Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"We must not look to the book of Judges, therefore, for a complete history of the period of the judges, or one which throws light upon the development of the Israelites on every side. The character of the book, as sho^vn in its contents and the arrangement of the materials, corresponds entirely to the character of the times over which it extends. The time of the judges did not form a new stage in the development of the nation of God. It was not till the time of Samuel and David, when this period was ended, that a new stage began. It was rather a transition period, the time of free, unfettered development, in which the nation was to take root in the land presented to it by God as its inheritance, to familiarize itself with the theocratic constitution given to it by the Mosaic law, and by means of the peculiar powers and gifts conferred upon it by God to acquire for itself that independence and firm footing in Canaan, within the limits of the laws, ordinances, and rights of the covenant, which Jehovah had promised, and the way to which He had prepared through the revelations He had made to them. This task could be accomplished without any ruler directly appointed by the Lord. The first thing which the tribes had to do was to root out such Canaanites as remained in the land, that they might not only establish themselves in the unrestricted and undisputed possession and enjoyment of the land and its productions, but also avert the danger which threatened them on the part of these tribes of being led away to idolatry and immorality. The Lord had promised them His help in this conflict, if they would only walk in His commandments. The maintenance of civil order and the administration of justice were in the hands of the heads of tribes, families, and households; and for the relation in which the congregation stood to the Lord its God, it possessed the necessary organs and media in the hereditary priesthood of the tribe of Levi, whose head could inquire the will of God in all cases of difficulty through the right of the Urim, and make it known to the nation. Now as long as the generation, which had seen the wonderful works of the Lord in the time of Joshua, was still living, so long did the nation continue faithful to the covenant of its God, and the tribes maintain a successful conflict with the still remaining Canaanites (chap. i. 1-20, 22-25). But the very next generation, to which those mighty acts of the Lord were unknown, began to forget its God, to grow weary and lax in its conflicts with the Canaanites, to make peace with them, and to mix up the worship of Jehovah, the jealous and holy God, with the worship of Baal and Astarte, the Canaanitish deities of nature, and even to substitute the latter in its place. With the loss of love and fidelity to the Lord, the bond of unity which formed the tribes into one congregation of Jehovah was also broken. The different tribes began to follow their own separate interests (yid. chap. v. 15-17, 23, viii. 5-8), and eventually even to oppose and make war upon one another; whilst Ephraim was bent upon securing to itself the headship of all the tribes, though without making any vigorous efforts to carry on the war with the oppressors of Israel (yid. chap, viii. 1 sqq., xii. 1-6). Consequently Israel suffered more and more from the oppression of heathen nations, to which God gave it up as a chastisement for its idolatry; and it would have become altogether a prey to its foes, had not the faithful covenant God taken compassion upon it in its distress as often as it cried to Him, and sent deliverers (^T^'O^ chap. iii. 9, 15; cf. Neh. ix. 27) in those judges, after whom both the age in question and the book before us are called. There are twelve of these judges mentioned, or rather thirteen, as Deborah the prophetess also judged Israel (chap. iv. 4); but there are only eight (Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson), who are described as performing acts by wliich Israel obtained deliverance from its oppressors. Of the other five (Tolah, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon) we are merely told that they judged Israel so many years. The reason for this we are not to seek in the fact that the report of the heroic deeds of these judges had not been handed down to the time when our book was written. It is to be found simply in the fact that these judges waged no wars and smote no foes.

The judges (sJiophetim) were men who procured justice or right for the people of Israel, not only by delivering them out of the power of their foes, but also by administering the laws and rights of the Lord (chap. ii. 16-19). Judging in this sense was different from the administration of civil jurisprudence, and included the idea of government such as would be expected from a king. Thus in 1 Sam. viii. 5, 6, the people are said to have asked Samuel to give them a king " to judge us," to procure us right, i.e. to govern us; and in 2 Kings xv. 5 Jotham is said to have judged, i.e. governed the nation during the illness of his father. The name given to these men (shophetim, judges) was evidently founded upon Deut. xvii. 9 and xix. 17, where it is assumed that in after-times there would be a shophef, who would stand by the side of the high priest as the supreme judge or leader of the state in Israel. The judges themselves corresponded to the BitctLOTai of the Tyrians (Josephus, c. Ap. i. 21) and the Suffetes of the Carthaginians {qui summus Pcenis est magistratus, Liv. Hist, xxvii. 37, and xxx. 7), with this difference, however, that as a rule the judges of Israel were called directly by the Lord, and endowed with miraculous power for the conquest of the enemies of Israel; and if, after delivering the people from their oppressors, they continued to the time of their death to preside over the public affaii's of the whole nation, or merely of several of its tribes, yet they did not follow one another in a continuous line and unbroken succession, because the ordinary' administration of justice and government of the commonwealth still remained in the hands of the heads of the tribes and the elders of the people, whilst occasionally there were also prophets and high priests, such as Deborah, EH, and Samuel (chap. iv. 4; 1 Sam. iv. 18, vii. 15), in whom the government was vested. Thus " Othniel delivered the children of Israel," and " judged Israel," by going out to war, smiting Chushan-rishathaim, the Aramaean king, and giving the land rest for forty years (chap. iii. 9-11); and the same with Ehud and several others. On the other hand, Shamgar (chap. iii. 31) and Samson (chap. xiii.-xvi.) are apparently called judges of Israel, simply as opponents and conquerors of the Philistines, without their having taken any part in the administration of justice. Others, again, neither engaged in war uor gained victories. No warlike deeds are recorded of Tola; and yet it is stated in chap. x. 1, that " he rose up after Abimelech to deliver Israel (^xyj^'ns Jrcnnfj), and judged Israel twenty-three years;" whilst of his successor Jair nothing more is said, than that " he judged Israel twenty-two years." Both of these had delivered and judged Israel, not by victories gained over enemies, but by placing themselves at the head of the tribes over whom Gideon had been juJge, at the termination of the ephemeral reign of Abimelech, and by preventing the recurrence of hostile oppression, through the influence they exerted, as well as by what they did for the establishment of the nation in its fidelity to the Lord. This also applies to Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon, who followed Jephthah in direct succession (chap. xii. 8-15). Of these five judges also, it is not stated that Jehovah raised them up or called them. In all probability they merely undertook the government at the wish of the tribes whose judges they were; whilst at the same time it is to be observed, that such cases as these did not occur until the desire for a king had begun to manifest itself throughout the nation (chap. viii. 22, 23).

But if all the judges did not fight against outward enemies of Israel, it might appear strange that the book of Judges should close with the death of Samson, without mentioning Eli and Samuel, as both of them judged Israel, the one forty years, the other for the whole of his life (1 Sam. iv. 18, vii. 15). But Eli was really high priest, and what he did as judge was merely the natural result of his office of high priest; and Samuel was called to be the prophet of the Lord, and as such he delivered Israel from the oppression of the Philistines, not with the sword and by the might of his arm, like the judges before him, but by the power of the word, with which he converted Israel to the Lord, and by the might of his prayer, with which he sought and obtained the victory from the Lord (1 Sam. vii. 3-10); so that his judicial activity not only sprang out of his prophetic office, but was continually sustained thereby. The line of actual judges terminated with Samson; and with his death the office of judge was carried to the grave. Samson was followed immediately by Samuel, whose prophetic labours formed the link between the period of the judges and the introduction of royalty into Israel. The forty years of oppression on the part of the Philistines, from which Samson began to deliver Israel (chap, xiii. 1, 5), were brought to a close by the victory which the Israelites gained through Samuel's jirayer (1 Sam. vii.), as will be readily seen when we have determined the chronology of the period of tlie judges, in the introductory remarks to the exposition of the body of the book. This victory was not gained by the Israelites till twenty years after Eli's death (comp. 1 Sam. vii. 2 with vi. 1 and iv. 18). Consequently of the forty years during which Eli judged Israel as

Incrh priest, only the last twenty fell within the time of the Philistine oppression, the first twenty before it. But both Samuel and Samson were born during the pontificate of Eli; for when Samson's birth was foretold, the Philistines were already ruling over Israel (Judg. xiii. 5). The deeds of Samson fell for the most part within the last twenty years of the Philistine supremacy, i.e. not only in the interval between the capture of the ark and death of Eli and the victory which the Israelites achieved through Samuel over these foes, which victory, however, Samson did not live to see, but also in the time when Samuel had been accredited as a prophet of Jehovah, and Jehovah had manifested himself repeatedly to him by word at Shiloh (1 Sam. iii. 20, 21). Consequently Samuel completed the deliverance of Israel out of the power of the Phihstines, which Samson had commenced.

The book of Judges, therefore, embraces the whole of the judicial epoch, and gives a faithful picture of the political development of the Israelitish theocracy during that time. The author writes throughout from a prophet's point of view. He applies the standard of the law to the spirit of the age by which the nation was influenced as a whole, and pronounces a stem and severe sentence upon all deviations from the path of rectitude set before it in the law. The unfaithfulness of Israel, which went a whoring again and again after Baal, and was punished for its apostasy from the Lord with oppression from foreign nations, and the faithfulness of the Lord, who sent help to the people whenever it returned to Him in its oppression, by raising up judges who conquered its enemies, are the two historical factors of those times, and the hinges upon which the history turns. In the case of all the judges, it is stated that they judged " Israel," or the " children of Israel;" although it is very obvious, from the accounts of the different deliverances effected, that most of the judges only delivered and judged those tribes who happened to be oppressed and subjugated by their enemies at a particular time. The other tribes, who were spared by this or the other hostile invasion, did not come into consideration in reference to the special design of the historical account, namely, to describe the acts of the Lord in the government of His people, any more than the development of the rehgious and social life of individual members of the congregation in harmony with the law; inasmuch as the congregation, whether in whole or in part, was merely fulfilling its divinely appointed vocation, so long as it observed the law, and about this there was nothing special to be reljited (see the description given of the book of Judges in Hengsten* berg, Diss, on the Pentateuch, voL ii. pp. 16 sqq.).

Lastly, if we take a survey of the gradual development of Israel during the times of the judges, we may distinguish three stages in the attitude of the Lord to His constantly rebelling people, and also in the form assumed by the external and internal circumstances of the nation: viz. (1) the period from the commencement of the apostasy of the nation till its deliverance from the rule of the Canaanitish king Jabin, or the time of the judges Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar, Deborah and Barak (chap, iii.-v.); (2) the time of the Midianitish oppression, with the deliverance effected by Gideon, and the government which followed, viz. of Abimelech and the judges Tola and Jair (chap, vi.-x. 5); (3) the time of the Ammonitish and Philistine supremacy over Israel, with the judges Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon on the one hand, and that of Samson on the other (chap. x. 6-xvi. 31). Three times, for example, the Lord threatens His people with oppression and subjugation by foreign nations, as a punishment for their disobedience and apostasy from Him: viz. (1) at Bochim (chap. ii. 1-4) through the angel of the Lord; (2) on the invasion of the Midianites (chap. vi. 7-1 Oy through the medium of a prophet; and (3) at the commencement of the Ammonitish and Philistine oppression (chap. x. 10-14). The first time He threatens, " the Canaanites shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you" (chap. ii. 3); the second time, " I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you; I said unto you, I am Jehovah, your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites: but ye have not hearkened to my voice" (chap. vi. 9, 10); the third time, " Ye have forsaken me and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more; go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation " (chap. X. 13, 14). These threats were fulfilled upon the disobedient nation, not only in the fact that they fell deeper and deeper under the oppression of their foes, but by their also becoming disjointed and separated more and more internally. In the first stage, the oppressions from without lasted a tolerably long time: that of Chushan-rishathaim eight years; that of Eglon the Moabite, eighteen; and that of the Canaanitish king Jabin, as much as twenty years (chap. iii. 8, 14, iv. 3). But, on the other hand, after the first, the Israelites had forty years of peace; after the second, eighty; and after the third, again forty years (chap. iii. 11, 30, v.

31). Under Othniel and Ehud all Israel appears to have risen against its oppressors; but under Barak, Reuben and Gilead, Dan and Asher took no part in the conflict of the other tribes (chap. v. 15-17). In the second stage, the ^lidianitish oppression lasted, it is true, only seven years (chap. vi. 1), and was followed by forty years of rest under Gideon (chap. viii. 28); whilst the three years' government of Abimelech was followed by forty-five years of peace under Tola and Jair (chap. x. 2, 3); but even under Gideon the jealousy of Ephraim was raised to such a pitch against the tribes who had joined in smiting the foe, that it almost led to a civil war (chap. viii. 1-3), and the inhabitants of Succoth and Penuel refused all assistance to the victorious army, and that in so insolent a manner that they were severely punished by Gideon in consequence (chap. viii. 4-9, 14-17); whilst in the election of Abimelech as king of Shechem, the internal decay of the congregation of Israel was brought still more clearly to light (chap. ix.). Lastly, in the third stage, no doubt, Israel was delivered by Jephthah from the eighteen years' bondage on the part of the Ammonites (chap. xi. 8 sqq.), and the tribes to the east of the Jordan, as well as the northern tribes of the land on this side, enjoyed rest under the judges Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon for thirty-one years (chap. xii. 7, 9, 11, 14); but the Philistine oppression lasted till after Samson's death (chap. xiii. 5, xv. 20), and the internal decay increased so much under this hostile pressure, that whilst the Ephraimites, on the one hand, commenced a war against Jephthah, and sustained a terrible defeat at the hands of the tribes on the east of the Jordan (chap. xii. 1-6), on the other hand, the tribes who were enslaved by the Philistines had so little appreciation of the deliverance which God had sent them through Samson, that the men of Judah endeavoured to give up their deliverer to the Philistines (chap. XV. 9-14). Nevertheless the Lord not only helped the nation again, both in its distress and out of its distress, but came nearer and nearer to it with His aid, that it might learn that its help was to be found in God alone. The first deliverers and judges He stirred up by His Spirit, which came upon Othniel and Ehud, and filled them with courage and strength for the conquest of their foes. Barak was summoned to the war by the prophetess Deborah, and inspired by her with the courage to undertake it. Gideon was called to be the deliverer of Israel out of the severe oppression of the Jklidianites by the appearance of the angel of the Lord, and the victory over the innumerable axivy of the foe was given by the

Lord, not to the whole of the army which Gideon summoned to the battle, but only to a small company of 300 men, that Israel might not " vaunt themselves against the Lord," and magnify their own power. Lastly, Jephthah and Samson were raised up as deliverers out of the power of the Ammonites and Philistines; and whilst Jephthah was called by the elders of Gilead to be the leader in the war with the Midianites, and sought through a vow to ensure the assistance of God in gaining a victory over them, Samson was set apart from his mother's womb, through the appearance of the angel of the Lord, as the Nazarite who was to begin to deliver Israel out of the power of the Philistines. At the same time there was given to the nation in the person of Samuel, the son for whom the pious Hannah prayed to the Lord, a Nazarite and prophet, who was not only to complete the deliverance from the power of the Philistines which Samson had begun, but to ensure the full conversion of Israel to the Lord its God.

With regard to the origin of the book of Judges, it is evident from the repeated remark, " In those days there was no king in Israel, every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (chap, xvii. 6, xxi. 25; cf. chap, xviii. 1, xix. 1), that it was composed at a time when Israel was already rejoicing in the benefits connected with the kingdom. It is true this remark is only to be found in the appendices, and would have no force so far as the date of composition is concerned, if the view held by different critics were wellfounded, viz. that these appendices w^ere added by a later hand. But the arguments adduced against the unity of authorship in all three parts, the introduction, the body of the work, and the appendices, will not bear examination. Without the introduction (chap, i. 1-iii. 6) the historical narrative contained in the book would want a foundation, which is absolutely necessary to make it intelligible jand the two appendices supply two supplements of the greatest importance in relation to the development of the tribes of Israel in the time of the judges, and most intimately connected with the design and plan of the rest of the book. It is true that in chap, i., as well as in the two appendices, the prophetic view of the history which prevails in the rest of the book, from chap. ii. 11 to chap. xvi. 31, is not distinctly apparent; but this difference may be fully explained from the contents of the two portions, which neither furnish the occasion nor supply the materials for any such view, — like the account of the royal supremacy of Abimelech in chap, ix., in which the so-called " theocratical pragmatism" is also wanting. But, on the other hand, all these portions are just as rich in allusions to the Mosaic law and the legal worship as the other parts of the book, so that both in their contents and their form they would be unintelligible apart from the supremacy of the law in Israel. The discrepancies which some fancy they have discovered between chap. i. 8 and chap. i. 21, and also between chap. i. 19 and chap. iii. 3, vanish completely on a correct interpretation of the passages themselves. And no such differences can be pointed out in language or style as would overthrow the unity of authorship, or even render it questionable. Even Stdhelin observes (spez. Evil. p. 77): " I cannot find in chap, xvii.-xxi. the (special) author of chap, i.-ii. 5; and the arguments adduced by Beriheau in favour of this, from modes of expression to be found in the two sections, appear to me to be anything but conclusive, simply because the very same modes of expression occur elsewhere • riTJ;*??KV in Ex. ii. 21; jnn in Num. X. 29; T2 |nj, Josh. x. 30, xi. 8,'judg. vi. 1, xi. 21; nc'N^ jnj, Gen. xxix. 28, xxx. 4, 9, xxxiv. 8, etc.; 2nri ^^h nsn. Num. xxi'. 24, Dent. xiii. 16, Josh. viii. 24, x. 28, 30, 32, "etc. Undoubtedly '^3 7S*^' only occurs in Judg. i. 1 and the appendix, and never earlier; but there is a similar expression in Num. xxvii. 21 and Josh. ix. 14, and the first passage shows how thn mode of expression could be so abbreviated. I find no preterites with \ used in the place of the future with 1 in Judg. i.; for it is evident from the construction that the preterite must be used in vers. 8, 16, 25, etc.; and thus the only thing left that could strike us at all is the idiom B'S3 npB', which is common to both sections, but which is too isolated, and occurs atrain moreover in 2 Kintjs viii. 12 and Ps. Ixxiv. 7." But even the " peculiar phrases belonging to a later age," which Stdhelin and Bet theau discover in chap, xvii.-xxi. do not furnish any tenable proof of this assertion. Tlie phrase " from Dan to Beersheba," in chap. XX. 1, was formed after the settlement of the Danites in Laish-Dan, which took place at the commencement of the time of the judges. D"'C'3 Nb'3, in chap. xxi. 23, is also to be found in Ruth i. 4; and the others either occur again in the books of Samuel, or have been wrongly interpreted.

We have a firm datum for determining more minutely the time when tlie book of Judges was written, in the statement in chap. i. 21, that the Jebusites in Jerusalem had not been rooted out by the Israelites, but dwelt there with the children of Benjamin "Mwto this dayT The Jebusites remained in possession of Jerusalem, or of the citadel Zion, or the upper town of Jerusalem, until the time when David went against Jerusalem after the twelve tribes had acknowledged him as king, took the fortress of Zion, and made it the capital of his kingdom under the name of the city of David (2 Sam. V. 6-9; 1 Chron. xi. 4-9). Consequently the book was written before this event, either during the first seven years of the reign of David at Hebron, or during the reign of Saul, under whom the Israelites already enjoyed the benefits of a monarchical government, since Saul not only fought with bravery against all the enemies of Israel, and " delivered Israel out of the hands of them that spoiled them" (1 Sam. xiv. 47, 48), but exerted himself to restore the authority of the law of God in his kingdom, as is evident from the fact that he banished the wizards and necromancers out of the land (1 Sam. xxviii. 9). The talmudical statement therefore in Bava-bathra (f. 146 and 15a), to the effect that Samuel was the author of the book, may be so far coiTect, that if it was not written by Samuel himself towards the close of his life, it was written at his instigation by a younger prophet of his school. More than this it is impossible to decide. So much, however, is at all events certain, that the book does not contain traces of a later age either in its contents or its language, and that chap, xvrii. 30 does not refer to the time of the captivity (see the commentary on this passage).

With regard to the sources of which the author made use, unless we are prepared to accept untenable hypotheses as having all the validity of historical facts, it is impossible to establish anything more than that he drew his materials not only from oral tradition, but also from written documents. This is obvious from the exactness of the historical and chronological accounts, and still more so from the abundance of characteristic and original traits and expressions that meet the reader in the historical pictures, some of which are very elaborate. The historical fidelity, exactness, and vividness of description apparent in every part of the book are only to be explained in a work which embraces a period of 350 years, on the supposition that the author made use of trustworthy records, or the testimony of persons who were living when the events occurred. This stands out so clearly in every part of the book, that it is admitted even by critics who are compelled by their own dogmatical assumptions to deny the actual truth or reality of the miraculous parts of the history. With regard to the nature of these sources, however, we can only conjecture that chap. i. and xvii.-xxi. were founded upon written accounts, with which the author of the book of Joshua was also acquainted; and that the accounts of Deborah and Barak, of Gideon, and of the life of Samson, were taken from different writings, inasmuch as these sections are distinguished from one another by many peculiarities. (Further remarks on this subject will be found in the exposition itself.)

After the death of Joshua the tribes of Israel resolved to continue the war with the Canaanites, that they might exterminate them altogether from the land that had been given them for an inheritance. In accordance with the divine command, Judah commenced the strife in association with Simeon, smote the king of Bezek, conquered Jerusalem, Hebron and Debir upon the mountains, Zephath in the south land, and three of the chief cities of the Philistines, and took possession of the mountains; but was unable to exterminate the inhabitants of the plain, just as the Benjamiuites were unable to drive the Jebusites out of Jerusalem (vere. 1-21). The tribe of Joseph also conquered the city of Bethel (vers. 22—26); but from the remaining towns of the land neither the Manassites, nor the Ephraimites, nor the tribes of Zebulun, Asher, and Naphtali expelled the Canaanites: all that they did was to make them tributary (vers. 27—33). The Danites were actually forced back by the Amorites out of the plain into the mountains, because the latter maintained their hold of the towns of the plain, although the house of Joseph conquered them and made them tributary (vers. 34.-36). The angel of the Lord therefore appeared at Bochim, and declared to the Israelites, that because they had not obeyed the command of the Lord, to make no covenant with the Canaanites, the Lord would no more drive out these nations, but would cause them and their gods to become a snare to them (chap, ii. 1-5).

From this divine revelation it is evident, on the one hand, tliat the failure to exterminate the Canaanites had its roots in the negligence of the tribes of Israel; and on the other hand, that the accounts of the wars of the different tribes, and the enumeration of the towns in the different possessions out of which the Canaanites were not expelled, were designed to show clearly the attitude of the Israelites to the Canaanites in tlie age immediately following the death of Joshua, or to depict the historical basis on which the development of Israel rested in the era of the judges.

Vers. 1-7. With the words " Now, after the death of Joshua, it came to pass,"" the book of Judges takes up the thread of the history where the book of Joshua had dropped it, to relate the further development of the covenant nation. A short time before his death, Joshua had gathered the elders and heads of the people around him, and set before them the entire destruction of the Canaanites tlirough the omnipotent help of the Lord, if they would only adhere with fidelity to the Lord; whilst, at the same time, he also pointed out to them the dangers of apostasy from the Lord (Josh, xxiii.). Remembering this admonition and warning, the Israelites inquired, after Joshua's death, who should begin the war against the Canaanites who still remained to be destroyed; and the Lord answered, " Judah shall go up: behold, I have delivered the land into his'hand'^ (vers. 1, 2). nilT'Zi 7NK', to ask with Jehovah for the purpose of obtaining a declaration of the divine will, is substantially the same as Q^.INn DSK'ba hm (Num. xxvii. 21), to inquire the will of the Lord through the TJrim and Thummim of the high priest. From this time forward inquiring of the Lord occurs with greater frequency (yid. chap. xx. 23, 27; 1 Sam. x. 22, xxii. 10, xxiii. 2, etc.), as well as the synonymous expression "ask of Elohim^^ in chap, xviii. 5, xx. 18; 1 Sam. xiv. 37, xxii. 13; 1 Chron. xiv. 10; whereas Moses and Joshua received direct revelations from God. The phrase "'3y33n"7K n^y^., "^o up to the Canaanites" is defined more precisely by the following words, " to fight against them;" so that n7j/ is used here also to denote the campaign against a nation (see at Josh. viii. 1), without there being any necessity, however, for us to take?*? in the sense of ^V. '"ipnria rbv signifies " to go up in the beginning" i.e. to open or commence the war; not to hold the commandership in the war, as the Sept., Vulgate, and others render it (see chap. x. 18, whei'e On?"???n^ is expressly distinguished from being the chief or leader). Moreover, ^0 does not mean who t i.e. what person, but, as the answer clearly shows, what tribe? Now a tribe could open the war, and take the lead at the head of the other tribes, but could not be the commander-in-chief. In the present instance, however, Judah did not even enter upon the war at the head of all the tribes, but simplj joined with the tribe of Simeon to make a common attack upon the Canaanites in their inheritance. The promise in ver. 2b is the same as that in Josh. vi. 2, viii. 1, etc. " The land " is not merely the land allotted to the tribe of Judah, or Judah' s inheritance, as Bertheau supposes, for Judah conquered Jerusalem (ver. 8), which had been allotted to the tribe of Benjamin (Josh, xviii. 28), but the land of Canaan generally, so far as it was still in the possession of the Canaanites and was to be conquered by Judah. The reason why Judah was to commence the hostilities is not to be sought for in the fact that Judah was the most numerous of all the tribes {RosenmuUer), but rather in the fact that Judah had already been appointed by the blessing of Jacob (Gen. xlix. 8 sqq.) to be the champion of his brethren. — ^Ver. 3. Judah invited Simeon his brother, i.e, their brother tribe, to take part in the contest. This epithet is applied to Simeon, not because Simeon and Judah, the sons of Jacob, were the children of the same mother, Leah (Gen. xxix. 33, 35), but because Simeon's inheritance was within the territory of Judah (Josh. xix. 1 sqq.), so that Simeon was more closely connected with Judah than any of the other tribes. " Come up tcith me into my lot (into the inheritance that has fallen to me by lot), that we inay fight against the Canaanites^ and I likewise will go with thee into thy lot. So Simeon went with him,^' i.e. joined with Judah in making war upon the Canaanites. This request shows that Judah's principal intention was to make war upon and exterminate the Canaanites who remained in his own and Simeon's inheritance. The different expressions employed, come up and go, are to be explained from the simple fact that the whole of Simeon's territory was in the shephelah and Negeh, whereas Judah had received the heart of his possessions upon the mountains. \ er. 4. " And Judah xcent up" sc. against the Canaanites, to make war upon them. The completion of the sentence is supphed by the context, more especially by ver. 2. So far as the sense is concerned, Rosenmuller has given the correct explanation of /'I'^j " Judah entered upon the expedition along with Simeon." " And they smote the Canaanites and the Perizzites in Bezek, 10,000 men." The result of the war is summed up briefly in these words; and then in vers. 5-7 the capture and punishment of the hostile king Adoni-hezeh is specially mentioned as being the most important event in the war. The foe is described as consisting of Canaanites and Perizzites, two triJDes which have been already named in Gen. xiii. 7 and xxxiv. 30 as representing the entire population of Canaan, " the Canaanites " comprising principally those in the lowlands by the Jordan and the Mediterranean {vid. Num. xiii. 29; Josh. xi. 3), and " the Perizzites " the tribes who dwelt in the mountains (Josh, xvii. 15). On the Perizzites, see Gen. xiii. 7. The place mentioned, Bezek, is only mentioned once more, namely in 1 Sam. xi. 8, where it is described as being situated between Gibeah of Saul (see at Josh, xviii. 28) and Jabesh in Gilead. According to the Onom. (s. V. Bezelc), there were at that time two places very near together both named Bezek, seventeen Roman miles from Neapolis on the road to Scythopolis, i.e. about seven hours to the north of Nabulus on the road to Beisan. This description is perfectly reconcilable with 1 Sam. xi. 8. On the other hand, Clericus (ad h. I.), Rosenmuller, and v. Raumer suppose the Bezek mentioned here to have been situated in the territory of Judah; though this cannot be proved, since it is merely based upon an inference drawn from ver. 3, viz. tliat Judah and Simeon simply attacked the Canaanites in their own allotted territories, — an assumption which is very uncertain. There is no necessity, however, to adopt the opposite and erroneous opinion of Bertlieau, that the tribes of Judah and Simeon commenced their expedition to the south from the gathering-place of the united tribes at Shechem, and fought the battle with the Canaanitish forces in that region upon this expedition; since Shechem is not described in Josh. xxiv. as the gathering-place of the united tribes, i.e. of the whole of the military force of Israel, and the battle fought with Adoni-bezek did not take place at the time when the tribes prepared to leave Shiloh and march to their own possessions after the casting of the lots was over. The simplest explanation is, that when the tribes of Judah and Simeon prepared to make war upon the Canaanites in the possessions allotted to them, tliey were threatened or attacked by the forces of the Canaanites collected together by Adoni-bezek, so that they had first of all to turn their arms against this king before they could attack the Canaanites in their own tribe-land. As the precise circumstances connected with the occasion and course of this war have not been recorded, there is nothing to hinder the supposition that Adonibezek may have marched from the north against the possessions of Benjamin and Judah, possibly with the intention of joining the Canaanites in Jebus, and the Anakim in Hebron and upon the mountains in the south, and then making a combined attack upon the Israelites. This might induce or even compel Judah and Simeon to attack this enemy first of all, and even to pursue him till they overtook him at his capital Bezek, and smote him with all his army. Adoni-bezek, i.e. lord of Bezek, is the oflBcial title of this king, whose proper name is unknown.

In the principal engagement, in which 10,000 Canaanites fell, Adoni-bezek escaped; but he was overtaken in his flight (vers. 6, 7), and so mutilated, by the cutting off of his thumbs and great toes, that he could neither cany- arms nor flee. With this cruel treatment, which the Athenians are said to have practised upon the captured ^gvnetes (JElian, var. hist. ii. 9), the Israelites simply executed the just judgment of retribution, as Adoni-bezek was compelled to acknowledge, for the cruelties which he had inflicted upon captives taken by himself. " Seventy kings" he says in ver. 7, '" with the thumbs of their hands and feet cut o^, were gathering tinder my table. As I have done^ so God hath requited me." L'sspo... ni:n3, lit. " cut in the thumbs of their hands and feet" (see Ewald, Lehrb. § 284, c). The object to D'Cip^D, "gathering up" (viz. crumbs), is easily supplied from the idea of the verb itself. Gathering up crumbs under the table, like the dogs in Matt, xv, 27, is a figurative representation of the most shameful treatment and humiliation. " Seventy " is a round number, and is certainly an exaggerated hyperbole here. For even if every town of importance in Canaan had its own king, the fact that, when Joshua conquered the laud, he only smote thirty-one kings, is sufficient evidence that there can hardly have been seventy kings to be found in all Canaan. It appears strange, too, that the king of Bezek is not mentioned in connection with the conquest of Canaan under Joshua. Bezek was probably situated more on the side towards the valley of the Jordan, where the Israelites under Joshua did not go. Possibly, too, the culminating point of Adoni-bezek's power, when he conquered so many kings, was before the arrival of the Israelites in Canaan, and it may at that time have begun to decline; so that he did not venture to undertake anything against the combined forces of Israel under Joshua, and it was not till the Israelitish tribes separated to go to their own possessions, that he once more tried the fortunes of war and was defeated. The children of Judah took him with them to Jerusalem, where he died.

Vers. 8-15. After his defeat, Judah and Simeon went against Jerusalem, and conquered this city and smote it, i.e. its inhabitants.

with the edge of the sword, or without quarter (see Gen. xxxiv. 26), and set the city on fire. C'xa n?^, to set on fire, to give up to the flames, only occurs again in chap. xx. 48, 2 Kings viii. 12, and Ps. Ixxiv. 7. Joshua had already slain the king of Jerusalem and his four allies after the battle at Gibeon (Josh. x. 3, 18-26), but had not conquered Jerusalem, his capital. This was not done till after Joshua's death, when it was taken by the tribes of Judah and Simeon. But even after this capture, and notwithstanding the fact that it had been set on fire, it did not come into the sole and permanent possession of the Israelites. After the conquerors had advanced still farther, to make war upon the Canaanites in the mountains, in the Negeh, and in the shephelah (vers. 9 sqq.), the Jebusites took it again and rebuilt it, so that in the following age it was regarded by the Israelites as a foreign city (chap. xix. 11, 12). The Benjamin ites, to whom Jerusalem had fallen by lot, were no more able to drive out the Jebusites than the Judseans had been. Consequently they continued to live by the side of the Benjaminites (chap. i. 21) and the Judseans (Josh xv. 63), who settled, as time rolled on, in this the border city of their possessions; and in the upper town especially, upon the top of Mount Zion, they established themselves so firmly, that they could not be dislodged until David succeeded in wresting this fortress from them, and made the city of Zion the capital of his kingdom (2 Sam. v. 6 sqq.).^ — Vers. 9 sqq. After the conquest of Jerusalem, the children of Judah (together with the Simeonites, ver. 3) went down into their own possessions, to make war upon the Canaanites in the mountains, the Negeh, and the shephelah (see at Josh. xv. 48, xxi. 33), and to exterminate them. They first of all conquered Hebron and Debir upon the mountains (vers. 10-15), as has already been related in Josh. xv.

^ In this way we may reconcile in a very simple manner the different accounts concerning Jerusalem in Josh. xv. 63, Judg. i. 8, 21, xix. 11 sqq., I Sam. xvii. 54, and 2 Sam. v. vi., without there being the slightest necessity to restrict the conquest mentioned in this verse to the city that was built round Mount Zion, as Josephris does, to the exclusion of the citadel upon Zion itself; or to follow Bertheau, and refer the account of the Jebusites dwelling by the children of Judah in Jerusalem (Josh. xv. 63) to a time subsequent to the conquest of the citadel of Zion by David, — an interpretation which is neither favoured by the circumstance that the Jebusite Araunah still held some property there in the time of David (2 Sam. xxiv. 21 sqq.), nor by the passage in 1 Kings ix. 20 sqq., according to which the descendants of the Araorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who still remained in the land were made into tributary bondmen by Solomon, and set to work upon the buildings that he bad in band.

14-19 (see the commentary on this passage). The forms Trpv and n'rinri (ver. 15), instead of nvpy and ni»rinri (Josh. xv. 19), are in the singular, and are construed with the plural form of the feminine Jybi, because this is used in the sense of the singular, "a spring** (see Eicald, § 318, a.).

Ver. 16. The notice respecting the Kenites, that thev went up out of the palm-city with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah in the south of Arad, and dwelt there with the Judaeans, is introduced here into the account of the wars of the tribe of Judah, because this migration of the Kenites belonged to the time between the conquest of Debir (vers. 12 sqq.) and Zephath (ver. 17); and the notice itself was of importance, as forming the intermediate link between Num. x. 29 sqq., and the later allusions to the Kenites in Judg. iv. 11, v. 24, 1 Sam. xv. 6, xxvii. 10, xxx. 29. " The childi'en of the Kenite^^ i.e. the descendants of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses (compare chap. iv. 11, where the name is given, but "P occurs instead of ^r^, with Num. x. 29), were probably a branch of the Kenites mentioned in Gen. xv. 19 along with the other tribes of Canaan, which had separated from the other members of its own tribe before the time of Moses and removed to the land of Midian, where Moses met with a hospitable reception from their chief Reguel on his flight from Egypt. These Kenites had accompanied the Israelites to Canaan at the request of Moses (Num. x. 29 sqq.); and when the Israelites advanced into Canaan itself, they had probably remained as nomads in the neighbourhood of the Jordan near to Jericho, without taking any part in the wars of Joshua. But when the tribe of Judah had exterminated the Canaanites out of Hebron, Debir, and the neighbourhood, after the death of Joshua, they went into the desert of Judah with the Judseans as they moved farther towards the south; and going to the south-western edge of this desert, to the district on the south of Arad (Tell Arad, see at Num. xxi. 1), they settled there on the border of the steppes of the Negeb (Num. xxxiii. 40). " T7ie palmcity" was a name given to the city of Jericho, according to chap, iii. 13, Deut. xxxiv. 3, 2 Chron. xxviii. 15. There is no ground whatever for thinking of some other town of this name in the desert of Arabia, near the palm-forest, (f)oiviKciov, of Diod. Sic. (iii. 42) and Strabo (p. 776), as Clericus and Bertheau suppose, even if it could be proved that there was any such town in the neighbourhood. ^>^^, " then he icent (the branch of the Kenites just referred to) and dicelt icith the people" (of the children of Judah), that is to say, with the people of Israel in the desert of Judah. The subject to ^^.'1 is ''3''i5, the Kenite, as a tribe.

Vers. 17-21. Remaining Conquests of the combined Tribes of Judah and Simeon. — Ver. 17. Zephath was in the territory of Simeon. This is evident not only from the fact that Hormah (Zephath) had been allotted to the tribe of Simeon (compare Josh, xix. 4 with chap. xv. 30), but also from the words, ''Judah went with Simeon his brother," which point back to ver. 3, and express the thought that Judah went with Simeon into his territory to drive out the Canaanites who were still to be found there. Goincr southwards from Debir, Judah and Simeon smote the Canaanites at Zephath on the southern boundary of Canaan, and executed the ban upon this town, from which it received the name of Hormah^ i.e. banning. The town has been preserved in the ruins of Sepdta, on the south of Khalasa or Elusa (see at Josh. xii. 14). In the passage mentioned, the king of Hormah or Zephath is named among the kings who were slain by Joshua. It does not follow from this, however, that Joshua must necessarily have conquered his capital Zephath; the king of Jerusalem was also smitten by Joshua and slain, without Jerusalem itself being taken at that time. But even if Zephath were taken by the Israelites, as soon as the Israelitish army had withdrawn, the Canaanites there might have taken possession of the town again; so that, like many other Canaanitish towns, it had to be conquered again after Joshua's death (see the commentary on Num. xxi. 2, 3). There is not much probability in this conjecture, however, for the simple reason that the ban pronounced by Moses upon the country of the king of Arad (Num. xxi. 2) was carri\d out now for the first time by Judah and Simeon upon the town of Zephath, which formed a part of it. If Joshua had conquered it, he would certainly have executed the ban uj)on it. The name Hormah, which was already given to Zephath in Josh. XV. 30 and xix. 4, is no proof to the contrary, since it may be used proleptically there. In any case, the infliction of the ban upon this town can only be explained from the fact that Moses had pronounced the ban upon all the towns of the king of Arad. — Ver. 18. From the Negeb Judah turned into the shephelah, and took the three principal cities of the Philistines along the line of coast, viz. Gaza, Askelon, and Ekron, with their territory. The order in which the names of the captured cities occur is a proof that the conquest took place from the south. First of all Gaza, the southernmost of all the towns of the Philistines, the present Guzzeh; then

Askelon (Askuldn), which is five hours to the north of Gaza; and lastly Ekron, the most northerly of the five towns of the Philistines, the present AMr (see at Josh. xiii. 3). Thfi other two, Ashdod and Gath, do not appear to have been conquered at that time. And even those that were conquered, the Judaeans were unable to hold long. In the time of Samson they were all of them in the hands of the Philistines again (see chap. xiv. 19, xvi. 1 sqq.; 1 Sam. v. 10, etc.). — In ver. 19 we have a brief summary of the results of the contests for the possession of the land. "Jehovah zcas with Judah;" and with His help they took possession of the mountains. And they did nothing more; "for the inhabitants of the plain they were tenable to exterminate, because they had iron chariots" B'^in has two different meanings in the two clauses: first (^'l), to seize upon a possession which has been vacated by the expulsion or destruction of its former inhabitants: and secondly (B'nin?, with the accusative, of the inhabitants), to drive or exterminate them out of their possessions, — a meaning which is derived from the earlier signification of making it an emptied possession (see Ex. xxxiv. 24; Num. xxxii. 21, etc.). " The mountain' here includes the south-land (the Negeb), as the only distinction is between mountains and plain. " The valley" is the shephelah (ver. 9). C'linp N?j he was not (able) to drive out. The construction may be explained from the fact that \h is to be taken independently here as in Amos vi. 10, in the same sense in which P.** before the infinitive is used in later writings (2 Chron. v. 11; Esther iv. 2, viii. 8; Eccl. iii. 14: see Ges. § 132-3, anm. 1; Ewald, § 237, e.). On the iron chariots, i.e. the chariots tipped with iron, see at Josh. x\Ti. 16. — To this there is appended, in ver. 20, the statement that " they gave Hebron unto Caleb" etc., which already occurred in Josh. XV. 13, 14, and was there explained; and also in ver. 21 the remark, that the Benjaminites did not drive out the Jebusites who dwelt in Jerusalem, which is so far in place here, that it shows, on the one hand, that the children of Judah did not bring Jerusalem into the undisputed possession of the Israelites through this conquest, and, on the other hand, that it was not their intention to diminish the inheritance of Benjamin by the conquest of Jerusalem, and they had not taken the city for themselves. For further remarks, see at ver. 8.

The hostile attacks of the other tribes upon the Canaanites who remained in the land are briefly summed up in vers. 22-36. Of these the taking of Bethel is more fullv described in vers. 22-26.

Besides this, nothing more is given than the list of the towns in the territories of western Manasseh (vers. 27, 28), Ephraim (ver. 29), Zebulun (ver. 30), Asher (vers. 31, 32), Naphtali (ver. 33), and Dan (vers. 34, 35), out of which the Canaanites were not exterminated by these tribes. Issachar is omitted; hardly, however, because that tribe made no attempt to disturb the Canaanites, as Bertheau supposes, but rather because none of its towns remained in the hands of the Canaanites.

Vers. 22-26. Like Judah, so also ("they also," referring back to vers. 2, 3) did the house of Joseph (Ephraim and western Manasseh) renew the hostilities with the Canaanites who were left in their territory after the death of Joshua. The children of Joseph went up against Bethel, and Jehovah was with them, so that they were able to conquer the city. Bethel had indeed been assigned to the tribe of Benjamin (Josh, xviii. 22), but it was situated on the southern boundary of the tribe-land of Ephraim (Josh. xvi. 2, xviii. 13); so that the tribe of Joseph could not tolerate the Canaanites in this border town, if it would defend its own territory against them, and purge it entirely of them. This is a sufficient explanation of the fact that this one conquest is mentioned, and this only, without there being any necessity to seek for the reason, as Bertheau does, in the circumstance that the town of Bethel came into such significant prominence in the later history of Israel, and attained the same importance in many respects in relation to the northern tribes, as that which Jerusalem attained in relation to the southern. For the fact that nothing more is said about the other conquests of the children of Joseph, may be explained simply enough on the supposition that they did not succeed in rooting out the Canaanites from the other fortified towns in their possessions; and therefore there was nothing to record about any further conquests, as the result of their hostilities was merely this, that they did not drive the Canaanites out of the towns named in vers. 27, 29, but simply made them tributary, ^t^fi^^ they had it explored, or spied out. "iin is construed with 3 here, because the spying laid hold, as it were, of its object. Bethel, formerly Luz, now Beitin: see at Gen. xxviii. 19 and Josh. vii. 2. — Ver. 24. And the watchmen {i.e. the spies sent out to explore Bethel) saw a man coming out of the town, and got him to show them the entrance into it, under a promise that they would show him favour, i.e. would spare the lives of himself and his family (see Josh. ii. 12, 13); whereupon they took the town and smote it withou* quarter, according to the law In Deut. xx. 16, 17, letting none but tbe man and his family go. By " the entrance into the city** we are not to understand the gate of the town, but the way or mode by which they could get into the town, which was no doubt fortified. — Yer. 26. The man whom they had permitted to go free, went with his family into the land of the Hittites, and there built a town, to which he gave the name of his earlier abode, viz. Litz. The situation of this Luz is altogether unknown. Even the situation of the land of the Hittites cannot be more precisely determined; for we find Hittites at Hebron in the times of Abraham and Moses (Gen. xxiii.), and also upon the mountains of Palestine (Num. xiii. 29), and at a later period in the north-east of Canaan on the borders of Syria (1 Kings x. 29). That the Hittites were one of the most numerous and widespread of the tribes of the Canaanites, is evident from the fact that, in Josh. i. 4, the Canaanites generally are described as Hittites.

Vers. 27, 28. Manasseh did not root out the Canaanites from the towns which had been allotted to it in the territory of Asher and Issachar (Josh. x%'ii. 11), but simply made them tributary. 'M\ {Si*^n'3"nx c^in ^6, considered by itself, might be rendered: " Manasseh did not take possession of Bethshean^* etc. But as we find, in the further enumeration, the inhabitants of the towns mentioned instead of the towns themselves, we must take t^in in the sense of rooting out, driving out of their possessions, which is the only rendering applicable in ver. 28; and thus, according to a very frequent metonymy, must understand by the towns the inhabitants of the towns. " Manasseh did not exterminate Bethshean,'* i.e. the inhabitants of Bethshean, etc. All the towns mentioned here have already been mentioned in Josh. xvii. 11, the only difference being, that they are not placed in exactly the same order, and that Endor is mentioned there after J)or; whereas here it has no doubt fallen out through a copyist's error, as the Manassites, according to Josh. xvii. 12, 13, did not exterminate the Canaanites from all the towns mentioned there. The change in the order in which the towns occur — Taanach being placed next to Bethshean, whereas in Joshua Bethshean is followed by Ibleam, which is placed last but one in the present list — may be explained on the supposition, that in Josh. xvii. 11, Endor, Taanach, and Megiddo are placed together, as forming a triple league, of which the author of our book has taken no notice. Nearly all these towns were in the plain of Jezreel, or in the immediate neighbourhood of the great commercial roads which ran from the coast of the Mediterranean to Damascus and central Asia. The Canaanites no doubt brought all their strength to bear upon the defence of these roads; and in this their war-chariots, against which Israel could do nothing in the plain of Jezreel, were of the greatest service (see ver. 19; Josh, xvii. 16). For further particulars respecting the situation of the different towns, see at Josh. xvii. 11. Dor only was on the coast of the Mediterranean (see at Josh. xi. 2), and being a commercial emporium of the Phoenicians, would certainly be strongly fortified, and very difficult to conquer. — Ver. 28. As the Israelites grew strong, they made serfs of the Canaanites (see at Gen. xlix. 15). When this took place is not stated; but at all events, it was only done gradually in the course of the epoch of the judges, and not for the first time during the reign of Solomon, as Bertheau supposes on the ground of 1 Kings ix. 20-22 and iv. 12, without considering that even in the time of David the Israelites liad already attained the highest power they ever possessed, and that there is nothing at variance with this in 1 Kings iv. 12 and ix. 20-22. For it by no means follows, from the appointment of a prefect by Solomon over the districts of Taanach, Megiddo, and Bethshean (1 Kings iv. 12), that these districts had only been conquered by Solomon a short time before, when we bear in mind that Solomon appointed twelve such prefects over all Israel, to remit in regular order the national payments that were required for the maintenance of the regal court. Nor does it follow, that because Solomon employed the descendants of the Canaanites who were left in the land as tributary labourers in the erection of his great buildings, therefore he was the first who succeeded in compelling those Canaanites who were not exterminated when the land was conquered by Joshua, to pay tribute to the different tribes of Israel.

Vers. 29-35. Ephraim did not root out the Canaanites in Gezer (ver. 29), as has already been stated in Josh. xvi. 10. — Ver. 30. Zebulun did not root out the Canaanites in Kitron and Nahalol. Neither of these places has been discovered (see at Josh. xix. 15). — Ver. 31. Asher did not root out those in Acco, etc. Acco: a seaport town to the north of Carmel, on the bay which is called by its name; it is called Ake by Josephus^ Diod. Sic.j and Plint/, and was afterwards named Ptolemais from one of the Ptolemys (1 Mace. V. 15, 21, X. 1, etc.; Acts xxi. 7). The Arabs called it Akha, and this was corrupted by the crusaders into Acker or Acre. During the crusades it was a very flourishing maritime and commercial town; but it subsequently fell into decay, and at the present time has a population of about 5000, composed of Mussulmans, Druses, and Christians (see C. v. Raumer, Pal. p. 119; Hob. Bibl. Res.; and Ritter, Erdk. xvi. pp. 725 sqq.). Sidoti, now Saida: see at Josh. xi. 8. Achlab is only mentioned here, and is not known. Achzih, i.e. Ecdippa: see at Josh. xix. 29. Helhah is unknown. Aphek is the present Afkah: see Josh. xiii. 4, xix. 30. Rehoh is unknown: see at Josh. xix. 28, 30. As seven out of the twentytwo towns of Asher (Josh. xix. 30) remained in the hands of the Canaanites, including such important places as Acco and Sidon, it is not stated in ver. 32, as in vers. 29, 30, that " the Canaanites dwelt among them," but that " the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites,^^ to show that the Canaanites held the upper hand. And for this reason the expression " they became tributaries" (vers. 30, 35, etc.) is also omitted. — Yer. 33. Xaphtali did not root out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and Beth-artath, two fortified towns, the situation of which is still unknown (see at Josh. xix. 38); so that this tribe also dwelt among the Canaanites, but did not make them tributary'. — Vers. 34, 35. Still less were the Danites able to drive the Canaanites out of their inheritance. On the contrar}-^, the Amorites forced Dan up into the mountains, and would not suffer them to come down into the plain. But the territory allotted to the Danites was almost all in the plain (see at Josh. xix. 40). If, therefore, they were forced out of that, they were almost entirely excluded from their inheritance. The Amorites emboldened themselves (see at Deut. i. 5) to dwell in Har-chereSy Ajalon, and Shaalbini. On the last two places see Josh. xix. 42, where Ir-shemesh is also mentioned. This combination, and still more the meaning of the names Har-cheres, i.e. sun-mountain, and Ir-shemeshy i.e. sun-town, make the conjecture a veiy probable one, that Har-cheres is only another name for Ir-shemesh^ i.e. the present Ain Shems (see at Josh. xv. 10, and Rob. Pal. iii. pp. 17, 18). This pressure on the part of the Amorites induced a portion of the Danites to emigrate, and seek for an inheritance in the north of Palestine (see chap, xviii.). On the other hand, the Amorites were gradually made tributary by the powerful tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who bounded Dan on the north. " The hand of the house of Joseph l<iy heavy" sc. upon the Amorites in the towns already named on the borders of Ephraim. For the expression itself, comp. 1 Sam. V. 6; Ps. xxxii. 4 the territory of Dan, a short notice is added concerning their extension in the south of Palestine. " The territory of the Amorites was" i.e. extended (viz. at the time of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites), " from the ascent of Akrabbim, from the rock onwards and farther up^ Maaleh-Akrabbim, (ascensus scorpiorum) was the sharply projecting line of cliffs which intersected the Ghor below the Dead Sea, and formed the southern boundary of the promised land (see at Num. xxxiv. 4 and Josh. xv. 2, 3). P?']?, from the rock, is no doubt given as a second point upon the boundary of the Amoritish territory, as the repetition of the ]p clearly shows, notwithstanding the omission of the copula 1.. J'??!?, the rock, is supposed by the majority of commentators to refer to the city of Petra^ the ruins of which are still to be seen in the Wady Musa (see Burckhardt, Syr. pp. 703 sqq.; Bob. Pal. ii. pp. 573 sqq., iii. 653), and which is distinctly mentioned in 2 Kings xiv. 7 under the name of PBH, and in Isa. xvi. 1 is called simply Vip. Petra is to the southeast of the Scorpion heights. Consequently, with this rendering the following word "^^V?) (^^^ upward) would have to be taken in the sense of ulterius (and beyond), and Rosenmuller's explanation would be the correct one: " The Amorites not only extended as far as the town of Petra, or inhabited it, but they even carried their dwellings beyond this towards the tops of those southern mountains." But a description of the territory of the Amorites in its southern extension into Arabia Petrsea does not suit the context of the verse, the object of which is to explain how it was that the Amorites were in a condition to force back the Danites out of the plain into the mountains, to say nothing of the fact that it is questionable whether the Amorites ever really spread so far, for which we have neither scriptural testimony nor evidence of any other kind. On this ground even Bertheau has taken 'i/V^J as denoting the direction upwards, i.e. towards the north, which unquestionably suits the usage of npyo as well as the context of the passage. But it is by no means in harmony with this to understand ih'Q'i} as referring tc Petra; for in that case we should have two boundary points mentioned, the second of which was farther south than the first. Now a historian who had any acquaintance with the topography, would never have described the extent of the Amoritish territory from south to north in such a way as this, commencing with the Scorpion heights on the north, then passing to Petra, which was farther south, and stating that from this point the territory extended farther towards the north. If npj?oi therefore refers to the extension of the territory of the Amorites in a northerly direction, the expression " from the rock" cannot be understood as relating to the city of Petra, but must denote some other locality well known to the Israelites by that name. Such a locality there undoubtedly was in the rock in the desert of Zin, which had become celebrated through the events that took place at the water of strife (Num. xx. 8, 10), and to which in all probability this expression refers. The rock in question was at the south-west corner of Canaan, on the southern edge of the Rakhma plateau, to which the mountains of the Amorites extended on the south-west (comp. Num. xiv. 25, 44, 45, with Deut. i. 44). And this would be ver}- appropriately mentioned here as the south-western boundary of the Amorites, in connection with the Scorpion heights as their south-eastern boundary, for the purpose of giving the southern boundary of the Amorites in its full extent from east to west.

Chap. ii. 1-5. The Angel of the Lord at Bochim. — To the cursory survey of the attitude which the tribes of Isi'ael assumed towards the Canaanites who still remained in their inheritances, there is appended an account of the appearance of the angel of the Lord, who announced to the people the punishment of God for their breach of the covenant, of which they had been guilty through their failure to exterminate the Canaanites. This theophany is most intimately connected with the facts grouped together iu chap, i., since the design and significance of the historical survey given there are only to be learned from the reproof of the angel; and since both of them have the same aphoristic character, being restricted to the essential facts without entering minutely into any of the attendant details, very much is left in obscurity. This applies more particularly to the statement in ver. la, " Then the angel of Jehovah came up from Gilgal to Bochim." The '" angel of Jehovah" is not a prophet, or some other earthly messenger of Jehovah, either Phinehas or Joshua, as the Targums^ the Rabbins, Beriheau, aud others assume, but the angel of the Lord who is of one essence with God. In the simple historical narrative a prophet is never called Maleach Jehovah. The prophets are always called either K'33 or K''3: IT'K, as in chap. vi. 8, or else "man of God," as in 1 Kings xii. 22, xiii. 1, etc.; and Hag. i. 13 and Mai. iii. 1 cannot be adduced as proofs to the contrary, because in both these passages the purely appellative meaning of the word Maleach is established beyond all question by the context itself. Moreover, no prophet ever identifies himself so entirelv with God as the angel of Jehovah does here. The prophets always distinguish between themselves and Jehovah, by introducing their words with the declaration " *hus saith Jehovah," as the prophet mentioned in chap. vi. 8 is said to have done. On the other hand, it is affirmed that no anorel mentioned in the liistorical books is ever said to have addressed the whole nation, or to have passed from one place to another. But even if it had been a propliet who was speaking, we could not possibly understand his speaking to the whole nation, or "to all the children of Israel," as signifying that he spoke directly to the 600,000 men of Israel, but simply as an address delivered to the whole nation in the persons of its heads or representatives. Thus Joshua spoke to " all the people" (Josh. xxiv. 2), though only the elders of Israel and its heads were assembled round him (Josh, xxiv. 1). And so an angel, or "the angel of the Lord," might also speak to the heads of the nation, when his message had reference to all the people. And there was nothing in the fact of his coming up from Gilgal to Bochim that was at all at variance with the nature of the angel. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, it is stated in chap. vi. 11 that he came and sat under the terebinth at Ophra; and in the same way the appearance of the angel of the Lord at Bochim might just as naturally be described as coming up to Bochim. The only thing that strikes us as peculiar is his coming up " from Gilgal." This statement must be intimately connected with the mission of the angel, and therefore must contain something more than a simply literal notice concerning his travelling from one place to another. We are not to conclude, however, that the angel of the Lord came from Gilgal, because this town was the gathering-place of the congregation in Joshua's time. Apart altogether from the qiiestion discussed in pp. 92 sqq. as to the situation of Gilgal in the different passages of the book of Joshua, such a view as this is overthrown by the circumstance that after the erection of the tabernacle at Shiloh, and during the division of the land, it was not Gilgal but Shiloh which formed the gatheringplace of the congregation when the casting of the lots was finished (Josh, xviii. 1, 10). We cannot agree with H. Witsius, therefore, who says in his Miscell. ss. (i. p. 170, ed. 1736) that " he came from that place, where he had remained for a long time to guard the camp, and where he was thought to be tarrying still;" but must rather assume that his coming up from Gilgal is closely connected with the appearance of the angel-prince, as described in Josh. v. 13, to announce to Joshua the fall of Jericho after the circumcision of the people at Gilgal. Just as on that occasion, when Israel had just entered into the true covenant relation to the Lord by circumcision, and was preparing for the conquest of Canaan, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joshua as the prince of the army of Jehovah, to ensure him of the taking of Jericho; so here after the entrance of the tribes of Israel into their inheritances, when thev were becrinning to make peace with the remaining Canaanites, and instead of rooting them out were content to make them tributary, the angel of the Lord appeared to the people, to make known to all the children of Israel that by such intercourse with the Canaanites they had broken the covenant of the Lord, and to foretell the punishment which would follow this transgression of the covenant. By the fact, therefore, that he came up from Gilgal, it is distinctly shown that the same angel who gave the whole of Canaan into the hands of the Israelites when Jericho fell, had appeared to them again at Bochim, to make known to them the purposes of God in consequence of their disobedience to the commands of the Lord. How very far it was from being the author's intention to give simply a geographical notice, is also evident from the fact that he merely describes the place where this appearance occurred by tlie name which was given to it in consequence of the event, viz. JSochim, i.e. weepers. The situation of this place is altogether unknown. The rendering of the LXX., €7rt rov KXavdficova koI errl Bai6^\ koI iirl rov oIkov ^lapayjXj gives no clue whatever; for top KXavdficova merely arises from a confusion of 0^32 with C<33 in 2 Sam. v. 23, which the LXX. have also rendered KXavOfxwv, and iirl rov BaidrfX. k.t.\. is an arbitrary interpolation of the translators themselves, who supposed Bochim to he in the neighbourhood of Bethel, "in all probability merely because they thought of Allan- bachuth, the oak of weeping, at Bethel, which is mentioned in Gen. xxxv. 8" {Bertheav). With regard to the pisha in the middle of the verse, see the remarks on Josh. iv. 1. In his address the angel of the Lord identifies himself with Jehovah (as in Josh. v. 14 compared with vi. 2), by describing himself as having made them to go tip out of Egypt and brought them into the land which He sware unto their fathers. There is something very striking in the use of the imperfect ~^1'S in the place of the perfect (cf. chap. vi. 8), as the substance of the address and the continuation of it in the historical tense ^'2X1 and "i?Xl require the preterite. The imperfect is only to be explained on the supposition that it is occasioned by the imperf. consec. which follows immediately afterwards and reacts through its proximity. " I will not break my covenant for ever" i.e. will keep what I promised when making the covenant, viz. that I would endow Israel with blessings and salvation, if they for their part would observe the covenant duties into which they had entered (see Ex. xix. 5 sqq.), and obey the commandments of the Lord. Among these was the commandment to enter into no alliance with the inhabitants of that land, viz. the Canaanites (see Ex. xxiii. 32, 33, xxxiv. 12, 13, 15, 16; Deut. vii. 2 sqq.; Josh, xxiii. 12). " Destroy their altars;" taken verbatim from Ex, xxxiv. 13, Deut. vii. 5. The words "and ye have not hearkened to my voice^* recall to mind Ex. xix. 5. " What have ye done" (riNrnOj literally " what is this that ye have done") sc. in sparing the Canaanites and tolerating their altars? — Ver. 3. " A7id I also have said to you:" these words point to the threat already expressed in Num. xxxiii. 55, Josh, xxiii. 13, in the event of their not fulfilling the command of God, which threat the Lord would now fulfil. From the passages mentioned, we may also explain the expression i3''1Vr ^?^ ^"'^'Ij they shall be in your sides, i.e. thorns in your sides. ^'''IV? is an abbreviated expression for Q^^IV? ^"^''^^ in Num. xxxiii. 55, so that there is no necessity for the conjecture that it stands for D"''?^^'. The last clause of ver. 3 is formed after Ex. xxiii. 33. — Vers. 4, 5. The people broke out into loud weeping on account of this reproof. And since the weeping, from which the place received the name of Bochim, was a sign of their grief on account of their sin, this grief led on to such repentance that " they sacrijiced there unto the Lord" no doubt presenting sin-offerings and burnt-offerings, that they might obtain mercy and the forgiveness of their sins. It does not follow from this sacrifice, however, that the tabernacle or the ark of the covenant was to be found at Bochim. In any place where the Lord appeared to His people, sacrifices might be offered to Him (see chap. vi. 20, 26, 28, xiii. 16 sqq.; 2 Sam. xxiv. 25, and the commentary on Deut. xii. 5). On the other hand, it does follow from the sacrifice at Bochim, where there was no sanctuary of Jehovah, that the person who appeared to the people was not a prophet, nor even an ordinary angel, but the angel of the Lord, who is essentially one with Jehovah.

CONDUCT OF ISRAEL TOWARDS THE LORD, AND TREATMENT OJ ISRAEL BY THE LORD, IX THE TIME OF THE JUDGES. — CHAP. II. 6-III. 6.

The attitude which the Israelites assumed towards the Canaanites who were left in their possessions, contained the germ of the peculiar direction given to the development of the nation of God in the times of the judges. To exhibit the course of this development in its most general principles, the age which commenced after Joshua's death is characterized as a period of constant alternation between idolatry and consequent subjugation bj foreign nations as a punishment from God for the transgression of His covenant on the one hand, and return to God after receiving chastisement and consequent deliverance by judges expressly raised up by God for that purpose on the other. In this way the righteousness of the holy God is displayed so clearly in the punishment of the rebelhous, and the mercy of the faithful covenant God in His forgiveness of the penitent, that the history of Israel at that time exhibits to us an example of the divine holiness and righteousness on the one hand, and of His grace and mercy on the other, as displayed in the church of God of all times, as a warning for the ungodly and for the consolation of the righteous.

Vers. 6-10. The account of this development of the covenant nation, which commenced after the death of Joshua and his contemporaries, is attached to the book of Joshua by a simple repetition of the closing verses of that book (Josh. xxiv. 28-31) in vers. 6-10, with a few unimportant differences, not only to form a link between Josh. xxiv. and Judg. ii. 11, and to resume the thread of the history which was broken off by the summary just given of the results of the wars between the Israelites and Canaanites (Bertheau), but rather to bring out sharply and clearly the contrast between the age that was past and the period of the Israelitish history that was just about to commence. The vav consec. attached to n?Bh expresses the order of thought and not of time. The apostasy of the new generation from the Lord (vers. 10 sqq.) was a necessary consequence of the attitude of Israel to the Canaanites who were left in the land, as described in chap. L 1-ii. 5. This thought is indicated by the rat* consec. in Hpyh; so that the meaning of vers. 6 sqq. as expressed in our ordinary phraseology would be as follows: Now when Joshua had dismissed the people, and the children of Israel had gone every one to his own inheritance to take possession of the land, the people served the Lord as long as Joshua and the elders who survived him were alive; but when Joshua was dead, and that generation (which was contemporaneous with him) had been gathered to its fathers, there rose up another generation after them which knew not the Lord, and also (knew not) the work which He had done to Israel. On the death and burial of Joshua, see at Josh. xxiv. 29, 30. " Gathered unto their fathers" corresponds to "gathered to his people" in the Pentateuch (Gen. xxv. 8, 17, XXXV. 29, xlix. 29, 33, etc.: see at Gen. xxv. 8). They " knew not the Lord" sc. from seeing or experiencing His wonderful deeds, which the contemporaries of Joshua and Moses had seen and experienced.

In the general survey of the times of the judges, commencing at ver. 11, the falling away of the Israelites from the Lord is mentioned first of all, and at the same time it is distinctly shown how neither the chastisements inflicted upon them by God at the hands of hostile nations, nor the sending of judges to set them free from the hostile oppression, availed to turn them from their idolatry (vers. 11-19). This is followed by the determination of God to tempt and chastise the sinful nation by not driving away the remaining Canaanites (vers. 20-23); and lastly, the account concludes with an enumeration of the tribes that still remained, and the attitude of Israel towards them (chap. iii. 1-6).

Yers. 11-19. Repeated falling away of the People from the Lord. ■- — Vers. 11-13. The Israelites did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord (what was displeasing to the Lord); they served Baalim. The plural Baalim is a general term employed to denote all false deities, and is synonymous with the expression "other gods" in the clause "other gods of the gods of the nations round about them" (the Israelites). This use of the term Baalim arose from the fact that Baal was the chief male deity of the Canaanites and all the nations of Hither Asia, and was simply worshipped by the different nations with peculiar modifications, and therefore designated by various distinctive epithets. In ver. 12 this apostasy is more minutely described as forsaking Jehovah the God of their fathers, to whom they were indebted for the greatest blessing, viz. their deliverance out of Egypt, and following other gods of the heathen nations that were round about them (taken verbatim from Deut. vi 14, and xiii. 7, 8), and worshipping them. In this way they provoked the Lord to anger (cf. Deut. iv. 25, ix. 18, etc.). — Ver. 13. Thus they forsook Jehovah, and served Baal and the Asthartes. In this case the singular Baal is connected with the plural Ashtarothj because the male deities of all the Canaanitish nations, and those that bordered upon Canaan, were in their nature one and the same deity, viz. Baal, a sun-god, and as such the vehicle and source of physical life, and of the generative and reproductive power of nature, which was regarded as an effluence from its own being (see Movers, Relig. der Phonizier, pp. 184 sqq., and J. G. Muller in Herzog's Cyclopaedia). Ashtaroth, from the singular Ashtoreth, which only occurs again in 1 Kings xi. 5, 33, and 2 Kings xxiii. 13, in connection with the Sidonian Astharte, was the general name used to denote the leading female deity of the Canaanitish tribes, a moon-goddess, who was worshipped as the feminine principle of nature embodied in the pure moon-light, and its influence upon terrestrial life. It corresponded to the Greek Aphrodite, whose celebrated temple at Askalon is described in Herod, i. 105. In chap. iii. 7, Ashei-oth is used as equivalent to Ashtaroth, which is used here, chap. x. 6; 1 Sam. vii. 4, xii. 10. The name Asheroth^ was transferred to the deity itself from the idols of this goddess, which generally consisted of wooden columns, and are called Asherim in Ex. xxxiv. 13, Deut. vii. 5, xii. 3, xvi. 21. On the other hand, the word Ashtoreth is witliout any traceable etymology in the Semitic dialects, and was probably derived from Upper Asia, being connected with a Persian word signifying a star, and synonymous with 'A<rrpodpxVi the star-queen of Sabaeism (see Ges. Thes. pp. 1083-4; Movers, p. 606; and Muller, ut sup.). With regard to the nature of the Baal and Astharte worship, into which the Israelites fell not long after the death of Joshua, and in which they continued henceforth to sink deeper and deeper, it is evident from the more precise allusions contained in the history of Gideon, that it did not consist of direct opposition to the worship of Jehovah, or involve any formal rejection of Jehovah, but that it was simply an admixture of the worship of Jehovah with the heathen or Canaanitish nature-worship. Not only was the ephod which Gideon caused to be made in his native town of Ophrah, and after which all Israel went a whoring (chap. viii. 27), an imitation of the high priest's ephod in the worship of Jehovah; but the worship of Baal-berith at Shechem, after which the Israelites went a whoring again when Gideon was dead (chap. \'iii. 33), was simply a corruption of the worship of Jehovah, in which Baal was put in the place of Jehovah and worshipped in a similar way, 1 Rendered groves in the English version. — Tb- as we may clearly see from chap. ix. 27. The worship of Jehovah could even be outwardly continued in connection with this idolatrous worship. Just as in the case of these nations in the midst of which the Israelites lived, the mutual recognition of their different deities and religions was manifested in the fact that they all called their supreme deity by the same name, Baal, and simply adopted some other epithet by which to define the distinctive peculiarities of each; so the Israelites also imagined that they could worship the Baals of the powerful nations round about them along with Jehovah their covenant God, especially if they worshipped them in the same manner as their covenant God. This will serve to explain the rapid and constantly repeated falling away of the Israelites from Jehovah into Baal-worship, at the very time when the worship of Jehovah was stedfastly continued at the tabernacle in accordance with the commands of the law. The Israelites simply followed the lead and example of their heathen neighbours. Just as the heathen were tolerant with regard to the recognition of the deities of other nations, and did not refuse to extend this recognition even to Jehovah the God of Israel, so the Israelites were also tolerant towards the Baals of the neighbouring nations, whose sensuous nature-worship was more grateful to the corrupt heart of man than the spiritual Jehovah-religion, with its solemn demands for sanctification of life. But this syncretism, which was not only reconcilable with polytheism, but actually rooted in its very nature, was altogether irreconcilable with the nature of true religion. For if Jehovah is the only true God, and there are no other gods besides or beside Him, then the purity and holiness of His nature is not only disturbed, but altogether distorted, by any admixture of His worship with the worship of idols or of the objects of nature, the true God being turned into an idol, and Jehovah degraded into Baal. Looking closely into the matter, therefore, the mixture of the Canaanitish worship of Baal with the worship of Jehovah was actually forsaking Jehovah and serving other gods, as the prophetic author of this book pronounces it. It was just the same with the worship of Baal in the kingdom of the ten tribes, which was condemned by the prophets Hosea and Amos (see Hengstenherg^ Christology, i. pp. 168 sqq., Eng. trans.). — Vers. 14, 15. On account of this idolatrous worship, the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, so that He gave them up into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and sold them into the hands of their enemies. D^Dfe' from noK*, alternated with DD^ in IDK'), to plunder. This word is not met with in the Pentateuch, whereas 130, to sell, occurs in Deut. xxxii. 30, in the sense of giving helplessly up to the foe. " They could no longer stand before their enemies,^ as they had done under Joshua, and in fact as long as Israel continued faithful to the Lord; so that now, instead of the promise contained in Lev. xxvi. 7, 8, being fulfilled, the threat contained in Lev. xxvi. 17 was carried into execution. " Wliithersoever they went out" i.e. in every expedition, every attack that they made upon their enemies, " the hand of Jehovah was against them for evil, as He had said'' (Lev. xxvi. 17, 36; Deut. xxviii. 25), and "had sworn unto them." There is no express oath mentioned either in Lev. xxvi. or Deut. xxviii.; it is implied therefore in the nature of the case, or in virtute verborvm, as Seb. Schmidt affirms, inasmuch as the threats themselves were words of the true and holy God. ^xp Q>^? "iV*l, " and it became to them very narroic," i.e. they came into great straits. — Vers. 16, 17. But the Lord did not rest content with this. He did still more. " He raised up judges xcho delivered them out of the hand of their plunderers" to excite them to love in return by this manifestation of His love and mercy, and to induce them to repent. But " they did not hearken even to their judges" namely, so as not to fall back again into idolatry, which the judge had endeavoured to suppress. This limitation of the words is supported by the context, viz. by a comparison of vers. 18, 19. — "But CS after a negative clause) they went a whoring after other gods (for the application of this expression to the spiritual adultery of idolatrous worship, see Ex. xxxiv. 15), and turned quickly away (vid. Ex. xxxii. 8) from the way which their fathers icalked in, to hearken to the commandments of the Lord" i.e. from the way of obedience to the divine commands. " They did not so'' (or what was right) sc. as their fathers under Joshua had done (cf. ver. 7). — Vers. 18, 19. " And when the Lord raised them up judges, and was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge {i.e. as long as the judge was living), because the Lord had compassion upon their sighing, by reason of them that oppressed them, and vexed them (pn"n only occurs again as a verb in Joel ii. 8): it came to pass when the judge was dead, that they returned and acted more corruptly than their fathers," i.e. they turned again to idolatry even more grievously than their fathers had done under the pre\'ious judges. " They did not let fall from their deeds," i.e. they did not cease from their evil deeds, and '"from their stiffnecked way." t\Z^\>, hard, is to be understood as in Ex. xxxii. 9 and xxxiii. 3, where Israel is called a hard-necked people which did not bend under obedience to the commandments of God.

Vers. 20—23. Chastisement of the rebellious Nation. — Vers. 20, 21. On account of this idolatry, which was not only constantly repeated, but continued to grow worse and worse, the anger of the Lord burned so fiercely against Israel, that He determined to destroy no more of the nations which Joshua had left when he died, before the people that had broken His covenant. In order to set forth this divine purpose most distinctly, it is thrown into the form of a sentence uttered b}' God through the expression '1J1 "ip><']. The Lord said, " Because this people has transgressed my covenant,... I also will no longer keep my covenant promise (Ex. xxiii. 23, 27 sqq., xxxiv. 10 sqq.), and will no more drive out any of the remaining Canaanites before them" (see Josh, xxiii. 13). — Ver. 22. The ])urpose of God in this resolution was " to prove Israel through them (the tribes that were not exterminated), whether they (the Israelites) would heep the way of the Lord to walk therein (cf. Deut. viii. 2), as their fathers did keep it, or not^ niEJ |I?^? is not dependent upon the verb 3ry, as Studer supposes, which yields no fitting sense; nor can the clause be separated from the preceding one, as Bertheau suggests, and connected as a protasis with ver. 23 (this would be a thoroughly unnatural construction, for which Isa. xlv. 4 does not furnish any true parallel); but the clause is attached in the simplest possible manner to the main thought in vers. 20, 21, that is to say, to the words " a7id He said''* in ver. 20: Jehovah said, i.e. resolved, that He would not exterminate the remaining nations any further, to tempt Israel through them. The plural D3, in the place of the singular H3, which the foregoing 'Hl'^. requires, is to be regarded as a constructio ad sensum, i.e. to be attributed to the fact, that keeping the way of God really consists in observing the commandments of God, and that this was the thought which floated before the writer's mind. The thought expressed in this verse, that Jehovah would not exterminate the Canaanites before Israel any more, to try them whether they would keep His commandments, just as He had previously caused the people whom He bi'ought out of Egypt to wander in the wilderness for forty years with the very same intention (Deut. viii. 2), is not at variance with the design of God, expressed in Ex. xxiii. 29, 30, and Deut. vii. 22, not to exterminate the Canaanites all at once, lest the land should become waste, and the wild beasts multiply therein, nor yet with the motive assigned in chap. iii. 1, 2. For the determination not to exterminate the Canaanites in one single year, was a different thinff from the purpose of God to suspend their gradual extermination altogether. The former purpose had immediate regard to the well-being of Israel; the latter, on the contrary, was primarilyintended as a chastisement for its transgression of the covenant, although even this chastisement was intended to lead the rebellious nation to repentance, and promote its prosperity by a true conversion to the Lord. And the motive assigned in chap. ii. 2 is in perfect harmony with this intention, as our explanation of this passage will clearly show. — Ver. 23. In consequence of this resolution, the Lord let these tribes (those mentioned in chap. iii. 3) remain at rest, i.e. quietly, in the land, without exterminating them rapidly. The expression "^nOj hastily, quickly, i.e. according to the distinct words of the following clause, through and under Joshua, appears strange after what has gone before. For what is threatened in ver. 21 is not the suspension of rapid extermination, but of any further extermination. This threat, therefore, is so far limited by the word " hastily," as to signify that the Lord would not exterminate any more of these nations so long as Israel persisted in its idolatr}\ But as soon as and whenever Israel returned to the Lord its God in true repentance, to keep His covenant, the Lord would recall His threat, and let the promised extermination of the Canaanites go fonvard again. Had Israel not forsaken the Lord its God so soon after Joshua's death, the Lord would have extenninated the Canaanites who were left in the land much sooner than He did, or have carried out their gradual extermination in a much shorter time than was actually the case, in consequence of the continual idolatry of the people.

Chap. iii. 1-6. Nations which the Lord left in Canaan: with a repetition of the reason why this was done. — Ver. 1. The reason, which has already been stated in chap. ii. 22, viz. " to prove Israel by them," is still further elucidated here. In the first place (ver. 1), ^Nyj^TlX is more precisely defined as signifying " all those who had not known all the wars of Caiiaaii" sc. from their own observation and experience, that is to say, the generation of the Israelites which rose up after the death of Joshua. For " the tears of Canaan" were the wars which were carried on by Joshua with the almighty help of the Lord for the conquest of Canaan. The whole thought is then still further expanded in ver. 2 as follows: " only (for no other purpose than) that the succeeding generations (the generations which followed Joshua and his contemporaries) of the children of Israel, tJiat He (Jeliovah) might teach them war, only those who had not known them (the wars of Canaan)." The suffix attached to D^JTJ^ refers to " the wars of Canaan," although this is a feminine noun, the suffix in the masculine plural being frequently used in connection with a feminine noun. At first sight it would appear as though the reason given here for the non-extermination of the Canaanites was not in harmony with the reason assigned in chap. ii. 22, which is repeated in ver. 4 of the present chapter. But the differences are perfectly reconcilable, if we only give a correct explanation of the two expressions, " learning war," and the " wars of Canaan." Learning war in the context before us is equivalent to learning to make war upon the nations of Canaan. Joshua and the Israelites of his time had not overcome these nations by their own human power or by earthly weapons, but by the miraculous help of their God, who had smitten and destroyed the Canaanites before the Israelites. The omnipotent help of the Lord, however, was only granted to Joshua and the whole nation, on condition that they adhered firmly to the law of God (Josh. i. 7), and faithfully observed the covenant of the Lord; whilst the transgression of that covenant, even by Achan, caused the defeat of Israel before the Canaanites (Josh. vii.). In the wars of Canaan under Joshua, therefore, Israel had experienced and learned, that the power to conquer its foes did not consist in the multitude and bravery of its own fighting men, but solely in the might of its God, which it could only possess so long as it continued faithful to the Lord. This lesson the generations that followed Joshua had forgotten, and consequently they did not understand how to make war. To impress this truth upon them, — the great truth, upon which the very existence as well as the prosperity of Israel, and its attainment of the object of its divine calling, depended; in other words, to teach it by experience, that the people of Jehovah could only fight and conquer in the power of its God, — the Lord had left the Canaanites in the land. Necessity teaches a man to pray. The distress into which the Israelites were brought by the remaining Canaanites was a chastisement from God, through which the Lord desired to lead back the rebellious to himself, to keep them obedient to His commandments, and to train them to the fulfilment of their covenant duties. In this respect, learning war, i.e. learning how the congregation of the Lord was to fight against the enemies of God and of His kingdom, was one of the means appointed by God to tempt Israel, or prove whether it would listen to tne commandments of

God (ver. 4), or would walk in the ways of the Lord. If Israel should so learn to war, it would learn at the same time to keep the commandments of God. But both of these were necessary for the people of God. For just as the realization of the blessings promised to the nation in the covenant depended upon its hearkening to the voice of the Lord, so the conflicts appointed for it were also necessary, just as much for the purification of the sinful nation, as for the perpetuation and growth of the kingdom of God upon the earth. — Yer. 3. The enumeration of the different nations rests upon Josh. xiii. 2-6, and, with its conciseness and brevity, is only fully intelh'gible through the light thrown upon it by that passage. The five princes of the Philistines are mentioned singly there. According to Josh. xiii. 4 sqq., " all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites" are the Canaanitish tribes dwelling in northern Canaan, by the Phoenician coast and upon Mount Lebanon. " The Canaanites;" viz. those who dwelt alone; the sea-coast to the south of Sidon. The Hivites: those who were settled more in t][ -~ heart of the country, " from the mountains of Baal-hermon up to the territory of Hamath." Baal-hermon is only another name for Baal-gad, the present Banjas, under the Hermon (cf. Josh. xiii. 5). "When it is stated still further in ver. 4, that " they were left in existence (i.e. were not exterminated by Jo-hua) to prove Israel by them," we are struck with the fact, that besides the Philistines, only these northern Canaanites are mentioned; whereas, according to chap, i., many towns in the centre of the land were also left in the hands of the Canaanites, and therefore here also the Canaanites were not yet exterminated, and became likewise a snare to the Israelites, not only according to the word of the angel of the Lord (chap. ii. 3), but also because the Israelites who dwelt among these Canaanitish tribes contracted marriages with them, and served their gods. This striking circumstance cannot be set aside, as Bertheau supposes, by the simple remark, that " the two lists (that of the countries which the tribes of Israel did not conquer after Joshua's death in chap, i., and the one given here of the nations which Joshua had not subjugated) must correspond on the whole," since the correspondence referred to really does not exist. It can only be explained on the ground that the Canaanites who were left in the different towns in the midst of the land, acquired all their power to maintain their stand against Israel from the simple fact that the Philistines on the south-west, and several whole tribes of Canaanites in the north, had been left by Joshua neither exterminated nor even conquered, inasmuch as they so crippled the power of the Israelites by wars and invasions of the Israelitish territory, that they were unable to exterminate those who remained in the different fortresses of their own possessions. Because, therefore, the power to resist the Israelites and oppress them for a time resided not so much in the Canaanites who were dwelling in the midst of Israel, as in the Philistines and the Canaanites upon the mountains of Lebanon who had been left unconquered by Joshua, these are the only tribes mentioned in this brief survey as the nations through which the Lord would prove His people. — Vers. 5, 6. But the Israelites did not stand the test. Dwelling in the midst of the Canaanites, of whom six tribes are enumerated, as in Ex. iii. 8, 17, etc. (see at Deut. vii. 1), they contracted marriages with them, and served their gods, contrary to the express prohibition of the Lord in Ex. xxxiv. 16, xxiii. 24, and Deut. vii. 3, 4.

In order that we may be able to take a distinct survey of the development of the Israelites in the three different stages of their history during the times of the judges, the first thing of importance to be done is to determine the chronology of the period of the judges, inasmuch as not only have greatly divergent opinions prevailed upon this point, but hypotheses have been set up, which endanger and to some extent directly overthrow the historical character of the accounts which the book of Judges contains.^ If we take a superficial glance at the chronological data contained in

* Rud. Chr. v. Bennigsen, for example, reckons up fifty different calculations, and the list might be still further increased by the addition of both older and more recent attempts (see Winer^ Bibl. Real-Worterb. ii. pp. 327-8). Lepsius (Chronol. der Mg. i. 315-6, 365 sqq. and 377-8) and Bunsen (iEgypten, i. pp. 209 sqq. iv. 318 sqq., and Bibelwerk, i. pp. ccxxxvii. sqq.), starting from the position maintained by Ewald and Bertheau, that the chronological data of the book of Judges are for the most part to be regarded as round numbers, have sought for light to explain the chronology of the Bible in the darkness of the history of ancient Egypt, and with their usual confidence pronounce it an indisputable truth that the whole of the period of the Judges did not last longer than from 169 to 187 years.

the book, it appears a very simple matter to make the calculation required, inasmuch as the duration of the different hostile oppressions, and also the length of time that most of the judges held their office, or at all events the duration of the peace which they secured for the nation, are distinctly given. The following are the numbers that we find: —

Deliverance by Deborah and Barak, and rest (chap. v. 31),. 40,,

Deliverance by Jephthah, who judged Israel (chap. xii. 7),

At this time Samson judged Israel for 20 years (chap. xv. 20;

Total,. 390 years. For if to this we add (a) the time of Joshua, which is not distinctly

We obtain. 450 years. ^ And if we add stiU further — (c.) The times of Samuel and Saul combined,.... 40,,

The whole time from the entrance of Israel into Canaan to the building of the temple amounted to 533 years.