Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/599

 HEBREWS 585 in the centre. With these, and with other neighbors on the borders, frequent warfare had to be waged, while the young state, forming a loose confederacy of 12 (or, counting Manasseh as two, of 13) almost independent members, had neither natural boundaries nor a capital, neither a hereditary head nor an elective fed- eral government, the only bond of union being the common law, and the only centre the seat of the ark of the covenant, whose guardians probably enjoyed the privilege of convoking a general assembly of the people in cases of ur- gent necessity. Such national assemblies were often held at Mizpah. But the enmity and fre- quent attacks of the surrounding idolatrous tribes was less pernicious than their friendly relations in times of peace, when the voluptuous rites connected with the worship of Ashtoreth and other divinities of the Phoenicians, Syrians, id Philistines, were too seductive for a people an undeveloped state, whose own religion quired a rigid observance of a strict morality, remedy these evils, heroic men arose from to time, repulsed the enemies, restored ler and the law, were acknowledged as lead- rs and judges, at least by a part of the people, id thus revived its unity. This period of re- iblican federalism under judges (shophetim, a which also designated the chief magis- of the Carthaginians in their language, i was also Semitic) is described in the of that name, a continuation of that of Foshua, and forms one of the most interesting ions of Hebrew history. But criticism la- in vain to arrange chronologically the dng but in part probably contemporaneous events of the narrative. Othniel, a younger mother or nephew of Caleb, of the tribe of Fudah, was the first of the judges. Ehud, Benjamite, delivered Israel from the oppres- of the Moabites, having killed with his )wn left hand Eglon, the king of the invaders. 'And after him was Shamgar, the son of Anath, who slew of the Philistines 600 men with an ox goad," at a time when " no shield seen or a spear among 40,000 in Is- rael." Barak, a Naphtalite, inspired by Deb- ah, a female prophet and judge, who after- ward celebrated the event in her great song (Judges v.), gained together with her a signal victory near Mount Tabor and the brook Kishon over the army of Sisera, commander of Jabin, a Canaanite king on the N. of Palestine, which numbered 900 iron war chariots. Sisera fled, but was killed in sleep by Jael, a woman of the nomadic and neutral Kenite tribe, in whose tent he had sought refuge. Gideon, character- ized as the youngest son of one of the weakest families in Manasseh, surprised with 300 select men the immense camp of the Midianites and Amalekites, dispersed them, called the sur- rounding tribes to arms, exterminated the in- vaders, appeased the Ephraimites, who were jealous of the glory gained by their neighbors, and refused to accept the royal dignity offered him by the gratitude of the people, declaring, " I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you." Abimelech, however, his son by a concubine, gained adherents among the idolatrous friends of his mother in Shechem, destroyed the nu- merous family of his father, was proclaimed king in that city, was afterward expelled, but reconquered the city, and finally perished while besieging the tower of the neighboring Thebez by a piece of millstone cast from its top by a woman. Jotham, the only son of Jerubbaal (as Gideon was called from his destruction of the Baal worship) who escaped from the mas- sacre of his brothers, had predicted the bloody end of the usurper in his fable of " the trees that went forth to anoint a king over them " (Judges ix.), which is probably the most an- cient specimen of that kind of poetry now ex- tant. Of the judges Tola, of the tribe of Issa- char, and Jair, from Gilead in Manasseh beyond the Jordan, little more is preserved than their names. Jephthah, another Gileadite, of ille- gitimate birth, having been expelled from his home, was recalled by his native district to combat against the Ammonites, who had at- tacked it, carried the war into the land of the enemy, and returned after a signal victory, of which his daughter, in consequence of a vow, became a victim. The Ephraimites, who had not been called to participate in the combat, now threatened vengeance on the conqueror, who, unlike Gideon, terminated the quarrel with a bloody defeat of the troublesome tribe, which is the first example of civil war among the Israelites, soon to be followed by others. Ibzan of Bethlehem in Judah, Elon, a Zebulun- ite, and Abdon, an Ephraimite, are next briefly mentioned as judges. Dan, too, gave Israel a judge in the person of Samson, who braved and humiliated the Philistines; he was a Nazarite of prodigious strength, whose adventurous ex- ploits in life and death much resemble those of the legendary heroes of Greece. The greatest anarchy now prevailed. The Danites not having yet conquered their territory, 600 men among them made an independent expedition north, and conquered a peaceful town of the Phoeni- cians, Laish, which was by them named Dan, and is henceforth mentioned as the northern- most town of the whole country, the opposite southern point being Beersheba. The concu- bine of a Levite having been outraged to death on a passage through Gibeah in Benjamin by some inhabitants of that place, her lover cut her corpse into pieces and sent them to all the tribes, calling for vengeance. The people assembled at Mizpah, and demanded from Ben- jamin the surrender of the criminals. The Benjamites refused, and a bloody civil war en- sued, in which they were nearly exterminated. The people wept over their fratricidal victory, and 600 Benjamites who alone survived were allowed to seize wives (for the victors had sworn not to give them any) from among the girls dancing in the valley of Shiloh, on a sacred fes- tival annually celebrated there. The little book