Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

1 The earlier chronologists discovered a confirmation of this as the length of time that the period of the judges actually lasted in Acts xiii. 20, where Paul in his speech at Antioch in Pisidia says, according to the text us receptus, " After that He gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty yeara

Or if we add the forty years spent in the wilderness, the time that elapsed between the exodus from Egypt and the building of the temple was 573 years. But the interval was not so long as this; for, according to 1 Kings vi. 1, Solomon built the house of the Lord in the 480th year after the children of Israel came out of Egypt, and in the fourth year of his reign. And no well-founded objections can be raised as to the correctness and historical credibility of this statement. It is true that the LXX. have " the 440th year" instead of the 480tli; but this reading is proved to be erroneous by Aquila and Symmachus, who adopt the number 480 in common with all the rest of the ancient versions, and it is now almost unani mously rejected (see Ewald, Gesch. ii. p. 479). In all probability it owed its origin to an arbitrary mode of computing the period referred to by reckoning eleven generations of forty years each (see Ed. Preuss; die Zeitrechnung der LXX. pp. 78 sqq.). On the other hand, the number 480 of the Hebrew text cannot rest upon a mere reckoning of generations, since the year and month of Solomon's reign are given in 1 Kings vi. 1; and if we deduct this date from the 480, there remain 477 or 476 years, which do not form a cyclical number at all.^ Again, the exodus of Israel from Egypt until Samuel the prophet." Tlie discrepancy between this verse and the statement in 1 Kings vi. 1, that Solomon built the temple in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of Egypt, many have endeavoured to remove by a remark, which is correct in itself, viz. that the apostle merely adopted the traditional opinion of the Jewish schools, which had been arrived at by adding together the chronological data of the book of Judges, without entering into the question of its correctness, as it was not his intention to instruct his hearers in chronology. But this passage cannot prove anything at all; for the reading given in the led. rec. is merely founded upon Cod. Cant. and Lmid., and the text of Matthsei; whilst the oldest reading not only according to the Codd. Al., Vat.., EpJir. S. rescr., but according to the Cod. Sinait. ed. Tischendorf and several viinuscula., as well as the Copt. Sahid. Arm. Vers, and Vulg., is, Kxl x,cc6i'Kuv id'jyi I'Trroi, iv y>7 XaJ/aac Kotnx.'Knpovofinoti' eivrois t^v yijv itiiruv us itiatu nrpctKoaloig kxI ■TrsvT'iiKovrx, kcc\ furec roturx ihuKiu KpiTxg tug Ix^wviK T. i^p. This text is rendered thus in the Vulgate: et destruens gentes septem in terra Chanaan sorte distribuit eis terram eorum quasi post quadringentos et quinquaginta annos: et post hxc dedit judices usque ad Samuel pro' phetam, and can hardly be understood in any other sense than this, that Paul reckoned 450 as the time that elapsed between the call of Abraham (or the birth of Isaac) and the division of the land, namely 215 + 215 (according to the Alex, reading of Ex. xii. 40: see the comm. on this passage) + 40 =^ 470, or about 450.

^ BertJieau has quite overlooked this when he endeavours to make the 480 years from the exodus to the building of the temple into a cyclical number, and was an " epoch-making" event, which was fixed in the recollection of the people as no other ever was, so that allusions to it run through the whole of the Old Testament. Moreover, the very fact that it does not tally with the sum total of the numbers in the book of Judges is an argument in favour of its correctness; whereas all the chronological calculations that differ from this bring us back to these numbers, such, for example, as the different statements of Josephus, who reckons the period in question at 592 years in Ant. viii. 3, 1, and on the other hand, at 612 years in Ant. xx. 10 and c. Ap. ii. 2} Lastly, it may easily be shown that there are several things assumed in this chronological survey which have no foundation in the text. This applies both to the assumed succession of the Ammonitish and Philistine oppressions, and also to the introduction of the forty years of Eli's life as judge after or in addition to the forty years that the Philistines ruled over Israel.

The current view, that the forty years of oppression on the part of the Philistines did not commence till after the death of Jephthah or Abdon, is apparently favoured, no doubt, by the circumstance, that this oppression is not described till after the death of Abdon (chap. xii. 15), and is introduced with the usual formula, " And the appeals in support of this to 1 Cliron. vi. 35 sqq. (cf. v. 29 sqq.), where twelve generations are reckoned from Aaron to Ahimaaz, the contemporary of David. But it is perfectly arbitrary on his part to include Ahimaaz, who was a boy in the time of David (2 Sam. xv. 27, 36, xviii. 19, 22, 27 sqq.), as the representative of a generation that was contemporaneous with David; whereas it was not Ahimaaz, but his father Zadok, i.e. the eleventh high priest from Aaron, who anointed Solomon as king (1 Kings i. 39, ii. 35), and therefore there had been only eleven high priests from the exodus to the building of the temple. If therefore this period was to be divided into generations of forty years each on the ground of the genealogies in the Chronicles, there could only be eleven gene- • rations counted, and this is just what the LXX. have done.

^ Josephus adds together the numbers which occur in the book of Judges. Reckoning from the invasion of Chushan-rishathaim to the forty years' oppression of the Philistines (inclusive), these amount to 390 years, if we regard Samson's twenty years as forming part of the Philistine oppression, or to 410 years if they are reckoned separately. Let us add to this the forty years of the journey through the wilderness, the twenty-five years which Josephus assigns to Joshua (Ant. V. 1, 29), the forty years of Eli, the twelve years which he allots to Samuel before the election of Saul as king (vi, 13, 5), and the forty years which he reckons to Samuel and Saul together, and lastly, the forty and a half years of David's reign and the four years of Solomon's up to the time when the temple was built, and we obtain 40 + 25 -}- 40 + 12 -|- 40 -f 40J -h * = 201 J years; and these added to 390 make 591 J, or added to 410 they amount to 611 years.

children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord," etc. (chap. xiii. 1). But this formula, taken by itself, does not furnish any certain proof that the oppression ^vhieh it introduces did not take place till after what has been already described, especially in the absence of any more definite statement, such as the clause introduced into chap. iv. 1, " when Ehud was dead," or the still more definite remark, that the land had rest so many years (chap. iii. 11, 30, V. 31; cf. chap. viii. 32). Now in the case before us, instead of any such statement as to time, we rind the general remark in chap. x. 6 sqq., that when the Israelites sank into idolatry again, Jehovah sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the liands of the children of Aramon; and after this there simply follows an account of the oppression on the part of the Ammonites, and the eventual deliverance effected by Jephthah (chap. x. 8- xii. 7), together with an enumeration of three judges who succeeded Jephthah (chap. xii. 8-15); but we learn nothing further about the oppression on the part of the Philistines which is mentioned in chap. X. 7. When, therefore, it is still further related, in chap. xiii. 1, that the Lord delivered the Israelites into the hand of the Philistines forty years, this cannot possibly refer to another oppression on the part of the Philistines subsequent to the one noticed in chap. X. 7; but the true explanation must be, that the historian proceeds here for the first time to describe the oppression noticed in chap. X. 7, and introduces his description with the formula he generally adopted: " And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord," etc. The oppression itself, therefore, commenced at the same time as that of the Ammonites, and continued side by side with it; but it lasted much longer, and did not come to an end till.a short time before the death of Elon the judge. This is confirmed beyond all doubt by the fact, that although the Ammonites crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim, it was chiefly the tribes of Israel who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan that were oppressed by them (chap. x. 8, 9), and that it was only by these tribes that Jephthah was summoned to make war upon them, and was elected as their head and prince (chap. xi. 5-11), and also that it was only the Ammonites in the country to the east of the Jordan whom he subdued then before the Israelites (chap. xi. 32, 33). From this it is very evident that Jephthah, and his successors Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon, were not judges over all Israel,' and neither fought aijainst the Philistines nor delivered Israel fi'om the oppression of those enemies who invaded the land from the south-west; so that the omission of the expression, " the land had rest," etc., from chap. xi. and xii., is very significant.^

But if the Ammonitish and PhiHstine oppressions occurred at the same time, of course only one of them must be taken into account in our chronological calculations as to the duration of the period of the judges; and the one selected must be the one to the close of which the chronological data of the next period are immediately appended. But this is not the case with the account of the Ammonitish oppression, of the deliverance effected by Jephthah, and of the judges who succeeded him (Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon), because the chronological thread of this series of events is broken off with the death of Abdon, and is never resumed again. It is so, however, with the Philistine oppression, which is said to have lasted forty years, though the termination of it is not given in the book of Judges. Samson merely began to deliver Israel out of the power of the Philistines (chap. xiii. 5), but did not accomplish their complete deliverance. He judged Israel for twenty years in the days

^ Even Hitzifj, who denies that the oppression of the Philistines was contemporaneous with that of the Ammonites, is obliged to acknowledge that " it is true, the author first of all disposed very properly of the Ammonitish war before entering into the details of the war with the Philistines, with which it had no connection, and which was not brought to a close so soon." When therefore, notwithstanding this, he adduces as evidence that they were not contemporaneous, the fact that " according to the context, and to all analogy (cf. chap. iv. 1, iii. 11, 12), the author intends to write, in chap. xiii. 1, that after the death of Abdon, when there was no judge in Israel, the nation fell back into its former lawlessness, and as a punishment was given up to the Philistines," a more careful study of the passage cited (chap. iv. 1, iii. 11, 12) will soon show that the supposed analogy does not exist at all, since the expression, " the land had rest," etc., retilly occin^ in both instances (see chap. iii. 11 and 31), whereas it is omitted before chap. xiii. 1. The still further assertion, however, that the account of the Philistine war ought to have followed immediately upon that of the war with the Ammonites, if the intention was to describe this with equal fulness, has no force whatever. If neither Jephthah nor the three judges who followed him had anything to do with the Philistines, if they merely judged the tribes that were oppressed and threatened by the Ammonites, it was natural that everything relating to them should be attached to the accoimt of the defeat of the Ammonites, in order that there might be no unnecessary separation of what was so intimately connected together. And whilst these objections are thus proved to have no force, the objection raised to the contemporaneous occurrence of the two oppressions is wrecked completely upon the distinct statement in chap. X. 7, that Jehovah sold the Israelites into the hands of the Philistines and Ammonites, which Hitzig can only get over by declaring, without the slightest foundation, that the words "into the hands of the Philistines" are spurious, simply because they stand in the way of his own assumption.

of the Philistines, i.e. during the oppression of tlie Philistines (chap. XV. 20); consequently the twenty years of his labours must not be taken into account in the chronology of the period of the judges, in asmuch as they are all included in the forty years of the Phillstin es' rule. At the death of Samson, with which the book of Judges closes, the power of the Philistines was not yet broken; and in chap. iv. of the first book of Samuel we find the Philistines still fighting against the Israelites, and that with such success that the Israelites were defeated by them, and even lost the ark of the covenant. This war must certainly be a continuation of the Philistine oppression, to which the acts of Samson belonged, since the termination of that oppression is not mentioned in the book of Judges; and on the other hand, the commencement of the oppression referred to in 1 Sam. iv. 9 sqq. is not given in the book of Samuel. Consequently even Hitzig supports the view which I have expressed, that the forty years' supremacy of tlie Philistines, noticed in Judg. xiii. 1, is carried on into the book of Samuel, and extends to 1 Sam. vii. 3, 7, and that it was through Samuel that it was eventually brought to a termination (1 Sam. vii. 10 sqq.). But if this is established, then the forty years during which Eli was judge cannot have followed the Philistine oppression and the deeds performed by Samson, and therefore must not be reckoned separately. For since Eli died in consequence of the account of the capture of the ark by the Philistines (1 Sam. iv. 18), and seven months (1 Sam. vi. 1) and twenty years elapsed after this catastrophe before the Philistines were defeated and humiliated by Samuel (1 Sam. vii. 2), only the last half of the forty years of Eli's judicial life falls within the forty years of the Philistine rule over Israel, whilst the first half coincides with the time of the judge Jair. Eli himself was not a judge in the strict sense of the word. He was neither commander of the army, nor secular governor of the nation, but simply the high priest; and in this capacity he administered the civil law in the supreme court, altogether independently of the question whether tlie re was a secular governor at the time or not. After the death of Eli, Israel continued for more than twenty years utterly prostrate un der the yoke of the Philistines. It was during this period that Sa uison made the Philistines feel the power of the God of Israel, though he could not deliver the Israelites entirely from their oppression. Samuel laboured at the same time, as the prophet of the Lord, to promote the inward and spiritual strength of Israel, and that with such success, that the people came to Mizpeh at his summons, and tliere put away the strange gods that they had hitherto worshipped, and worshipped the Lord alone; after which the Lord hearkened to Samuel's prayer, and gave them a complete victory over the Philistines (1 Sam. vii. 2-11). After this victory, which was gained not very long after the death of Samson, Samuel undertook the supreme government of Israel as judge, and eventually at their own desire, and with the consent of God, gave them a king in the person of Saul the Benjaminite. This was not till Samuel himself was old, and had appointed as his successors in the office of judge his own sons, who did not walk in their father's ways (1 Sam. viii.-x.). Even under Saul, however, Samuel continued to the very end of his life to labour as the prophet of the Lord for the wellbeing of Israel, although he laid down his office of judge as soon as Saul had been elected king. He announced to Saul how he had been rejected by God on account of his disobedience; he anointed David as king; and his death did not occur till after Saul had begun to be troubled by the evil spirit, and to plot for David's life (1 Sam. XXV. 1), as we may learn from the fact that David fled to Samuel at Eamah when Saul resolved to slay him (1 Sam. xix. 18). How long Samuel judged Israel between the victory gained at Ebenezer (1 Sam. vii.) and the election of Saul as king of Israel, is not stated in the Old Testament, nor even the length of Saul's reign, as the text of 1 Sam. xiii. 1 is corrupt. But we shall not be very far from the truth, if we set down about forty years as the time covered by the official life of Samuel as judge after that event and the reign of Saul, and reckon from seventeen to nineteen years as the duration of Samuel's judgeship, and from twenty to twentytwo as the length of Saul's reign. For it is evident from the accounts that we possess of the lives and labours of Samuel and Saul, that Saul did not reign forty years (the time given by Paul in Acts xiii. 21, according to the traditional opinion current in the Jewish schools), but at the most from twenty to twenty-two; and this is now pretty generally admitted (see at 1 Sam. xiii. 1). When David was chosen king of Judah at Hebron after the death of Saul, he was thirty years old (2 Sam. v. 1—4), and can hardly have been anointed king by Samuel at Bethlehem before the age of twenty. For though his father Jesse was still living, and he himself was the youngest of Jesse's eight sons, and was feeding the flock (1 Sam. xvi. 6-12), and even after this is still described as ">W (1 Sam. xvii. 42, 55), Jesse was JPT (an old man) at the time (1 Sam. xvii. 12), at any rate sixty years old or more, so that his eldest son might be forty years old, and David, the youngest, as much as twenty. For "IW was not only applied to a mere boy, but to a young man approaching twenty; and the keeping of sheep was not merely a task performed by shepherd boys, but also by the grown-up sons of a family, among whom we must certainly reckon David, since he had already contended with lions and bears in the steppe, and slain these beasts of prey (1 Sam. xvii. 34-36), and shortly afterwards was not only recommended to king Saul by his courtiers, as " a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and wise in speech," to cheer up the melancholy king by his playing upon the liarp (1 Sam. xvi. 18), but also undertook to fight with the giant Goliath (1 Sam. xvii.), and was placed in consequence over the men of war, and was afterwards made captain of a thousand, and betrothed to his daughter Michal (1 Sam. xviii. 5, 13, 17 sqq.). But if David was anointed by Samuel at the age of about twenty years, Saul could not have reigned more than ten years after that time, as David was made king at the age of thirty. And he cannot have reigned much longer before that time. For, apart from the fact that everything which is related of his former wars and deeds could easily have occurred within the space of ten years, the circumstance that Samuel lived till the last years of Saul's reign, and died but a few years before Saul's death (1 Sam. xxv. 1), precludes the assumption that he reigned any longer than that. For Samuel was already so old that he had appointed his sons as judges, whereupon the people desired a king, and assigiied as the reason, that Samuel's sons did not walk in his ways (1 Sam. viii. 1-4), from which it is very evident that they had already filled the office of judge for some considerable time. If we add to this the fact that Samuel was called to be a prophet before the death of Eli, and therefore was no doubt twenty-five or thirty years old when Eli died, and that twenty years and seven months elapsed between the death of Eli and the defeat of the Philistines, so that Samuel may have been about fifty years old at that time, and that he judged the people from this time forward till he had become an old man, and then gave the nation a king in the person of Saul, we cannot assign more than forty years as the interval betvveen the defeat of the Philistines and the death of Saul, without attributing to Samuel an age of more than ninety years, and therefore we cannot reckon more than forty or thirty-nine years as the time that intervened between the installation of Samuel in his office as judge and the commencement of the reign of Saul.

According to this, the chronology of the times of the judges may be arranged as follows: — a. From the oppression of Chushan-rishathaim to the death of Jair the judge {vid. p. 277), h. Duration of the Philistine oppression,. r. Judgeship of Samuel and reign of Saul, (1. David's reign (7^ and 33 years), e, Solomon's reign to the buUding of the temjde, a. The wandering in the desert,..... 40,, h. The time bet-ween the entrance into Canaan and the division of

These numbers are as thoroughly in harmony with 1 Kings vi. 1, and also with the statement made by Jephthah in his negotiations with the king of the Ammonites, that Israel dwelt in Heshbon and the cities along the bank of the Amon for three hundred years (Judg. xi. 26), as we could possibly expect so general a statement in round numbers to be. For instance, as the chronological data of the book of Judges give 301 years as the interval between the invasion of Chushan-rishathaim and the commencement of the Ammonitish oppression, and as only about ten years elapsed between the division of Canaan, after which the tribes on the east of the Jordan first established themselves firmly in Gilead, and the invasion of Chushan, the Israelites had dwelt 310 years in the land on the other side of the Jordan at the time of Jephthah's negotiations with the Ammonites, or at the most 328, admitting that these negotiations may possibly not have taken place till towards the end of the eighteen years' oppression on the part of the Ammonites, so that Jephthah could appeal with perfect justice to the fact that they had been in possession of the land for 300 years.

This statement of Jephthah, however, furnishes at the same time an important proof that the several chronological data contained in our book are to be regarded as historical, and also that the events are to be reckoned as occurring successively; so that we have no right to include the years of oppression in the years of rest, as is frequently done, or to shorten the whole period from Othniel to Jephthah by arbitrary assumptions of synchronisms, in direct opposition to the text. This testimony removes all foundation from tlie hypothesis that the number forty which so frequently occurs is a so-called round number, that is to say, is nothing more than a number derived from a general estimate of the different periods according to generations, or cyclical periods. For if the sum total of the different chronological notices tallies on the whole with the actual. duration of the period in question as confirmed by this testimony, the several notices must be regarded as historically true, and that all the more because the greater part of these data consist of such numbers as 6, 8, 18, 20, 22, 23, which can neither be called round nor cyclical. Moreover, the purely cyclical significance of the number forty among the Israelites must first of all be proved. Even Ewald (Gesch. ii, pp. 480, 481) most justly observes, that " it is very easy to say that the number forty was a round number in the case of different nations; but this round number must first of all have had its origin in life, and therefore must have had its limited application." If, however, we look more closely at the different occasions on which the space of forty years is mentioned, between the exodus from Egypt and the building of the temple, we shall find that at any rate the first and last passages contain very definite notices of time, and cannot possibly be regarded as containing merely round or cyclical numbers. In the case of the forty years' wandering in the wilderness, this is placed beyond the reach of doubt by the fact that even the months are given of both the second and fortieth years (Num. x. 11, xx. 1; Deut. i. 3), and the intervening space is distinctly stated to have been thirty-eight years (Deut. ii. 14), And the forty years that David is said to have reigned also give the precise number, since he reigned seven and a half years at Hebron, and thirty-three at Jerusalem (2 Sam. v. 4, 5; 1 Kings ii. 11). Between these two extreme points we certainly meet with the number forty five times: viz. forty years of rest under Othniel (Judg. iii. 11), the same under Barak and Deborah (chap. v. 31), and the same again under Gideon (chap, viii. 28); also forty years of oppression by the Philistines (chap, xiii. 1), and the forty years that Eli was judge (1 Sam. iv. 18); and in addition to these, we find eighty years of rest after Ehud's victory (Judg. iii. 30). But there are also twelve or thirteen passages in which we find either odd numbers, or at all events numbers that cannot be called cyclical or round (viz. Judg, iii, 8, 14, iv. 3, vi, 1, ix. 22, x. 2, 3, xii. 7, 9, 11, 14, xv. 20, xvi. 31). What is there then to justify our calling the number forty cyclical or round? Is it the impossibility or improbability that in the course of 253 years Israel should have had rest from hostile oppression on three occasions for forty years, and on one for eighty? Is there anything impossible in this? Certainly not. Is there even an improbability V If there be, surely improbabilities have very often been perfectly true. And in the case before us, the appearance itself loses all significance, when we consider that although if we take entire years the number forty is repeated, yet it cannot be taken so literally as that we are to understand that entire years are intended every time. If DaWd's reign is reckoned as forty years in 2 Sam. v. 4, although, according to ver. 5, he reigned seven years and six months in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem, it may also be the case that, although forty years is the number given in the book of Judges, the period referred to may actually have been only thirty-nine years and a half, or may have been forty and a half. To this must be added the fact that the time during which the war with the enemy lasted is also included in the years of rest; and this must always have occupied several months, and may sometimes have lasted even more than a year. Now, if we give all these circumstances their due weight, every objection that can be raised as to the correctness and historical credibility of the chronological data of the book of Judges vanishes away, whilst all the attempts that have been made to turn these data into round or cyclical numbers are so arbitrary as to need no special refutation whatever.^

1 The principal representatives of this hypothesis are Ewald and his pupil BerOieau. According to Ewald (Gesch. it. pp. 473 sqq.), the twelve judges from Othniel to Samson form the historical groundwork of the book, although there are distinct traces that there were many more such rulers, because it was only of these that any reminiscences had been preserved. When, therefore, after the expiration of the whole of this period, the desire arose to bring out into distinct prominence the most important points connected with it, the first thing that was done was to group together these twelve judges, with such brief remarks as we find in the case of five of them (Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon) in chap. x. 1-5 and xii. 8-15. In their case, too, the precise time was given, so far as it could be still remembered. But, independently of this, the attempt was also made to connect the order of the many alternations of war and peace during these 460 years which occurred, according to 1 Kings vi. 1, between the exodus from Egypt and the building of Solomon's temple, to certain grand and easily remembered divisions; and for this the number forty at once presented itself. For since, according to the oldest traditions, Israel sjjent forty years in the wilderness, and since David also reigned forty years, it might easily be regarded as a suitable thing to divide the whole into twelve equal parts, and to assign to each forty years a great hero and some striking event: e.g. (1) Moses and the wilderness; (2) Joshua and the prosperous rule of the elders; (3) the war with Chushan-rishathaim, and Othniel; (4) the Moabites and

The historical character of the chronological data of the l)ook of Judges being thus established, we obtain a continuous chronology for the history of the Israelitish nation, as we may see from the follovving survey, to which we append a calculation of the years before Christ: —

Ehud; (5) the Aratnseans and Jair; ^6) the Canaanites under Jabin, and Deborah; (7) the Midianites and Gideon; (8) Tola, with whose opponents we are not acquainted; (9) the Ammonites and Philistines, or Jephthah and Samson; (10) the Philistines and Eli; (11) Samuel and Saul; (12) David. " Finally, then, these twelve judges from Othniel to Samson were necessarily connected with this different mode of reckoning, so that the several numbers, as well as the order in which the judges occur, which show so evidently (?) that the last editor but one compiled the section extending from chap. iii. to xvi. out of a great variety of sources, must have been the resultant of many changes." But Ewald looks in vain for any reason for this " must." And the question starts up at once, how could the idea ever have entered any one's mind of dividing these 480 years, from the exodus to the building of the temple, among the twelve judges in this particular manner; that to all the judges, concerning whom it was not known how long their period of labour lasted, forty years each were assigned, when it was known that Israel had wandered forty years in the wilderness, that Joshua had governed forty years with the elders, and Samuel and Saul together had ruled for the same time, and David also, so that there only remained for the judges from Othniel to Samson 480 — 4 X 40, i.e. only 320 years, or, deducting the first three or four years of Solomon's reign, only 317 or 316 years? These years, if divided among twelve judges, would give only twenty-six or twenty-seven years for each. Or how did they come to allot eighty years to Ehud, and only twenty-two to Jair and twenty-three to Tola, if the two latter had also conquered the hostile oppressors of Israel? And lastly, why was Shamgar left without any, when he delivered Israel from the Philistines? To these and many other questions the author of this liypothesis is unable to give any answer at all; and the arbitrary nature of his mode of manufacturing history is so obvious, that it is unnecessary to waste words in proving it. It is no better with Bertheau's hypothesis (Judg. pp. xvi. sqq.). According to this hypothesis, out of the twelve generations from Moses to David which he derives from 1 Chron. vi. 35 sqq., only six (or 240 years) belong to the judges from Othniel to Samson. These have been variously reckoned. One calculation takes them as six generations of forty years each; another reckons them more minutely, adopting smaller numbers which were assigned to the twelve judges and the son of Gideon. But six generations and twelve judges could not be combined in any other way than by assigning twenty years to each judge. Now there was not a single judge who judged Israel for twenty years, with the exception of Samson. And the total number of the years that they judged is not 240, but 296 years (40 -f 80 + 40 + 40 -f 23 + 22 -f 6 -f- 7 + 10 -j- 8 -j- 20 -|- x). Consequently we do not find any trace throughout the book, that the period of the judges was reckoned as consisting of six generations of forty years each. (Compare with this a more elaborate refutation by Bachmann, pp. 3 sqq.).

Conquest of Canaan by Joshua,.... From the division of the land to the invasion of

"Wars of the tribes of Israel with the Canaanites,. War of the congregation with Benjamin, Oppression by Chushan-rishathaim, Deliverance by Othniel, and rest,.... Oppression by the Moabites,....

Deliverance by Deborah and Barak, and rest. Oppression by the Midianites,.... Deliverance by Gideon, and rest,.... Rule of Abimelech,......

All that is required to establish our calculation as to the period of the judges, is to justify our estimate of ten years as the time that intervened between the division of the land and the invasion by Chushan-rishathaim, since the general opinion, founded upon the statement of Josephus (Ant. v. 1, 29), that Joshua was crrpcvr7jy6<; of the nation for twenty-five years after the death of Moses, and (vi. 5, 4) that his death was followed by a state of anarchy for eighteen years, is that it was at least thirty-five years. But Josephus at all events ought hot to be appealed to, as he had no other sources of information with regard to the earlier portion of the Israelitish history than the Old Testament itself; and he so frequently contradicts himself in his chronological statements, that no reliance can be placed upon them even in cases where their incorrectness cannot be clearly proved. And if we consider, on the other hand, that Joshua was an old man when the two great campaigns in the south and north of Canaan were over, and in fact was so advanced in years, that God commanded him to divide the land, although many districts were still unconquered (Josh. xiii. 1 sqq.), in order that he might finish this part of his calling before his death, there is very little probability that he lived for twenty-five years after that time. The same words are used to describe the last days of his life in chap, xxiii. 1, that had previously been employed to describe his great age (chap. xiii. 1 sqq.). No doubt the statement in chap, rxiii. 1, to the effect that " many days after that the Lord had given re^t unto Israel from all their foes," Joshua called together the representatives of the nation, to renew the covenant of the nation with the Lord before his death, when taken in connection with the statement in chap. xix. 50, that he built the city of Timnathserah, which the tribes had given him for an inheritance after the distribution of the land by lot was over, and dwelt therein, proves very clearly that there were certainly " many days" {E7ig. Ver. " a long time") between the division of the land and the death of Joshua. But this is so comparative a term, that it hardly embraces more than two or three years. And Joshua might build, i.e. fortify Timnath-serah, and dwell therein, even if he only lived for two or three years after the division of the land. On the other hand, there appears to have been a longer interval than the seven or eight years allowed in our reckoning between the death of Joshua and the invasion of Chushan; since it not only includes the defeat of Adoni-bezek, the capture of Jerusalem, Hebron, and other towns, by the tribes of Judah and Simeon (chap. i. 1-14), and the conquest of Bethel by the tribe of Joseph (chap. i. 22 sqq.), but also the war of the congregation with the tribe of Benjamin (chap, xix.-xxi.). But it is only in appearance that the interval allowed is too short. All these events together would not require many years, but might very well have occurred within the space of about five years. And it is quite possible that the civil war of the Israelites might have been regarded by king Chushan-rishathaim as a favourable opportunity for carrying out his design of making Israel tributary to himself, and that he took advantage of it accordingly. The very fact that Othniel delivered Israel from this oppression, after it had continued for eight years, precludes us from postponing the invasion itself to a longer period after the death of Joshua. For Othniel was not Caleb's nephew, as many suppose, but his younger brother (see at Josh. xv. 17). Now Caleb was eighty-five years old when the distribution of the land commenced (Josh. xiv. 10); so that even if his brother Othniel was thirty, or even forty years younger, he would still be fifty-five, or at any rate forty-five years old, when the division of the land commenced. If the statements of Josephus were correct, therefore, Othniel would have been ninety-one years old, or at any rate eighty-one, when he defeated the Aramaean king Chushan-rishathaim; whereas, according to our calculation, he would only have been fifty or sixty years old when Debir was taken, and sixty-three or seventy-three when Chushan was defeated. Now, even if we take the lower number as the correct one, this would be a sufficiently great age for such a warlike undertaking, especially when we consider that Othniel lived for some time afterwards, as is evndent from the words of chap, iii. 11, " And the land had rest forty years: and Othniel the son of Kenaz died," though they may not distinctly affirm that he did not die till the termination of the forty years' rest.

The fact that Caleb's younger brother Othniel was the first judge of Israel, also upsets the hypothesis which Bertheau has founded upon a mistaken interpretation of chap. ii. 11-iii. 6, that a whole generation of forty years is to be reckoned between the death of Joshua and the invasion of Chushan, and also the misinterpretation of chap. ii. 7, 10 (cf. Josh. xxiv. 31), according to which the sinful generation did not grow up until after Joshua and all the elders who lived a long time after him were dead, — an interpretation which has no support in chap. ii. 7, since ^"^ns D''0^ ^'H?!!'!? does not mean " to live long after a person," but simply " to survive him." The " other generation which knew not the Lord," etc., that arose after the death of Joshua and the elders who outlived him, was not a different generation from the succeeding generations, which were given up to the power of their foes on account of their apostasy from the Lord, but the younger generation generally, which took the place of the older men who had seen the works of the Lord under Joshua; in other words, this is only a comprehensive expression for all the succeeding generations who forgot Jehovah their God and served Baalim. So much may be said in vindication of our calculations as to the period of the judges.

In this first stage of the times of the judges, which embraces a period of 206 years, the Israelites were oppressed by hostile nations on three separate occasions: first of all by the Mesopotamian king Chushan-rishathaim, whom they were obliged to serve for eighteen years, until Othniel brought them deliverance, and secured them rest for forty years (chap. iii. 7-11); secondly by the Moabitish king Eglon for eighteen years, until Ehud slew this king and smote the Moabites, and so humiliated them, that the land had rest for eighty years (chap. iii. 12-30), whilst Shamgar also smote a host of Philistines during the same period (chap. iii. 31); and lastly by the Canaanitish king Jabin of Hazor, who oppressed them heavily for twenty years, until Barak gathered an army together at the summons of Deborah the prophetess and with her assistance, and completely defeated the foe (chap. iv.). After this victory, which Deborah celebrated in a triumphal song, the land had rest again for forty years (chap. v.).

Oppression of Israel by Chushan-rishathaim., and Deliverance by Othniel. — Chap. iii. 7-11.

Vers. 7, 8. The first chastisement which the Israelites suffered for their apostasy from the Lord, is introduced with the same formula which had been used before to describe the times of the judges generally (chap. ii. 11, 12), except that instead of '""^K ^3Ty»5 (" they forsook the Lord") we have here '*^"nx ^nap''! (" they forgot the Lord their God") from Deut. xxxii. 18 (cf. 1 Sam. xii. 9), and Asheroth (rendered "gi'oves") instead of Ashtaroth (see at chap. ii. 13). As a punishment for this apostasy, the Lord sold them (chap, ii. 14) into the hand of Chushan-rishathaim^ the king of Mesopotamia, whom they were obliged to serve for eight years. All that we know about this king of Mesopotamia is what is recorded here. His name, Chushan-rishathaim, is probably only a title which was given to him by the Israelites themselves. Rhhathaim signifies " double wichediiess" and the word was rendered as an appellative with this signification in the Tarfnims and the Svriac and Arabic versions. Chushan is also formed as an adjective from Cush, and may denote the Cushites. According to M. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. Assurs u. Babels, p. 272), the rulers of Babylon at that time (1518-1273) were Arabs. " Arabs, however, may have included not only Shemites of the tribe of Joktan or Ishmael, but Cushites also." The invasion of Canaan by this Mesopotamian or Babj Ionian king has a historical analogy in the campaign of the five allied kings of Shinar in the time of Abraham (Gen. xiv.).

Vers. 9-11. In this oppression the Israelites cried to the Lord for help, and He raised them up rpo, a deliverer, helper, namely the Kenizzite Othniel, the younger brother and son-in-law of Caleb (see at Josh. xv. 17). " The Spirit of Jehovah came upon him." The Spirit of God is the spiritual principle of life in the world of nature and man; and in man it is the principle both of the natural life which we receive through birth, and also of the spiritual life which we receive through regeneration (vid. Auberlen, Geist des- Menschen, in Herzog^s Cycl. iv. p. 731). In this sense the expressions " Spirit of God" {Elohvii) and " Spirit of the Lord" (Jehovah) are interchanged even in Gen. i. 2, compared with Gen. vi. 3, and so throughout all the books of the Old Testament; the former denoting the Divnne Spirit generally in its supernatural causality and power, the latter the same Spirit in its operations upon human life and history in the working out of the plan of salvation. In its peculiar operations the Spirit of Jehovah manifests itself as a spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might, of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord (Isa. xi. 2). The communication of this Spirit under the Old Testament was generally made in the form of extraordinary and supernatural influence upon the human spirit. The expression employed to denote this is usually '" rni V?y ^nm (" the Spirit of Jehovah came upon him:" thus here, chap. xi. 29; 1 Sam. xix. 20, 23; 2 Chron. xx. 14; Num. xxiv. 2). This is varied, however, with the expressions (p^f?^) f^rVT-? " rn-i V^y (chap. xiv. 6, 19, xv. 14; 1 Sam. x. 10, xi. 6,"xvi. 13) and 'STIK r■^f■lh '« rnn, « the Spirit of Jehovah clothed the man" (chap. vi. 34; 1 Chron. xii. 18; 2 Chron. xxiv. 20). Of these the former denotes the operations of the Divine Spirit in overcoming the resistance of the natural will of man, whilst the latter represents the Spirit of God as a power which envelopes or covers a man. The recipients and bearers of this Spirit were thereby endowed with the power to perform miraculous deeds, in which the Spirit of God that came upon them manifested itself generally in the ability to prophesy (yid. 1 Sam. x. 10, xix. 20, 23; 1 Chron xii. 18; 2 Chron. xx. 14, xxiv. 20), but also in the power to work miracles or to accomplish deeds which surpassed the courage and strength of the natural man. The latter was more especially the case with the judges; hence the Chaldee paraphrases " the Spirit of Jehovah" in chap. vi. 34 as the " spirit of might from the Lord;" though in the passage before us it gives the erroneous interpretation nxi33 nn, " the spirit of prophecy." Kimchi also understands it as signifying " the spirit of bravery, under the instigation of which he was able fearlessly to enter upon the war with Chushan." But we are hardly at liberty to split up the different powers of the Spirit of God in this manner, and to restrict its operations upon the judges to the spirit of strength and bravery alone. The judges not only attacked the enemy courageously and with success, but they also judged the nation, for which the spirit of wisdom and understanding was indispensably necessary, and put down idolatry (chap. ii. 18, 19), which they could not have done without the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. " Aiid he judged Israel and luent out to wary The position of tOSC'*! before nonppp SV^I does not warrant us in explaining tsbS'^l as signifying " he began to discharge the functions of a judge," as Rosenmiiller has done: for tDSB' must not be limited to a settlement of the civil disputes of the people, but means to restore right in Israel, whether towards its heathen oppressors, or with regard to the attitude of the nation towards the Lord. " And the Lord gave Chushan-rishathaim into his hand (cf. chap. i. 2, iii. 28, etc.), and his hand became strong over him;" i.e. he overcame him (cf. chap. vi. 2), or smote him, so that he was obliged to vacate the land. In consequence of this victory, the land had rest from war (cf. Josh. xi. 23) forty years. " And then Othniel died:" the expression DO*? with i consec. does not necessarily imply that Othniel did not die for forty years, but simply that he died after rest had been restored to the land.

Oppression of Israel by Eglon, and Deliverance ly Ehud; Shamgars heroic Deeds. — Chap. iii. 12—31.

lu vers. 12-30 the subjugation of the Israelites by Eglon, the king of the ^loabites, and their deliverance from this bondage, are circumstantially described. First of all, in vers. 12-14, the subjugation. When the Israelites forsook the Lord again (in the place of 'y^ Jnn~ns... ^bT5, ver. 7, we have here the appropriate expression jnn nib^... t£p*1, they added to do, i.e. did again, evil, etc., as in chap. iv. 1, x. 6, xiii. 1), the Lord made Eglon the king of the Jkloabites strong over Israel.?)) Rn, to give a person strength to overcome or oppress another. ^3 ''>', as in Deut. xxxi. 17, instead of the more usual i^'S bv (cf. Jer. iv. 28; ^lal. ii. 14; Ps. cxxxix. 14). Eglon allied himself with the Ammonites and Araalekites, those arch-foes of Israel, invaded the land, took the palm-city, i.e. Jericho (see at chap. i. 16), and made the Israelites tributary for eighteen years. Sixty years had passed since Jericho had been burnt by Joshua. During that time the Israelites had rebuilt the ruined city, but they had not fortified it, on account of the curse pronounced by Joshua upon any one who should restore it as a fortress; so that the Moabites could easily conquer it, and using it as a base, reduce the Israelites to servitude. — Yer. 15. But when the Israelites cried to the Lord for help. He set them free through the Benjaminite Ehud, whom He raised up as their deliverer. Ehud was " the son of Gera." This probably means that he was a descendant of Gera, since Gera himself, according to 1 Chron. viii. 3, was a son of Bela the son of Benjamin, and therefore was a grandson of Benjamin; and Shimei the contemporan* of David, a man belonging to the tribe of Benjamin, is also called a son of Gera in 2 Sam. xvi. 5, xix. 17. At the same time, it is possible that the name Gera does not refer to the same person in these different passages, but that the name was repeated again and again in the same family. " A man shut with regard to his right handf^ i.e. hindered in the use of his right hand, not necessai'ily crippled, but in all probability disabled through want of use from his youth upwards. That the expression does not mean crippled, is confirmed by the fact that it is used again in connection with the 700 brave slingers in the army of the Benjaminites in chap. xx. 16, and it certainly cannot be supposed that they were all actual cripples. So much is certain, however, that it does not mean afKboTepoBi^ia, qui utraque manu pro dextera utebatur (LXX.,

Vulg.), since "i^N signifies clausit (shut) in Ps. Ixix. 16. It is merely with reference to what follows that this peculiarity Is so distinctly mentioned. — The Israelites sent a present by him to king Eglon. 11^3 does not mean zn, but through^ his hand, i.e. through his intervention, for others were actually employed to carry the present (ver. 18), so that Ehud merely superintended the matter. Mmcliah, a gift or present, is no doubt a euphemism for tribute, as in 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, 1 Kings v. 1. — ^Ver. 16. Ehud availed himself of the opportunity to approach the king of the Moabites and put him to death, and thus to shake off the yoke of the Moabites from his nation. To this end he provided himself with a sword, which had two edges (ni^S from na, like Vt?', Deut. xxii. 1, from nb'), a cubit long p^S, utt. \ey., signified primarily a staff, here a cubit, according to the Syriac and Arabic; not " a span," aircdaixri, LXX.), and " did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh." — Ver. 17. Provided with this weapon, he brought the present to king Eglon, who — as is also mentioned as a preparation for what follows — was a very fat man. — Vers. 18, 19. After presenting the gift, Ehud dismissed the people who had carried the present to their own homes; namely, as we learn from ver. 19, after they had gone some distance from Jericho. But he himself returned from the stone-quarries at Gilgal, sc. to Jericho to king Eglon. Dv^psn jc refers to some place by Gilgal. In Deut. vii. 25, Isa. xxi. 9, Jer. viii. 19, pesilim signifies idols. And if we would retain this meaning here, as the LXX., Vulg., and others have done, we must assume that in the neighbourhood of Gilgal there were stone idols set up in the open air, — a thing which is very improbable. The rendering " stone quarries," from /pS, to hew out stones (Ex. xxxiv. 1, etc.), which is the one adopted in the Chaldee, and by Rashi and others, is more likely to be the correct one. Gilgal cannot be the Gilgal between Jericho and the Jordan, which was the first encampment of the Israelites in Canaan, as is commonly supposed, since Ehud passed the Pesilim on his flight from the king's dwelling-place to the mountains of Ephraim (vers. 26, 27); and we can neither assume, as Bertheau does, that Eglon did not reside in the conquered palm-city (Jericho), but in some uncultivated place in the neighbourhood of the Jordan, nor suppose that after the murder of Eglon Ehud could possibly have gone from Jericho to the Gilgal which was half an hour's journey towards the east, for the purpose of escaping by a circuitous route of this kind to Seirah in the mountains of Ephraim, which was on the north-west of

Jericho. Gilgal is more likely to be Geliloth, which was on the west of Jericho opposite to the ascent of Adummim {Kaalat ed Dorn)y on the border of Judah and Benjamin (Josh, xviii. 17), and which was also called Gilgal (Josh. xv. 7). Having returned to the king's palace, Ehud sent in a message to him: " / have a secret word to thee, 0 king.''* The context requires that we should understand "Ae said" in the sense of "he had him told" (or bade say to him), since Ehud himself did not go in to the king, who was sitting in his room, till afterwards (ver. 20). In consequence of this message the king said: Dn, Uf. be silent (the imperative of non); here it is a proclamation, Let there be quiet. Thereupon all who were standing round (\nz. his attendants) left the room, and Ehud went in (ver. 20). The king was sitting " in his upper room of cooling alone." The " room of cooling" (Luther, Sommerlaube, summer-arbour) was a room placed upon the flat roof of a house, which was open to the currents of air, and so afforded a cool retreat, such as are still met with in the East (vid. Shaw, pp. 188-9). Then Ehud said, " A word of God I have to thee;" whereupon the king rose from his seat, from reverence towards the word of God which Ehud pretended that he had to deliver to him, not to defend himself, as Bertheau supposes, of which there is not the slightest intimation in the text. — Vers. 21, 22. But when the king stood up, Ehud drew his sword from under his garment, and plunged it so deeply into his abdomen that even the hilt followed the blade, and the fat closed upon the blade (so that there was nothing to be seen of it in front, because he did not draw the sword again out of his body), and the blade came out between the legs. The last v^ords have been rendered in various ways. Luther follows the Chaldee and Vulgate, and renders it " so that the dirt passed from him,'* taking the air. Xey. nn'^9 as a composite noun from cns^ stercus, and n'lC', jedt. But this is hardly correct, as the form of the word nj'TkinSj and its connection with NV^, rather points to a noun, PrH?, with n local. The explanation given by Gesenius in his Thes. and Heb. lex. has much more in its favour, viz. interstitium pedum, the place between the legs, from an Arabic word signifying pedes dissitos habuit, used as a euphemism for anus, podex. The subject to the verb is the blade.^ — Ver. 23. As soon as the deed was

^ At any rate the rendering suggested by Ewald, " Ehud went into the open air, or into the enclosure, the space in front of the AUja" is untenable, for the simple reason that it is perfectly irreconcilable with the next clause, " Ehud went forth," etc. (consequently Fr. Bottcher proposes to erase this accomplished, Ehud went out into the porch or front hall, shut the door of the room behind him (ilJ??, not behind himself, but literally round him, i.e. Eglon; cf. Gen. vii. 16, 2 Kings iv. 4) and bolted it (this is only added as a more precise explanation of the previous verb). — Vers. 24, 25. When the servants of Eglon came (to enter in to their lord) after Ehud's departure and saw the door of the upper room bolted, they thought " surely (J\^, lit. only, nothing but) he covers his feet" (a euphemism for performing the necessities of nature; cf. 1 Sam. xxiv. 3), and waited to shaming (cf. 2 Kings ii. 17, viii. 11), i.e. till they were ashamed of their long waiting (see at chap. v. 28). At length they opened the door with the key, and found their lord lying dead upon the floor.

Ehud's conduct must be judged according to the spirit of those times, when it was thought allowable to adopt any means of destroy ing the enemy of one's nation. The treacherous assassination of a hostile king is not to be regarded as an act of the Spirit of God, and therefore is not set before us as an example to be imitated. Although Jehovah raised up Ehud as a deliverer to His people when oppressed by Eglon, it is not stated (and this ought particularly to be observed) that the Spirit of Jehovah came upon Ehud, and still less that Ehud assassinated the hostile king under the impulse of that Spirit. Ehud proved himself to have been raised up by the Lord as the deliverer of Israel, simply by the fact that he actually delivered his people from the bondage of the Moabites, and it by no means follows that the means which he selected were either commanded or approved by Jehovah. — Vers. 26 sqq. Ehud had escaped whilst the servants of Eglon were waiting, and had passed the stone quarries and reached Seirah. Seirah is a place that is never mentioned again; and, judging from the etymology (the hairy), it was a wooded region, respecting the situation of which all that can be decided is, that it is not to be sought for in the neighbourhood of Jericho, but "upon the mountains of Ephraim" (ver. 27). For when Ehud had come to Seirah, he blew the tinimpet " upon the mountains of Ephraim" to announce to the people the victory that was placed within their reach by the death of Eglon, and to summon them to war with the Moabites, and then went down from the mountain into the plain near Jericho; " and he was before them^* i.e. went in front as their leader, saying to the people, clause from the text, without any critical authority whatever). For if Ehud were the subject to the verb, the subject would necessarily have been mentioned,!*!» it really is in the next clause, ver. 23a.

"Follow me; for Jehovah has given your enemies the Moahites into your hand." Then they went down and took (i.e. took possession of) the fords near Jericho (see at Josh. ii. 7), 2SiD7, either "from the Moabites" or ''towards Moab" and let no one (of the Moabites) cross over, i.e. escape to their own land. — Ver. 29. Thus they smote at that time about 10,000 Moabites, all fat and powerful men, i.e. the whole army of the enemy in Jericho and on tliis side of the Jordan, not letting a man escape. The expression " at that time" seems to imply that they did not destroy this number in one single engage ment, but during the whole course of the war. — Ver. 30. Thus Moab was subdued under the hand of Israel, and the land had rest for eighty years.

Yer. 31. After him (Ehud) was, i.e. there rose up, Shamgar the son of Anath. He smote the Philistines, who had probably invaded the land of the Israelites, six hundred men, with an ox-goad, so that he also (like Othniel and Ehud, vers. 9 and 15) delivered Israel. "^P^^} ^Dpl?, UTT. ^.ey., signifies, according to the Rabbins and the ancient versions, an instrument with which they trained and drove oxen; and with this the etymology agrees, as "ip? is used in Hos. X. 11 and Jer. xxxi. 18 to denote the training of the young ox. According to Rashi, "ip2 HD^O is the same as ]^'^7l, fiovKevrpov, in 1 Sam. xiii. 21. According to Maundrell in Paulas' Samml. der merkw. Reisen nach d. Or. i. p. 139, the country people in Palestine and Syria use when ploughing goads about eight feet long and six inches in circumference at the thick end. At the thin end they have a sharp point to drive the oxen, and at the other end a small hoe, to scrape off any dirt that may stick to the plough. Shamgar may have smitten the Philistines with some such instrument as this, just as the Edonian prince Lycurgus is described by Homer (II. ^^. 135) as putting Dionysius and the Bacchantines to flight with a ^ovTfkij^. Nothing is recorded about the descent of Shamgar, either here or in the Song of Deborah, in chap. v. 6. The heroic deed recorded of him must be regarded, as 0. v. Gerlach affirms, as " merely the result of a holy inspiration that suddenly burst forth within him, in which he seized upon the first weapon that came to his hand, and put to flight the enemy when scared by a terror for God, just as Samson did on a later occasion." For he does not seem to have secured for the Israelites any permanent victory over the Philistines. Moreover, he is not called judge, nor is the period of his labours taken into account, but in chap. iv. 1 the renewed apostasy of Israel from the Lord is dated from the death of Ehud.

Oppression of Israel by Jahin, and Deliverance hy DeboraJi and Barak. — Chap. iv. and v.

This fresh oppression of the Israelites, and the glorious victory which they obtained over Sisera, Jabin's genei'al, through the judge Deborah and the heroic warrior Barak, are so fully described in Deborah's triumphal song in chap, v., that this song may be regarded as a poetical commentary upon that event. It by no means follows from this fact, however, that the historical account in chap, iv. was first of all founded upon the ode, and was merely intended to furnish an explanation of the song itself. Any such assumption is overthrown by the fact that the prose account in chap. iv. contains, as even Bertheau acknowledges, some historical details which we look for in vain in the song, and which are of great assistance in the interpretation of it. All that we can infer with any probability from the internal connection between the historical narrative and the Song of Deborah is, that the author of our book took both of them from one common source; tliough the few expressions and words which they contain, such as n3"'pti' in ver. 18, nJVPi in ver. 21, naK'O in ver. 6, and Dn*! in ver. 15, do not throw any light upon the source from which they were derived. For, with the exception of the first, which is not met with again, the whole of them occur in other passages, — the second in chap. i. 14 and Josh. xv. 18, the third in the same sense in chap. xx. 37, and the fourth in Ex. xiv. 24 and Josh. x. 10. And it by no means follows, that because in the passages referred to, " D'nj is found in close association with songs or poetical passages" (Beriheaii), the word itself must be borrowed from the same source as the songs, viz. from the book of Jasher (Josh. X. 13). For Qion is found in the same signification in 1 Sam. vii. 10, Ex. xxiii. 27, and Deut. ii. 15, where we look in vain for any songs; whilst it always occurs in connection with the account of a miraculous overthrow of the foe by the omnipotent power of God.

Chap. iv. TJie Victory over Jahin and his General Sisera. — Vers. 1-3. As the Israelites fell away from the Lord again when Ehud was dead, the Lord gave them into the hand of the Canaanitish king Jabin, who oppressed them severely for twenty years with a powerful army under Sisera his general. The circumstantial clause, " when Ehud was dead," places the falling away of the Israelites from God in direct causal connection with the death of Ehud on the one hand, and the deliverance of Israel into the power of Jabin on the other, and clearly indicates that as long as Ehud lived he kept the people from idolatry (of. chap. ii. 18, 19), and defended Israel from hostile oppressions. Joshua had already conquered one king, Jahin of Hazor^ and taken his capital (Josh. xi. 1, 10). The king referred to here, who lived more than a century later, bore the same name. The name Jabin, " the discerning," may possibly have been a standing name or title of the Canaanitish kings of Hazor, as Abimelech was of the kings of the Philistines (see at Gen. xxvi. 8). He is called " king of Canaan," in distinction from the kings of other nations and lands, such as Moab, Mesopotamia, etc. (chap. iii. 8, 12), into whose power the Lord had given up His sinful people. Hazor, once the capital of the kingdoms of northern Canaan, was situated over (above or to the north of) Lake Huleh, in the tribe of Naphtali, but has not yet been discovered (see at Josh. xi. 1). Sisera, the general of Jabin, dwelt in Harosheth of the Goyim, and oppressed the Israelites most tyrannically {mightily: cf. chap. viii. 1, 1 Sam. ii. 16) for twenty years with a force consisting of 900 chariots of iron (see at Josh. xvii. 16). The situation of Harosheth, which only occurs here (vers. 2, 13, 16), is unknown; but it is certainly to be sought for in one of the larger plains of Galilee, possibly the plain of Buttauf, where Sisera was able to develop his forces, whose strength consisted chiefly in war-chariots, and to tyrannize over the land of Israel.

Vers. 4-11. At that time the Israelites were judged by Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, who dwelt under the Deborahpalm between Bamah (er Eam: see at Josh, xviii. 25) and Bethel (Beitin: see at Josh. vii. 2) in the tribe of Benjamin, upon the mountains of Ephraim. Deborah is called '1^'^ 'Tf* on account of her prophetic gift, like Miriam in Ex. xv. 20, and Hulda the wife of Shallum in 2 Kings xxii. 14. This gift qualified her to judge the nation (the participle ncsb' expresses the permanence of the act of judging), i.e. first of all to settle such disputes among the people themselves as the lower courts were unable to decide, and which ought therefore, according to Deut. xvii. 8, to be referred to the supreme judge of the whole nation. The palm where she sat in judgment (cf. Ps. ix. 5) was called after her the Deborah-^a\m. The Israelites went up to her there to obtain justice. The expression " came up" is applied here, as in Deut. xvii. 8, to the place of justice, as a spiritual height, independently of the fact that the place referred to here really stood upon an eminence. — Vers. 6 sqq. But in order to secure the rights of her people against their outward foes also, she summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh, in the tribe of Naphtali, on the west of the Huleh lake (see at Josh, xii. 22), and made known to him the commands of the Lord: " Up and draw to Mount Tabor, and take with thee 10,000 men of the children of Naphtali and Zehidun; and I will draw to thee into the brook-valley of Kishon, Sisera the captain of JabirHs army, and his chariots, and his multitude (his men of war), and give him into thy handy ^??*9 ^^^^ been explained in different ways. Seb. Schmidt, Clericus, and others supply T}j!>J] or "iQiE'ri, draw with the trumpet (cf. Ex. xix. 13, Josh. vi. 5), i.e. blow the trumpet in long-drawn tones, upon Mount Tabor, and regard this as the signal for convening the people; whilst Hengstenberg (Diss. ii. pp. 76, 77) refers to Num. X. 9, and understands the blowing of the horn as the signal by which the congregation of the Lord made known its need to Him, and appealed to Him to come to its help. It cannot indeed be proved that the blowing of the trumpet was merely the means adopted for convening the people together; in fact, the use of the following ''Jyi^B'O, in the sense of draw, is to be explained on the supposition that ^^^^ is used in a double sense. " The long-drawn notes were to draw the Lord to them, and then the Lord would draw to them Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army. Barak first calls the helper from heaven, and then the Lord calls the enemy upon earth." Nevertheless we cannot subscribe to this explanation, yJrs^ of all because the supposed ellipsis cannot be sustained in tliis connection, when nothing is said about the blowing of a trumpet either in what precedes or in what follows; and secondly, because Num. x. 9 cannot be appealed to in explanation, for the simple reason that it treats of the blowing of the silver trumpets on the part of the priests, and they must not be confounded with the shopharoth. And the use made of the trumpets at Jericho cannot be transferred to the passage before us without some further ground. We are disposed therefore to take the word ^^Ip in the sense of draw (intransitive), i.e. proceed one after another in a long-drawn train (as in chap. xx. 37 and Ex. xii. 21), referring to the captain and the warriors drawing after him; whilst in ver. 7 it is to be translated in the same way, though with a transitive signification. Mount Tabor, called ^Ira^vpiov by the Greeks (see LXX. Hos. v. 1), the mountain of Christ's transfiguration according to an early tradition of the church, the present Jebel et Tur, is a large truncated cone of limestone, which is almost perfectly insulated, and rises to the height of about a thousand feet, on the north-eastern border of the plain of Jezreel. The sides of the mountain are covered with a foie&t of oaks and wild pistachios, and upon its flat summit, which is about half an hour in circumference, there are the remains of ancient fortifications (see Robinson, Pal. iii. pp. 211 sqq., and r. Raumer, Pal. pp. 37, 38). The words " and take with thee 10,000 men" are not to be understood as signifying that Barak was to summon the people together upon the top of Mount Tabor, but the assembling of the people is presupposed; and all that is commanded is, that he was to proceed to Mount Tabor with the assembled army, and make his attack upon the enemy, who were encamped in the yallej of Kishon, from that point. According to ver. 10, the army was collected at Kedesh in Naphtali. Nachal Kishon is not only the brook Kishon, which is formed by streams that take their rise from springs upon Tabor and the mountains of Gilboa, flows in a north-westerly direction through the plain of Jezreel to the Mediterranean, and empties itself into the bay of Acca, and which is called Mukatta by the natiyes (see Rob. iii. pp. 472 sqq., and v. Raumer, pp. 39, 50), but the valley on both sides of the brook, i.e. the plain of Jezreel (see at Josh. xvii. 16), where the greatest battles have been fought for the possession of Palestine from time immemorial down to the most recent times (see r. Raumer, pp. 40 sqq.). — Vers. 8 sqq. Barak replied that he would not go unless she would go with him — certainly not for the reason suggested by Bertheau, viz. that he distrusted the divine promise given to him by Deborah, but because his mistrust of his own strength was such that he felt too weak to carry out the command of God. He wanted divine enthusiasm for the conflict, and this the presence of the prophetess was to infuse into both Barak and the army that was to be gathered round him. Deborah promised to accompany him, but announced to him as the punishment for this want of confidence in the success of his undertaking, that the prize of victory — namely, the defeat of the hostile general — should be taken out of his hand; for Jehovah would sell {i.e. deliver up) Sisera into the hand of a woman, viz., accordincr to ve^. 17 sqq., into the hand of Jael. She then went with him to Kedesh, where Barak summoned together Zebulun and Xaphtali, i.e. the fighting men of those tribes, and went up with 10,000 men in his train (" at his feet," i.e. after him, ver. 14; cf. Ex. xi. 8 and Deut. xi. 6) to Tabor ("went up:" the expression is used here to denote the advance of an army against a place). Kedesh, where the army assembled, was higher than Tabor. pH, Hiphil with ace, to call together (cf. 2 Sam. xx. 4, 5). Before the engagement with the foe is described, there follows in ver. 11 a statement that

Heher the Kenite had separated himself from his tribe, the children of Hobab, who led a nomad life in the desert of Judah (chap. i. 16), and had pitched his tents as far as the oak forest at Zaanannim (see at Josh. xix. 33) near Kedesh. This is introduced because of its importance in relation to the issue of the conflict which ensued (vers. 17 sqq.). T^S3 with Kametz is a participle, which is used in the place of the perfect, to indicate that the separation was a permanent one.

Vers. 12-16. As soon as Sisera received tidings of the march of Barak to Mount Tabor, he brought together all his chariots and all his men of war from Harosheth of the Goyim into the brookvalley of the Kishon. Then Deborah said to Barak, " Up; for this is the day in which Jehovah hath given Sisera into thy hand. Yea (N?n, nonne, as an expression indicating lively assurance), the Lord goeth out before thee^^ sc. to the battle, to smite the foe; whereupon Barak went down from Tabor with his 10,000 men to attack the enemy, according to chap. v. 1 9, at Taanach by the water of Megiddo. — Ver. 15. "And the Lord discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his army, with the edge of the sword before Barak" Dnjli as in Ex. xiv. 24 and Josh. x. 10, denotes the confounding of the hostile army by a miracle of God, mostly by some miraculous phenomenon of nature: see, besides Ex. xiv. 24, 2 Sam. xxii. 15, Ps. xviii. 15, and cxliv. 6. The expression Dnjl places the defeat of Sisera and his army in the same category as the miraculous destruction of Pharaoh and of the Canaanites at Gibeon; and the combination of this verb with the expression " with the edge of the sword" is to be taken as constructio prcegnans, in this sense: Jehovah threw Sisera and his army into confusion, and, like a terrible champion fighting in front of Israel, smote him without quarter. Sisera sprang from his chariot to save himself, and fled on foot: but Barak pursued the routed foe to Harosheth, and completely destroyed them. " All Sisera s army fell by the edge of the sword; there remained not even to one," i.e. not a single man.

Vers. 17—22. Sisera took refuge in the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, to escape the sword of the Israelites, as king Jabin lived at peace with the house of Heber, i.e. with this branch of the Kenites. — Ver. 18. Jael received the fugitive into her tent in the usual form of oriental hospitality (i^d, as in Gen. xix. 2, 3, to turn aside from the road and approach a person), and covered him with a covering (pyd'^, air "key., covering, or rug), that he mi<dit be able to sleep, as he was thoroughly exhausted with his fliVht. — Yer. 19. On his asking for water to drink, as he was thirsty (^riov, defective form for ^nXDV), she handed him milk from her bottle, and covered him up again. She gave him milk instead of water, as Deborah emphatically mentions in her song in chap. v. 25, no doubt merely for the purpose of giving to her guest a friendly and hospitable reception. When Josephus affirms, in his account of this event (Ant. v. 5, 4), that she gave him milk that was already spoiled {Bi€<f>6opo<; ^^), i.e. had tunied sour, and H. Tanchxim supposes that such milk intoxicated the weary man, these are merely later decorations of the simple fact, and have no historical worth whatever. — Yer. 20. In order to be quite sure, Sisera entreated his hostess to stand before the door and turn any one away who might come to her to seek for one of the fugitives, "iby is the imperative for ^"ipVj as the syntax proves that the word cannot be an infinitive. The anomaly apparent in the use of the gender may be accounted for on the ground that the masculine was the more general form, and might therefore be used for the more definite feminine. There are not sufficient grounds for altering it into li^J', the inf. ahs. WHiether Jael complied with this wish is not stated; but in the place of anything further, the chief fact alone is given in ver. 21, namely, that Jael took a tent-plug, and went with a hammer in her hand to Sisera, who had fallen through exhaustion into a deep sleep, and drove the plug into his temples, so that it penetrated into the earth, or the floor. The words ^li'Jl D'n'^j'Wrii are introduced as explanatory of the course of the events: " hut he was fallen into a deep sleep, and exhausted" i.e. had fallen fast asleep through exhaustion. " And so he died.'* nb^ is attached as a consequence to '1J^ '^^V'!'}... J'P^^?, whereas ^P5 belongs to the parenthetical clause D"n"i3 Nini. This is the explanation adopted by Rosenmilller, and also in the remark of Kimchl: " the words ^i'^'l n"n"i3 indicate the reason why Sisera neither heard Jael approach him, nor was conscious of the blow inflicted upon him." For the combination of Piri with nb'lj " then he became exhausted and died," which Stud. and Bertkeau support, does not give any intelligible thought at all. A man who has a tent-peg driven with a hammer into his temples, so that the peg passes through his head into the ground, does not become exhausted before he dies, but dies instantaneously. And ^'% from P,^i?, equivalent to ^"V (Jer. iv. 31), or ^T, and written with Patach in the last syllable, to distinguish it from fjiy, volare, has no other meaning than to be exhausted, in any of the passages in which it occurs (see 1 Sam. xiv. 28, 31; 2 Sam. xxi. 15). The rendering adopted by the LXX., ia-Kortodr), cannot be grammatically sustained. — Ver. 22. When Barak, who was in pursuit of Sisera, arrived at Jael's tent, she went to meet him, to show him the deed which she had performed. Thus was Deborah's prediction to Barak (ver. 9) fulfilled. The Lord had sold Sisera into the hand of a woman, and deprived Barak of the gloiy of the victory. Nevertheless the act itself was not morally justified, either by this prophetic announcement, or by the fact that it is commemorated in the song of Deborah in chap. v. 24 sqq. Even though there can be no doubt that Jael acted under the influence of religious enthusiasm for the cause of Israel and its God, and that she was prompted by religious motives to regard the connection of her tribe with Israel, the people of the Lord, as higher and more sacred, not only than the bond of peace, in which her tribe was living with Jabin the Canaanitish king, but even than the duties of hospitality, which are so universally sacred to an oriental mind, her heroic deed cannot be acquitted of the sins of lying, treachery, and assassination, which were associated with it, by assuming, as Calovius, Buddeus, and others have done, that when Jael invited Sisera into her tent, and promised him safety, and quenched his thirst with milk, she was acting with perfect sincerity, and without any thought of killing him, and that it was not till after he was fast asleep that she was instigated and impelled instinctu Dei arcano to perform the deed. For Jehovah, the God of Israel, not only abhors lying lips (Prov. xii. 22), but hates wickedness and deception of every kind. It is true. He punishes the ungodly at the hand of sinners; but the sinners whom He employs as the instruments of His penal justice in carrying out the plans of His kingdom, are not instigated to the performance of wicked deeds by an inward and secret impulse from Him. God had no doubt so ordered it, that Sisera should meet with his death in Jael's tent, where he had taken refuge; but this divine purpose did not justify Jael in giving to the enemy of Israel a hospitable reception into her tent, making him feel secure both by word and deed, and then murdering him secretly while he was asleep. Such conduct as that was not the operation of the Spirit of God, but the fruit of a heroism inspired by flesh and blood; and even in Deborah's song (chap. r. 24 sqq.) it is not lauded as a divine act.

Vers. 23, 24. " So God subdued at that time Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel; and the hand of the Israelites became heavier and heavier in its pressure upon him, until they had destroyed him:' r^^?\ ip^n... T rfm], « the hand... increased more and more, becoming heavy." ^^n, used to denote the progress or continual increase of an affair, as in Gen. viii. 3, etc., is connected with the infinitive absolute, and with the participle of the action concerned, nr^ is the feminine participle of nc'i?, like ^}^ in Gen. xx^^. 13 (see Ges. § 131, 3, Anm. 3). The overthrow of Jabin and his rule did not involve the extermination of the Canaanites generally.

This highly poetical song is so direct and lively an utterance of the mighty force of the enthusiasm awakened by the exaltation of Israel, and its victor}' over Sisera, that its genuineness is generally admitted now. After a general summons to praise the Lord for the courage with which the people rose up to fight against their foes (ver. 2), Deborah the singer dilates in the first section (vers. 3-11) upon the significance of the victory, picturing in lively colours (1) the glorious time when Israel was exalted to be the nation of the Lord (vers. 3-5); (2) the disgraceful decline of the nation in the more recent times (vers. 6-8}; and (3) the joyful turn of affairs which followed her appearance (vers. 9-11). After a fresh summons to rejoice in their victory (ver. 12), there follows in the second section (vers. 13-21) a lively picture of the conflict and victory, in which there is a vivid description (a) of the mighty gathering of the brave to battle (vers. 13-1 5a); (i) of the cowardice of those who stayed away from the battle, and of the bravery with which the braver warriors risked their lives in the battle (vers. 15^18): and (c) of the successful result of the conflict (vers. 19-21). To this there is appended in the third section (vers. 22-31) an account of the glorious issue of the battle and the victory: first of all, a brief notice of the flight and pursuit of the foe (vers. 22-24); secondly, a commemoration of the slaying of Sisera by Jael (vers. 24-27); and thirdly, a scornful description of the disappointment of Sisera*s mother, who was counting upon a large arrival of booty (vers. 28-30). The song then closes with the hope, founded upon this \actor}-, that all the enemies of the Lord might perish, and Israel increase in strength (ver. 31a). The whole song, therefore, is di^^ded into three leading sections, each of which again is arranged in three somewhat unequal strophes, the first and second sections being introduced by a summons to the praise of God (vers. 2, 12), whilst the third closes with an expression of hope, drawn from the contents of the whole, with regard to the future prospects of the kingdom of God (ver. 31o).

Ver. 1. The historical introduction (" Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Ahinoam on that day, saying") takes the place of a heading, and does not mean that the song of Deborah and Barak which follows was composed by them Jointly, but simply that it was sung by them together, in commemoration of the victory. The poetess or writer of the song, according to vers. 3, 7, and 12, was Deborah. The song itself opens with a summons to praise the Lord for the willing and joyful rising up of His people.

Ver. 2. That the strong in Israel showed themselves strong^ That the people willingly offered themselves, Praise ye the Lord!

The meaning of jnsi and nijns is a subject of dispute. According to the Septuagint rendering, and that of Theodot., iv rw dp^aadat ap')(r]<yov<i iv 'Iapai]\, many giv^e it the meaning to begin or to lead, and endeavour to establish this meaning from an Arabic word signifying to find one's self at the head of an affair. But this meaning cannot be established in Hebrew. V},^ has no other meaning than to let loose from something, to let a person loose or free (see at Lev. x. 6); and in the only other passage where nijHQ occurs (Deut. xxxii. 42), it does not refer to a leader, but to the luxuriant growth of the hair as the sign of great strength. Hence in this passage also nijns literally means comati, the hairy ones, i.e. those who possessed strength; and yiS, to manifest or put forth strength. The persons referred to are the champions in the fight, who went before the nation with strength and bravery. The preposition 2 before Xps indicates the reason for praising God, or rather the object with which the praise of the Lord was connected. '131 V~S3, literally " in the showing themselves strong." The meaning is, " for the fact that the strong in Israel put forth strength." ^'Hjr''?? to prove one's self willing, here to go into the battle of their own free will, without any outward and authoritative command. This introduction transports us in the most striking manner into the time of the judges, when Israel had no king who could summon the nation to war, but everything depended upon the voluntary rising of the strong and the will of the nation at large. The manifestation of this strength and willingness Deborah praises as a gracious gift of the Lord. After this summons to praise the Lord, the first part of the song opens with an appeal to the kings and princes of the earth to hear what Deborah has to proclaim to the praise of God.

Ver. 3. Hear, ye kings; give ear, ye princes! I, to the Lord will I sing, Will sing praise to the Lord, the God of IsraeL

4. Lord, -when Thou went€St out from Seir, When Thou marchedst out of the fields of Edom, The earth trembled, and the heavens also dropped; The clouds also dropped vrater.

The " kings and princes" are not the rulers in Israel, for Israel had no kings at that time, but the kings and princes of the heathen nations, as in Ps. ii. 2. These were to discern the mighty acts of Jehovah in Israel, and learn to fear Jehovah as the almighty God. For the song to be sung applies to Him, the God of Israel. iQf, ^p^aXK€lv, is the technical expression for singing with an instrumental accompaniment (see at Ex. xv. 2). — Vers. 4, 5. To give the Lord the glory for the victory which had been gained through His omnipotent help over the powerful army of Sisera, and to fill the heathen with fear of Jehovah, and the Israelites with love and confidence towards Him, the singer reverts to the terribly glorious manifestation of Jehovah in the olden time, when Israel was accepted as the nation of God (Ex. xix.). Just as Moses in his blessing (Deut. xxxiii. 2) referred the tribes of Israel to this mighty act, as the source of all salvation and blessing for Israel, so the prophetess Deborah makes the praise of this glorious manifestation of God the starting-point of her praise of the great grace, which Jehovah as the faithful covenant God had displayed to His people in her own days. The tacit allusion to Moses' blessing is very unmistakeable. But whereas Moses describes the descent of the Lord upon Sinai (Ex. xix.), according to its gracious significance in relation to the tribes of Israel, as an objective fact (Jehovah came from Sinai, Deut. xxxiii. 2), Deborah clothes the remembrance of it in the form of an address to God, to bring out the thought that the help which Israel had just experienced was a renewal of the coming of the Lord to His people. Jehovah's going out of Seir, and marching out of the fields of Edom, is to be interpreted in the same sense as His rising up from Seir (Deut. xxxiii. 2). As the descent of the Lord upon Sinai is depicted there as a rising of the sun from the east, so the same descent in a black cloud amidst thunder, lightning, fire, and vapour of smoke (Ex. xix. in, 18), is represented here with direct allusion to these phenomena as a storm rising up from Seir in the east, in which the Lord advanced to meet His people as.they came from the west to Sinai. Before the Lord, who came down upon Sinai in the storm and darkness of the cloud, the earth shook and the lieaven dropped, or, as it is afterwards more definitely explained, the clouds dropped with water, emptied themselves of their abundance of water as they do in the case of a storm. The mountains shook (p]^, Niphal of 77f, dropping the reduplication of the 7 = ^^, Isa. Ixiii. 19, Ixiv. 2), even the strong rocky mountain of Sinai, which stood out so distinctly before the eyes of the singer, that she speaks of it as " this Sinai," pointing to it as though it were locally near. David's description of the miraculous guidance of Israel through the desert in Ps. Ixviii. 8, 9, is evidently founded upon this passage, though it by no means follows from this that the passage before us also treats of the journey through the desert, as Clericus supposes, or even of the presence of the Lord in the battle with Sisera, and the victory which it secured. But greatly as Israel had been exalted at Sinai by the Lord its God, it had fallen just as deeply into bondage to its oppressors through its own sins, until Deborah arose to help it (vers. 6-8).

Ver. 6. In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, In the days of Jael, the paths kept holiday, And the wanderers of the paths went crooked ways.

7. The towns in Israel kept holiday, they kept holiday, Until that I, Deborah, arose.

8. They chose new gods; Then was war at the gates:

The deep degradation and disgrace into which Israel had sunk before the appearance of Deborah, through its falling away from the Lord into idolatry, forms the dark reverse of that glorification at Sinai. Although, after Ehud, Shamgar had also brought help to the people against their enemies by a victory over the Philistines (chap. iii. 31), and although Jael, who proved herself a heroine by slaying the fugitive Sisera, was then alive, things had got to such a pitch with Israel, that no one would venture upon the public high roads. There are no good grounds for the conjecture that Jael was a different person from the Jael mentioned in chap. iv. 17 sqq., whether a judge who is not further known, as Ewald supposes, or a female judge who stood at the head of the nation in these unhappy times (Bertheau). '^innx IPin, lit. " the paths ceased" $c.

to be paths, or to be trodden by men. ni3*ri3 ^3?n, "those who went upon paihsy^ or beaten ways, i.e. those who were obliged to undertake journeys for the purpose of friendly intercourse or trade, notwithstanding the burden of foreign rule which pressed upon the land; such persons went bj "twisted paths,^* i.e. hj roads and circuitous routes which turned away from the high roads. And the t^^^^, i.e. the cultivated land, with its open towns and villages, and with their inhabitants, was as forsaken and desolate as the public highways. The word perazon has been rendered judge or guidance by modern expositors, after the example of Teller and Gesenius; and in ver. 11 decision or guidance. But this meaning, which has been adopted into all the more recent lexicons, has nothing really to support it, and does not even suit our verse, into which it would introduce the strange contradiction, that at the time when Sharagar and Jael were judges, there were no judges in Israel. In addition to the Septuagint version, which rendei'S the word hwoTol in this verse {i.e. according to the Cod. Vat., for the Cod. Al. has (ppd^av), and then in the most unmeaning way adopts the rendering av^aov in ver. 11, from which we may clearly see that the translators did not know the meaning of the word, it is common to adduce an Arabic word which signifies segregavit, discrevit rem ah aliis, though it is impossible to prove that the Arabic word ever had the meaning to judge or to lead. All the old translators, as well as the Rabbins, have based their rendering of the word upon *n5, inhabitant of the flat country (Dent. iii. 5, and 1 Sam. vi. 18), and riins, the open flat country, as distinguished from the towns surrounded by walls (Ezek. xxxviii. 11; Zecli. ii. 8), according to which line, as the place of meeting, woidd denote both the cultivated land with its unenclosed towns and villases, and also the population that was settled in the open country in unfortified places, — a meaning which also lies at the foundation of the word in Hab. iii. 14. Accordingly, Luther has rendered the word Bauern (peasants). '•TOpE' ny for ^riop trx nj?. The contraction of "lE^ into E', with Dagesh following, and generally pointed with Seghol, but here with Patach on account of the p, which is closely related to the gutturals, belongs to the popular character of the song, and is therefore also found in the Song of Solomon (chap. i. 12, ii. 7, 17, iv. 6). It is also met with here and there in simple prose (Judg. vi. 17, vii. 12, viii. 26); but it was only in the literature of the time of the captivity and a still later date, that it found its way more aud more from the language of ordinary' conversation into that of the Scriptures. Deborah describes herself as " a mother in Israel," on account of her having watched over her people with maternal care, just as Job calls himself a father to the poor who had been supported by him (Job xxix. 16; cf. Isa. xxii.'21). — ^Ver. 8 describes the cause of the misery into which Israel had fallen. D''K''in D^ipK is the object to "in?^, and the subject is to be found in the previous term Israel. Israel forsook its God and Creator, and chose new gods, i.e. gods not worshipped by its fathers {yid, Deut. xxxii. 17). Then there was war (pXk, the construct state of OnPj a verbal noun formed from the Piel, and signifying conflict or war) at the gates; i.e. the enemy pressed up to the very gates of the Israelitish towns, and besieged them, and there was not seen a shield or spear among forty thousand in Israel, i.e. there were no warriors found in Israel who ventured to defend the land against the foe. Q^? indicates a question with a negative reply assumed, as in 1 Kings i. 27, etc. Shield and spear (or lance) are mentioned particularly as arms of offence and defence, to signify arms of all kinds. The words are not to be explained from 1 Sam. xiii. 22, as signifying that there were no longer any weapons to be found among the Israelites, because the enemy had taken them away (" not seen" is not equivalent to " not found" in 1 Sam. xiii. 22); they simply affirm that there were no longer any weapons to be seen, because not one of the 40,000 men in Israel took a weapon in his hand. The number 40,000 is not the number of the men who offered themselves willingly for battle, according to ver. 2 (Bertheau); for apart from the fact that they did not go unarmed into the battle, it is at variance with the statement in chap. iv. 6, 10, that Barak went into the war and smote the enemy with only 10,000 men. It is a round number, i.e. an approximative statement of the number of the warriors who might have smitten the enemy and delivered Israel from bondage, and was probably chosen with a reference to the 40,000 fighting men of the tribes on the east of the Jordan, who went with Joshua to Canaan and helped their brethren to conquer the land (Josh. iv. 13). Most of the more recent expositors have given a different rendering of ver. 8. Many of them render the first clause according to the Peshito and Vulgate, " God chose something new^^ taking Elohim as the subject, and chadashim (new) as the object. But to this it has very properly been objected, that, according to the terms of the song, it was not Elohim but Jehovah who effected the deliverance of Israel, and that the Hebrew for new things is not CJ"'^"nnj but riicnn (Isa. xiii.

9, xlviiu 6), or nynn (Isa. xliii, 19; Jer. xxxi. 22). On these grounds Ewald and Beriheau render Elohim " judges" (they chose new judges\ and appeal to Ex. xxi. 6, xxii. 7, 8, where the authorities who administered justice in the name of God are called Elohim. But these passages are not sufficient by themselves to establish the meaning "judges," and still less to establish the rendering " new judges" for Elohim chadashim. Moreover, according to both these explanations, the next clause must be understood as relating to the specially courageous conflict which the Israelites in theu* enthusiasm earned on with Sisera; whereas the further statement, that among 40,000 warriors who offered themselves willingly for battle there was not a shield or a lance to be seen, is irreconcilably at variance with this. For the explanation suggested, namely, that these warriors did not possess the ordinary weapons for a well-conducted engagement, but had nothing but bows and swords, or instead of weapons of any kind had only the staffs and tools of shepherds and husbandmen, is proved to be untenable by the simple fact that there is nothing at all to indicate any contrast between ordinary and extraordinary weapons, and that such a contrast is altogether foreign to the context. Moreover, the fact appealed to, that TN points to a victorious conflict in vers. 13, 19, 22, as well as in ver. 11, is not strong enough to support the view in question, as TN is employed in ver. 19 in connection with the battle of the kings of Canaan, which was not a successful one, but terminated in a defeat.

The singer now turns from the contemplation of the deep degradation of Israel to the glorious cliange which took place as soon as she appeared: —

Ver. 9. My heart inclines to the leaders of Israel;

10. Ye that ride apon white assess Ye that sit upon coverings,

11. With the voice of the archers among drawers (of water), There praise ye the righteous acts of the Lord,

Then the people of the Lord went down to the gates!

We must supply the stihst. verb in connection with? '37, " My heart is {sc. inclined) toioards the leaders of Israel" i.e. feels itself drawn towards them. Pi^n for pp^no (ver. 14), the determining one, i.e. the commander or leader in war: as in Deut. xxxiii. 21. The leaders and willing ones are first of all to praise the Lord for having crowned their willingness with victory. — Ver. 10. And all classes of the people, both high and low, have reason to join in the praise. Those who ride upon white, i.e. white-spotted asses, are the upper classes generally, and not merely the leaders (cf. chap. x. 4, xii. 14). in^j lit. dazzling white; but since there are no asses that are perfectly white, and white was a colour tliat was highly valued both by Hebrews and Arabs, they applied the term white to those that were only spotted with white. Those who sit upon coverings (^0 from n^, a covering or carpet, with the plural termination p, which is to be regarded as a poetical Chaldaism) are the rich and prosperous; and those who walk on the way, i.e. travellers on foot, represent the middle and lower classes, who have to go about and attend to their affairs. Considered logically, this triple division of the nation is not a very exact one, as the first two do not form a true antithesis. But the want of exactness does not warrant our fusing together the middle term and the first, and understanding by middin either saddles or saddle-cloths, as Ewald and Bertheau have done; for saddle-cloths are still further from forming an antithesis to asses, so that those who ride upon white asses could be distinguished, as the upper classes and leaders, from those who sit upon saddles, or are " somewhat richer." Moreover, there is no reason for regarding these three classes as referring simply to the long line of warriors hastening from the victory to the triumphal fete. On the contrary, all classes of the people are addressed, as enjoying the fruits of the victory that had been obtained: the upper classes, who ride upon their costly animals; the rich resting at home upon their splendid carpets; and the poor travellers, who can now go quietly along the higli-road again without fear of interruption from the foe (ver. 6). ^n^JJ' is rendered " sing^^ by many; but this rendering cannot be sustained from Ps. cv. 2 and cxlv. 5, and it is not necessary in the verse before us, since the well-established meaning of the word " ponder," reflect, sc. upon the acts of the Lord, is a perfectly suitable one. — Ver. 11. The whole nation had good reason to make this reflection, as the warriors, having returned home, were now relating the mighty acts of the Lord among the women who were watering their flocks, and the people had returned to their towns once more. This is in all probability the idea of the obscure verse before us, which has been interpreted in such very different ways. The first clause, which has no verb, and cannot constitute a sentence by itself, must be connected with the following clause, and taken as an anakolouthon, as ^^ 02^ does not form a direct continuation of the clause comraenfing with 7^p^. After the words "from the voice of the archers" we should expect the continuation " there is heard" or " there sounds forth the praise of the acts of the Lord." Instead of that, the construction that was commenced is relinquished at ^301 DB', and a different turn is given to the thought. This not onlj seems to offer the simplest explanation, but the only possible solution of the difficulty. For the explanation that JO is to be taken as signifying " away from," as in Num. xv. 24, etc., in the sense of " far from the voice of the archers, among the watering women," does not suit the following word D^, "there," at- all. It would be necessary to attribute to p? the meaning " no more disquieted by," a meaning which the preposition could not possibly have in this clause. ^^VV'"? are not sharers in the booty, for f*Vn simply means to cut, to cut in pieces, to divide, and is never applied to the sliaring of booty, for which p^i} is the word used (vid. ver. 30; Ps. Ixviii. 13; Isa. ix. 2). J*-?'"? is to be regarded, as the Rabbins maintain, as a denom. from (*n, to hold an arrow, signifying therefore the shooter of an arrow. It was probably a natural thing for Deborah, who dwelt in Benjamin, to mention the archers as representatives of warriors generally, since this was the principal weapon employed by the Benjaminites (see 1 Chron. viii. 40, xii. 2; 2 Chron. xiv. 7, xvii. 17). The tarrying of the warriors among the drawers of water, where the flocks and herds were being watered, points to the time of peace, when the warriors were again occupied with their civil and domestic affairs. ^in^ is a simple aorist. nsn^ Ut. to repeat, then to relate, or praise. " Tlie righteousness of Jehovah " i.e. the marvellous acts of the Lord in and upon Israel for the accomplishing of His purposes of salvation, in which the righteousness of His work upon earth was manifested (cf. 1 Sam. xii. 7, Micah vi. 5). i^ina niplS has been rendered by modern expositors, either " the righteous acts of His guidance or of His decision" (Eicald and Bertheau), or " the righteous acts of His commanders," or " the benefits towards His princes (leaders) in Israel" (Ros. and others). But neither of these can be sustained. We must take iiPB here in just the same sense as in ver. 7; the country covered with open towns and villages, together with their inhabitants, whom Jehovah had delivered from the hostile oppression that had rested upon them, by means of the victory obtained over Sisera. After that victory the people of the Lord went down again to their gates, from the mountains and hidingplaces in ^'hich they had taken refuge from their foes (vers. 6, 7),