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This we will do to them :

'therefore, we may not touch them. 'we will even let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of 'the oath which we sware unto them.''

Their lives were spared. They willingly undertook the tributary service which was levied upon them. Under 'the 'great high place' on which the Tabernacle-at least during part of the subsequent history-was raised, they remained in after times a monument of this early league. With what fidelity the promise was observed, and with what important consequences, will be best seen by describing the great event to which it directly led,—the Battle of Beth-horon.

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LECTURE XI.

THE CONQUEST OF WESTERN PALESTINE.

Battle of

BETH-HORON.

BATTLE OF

THE battle of Beth-horon or Gibeon is one of the most important in the history of the world; and yet so profound has been the indifference, first of the religious world, and Beth-horon. then (through their example or influence) of the common world, to the historical study of the Hebrew annals, that the very name of this great battle is far less known to most of us than that of Marathon or Cannæ.

It is one of the few military engagements which belong equally to Ecclesiastical and to Civil History-which have decided equally the fortunes of the world and of the Church. The roll will be complete if to this we add two or three more which we shall encounter in the Jewish history; and, in later times, the battle of the Milvian Bridge, which involved the fall of Paganism; the battle of Poitiers, which sealed the fall of Arianism; the battle of Bedr, which secured the rise of Mahometanism in Asia; the battle of Tours, which checked the spread of Mahometanism in Western Europe; the battle of Lepanto, which checked it in Eastern Europe; the battle of Lutzen, which determined the balance of power between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism in Germany.

The kings of Palestine, each in his little mountain fastness, -like the kings of early Greece, crowded thick together in the plains of Argos and of Thebes, when they were summoned to the Trojan war,-were roused by the tidings that the approaches to their territory in the Jordan valley and in the passes leading from it were in the hand of the enemy. Those who occupied

Siege of
Gibeon.

the south felt that the crisis was yet more imminent when they heard of the capitulation of Gibeon. Jebus, or Jerusalem, even in those ancient times, was recognised as their centre. Its chief took the lead of the hostile confederacy. The point of attack, however, was not the invading army, but the traitors at home. Gibeon, the recreant city, was besieged. The continuance or the raising of the siege, as in the case of Orleans, in the fifteenth century, and Vienna in the seventeenth, became the turning question of the war. The summons of the Gibeonites to Joshua was as urgent as words can describe, and gives the key-note to the whole movement. 'Slack not thy 'hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us, ' and help us; for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in 'the mountains are gathered together against us.' Not a moment was to be lost. As in the battle of Marathon, everything depended on the suddenness of the blow which should break in pieces the hostile confederation. On the former occasion of Joshua's visit to Gibeon, it had been a three days' journey from Gilgal, as according to the slow pace of Eastern armies and caravans it might well be. But now, by a forced march, 'Joshua came unto them suddenly, and went up from 'Gilgal all night.' When the sun rose behind him, he was already in the open ground at the foot of the heights of Gibeon, where the kings were encamped (according to tradition 1) by a spring in the neighbourhood. The towering hill at the foot of which Gibeon lay, rose before them on the west. The besieged and the besiegers alike were taken by surprise.

First stage

As often before and after, so now, 'not a man could stand 'before' the awe and the panic of the sudden sound of that terrible shout 2-the sudden appearance of that of the battle. undaunted host, who came with the assurance not to fear, nor to be dismayed, but to be strong and of a good 'courage, for the Lord had delivered their enemies into their 'hands.' The Canaanites fled down the western pass, and 'the Lord discomfited them before Israel, and slew them

1 Jos. Ant. v. 1, § 17.

• In the Samaritan tradition the war-cry

was, 'God is mighty in battle: God is 'His name '(Samaritan Joshua, ch. 20, 21).

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1

'with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Beth-horon.' This was the first stage of the flight. It is a long rocky ascent,1 sinking and rising more than once before the summit is reached. From the summit, which is crowned by the village of Upper Beth-horon, a wide view opens over the valley of Ajalon, of 'Stags' or 'Gazelles,' which runs in from the plain of Sharon. Jaffa, Ramleh, Lydda, are all visible beyond.

Second stage

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'And it came to pass, as they fled before Israel, and were ' in the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah.' of the battle. This was the second stage of the flight. The fugitives had outstripped the pursuers; they had crossed the high ridge of Beth-horon the Upper; they were in full flight to Beth-horon the Nether. It is a rough, rocky road, sometimes over the upturned edges of the limestone strata, sometimes over sheets of smooth rock, sometimes over loose rectangular stones, sometimes over steps cut in the rock. It

was as they fled down the slippery descent, that, as The storm. in the flight of Barak against Sisera, a fearful tempest, 'thunder, lightning, and a deluge of hail," broke over the disordered ranks; 'they were more which died of the hail'stones3 than they whom the children of Israel slew with the 'sword.'

So, as it would seem, ended the direct narrative of this second stage of the flight. But at this point, as in the case of the defeat of Sisera, we have one of those openings, as it were, in the structure of the Sacred history, which reveal to us a glimpse of another, probably an older, version, lying below the surface of the narrative. In the victory of Barak we have the whole account, first in prose and then in verse. Here we have, in like manner, first, the prose account; and then, either the same events, or the events immediately

'The actual amount of elevation in this ascent is perhaps doubtful.

2

Jos. Ant. v. 1, § 17. Compare Judg. iv. 15, v. 20; I Sam. vii. 10.

3 The stones have been interpreted as

meteoric stones; but the explanation of them in the Hebrew text, and the tradition in the LXX. and Josephus, are decisive in favour of the hailstorm.

following, related in poetry-taken from one of the lost books of the original canon of the Jewish Church, the Book of Jasher.1

Joshua's prayer.

On the summit of the pass, where is now the hamlet of the upper Beth-horon, looking far down the deep descent of the Western valleys, with the green vale of Ajalon stretched out in the distance, and the wide expanse of the Mediterranean Sea beyond, stood, as is intimated, the Israelite chief. Below him was rushing down, in wild confusion, the Amorite host. Around him were 'all his people of war and all his mighty men of valour.' Behind him were the hills which hid Gibeon-the now rescued Gibeon-from his sight. But the sun stood high above those hills, 'in the midst 'of heaven,' for the day had now far advanced, since he had emerged from his night march through the passes of Ai; and in front, over the western vale of Ajalon, may have been the faint form of the waning moon, visible above the hailstorm driving up from the sea in the black distance. Was the enemy to escape in safety, or was the speed with which Joshua had come quickly, and saved and helped' his defenceless allies, to be rewarded, before the close of that day, by a signal and decisive victory?

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It is doubtless so standing on that lofty eminence, with outstretched hand and spear, as on the hill above Ai, that the Hero appears in the ancient song of the Book of Heroes.

Then spake Joshua unto JEHOVAH,

In the day 'that God gave up the Amorites

'Into the hand of Israel.'3

When He discomfited them in Gibeon,

'And they were discomfited before the face of Israel.' 4
And Joshua said:

'Be thou still,' O Sun, upon Gibeon,

And thou, Moon, upon the valley of Ajalon!

1 We know this book only from the two fragments (Josh. x. 12-14, 2 Sam. i. 17-27) which have come down to us. But, according to a probable conjecture, first started by Theodoret (Quæstiones in Fesum, filium Nave), it was a volume containing songs of the departed 'heroes'

or 'just ones.'

2 If the expression 'upon Gibeon,' in Joshua x. 12, be exact, then the early morning must be intended; if 'the midst ' of heaven' in x. 13, then it must be the

noon.

3 LXX.

Ibid.

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