1 There is no foundation for Beriheau's opinion, that the 200 shekels were no part of the 1100, but the trespass -money paid by the son when he gave his mother back the money that he had purloined, since, according to Lev. v. 24, when a thief restored to the owner any stolen property, he was to add the fifth of its value. There is no ground for applying this law to the case before us, simply because the taking of the money by the son is not even described as a theft, whilst the mother really praises her son for his open confession.
her son Micah had a house of God, and had had an ephod and teraphim made for himself, and one of his sons consecrated to officiate there as a priest. nDNp K^Kn (the man Micah) is therefore placed at the head absolutely, and is connected with what follows by)b: " As for the man Micah, there was to him (he had) a house of God." The whole verse is a circumstantial clause explanatory of what precedes, and the following verbs KflW, ^^? an(l *'T5> are simply a continuation of the first clause, and therefore to be rendered as pluperfects. Micah's both Elohim (house of God) was a domestic temple belonging to Micah's house, according to chap, xviii. 15-18. T~DX K?p, to fill the hand, i.e. to invest with the priesthood, to institute as priest (see at Lev. vii. 37). The ephod was an imitation of the high priest's shoulder-dress (see at chap. viii. 27). The teraphim were images of household gods, penates, who were worshipped as the givers of earthly prosperity, and as oracles (see at Gen. xxxi. 19). — In ver. 6 it is observed, in explanation of this unlawful conduct, that at that time there was no king in Israel, and every one did what was right in his own eyes.
Vers. 7-13. Appointment of a Levite as Priest. — Vers. 7 sqq. In the absence of a Levitical priest, Micah had first of all appointed one of his sons as priest at his sanctuary. He afterwards found a Levite for this service. A young man from Bethlehem in Judah, of the family of Judah, who, being a Levite, stayed p3) there (in Bethlehem) as a stranger, left this town to sojourn " at the place which he should find" sc. as a place that would afford him shelter and support, and came up to the mountains of Ephraim to Micah's house, " making his journey," i.e. upon his journey. (On the use of the inf. constr. with? in the sense of the Latin gerund in do, see Ewald, § 280, d.) Bethlehem was not a Levitical town. The young Levite from Bethlehem was neither born there nor made a citizen of the place, but simply " sojourned there," i.e. dwelt there temporarily as a stranger. The further statement as to his descent (mishpachath Judah) is not to be understood as signifying that he was a descendant of some family in the tribe of Judah, but simply that he belonged to the Levites who dwelt in the tribe of Judah, and were reckoned in all civil matters as belonging to that tribe. On the division of the land, it is true that it was only to the priests that dwelling-places were allotted in the inheritance of this tribe (Josh. xxi. 9-19), whilst the rest of the Levites, even the nonpriestly members of the family of Kohath, received their dwellingplaces among the other tribes (Josh. xxi. 20 sqq.). At the same time, as many of the towns which were allotted to the different tribes remained for a long time in the possession of the Canaanites, and the Israelites did not enter at once into the full and undisputed possession of their inheritance, it might easily so happen that different towns which were allotted to the Levites remained in possession of the Canaanites, and consequently that the Levites were compelled to seek a settlement in other places. It might also happen that individuals among the Levites themselves, who were disinclined to perform the service assigned them by the law, would remove from the Levitical towns and seek some other occupation elsewhere (see also at chap. xvhi. 30). 1 — Yer. 10. Micah made this proposal to the Levite: " Dwell with me, and become my father and priest; I will give thee ten shekels of silver yearly, and fitting out with clothes and maintenance." 2K, father, is an honourable title given to a priest as a paternal friend and spiritual adviser, and is also used with reference to prophets in 2 Kings vi. 21 and xiii. 14, and applied to Joseph in Gen. xlv. 8. ^PJ?, for the days, sc. for which a person was engaged, i.e. for the year (cf. 1 Sam. xxvii. 7, and Lev. xxv. 29). " And the Levite went" i.e. went to Micah' s house. This meaning is evident from the context. The repetition of the subject, u the Levite," precludes our connecting it with the following verb?^s}. — In vers. 11-13 the result is summed up. The Levite resolved (see at Deut. i. 5) to dwell with Micah, who treated him as one of his sons, and entrusted him with the priesthood at his house of God. And Micah rejoiced that he had got a Levite as priest, and said, " Now I know that Jehovah will prosper me." This belief, or, to speak more correctly, superstition, for which Micah was very speedily to atone, proves that at that time the tribe of Levi held the position assigned it in the law of Moses; that is to say, that it was regarded as the tribe elected by God for the performance of divine worship.
1 There is no reason, therefore, for pronouncing the words min* fins>£Ti>E (of the family of Judah) a gloss, and erasing them from the text, as Houbigant proposes. The omission of them from the Cod. Vat. of the LXX., and from the Syriac, is not enough to warrant this, as they occur in the Cod. Al. of the LXX., and their absence from the authorities mentioned may easily be accounted for from the difficulty which was felt in explaining their meaning. On the other hand, it is impossible to imagine any reason for the interpolation of such a gloss into the text.
— Vers. 1-10. Spies sent out by the tribe of Dan, to seek for a place suitable for a settlement, and their success. — Ver. 1. This took place at a time when Israel had no king, and the tribe of the Danites sought an inheritance for themselves to dwell in, because until that day no such portion had fallen to them among the tribes as an inheritance. To the expression njfiJ Nv (had not fallen) we must supply H7n: as the subject from the previous clause; and n^rua signifies in the character of a nachalah9 i.e. of a possession that could be transmitted as hereditary property from father to son.?DJ, to fall, is used with reference to the falling of the lot (vid. Isum, xxxiv. 2, Josh. xiii. 6, etc.). The general statement, that as yet no inheritance had fallen to the tribe of Dan by lot, has its limitation in the context. As the Danites, according to ver. 2, sent out five men from Zorea and Eshtaol, and, according to ver. 11, six hundred men equipped for fight went out to Laish, which the spies had discovered to be a place well fitted for a settlement, and had settled there, it is very evident from this that the Danites were not absolutely without an inheritance, but that hitherto they had not received one sufficient for their wants. The emigrants themselves were already settled in Zorea and Eshtaol, two of the towns that had fallen to the tribe of Dan by lot (Josh. xix. 41). Moreover, the six hundred equipped Danites, who went out of these towns, were only a very small part of the tribe of Danites, which numbered 64,400 males of twenty years old and upwards at the last census (Num. xxvi. 43). For a tribe of this size the land assigned by Joshua to the tribe of Dan, with all the towns that it contained, was amply sufficient. But from chap. i. 34 we learn that the Amorites forced the Danites into the mountains, and would not allow them to come down into the plain. Consequently they were confined to a few towns situated upon the sides or tops of the mountains, which did not supply all the room they required. Feeling themselves too weak to force back the Canaanites and exterminate them, one portion of the Danites preferred to seek an inheritance for themselves somewhere else in the land. This enterprise and emigration are described in vers. 2 sqq. The time cannot be determined with perfect certainty, as all that can be clearly inferred from ver. 12, as compared with chap. xiii. 25, is, that it took place some time before the days of Samson. Many expositors have therefore assigned it to the period immediately following the defeat of Jabin by Barak (chap. iv. 24), because it was not till after the overtnrow of this powerful king of the Canaanites that conquests were possible iiv the north of Canaan, and the tribe of Dan at that time still remained in ships (chap. v. 17), so that it had not yet left the territory assigned it by the sea-shore (Josh. xix.). Bat these arguments have neither of them any force; for there is nothing surprising in the fact that Danites should still be found by the seashore in the time of Deborah, even if Danite families from Zorea and Eshtaol had settled in Laish long before, seeing that these emigrants formed but a small fraction of the whole tribe, and the rest remained in the possessions assigned them by Joshua. Moreover, the strengthening of the force of the Canaanites, and the extension of their dominion in the north, did not take place till 150 years after Joshua, in the days of Jabin; so that long before Jabin the town of Laish may have been conquered by the Danites, and taken possession of by them. In all probability this took place shortly after the death of Joshua, as we may infer from ver. 30 (see the exposition of this verse).— Ver. 2. To spy out and explore the land for the object mentioned, the Danites sent out five brave men " out of their (the Danites') ends;' i.e. from their whole body (vid. 1 Kings xii. 31, xiii. 33, and the commentary on Gen. xix. 4). They came'up to the mountains of Ephraim, and as far as Micah's house, where they passed the night.— Vers. 3-6. When they were at Micah's house and recognised the voice of the young Levite, i.e. heard his voice, and perceived from his dialect that he was not a native of these mountains, they turned aside there, sc. from the road into the house, near to which they rested, and asked him,^ " Who brought thee hither, and what doest thou at this place? what hast thou to do here?" When he told them his history ("thus and thus," lit. according to this and that; cf. 2 Sam. xi. 25, 1 Kings xiv. 5), they said to him, " Ask God, we pray thee, that we may learn whether our way will be prosperous:' DTO«a W, used for asking the will of God, as in chap. i. 1, except that here the inquiry was made through the medium of the imitation of the ephod and the worship of an image. And he said to them, sc. after making inquiry of the divine oracle, " Go in peace; straight before Jehovah is your way"^ i.e. it is known and well-pleasing to Him {vid. Prov. v. 21, Jer. xvii. 16).— Ver. 7. Thus the five men proceeded to Laish, which is called Leshem in Josh. xix. 47, and was named Dan after the conquest by the Danites,— a place on the central source of the Jordan, the present Tell el Kadi (see at Josh. xix. 47),— and saw the people of the town dwelling securely after the manner of the Sidonians, who lived by trade and commerce, and did not go out to war. r\2W is the predicate to DynviN, and the feminine is to be explained from the fact that the writer had the population before his mind (see Ewald, § 174, b.); and the use of the masculine in the following words, ntshi ttpfcj, which are in apposition, is not at variance with this. The connection of rQC^ with n^np?, which Bertheau revives from the earlier commentators, is opposed to the genius of the Hebrew language, ntthl ttpb>, " living quietly and safely there" 'U1 DvDD~pw, " and no one who seized the government to himself did any harm to them in the land" ^y?"?, to shame, then to do an injury (1 Sam. xxv. 7). *n,n &y?&, shaming with regard to a thing, i.e. doing any kind of injury. *W, dominion, namely tyrannical rule, from *W, imperio coercere. The rendering " riches" (0rjaavpos, LXX.), which some give to this word, is founded simply upon a confounding of "W with *WN. Knj does not mean "to possess," but "to take possession of," and that by force (as in 1 Kings xxi. 18). "And they were far from the Sidonians," so that in the event of a hostile invasion they could not obtain any assistance from this powerful city. Grotius draws the very probable conclusion from these words, that Laish may have been a colony of the Sidonians. " And they had nothing to do with (other) men" i.e. they did not live in any close association with the inhabitants of other towns, so as to be able to obtain assistance from any other quarter. — Vers. 8, 9. On their return, the spies said to their fellowcitizens, in reply to the question Bnx HD, " What have you accomplished?" " Up, let us go up against them (the inhabitants of Laish), for the land is very good, and ye are silent" i.e. standing inactive (1 Kings xxii. 3; 2 Kings vii. 9). " Be not slothful to go (to proceed thither), to come and take possession of the land!" — Ver. 10. " When ye arrive, ye will come to a secure people (i.e. a people living in careless security, and therefore very easy to overcome); and the land is broad on both sides (i.e. furnishes space to dwell in, and also to extend: vid. Gen. xxxiv. 21, 1 Chron. iv. 40); for God has given it into your hand" They infer this from the oracular reply they had received from the Levite (ver. 6). " A place where there is no want of anything that is in the land (of Canaan)."
Vers. 11-29. Removal of Six Hundred Danites to Laish — Robbery of MicaKs Images — Conquest of Laish, and Settlement there. — Vers. 11, 12. In consequence of the favourable account of the spies who returned, certain Danites departed from Zorea and Eshtaol, to the number of 600 men, accoutred with weapons of war, with their families and their possessions in cattle and goods (see ver. 21), and encamped by the way at Kirjath-jearim (i.e. Kuriyet Enab; see Josh. ix. 17), in the tribe territory of Judah, at a place which received the permanent name of Mahaneh Dan (camp of Dan) from that circumstance, and was situated behind, i.e. to the west of, Kirjath-jearim (see at chap. xiii. 25). The fact that this locality received a standing name from the circumstance described, compels us to assume that the Danites had encamped there for a considerable time, for reasons which we cannot determine from our want of other information. The emigrants may possibly have first of all assembled here, and prepared and equipped themselves for their further march. — Yer. 13. From this point they went across to the mountains of Ephraim, and came to Micah's house, i.e. to a place near it. — Ver. 14. Then the five men who had explored the land, viz. Laish (Laish is in apposition to H^n, the land), said to their brethren (tribe-mates), " Know ye that in these houses (the village or place where Micah dwelt) there are an ephod and teraphinij and image and molten ivork (see at chap. xvii. 4, 5)? and now know what ye will do." The meaning of these last words is very easily explained: do not lose this opportunity of obtaining a worship of our own for our new settlement. — Ver. 15. Then they turned from the road thither, and went to the house of the young Levite, the house of Micah, and asked him (the Levite) concerning his health, i.e. saluted him in a friendly manner (see Gen. xliii. 27, Ex. xviii. 7, etc.). — Yer. 16. The 600 men, however, placed themselves before the door. — Yer. 17. Then the five spies went up, sc. into Micah's house of God, which must therefore have been in an upper room of the building (see 2 Kings xxiii. 12, Jer. xix. 13), and took the image, ephod, etc., whilst the priest stood before the door with the 600 armed men. With the words 'W 1N2 the narrative passes from the aorist or historical tense vJW into the perfect. u The perfects do not denote the coming and taking on the part of the five men as a continuation of the previous account, but place the coming and taking in the same sphere of time as that to which the following clause, ' and the priest stood,' etc., belongs" (JBertheau). But in order to explain what appears very surprising, viz. that the priest should have stood before the gate whilst his house of God was being robbed, the course which the affair took is explained more clearly afterwards in vers. 18, 19, in the form of a circumstantial clause. Consequently the verbs in these verses ought to be rendered as pluperfects, and the different clauses comprised in one period, ver. 18 forming the protasis, and ver. 19 the apodosia.
u Namely, tolien those (five) men had come into Micalis house, and had taken the image of the ephod, etc., and the priest had said to them, What are ye doing? they had said to him, Be silent, lay thy hand upon thy mouth and go with us, and become a father and priest to us (see chap. xvii. 10). Is it better to be a priest to the house of a single man, or to a tribe and family in Israel?" The combination "ris^n /pa (the ephod-pesel), i.e. the image belonging to the ephod, may be explained on the ground, that the use of the ephod as a means of ascertaining the will of God presupposes the existence of an image of Jehovah, and does not prove that the ephod served as a covering for the pesel. The priest put on the ephod when he was about to inquire of God. The 1k in the second question is different from DK, and signifies " or rather" (see Gen. xxiv. 55), indicating an improvement upon the first question (see Ewald, § 352, a.). Consequently it is not a sign of a later usage of speech, as Bertheau supposes. The word nnQB>OT (unto a family) serves as a more minute definition or limitation of B?B? (to a tribe). — Ver. 20. Then was the priest's heart glad (merry; cf. chap. xix. 6, 9, Ruth iii. 7), and he took the ephod, etc., and came amongst the people (the Danites). The first clause of this verse is attached to the supplementary statement in vers. 18, 19, for the purpose of linking on the further progress of the affair, which is given in the second clause; for, according to ver. 17, the priest could only receive the ephod, etc., into his charge from the hands of the Danites, since they had taken them out of Mieah's God's house. — Ver. 21. The 600 Danites then set out upon their road again and went away; and they put the children, the cattle, and the valuable possessions in front, because they were afraid of being attacked by Micah and his people from behind, ^n, " the little ones," includes both women and children, as the members of the family who were in need of protection (see at Ex. xii. 37). rTTD3 is literally an adjective, signifying splendid; but here it is a neuter substantive: the valuables, not the heavy baggage. The 600 men had emigrated with their families and possessions. — Vers. 22, 23. The two clauses of ver. 22 are circumstantial clauses: " When they (the 600) had got to some distance from Micalis house, and the men who were in the houses by Micalis house were called together, and had overtaken the Danites, they (i.e. Micah and his people, whom he had called together from the neighbourhood to pursue the emigrants) called to the Danites; and they turned their faces, and said to Micah, What is to thee (what is the matter), that thou hast gathered together?" — »
Vers. 24, 25. And when he replied, " Ye have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and have departed; what is there still to me (what have I left) 1 and how can ye say to me. What is to thee V they ordered him to be silent, lest he should forfeit his life: " Let not thy voice be heard among us, lest men of savage disposition (Vp} *5D as in 2 Sam. xvii. 8) should fall upon thee (yid. chap. xv. 12, viii. 21, etc.), and thou shouldst not save thy life and that of thy household," i.e. shouldst bring death upon thyself and thy family. nrisps) is also dependent upon }3. — Ver. 26. Then the Danites went their way; but Micah, seeing that they were stronger than he, turned back and returned home. — Vers. 27, 28. And they (the Danites) had taken what Micah had made, i.e. his idols and his priest, and they fell upon Laish (?y Ni3, to come over a person, to fall upon him, as in Gen. xxxiv. 25), a people living quietly and free from care (yid. ver. 7), smote them with the edge of the sword (see at Gen. xxxiv. 26), and burned down the city (cf. Josh. vi. 24), as it had no deliverer in its isolated condition (ver. 28a; cf. ver. 7). It was situated " in the valley which stretches to Beth-rehob." This valley is the upper part of the Huleh lowland, through which the central source of the Jordan (Leddan) flows, and by which Laish- Dan, the present Tell el Kadi, stood (see at Josh. xix. 47). Bethrehob is most probably the same place as the Rehob mentioned in Num. xiii. 21, and the Beth-rehob of 2 Sam. x. 6, which is there used to designate a part of Syria, and for which Rehob only is also used in ver. 8. Robinson (Bibl. Res. pp. 371 sqq.) supposes it to be the castle of Hunin or Honin, on the south-west of Tell el Kadi; but this is hardly correct (see the remarks on Num. xiii. 21, Pent, vol. iii. p. 88). The city, which lay in ashes, was afterwards rebuilt by the Danites, and called Dan, from the name of the founder of their tribe; and the ruins are still to be seen, as already affirmed, on the southern slope of the Tell el Kadi (see Rob. Bibl. Res. pp. 391-2, and the comm. on Josh. xix. 47).
Vers. 30, 31. Establishment of the Image-worship in Dan. — After the rebuilding of Laish under the name of Dan, the Danites set up the pesel or image of Jehovah, which they had taken with them out of Micah' s house of God. "And Jehonathan, the son of Ger shorn, the son of Moses, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites till the day of the captivity of the land.,J As the Danites had taken the Levite whom Micah had engaged for his private worship with them to Dan, and had promised him the priesthood (vers. 19 and 27), Jehonathan ca * hardly be any other than this Levite. He was a son of Gershom, the son of Moses (Ex. n. 22, xviii. 3; 1 Chron. xxiii. 14, 15). Instead of n«p-|3, our Masoretic text has nt5bD"|a with a hanging }. With regard to this reading, the Talmud (Baba bathr. f. 109&) observes: "Was he a son of Gershom, or was he not rather a son of Moses? as it is written, the sons of Moses were Gershom and Eliezer (1 Chron. xxiii. 14), but because he did the deeds of Manasseh (the idolatrous son of Hezekiah, 2 Kings xxi.) the Scripture assigns him to the family of Manasseh." On this Rabbabar bar Channa observes, that " the prophet (i.e. the author of our book) studiously avoided calling Gershom the so?i of Moses, because it would have been ignominious to Moses to have had an ungodly son; but he calls him the son of Manasseh, raising the J, however, above the line, to show that it might either be inserted or omitted, and that he was the son of either ntwo (Manasseh) or nt^'o (Moses), — of Manasseh through imitating his impiety, of Moses by descent " (cf. Buxtorfi Tiber, p. 171). Later Rabbins say just the same. R. Tanchum calls the writing Menasseh, with a hanging nun, a D'HSiD ppri? and speaks of ben Mosheh as Kethibh, and ben Menasseh as Keri. Ben Mosheh is therefore unquestionably the original reading, although the other reading ben Menasseh is also very old, as it is to be found in the Targums and the Syriac and Sept. versions, although some Codd. of the LXX. have the reading vlov Moovarj (vid. Kennic. dissert, gener. in V. T. § 21).1 Jerome also has flii Moysi. At the same time, it does not follow with certainty from the reading ben Gershom that Jehonathan was actually a son of Gershom, as ben frequently denotes a grandson in such genealogical accounts, unknown fathers being passed over in the genealogies. There is very little probability of his having been a son, for the simple reason, that if Jehonathan was the same person as Micah's high priest — and there is no ground for doubting this — he is described as "W3 in chap. xvii. 7, xviii. 3, 15, and therefore was at any rate a young man, whereas the son of Gershom and grandson of Moses would certainly have passed the age of youth by a few years after the death of Joshua. This Jehonathan and his sons performed the duties of the priesthood at Dan pKH rSbl DV-*W. This statement is obscure. pKn 11173 can hardly mean anything else than the carrying away of the people of the land into exile, that is to say, of
1 These two readings of the LXX. seem to be fused together in the text given by Theodoret (qusest. xxvi.): \(*va.8<tv yap Qnotv viog Metvcuroij, vlov Tipcaf* viov M<*ort the inhabitants of Dan and the neighbourhood at least, since n?3 is the standing expression for this. Most of the commentators suppose the allusion to be to the Assyrian captivity, or primarily to the carrying away by Tiglath-Pileser of the northern tribes of Israel, viz. the population of Gilead, Galilee, and the tribe of Naphtali, in the midst of which Laish-Dan was situated (2 Kings xv. 29). But the statement in ver. 31, " And they set them up Micalis graven image, which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh" is by no means reconcilable with such a conclusion. We find the house of God, i.e. the Mosaic tabernacle, which the congregation had erected at Shiloh in the days of Joshua (Josh, xviii. 1), still standing there in the time of Eli and Samuel (1 Sam. i. 3 sqq., iii. 21, iv. 3); but in the time of Saul it was at Nob (1 Sam. xxi.), and during the reign of David at Gibeon (1 Chron. xvi. 39, xxi. 29). Consequently " the house of God " only stood in Shiloh till the reign of Saul, and was never taken there again. If therefore Mieah's image, which the Danites set up in Dan, remained there as long as the house of God wyas at Shiloh, Jonathan's sons can only have been there till Saul's time at the longest, and certainly cannot have been priests at this sanctuary in Dan till the time of the Assyrian captivity.1 There are also other historical facts to be considered, which render the continuance of this Danite imageworship until the Assyrian captivity extremely improbable, or rather preclude it altogether. Even if we should not lay any stress upon the fact that the Israelites under Samuel put away the Baalim and Astartes in consequence of his appeal to them to turn to the Lord (1 Sam. vii. 4), it is hardly credible that in the time of David the image-worship should have continued at Dan by the side of the lawful worship of Jehovah which he restored and organized, and should not have been observed and suppressed by this king, who carried on repeated wars in the northern part of his kingdom. Still more incredible would the continuance of this image-worship appear after the erection of Solomon's temple, when all the men of Israel, and all the elders and heads of tribes, came to Jerusalem, at the summons of Solomon, to celebrate the consecration of this splendid national sanctuary (1 Kings v.-vii.). Lastly, the supposition that the image-worship established by the Danites
1 The impossibility of reconciling the statement as to time in ver. 81 with the idea that " the captivity of the land " refers to the Assyrian captivity, is admitted even by Bleek (Einl. p. 349), who adopts HoubiganCs conjecture, vix. JTiNn nii>3, M the carrying away of the ark."
at Dan still continued to exist, is thoroughly irreconcilable with the fact, that when Jeroboam established the kingdom of the ten tribes he had two golden calves made as images of Jehovah for the subjects of his kingdom, and set up one of them at Dan, and appointed priests out of the whole nation who were not of the sons of Levi. If an image-worship of Jehovah had been still in existence in Dan, and conducted by Levitical priests, Jeroboam would certainly not have established a second worship of the same kind under priests who were not Levitical. All these difficulties preclude our explaining the expression, " the day of the captivity of the land," as referring to either the Assyrian or Babylonian captivity. It can only refer to some event which took place in the last years of Samuel, or the first part of the reign of Saul. David Kimchi and many others have interpreted the expression as relating to the carrying away of the ark by the Philistines, for which the words?N"]^9 ^33 i"6| are used in 1 Sam. iv. 21, 22 (e.g. Hengstenberg, Beitr. vol. ii. pp. 153 sqq.; Hdvernick, Einl. ii. 1, p. 109; 0. t\ Gerlach, and others). With the carrying away of the ark of the covenant, the tabernacle lost its significance as a sanctuary of Jehovah. We learn from Ps. Ixxviii. 59-64 how the godly in Israel regarded that event. They not only looked upon it as a casting away of the dwelling-place of God at Shiloh; but in the fact that Jehovah gave up His might and glory (i.e. the ark) into captivity, they discerned a surrender of the nation into the full power of its foes which resembled a carrying away into captivity. For, apart altogether from the description in Ps. Ixxviii. 62-64, we may infer with certainty from the account of the tyranny which these foes still exercised over the Israelites in the time of Saul (1 Sam. xiii. 19-23), that, after this victory, the Philistines may have completely subjugated the Israelites, and treated them as their prisoners. We may therefore affirm with Hengstenberg, that " the author looked upon the whole land as carried away into captivity in its sanctuary, which formed as it were *ts kernel and essence." If, however, this figurative explanation of H^n fife should not be accepted, there is no valid objection to our concluding that the words refer to some event with which we have no further acquaintance, in which the city of Dan was conquered by the neighbouring Syrians, and the inhabitants carried away into captivity. For it is evident enough from the fact of the kings of Zoba being mentioned, in 1 Sam. xiv. 47, among the different enemies of Israel against whom Saul carried on war, that the Syrians also invaded Israel in the time of the Philistine supremacy, and carried Israelites away out of the conquered towns and districts. The Danite imageworship, however, was probably suppressed and abolished when Samuel purified the land and people from idolatry, after the ark had been brought back by the Philistines (1 Sam. ii. sqq.).
WAR OF THE CONGREGATION WITH THE TRIBE OF BENJAMIN ON ACCOUNT OF THE CRIME AT GIBEAH. — CHAP. XIX. XX.
This account belongs to the times immediately following the death of Joshua, as we may see from the fact that Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the contemporary of Joshua, was high priest at that time (chap. xx. 28). In chap. xix. we have an account of the infamous crime committed by the inhabitants of Gibeah, which occasioned the war; in chap. xx. the war itself; and in chap. xxi. an account of what was afterwards done by the congregation to preserve the tribe of Benjamin, which was almost annihilated by the war.
Chap. xix. Infamous Crime of the Inhabitants of Gibeah. — Vers. 1-14. At the time when there was no king in Israel, a Levite, who sojourned (i.e. lived outside a Levitical town) in the more remote parts of the mountains of Ephraim, took to himself a concubine out of Bethlehem in Judah, who proved unfaithful to him, and then returned to her father's house. ^"^"""in Tl^l-y the hinder or outermost parts of the mountains of Ephraim, are the northern extremity of these mountains; according to ver. 18, probably the neighbourhood of Shiloh. Ivy n:Tn? " she played the harlot out beyond him" i.e. was unfaithful to her husband, "and then went away from him" back to her father's house. — Vers. 3, 4. Some time afterwards, namely at the end of four months (own nyaiK is in apposition to D^, and defines more precisely the D^pj, or days), her husband went after her, " to speak to her to the heart" i.e. to talk to her in a friendly manner (see Gen. xxxiv. 3), and to reconcile her to himself again, so that she might return; taking with him his attendant and a couple of asses, for himself and his wife to ride upon. The suffix attached to ta^np refers to nnp, " to bring back her heart," to turn her to himself again. The Keri nytfn is a needless conjecture. " And she brought him into her father s house, and her father received his son-in-law with joy, and constrained him (to'pT/T, lit, held him fast) to remain there tfa%ee days!1 It is evident from this that the Levite had succeeded in reconciling his wife. — Vers. 5 sqq. Also on the fourth day, when he was about to depart in the morning, the Levite yielded to the persuasion of his father-in-law, that he would first of all strengthen his heart again with a bit of bread (pb 1VD as in Gen. xviii. 5; the imperative form with o is unusual); and then afterwards, whilst they were eating and drinking, he consented to stay another night. — Ver. 7. When he rose up to go, his father-in-law pressed him; then he turned back (35^ is quite in place, and is not to be altered into 3E?5> according to the LXX. and one Heb. Cod.), and remained there for the night. — Ver. 8. And even in the morning of the fifth day he suffered himself to be induced to remain till the afternoon. ^nonorin is an imperative, " Tarry till the day turns," i.e. till mid-day is past. — Vers. 9, 10. When at length he rose up, with his concubine and his attendant, to go away, the father entreated his daughter once more: " Behold the day has slackened to become evening, spend the night here! Behold the declining of the day, spend the night here,1 etc. rfan inf. of njn? to bend, incline. The interchange of the plural and singular may be explained from the simple fact that the Levite was about to depart with his wife and attendant, but that their remaining or departing depended upon the decision of the man alone. But the Levite did not consent to remain any longer, but set out upon the road, and came with his companions to before Jebus, i.e. Jerusalem, which is only two hours from Bethlehem (compare Bob. Pal. ii. 375 with 379). rainy, to before Jebus, for the road from Bethlehem to Shiloh went past Jerusalem. — Vers. 11 sqq. But as the day had gone far down when they were by Jebus (*n, third pers. perf, either of TV with * dropped like nnn in 2 Sam. xxii. 41 for nnra or from Tn in the sense of "n"1), the attendant said to his master, " Come, let us turn aside into this Jebusite city, and pass the night in it." But his master was unwilling to enter a city of the foreigners (^3 is a genitive), where there were none 6f the sons of Israel, and would pass over to Gibeah. " Come (j\? = ra?> Num. xxiii. 13), we will draw near to one of the places (which he immediately names), and pass the night in Gibeah or BamahV These two towns, the present Jeba and er Ram, were not a full hour's journey apart, and stood opposite to one another, only about two and a half or three hours from Jerusalem (see at Josh, xviii. 25, 28). — Ver. 14. Then they went forward, and the sun went down upon them as they were near (at) Gibeah of Benjamin.
Vers. 15-30. And they turned aside thither to pass the night in Gibeah; and he (the Levite) remained in the market-place of the town, as no one received them into his house to pass the night. — Vers. 16 sqq. Behold, there came an old man from the field, who was of the mountains of Ephraim, and dwelt as a stranger in Gibeah, the inhabitants of which were Benjaminites (as is observed here, as a preliminary introduction to the account which follows). When he saw the traveller in the market-place of the town, he asked him whither he was going and whence he came; and when he had heard the particulars concerning his descent and his journey, he received him into his house, ^'n "OX '* rP37ttfl (ver. 18), " and I walk at the house of Jehovah, and no one receives me into his house" (Seb. Schm., etc.); not " I am going to the house of Jehovah" (Ros., Berth., etc.), for HN Tjpn does not signify to go to a place, for which the simple accusative is used either with or without n local. It either means " to go through a place" (Deut. i. 19, etc.), or " to go with a person," or, when applied to things, " to go about with anything" (see Job xxxi. 5, and Ges. Thes. p. 378). Moreover, in this instance the Levite was not going to the house of Jehovah (i.e. the tabernacle), but, as he expressly told the old man, from Bethlehem to the outermost sides of the mountains of Ephraim. The words in question explain the reason why he was staying in the marketplace. Because he served at the house of Jehovah, no one in Gibeah would receive him into his house,1 although, as he adds in ver. 19, he had everything with him that was requisite for his wants. " We have both straw and fodder for our asses, and bread and wine for me and thy maid, and for the young man with thy servants. No want of anything at all" so as to cause him to be burdensome to his host. By the words u thy maid " and u thy servants " he means himself and his concubine, describing himself and his wife, according to the obsequious style of the East in olden times, as servants of the man from whom he was expecting a welcome. — Ver. 20. The old man replied, " Peace to thee," assuring him of a welcome by this style of greeting; " only all thy wants upon me," i.e. let me provide for them. Thus the friendly host declined the offer made by his guest to provide for himself. " Only do not pass the night in the market-place." — Ver. 21. He then took him into
1 As Seb. Schmidt correctly observes, " the argument is taken from the indignity shown him: the Lord thinks me worthy to minister to Him, as a Levite, in His house, and there is not one of the people of the Lord who think* me worthy to receive his hospitality."
his house, mixed fodder for his asses (?toj from p?2, a denom. verb from?v3, to make a mixture, to give fodder to the beasts), and waited upon his guest with washing of feet, food, and drink (see Gen. xviii. 4 sqq., xix. 2). — Yer. 22. Whilst they were enjoying themselves, some worthless men of the city surrounded the house, knocking continuously at the door (pB*nnn, a form indicative of gradual increase), and demanding of the master of the house that he would bring out the man who had entered his house, that they might know him, — the very same demand that the Sodomites had made of Lot (Gen. xix. 6 sqq.). The construct state?yv2"\n ^EOK is used instead of 'b"*»33 D^JK (Dent. xiii. 14, etc.), because Wo *ia is regarded as one idea: people of worthless fellows. Other cases of the same kind are given by Ewald,- Lehrb. § 289, c. — Vers. 23 sqq. The old man sought, as Lot had done, to defend his guests from such a shameful crime by appealing to the sacred rights of hospitality, and by giving up his own virgin daughter and the concubine of his guest (see the remarks on Gen. xix. 7, 8). nJ??j folly, used to denote shameful licentiousness and whoredom, as in masculine is used in CHIN and En? as the more general gender, instead of the more definite feminine, as in Gen. xxxix. 9, Ex. i. 21, etc. — Vers. 25 sqq. But as the people would not listen to this proposal, the man (no doubt the master of the house, according to ver. 24) took his (the guest's) concubine (of course with the consent of his guest) and led her out to them, and they abused her the whole night. It is not stated how it was that they were satisfied with this; probably because they felt too weak to enforce their demand. 3 ^VT)T}f to exercise his power or wantonness upon a person (see Ex. x. 2). — Ver. 26. When the morning drew on (i.e. at the first dawn of day), the woman fell down before the door of the house in which n^lN, « ner lord," i.e. her husband, was, and lay there till it was light, i.e. till sunrise. — Ver. 27. There her husband found her, when he opened the house-door to go his way (having given up all thought of receiving her back again from the barbarous crowd), " lying before the house-door, and her hands upon the threshold " (i.e. with outstretched arms), and giving no answer to his word, having died, that is to say, in consequence of the ill-treatment of the night. He then took the corpse upon his ass to carry it to his place, i.e. to his home. — Ver. 29. As soon as he arrived there, he cut up the body, according to its bones (as they cut slaughtered animals in pieces: see at Lev. i. 6), into twelve pieces, and sent them (the corpse in its pieces) into the whole of the territory of Israel, i.e. to all the twelve tribes, in the hope that every one who saw it would say: No such thing has happened or been seen since the coming up of Israel out of Egypt until this day. Give ye heed to it (yy& for 3^> }D*b>); make up your minds and say on, i.e. decide how this unparalleled wickedness is to be punished. Sending the dissected pieces of the corpse to the tribes was a symbolical act, by which the crime committed upon the murdered woman was placed before the eyes of the whole nation, to summon it to punish the crime, and was naturally associated with a verbal explanation of the matter by the bearer of the pieces. See the analogous proceeding on the part of Saul (1 Sam. xi. 7), and the Scythian custom related by Lucian in Toxaris, c. 48, that whoever was unable to procure satisfaction for an injury that he had received, cut an ox in pieces and sent it round, whereupon all who were willing to help him to obtain redress took a piece, and swore that they would stand by him to the utmost of their strength. The perfects 1D$ — rrrn (ver. 30) are not used for the imperfects c. vav consec. "i£N*1 — TO, as Hitzig supposes, but as simple perfects imperfecta conseq.), expressing the result which the Levite expected from his conduct; and we have simply to supply ibKP before ^\ which is often omitted in lively narrative or animated conversation (compare, for example, Ex. viii. 5 with Judg. vii. 2). The perfects are used by the historian instead of imperfects with a simple vav, which are commonly employed in clauses indicating intention, " because what he foresaw would certainly take place, floated before his mind as a thing already done " (Rosenmiiller}. The moral indignation, which the Levite expected on the part of all the tribes at such a crime as this, and their resolution to avenge it, are thereby exhibited not merely as an uncertain conjecture, but a fact that was sure to occur, and concerning which, as chap. xx. clearly shows, he had not deceived himself.
Chap. xx. War with Benjamin on the part of all the other Tribes. — The expectation of the Levite was fulfilled. The congregation of Israel assembled at Mizpeh to pass sentence upon Gibeah, and formed the resolution that they would not rest till the crime was punished as it deserved (vers. 1-10). But when the Benjaminites refused to deliver up the offenders in Gibeah, and prepared to offer resistance, the other tribes began to make war upon Gibeah and Benjamin (vers. 11-19), but were twice defeated by the Benjaminites with very great loss (vers. 20-28). At length, however, they succeeded by an act of stratagem in taking Gibeah and burning it to the ground, and completely routing the Benjaminites, and also in putting to death all the men and cattle that they found in the other towns of this tribe, and laying the towns in ashes, whereby the whole of the tribe of Benjamin was annihilated, with the exception of a very small remnant (vers. 29-48).
Vers. 1-11. Decree of the Congregation concerning Gibeah. — Vers. 1, 2. All the Israelites went out (rose up from their dwellingplaces) to assemble together as a congregation like one man; all the tribes from Dan, the northern boundary of the land (i.e. Danlaish, chap, xviii. 29), to Beersheba, the most southerly town of Canaan (see at Gen. xxi. 31), and the land of Gilead, i.e. the inhabitants of the land to the east of the Jordan, " to Jehovah at Mizpeh" in Benjamin, i.e. the present Nebi-samwil, in the neighbourhood of Kirjath-jearim, on the western border of the tribe of Benjamin (see at Josh, xviii. 26). It by no means follows with certainty from the expression " to Jehovah" that there was a sanctuary at Mizpeh, or that the ark of the covenant was taken thither, but simply that the meeting took place in the sight of Jehovah, or that the congregation assembled together to hold a judicial court, which they held in the name of Jehovah, analogous to the expression el-Elohim in Ex. xxi. 6, xxii. 7. It was not essential to a judicial proceeding that the ark should be present. At this assembly the pinnoth (the corner-pillars) of the whole nation presented themselves, i.e. the heads and fathers as the supports of the congregation or of the state organism (via1. 1 Sam. xiv. 38, Isa. xix. 13), even of all the tribes of Israel, four hundred thousand men on foot, drawing the sword, i.e. armed foot soldiers ready for battle. — Ver. 3. " The Benjaminites heard that the children of Israel (the rest of the Israelites, the eleven tribes) had come up to Mizpeh;" but they themselves were not found there. This follows from the fact that nothing is said about the Benjaminites coming, and still more clearly from ver. 13, where it is stated that the assembled tribes sent men to the Benjaminites, after holding their deliberations and forming their resolutions, to call them to account for the crime that had been committed in the midst of them. Consequently the question with which the whole affair was opened, " Say, how did this wicked deed take place?" is not to be regarded as addressed to the two parties, the inhabitants of Gibeah or the Benjaminites and the Levite (Bertheau), but as a summons to all who were assembled to relate what any one knew respecting the occurrence.— Vers. 4-7. Then the Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, described the whole affair, nynan ^3, the owners or citizens of Gibeah (see at chap ix. 2). "Me they intended to JdU:n the Levite draws this conclusion from what had happened to his wife; the men of Gibeah had not expressed any such intention in chap. xix. 22. "All the country (lit. field) of the inheritance of Israel," U all the land of the Israelites, nra? is applied to the vice of lewdness, as in Lev. xviii. 17, which was to be punished with death. '!» o£ **, " give yourselves (0& is dat. comm.) word and counsel here" i.e. make up your minds and pass sentence (vid. 2 Sam. xvi. 20). tftrj, here, where you are all assembled together.-Ver. 8. Then all the people rose up as one man, saying, " We will not any of us go into his tent, neither will we any of us return to his house," sc. till this crime is punished. The sentence follows in ver. 9: " This is the thing that we will do," i.e. this is the way in which we will treat Gibeah: "against it by lot" (sc. we will act). The Syriac gives the sense correctly— We will cast lots upon it; but the LXX. quite erroneously supply toafa*6i*0a (we will go up); and in accordance with this, many expositors connect the words with ver. 10 in the following sense: "We will choose one man out of every ten by lot, to supply the army with the necessary provision during the expedition." This is quite a mistake, because in this way a subordinate point, which only comes into consideration in connection with the execution of the sentence, would be made the chief point, and the sentence itself would not be given at all. The words " against it bu lot" contain the resolution that was formed concerning the sinful town and have all the enigmatical brevity of judicial sentences, and are to be explained from the course laid down in the Mosaic law with regard to the Canaanites, who were to be exterminated, and their land divided by lot among the Israelites. Consequently the meaning is simply this: "Let us proceed with the lot against Gibeah," i.e. let us deal with it as with the towns of the Canaanites, conquer it, lay it in ashes, and distribute its territory by lot. In ver 10 a subordinate circumstance is mentioned, which was necessary to enable them to carry out the resolution that had been made. As4 the assembled congregation had determined to keep together for the purpose of carrying on war (ver. 8), it was absolutely necessary that resources should be provided for those who were actively engaged in the war. For this purpose they chose one man in every ten " to fetch provision for the people," Dtfb} 1*6 " that they might do on their coming to Gibeah of Benjamin according to all the folly which had been done in Israel" i.e. might punish the wickedness in Gibeah as it deserved. — Ver. 11. Thus the men of Israel assembled together against Gibeah, united as one man. DV??n> lit. as comrades, simply serves to strengthen the expression "as one man." With this remark, which indicates briefly the carrying out of the resolution that was adopted, the account of the meeting of the congregation is brought to a close; but the actual progress of the affair is really anticipated, inasmuch as what is related in vers. 12-21 preceded the expedition in order of time.
Vers. 12-19. Before the tribes of Israel entered upon the war, they sent men to all the tribes of Benjamin, who were to demand that the culprits in Gibeah should be given up to be punished, that the evil might thus be exterminated from Israel, according to the law in Deut. xxii. 22 as compared with chap. xiii. 6 and xvii. 12. " The tribes- of Benjamin" are the same as " the families of Benjamin:" the historian pictured to himself the different divisions of the tribe of Benjamin as warlike powers about to carry on a war with the other tribes of Israel. The word shebet (tribe) is used in a different way in Num. iv. 18. But the Benjaminites would not hearken to the voice of their brethren, the other tribes of Israel. The Keri (sons of Benjamin) is a needless alteration, since Benjamin may be construed with the plural as a collective term. By refusing this just demand on the part of the other tribes, the J
Benjaminites took the side of the culprits in Gibeah, and compelled the congregation to make war upon the whole tribe. — Vers. 14 sqq. Both sides now made their preparations. The Benjaminites assembled together at Gibeah out of their different towns, and " were mustered 26,000 men drawing the sword, beside the inhabitants of Gibeah they were mustered, 700 'picked men" (V"lj?snn? with the reduplication dropped, like the Hothpael in Num. i. 47). " Out of all this people there were 700 picked men, lamed in the right hand, all these (were) slinging with a stone (hitting) at a hairs breadth without fail" These statements are not quite clear. Since, according to the distinct words of ver. 16, the 700 slingers with their left hands were " out of the whole people," i.e. out of the whole number of fighting men mentioned in ver. 16, they cannot be the same as the 700 chosen men referred to in ver. 15, notwithstanding the similarity in the numbers and the expression " chosen men." The obscurity arises chiefly from the word ^i?^nn in ver. 15, which is separated by the Masoretic accents from 'D V2Wf and connected with the previous words: " Beside the inhabitants of Giheah they (the men of the towns of Benjamin) ivere mustered." On the other hand, the earlier translators took the clause as a relative one: "Beside the inhabitants of Gibeah, who were mustered 700 men." And this seems absolutely necessary, because otherwise the following words, " 700 picked men," would stand without any connection; whilst we should certainly expect at least to find the cop. vav, if these 700 men were not inhabitants of Gibeah. But even if Hpann should be taken as a simple repetition of npBTn, according to the analogy of Deut. iii. 5 and 1 Kings v. 30, the statement which follows could not be understood in any other way than as referring to the number of the fighting men of Gibeah. There is something striking too in the fact that only Benjaminites "out of the cities" are mentioned, and that emphasis is laid upon this by the repetition of the expression "out of the cities" (vers. 14, 15). Some have inferred from this, that the Benjaminites as the rulers had settled in the towns, whilst the Canaanites who had been subdued settled as dependants in the villages (Bertheau); or that the Benjaminites had formed military brotherhoods, the members of which lived unmarried in the towns, and that this may possibly account for the abominable crime to which the inhabitants of Gibeah were addicted, and in relation to which the whole tribe took their part (0. v. Gerlach). But such inferences as these are extremely uncertain, as the cities may be mentioned a potiori for all the places inhabited by this tribe. There is another difficulty in the numbers. According to vers. 14, 15, the total number of the fighting men of Benjamin amounted to 26,000 and 700, without reckoning Gibeah. But, according to the account of the battle, 25,100 were slain (ver. 35), viz. 18,000 in the principal engagement, 5000 as a gleaning, and 2000 in the pursuit, i.e. 25,000 men in all (vers. 44-46), and only 600 were left, who fled into the desert to the rock Eimmon (ver. 47). According to these accounts, the whole tribe would have contained only 25,100 + 600 = 25,700 fighting men, or 25,000 + 600 = 25,600. Accordingly, in ver. 15, the LXX. (Cod. Al. etc.) and Vulgate give only 25,000 men; whilst the rest of the ancient versions have 26,000, in agreement with the Masoretic text. Josephus (Ant. v. 2, 10) also gives the number of fighting men in Benjamin as 25,600, of whom 600 were splendid slingers; but he has merely taken the numbers from vers. 44-47. Now, although mistakes do frequently occur in the numbers given, it is a. most improbable supposition that we have a mistake of this kind (26,000 for 25,000) in the instance before us, since even the latter number would not agree with vers. 44 sqq.; and the assumption, that in vers. 35 and 44 sqq. we have an account of all the Benjaminites who fell, finds no support whatever in the history itself. In the verses referred to we have simply a statement of the number of Benjaminites who fell in the defeat which they sustained on the third day, whereas the victories which they gained on the first and second days could hardly have been obtained without some loss on their part; on the contrary, we may confidently assume that they would not lose less than a thousand men, though these are not mentioned in the brief account before us. The other difference between ver. 35 and vers. 44—46, viz. that 25,100 are given in the one and 25,000 in the other, may be explained on the simple assumption that we have only the full thousands mentioned in the latter, whilst the exact number is given in the former. " Lefthanded:" see at chap. iii. 15. — Vers. 17, 18. The forces of the other tribes amounted when numbered to 400,000 men. These numbers (26,000 Benjaminites and 400,000 Israelites) will not appear too great if we consider that the whole of the congregation of Israel took part in the war, with the simple exception of Jabesh in Gilead (chap. xxi. 8), and that in the time of Moses the twelve tribes numbered more than 600,000 men of twenty years old and upwards (Num. xxvi.), so that not much more than two-thirds of the whole of the fighting men went out to the war. — Ver. 18. Before opening the campaign the Israelites went to Bethel, to inquire of God which tribe should commence the war, i.e. should fight at the head of the other tribes (on the fact itself, see chap. i. 1); and God appointed the tribe of Judah, as in chap. i. 2. They went to Bethel,1 not to Shiloh, where the tabernacle was standing, because that place was too far from the seat of war. The ark of the covenant was therefore brought to Bethel, and Phinehas the high priest inquired of the Lord before it through the Urim and Thummim (vers. 27, 28). Bethel was on the northern boundary of the tribe of Benjamin, and was consecrated to this purpose before any other place by the revelations of God which had been made to the patriarch Jacob there (Gen. xxviii. and xxxv.). — Ver. 19. Thus equipped, the Israelites proceeded against Gibeah.
Vers. 20-28. As soon as the Israelites had posted themselves at Gibeah in battle array (n9^9 *D?, to put in a row, or arrange the war or conflict, i.e. to put themselves in battle array, 1 Sam. iv. 2, 1 Rendered " the house of God" in the English version. — Ta xvii 2, etc.), the Benjaminites came out and destroyed 22,000 men of Israel upon that day. »"NPK WJ?fy to destroy to the earth, i.e. to lay dead upon the ground. — Ver. 22. Notwithstanding this terrible overthrow, the people strengthened themselves, and prepared again for battle, u at the same place" where they had made ready on the first day, " seeking out of pure vainglory to wipe out the stains and the disgrace which their previous defeat had brought upon them" (Berleb. Bible). — Ver. 23. But before renewing the conflict they went up to Bethel, wept there before Jehovah, i.e. before the sanctuary of the ark, where Jehovah was present in the midst oi His people, enthroned between the cherubim, until the evening, and then inquired of the Lord (again through the high priest), " Shall I again draw near to war with the children of Benjamin my brother" (i.e. renew the war with him)? The answer ran thus: " Advance against him." — Vers. 24, 25. But on the second day also the Benjaminites brought 18,000 of them to the ground. " The second day" is not the day following the first engagement, as if the battles had been fought upon two successive days, but the second day of actual fighting, which took place some days after the first, for the inquiry was made at Bethel as to the will of God between the two engagements. — Vers. 26 sqq. After this second terrible overthrow, " the children of Israel" (i.e. those who were engaged in the war), and " all the people" i.e. the rest of the people, those members of the congregation who were not capable of bearing arms, old men and women, came to Bethel, to complain to the Lord of their misfortune, and secure His favour by fasting and sacrifices. The congregation now discovered, from this repeated defeat, that the Lord had withdrawn His grace, and was punishing them. Their sin, however, did not consist in the fact that they had begun the war itself, — for the law in Deut. xxii. 22, to which they themselves had referred in ver. 13, really required this, — but rather in the state of mind with which they had entered upon the war, their strong self-consciousness, and great confidence in their own might and power. They had indeed inquired of God (Elohini) who should open the conflict; but they had neglected to humble themselves before Jehovah the covenant God, in the consciousness not only of their own weakness and sinfulness, but also of grief at the moral corruption of their brother-tribe. It is certainly not without significance, that in ver. 18 it is stated that " they asked God" (yR& D^npfcO^ i.e, they simply desired a supreme or divine decision as to the question who should lead the van in the war; whereas, after the first defeat, they wept before Jehovah, and inquired of Jehovah (ver. 23), the covenant God, for whose law and right they were about to contend. But even then there were still wanting the humility and penitence, without which the congregation of the Lord could not successfully carry on the conflict against the ungodly. The remark in ver. 22, " The people felt (showed) themselves strong, and added (continued) to set in array the war" is thoroughly expressive of the feeling of the congregation. They resolved upon the continuance of the war, in the full consciousness of their superior power and numerical strength; and it was not till afterwards that they complained to the Lord of their misfortune, and inquired whether they should renew the conflict. The question was followed by a corresponding answer on the part of God, u Go up against him" which certainly sanctioned the continuance of the war, but gave no promise as to the result, because the people, thinking that they might be certain of success, had not inquired about that at all. It was not till after the second severe defeat, when 22,000 and 18,000, the tenth part of the whole army, had fallen, that they humbled themselves before the Lord. They not only wept because of the calamity which had befallen them, but fasted the same day before the Lord, — the fasting being the manifest expression of the bending of the heart before God, — and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings. The shelamim here are not thank-offerings, but supplicatory offerings, presented to implore the gracious assistance of God, and to commemorate the enjoyment of fellowship with the Lord, through the sacrificial meal associated with this sacrifice (as in chap. xxi. 4, 1 Sam. xiii. 9, 2 Sam. xxiv. 25). — Vers. 27, 28. Having made these preparations, they inquired of the Lord whether they should continue the war, and received this reply: " Go up (against Benjamin); for to-morrow Twill give it vtdo thy hand" (T7J, the hand of the congregation carrying on the war). To this the supplementary remark is appended, that the ark of the covenant was at Bethel in those days, and the high priest served before it. The expression " in those days" implies that the ark of the covenant was only temporarily at Bethel, and therefore had been brought thither from the tabernacle at Shiloh during this war.
Vers. 29-48. The Victory on the Third Day's Engagement — Ver. 29. The account of this commences with the most important point, so far as their success was concerned: Israel set Hers in wait (troops in ambush) round about Gibeah. — Ver. 30. They then advanced as on the former occasions. — Vers. 31, 32. The Bcnjaminites came out again to meet the people (of Israel), and were drawn away from the town (the perfect *pR3n without ^ is subordinate to the preceding verb, and defines more precisely the advance itself, whilst the mode in which they were drawn away from the town is not described more fully till vers. 32, 33), and began to smite the beaten of the people (who pretended to fly) as formerly upon the roads (where two roads part), of which one led up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah, into the field (Gibeah is the town at which the battle took place, that is to say, somewhere in the neighbourhood, so that a road miodit easilv run from the field of battle towards the town into the field), " about (sc. putting to death) thirty men of Israel." This statement introduces the more precise definition of the Ey^n. — Ver. 32. Then the Benjaminites supposed that Israel was beaten by them as before; but the Israelites said: We will flee, and draw it (the tribe of Benjamin) away from the town to the roads (the highroads mentioned in ver. 31). On the Dagesh dirimens in VTOaTU, see Ewald, § 92, c. — Ver. 33. Carrying out this plan, u all the men of Israel rose up from their place,', i.e. left the place they had occupied, drew back, " and set themselves in battle array" in Baalthamar, i.e. palm-place, which still existed, according to the Onom., in the time of JEusebius, as a small place in the neighbourhood of Gibeah, bearing the name of Bethamar. While this was going on, the ambush of Israel broke forth from its position " from the plains of Geba." The air. \ey. fTjyip, from i*ny to strip, denotes a naked region destitute of wood. J^a is the masculine form for ny33, and yii"rnysD a more precise definition of tatfpBD. This rendering, which is the one given in the Targum, certainly appears the simplest explanation of a word that has been rendered in very different ways, and which the LXX. left untranslated as a proper name, MapaayaftL The objection raised to this, viz. that a naked level country was not a place for an ambush, has no force, as there is no necessity to understand the words as signifying that the treeless country formed the actual hiding-place of the ambush; but the simple meaning is, that when the men broke from their hiding-place, they came from the treeless land towards the town. The rendering given by Rashi, Trem., and others, " on account of the stripping of Gibeah," is much less suitable, since, apart from the difficulty of taking p? in different senses so close together, we should at least expect to find "Vyn (the city) instead of joa. — Ver. 34. Through the advance of the ambush there came 10,000 picked men of all
Israel " from opposite to Gibeah" (who now attacked in the rear the Benjaminites who were pursuing the flying army of Israel); " and the contest became severe, since they (the Benjaminites) did not know that the calamity was coming upon them" — Ver. 35. And Jehovah smote Benjamin before Israel (according to His promise in ver. 28), so that the Israelites destroyed of Benjamin on that day twenty and five thousand and an hundred men (i.e. twenty-five thousand and upwards).
This was the result of the battle, which the historian gives at once, before entering more minutely into the actual account of the battle itself. He does this in vers. 36-46 in a series of explanations, of which one is attached to the other, for the most part in the form of circumstantial clauses, so that it is not till ver. 46 that he again comes to the result already announced in ver. 35.1 — Ver. 36. The Benjaminites, for instance, saw (this is the proper rendering of ***"!!! with vav consec.y which merely indicates the order of thought, not that of time) that they were beaten, and the men of Israel vacated the field before Benjamin (Dipft |ro, to give place by falling back and flying), because they relied upon the ambush which they had placed against Gibeah. The Benjaminites did not perceive this till the ambush fell upon their rear. But the ambush itself, as is added in ver. 37 by way of further explanation, hastened and fell (fell as quickly as possible) into Gibeah, and went thither and smote the whole town with the edge of the sword. To this there is added the further explanation in ver. 38: " And the arrangement of the Israelites with the ambush was this: multiply, to cause smokerising to ascend (i.e. cause a great cloud of smoke to ascend) out of the cityT The only objection that can be raised to this view of S^n, as the imperative Hiphil of rn"j, is the suffix D— attached to Drripyn? since this is unsuitable to a direct address. This suffix can only be explained by supposing that there is an admixture of two constructions, the direct appeal, and the indirect explanation, that they were to cause to ascend. If this be not admitted, however, we can only follow Studer, and erase the suffix as an error of the pen occasioned by the following word J")K^?; for the other course sug-
1 The opinions expressed by De Wette, etc., that ver. 35 is spurious, and by Beriheau, that vers. 36-46 contain a different account of the battle, simply prove that they have overlooked this peculiarity in the Hebrew mode of writing history, viz. that the general result of any occurrence is given as early as possible, and then the details follow afterwards; whilst these critics have not succeeded iu adducing even apparent differences in support of their opinions.
gested by Bertheau, namely that 2"in should be struck out as a gloss, is precluded by the circumstance that there is no possible way of explaining the interpolation of so apparently unsuitable a word into the text. It certainly stood in the text used by the LXX., though they have most foolishly confounded 3"in with 2"in, and rendered it fia^aipa. — Ver. 39. " And the men of Israel turned in the battle:'' that is to say, as is afterwards more fully explained in vers. 39, 40, in the form of a long new circumstantial clause, wThilst Benjamin had begun to smite, etc. (repeated from vers. 31, 32), and the cloud (ns^Dn =)vyr\ n«WD, ver. 38) had begun to ascend out of the city as a pillar of smoke, and Benjamin turned back, and behol'd the whole city ascended towards heaven (in smoke), Israel turned (fighting) and Benjamin was terrified, for it saw that misfortune had come upon it (see ver. 34). In ver. 41a, the thread of the narrative, which was interrupted by the long circumstantial clause, is again resumed by the repetition of " and the men of Israel turned." — Ver. 42. The Benjaminites " now turned (flying) before the Israelites to the way of the desert" i.e. no doubt the desert which rises from Jericho to the mountains of Bethel (Josh. xvi. 1). They fled therefore towards the north-east; but the battle had overtaken (reached or seized) them, and those out of the towns (had perished). The difficult expression ^^VnD "IKW, of which very different, and for the most part arbitrary, explanations have been given, can only be in apposition to the suffix attached to the verb: "Benjamin, and in fact those who had come to the help of Gibeah out of the towns of Benjamin" (see vers. 14, 15), i.e. all the Benjaminites. The following words, 'W DTTrK^ are a circumstantial clause explanatory of the previous clause, 'inn norrom: " since they (the men of Israel) destroyed him (Benjamin) in the midst of it." The singular suffix isinzi does not refer to Benjamin, as this would yield no sense at all, but to the preceding words, u the way of the desert" (see ver. 45). — In ver. 43 the account is continued by three perfects attached to one another without a copula: " they enclosed (hedged round) Benjamin, pursued him; at the place of rest they trod him down to before Gibeah eastwards." nnurp is not used adverbially in the sense of " quietly," which would not give any fitting meaning, but is an accus. loci, and signifies place of rest, as in Num. x. 33. The notice u to before Gibeah" refers to all three verbs. — Ver. 44. In this battle there fell of Benjamin 18,000 men, all brave men. The rix before n?^3 is not a preposition, " with" (as the LXX., Cod. AL, and Bertheau render it), but a sign of the accusative. It serves to show that the thought which follows is governed by the principal clause, u so far as all these were concerned, they were brave men." — Ver. 45. The remainder fled to the desert, to the rock (of the place) Rimmon, which is described in the Onom. (s. v. Remmon) as a vicus fifteen Roman miles to the north of Jerusalem. It has been preserved in the village of Rummon, which stands upon and around the summit of a conical limestone mountain, and is visible in all directions (Rob. Pal. ii. p. 113). " And they (the Israelites) smote as a gleaning upon the roads 5000 men" <^V, to have a gleaning of the battle, i.e. to smite or slay, as it were, as a gleaning of the principal battle (vid. Jer. vi. 9). Mesilloth are the high-roads mentioned in ver. 31. " A nd pursued them to Gideom, and smote of them 2000 more." The situation of Gideom, which is only met with here, is not precisely known; but it must have been somewhere between Gibeah and Rimmon, as the rock Rimmon, according to ver. 47, afforded a safe place of refuge to the fugitives. — Ver. 46. On the total number of the slain, see the remarks on ver. 15. — In ver. 47 the statement already made in ver. 45 with regard to the flight is resumed; and it is still further related, that 500 men reached the rock Rimmon, and dwelt there four months, i.e. till the occurrence described in chap. xxi. 13 sqq. — Ver. 48. The Israelites turned (from any further pursuit of the fugitive warriors of Benjamin) to the children of Benjamin, i.e. to such of the people of the tribe of Benjamin as were unarmed and defenceless, and smote them with the edge of the sword, "from the town (or towns) onwards, men to cattle (i.e. men, women, children, and cattle), to every one who was found;'' i.e. they cut down men and cattle without quarter, from the towns onwards even to those who were found elsewhere. KVtt3n~?3 *iy (to all that was found) corresponds to *vy» (from the city), and Drip non^—ty (men to beast) serves as a more precise definition of the "VJ7 (city): everything that was in the city, man and beast. DHD is pointed wrongly for DHO, men, the reading in several MSS. and most of the early editions (see Deut. ii. 34, iii. 6). They also set fire to all the towns that were met with, i.e. all without exception. Thus they did the same to the Benjaminites as to the Canaanites who were put under the ban, carrying out the ban with the strictest severity.
PRESERVATION OF THE TRIBE OF BENJAMIN — THE REMNANT PROVIDED WITH WIVES. — CHAP. XXI.
Through the extraordinary severity with which the tribes of Israel had carried on the war against Benjamin, this tribe had been reduced to 600 men, and thus brought very near to extermination. Such a conclusion to the sanguinary conflict went to the heart of the congregation. For although, when forming the resolution to punish the unparalleled wickedness of the inhabitants of Gibeah with all the severity of the law, they had been urged on by nothing else than the sacred duty that was binding upon them to root out the evil from their midst, and although the war against the whole tribe of Benjamin was justified by the fact that they had taken the side of the culprits, and had even received the approval of the Lord; there is no doubt that in the performance of this resolution, and the war that was actually carried on, feelings of personal revenge had disturbed the righteous cause in consequence of the defeat which they had twice sustained at the hands of the Benjaminites, and had carried away the warriors into a war of extermination which was neither commanded by the law nor justified by the circumstances, and had brought about the destruction of a whole tribe from the twelve tribes of the covenant nation with the exception of a small vanishing remnant. When the rash deed was done, the congregation began most bitterly to repent. And with repentance there was awakened the feeling of brotherly love, and also a sense of duty to provide for the continuance of the tribe, which had been brought so near to destruction, by finding wives for those who remained, in order that the small remnant might grow into a vigorous tribe again.
Vers. 1-14. The proposal to find wives for the six hundred Benjaminites who remained was exposed to this difficulty, that the congregation had sworn at Mizpeh (as is supplemented in ver. 1 to the account in chap. xx. 1—9) that no one should give his daughter to a Benjaminite as a wife. — Vers. 2, 3. After the termination of the war, the people, i.e. the people who had assembled together for the war (see ver. 9), went again to Bethel (see at chap. xx. 18, 26), to weep there for a day before God at the serious loss which the war had brought upon the congregation. Then they uttered this lamentation: " Why, 0 Lord God of Israel, is this come to pass in Israel, that a tribe is missing to-day from Israel t" This lamentation involved the wish that God might show them the way to avert the threatened destruction of the missing tribe, and build up the six hundred who remained., To give a practical expression to this wish, they built an altar the next morning, and offered burnt-offerings and supplicatory offerings upon it (see at chap. xx. 26), knowing as they did that their proposal would not succeed without reconciliation to the Lord, and a return to the fellowship of His grace. There is something apparently strange in the erection of an altar at Bethel, since sacrifices had already been offered there during the war itself (chap. xx. 26), and this could not have taken place without an altar. Why it was erected again, or another one built, is a question which cannot be answered with any certainty. It is possible, however, that the first was not large enough for the number of sacrifices that had to be offered now. — Ver. 5. The congregation then resolved upon a plan, through the execution of which a number of virgins were secured for the Benjaminites. They determined that they would carry out the great oath, which had been uttered when the national assembly was called against such as did not appear, upon that one of the tribes of Israel which had not come to the meeting of the congregation at Mizpeh. The deliberations upon this point were opened (ver. 5) with the question, u Who is he who did not come up to the meeting of all the tribes of Israel, to Jehovah t" In explanation of this question, it is observed at ver. 5, " For the great oath was uttered upon him that came not up to Jehovah to Mizpeh: he shall be put to death." We learn from this supplementary remark, that when important meetings of the congregation were called, all the members were bound by an oath to appear. The meeting at Mizpeh is the one mentioned in chap. xx. 1 sqq. The " great oath" consisted in the threat of death in the case of any that were disobedient. To this explanation of the question in ver. 5a, the further explanation is added in vers. 6, 7, that the Israelites felt compassion for Benjamin, and wished to avert its entire destruction by procuring wives for such as remained. The word *onaj1 in ver. 6 is attached to the explanatory clause in ver. 55, and is to be rendered as a pluperfect: "And the children of Israel had shown themselves compassionate towards their brother Benjamin, and said, A tribe is cut off from Israel to-day; what shall we do to them, to those that remain with regard to wives, as we have sworn?" etc. (compare ver. 1). The two thoughts — (1) the oath that those who had not come to Mizpeh should be punished with death (ver. 5b), and (2) anxiety for the preservation of this tribe which sprang from compassion towards Benjamin, and was shown in their endeavour to provide such as remained with wives, without violating the oath that none of them would give them their own daughters as wives — formed the two factors which determined the course to be adopted by the congregation. After the statement of these two circumstances, the question of ver. 5a, " Who is the one (only one) of the tribes of Israel which," etc., is resumed and answered: " Behold, there came no one into the camp from Jabesh in Gilead, into the assembly" *&?& is used in vers. 8, 5, in a more general sense, as denoting not merely the tribes as such, but the several subdivisions of the tribes. — Ver. 9. In order, however, to confirm the correctness of this answer, which might possibly have been founded upon a superficial and erroneous observation, the whole of the (assembled) people were mustered, and not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh was found there (in the national assembly at Bethel). The situation of Jabesh in Gilead has not yet been ascertained. This town was closely besieged by the Ammonite Nahash, and was relieved by Saul (1 Sam. xi. 1 sqq.), on which account the inhabitants afterwards showed themselves grateful to Saul (1 Sam. xxxi. 8 sqq.). Josephus calls Jabesh the metropolis of Gilead (Ant. vi. 5, 1). According to the Onom. (s. v. Jabis), it was six Roman miles from Pella, upon the top of a mountain towards Gerasa. Robinson (Bibl. Res. p. 320) supposes it to be the ruins of ed Deir in the Wady Jabes. — Vers. 10 sqq. To punish this unlawful conduct, the congregation sent 12,000 brave fighting men against Jabesh, with orders to smite the inhabitants of the town with the edge of the sword, together with their wives and children, but also with the more precise instructions (ver. 11), "to ban all the men, and women who had known the lying with man " (i.e. to slay them as exposed to death, which implied, on the other hand, that virgins who had not lain with any man should be spared). The fighting men found 400 such virgins in Jabesh, and brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan. Dnitf (ver. 12) refers to the virgins, the masculine being used as the more common genus in the place of the feminine. Shiloh, with the additional clause " in the land of Canaan,'* which was occasioned by the antithesis Jabesh in Gilead, as in Josh. xxi. 2, xxii. 9, was the usual meeting-place of the congregation, on account of its being the seat of the tabernacle. The representatives of the congregation had moved thither, after the deliberations concerning Jabesh, which were still connected with the war against Benjamin, were concluded. — Ver. 13. The congregation then sent to call the Benjaminites, who had taken refuge upon the rock Rimmon, and gate them as wives, when they returned (sc. into their own possessions), the 400 virgins of Jabesh who had been preserved alive. " But so they sufficed them not" (|3, so, i.e., in their existing number, 400: Bertheau). In this remark there is an allusion to what follows.
Vers. 15-25. Of the six hundred Benjaminites who had escaped, there still remained two hundred to be provided with wives. To these the congregation gave permission to take wives by force at a festival at Shiloh. The account of this is once more introduced, with a description of the anxiety felt by the congregation for the continuance of the tribe of Benjamin. Vers. 15, 16, and 18 are only a repetition of vers. 6 and 7, with a slight change of expression. The " breach (perez) in the tribes of Israel " had arisen from the almost complete extermination of Benjamin. " For out of Benjamin is (every) woman destroyed" viz. by the ruthless slaughter of the whole of the people of that tribe (chap. xx. 48). Consequently the Benjaminites who were still unmarried could not find any wives in their own tribe. The fact that four hundred of the Benjaminites who remained were already provided with wives is not noticed here, because it has been stated just before, and of course none of them could give up their own wives to others. — Ver. 17. Still Benjamin must be preserved as a tribe. The elders therefore said, u Possession of the saved shall be for Benjamin" i.e. the tribe-land of Benjamin shall remain an independent possession for the Benjaminites who have escaped the massacre, so that a tribe may not be destroyed out of Israel. It was necessary, therefore, that they should take steps to help the remaining Benjaminites to wives. The other tribes could not give them their daughters, on account of the oath which has already been mentioned in vers. 1 and lb and is repeated here (ver. 18). Consequently there was hardly any other course open, than to let the Benjaminites seize upon wives for themselves. And the elders lent them a helping hand by offering them this advice, that at the next yearly festival at Shiloh, at which the daughters of Shiloh carried on dances in the open air (outside the town), they should seize upon wives for themselves from among these daughters, and promising them that when the thing was accomplished they would adjust it peaceably (vers. 19-22). The "feast of Jehovah" which the Israelites kept from year to year, was one of the three great annual festivals, probably one which lasted seven days, either the passover or the feast of tabernacles, — most likely the former, as the dances of the daughters of Shiloh were apparently an imitation of the dances of the Israelitish women at the Red Sea under the superintendence of Miriam (Ex. xv. 20). The minute description of the situation of Shiloh (ver. 19), viz. " to the north of Bethel, on the east of the road which rises from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah " (the present village of Lubban, on the north-west of Seilun: see Rob. Pal. iii. p. 89), serves to throw light upon ihe scene which follows, i.e. to show how the situation of Shiloh was peculiarly fitted for the carrying out of the advice given to the Benjaminites; since, as soon as they had issued from their hidingplaces in the vineyards at Shiloh, and seized upon the dancing virgins, they could easily escape into their own land by the neighbouring high-road which led from Bethel to Shechem, without being arrested by the citizens of Shiloh. — Ver. 20. The Kethibh NH in the singular may be explained on the ground that one of the elders spoke and gave the advice in the name of the others, ^n in ver. 21 and Ps. x. 9, to seize hold of, or carry off as prey = *!!?£. — Ver. 22. "And when the fathers or brethren of the virgins carried off, come to us to chide with us, we (the elders) will say to them (in your name), Present them to us (DrriK as in ver. 12); for we did not receive every one his wife through the war (with Jabesh); for ye have not given them to them; now would ye be guilty.1* The words " Present them to us," etc., are to be understood as spoken in, the name of the Benjaminites, who were accused of the raid, to the relatives of the virgins who brought the complaint. This explains the use of the pronoun in the first person in ^n and ^Oi??, which must not be altered therefore into the third person.1 The two clauses commencing with *3 are co-ordinate, and contain two points serving to enforce the request, "Present them," etc. The first is pleaded in the name of the Benjaminites; the second is adduced, as a general ground on the part of the elders of the congregation, to pacify the fathers and brothers making the complaint, on account of the oath which the Israelites had taken, that none of them would give their daughters as wives to the Benjaminites. The meaning
1 One circumstance which is decisive against this alteration of the text is, that the Seventy had the Masoretic text before them, and founded their translation upon it (tXejJaart ijfili/ uvtols, oft ovx faufiofifv ccvyp yvuotlKct ocvtou iv tv TFohi/jccfi). The different rendering of Jerome given in the Vulgate — miseremini eorum! non enim rapuerunt eas jure bellantium atque victorum — is nothing but an unfortunate and unsuccessful attempt to get rid of the difficulties connected •with the readings in the text.
is the following: Ye may have your daughters with the Benjaminites who have taken them by force, for ye have not given them voluntarily, so as to have broken your oath by so doing. In the last clause riy3 has an unusual meaning: " at the time " (or now), i.e. in that case, ye would have been guilty, viz. if ye had given them voluntarily. — Ver. 23. The Benjaminites adopted this advice. They took to themselves wives according to their number, i.e. two hundred (according to ver. 12, compared with chap. xx. 47), whom they caught from the dancing daughters of Shiloh, and returned with them into their inheritance, where they rebuilt the towns that had been reduced to ashes, and dwelt therein.
In vers. 24 and 25, the account of this event is brought to a close with a twofold remark: (1) that the children of Israel, i.e. the representatives of the congregation who were assembled at Shiloh, separated and returned every man into his inheritance to his tribe and family; (2) that at that time there was no king in Israel, and every man was accustomed to do what was right in his own eyes. Whether the fathers or brothers of the virgins who had been carried off brought any complaint before the congregation concerning the raid that had been committed, the writer does not state, simply because this was of no moment so far as the history was concerned, inasmuch as, according to ver. 22, the complaint made no difference in the facts themselves.1 With the closing remark in ver. 25, however, with which the account returns to its commencement in chap. xix. 1, the prophetic historian sums up his judgment upon the history in the words, " At that time every man did what was right in his own eyes, because there was no king in Israel," in which the idea is implied, that under the government of a king, who administered right and justice in the kingdom, such things could not possibly have happened. This not only refers to the conduct of the Israelites towards Benjamin in the war, the severity of which was not to be justified (see p. 458), but also to their con duct towards the inhabitants of Jabesh, as described in chap. xxi. 5 sqq. The congregation had no doubt a perfect right, when all the people were summoned to deliberate upon important matters affecting
1 "No doubt the fathers and brothers of the virgins demanded them both from the Benjaminites themselves, and also from the elders of Israel, or at any rate petitioned that the Benjaminites might be punished: but the elders replied as they had said that they should; and the persons concerned were satisfied with the answer, and so the affair was brought to a peaceable termination."— Seb. Schmidt.
the welfare of the whole nation, to utter the "great oath M against such as failed to appear, i.e. to threaten them with death and carry out this threat upon such as were obstinate; but such a punishment as this could only be justly inflicted upon persons who were really guilty, and had rebelled against the congregation as the supreme power, and could not be extended to women and children unless they had also committed a crime deserving of death. But even if there were peculiar circumstances in the case before us, which have been passed over by our author, who restricts himself simply to points bearing upon the main purpose of the history, but which rendered it necessary that the ban should be inflicted upon all the inhabitants of Jabesh, it was at any rate an arbitrary exemption to spare all the marriageable virgins, and one which could not be justified by the object contemplated, however laudable that object might be. This also applies to the oath taken by the people, that they would not give any of their daughters as wives to the Benjaminites, as well as to the advice given by the elders to the remaining two hundred, to carry off virgins from the festival at Shiloh. However just and laudable the moral indignation may have been, which was expressed in that oath by the nation generally at the scandalous crime of the Gibeites, a crime unparalleled in Israel, and at the favour shown to the culprits by the tribe of Benjamin, the oath itself was an act of rashness, in which there was not only an utter denial of brotherly love, but the bounds of justice were broken through. When the elders of the nation came to a better state of mind, they ought to have acknowledged their rashness openly, and freed themselves and the nation from an oath that had been taken in such sinful haste. " Wherefore they would have acted far more uprightly, if they had seriously confessed their fault and asked forgiveness of God, and given permission to the Benjaminites to marry freely. In this way there would have been no necessity to cut off the inhabitants of Jabesh from their midst by cruelty of another kind " (Buddeus). But if they felt themselves bound in their consciences to keep the oath inviolably, they ought to have commended the matter to the Lord in prayer, and left it to His decision; whereas, by the advice given to the Benjaminites, they had indeed kept the oath in the letter, but had treated it in deed and truth as having no validity whatever.
HE book of Ruth (Pov0) introduces us to the family life of the ancestors of king David, and informs us, in a simple and attractive form of historical narrative, and one in harmony with the tender and affectionate contents, how Ruth the Moabitess, a daughter-in-law of the Bethlehem! te Elimelech, of the family of Judah, who had emigrated with his wife and his two sons into the land of Moab on account of a famine, left father and mother, fatherland and kindred, after the death of her husband, and out of childlike affection to her Israelitish mother-in-law Naomi, whose husband had also died in the land of Moab, and went with her to Judah, to take refuge under the wings of the God of Israel (chap, i.); and how, when there, as she was going in her poverty to glean some ears of corn in the field of a wealthy man, she came apparently by accident to the field of Boaz, a near relation of Elimelech, and became acquainted with this honourable and benevolent man (chap, ii.); how she then sought marriage with him by the wish of her mother-in-law (chap, iii.), and was taken by him as a wife, according to the custom of Levirate marriage, in all the ordinary legal forms, and bare a son in this marriage, named Obed. This Obed was the grandfather of David (chap. iv. 1-17), with whose genealogy the book closes (chap. iv. 18-22).
1 The book of Ruth does not indeed belong to the prophetical books of history so far as its historical character is concerned, and even in the Hebrew canon it is placed among the hagiographa; but as its contents directly follow upon those of the book of Judges, it seemed advisable to place the exposition immediately after that of Judges.
In this conclusion the meaning and tendency of the whole narrative is brought clearly to light. The genealogical proof of the descent of David from Perez through Boaz and the Moabitess Ruth (chap. iv. 18-22) forms not only the end, but the startingpoint, of the history contained in the book. For even i£ we should not attach so much importance to this genealogy as to say with Auberlen that " the book of Ruth contains, as it were, the inner side, the spiritually moral background of the genealogies which play so significant a part even in the Israelitish antiquity;'* so much is unquestionably true, that the book contains a historical picture from the family life of the ancestors of David, intended to show how the ancestors of this great king walked uprightly before God and man in piety and singleness of heart, and in modesty and purity of life.
u Ruth, the Moabitish great-great-grandmother of David, longed for the God and people of Israel with all the deepest earnestness of her nature, and joined herself to them with all the power of love; and Boaz was an upright Israelite, without guile, full of holy reverence for every ordinance of God and man, and full of benevolent love and friendliness towards the poor heathen woman. From such ancestors was the man descended in whom all the nature of Israel was to find its royal concentration and fullest expression" (Auberlen).
But there is also a Messianic trait in the fact that Ruth, a heathen woman, of a nation so hostile to the Israelites as that of Moab was, should have been thought worthy to be made the tribe- mother of the great and pious king David, on account of her faithful love to the people of Israel, and her entire confidence in Jehovah, the God of Israel. As Judah begat Perez from Tamar the Canaanitish woman (Gen. xxxviii.), and as Rahab was adopted into the congregation of Israel (Josh. vi. 25), and according to ancient tradition was married to Salmon (Matt. i..5), so the Moabitess Ruth was taken by Boaz as his wife, and incorporated in the family of Judah, from which Christ was to spring according to the flesh (see Matt. i. 3, 5, where these three women are distinctly mentioned by name in the genealogy of Jesus).
The incidents described in the book fall within the times of the judges (chap. i. 1), and most probably in the time of Gideon (see at ohap. i. 1); and the book itself forms both a supplement to the book of Judges and an introduction to the books of Samuel, which give no account of the ancestors of David. So far as its contents are concerned it has its proper place, in the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Lutheran and other versions, between the book of Judges and those of Samuel. In the Hebrew Codex, on the contrary, it is placed among the hagiographa, and in the Talmud (baba bathr. f. 146) it is even placed at the head of them before the Psalms; whilst in the Hebrew mss. it stands among the five megilloth: Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations j Ecclesiastes, Esther. The latter position is connected with the liturgical use of the book in the synagogue, where it was read at the feast of weeks; whilst its place among the hagiographa is to be explained from the principle upon which the general arrangement of the Old Testament canon was founded, — namely, that the different books were divided into three classes according to the relation in which their authors stood to God and to the theocracy, and the books themselves in their contents and spirit to the divine revelation (see Keil, Lehrbuch der Einleitung, § 155). The latter is therefore to be regarded as the original classification, and not the one in the Septuagint rendering, where the original arrangement has unquestionably been altered in the case of this and other books, just because this principle has been overlooked.1
1 Many critics of the present day, indeed, appeal to the testimony of Josephus and the earlier fathers as favouring the opposite view, viz. that the book of Ruth was originally placed at the close of the book of Judges, to which it formed an appendix. Josephus (c. Ap. i. 8) reckons, as is well known, only twentytwo books of the Old Testament; and the only way by which this number can be obtained is by joining together the books of Judges and Euth, so as to form one book. Again, Melito of Sardes, who lived in the second century, and took a journey into Palestine for the purpose of obtaining correct information concerning the sacred writings of the Jews (koocx. rou dpidfiov xacl oxolx t^v rot^tv *hv), places Ruth after Judges in the list which has been preserved by Eusebius (h. e. iv. 26), but does not give the number of the books, as Bertheau erroneously maintains, nor observes that " Judges and Ruth form one book under the name of Shofetim." This is first done by Origen in his list as given by Eusebius (h. e. vi. 25), where he states that the Hebrews had twenty-two evlixdyxovs /3//3Aovf, and then adds in the case of Ruth, Tca-p1 uvroig iv hi 1u(perlfc. Ruth occupies the same place in the lists of the later Greek fathers, as in Rujinus (Expos, in Symb. Apost.) and Jerome (in Prolog. Gal.), the latter of whom makes this remark on the book of Judges, Et in eundem compingunt Ruth, quia in diebus Judicum facta ejus narratur historia; and after enumerating the twenty -two books of the Old Testament, adds, Quanquam nonnulli Ruth et Kinoth inter Hagiographa scriptitent et hos libros in suo putent numero supputandos, etc. But all these testimonies prove nothing more than that the Hellenistic Jews, who made use of the Old Testament in the Greek rendering of the LXX., regarded the book of Ruth as an appendix of the book of Judges, and not that the book of Ruth ever followed the book of Judges in the Hebrew canon, so as to form one book. The reduction of the sacred writings of the Old Testament to twenty-two is nothing more than the product of the cabbalistic and mystical numbers wrought out by the Hellenistic or Alexandrian Jews. If this numbering had been the original
The book of Ruth is not a mere (say a third) appendix to the book of Judges, but a small independent work, which does indeed resemble the two appendices of the book of Judges, so far as the incidents recorded in it fall within the period of the Judges, and are not depicted in the spirit of the prophetic view of history; but, on the other hand, it has a thoroughly distinctive character both in form and contents, and has nothing in common with the book of Judges either in style or language: on the contrary, it differs essentially both in substance and design from the substance and design of this book and of its two appendices, for the simple reason that at the close of the history (chap. iv. 17), where Obed, the son one, the Hebrew Jews would never have increased the number to twenty-four, since the Hebrew alphabet never contained twenty-four letters. Josephus, however, is not a witness with regard to the orthodox opinions of the Hebrew Jews, but was an eclectic and a Hellenist, who used the Old Testament in the Septuagint version and not in the original text, and who arranged the books of the Old Testament in the most singular manner. The fathers, too, with the exception of Jerome, whenever they give any account of their inquiries among the Jews with regard to the number and order of the books accepted by them as canonical, never give them in either the order or number found in the Hebrew canon, but simply according to the Septuagint version, which was the only one that the Christians understood. This is obvious in the case of Melito, from the fact that he reckons Bxai'Kuuiu riaaxpx and Yiccpochn-Ko^ivuv St/o, and places Daniel between the twelve minor prophets and Ezekiel. We find the same in Origen, although he gives the Hebrew names to the different books, and states in connection with the four books of Kings and the two books of Paralipomena, that the