xi. 21, where the name is transformed into Jerubbesheth, as

Ishbaal and Meribbaal are into Ishbosheth and Mephibosheth respectively), in which “Baal” seems to some not to represent the Canaanite God, but the title Lord as applied to Jahveh, was supposed to mean “Baal fights against him,” and was, therefore, offensive to the orthodox. Kuenen thought it meant “Lord, fight for him!” Renan read it Yarebaal, from the Vulgate form Jerobaal, and translated “He who fears Baal.” Gideon signifies “He who overthrows” in the battle.

Assembling all his people at the call of the trumpet, Jerubbaal chose from among them three hundred of the strongest, with whom he came down unexpectedly upon the raiders, put them to flight in the plain of Jezreel, and followed them beyond the Jordan. Having crossed the river, “faint and yet pursuing,” he approached the men of Succoth, and asked them for bread for himself and his three hundred followers. Their fear of the marauders, however, was so great that the people refused to give him any help, and he had no better success with the people of Penuel whom he encountered a little further on. He did not stop to compel them to accede to his wishes, but swore to inflict an exemplary punishment upon them on his return. The Midianites continued their retreat, in the mean time, “by the way of them that dwelt in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbehah,” but Jerubbaal came up with them near Karkâr, and discomfited the host. He took vengeance upon the two peoples who had refused to give him bread, and having thus fulfilled his vow, he began to question his prisoners, the two chiefs: “What manner of men were they whom ye slew at Tabor?” “As thou art, so were they; each one resembled the children of a king.” “And he said, They were my brethren, the sons of my mother: as the Lord liveth, if ye had saved them alive, I would not slay you. And he said unto Jether his firstborn, Up, and slay them. But the youth drew not his sword: for he feared, because he was yet a youth.” True Bedawins as they were, the chiefs’ pride revolted at the idea of their being handed over for execution to a child, and they cried to Jerubbaal: “Rise thou, and fall upon us: for as the man is, so is his strength.” From this victory rose the first monarchy among the Israelites. The Midianites, owing to their marauding habits and the amount of tribute which they were accustomed to secure for escorting caravans, were possessed of a considerable quantity of gold, which they lavished on the decoration of their persons: their chiefs were clad in purple mantles, their warriors were loaded with necklaces, bracelets, rings, and ear-rings, and their camels also were not behind their masters in the brilliance of their caparison. The booty which Gideon secured was, therefore, considerable, and, as we learn from the narrative, excited the envy of the Ephraimites, who said: “Why hast thou served us thus, that thou calledst us not, when thou wentest to fight with Midian?” *

* Judges viii. 1-3.

The spoil from the golden ear-rings alone amounted to one thousand seven hundred shekels, as we learn from the narrative, and this treasure in the hands of Jerubbaal was not left unemployed, but was made, doubtless, to contribute something to the prestige he had already acquired: the men of Israel, whom he had just saved from their foes, expressed their gratitude by offering the crown to him and his successors. The mode of life of the Hebrews had been much changed after they had taken up their abode in the mountains of Canaan. The tent had given place to the house, and, like their Canaanite neighbours, they had given themselves up to agricultural pursuits. This change of habits, in bringing about a greater abundance of the necessaries of life than they had been accustomed to, had begotten aspirations which threw into relief the inadequacy of the social organisation, and of the form of government with which they had previously been content. In the case of a horde of nomads, defeat or exile would be of little moment. Should they be obliged by a turn in their affairs to leave their usual haunts, a few days or often a few hours would suffice to enable them to collect their effects together, and set out without trouble, and almost without regret, in search of a new and more favoured home. But with a cultivator of the ground the case would be different: the farm, clearings, and homestead upon which he had spent such arduous and continued labour; the olive trees and vines which had supplied him with oil and wine--everything, in fact, upon which he depended for a livelihood, or which was dependent upon him, would bind him to the soil, and expose his property to disasters likely to be as keenly felt as wounds inflicted on his person. He would feel the need, therefore, of laws to secure to him in time of peace the quiet possession of his wealth, of an army to protect it in time of war, and of a ruler to cause, on the one hand, the laws to be respected, and to become the leader, on the other, of the military forces. Jerubbaal is said to have, in the first instance, refused the crown, but everything goes to prove that he afterwards virtually accepted it. He became, it is true, only a petty king, whose sovereignty was limited to Manasseh, a part of Ephraim, and a few towns, such as Succoth and Penuel, beyond the Jordan. The Canaanite city of Shechem also paid him homage. Like all great chiefs, he had also numerous wives, and he recognised as the national Deity the God to whom he owed his victories.

Out of the spoil taken from the Midianites he formed and set up at Ophrah an ephod, which became, as we learn, “a snare unto him and unto his house,” but he had also erected under a terebinth tree a stone altar to Jahveh-Shalom (“Jehovah is peace”).* This sanctuary, with its altar and ephod, soon acquired great celebrity, and centuries after its foundation it was the object of many pilgrimages from a distance.

Jerubbaal was the father by his Israelite wives of seventy children, and, by a Canaanite woman whom he had taken as a concubine at Shechem, of one son, called Abimelech.**

* The _Book of Judges_ separates the altar from the ephod, placing the erection of the former at the time of the vocation of Gideon (vi. 11-31) and that of the ephod after the victory (viii. 24-27). The sanctuary of Ophrah was possibly in existence before the time of Jerubbaal, and the sanctity of the place may have determined his selection of the spot for placing the altar and ephod there.

** Judges viii. 30, 31.

The succession to the throne would naturally have fallen to one of the seventy, but before this could be arranged, Abimelech “went to Shechem unto his mother’s brethren, and spake with them, and with all the family of the house of his mother’s father, saying, Speak, I pray you, in the ears of all the men of Shechem, Whether is better for you, that all the sons of Jerubbaal, which are threescore and ten persons, rule over you, or that one rule over you? remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.” This advice was well received; it flattered the vanity of the people to think that the new king was to be one of themselves; “their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech; for they said, He is our brother. And they gave him threescore and ten pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-berith (the Lord of the Covenant), wherewith Abimelech hired vain and light fellows, which followed him.... He slew his brethren the sons of Jerubbaal, being threescore and ten persons, upon one stone.” The massacre having been effected, “all the men of Shechem assembled themselves together, and all the house of Millo,* and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar which was in Shechem.” ** He dwelt at Ophrah, in the residence, and near the sanctuary, of his father, and from thence governed the territories constituting the little kingdom of Manasseh, levying tribute upon the vassal villages, and exacting probably tolls from caravans passing through his domain.

* The word “Millo” is a generic term, meaning citadel or stronghold of the city: there was a Millo in every important town, Jerusalem included.

** The “oak of the pillar” was a sacred tree overshadowing probably a _cippus_: it may have been the tree mentioned in Gen. xxxv. 4, under which Jacob buried the strange gods; or that referred to in Josh. xxiv. 26, under which Joshua set up a stone commemorative of the establishment of the law. Jotham, the youngest son of Gideon, escaped the massacre. As soon as he heard of the election of Abimelech, he ascended Mount Gerizim, and gave out from there the fable of the trees, applying it to the circumstances of the time, and then fled. Some critics think that this fable--which is confessedly old--was inserted in the text at a time when prophetical ideas prevailed and monarchy was not yet accepted.

This condition of things lasted for three years, and then the Shechemites, who had shown themselves so pleased at the idea of having “one of their brethren” as sovereign, found it irksome to pay the taxes levied upon them by him, as if they were in no way related to him. The presence among them of a certain Zebul, the officer and representative of Abimelech, restrained them at first from breaking out into rebellion, but they returned soon to their ancient predatory ways, and demanded ransom for the travellers they might capture even when the latter were in possession of the king’s safe conduct. This was not only an insult to their lord, but a serious blow to his treasury: the merchants who found themselves no longer protected by his guarantee employed elsewhere the sums which would have come into his hands. The king concealed his anger, however; he was not inclined to adopt premature measures, for the place was a strong one, and defeat would seriously weaken his prestige. The people of Shechem, on their part, did not risk an open rupture for fear of the consequences. Gaal, son of Ebed,* a soldier of fortune and of Israelitish blood, arrived upon the scene, attended by his followers: he managed to gain the confidence of the people of Shechem, who celebrated under his protection the feast of the Vintage.

* The name Ebed (“slave,” “servant”) is assumed to have been substituted in the Massorotic text for the original name Jobaal, because of the element Baal in the latter word, which was regarded as that of the strange god, and would thus have the sacrilegious meaning “Jahveh is Baal.” The term of contempt, Ebed, was, according to this view, thus used to replace it.

On this occasion their merrymaking was disturbed by the presence among them of the officer charged with collecting the tithes, and Gaal did not lose the opportunity of stimulating their ire by his ironical speeches: “Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? is not he the son of Jerubbaal? and Zebul his officer? serve ye the men of Hamor the father of Shechem: but why should we serve him? And would to God this people were under my hand! then would I remove Abimelech. And he said to Abimelech, Increase thine army, and come out.” Zebul promptly gave information of this to his master, and invited him to come by night and lie in ambush in the vicinity of the town, “that in the morning, as soon as the sun is up, thou shalt rise early, and set upon the city: and, behold, when he and the people that is with him come out against thee, thou mayest do to them as thou shalt find occasion.” It turned out as he foresaw; the inhabitants of Shechem went out in order to take part in the gathering in of the vintage, while Gaal posted his men at the entering in of the gate of the city. As he looked towards the hills he thought he saw an unusual movement among the trees, and, turning round, said to Zebul, who was close by, “Behold, there come people down from the tops of the mountains. And Zebul said unto him, Thou seest the shadow of the mountains as if they were men.” A moment after he looked in another direction, “and spake again and said, See, there come people down by the middle of the land, and one company cometh by the way of the terebinth of the augurs.” Zebul, seeing the affair turn out so well, threw off the mask, and replied railingly, “Where is now thy mouth, wherewith thou saidst, Who is Abimelech, that we should serve him? is not this the people that thou hast despised? go out, I pray, now, and fight with him.” The King of Manasseh had no difficulty in defeating his adversary, but arresting the pursuit at the gates of the city, he withdrew to the neighbouring village of Arumah.*

* This is now el-Ormeh, i.e.Kharbet el-Eurmah, to the south- west of Nablus.

He trusted that the inhabitants, who had taken no part in the affair, would believe that his wrath had been appeased by the defeat of Gaal; and so, in fact, it turned out: they dismissed their unfortunate champion, and on the morrow returned to their labours as if nothing had occurred.

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph reproduced by the Duc de Luynes.

Abimelech had arranged his Abiezerites in three divisions: one of which made for the gates, while the other two fell upon the scattered labourers in the vineyards. Abimelech then fought against the city and took it, but the chief citizens had taken refuge in “the hold of the house of El-berith.” “Abimelech gat him up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the people that were with him; and Abimelech took an axe in his hand, and cut down a bough from the trees, and took it up, and laid it on his shoulder: and he said unto the people that were with him, What ye have seen me do, make haste, and do as I have done. And all the people likewise cut down every man his bough, and followed Abimelech, and put them to the hold, and set the hold on fire upon them; so that all the men of the tower of Shechem died also, about a thousand men and women.”

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in the Ramesseum. This is a portion of the picture representing the capture of Ascalon by Ramses II.

This summary vengeance did not, however, prevent other rebellions. Thebez imitated Shechem, and came nigh suffering the same penalty.* The king besieged the city and took it, and was about to burn with fire the tower in which all the people of the city had taken refuge, when a woman threw a millstone down upon his head “and brake his skull.”

* Thebez, now Tubas, the north-east of Nablus.

The narrative tells us that, feeling himself mortally wounded, he called his armour-bearer to him, and said, “Draw thy sword, and kill me, that men say not of me, A woman slew him.” His monarchy ceased with him, and the ancient chronicler recognises in the catastrophe a just punishment for the atrocious crime he had committed in slaying his half-brothers, the seventy children of Jerubbaal.* His fall may be regarded also as the natural issue of his peculiar position: the resources upon which he relied were inadequate to secure to him a supremacy in Israel. Manasseh, now deprived of a chief, and given up to internal dissensions, became still further enfeebled, and an easy prey to its rivals. The divine writings record in several places the success attained by the central tribes in their conflict with their enemies. They describe how a certain Jephthah distinguished himself in freeing Gilead from the Ammonites.**

* Judges ix. 23, 24. “And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech: that the violence done to the threescore and ten sons of Jerubbaal might come, and that their blood might be laid upon Abimelech their brother, which slew them, and upon the men of Shechem, which strengthened his hands to slay his brethren.”

** The story of Jephthah is contained in chaps, xi., xii. 1- 7, of the _Book of Judges_. The passage (xi. 12-29) is regarded by some, owing to its faint echo of certain portions of Numb, xx., xxi., to be an interpolation. Jephthah is said to have had Gilead for his father and a harlot for his mother. Various views have been put forward as to the account of his victories over the Midianites, some seeing in it, as well as in the origin of the four days’feast in honour of Jephthah’s daughter, insertions of a later date.

But his triumph led to the loss of his daughter, whom he sacrificed in order to fulfil a vow he had made to Jahveh before the battle.* These were, however, comparatively unimportant episodes in the general history of the Hebrew race. Bedawins from the East, sheikhs of the Midianites, Moabites, and Ammonites--all these marauding peoples of the frontier whose incursions are put on record--gave them continual trouble, and rendered their existence so miserable that they were unable to develop their institutions and attain the permanent freedom after which they aimed. But their real dangers--the risk of perishing altogether, or of falling back into a condition of servitude--did not arise from any of these quarters, but from the Philistines.

* There are two views as to the nature of the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter. Some think she was vowed to perpetual virginity, while others consider that she was actually sacrificed.

By a decree of Pharaoh, a new country had been assigned to the remnants of each of the maritime peoples: the towns nearest to Egypt, lying between Raphia and Joppa, were given over to the Philistines, and the forest region and the coast to the north of the Philistines, as far as the Phoenician stations of Dor and Carmel,* were appropriated to the Zakkala. The latter was a military colony, and was chiefly distributed among the five fortresses which commanded the Shephelah.

* We are indebted to the _Papyrus Golenischeff_ for the mention of the position of the Zakkala at the beginning of the XXIst dynasty.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a “squeeze.”

Gaza and Ashdod were separated from the Mediterranean by a line of sand-dunes, and had nothing in the nature of a sheltered port--nothing, in fact, but a “maiuma,” or open roadstead, with a few dwellings and storehouses arranged along the beach on which their boats were drawn up. Ascalon was built on the sea, and its harbour, although well enough suited for the small craft of the ancients, could not have been entered by the most insignificant of our modern ships. The Philistines had here their naval arsenal, where their fleets were fitted out for scouring the Egyptian waters as a marine police, or for piratical expeditions on their own account, when the occasion served, along the coasts of Phoenicia. Ekron and Gath kept watch over the eastern side of the plain at the points where it was most exposed to the attacks of the people of the hills--the Canaanites in the first instance, and afterwards the Hebrews. These foreign warriors soon changed their mode of life in contact with the indigenous inhabitants; daily intercourse, followed up by marriages with the daughters of the land, led to the substitution of the language, manners, and religion of the environing race for those of their mother country. The Zakkala, who were not numerous, it is true, lost everything, even to their name, and it was all that the Philistines could do to preserve their own. At the end of one or two generations, the “colts” of Palestine could only speak the Canaanite tongue, in which a few words of the old Hellenic _patois_ still continued to survive. Their gods were henceforward those of the towns in which they resided, such as Marna and Dagon and Gaza,* Dagon at Ashdod,** Baalzebub at Ekron,*** and Derketô in Ascalon;**** and their mode of worship, with its mingled bloody and obscene rites, followed that of the country.

* Marna, “our lord,” is mentioned alongside Baalzephon in a list of strange gods worshipped at Memphis in the XIXth dynasty. The worship of Dagon at Gaza is mentioned in the story of Samson (Judges xvi. 21-30).

** The temple and statue of Dagon are mentioned in the account of the events following the taking of the ark in 1 Sam. v. 1-7. It is, perhaps, to him that 1 Chron. x. 10 refers, in relating how the Philistines hung up Saul’s arms in the house of their gods, although 1 Sam. xxxi. 10 calls the place the “house of the Ashtoreth.”

*** Baalzebub was the god of Ekron (2 Kings i. 2-6), and his name was doubtfully translated “Lord of Flies.” The discovery of the name of the town Zebub on the Tell el- Amarna tablets shows that it means the “Baal of Zebub.” Zebub was situated in the Philistine plains, not far from Ekron. Halévy thinks it may have been a suburb of that town.

**** The worship of Derketô or Atergatis at Ascalon is witnessed to by the classical writers.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.

Two things belonging to their past history they still retained--a clear remembrance of their far-off origin, and that warlike temperament which had enabled them to fight their way through many obstacles from the shores of the Ægean to the frontiers of Egypt. They could recall their island of Caphtor,* and their neighbours in their new home were accustomed to bestow upon them the designation of Cretans, of which they themselves were not a little proud.**

* Jer. xlvii. 4 calls them “the remnant of the isle of Caphtor;” Amos (ix. 7) knew that the Lord had brought “the Philistines from Caphtor;” and in Dent. ii. 23 it is related how “the Caphtorim which came forth out of Caphtor destroyed the Avvim, which dwelt in villages as far as Gaza, and dwelt in their stead.” Classical tradition falls in with the sacred record, and ascribes a Cretan origin to the Philistines; it is suggested, therefore, that in Gen. x. 14 the names Casluhim and Caphtorim should be transposed, to bring the verse into harmony with history and other parts of Scripture.

** In an episode in the life of David (1 Sam. xxx. 14), there is mention of the “south of the Cherethites,” which some have made to mean Cretans--that is to say, the region to the south of the Philistines, alongside the territory of Judah, and to the “south of Caleb.” Ezelc. xx. 16 also mentions in juxtaposition with the Philistines the Cherethites, and “the remnant of the sea-coast,” as objects of God’s vengeance for the many evils they had inflicted on Israel. By the Cherethims here, and the Cherethites in Zoph.