Hear, O Kings! give ear, O Princes!

I to Jehovah, even I will sing,

Will sound the harp to Jehovah, the God of Israel.

THE EXODUS.

O Jehovah, when Thou wentest out of Seir,
When Thou marchedst out of the field of Edom,
The earth trembled, the skies also dropped,
The clouds also dropped water.

The mountains melted from before the face of Jehovah,
Sinai itself from before the face of Jehovah, the God of

Israel.

THE DISMAY.

In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath,

In the days of Jael, ceased the roads;

And they that walked on highways, walked through crooked roads.

There ceased to be heads in Israel, ceased to be,

Till I, Deborah, arose,

Till I arose, a Mother in Israel.

THE CHANGE.

They chose gods that were new,
Then there was war in the gates;
Shield was there none or spear
In forty thousand of Israel.

My heart is towards the lawgivers of Israel,
Who offered themselves willingly for the people.
Praise Jehovah !

Ye that ride on white dapplea she-asses,
Ye that sit on rich carpets,

Ye that walk in the way,

Meditate the song!

From amidst the shouting of the dividers of spoils,

Between the water-troughs,

There let them rehearse the righteous acts of Jehovah,

The righteous acts of His headship in Israel;

Then went down to the gates the people of Jehovah.

Awake, awake, Deborah !

Awake, awake, utter a song!

Arise, Barak! and lead captive thy captives,
Thou son of Abinoam !

THE GATHERING.

Then came down a remnant of the nobles of the people,
Jehovah came down to me among the heroes.

Out of Ephraim came those whose root is in Amalek,'
After thee, O Benjamin, in thy people!

Out of Machir came down lawgivers,

And out of Zebulun they that handle the staff of those that

number the host;

And the princes in Issachar with Deborah, and Issachar as

Barak,

Into the valley he was sent on his feet.

THE RECREANTS.

By the streams of Reuben great are the debates of heart.
Why sittest thou between the sheepfolds?

To hear the piping to the flocks?

At the streams of Reuben great are the searchings of heart. Gilead beyond the Jordan dwells.

And Dan, why sojourns he in ships?

Asher sits at the shore of the sea,

And on his harbours dwells.

THE BATTLE AND THE FLIGHT.

Zebulun is a people throwing away its soul to death,
And Naphtali on the high places of the field.
There came kings, and fought;

Then fought kings of Canaan—
At Taanach, on the waters of Megiddo;
Gain of silver took they not.

From heaven they fought;
The stars from their courses
Fought with Sisera.

The torrent of Kishon swept them away,
The ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon.
Trample down, O my soul, their strength !
Then stamped the hoofs of the horses,

From the plungings and plungings of the mighty ones.

THE FLIGHT.

Curse ye Meroz, said the messenger of Jehovah ;
Curse ye with a curse the inhabitants thereof;
Because they came not to the help of Jehovah,
To the help of Jehovah, with the heroes.

THE DESTROYER.

Blessed above women be Jael,
The wife of Heber the Kenite,
Above women in the tent, blessed!
Water he asked, milk she gave;

In a dish of the nobles she offered him curds.
Her hand she stretched out to the tent-pin,

And her right hand to the hammer of the workmen ;
And hammered Sisera, and smote his head,

And beat and struck through his temples.
Between her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay,
Between her feet he bowed, he fell ;

Where he bowed, there he fell down slaughtered.

THE MOTHER.

Through the window stretched forth and lamented
The mother of Sisera through the lattice :
'Wherefore delays his car to come?

'Wherefore tarry the wheels of his chariot?'1
The wise ones of her princesses answer her,

Yea, she repeats their answer to herself :

Surely they are finding, are dividing the prey,

'One damsel, two damsels for the head of each hero.

'One of divers colours, two of embroidery, for the neck

'[of the prey"].'

THE TRIUMPH.

So perish all Thy enemies, O Jehovah ;

But they that love Thee are as the sun, when he goes forth

like a giant.

A remarkable parallel to this vain hope of the mother for the return of her son is to be seen in the Greek Klephtic songs, belonging to a somewhat similar stage of society.

2 Shellal, 'prey,' is the reading of the Received Text, for which Ewald proposes to substitute shegal (the queen). Otherwise the connection of the word 'prey must be applied.

The Midianites.

LECTURE XV.

GIDEON.

In the defeat of Sisera the last attempt of the old inhabitants to recover their sway was put down. The next event is wholly different. It is the invasion of the tribes of the adjoining desert. The name of Midian, though sometimes given peculiarly to the tribe on the south-east shores of the Gulf of Akaba,1 was extended to all Arabian tribes on the east of the Jordan-'the Amalekites and all the children of the 'East.' They have already appeared at the time of the first passage of Israel through the Trans-Jordanic territory. In this, as on the former occasion, they are governed by Princes or Chiefs whose names are preserved. Two superior chiefs having the title of 'king,' Zeba 2 and Zalmunna; two inferior, Oreb and Zeeb—'the Raven and the Wolf'-bearing the title of 'princes.' Their appearance is brought vividly before us. Like the Arab chiefs of modern days, they are dressed in gorgeous scarlet robes; on their necks and the necks of their camels are crescent-like ornaments, such as were afterwards worn by Jewish ladies of high rank.5 All of them wore rings, either nose-rings or ear-rings of gold.

4

6

When these wild tribes, taking advantage perhaps of the weakening of the intervening kingdoms of Ammon and Moab, burst upon the country, their fierce aspect struck consternation wherever they went. 'Let us take to ourselves the pastures of 'God'—so in true nomadic phrase they are supposed to speak. They overran the whole country. Like the Bedouins, who

now make incursions into the plains of Esdraelon and Philistia ; like the Scythians, who in the reign of Josiah spread southward 'as far as Gaza ;' so they, reaching to the same limits, were to be seen everywhere, with their innumerable tents and camels, like the sand 2 in the bay of Acre,-like one of those terrible armies of locusts described by the Prophet Joel.3

The flight of the Israelites.

4

The panic was proportionably great. The Israel population left the plains and took refuge in the hills. Three places. of refuge are specially mentioned. First, the catacombs or galleries which they cut out of the rock, which are mentioned only in this place, and which, apparently, were pointed out in after times, as the memorials of these troubled days. Secondly, the craggy peaks, such as the rock of Rimmon and the inaccessible Masada. Thirdly, the limestone caves, here first mentioned, and afterwards often used, like the Corycian cave in Greece during the Persian invasion, and the caves of the Asturias in Spain during the occupation of the Moors. It was returning to the old Troglodyte habits of the Horites and Phoenicians.5

From this great calamity Israel was rescued by a great deliverer-the most heroic of all the characters of this period.

Gideon.

6

Just as in the other invasions and oppressions, so here, the deliverer is to be sought in the locality nearest to the chief scene of the invasion. Overhanging the plain of Esdraelon, where the vast army of the Midianites was encamped, were the hills of the western Manasseh. It was from small family of this proud tribe that the champion of Israel unexpectedly rose. There had already been collisions between them and the invaders. The northern tribes seem to have met, as in the time of Barak, at the sanctuary of Mount Tabor, and there the elder sons of Joash the Abiezrite had been overtaken and slain by the Midianite kings. They

The mas

sacre on

Mount

Tabor.