. Thus the Israelites acted as servants of divine justice. It is true that in the law there is no express mention of the worship of other gods. But the ground of their punishableness is their secession from the living and holy God, and this revealed itself in both cases by unmistakeable signs. And when this was the case, it was possible even at that time to conclude with certainty respecting the existence of the special declaration regarding putting away strange gods, which was expressly named in the law. The rulers of the nation quote the authority of the law, not only in the punishment, but also in that which they afterwards do for the restoration of Benjamin, in the measures which they adopt to make the weak remnant a new seminary. The words, “ that a tribe be not destroyed out of Israel,” in Judges 21:17, which they give as a reason, rest upon Deuteronomy 25:5-6, where, as a motive for the decree that the eldest son of a Levirate marriage should take the name of the deceased, we find, “that his name be not put out of Israel.” They avail themselves of a conclusion à minori ad majus, reduce the small to its idea, and hence infer the large: if the Lord therefore cares for the individual, how much more ought we to interest ourselves in the preservation of a whole tribe, and do everything to further it! Thus the actions of the rulers were at that time regulated in every respect by the law, and especially by Deuteronomy, which, in accordance with its whole object and character, must necessarily have the primas partes. The firmness with which the law was rooted at that time also appears from the ingenious means adopted by the rulers of the nation, on the one side, not to break the oath made to the Lord, that no Israelite should give his daughter to wife to a Benjamite, and, on the other side, to provide for the preservation of the tribe of Benjamin. This difficulty could not have arisen, if the Mosaic law prohibiting marriage with the Canaanites had not still been regarded as sacred and inviolable. The Benjamites would only have had to take Canaanitish wives. But this expedient does not even seem to have occurred to the rulers. It is a question of some importance whether by the feast, which, according to Judges 21:19, was annually celebrated in Shiloh, and at which, by the decree of the rulers of the nation, the Benjamites were to steal wives for themselves, we are to understand a local feast of indefinite origin, or the passover-feast, a feast of the whole nation. If the latter be proved, it follows that it must have been kept throughout the whole period of the judges, and at the same time we learn that we are not at liberty to conclude from the author’s silence respecting religious arrangements—a silence which was necessarily connected with his tendency—that these arrangements did not exist. In favour of the feast of the passover, we have, among others, the following arguments:—(1.) The designation, the feast of the Lord, חגיהוה, not a feast of the Lord, as it must have been termed if a particular festival had been meant. The feast of the Lord is in Shiloh, the elders say. This leads to the passover, the principal and fundamental feast of the Israelites, which is always meant when the feast κατʼ ἐξοχήν is spoken of. (2.) The circular dance performed by the daughters of Shiloh at the feast also leads us to suppose that it was the passover; for this has reference to Exodus 15:20, the circular dance of the Israelitish women under the direction of Miriam, which occurs within the seven days of the passover. Probably this dance was performed on the second day. That it took place on the principal day of the feast, we can scarcely suppose. (3.) The מימיםימימה. This occurs in the law of the passover, and of no other feast, Exodus 13:10 : “Thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in his season “(מימיםימימה). And elsewhere it is only to be found where an allusion to the passover is unquestionable, or at least most probable; comp. afterwards. (4.) If the Benjamites were in Shiloh at the feast of the passover, their presence could excite no remark, and the stratagem could be carried out much more easily. That the Benjamites themselves took part in the celebration of the feast, and had come to Shiloh independently of the plan which they then took occasion to carry out, appears from Judges 21:20. In Shiloh itself the elders speak to them. Their advice to them is not, Come to Shiloh, etc., but merely, “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards.” We are still met by the question, how to explain the circumstance that the nation assembled in the cause of the Benjamites in three different places, in Mizpah, Bethel, and Shiloh. Further, how are we to reconcile the statement in Judges 18:31, that during the whole period of the judges the tabernacle of the covenant was in Shiloh, where we meet with it in the books of Samuel towards the end of this period, with the fact that all at once we find the ark of the covenant in Bethel during the Benjamitic war? The following is the simple solution. The nation assembled first of all in Mizpah, not in Shiloh, because this place was not only more in the centre of the land, but was situated specially in the territory of the Benjamites. The court was to be held among the guilty race, in order that, if they did not submit, execution might immediately follow. After the breaking out of the war, in which the Lord was to be leader, the ark of the covenant was brought to Bethel, generally, because this lay in the country of the Benjamites, near to the scene of battle, but particularly, because this place was consecrated by the history of the patriarchs. That there was no permanent sanctuary there, and that the sojourn of the ark of the covenant was merely temporary, appears from the express statement in Judges 21:4, that the people built an altar there, that they might offer up sacrifices. After the two defeats, the people assembled in Bethel. Thither also they repaired after the close of the campaign; and on this last occasion we have clear reference to that event of earlier times by which the place was consecrated. “And the people,” we read in Judges 21:2-3, “came to the house of God, and abode there till even before God, and lifted up their voices, and wept sore; and said, O Lord God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to-day one tribe lacking in Israel?” The very circumstance of אלהים occurring in a connection where in other places we always find Jehovah, points to Genesis. At Bethel, where in Jacob God blesses his posterity; where, on the journey to Mesopotamia, He tells him, “ And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth; and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee, and in thy seed, shall all the families of the earth be blessed; “where, after the return from Mesopotamia, Israel is told, “Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee;”—the people give utterance to a bitter and grievous complaint of the contrast between the idea and the reality. Now, after the cause of the temporary abode of the ark of the covenant in Bethel had ceased, it was brought back to Shiloh. Thither, as the place of the sanctuary, the people also repaired, for the time of the passover was come. The celebration of the passover formed the keystone of the whole event. After the grievances had been removed, the feast of the covenant was kept. Then all returned to their homes. The final conclusion to be drawn from the two events narrated in the appendix to the book of Judges is, that although the good principle was at that time still predominant, yet the evil principle had already begun to assert itself, and with such power, that even at that time it was necessary to sever whole diseased members from the body.

2. The first enemy to whom the Israelites succumbed was Chushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, who is mentioned not only in the book of Judges, but also in Habakkuk 3:7, when in the victory over him the prophet finds a pledge of future assistance against the enemy, and judgment on them. In this passage he is merely called Cushan, but there is an allusion to his surname—Rishathaim, twofold wickedness—in the words, “I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction” (under punishment). This surname is probably of Israelitish origin. Chushan-rishathaim corresponds to Aram-Naharaim,—Aram of the twofold river, Chushan of the twofold wickedness. This fact, in connection with that recorded in Genesis 14, shows that already, long before the familiar period of the great Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian monarchies, kingdoms arose and perished in central Asia; and there, in very early times, a strife began for the possession of the coast-land. Here was attempted, but with transitory result, what was afterwards accomplished by the more extended and firmly-rooted power of the Assyrians and Babylonians. The apostasy of Israel, which had this punishment for a consequence, is thus described in Judges 3:7 : “And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgat the Lord their God, and served Baalim and the groves.” In accordance with the prevailing assumption, Ashera is identical with Astarte, the personification of the feminine principle in nature, in conjunction with Baal, the male principle. But it is more probable that Astarte is the goddess herself, and that Ashera is her image or symbol, mostly consisting of sacred trees or groves; hence the LXX. ἄλσος, the Vulgate lucus; comp. Bertheau on this passage. But there is no doubt that we can here look only for the beginnings of this worship, which proved so seductive for the Israelites, and prevailed throughout their whole territory. Othniel became the deliverer of Israel,—the same who, according to Judges 1:13, had been active in the conquest of Canaan under Joshua. In Judges 3:9 we read of him: “The Lord raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war.” The words, “And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him,” have frequently been understood here and elsewhere merely of the physical power and courage which are given by God for the good of His people. But this opinion is decidedly wrong. Otherwise, how could we account for the fact that this Spirit of the Lord is imparted only to servants of Jehovah? Here, as in the prophets, and throughout the Scriptures, the extraordinary gift rests upon the ordinary. This χάρισμα, like every other, has πίστις for its necessary foundation. This does not, however, exclude many weaknesses. Even in those gifts which are of a more internal nature, the amount is not always in proportion to the measure of faith. The deliverance by Othniel took place after eight years’ servitude. It was succeeded by a rest of forty years. It has frequently been assumed that Othniel judged the Israelites for the whole of these forty years. But this view, which is scarcely consistent with the age of Othniel, rests upon a misunderstanding of Judges 3:11-12, where the words, “and Othniel died,” must be taken in close connection with what follows: “And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord; “equivalent to, And the children of Israel continued to do evil after the death of Othniel. If we suppose that the death of Othniel followed the forty years of rest, and that the apostasy was subsequent, no time is left for the latter, which was certainly a gradual development. For the punishment, the new oppression by the Moabites, followed immediately after the end of the forty years. Hence the apostasy must have taken place during the forty years; and since the death of Othniel, whose pious zeal kept the nation true to the Lord while he lived, is made one of the causes of it, this must have occurred a considerable time before the expiration of the forty years. The invasion of Cushan is the first and last oppression originating in the territory beyond the Euphrates during the time of the judges. The subsequent attacks were made by those nations dwelling in the more immediate neighbourhood of Israel: the Canaanites, who took advantage of the weakness of Israel to recover their old supremacy; the Ammonites and Moabites, who were related to the Israelites by race, and grudged them the beautiful inheritance which had been bestowed on them by the grace of their God; the Midianites, and other peoples of the desert, who would willingly have exchanged with them; and, finally, the Philistines, who cherished in their hearts a peculiarly deep hatred towards Israel.

3. First, there was a servitude of eighteen years to the Moabites. They were delivered by the Benjamite Ehud, who by cunning gained a private audience of the Moabite king, and slew him. This act has been very severely censured; and we certainly cannot assume, with the older theologians, that it was done by the express command of God. Judges 3:15 states nothing more than that Ehud was raised up and strengthened by God for the deliverance of the Israelites, the choice of means being left to himself. Let it be observed that with respect to Ehud nothing is said, except “the Lord raised them up a deliverer,” not, as in Othniel’s case, “and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him,” with special reference to the act. The demand that the author should expressly have condemned the act is based on a total misapprehension of his tendency, whose object was not to glorify and criticise human instruments. His glance is only directed to God’s faithfulness and mercy, which remain always the same, whatever may be our judgment concerning the act. But though, humanly considered, the act is by no means justifiable, yet it is very excusable. Ehud is described as a man who was left-handed. From Judges 20:16 it seems to follow that the brave men among the Benjamites took pride in neglecting their right hand, and in using the left, which was radically weak. We have there a description of 700 men who were left-handed. This probably had its origin in their name. They sought by this means to meet the derisive remarks called forth by it. The scene of the event was the former site of Jericho. On this important spot, which secured them an entrance into the country, the Moabites had set up a fortified camp. Studer’s opinion, that the event occurred east of the Jordan, in the proper land of the Moabites, is quite incorrect. It is remarkable that in Judges 3:19 we read, “And Ehud turned again from the quarries” (graven images), and afterwards, “And Ehud escaped while they tarried, and passed beyond the quarries (graven images), and escaped unto Seirath.” The Moabites had set up their idols as watchers and protectors on their borders; comp. the פמילים in Deuteronomy 7:25. Ehud came from them with his pretext of a message to the king, and passed them again in his flight, after having accomplished his design. The graven images were as little able to hinder his escape as to prevent the death of the king. Their impotency became manifest on this occasion, and Ehud took the opportunity of calling upon the Israelites to throw off the strange yoke. They lent a ready ear to his summons, and the land had rest for eighty years.

4. The Philistines made an inroad into the country, but were driven back by Shamgar, a valiant hero. Besides the Canaanites, the Philistines were the only nation whose territory was promised by God to the Israelites, and that because they had taken possession of Canaanitish land with hostile intention. But the occupation of their land was a difficult undertaking; for the Philistines inhabited the low country, where they could make the most of their skill, which consisted in chariots of war, against the Israelites, who were not accustomed to fight in this way. True, Judah, under Joshua, captured the three Philistine cities, Gaza, Askalon, and Ekron, Judges 1:18, but they were not able to keep possession of them, Judges 1:19. The five princes of the Philistines remained unconquered, comp. Judges 3:3, and the Israelites were obliged to relinquish the hope of supremacy over the low country of the Philistines, as well as over the Phenician coast-towns. It lay in the nature of the thing that the strife between the two nations should continue throughout the whole history. When we read of Shamgar that he slew 600 Philistines with the goad of an ox, which served him for a lance, we must remember that these Philistines were not proper warriors, but a mob eager for plunder, who took advantage of the humiliation of Israel, and expected no opposition whatever. The boldness of an individual reminded them of the saying, “Ex ungue leonem,” and life being dearer to them than booty, they fled in wild disorder. It is not stated that Shamgar slew the 600 men, but only that he smote them. And the fact that the deed is attributed to him alone does not altogether exclude the participation of others, but only their independent participation, such as could have enabled them to contest the honour of the deed, the success of which was due to him alone. We have only to compare what is told of Saul in 1 Samuel 18:7. With regard to the time of this act of Shamgar, it cannot have occurred during the eighty years of rest, but in the period of servitude to the Canaanites described in Judges 4. The Philistines here took advantage of the opportunity to make incursions on the land, just as they afterwards did in the invasion by the Ammonites. We infer this from the short notice itself. For at a time when the power of the nation was unbroken, the Philistines would not have ventured to act in this way, but only to invade the country with a well-equipped army. And we are led to the conclusion still more definitely by the song of Deborah, when, in Judges 5:6, Shamgar and Jael are associated as representatives of the melancholy past. In this passage Jael is no other than the wife of Heber the Kenite, mentioned in Judges 5:24, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of Ewald and others. The reason that the time of oppression is named after her in conjunction with Shamgar—her to whom Israel was so deeply indebted—is to do her honour. From the time which succeeded the years of rest, the author first of all narrates Shamgar’s isolated deed of heroism, which had no permanent result, and then goes on to describe the grievous oppression and the great deliverance.

5. The Canaanites had recovered themselves in the lapse of time, and in particular had founded a mighty kingdom in Hazor, which had been conquered and destroyed by Joshua. Jabin, the king of this city, oppressed Israel grievously, through his general Sisera, for a period of twenty years. The name Jabin seems to have been common to all the kings of this empire, Joshua 11:1. Jabin was able to take the field with 900 chariots of war,—a very considerable force, since Darius had only 200 in his army, and Mithridates only 100. Yet the principal strength even of his army consisted in the cavalry and infantry, and the war-chariots were merely accessory; the Canaanites, on the other hand, appear to have had no cavalry, and but little infantry. Then we must take into consideration that Jabin was not king of a single town, but probably ruler of all the Canaanites in North Palestine, especially the inhabitants of the plain of Jezreel, who by their war-chariots were so terrible to the Israelites already at the time of Joshua; comp. Joshua 17:16. Judges 5:19, where several kings are mentioned, seems to point to a confederacy of Canaanitish princes who marched against Barak. The oppression of the Israelites cannot be regarded as complete, for, according to Judges 4:4, they still had their own administration of justice; and the description in the song of Deborah points only to a condition of painful insecurity, called forth by the incessant inroads of the Canaanites, against whom they were no longer able to stand in the field. The oppression does not seem to have extended to Judah at all: throughout the period of the judges this tribe seems to have had less to suffer, and to have continued more in undiminished power. Israel was delivered by Barak, who acted, however, under the guidance of an inspired woman, Deborah. According to Judges 4:8, after Deborah had summoned Barak to deliver Israel, he replied, “If thou wilt go with me, then I will go; but if thou will not go with me, then I will not go.” Deborah answered, Judges 4:9, “I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” This dialogue is generally misunderstood, as if Barak here revealed his cowardice, and Deborah taunted him with it. Studer unhesitatingly calls Barak the representative of the cowardly spirit which at this time had taken possession of the Hebrews. The LXX. have taken the correct view. After the words contained in the original text they add, ὅτι οὐκ οἶδα τὴν ἡμέραν, ἧ εὐοδοῖ κύριος τὸν ἄγγελον μετ̓ ἐμοῦ. Barak knew that in the warfare of the Lord’s people nothing is done by human strength and courage, but that higher consecration and calling are necessary; these he perceives in the prophetess Deborah in a higher degree than in himself. It is therefore humility, and humility which is not without foundation,—for his standpoint was really a lower one, he is not to be compared with a Gideon,—but not want of courage, which induces him to urge her to accompany him. There is no scorn in her answer. She merely points out to him that after the victory he will not be at liberty to judge differently from now,—to ascribe to himself what belonged to a woman, and at the same time to God. She draws his attention to God’s design in obliging him to lean upon a woman, or in choosing a man who required to depend on a woman. This was none other than to bring the ποῦ οὖν ἡ καύχησις; ἐξεκλείσθη clearly to the consciousness of the nation. When help comes through women, the glance which so readily remains fixed on the earth must be directed to heaven. If the honour belong to God alone, there will be the greater inclination to thank Him by sincere repentance. The fact that Barak was here directed to Deborah rests upon the same law by which Gideon is instructed to retain only 300 men of the whole assembled army: the women Deborah and Jael belong to the same category as the ox-goad of Shamgar. At all times God delights to choose out the small and despised for His service. What great things did He not do by means of the poor monk Luther! At the command of the Lord, Barak is obliged to blow the trumpet loudly on Mount Tabor. This is the usual way in which the deliverers begin their work in the book of Judges. The act has been misunderstood when its object is regarded as the assembling of the nation, so that the blowing of the trumpet would be like our alarm-bell. That Mount Tabor, where Barak was to blow, was not the place of assembling, appears from Judges 4:10, where it is said to have been Kadesh. The meaning is plain from Numbers 10:9 : “And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God.” This makes the blowing of the trumpets a symbolical act, by which an appeal was made to the Lord. He Himself had prescribed this custom. Therefore as certainly as the nation heard the sound of the trumpet, so certainly might they expect that the Lord would be with them. In this way they must have been filled with holy courage. We find this decree first carried out in Joshua 6:5, where the object cannot possibly have been to assemble the nation. That the act had reference only to the relation towards the Lord, appears from the relation of the משכתי in Judges 4:7 to the משכת in Judges 4:6, which necessarily leads us to infer that the משך in Judges 4:6 has a twofold meaning. The prolonged notes are intended as an appeal to God. Then, Judges 4:7, “And I will draw unto thee Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army.” First God, then Sisera; first the helper from heaven, then the enemy on earth. The author indicates the point of view from which the victory is to be regarded by a hidden reference to the Pentateuch, which is characteristic of him. In Judges 4:15 he says: “And the Lord discomfited (ויהם) Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host.” An allusion is here made to Exodus 14:24, “And the Lord troubled (ויהם) the host of the Egyptians;” and we are reminded that the present discomfiture, effected by means of the sword of the Israelites, is no less wonderful than the former, which was the immediate work of God, the result of fearful natural phenomena. If we mistake the reference to the Pentateuch, the expression appears inappropriate, especially on account of the addition לפיחרב, which has led many to attribute a different meaning to the words. But in other places where the המס occurs, the reference to the Pentateuch is unmistakeable: for example, 1 Samuel 7:10; 2 Samuel 22:15 Sam. 22:15; Joshua 10:10. The flying general Sisera turned into the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber, of the Midianitic tribes of the Kenites, which had accompanied the Israelites on their march from the wilderness to Canaan and had settled down there, in the most southern part of the country, close to the borders of the wilderness. But Heber had separated with his horde from the tribe, and had established himself in North Palestine.Befriended by this tribe, and hospitably received by Jael, Sisera believed himself secure, but was slain by her while sleeping. Here also the older theologians have attempted to justify what is unjustifiable. For although Jael by this act proves her faith in Jehovah, the God of Israel, yet the act itself is not praiseworthy. The commendation bestowed on Jael in Deborah’s song of victory, Judges 5:24, is only an expression of the gratitude which Israel owed to her, or rather to God, who gave the success. Israel rejoiced in the deliverance vouchsafed them, without taking part in the deed itself. They were not called upon to pass judgment, but only to show gratitude. This song of Deborah in Judges 5, whose genuineness has recently been very decisively defended by Ewald, Studer, and Bertheau, and is now, after some passing attacks, acknowledged even by the boldest critics, is clearly to be regarded as a counterpart to the song of the Israelites after the passage through the Red Sea. The introduction, in Judges 5:4-5, is a verbal reference to Deuteronomy 33:2, the introduction to the blessing of Moses, and to Exodus 19:16, the account of the phenomena which accompanied the giving of the law; just as “they chose new gods,” in Judges 5:8, is taken from Deuteronomy 32:17. It is of special importance, because it shows us that the leading point of view from which the author of the book of Judges regards the history of this time is not one arbitrarily devised and introduced by himself, the product of a later time, but the same from which those who were living in the midst of this time themselves regarded the events. The author begins with the covenant which the Lord had made with Israel; he then goes on to depict the sad state of dismemberment which has resulted in consequence of the breaking of the covenant and the worship of strange gods; finally, the deliverance vouchsafed to the nation by the grace of God. Here we have the same principles which lie at the basis of the author’s representation. Those who acknowledge the genuineness of the song, and at the same time maintain that the tendency of the Israelites to idolatry during the time of the judges cannot be regarded as a relapse into their old habits of evil, as the author from his later standpoint supposes, but must be attributed to the fact that the religion of Jehovah was not separated from natural religion until a later time, are guilty of great inconsistency. We here find the strongest contrast between Jehovah and the idols; the worship of the latter is regarded as a culpable apostasy from the plainly revealed and clearly recognised truth. The acknowledgment of the genuineness is also irreconcilable with the denial of the activity of the prophethood before Samuel. The song has throughout a prophetic character. Even if the author had not stated that Deborah was a prophetess, it would be evident from this song.

6. After the Israelites had enjoyed rest for forty years, they were grievously oppressed for seven years by hordes of the Midianites,—those who had their dwelling east of Canaan in the neighbourhood of the Moabites, and against whom a war of vengeance had been waged as early as the Mosaic time,—the Amalekites and other Arab Bedouins from the districts between Canaan and the Euphrates. It was a kind of migration; the wilderness rose up against the cultivated land. But the tribes were so successfully repulsed, that they remained quiet during the rest of the time of the judges. Here, as throughout, except in relation to the Canaanites, the Israelites were the aggrieved party. Throughout their history we find them only defending themselves, as became their position, not attacking and conquering. Hence they have a right to be heard when they attribute the only exception to higher motives. We learn the severity of this oppression, not merely from the relation in Judges 6:1 ff., but also from the first chapter of the book of Ruth; for the coincidence of the circumstances narrated in the two accounts shows that the history of this book, which is generally wrongly placed in the time of the judges, belongs specially to this period. Both tell of a great famine. In the book of Ruth it is said to have continued for a number of years, so that the Israelites were obliged to transfer their habitation to a foreign land. It cannot, therefore, have been caused by failure of the crops, which would equally have affected the neighbouring country of the Moabites. Elimelech leaves Bethlehem on account of the famine. According to Judges 6:4, the host of the Midianites extended as far as Gaza, and therefore over the district in which Bethlehem lay. After ten years, Naomi learns that the Lord has visited His people, and returns to her fatherland. The oppression by the Midianites lasted for seven years, and some time had to elapse before the land could quite recover the effects of it, and attain to the flourishing condition in which Naomi found it on her return. Here also matters take their regular course, and history proves itself an inverted prophecy. First the sin, then the punishment, then the sending of a teacher of righteousness, the raising up of a preacher of repentance, the ordinances of God for the spiritual redemption of the nation, which formed the condition of their external redemption, and finally this external redemption itself. The instrument employed by the Lord for the internal deliverance is not expressly named, but only characterized as a prophet whom the Lord sent to the children of Israel when they cried to Him against Midian. His discourse, as summarily given in Judges 6:8-10, rests entirely upon the law, and in the words of it contrasts the mercy of God and the ingratitude of Israel. With regard to the effect produced by it, nothing is definitely said; but the result clearly shows that it did not pass over without leaving some traces, for the external salvation was immediately prepared. We are not, indeed, entitled to assume a fundamental and complete change. The measures which Gideon had still to take against the worship of Baal prove the contrary. But God did not demand more than the beginnings of repentance. Where these were present, progress was furnished by contemplating the mercy which God displayed in the salvation of His people. God called Gideon to be the deliverer of the nation, of the family of the Abi-ezrites, a branch of the tribe of Manasseh, whose head, it seems, was Joash, the father of Gideon. Not without an object does Judges 6:15 lay so much stress upon the circumstance that the family of Gideon was the poorest in Manasseh, and that he was the youngest in his father’s house. Even rationalistic expositors have been forced toacknowledge the tendency of the narrative in this respect. Studer says, p. 174: “Jehovah chooses the youngest son of an obscure family of the small tribe of Manasseh to be the instrument for delivering His people, that His power, which is mighty in the weak, might be the more glorified, and that all might recognise that man can do nothing in his own strength, but that, by God’s assistance, the greatest result may be produced by the most insignificant means.” Strangely enough, he makes this tendency a proof of the mythical character of the narrative, as if God’s dealing in this respect did not remain the same through hundreds and thousands of years; as if the previous deliverance had not been effected by two weak women, as narrated in the song of Deborah, which he himself declares to be genuine. In Gideon’s dealings with the angel of the Lord, the main point to be noted is that here, as is universally the case in the post-Mosaic history, anything extraordinary concerning events and man’s relation to them rests upon the analogy of the Pentateuch; which was à priori to be expected, since it exactly corresponds with the universal relation of the patriarchal-Mosaic time to the later, which has in no respect an independent root, but is built throughout upon the foundation previously laid. The appearance of the angel of the Lord presents a striking affinity to Genesis 18 Gideon demands the same expression of his miraculous power that Abraham prescribed to the angel of the Lord, that he might be certain he was not deceived. The mode of this has its type in Leviticus 9:24. When Gideon makes his weakness a plea for declining the commission, the angel of the Lord repeats to him the great word, כיאהיהעמך, spoken to Moses in Exodus 3:12,—a point of union which, owing to the peculiar usage of the כי, cannot be accidental, referring to the earlier glorious confirmation of this promise, and to the former actual refutation of the theory that a man must be originally great in order to do great things. When Gideon is convinced that he has looked upon the angel of the Lord, he fears he must die. In Judges 6:39, “Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once,” Gideon borrows the words literally from Genesis 18:32, and excuses his boldness by recalling that of Abraham, which was graciously accepted of God. Together with this dependence, which might easily be traced still further, we have throughout great independence, proving that the agreement is not due to later authorship, but has its foundation in fact. It would be interesting and important to follow this relation through the whole history of revelation up to the New Testament,—the more, since, roughly and externally apprehended, it has furnished a handle for attack; whereas, rightly treated, it offers very significant apologetic particulars. The question arises, how the first sign which Gideon here receives, the consumption of the sacrifice offered to the Lord, is related to the second which is granted at his request, the bedewing of the fleece. At first glance, the first seems to make the second superfluous. But, on nearer consideration, it is apparent that they have a different meaning, and refer to a different object. By the first, Gideon is made certain that it is really the angel of the Lord who has spoken to him; by the second, he is convinced that the Lord, who has given him the commission, is really able and willing to make the work of deliverance successful. In both cases the sign presupposed the weakness of Gideon’s faith. If his spiritual eye had been perfectly clear, the apprehension that it was the angel of the Lord who spoke to him, which he had at the very beginning, as the אדני in Judges 6:15 shows, would have developed into perfect certainty even without a sign. If the weakness of his faith had not made him inconsistent, the certainty of his commission would have given him the certainty of its accomplishment, and the second sign would have been unnecessary. But since it was his sincere wish to do the will of God, notwithstanding his weak faith,—since his demand for a sign was an actual prayer, “Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief,” having its origin in the deep and inward conviction that he could do nothing without God,—therefore God condescended to his weakness. The sacrifice which Gideon offered up in the night, after the appearance of the Lord, has much that is striking. “Sacrificium hoc,” says Lightfoot, “fuit mirae et variae dispositionis, oblatum noctu, loco communi, a persona privata, adhibitis lignis e luco idololatrico, ipsumque idolo fuerat destinatum.” Only on superficial consideration has this act of Gideon’s been regarded as a violation of the Mosaic constitution, or a proof that the sacrificial arrangements of the Pentateuch had not yet taken root at that time. These arrangements referred merely to the ordinary course of things: they laid down the rule, from which exceptions were to take place only at the express divine command. Gideon received such a command. A violation of the law would only occur if a standing worship had been set up in Ophrah. The transaction was therefore exceptional. It had a symbolical meaning. It was an actual declaration of war on the part of God against idols,—a prophecy that their supremacy over Israel was now at an end,—a manifesto that God would now demand again what had been unjustly taken from Him. The transactions after Gideon’s act—his supposed outrage on the sanctuary of Baal—had become known, show that the constitution of the time of Moses and of Joshua still remained unaltered. Joash, the head of the family of the Abi-ezrites, has the jus vitae et necis. The people turn to him with the demand that Gideon should be punished, and he threatens death to all who should lay hands on Gideon. In the account contained in Judges 6:29-30, of the course pursued by the inhabitants of Ophrah after Gideon’s deed—“And the men of the city said one to another, Who hath done this thing? And when they inquired and asked, they said, Gideon the son of Joash hath done this thing. Then they said unto Joash, Bring out thy son that he may die; because he hath cast down the altar of Baal,” etc.—we have an unmistakeable reference to Deuteronomy 17:5. Here we read: “If there be found among you any that hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which hath committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.” It does not appear that this reference belongs only to the narrator, whose bject it is by this means to point to the strangeness of the circumstance, that the attempt was made to do to the servants of the Lord what, in accordance with the law, was to be done to the servants of idols. Numerous traces lead us to conclude that the worship of Baal, which is here regarded as what it really was in its inner nature, a direct antagonism to the worship of God, was not intended as such by those who practised it, but that, embarrassed by syncretistic error, they identified Baal and Jehovah. With this idea, they supposed that Gideon had transgressed against Jehovah, and hence they made the law of Deuteronomy the basis of the punishment. From the battle against the spiritual enemy of his nation, with which Gideon appropriately began his work, he received the name of Jerubbaal—opponent of Baal. This name served for a perpetual memorial to the nation, reminding them that they could only enjoy the love of God by completely renouncing the idols which robbed Him of His honour. In the sign by which Gideon, in the face of danger, is assured of divine help, a symbolical meaning is apparent. The fleece is first wet by the dew, while everything else remains dry; then it remains dry, while everything else is wet,כלהארץ . Dew is, in Scripture, the symbol of divine mercy. The fleece, in contrast with the rest of the earth, denotes Israel. Thus Gideon was taught, by a living image, the truth that it was God alone from whom Israel had to expect times of refreshment, that God alone was the Author of their misery. The latter was no less encouraging for Gideon than the former. For if the misery of Israel had its origin in God, the great power of the enemy need cause them no anxiety. The prophetic meaning of the sign rested upon its symbolical meaning, as Lightfoot has well shown in the words: “Signum Gideoni ostentum in madido et sicco vellere vera Israelis imago fuit, madidi rore doctrinae (more correctly, gratiae) divinae, quando totus mundus reliquus erat siccus, nunc vero sicci, quando totus mundus reliquus est madidus.” If Israel’s salvation and misery proceed only from the Lord, and are dependent on the nation’s attitude towards Him, things must necessarily happen as they did: the apostasy of the nation must be followed by the deepest misery, while the dew of mercy and salvation fell upon the rest of the nations. The question arises, why Gideon first called together a great multitude of the people, then from the 32,000 chose only 10,000, and finally retained only 300 of the 10,000? Apparently he might have selected the 300 brave men at the very beginning. The object was, according to the way narrated in the history, by intentionally reducing the large number to a small one, to show clearly that God would be the Deliverer. This point of view has commended itself even to critics like Studer, who says, “The fact that the author makes Gideon intentionally diminish his army to a small number has a didactic aim, which is definitely expressed in Judges 7:2. The lesson, which had already been taught in the call of Gideon, that Jehovah makes use of the very weakest, in order by this means to glorify Himself, and to free man from the delusion that he is able to do anything in his own strength, was intended to be manifested in the way in which the victory was gained over the Midianites. How deeply this religious consciousness became rooted in the nation, we learn from the many analogous utterances in the prophets, down to the Apostle Paul, who found a new confirmation of the above doctrine in the means which God employed for the spread of Christianity, 1 Corinthians 1:25 ff.” But this point of view is not the only one. How can it explain the fact that Gideon, by a wisely-chosen test, selects the very bravest 300 of the whole number? If this were the only point of view, he would rather have chosen the weakest and most cowardly. The event is therefore intended to teach a second lesson. It is all the same to God whether He helps by many or by few; but the few through whom He helps must be true men, such as have received from Him the spiritus fortitudinis in the carnal and spiritual battles of the Lord. And these are less different from one another than might appear. This second point of view is the more obvious, since it is only by accepting it that we can explain the unmistakeable reference which the event bears to Deuteronomy 20:8. According to this passage, when the people are ready to march to battle, after the priests have inspired them with courage, the officers call out, “What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren’s heart faint as well as his heart.” In accordance with this injunction, Gideon speaks thus at the command of the Lord: “Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead;” Judges 7:3. Gideon learns that the time to attack Midian has come, when, at the command of the Lord, he repairs with a companion to the hostile camp, and there surprises the guards narrating and interpreting an unfortunate dream. The symbolism of this dream, a cake of barley-bread overturning the tent, has, it seems, been carried still further by Studer in one point. While the sense is generally interpreted thus, “the poor and despised nation of the Israelites will carry the day,” according to him the meaning is, “the despised husbandmen will completely defeat the tent-dwelling nomads.” Only by taking this particular view can it be explained why bread, the characteristic symbol of agriculture, should be selected; while in the usual opinion only the property of the bread, the fact of its being made of barley, comes into consideration. Gideon’s victory over Midian is also frequently cited by the prophets as one of the most glorious manifestations of divine grace, one of the clearest pledges of future deliverance: comp. Isaiah 9:3, Isaiah 10:26; Habakkuk 3:7. On the great invasion of the land of Israel by the sons of the desert, in the time of Jehoshaphat, Israel prayed, “Do unto them as unto the Midianites . . . Make their nobles like Oreb and like Zeeb; yea, all their princes as Zebah and as Zalmunna;” Psalms 83:9, Psalms 83:11. The two former were the leaders of the Midianites, the two latter their kings. That Gideon after the victory should have declined the dignity of kingship, and that not from an individual reason, but because it came too near the honour of the Lord who alone was King in Israel, seems strange at a first glance. Was not kingship in Israel constantly represented as a blessing, even in the promises to the patriarchs, as the aim to which its development was tending? And how could kingship be supposed to be incompatible with the theocracy, since Moses, in Deuteronomy 17, expressly prescribed what was to be done in the event of the people choosing a king for themselves? Bat these difficulties disappear as soon as we consider that Gideon does not reject kingship in abstracto, but a concrete kingship,—kingship in the sense in which it was offered to him by the nation. He felt deeply that kingship in this sense was not a form of realizing the dominion of God in Israel, but rather opposed to it. Ascribing the victory over Midian not to God, but to Gideon, the nation believed that by choosing him their king, they would in future be able to overcome their enemies without God. It was natural, therefore, that Gideon’s heart should revolt against the proposition,—the more, since he was convinced that if it were God’s wish that the important change should take place, He would give some definite sign; which was not yet the case. While declining the reward offered him by the nation, Gideon asks only for the golden ear-rings of the spoil that was taken. In Judges 8:27 we read, “And he made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah; and all Israel went thither a whoring after it: which thing became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house.” Here it is quite plain that Gideon imitates Aaron. In the same way Aaron had formerly asked the people for the gold ear-rings. “And he made an ephod thereof,” corresponds to Exodus 32:4, “And he made it a molten calf.” Gideon believes himself at liberty to follow the example of Aaron, in so far as his undertaking is not in express opposition to the letter of the law. His intention is not to make an image of the true God, as Ewald has recently supposed, still less to make an idol: the use of language forbids us to understand a statue by the אפוד, as even Bertheau has acknowledged; but the image which, he confesses, is not to be found in the narrative, he adds on his own authority, though the personality of Gideon is opposed to it. According to Judges 8:33, it was only after Gideon’s death that the Israelites fell back into the worship of Baal. If we follow established phraseology, we can understand by the ephod nothing but a copy of the ephod of the high priest. Without doubt Gideon thought he was doing nothing wrong in having it made, but rather intended to give a proof of his piety. He wished to have something sacred in his own possession, and thought he could satisfy the wish, in this rather gross way, without violating the law. In itself his undertaking was not exactly at variance with the letter of the Mosaic law, which only prescribes that there should be but one place for offering up sacrifices, and not, as Bertheau thinks, that there should be but one sanctuary in the wider sense. But we find no trace of sacrifice having been offered up in the sanctuary of Gideon. It cannot be denied, however, that he himself here betrays an element of religious egotism: his private sanctuary alienates his heart, more or less, from the common sanctuary of the nation; and even if the matter contained no danger for him, yet, out of consideration for the weakness of the nation, he ought to have desisted from the undertaking, which only too soon made the new sanctuary an object of exaggerated and separatistic love. In the sanctuary of Gideon, he himself was honoured. Thus, by a deviation, apparently so small, the foundation was laid for a series of divine judgments which are described in Judges 9 Gideon’s crime drew down divine punishment on his family, who took pride in exalting the new sanctuary. The instruments of this judgment, the Sichemites and Abimelech, were punished for the guilt thus incurred, through one another. It is only his interest in these judgments that induced the author to continue the history of Gideon up to his death, which is quite at variance with his usual habit.

7. Gideon’s victory over the Midianites was followed by a rest of forty years, during which he died. Idolatry, which was unable to make any progress during his lifetime, reappeared in great strength after his death. In Judges 8:33 we read: “As soon as Gideon was dead, the children of Israel turned again, and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god.” It is of importance to investigate the origin of the name Baal-berith, since it leads to remarkable results respecting the nature of idolatry and its position with respect to the worship of Jehovah. The worship of Baal-berith is here attributed to Israel generally; but we find from Judges 9 that it belonged specially to Sichem and its environs. From Judges 9:46, it follows that the temple of Baal-berith was not in Sichem itself, but in the neighbourhood. Judges 9:6 contains a more exact determination. The inhabitants of Sichem, the adherents of Baal-berith, assemble to choose Abimelech as king, at the same place where Joshua had last assembled the nation immediately before his death, Joshua 24:1, Joshua 21:25-26, where he had erected the monument of stone as a token of the covenant which the nation had made with Jehovah and had solemnly sworn to keep. The name Baal-berith now becomes clear. We can no longer entertain the idea of an open antithesis to the worship of Jehovah, but only of a syncretistic worship of Jehovah. It is plain that the place could not be sacred to those who had apostatized. Apostasy was hidden under the mark of piety. Faithlessness veiled itself in the garment of loyalty. The law respecting the unity of the sanctuary was met by the argument that it was right to honour the place which the Lord Himself had honoured. The reason why the author enters so fully into the history of Abimelech lies, as we have already indicated, in the remarkable examples of divine retribution which it contains. The author himself draws attention to this tendency, by quoting the prophetic words of Jotham, the youngest and only remaining son of Gideon (his brothers had all been slain by the base Abimelech), in Judges 9:20, which contain a reference to Numbers 21:28 : “Let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the men of Shechem; and let fire come out from the men of Shechem, and devour Abimelech; “also by his own reflection in Judges 9:23-24 : “Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech: that the cruelty done to the threescore and ten sons of Jerubbaal might come, and their blood be laid upon Abimelech their brother, which slew them; and upon the men of Shechem, which aided him in the killing of his brethren.” Finally and most decisively he indicates this tendency by his concluding observation in Judges 9:56-57 : “Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, in slaving his seventy brethren: and all the evil of the men of Shechem did God render upon their heads: and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal.” “First,” says Studer, “the avenging Nemesis strikes the inhabitants of Sichem, who had revolted against Abimelech. Unexpectedly attacked and conquered by him, they are abandoned to destruction, together with their city. Divine retribution then overtakes Abimelech himself on his way from conquering Sichem, towards Thebez which had also revolted against him. For during the siege a woman struck him on the head with a piece of a millstone, so that he died a most ignominious death by the hand of a woman, and his adherents dispersed.” With regard to the extent of Abimelech’s supremacy, we cannot place any reliance on the words in Judges 9:22, “And Abimelech reigned three years over Israel.” It is a prevailing custom in the book of Judges to attribute to Israel what concerned only a part of the nation,—a custom due to the author’s vivid apprehension of the unity of Israel. Abimelech was always an Israelitish ruler, even if he had but a few tribes under him. We could only infer from the passage that it was the author’s opinion that Abimelech reigned over all Israel, if instead of “over Israel” he had said “over all Israel.” The way in which Abimelech attained to kinghood, by the choice of the men of Sichem, speaks against his supremacy over all Israel; also the fact that these chapters treat almost exclusively of North Palestine; and that, according to Judges 9:21, Jotham found a safe place of refuge in the tribe of Judah. But, on the other hand, we must not limit the supremacy of Abimelech to Sichem alone. He had another residence, and could raise an army to wage war against Sichem. The following is the most probable conclusion: Sichem was at that time the principal place of the tribe of Ephraim, as it was afterwards when the tribes assembled there after the death of Solomon, and when Jeroboam made it his place of residence. Hence, in being chosen as king of Sichem, Abimelech acquired dominion over the whole tribe of Ephraim. But this tribe always maintained a certain superiority over the neighbouring ones,—a circumstance which prepared a later foundation for the kingdom of the ten tribes. Thus Abimelech’s recognition by the Ephraimites might involve his recognition by the other tribes also, without our being able to give any exacter definition of the extent of his kingdom, which is remarkable as the first attempt to found kingship in Israel.

8. Abimelech was succeeded by two judges, Tola and Jair, of whose acts we know nothing. Oppressed by the Ammonites, the trans-Jordanic tribes chose Jephthah as ruler for life. He had previously distinguished himself by expeditions against the Ammonites, and now conquered the enemy in a decisive battle. His joy at the victory was embittered by a vow he had made. Before going out to battle, he made a vow that if the Lord should give him the victory, he would offer up to Him the person who would first meet him on his return home. And when his daughter was the first to come and meet him, he considered himself bound by his oath, while the daughter calmly submitted to her fate. With regard to the nature of this fate, and what Jephthah’s vow really was, there are two different opinions. According to one, Jephthah offered up his daughter as a burnt-offering. Josephus, Justin Martyr, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, and recently Kurtz, in Guericke’s Zeitschrift, 53, have defended this view. Others maintain that he consecrated her to the service of God in the sanctuary; so Clericus, Buddeus, and many others. That the latter view is the correct one, that the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter must be understood spiritually,—that in consequence of the vow she entered the institution of holy women, which is first mentioned in Exodus 38:8, then in 1 Samuel 2:22, finally in Luke 2:37, where Hanna appears as one who was thus dedicated to the Lord,—is fully proved in the Beiträge, Th. 3, S. 127 ff., to which discussion we must refer, as well as to the supplementary section on the institution of holy women in Egypt and the Books of Moses. Bertheau and Kurtz have come forward in opposition to this view, without adding any new element to the discussion. Here we can only enter upon the most important arguments in favour of the respective views. The two principal ones which are adduced for bodily sacrifice are the following:—First, the letter of the text forms an unanswerable argument. Luther says: “We may wish that he had not sacrificed her, but the text is plain.” This argument must be quite decisive so long as it is not apprehended that the whole system of sacrifice is a grand allegory. It was necessary for it to give reiterated expression to the spiritual relations which it originally described, as may be proved by numerous passages in the Old and New Testaments: comp., for example, Hosea 14:3; Psalms 51:19, Psalms 119:108; Romans 12:1. Again, the bitter sorrow of the father is appealed to. But he had reason enough for this on the other supposition. His daughter would henceforward not be allowed to leave the tabernacle of the covenant, “serving day and night with fasting and prayer,” which was just the same to him as if she had been dead. All hope of posterity by her was taken from him. On the other hand, we have the following arguments for the figurative meaning of the oath:—(1.) The offering of human sacrifices is so distinctly opposed to the spirit and the letter of the religion of Jehovah, that in the whole history we do not find a single example of one who was only outwardly acquainted with Jehovah, offering a sacrifice of this kind. In the law, human sacrifices are spoken of as a crime deserving to be cursed, one which can only be met with in connection with complete apostasy from the true God. (2.) If the literal acceptation were the correct one, we might have expected that the monstrous deed, the death of the daughter by the hand of the father, would at least have been intimated, if only by a word. But this is not the case. (3.) If the daughter of Jephthah were devoted to death, we cannot understand why the whole subject of her lament should have been her celibacy, nor how the author can give prominence to this as the hardest and most painful circumstance. The tragic character of the event lies principally in the immediate succession of gain and loss, of exaltation and abasement; in the fact that while the one hand gave to Jephthah, the other took away. In surrendering his daughter to the Lord, he gave at the same time everything else, for she was heiress of the possessions and honours which he had just gained, and these would henceforward lose all meaning for him. By this means Bertheau’s objection is set aside: “It is the aim of the narrative to record an immoral, extraordinary event, as may be seen in every word.” In our opinion also the event bears that character.

9. With regard to the three judges, of whose deeds we are ignorant, who succeeded Jephthah, there is nothing more to be said. We shall therefore go back to the invasion of the Philistines, which ran parallel with that of the Ammonites, the heaviest and longest of all, and to the high-priesthood of Eli, which came to an end two years after the victory of Jephthah over the Ammonites, and began about twenty years before the Philistine-Ammonitic invasion. It is striking that all at once we meet with a high priest of the race of Ithamar. That he was of this race follows from 1 Chronicles 24:3, where it is said that Abimelech, who was descended from Eli, was of the posterity of Ithamar. This is confirmed by Josephus, from what source is uncertain, Ant. Jud. i. 5, chap. 12, where he says that after Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the grandson of Aaron, the high-priestly dignity passed to his son, and from him to his grandson and great-grandson. Then after him the high-priestly dignity passed over from the race of Eleazar to the race of Ithamar, and that too under Eli himself. Moreover, the list of the descendants of Eleazar is given in 1 Chronicles 6:51, without its being expressly stated whether they filled the office of high priest or not. The names are in essential agreement with those of Josephus. Josephus does not give the reason. The question now is, how to reconcile this with Numbers 25:13, where the dignity of high priest is promised by God to Phinehas the son of Eleazar for ever. The answer may be found in the nature of the divine promises, which generally rest on a condition either expressed or implied: if this be not fulfilled, the promise is null. In such a promise as this, the implied condition is that the descendants walk in the footsteps of their ancestors. We must therefore assume that, when one of the descendants of Eleazar had sinned grievously against God, the high-priestly dignity was taken from this branch and given to Eli, of the tribe of Ithamar. And since the Ithamarites received the promise of continual priesthood under the same condition, it was also taken from them when they did not fulfil the condition, and given back to the family of Eleazar, in which it remained to the end of the Levitical priesthood, comp. 1 Kings 2:26-27, 1 Kings 2:25; so that there was, properly speaking, only a suspension of the promise, similar to that which the promise of kingship in the family of David suffered by the temporary apostasy of the ten tribes, as well as during the period between Zedekiah and Christ. Only in the interval between Eli and Solomon did the family of Ithamar enjoy the dignity of high-priesthood. That the high-priesthood was not forcibly taken by the family of Ithamar, but became theirs by an unquestionable divine decree, we learn from 1 Samuel 2:30, where, in the speech of the man of God to Eli, there is a reference to an event respecting which the historical books are quite silent, to a solemn appointment of the family of Ithamar to the high-priesthood by God, and a promise of its perpetual duration, which was doubtless given in the same way as the threat of deposition, by a man of God. This circumstance must put us on our guard against inferring the non-existence of a thing from the fact of its not being found in the narrative, especially in the case of events such as these, which lay beyond the proper sphere of the narrator. For the author of the book of Judges they had no interest; he was occupied solely with the judges. Hence Bertheau is very rash in inferring that in the book of Judges the high priests stepped into the background, and that their activity and importance were very inconsiderable. The same may be said of the author of the books of Samuel, who only goes back to the history as far as the roots of Samuel’s existence extended into it. The assumption of a forcible transference, a usurpation, is rendered improbable by the whole personality of Eli, who had not the least desire to be a usurper. That he was the first high priest of the family of Ithamar is confirmed, not only by the express statement of Josephus, but also by chronology. Eli did not attain to the high-priesthood until he reached the age of fifty-eight years. For he was ninety-eight when he died, comp. 1 Samuel 4:15, and he judged Israel for forty years. If the succession had descended in the usual way, the office passing from father to son, Eli would scarcely have been so old when he received the dignity. We seldom find so great an age when the succession is regular. What first attracts our attention is the condition of religion as we find it in the time of Eli. The accounts respecting it in the books of Samuel would appear strange to us, if we had not already found considerable foundation for them in the scattered and casual statements of the book of Judges. As it is, we must regard them as a necessary supplement, as a filling out of that part of the description of the time which the author of the book of Judges, in following his aim, left incomplete. If we collect the scattered notices in the first chapters of the book of Samuel, we find a proof of the assumption of Buddeus which appears paradoxical and incorrect only on superficial consideration: “Religionis non alia hoc tempore ratio fuit, quam sub Mose.” “Idemque de cultu numinis externo censendum” is essentially well founded. We shall not enter fully into this subject, but refer to the copious dissertation in the treatise, “The Time of the Judges and of the Pentateuch,” in vol. iii. of the Beiträge. According to a multitude of data, the tabernacle of the covenant in Shiloh formed the religious centre of the whole nation, where the people assembled annually to celebrate the feast of the passover. By 1 Sam. 1 Samuel 2:18, Samuel was girded with a linen ephod when he served before the Lord. According to the law, linen is the sacred garment of office. From 1 Samuel 3:3 we learn that an event, which happened in the early morning, occurred before the lamp of God had been extinguished. From this it follows that the regulation contained in Exodus 27:20-21, was still in force, according to which Aaron and his sons were to order the lamp without the vail which is before the testimony. The account of the iniquity of Eli’s sons also gives us much information respecting the state of religion at that time. The fact that they dared to indulge in such sin, shows how great the authority of the priests then was. The author presupposes that there was an established law relating to the rights of the priests, according to which their conduct appeared to be illegal. He places the right which they usurped in contrast with the right which had been given to them; comp. 1 Samuel 2:14 with Deuteronomy 18:3. In 1 Samuel 2:14 he represents all the Israelites who came to Shiloh as subject to their oppression. But even internally considered, the prevalent idea of the condition of religion in the period of the judges is extremely one-sided. We encounter a beautiful picture of Israelitish piety in Elkana and Hanna. Hanna’s song of praise is a ripe fruit of the Spirit of God. Eli, with all his weakness, still remains a proof that the religion of Jehovah had at that time not lost its influence over the heart. We see the most beautiful side of his character in his relation to Samuel. The extraordinary gifts of God were rare at that time, in comparison with the more favoured one in which the author of the books of Samuel wrote. In 1 Samuel 3:1 he says, “And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision. “And since the extraordinary gifts stand in close connection with the ordinary, we must conclude that the latter also were sparingly dealt out,—that among the masses there was a great deal of lukewarmness, and even open apostasy. The want of a reformation was urgent. That the extraordinary gifts, however, had not quite disappeared, we learn from the example of the man of God who comes to Eli to upbraid him with his sins, and to announce the divine judgment. And with respect to the ordinary gifts, we are led to the conclusion that there was at that time a not inconsiderable ἐκλογή, not only by the institution of holy women, but also by the custom of the Nazirate, of which we have two contemporaneous examples in Samson and Samuel, and which must therefore have been pretty widely spread. Hence we infer that the spirit of piety was by no means dead, especially since an institution such as that of the Nazarites stands in close connection with the whole national tendency, and can only flourish when more or less supported by it. A few remarks on this institution will not be out of place here. The law respecting the Nazirate is to be found in Numbers 6:6. It seems that the Nazirate did not first originate with this law, but the law only reduced to established rules that which had arisen of itself from spiritual impulse and inclination. The fundamental idea of the Nazirate is, separation from the world with its pleasures, which are so detrimental to consecration, and from its contaminating influences. This is already expressed in the name נזיר, one who lives apart, which also explains all the legally-appointed duties of the Nazirate. First, the letting the hair grow, which, according to the law, was the proper mark of the Nazirate, the form of its outward manifestation. Hence the hair of the Nazarite is termed his נזר. The cutting of the hair belonged to the legal condition of that time; comp. Carpzov, App. p. 153. Whoever let it grow, made an actual declaration that for the time being he withdrew from the world, in order to be able to live for God alone. Again, the total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks, which, out of consideration to the tendency of human nature to free itself partially from burdensome restraint by means of absurd interpretations, was extended also to that which would have been allowable without this consideration, to the enjoyment of fresh grapes, and of everything prepared from grapes. The ascetic character of this ordinance is so plain that it need not be further developed. Finally, under no circumstances might the Nazarite touch a dead person. In Numbers 6:7 we read: “He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die; because the consecration of his God is upon his head.” It was the duty of those who had not taken the vow of the Nazirate to pollute themselves, when death occurred in their family, in attending to the burial. The Nazarite, on the contrary, must consider himself dead to the world: he belongs to God alone; to him we may apply the words, “Let the dead bury their dead.” The law speaks only of a temporary Nazirate. The vow was taken for a stated time as an ascetic exercise; and, after the expiration of the self-allotted term, the Nazarite returned to the world which he had outwardly renounced for a time, in order to be able to live in it henceforward without sin. But human nature is such, that pious zeal seeks to increase what is in opposition to it, of which we have many proofs in the history of monasticism. And this tendency is exceptionally strong in times of great persecution of the Church from within and from without, such as the period of the judges. Piety then readily assumes an eccentric character. Here also we find an analogy in monasticism. We have but to think of Francis of Assisi. Samuel and Samson were consecrated to the Lord as Nazarites. While still in the womb, their mothers abstained from that which was prohibited to the Nazarites by law,—a circumstance which has its origin in the idea that the spiritual relation between mother and child is just as close as the bodily relation. Not only in the person of Samuel do we find the Nazirate in close connection with prophethood, but also in Amos 2:11, where the prophet represents it as a great favour shown to Israel, that the Lord has chosen prophets from their sons, and Nazarites from their young men. Here the Nazirate appears, like the prophethood, as an institution to which special dona supernaturalia were attached. We also see that the command is at the same time a promise: the Nazarite was not to bear the relation of donor towards God, but the commands laid upon him were only the conditions under which he was to become a recipient. But we must not overlook the fact that the Nazirate was only a definite form of consecration to the Lord, that everything prescribed to such an one comes into consideration only in its symbolical meaning,—as, for example, the most characteristic mark, allowing the hair to grow, symbolizing renunciation of the world, since, without regard to the symbolic meaning, one with cut hair may serve the Lord with equal uprightness. If this be apprehended, we shall not conclude, from the example of a personal union of Nazirate and prophethood in Samuel, that such regularly took place. The passage in Amos seems to regard the Nazirate and the prophethood as two different branches of the same tree. Those who consecrated themselves, or were consecrated to the sanctuary, were certainly not all Nazarites; but rather there were three institutions (besides that of the holy women) whose members devoted themselves to the Lord in an extraordinary way, viz. the Nazirate, the prophethood, and the service of the sanctuary (which latter form could only occur among the sons of Levitical families). The circumstance that Samuel united all three in his own person was something very unusual, perhaps the only example of the kind. This was in accordance with his whole personality, which is in every respect comprehensive, concentrating in itself what we find elsewhere only in an isolated form. To go back to the point from which we set out; the continuance of the Nazirate throughout the period of the judges shows that religious life was at that time much less corrupt than is generally supposed; comp. the remarks, Egypt, etc., p. 199 ff., where the false view of Bähr is refuted. The same thing applies also to the continuance of the institution of holy women, which is proved by the passage 1 Samuel 2:22, and by the example of Jephthah’s daughter. These holy women performed no external service in the tabernacle of the covenant; their service was rather of a spiritual nature: in complete retirement from the world they applied themselves to spiritual exercises, as we see most clearly by comparing Luke 2:37 with Exodus 38:8. Let us now turn from these general remarks on the time of Eli to the separate events which occurred in it. We shall begin just where the narrative begins, with the birth of Samuel. (Respecting his Levitical descent, comp. Beiträge, part iii. p. 60 ff., and the introduction to Psalms 89) In common with Isaac, John the Baptist, and Samson, he was given by God in answer to the prayer of a mother who had long been childless. This circumstance was intended to point out to his parents, to himself, and to the nation, that God had destined him to do great things. The fact that his birth took place against all human hope and expectation, pointed to very special divine co-operation, and was calculated to produce the conviction that God had some other object than to turn the sorrow of a woman into joy. The mother understood the word of the Lord. She perceived that the fact of his having been given by God necessarily involved his consecration to Him. Her perfect conviction of the former she expressed in the name of the child, Samuel, contracted from Shaulmeel. Similar abbreviations of proper names, having no regard to grammar, are current among all nations. As was the prayer, so was the man; and what must have been the prayer of a Hanna! Immediately after Samuel was weaned, he was brought to Shiloh, to the sacred tabernacle. There he was brought up under the eye of the high priest, and was already taught the service of the sanctuary before the time when he was legally entitled to it (according to Numbers 8:24, the Levites were commanded to come and establish themselves in the service of the sanctuary at the age of twenty-five). Eli, the high priest, was a man of true piety, who received Samuel with fatherly love, and certainly did much during his long activity for the foundation of true piety in the nation. He showed himself weak only in not putting a check to the degeneracy of his two sons. In this respect he sinned against God; and the divine displeasure with the rejection of his family was made known to him by a seer. The Scriptures represent him as a warning example of the accountability which rests upon parental weakness; and this example has had more effect than the most explicit commands and exhortations. Samuel grew to be a youth. The special circumstances connected with his birth, the example of his pious parents, residence at the sanctuary, constant occupation in the service of the Lord, the example and instruction of Eli, early awakened in him the pious disposition which distinguished him throughout his whole life. At a time when he slept in the fore-court of the tabernacle of the covenant to be ready for the sacred service, he was first favoured with a divine communication. The divine decree concerning Eli’s family was revealed to him. Eli hears it from him, and learns his fate with calm resignation. Now, when Samuel had entered into an immediate relation to God, a relation between him and the nation also began. Being soon favoured with several divine communications, he receives through them the dignity of a prophet, of a mediator between God and the nation. With him prophecy mounted a new step. While the prophets had previously entered powerfully into the history only in solitary decisive instances, his prophetic activity was a continuous one. For many successive years he was the spiritual leader of Israel. Again, while the earlier prophets had stood in a more isolated position, his gift was so superior, that its fructifying influence was widely felt, and at the same time it was his direct intention to exercise such an influence. In his old age we find an entirely new sign of the time,—whole bands of prophets, who co-operated with him towards the regeneration of the nation. He soon gained universal confidence (comp. 1 Samuel 3:20), and prepared the way for that influence over the minds of the people which he afterwards acquired. That which had been foretold with respect to the destruction of the family of Eli was soon partially fulfilled. Oppressed and conquered by the Philistines, who had again become powerful, the Israelites believed themselves certain of victory as soon as they marched against the enemy with the ark of the covenant, though they were stained with sin and with an idolatrous disposition. They based this belief on Numbers 10:35, according to which Moses said, when the ark went forward, “Rise up, Lord, and let Thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate Thee flee before Thee.” Their hope deceived them. They were conquered. Eli’s sinful sons were slain, and he himself did not survive the sad news. Israel was then first robbed of the sanctuary, typifying the Chaldaic and Roman robberies. But, in comparison with the second and third robberies, this first one bore a mild and transitory character, for at that time the guilt of the people was less. Soon the arrogance of the Philistines was humbled. In their foolish presumption, in accordance with the prevailing idea of the old world, they believed that the God of Israel would be conquered by their idol Dagon,—a figure in the form of a fish, with human head and hands,—and that His holy ark would be brought to their temple in triumph. When the destruction of their idol, which came about without the intervention of human instrumentality, had no effect on them, they were afflicted with grievous plagues and diseases, under circumstances which led them to recognise them as punishments of the wrathful God of Israel. Expositors are at variance with regard to the true nature of this sickness. It is most probable that by עפלים in 1 Samuel 5:6, which means hill-shaped elevations, we should not understand hemorrhoidal pains, but boils, which are a characteristic symptom of the oriental pestilence; comp. Thenius on this passage. We must conclude that it was an infectious disease, from its rapid spread and devastating effect. Made wise by affliction, they sent back the sanctuary which had brought so much trouble on them. Accompanied by the princes of the Philistines to the borders of their territory, the ark arrived at Beth-shemesh. The exulting joy of the inhabitants on its return was changed into sorrow. Of fifty thousand men, seventy died a sudden death. This is the explanation of the difficult passage 1 Samuel 6:19; comp. Bochart in Clericus, whose objections to Bochart’s theory are insignificant. They are removed, not by supplying the preposition מן to the אלף, but by taking it as a concise expression, in which the relation is not expressly denoted,—fifty, a thousand, fifty for every thousand. In opposition to the narrative, some have sought to find a reason for this judgment in a special offence of the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh against the ark of the covenant. But the judgment came upon them only on account of the sin which was common to them with all Israel. By their punishment the Israelites were shown what they had to expect from Jehovah,—that the time of wrath was not past. The author fixes his attention only on the highest cause. A physician would have attributed the misfortune to infection caught by contact with the Philistines. The ark was then taken from Beth-shemesh to Kirjath-jearim in the tribe of Judah, and was thus separated from the sanctuary, which had been transferred by the Philistines from Shiloh to Nob immediately after the ark of the covenant had been stolen, and later, when Saul laid a curse on this city, was removed to Gibeon. The high priest remained with the holy tabernacle. The cause of the separation is plainly shown in the narrative. The ark had proved itself hurtful in a number of cases, last of all in Beth-shemesh. It was made evident that the nation was not yet worthy to receive the perfect fulfilment of the promise, “I will dwell in your midst.” They endeavoured to dispose of the ark in the best possible way. It was buried, as it were, at Kirjath-jearim, until the time when God would bring about its joyful resurrection. No sacrifices were offered before it. From this separation of the sanctuaries, it necessarily followed that there was a freedom with respect to the order of worship which the time of Joshua and the time of the judges had not known. Samuel did not work in direct opposition to this freedom, which continued till the building of Solomon’s temple, but himself offered sacrifice in different places. He regarded it as his task to bring about an internal reformation, persuaded that this was the most effectual means to obviate the external destruction of the institutions of worship brought about by God Himself. He looked upon this as a punishment, and thought it his duty to direct his energy, not against the effect, but only against the cause. And the result showed that he was right.

10. We shall now leave Samuel, whose reformatory activity extended over the twenty years from the death of Eli to the decisive victory over the Philistines, laying the only permanent foundation for the external salvation of the nation, and turn to the activity of Samson, which belongs to the same period. The object of his mission is best shown by the triumph of the Philistines after they got him into their power. In Judges 16:24 we read: “And when the people saw him, they praised their god: for they said, Our god hath delivered into our hands our enemy, and the destroyer of our country, which slew many of us.” If the weakness of Samson afforded a proof of the power of their gods, his strength must have made them painfully conscious of the powerlessness of their gods, and the superiority of the God of Israel. Looked at in this light, the acts of Samson form the intermediate link between that which happened to the Philistines on account of the ark of the covenant and Samuel’s final victory over them. It is true that the ark of the covenant was sent back; but the oppression by the Philistines still continued. Their strength at that time was due to what Israel then entirely lacked, to perfect unanimity,—their five small kingdoms and princes acted as one man. Nor was this oppression at an end; for it had not yet accomplished the object for which it had been sent; its continuance formed the necessary condition of the success of Samuel’s efforts for the conversion of the nation. Necessity alone teaches prayer. But before salvation could be fully accomplished, the bold appearance of Samson put a check to the arrogance of the Philistines and to the utter despondency of the Israelites, which must have been as prejudicial to their improvement as a too speedy deliverance. What he, as an individual, accomplished by the power of the Lord, showed sufficiently that the power of the world was not opposed to the people of God like a wall of brass; it was a prophecy of the glorious goal towards which the nation would advance, if it could only rise up again as one man against the many, in the might of the Lord. There seems to be only one objection against this point of view. Samson’s whole course of action appears little suited for that of an instrument and a servant of God. But here a distinction must be made between a twofold Samson, the servant of the Lord and the servant of sin. We find the former in Judges 13-15, the latter in Judges 16. What the first Samson does is not unworthy a servant of the Lord, if we do not set up a false spiritualistic standard. We must not compare him with Samuel, who had received a different calling from God, nor with Luther, who in a spiritual aspect presented a closer affinity with him than any other of the reformers; but with Gustavus Adolphus, or a Christian prince in the Crusades. There is a noble element in Samson, a fund of strong and living faith in God, which is everywhere plainly visible notwithstanding his weaknesses, and shows itself even in his fall. The second Samson became transformed from the servant of God to the slave of a woman; in his struggle against the enemies of the kingdom of God, he forgot the struggle with himself. The author himself clearly sets forth this distinction between the first and the second Samson. It is remarkable that so early as the end of Judges 15 we find the words, “And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years,” as if his history here came to an end, although it is still continued in the following chapter. It is plainly the author’s intention to indicate in this way that the proper career of Samson was now at an end. The servant of the Lord, the judge over Israel, was now as good as buried,—subsequent history has reference only to his spiritual corpse. In the same way the author’s judgment is contained in his account of the fate of the fallen Samson. The eyes by which his heart was led astray are put out. The slave of sin is obliged to perform the most menial services among the Philistines. We could only object to Samson’s having been called to the service of the Lord, if the wonderful power with which he was filled as a sign and a wonder to the people, an assurance that in their God they possessed the source of infinite power, had remained unimpaired even after his fall. The narrative shows that the contrary was the case. But was God not to call him because He forsaw his fall? This could only be maintained if God were deficient in means to prove that Samson’s sin belonged to himself. But the contrary is apparent. We ought rather to say that God called him just because He foresaw his fall. By his example He intended to show how even the most splendid gifts become useless as soon as the recipient ceases to watch over his own heart. Without that great catastrophe, the power of Samson might appear as peculiarly inherent: now all must acknowledge that it was merely lent to him. The 16th chapter is one of the most edifying portions of Scripture. There are few which form so powerful an exhortation to watchfulness and prayer. If the loss of Samson’s strength here seems to be attached to something purely external, the loss of his hair, and thus loses its universal applicability and power of edification, we must not overlook the way in which the loss came about. Taking this into consideration, we perceive that the internal and external loss, the loss of the Spirit of God and the loss of the hair, were interwoven. If Samson had lost his hair by any accident for which he was not to blame, the case would have been different. But the cutting of the hair was only an isolated expression of the impure relation in which he stood. Even rationalistic exegesis must acknowledge this. Studer says: “As from Samson, so likewise did the Spirit of God depart from Saul, when by his disobedience he had violated the contract by which Jehovah had appointed him to be His earthly representative, and had anointed him; thus the Spirit of God was withdrawn from the whole nation when they had broken the covenant of Jehovah, and was afterwards given back to the young Christian Church in a higher sense, as a pledge of reconciliation to God and of restored sonship.” This parallel between Samson and the whole nation should be specially considered. It is plain that Samson was a type of the nation; that the fall of the individual has prophetic significance for the mass. It is specially noteworthy that his history fills up the last twenty years of the period of the judges. At the close of a long and important period, God revealed to the nation His whole course of action in the deeds and fortunes of an individual. In this sense it may be said that Samson was the personification of Israel in the period of the judges. Strong in the Lord, and victorious over all his enemies; weak through sin, of which Delilah is the image, and a slave to the weakest of all his enemies: such is the quintessence of Israel’s history, as well as of Samson’s. His life, which, as Ewald says, resembles a candle that flares up at times, and gives light afar off, but often dies down and goes quite out before its time, is at the same time an actual prophecy of a more satisfactory condition of the people, one more closely corresponding to the ideal, which was first to be imperfectly fulfilled under Samuel and David, and afterwards perfectly in Christ. For in the kingdom of God everything imperfect is a pledge and guarantee of the perfect.

After these general remarks, we may turn to the separate events in Samson’s life, especially those which have given rise to doubts and difficulty. And here we shall first draw attention to the fact that the author, in accordance with his aim, conformably to the point of view from which he represents Samson’s life, is obliged to give as much prominence as possible to what is extraordinary in the acts, without violation of the truth; so that, taking this tendency into account, we must be allowed to assume intermediate causes and interventions where the author makes no mention of them, because this does not materially affect the thing itself, but only weakens the impression which it is his intention to produce. When, for example, he relates that Samson slew a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, all attempt to fill out the narrative, by assuming the agency of some other independent power besides that of Samson, must be unconditionally rejected; for if the author had omitted to mention such a circumstance, we could no longer believe him to be reliable, and should have no further reason for endeavouring to prove that the events took place in the ordinary course of nature. On the other hand, if this one main point be only firmly established, we can think of many circumstances which may help us to understand the course of events, without asserting that they happened exactly in that way. It is enough that the author does not by his narrative exclude such circumstances.

Samson’s first act was to slay a lion without weapons. This exploit is not the only one of the kind. Ancient and modern writers give many examples. The same thing was done by David and Benaiah. Comp. Arvieux, Merkwürdig. Nadir, t. ii. cap. 13; Ludolphi Hist. Æthiop. sect. 48; Bochart, Hieroz. P. I. iii. cap. 1 et 4, and many others. There is one difficulty, however, in the circumstance that Samson afterwards finds a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion, while it is well known that bees fly from carrion. But the difficulty is removed by the fact that, according to Judges 14:9, this discovery was not made until a considerable time after the killing of the lion. The lion could therefore no longer have been carrion at that time. The flesh had either rotted away, or had been eaten by animals; or perhaps the body of the lion had been dried up by the sun, and had become a mummy, so that the bad odour, which bees avoid, had vanished. This frequently happens in that district; comp. Rosenmüller, Bibl. Alterthumsk. iv. 2, S. 424. And, moreover, since the spiritus fortitudinis was given to Samson only for fighting against the enemies of the covenant-nation, as we are expressly told by the author, this event cannot have its object in itself, but must be regarded as type and prefiguration. The action must be regarded as symbolical, like the cursing of the fig-tree by our Lord. The lion is an image of the power of the world, which rises in terrible opposition to the kingdom of God; comp. Daniel 7:4. This symbolical meaning extends also to the finding of the bees. Samson himself gives prominence to the general truth which is here contained in the particular, in the riddle which he founds on the circumstance. In this riddle we have the quintessence of the occurrence. In Judges 14:14 he says: “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” Words whose sense is thus paraphrased by Brenz: “Qui omnia alia devorat, is praebuit ex se cibum, quem alii devorent, et qui in omnes est trux, crudelis, immanis, is exhibuit de se id, quod valde jucundum, suave et delectabile.” The truth of this maxim is confirmed by all time. God not only gives His people victory over their enemies, but also makes all enmity eventually subservient to their blessing and salvation; and the more powerful and terrible the enemy, so much the greater is the salvation. Only let us turn to the period of the judges. What would have become of the covenant-nation if they had had no enemies? Every fruit of righteousness grows upon this tree; all food comes to them from the eaters. Then let us come down to the most recent times. Every enemy has become a blessing to the Church. Looked at in this light, the riddle of Samson is a proverb which cannot be too deeply inculcated, an antidote to the sorrow caused by the devastators of the Church. It is a question of less importance whether Samson followed the laws of riddle; whether the question which he lays down may be called a riddle. It seems that the Philistines could not find the solution. Yet we must remember that the event which took place here was not an unusual one in that district, and that the Philistines, in their guessing, may have found the answer to the riddle given to them,—particularly since the terms “eater” and “strong one” were more applicable to the lion than to anything else, while it was most natural to predicate “sweetness” of honey, just as when sweetness is spoken of among us, our first thought is of sugar. In order to injure the Philistines, Samson caught 300 jackals or foxes, tied them together in pairs, and, furnishing them with firebrands, drove them into the standing corn of the Philistines. Neither is there anything improbable in this, since it is not stated that Samson caught the jackals in one day, nor that he had no assistance from others. For such an enterprise, there are always plenty of helpers to be had. According to the accounts of travellers, jackals are to be found in great abundance in Palestine. They are not timid, but seek men, even following them, and obtruding themselves on them. They run in great flocks, often as many as 200 together, and during the daytime they live in holes in the rocks in equally large numbers. A recent traveller, who was by no means a Samson, killed thirty at once in a cave of this kind. Comp. Oedemann’s Verm. Schriften, part ii. p. 18 ff.; Rosenmüller, iv. 2, p. 156. It has indeed been maintained that שועלים does not mean jackal, but fox. For the jackal the Hebrews have a peculiar name, איים, screamer; but this particular designation is only poetical, as appears from its appellative meaning, and still more decisively from the fact that it occurs only in poetical books; comp. Ewald, Song of Solomon, p. 89. That the species of jackal allied to the fox, and similar to it in form and colour, was included with it under the name שועל, is probable enough in itself. The unmistakeable origin of the name jackal, which has come to us from the East, from Shual, is in favour of this view, and also the interchange of the two species, which is still common in the East, according to the testimony of Niebuhr, Description of Arabia, p. 166. שועל is also applied to the jackal in Psalms 63:11.

Samson is delivered up bound by the Israelites to the Philistines; he breaks his bonds, takes up a new jawbone of an ass, which he finds lying there, and smites a thousand Philistines. The narrative does not employ a word to lead us to suppose that Samson slew the thousand Philistines. There is nothing incredible, or even improbable in the act, if we only consider that he had already become an object of fear and terror to the Philistines by his former deeds, and that the old impressions were not merely revived, but must have been very much strengthened by the bursting of the bonds, which took place before their eyes; and, finally, that they had everything to fear from the 3000 men of Judah who were present, as soon as their cowardice would have time to vanish before Samson’s courage. It has been erroneously maintained that, in accordance with the narrative, the fountain from which Samson quenched his burning thirst must have sprung from the jawbone of the ass. That this was not the author’s meaning, is plainly shown by the addition, “Wherefore he called the name thereof En-hakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day.” The water must rather have sprung up at the place to which Samson had shortly before given the name Lehi, with reference to this event. This is clearly shown by Clericus on Judges 15:19; and even expositors like Studer have been forced to give up the theory of the jawbone. Against it, he says, we have (1) the usus loquendi; for a tooth-hole in the jawbone of an ass would have been called מכתשהלחי, while אשרבלחי can scarcely mean anything but what belongs to לחי. (2) Even for a miracle, it would be quite too wonderful for a fountain to spring up out of the socket of a tooth, especially since the jawbone was still fresh, and was therefore provided with teeth, in which case the water must have flowed out of the tooth itself. (3) The spring was still in existence at the time of the narrator. And, finally, (4) the analogy of the two streams in the wilderness, Exodus 17, Numbers 20. On the other hand, there is nothing at all to confirm the opinion that the water had its source in the jawbone. The מכתש, properly mortar, like our kettle, a recess, never occurs of a hole or gap in a tooth, but we find it in Zephaniah 1:11 as the name of a place; and in Psalms 78:15, Isaiah 48:21, it is used of the fissure in the rock from which Moses brought forth a stream in the wilderness. Moreover, the true interpretation forced itself even upon the Jews, notwithstanding their tendency to seek out absurdities. It is to be found in Josephus and in the Chaldee paraphrast. If Luther had not made an oversight here, there would scarcely be any further necessity for defending it. In the whole history of revelation we find nothing so extravagant, least of all can we expect it in the book of Judges, where, as a rule, everything occurs in so natural a way. The carrying away of the gate of Gaza certainly shows great, but by no means superhuman, strength. Pliny, in his Hist. Nat. 7. 20, tells of a man who bore away 600 pounds. A general lieutenant, in the seven-years’ war, lifted up a horse and his rider, together with a large cannon, with great ease. But here also an attempt has been made to invest the narrative with an extravagant character, which in itself it does not possess. It has been maintained that the author makes Samson carry the gate to Hebron, which was about five hours’ distance from Gaza. But, on the contrary, it is stated in Judges 16:3 that Samson carried the gate to the top of a hill near Hebron, not לפני but עלפני. According to Joliffe, p. 285, a small valley extends from Gaza towards the east, and behind it there is a considerable elevation, which is supposed to be the mountain to which Samson carried the gate of the town. Robinson says, book ii. p. 639: “Towards the east the view is cut off by the range of hills which we passed. The highest point is a partially isolated mountain, south-east from the city, at about half an hour’s distance.” Studer has justly pointed out that the false explanation, recently defended by Winer and Bertheau, would entirely destroy the effect produced by the circumstance that in the morning the inhabitants of Gaza saw the gate of their city on the top of a neighbouring mountain, while they thought that they had shut in the hero with it. The last act of Samson, the pulling down of the idol-temple of the Philistines, forms a necessary keystone; for without this his weakness would not have appeared in its true light. In his lowest humiliation he repented. The re-growth of his hair was no titulus sine re; the consecration which it betokened was an actual thing. Thus the Lord could again employ him as His instrument. But the fall had been so deep that the former relation could not be restored. The Lord required him only for one more deed, and this must involve him, as well as his enemies, in destruction. Henceforward Israel was to be delivered in a more spiritual way. The judgeship was buried with Samson. With respect to the external side of the event, the author has been supposed to have held the untenable view that the burden of a roof which supported 3000 men rested upon two pillars which stood close together. The contrary appears from the fact that in Judges 16:29 these two pillars are spoken of as the two middle pillars. The building rested on four side-walls or four rows of columns. The two principal of these, upon which the main weight of the building rested, stood in the middle, close together. Their fall, together with the burden of the great numbers on the roof, entailed the overthrow of the whole building. That there was nothing improbable in this event has been universally acknowledged by architects.

11. We have already remarked that through the whole period in which the acts of Samson gave rise to so much wonder, and were in every mouth, Samuel’s reformatory activity continued to work in silence. He used all his influence to bring back the people to the fear of the Lord, and so to freedom; and he found a susceptibility in them. Sorrow had exercised a softening influence on their minds. Above all, he sought to impress the young, to animate them with his own inspiration, and through them to influence wider circles. Finally, in the fortieth year of the oppression by the Philistines, Samuel concluded that everything was sufficiently prepared for the adoption of vigorous measures. At his command the people destroyed all their idols, and in sincere repentance dedicated themselves anew to God. Then, at his command, they assembled at Mizpeh to implore God’s help against their enemies. The symbolical act of pouring out water, which occurred there, according to 1 Samuel 7:6, serves as an expression of their miserable condition, as an exemplification of the words, “ I am poured out like water,” in Psalms 22, and is therefore a symbolically expressed κύριε ἐλήισον. No sooner had the nation turned again to God than He gave them a proof of His love, in order not to try their faith which was still weak. The invading Philistines were smitten by a natural event, which ensued at the entreaty of Samuel, more than by the weapons of the Israelites; their power was broken for a long period, and the cities which they had wrested from the Israelites were retaken. This victory must have served to increase the respect in which Samuel was held, and which he employed solely in the interest of the kingdom of God. He was chosen to be judge during his lifetime, holding office in a different spirit from that of his predecessors. He destroyed all traces of idolatry, and made an annual journey through the country to establish order and administer justice. He dwelt at Ramah, and had an altar there, where he himself performed the service, and thus united in his own person the extraordinary priestly and civil dignity, yet in such a way that he cannot be said to have held the office of high priest. This still existed independently of him, as we learn from 1 Samuel 14:3, comp. with 1 Samuel 4:21. It still continued in the family of Eli. Samuel only performed isolated priestly acts, just as his ordinary civil supremacy was in no way set aside by his office of judge.

12. The establishment of royalty. Samuel had already become old in his vocation, when a twofold cause incited the people to an impatient demand for the establishment of royalty. First, the unseemly behaviour of Samuel’s sons, whom he had appointed to assist him in his office of judge; then a war with which they were threatened by the Ammonites, and which they thought themselves incapable of maintaining while their former constitution still continued. The way in which Samuel received the desire of the nation, which was expressed through their legal organs, at first appears strange. His opposition seems to be irreconcilable with Deuteronomy 17, where directions are given how to act in case the people should desire a king, without a word expressing disapproval of the desire; and still more at variance with those passages in Genesis in which the patriarchs are promised, as a blessing, that kings should proceed from their loins. But the solution of this apparent inconsistency has already been anticipated by former remarks. Samuel’s opposition is not directed against kingship in itself, but only against the spirit in which the nation demanded it. In this there was a twofold element of ungodliness. (1.) They did not desire a king instead of a judge in abstracto, but a king instead of Samuel, the judge appointed and gloriously sanctioned by God, as in the time of Moses or Joshua. (2.) The desire of the people for a king was based on the false assumption that God was powerless to help them, and that the reason of their subjection was not their sin, but a defect in their constitution. “The people,” says Joh. Müller, “who sought the cause of the evil not in themselves but in the imperfection of their political constitution, chose a king.” Comp. the copious examination in Beitr., part iii. p. 246 ff. After Samuel had contended against the perverted mind of the nation, he submitted to the desire, which was in accordance with the will of God, but at the same time he sought to guard against the probable abuse of kingly power, by a document, probably founded on Deuteronomy 17, in which the conditions were laid down to which an Israelitish king must submit, lest kingship should endanger the supremacy of God; comp. 1 Samuel 10:25.