Antiquities — Book 5

Josephus · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

1. How Joshua, the general of the Hebrews, made war on the Canaanites, defeated them, destroyed some of them, and divided the land by lot among the tribes. 2. How, after the general's death, the Israelites transgressed their ancestral laws and suffered great disasters, and how, in the civil strife that followed, the tribe of Benjamin was destroyed except for six hundred men. 3. How, after this calamity, God enslaved them to the Assyrians for their impiety. 4. The liberation brought to them through Cenaz, son of Athniel, who ruled for forty years and is called by both Greeks and Phoenicians a "judge." 5. How our people again served the Moabites for eighteen years and were freed from servitude by a certain Judes, who then held power for eighty years. 6. How, having been enslaved by the Canaanites for twenty years, they were freed by Barak and Deborah, who ruled them for forty years. 7. How the Amalekites made war on the Israelites, defeated them, and ravaged the land for seven years. 8. How Gideon freed them from the Amalekites and ruled the people for forty years. 9. How, after him, many successors made war for a long time on the surrounding nations. 10. Concerning the courage of Samson, and how much harm he caused the Philistines. 11. How the sons of Eli the priest were slain in battle against the Philistines. 12. How their father, hearing of the disaster, fell from his throne and died. 13. How the Philistines, victorious in that war, captured the Hebrews' ark. 14. How all who ruled from Cenaz onward were called judges. This book covers a period of four hundred and seventy years.

Moses had passed from among men in the manner already described, and Joshua, once all the customary rites for him had been completed and the mourning had subsided, ordered the people to make ready for a campaign. He sent spies to Jericho to learn the strength of its inhabitants and their intentions, while he himself reviewed the army in preparation for crossing the Jordan when the moment came. He summoned the leaders of the tribe of Reuben and the chief men of Gad and of Manasseh — for half of this last tribe too had been permitted to settle in the land of the Amorites, a seventh part of Canaan — and reminded them of what they had promised Moses, urging them, out of regard for his care of them even as he lay dying and for the common good, to show themselves eager to carry out what was commanded. Following them with fifty thousand men-at-arms, Joshua marched from Abel to the Jordan, a distance of sixty stadia.

As soon as the camp was pitched, the spies arrived, having missed nothing of what concerned the Canaanites. On first entering the city they had freely observed the whole of it, noting which sections of the wall were strong and which were not so well secured, and which of the small gates, being weak, offered a way in for the army. The inhabitants they met paid them no heed, supposing that they were examining everything closely out of a foreigner's curiosity about the city's history, not with hostile intent. But when evening came, the spies withdrew to a lodging near the wall, and there, having eaten, they were beginning to think only of how to get away, when word reached the king, who was at dinner, that certain men had come from the camp of the Hebrews to spy out the city and were lodging, with great care to remain unnoticed, at the house of Rahab. He at once sent men with orders to seize and bring them, so that he might question them under torture and learn what they wanted, coming as they had.

When Rahab learned of their approach — she happened to be drying bundles of flax on the roof — she hid the spies among these, and told the men sent by the king that some strangers, unknown to her, had indeed dined at her house shortly before sunset and had since left; if the city found them alarming, or if they had come posing any danger to the king, it would be easy to overtake and seize them as they fled. The men, thus deceived by the woman, suspected no trick and left without searching the lodging. When those who had set out after the spies, along the roads by which they supposed them most likely to be making their escape, and especially those leading down to the river, found no trace of them anywhere, they gave up the pursuit.

Once the commotion had died down, Rahab brought the men down and told them of the danger she had taken on herself for their safety — for if she were caught hiding them she would not escape the king's punishment, but would perish miserably along with her whole household. She begged them to remember, once they had gained control of the land of Canaan, to repay her for the deliverance she had now provided, and told them to go home, but first to swear that they would indeed save her and all that belonged to her when they took the city and destroyed everyone in it according to the decree they had made — for she knew, she said, by signs taught her by God, that this would happen. The men acknowledged their gratitude for what she had done for them, and swore that they would repay her in deed for it. They advised her that when she perceived the city was about to be taken, she should gather her possessions and all her household into the lodging and shut them in, hanging a scarlet cloth before the doors, so that the general, recognizing the house, would take care not to harm it. "For we will make this known to him," they said, "being eager that what is yours be spared. But if any of your people should fall in the fighting, you must not hold it against us, and we ask God, whom we have sworn by, not to be angry with us as men who have broken their oath."

Having agreed to these terms, they made their way out by letting themselves down through the wall, and, reaching their own people safely, reported all they had done and seen in the city. Joshua then told the high priest Eleazar and the council of elders what the spies had agreed with Rahab, and they ratified the oath.

The army was afraid to cross the river, for the Jordan was running high and could not be crossed by bridges, none having ever been built over it before; nor did they think they would have leisure, with the enemy at hand, to build one now, and no boats were to be had. But God promised to make the river passable for them by reducing its volume. Waiting two days, Joshua then led the army and the whole multitude across in the following manner: the priests went first, carrying the ark; after them came the Levites, bearing the tabernacle and the vessels used in the sacrifices; behind the Levites followed the whole company arranged by tribes, with the children and women in the middle, out of fear that they might be swept away by the current. When the priests, the first to step in, found the river passable — its depth having been checked, and its gravel bed, since the current was neither deep nor swift, lying firm enough to bear their weight in place of solid ground — everyone crossed the river confidently, seeing it become exactly what God had foretold it would be. The priests stood in the middle of the riverbed until the whole multitude had crossed and reached safety. Once all had crossed, the priests came out as well, and the current, now released, resumed its natural course. No sooner had the Hebrews stepped out of it than the river swelled again and regained its normal size.

Advancing fifty stadia, they pitched camp ten stadia from Jericho. There Joshua set up an altar of stones, each carried up from the riverbed by one of the tribal leaders at the prophet's command, as a memorial of the stopping of the current, and offered sacrifice on it to God. They kept the Passover in that place, now enjoying in abundance everything of which they had previously been short, for they harvested the Canaanites' grain, already ripe, and drove off the rest of the plunder as well; and it was then, too, that the manna, on which they had lived for forty years, failed them.

When the Israelites did all this and the Canaanites did not come out to meet them but stayed shut up behind their walls, Joshua resolved to besiege them. On the first day of the festival the priests carried the ark around the city, with a body of armed men guarding it in a circle, marching ahead and sounding seven horns to rouse the army's courage; they went around the wall with the elders following, and once the priests alone had sounded their horns — for they did nothing more than this — they returned to camp. They did the same for six days, and on the seventh Joshua assembled the armed men and the whole people and announced to them the good news that the city would fall that day, for God would bring down its walls on their behalf, without any effort of their own. He instructed them nonetheless to kill anyone they found, without growing weary of the slaughter of the enemy, without yielding to pity, and without letting greed for plunder allow any of the enemy to escape; they were to destroy every living creature, taking nothing for their own use, but whatever silver and gold there was they were to gather and set aside as a special first portion for God from the first city taken, since it belonged to him by right of conquest. Rahab alone, with her family, was to be spared, because of the oaths the spies had sworn to her.

Having said this and drawn up the army, he led it against the city. Once again they went around it, the ark leading and the priests rousing the army to the task with their horns. When they had gone around seven times and paused for a little, the wall collapsed, with no engine or other force brought against it by the Hebrews. Entering Jericho, they killed everyone, the inhabitants being too stunned by the extraordinary collapse of the wall, and too broken in spirit, to defend themselves; they were cut down in the streets and overtaken in their houses. Nothing spared them — all perished, down to the women and children, and the city was filled with corpses, with no one escaping. They burned the whole city and the surrounding country. Rahab, who had fled with her household to the lodging, was saved by the spies, and Joshua, when she was brought before him, acknowledged his gratitude for having saved the spies' lives and told her that his repayment for this kindness would prove no less generous; he at once granted her fields and held her in the highest honor. Whatever the fire had spared of the city he razed to the ground, and he pronounced curses on anyone who should undertake to rebuild it, so that whoever laid the foundations of its walls should lose his firstborn son, and whoever completed them should lose his youngest. The divine power did not neglect this curse, as we shall relate later when we come to what happened concerning it.

An immense quantity of silver, gold, and bronze was gathered from the captured city, no one having transgressed the decree or plundered any of it for private gain, but all having abstained from it as already consecrated to God. This Joshua handed over to the priests to store in the treasuries. Such was the fate of Jericho.

Now a certain Achar, son of Zebedaeus, of the tribe of Judah, having found a royal robe woven entirely of gold and a mass of gold weighing two hundred shekels, and thinking it a hard thing to give up for the use of God, who had no need of it, a gain he had risked his life to win, dug a deep pit in his own tent and buried it there, supposing he could hide it from God as easily as from his fellow soldiers.

The place where Joshua had pitched camp was called Gilgal, a name meaning "freedom": for once they had crossed the river, they knew themselves free at last both from the Egyptians and from the hardship of the wilderness.

A few days after the disaster of Jericho, Joshua sent three thousand armed men against Naia, a city lying beyond Jericho, to take it; but when the men of Naia engaged them, the Hebrews were routed and lost thirty-six men. When this was reported to the Israelites it caused great grief and terrible despondency, not so much on account of the men lost — though all of them had been good men and worthy of honor — as out of sheer despair. For having believed themselves already masters of the land and assured, by God's own promise, that their army would come through its battles unharmed, they now saw the enemy unexpectedly emboldened; they put on sackcloth over their clothes and spent the whole day in tears and mourning, seeking no food, and felt the blow all the more heavily for that reason.

Seeing the army thus terrified and already forming grim expectations for the whole enterprise, Joshua spoke boldly to God: "We were not led on by any presumption of our own," he said, "to bring this land under arms, but by Moses your servant, who roused us to this task, to whom you promised, by many proofs, that you would give us this land and would always make our army stronger in arms than the enemy. Some things have indeed turned out for us according to your promises; but now, having stumbled contrary to our expectation and lost some of our force, we are troubled at the thought that your word and what Moses foretold might not be secure, and the fear of what is to come distresses us all the more for having met with such a first trial. But you, Master — for it lies in your power to find a cure for these ills — grant us victory now to relieve our present distress, and remove from our minds this despair concerning what is to come."

Saying this, Joshua fell on his face and entreated God. God answered that he should rise and purify the army, for a pollution had come upon it, a theft having been committed of property consecrated to him, and that this was the cause of their present defeat; but that once the man who had done it was found out and punished, victory over their enemies would always be theirs. Joshua reported this to the people, and, summoning Eleazar the high priest and the leading men, cast lots by tribe. When the guilty tribe was thereby

The tribe of Judah pointed to itself, and the lot was cast again by clans within it; and the truth of the wrongdoing was found to lie with the kin of Achar. When the search proceeded man by man, they seized Achar, who, unable to deny it once God had closed every way of escape around him, confessed the theft and produced the stolen goods in full view. He was put to death at once and, that same night, received the dishonorable burial fitting a condemned man.

Joshua purified the army and led it out against Naia. By night he set ambushes around the city himself, and at dawn he engaged the enemy. When they came on boldly, emboldened by their earlier victory, he feigned retreat, and by this device drew them far from the city, since they supposed they were pursuing him and, flushed with the prospect of victory, grew careless. Then he wheeled his force about and faced them, and by signals prearranged with the men in ambush, roused them too into the battle. They rushed into the city while its defenders were occupied at the walls, some of them even distracted by watching the fighting outside. So one group took the city and killed everyone they met, while Joshua forced back those who had come to close quarters with him and put them to flight. Driven together as though toward an untouched city, but seeing it already taken and burning, women and children within it too, they scattered through the fields, unable to help one another for being isolated. Such was the disaster that overtook the people of Naia: a multitude of children was taken captive, along with women, servants, and other possessions beyond counting, and the Hebrews seized herds of livestock and great sums of money, for the place was wealthy. All of this Joshua distributed among the soldiers once he reached Gilgal.

The people of Gibeon, who lived nearest to Jerusalem, saw what had befallen Jericho and Naia and suspected that the same disaster would soon reach them. They decided not to appeal to Joshua, since they did not expect to obtain any fair terms from a man waging a war of extermination against the whole Canaanite nation. Instead they called on their neighbors, the men of Chephirah and Kiriath-jearim, to join them in an alliance, telling them that they too would not escape the danger if the Israelites captured Gibeon first; and together the allies resolved to slip away from the main body of the Israelite force.

When the Chephirites and Kiriath-jearimites accepted this proposal, the Gibeonites sent envoys to Joshua to negotiate a treaty of friendship, choosing for the task those citizens they judged best able to secure what was advantageous for their people. Since they thought it dangerous to admit they were Canaanites — believing that they could escape the danger only by claiming no kinship whatsoever with the Canaanites but rather that they lived very far from them — they said they had come because of a report of Joshua's valor that had reached them after a long journey, and they pointed to their own appearance as proof of the claim: their clothes, they said, had been new when they set out but were now worn through by the length of the road. In fact they had deliberately put on ragged garments to lend credibility to their story.

Standing before the assembly they declared that they had been sent by the Gibeonites and by the towns around them, all lying at a great distance from this land, in order to make friendship with the Israelites on the terms traditional among their people; for they had learned that by God's favor and gift the Israelites had been granted possession of the land of the Canaanites, and they said they were glad of this and asked to be admitted as fellow citizens. As they spoke, displaying the proofs of their journey, they urged the Hebrews to make a treaty and friendship with them. Joshua, believing what they said — that they did not belong to the Canaanite nation — made peace with them, and Eleazar the high priest, together with the council of elders, swore that the Israelites would treat them as friends and allies and would do them no wrong, the people confirming the oath by their assent. So the envoys, having gained what they wanted by deceit, went back to their own people.

Joshua then marched against the Canaanites of the hill country, and there learned that the Gibeonites, who lived not far from Jerusalem, in fact belonged to the Canaanite race. He summoned their leaders and charged them with the deception. Since they had no other plea for their safety than this very deceit, and had been driven to it out of necessity, he called together the high priest Eleazar and the council of elders; and when these judged that the Gibeonites should be made servants of the state, on condition that the oath not be broken, Joshua confirmed them as such. This was the safeguard and security the Gibeonites secured for themselves in the disaster that had overtaken them.

The king of Jerusalem was furious that the Gibeonites had gone over to Joshua, and he called on the kings of the neighboring nations to join him in a war against them. When the Gibeonites saw these four kings encamped with their forces beside a spring near their city, preparing for a siege, they called on Joshua, their ally, for help; for their situation was such that they expected to perish at the hands of these kings, yet hoped to be saved by those who had set out to destroy the whole Canaanite race, on the strength of the friendship now sworn between them. Joshua hurried to their aid with his whole army, marching day and night, and at dawn engaged the enemy. When they broke and fled, he pursued them down the sloping ground toward the place called Beth-horon.

There he learned of God's cooperation, made evident through peals of thunder, bolts of lightning, and a downpour of hail heavier than usual; and further, the day itself was lengthened beyond its natural span, so that night would not fall and check the eagerness of the Hebrews. It happened in this way that Joshua caught the kings hiding in a cave near Makkedah, and put them all to death. That the length of the day was then increased and extended beyond its accustomed measure is recorded in the writings preserved in the Temple.

With the forces of the kings who had marched against the Gibeonites thus crushed, Joshua returned again to the hill country of Canaan and, after a great slaughter of its inhabitants and the seizure of much plunder, came back to the camp at Gilgal. As the report of Hebrew valor spread widely among the surrounding peoples, and the number of the dead struck terror into all who heard of it, the kings of the Canaanites who dwelt around Mount Lebanon, together with the Canaanites of the plains, joined with the Philistines and encamped near the city of Beroth, not far from Kedesh in Upper Galilee — this territory too belongs to Galilee. The whole army numbered three hundred thousand infantry, ten thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand chariots. The sheer size of this enemy force struck fear into Joshua and the Israelites, and their confidence in a favorable outcome wavered, so overwhelming was their dread.

But God rebuked them for their fear and asked what more they could want beyond the help he had already given them; and he promised that he would defeat their enemies, commanding them to disable the horses and burn the chariots. Emboldened by God's promises, Joshua set out against the enemy, and on the fifth day he came upon them and joined battle. A fierce fight followed, with a slaughter greater than words can convey to those who hear of it. Joshua pressed the pursuit a very long way and destroyed the entire enemy army but for a few survivors, and all the kings fell; so that once there were no more men left to kill, Joshua had the horses slaughtered and the chariots burned. He then marched through the country unopposed, no one daring to come out and fight, but took the cities by siege instead, killing everyone he captured.

Five years had now passed, and not a single Canaanite remained except for those who had escaped behind the strength of fortified walls. Joshua broke camp from Gilgal, moved into the hill country, and set up the sacred tabernacle at the city of Shiloh, judging the place suitable for its beauty, until such time as circumstances would allow them to build a temple there.

From there he went on to Shechem with the whole people and set up an altar at the place Moses had foretold, dividing the army so that half stood on Mount Gerizim and half on Mount Ebal, where the altar itself and the Levites and priests were stationed. After offering sacrifices and pronouncing the curses, they left these inscribed on the altar and returned to Shiloh.

By now Joshua was an old man. Seeing that the Canaanite cities were hard to capture, both because of the natural strength of their sites and the might of their walls — defenses the Canaanites had thrown up in expectation that the enemy, learning of the Israelites' departure from Egypt, would give up any hope of taking the cities by siege, and so had spent all that time fortifying them — he gathered the people in assembly at Shiloh and summoned them. When they had eagerly come together, he reminded them of all that had already been achieved and of the deeds accomplished, declaring these the finest of deeds, worthy both of the divine power that had granted them and of the excellence of the laws they followed. He pointed out that thirty-one kings who had dared to meet them in battle had been overcome, and that every army that had ever put its confidence in its own strength and joined battle with them had been destroyed, so completely that not even a remnant of their descendants survived.

As for the remaining cities, since some had already been captured, but others required time and a great siege because of the strength of their walls and the confidence their inhabitants placed in them, he asked that those who had come across from the far side of the Jordan to join in the campaign and share its dangers, being kinsmen, now be released to go home, in recognition of what they had endured together; and that one man from each tribe, distinguished for merit, be sent to measure the land faithfully and honestly, doing no wrong, so as to report to the rest its extent without deceit.

Having made this proposal, Joshua found the people in agreement, and he sent out men to measure their territory, giving them assistants skilled in geometry, whose training would make it impossible for them to falsify the truth. He instructed them to assess separately the measure of the fertile land and of the less productive. For the nature of the land of Canaan is such that one would see great plains capable of bearing abundant crops — land that, compared with other country, would be reckoned altogether blessed, yet when set beside the territory of Jericho or of Jerusalem would appear as nothing. And yet the whole extent of their land is quite small, and much of it hill country; still, for the raising and quality of its crops it yields to none other.

For this reason he judged that the allotments ought to be reckoned by value rather than by simple measure, since a single plethron of land might sometimes be worth as much as a thousand elsewhere. The men who had been sent out — ten in number — traveled the land, assessed its value, and in the seventh month returned to him at the city of Shiloh, where the tabernacle had been set up. Joshua then took Eleazar, the council of elders, and the heads of the tribes, and distributed the land among the nine tribes and the half-tribe of Manasseh, measuring the allotment for each tribe according to its size.

When the lots were cast, the tribe of Judah, drawing the first lot, took the whole of upper Idumea, stretching as far as Jerusalem and reaching in width to the Dead Sea; within this allotment lay the cities of Ashkelon and Gaza. Simeon, which drew the second lot, received the part of Idumea bordering on Egypt and Arabia.

The Benjaminites received the land stretching from the Jordan river to the sea in length, and in width bounded by Jerusalem and Bethel; this was the narrowest of the allotments because of the richness of its soil, for they received both Jericho and the city of Jerusalem. The tribe of Ephraim received the land extending to Gezer from the Jordan river, and as wide, from Bethel, as reaches to the great plain; while the half-tribe of Manasseh received the land from the Jordan to the city of Dor, and in width as far as Beth-shean, now called Scythopolis. After these, Issachar received Mount Carmel and the river as the boundary of its length, and Mount Tabor as the boundary of its width.

The Zebulunites received the territory extending to Genesareth and reaching to Carmel and the sea. The Asherites received the whole valley called by that same name from the Carmel range, extending toward Sidon; their territory included the city of Arke, also called Ecdippa. The regions facing east as far as the city of Damascus and the upper parts of Galilee were taken by the Naphtalites, as far as Mount Lebanon and the springs of the Jordan, which rise from the mountain at the point where the boundary runs along the northern side of the city of Arke.

The Danites received the portion of the lowland facing west, bounded by Ashdod and Dor, taking in all of Jamnia and Gath, from Ekron to the mountain range where the territory of Judah began.

So Joshua divided the land in this way among six nations descended from the sons of Canaan, and gave it to the nine and a half tribes to possess; for the land of the Amorites — likewise named after one of the sons of Canaan — Moses had already allotted earlier to the two and a half tribes, as we have related before. The regions around Sidon, and the Arkites, Amathites, and Aradians, remained unorganized.

Since old age now prevented Joshua from carrying out all that he might otherwise have conceived, and since those who would succeed him in leadership were careless of the common good, he charged each tribe to leave nothing remaining of the Canaanite race within the land allotted to it; for their safety and the preservation of their ancestral customs depended on this alone, as Moses had foretold and as they themselves were convinced. He also directed that the thirty-eight cities be given to the Levites, for they had already received ten in the territory of the Amorites. Of these he assigned three as places of refuge for fugitives to dwell in, for great was his care to leave nothing that Moses had ordained unfulfilled.

To the tribe of Judah he assigned Hebron, to Ephraim Shechem, and to the tribe of Naphtali Kedesh, a place in upper Galilee. He also distributed whatever was left of the plunder, and there was a great deal of it: everyone, in common and individually, had come into possession of large amounts of gold, silver, clothing, and other furnishings, along with cattle in numbers too great to count.

After this, Joshua gathered the army into an assembly, along with the men settled beyond the Jordan in the territory of the Amorites — fifty thousand armed men had campaigned with him — and spoke as follows: "Since God, the father and master of the Hebrew people, has given us this land to possess and has promised to preserve it as ours forever, and since you, at his command, gave yourselves wholeheartedly to helping us whenever we needed you, it is only right that you should now be released to rest, with no further hardship awaiting you, so that we may spare your zeal and have it fresh and undiminished should we ever need it again, rather than wearied by present labors and slower to respond in the future. For the dangers you shared with us we will be grateful, not only now but always, being men who remember our friends and hold fast in our thoughts to what we owe them — that you postponed the enjoyment of your own blessings for our sake, and having toiled alongside us to secure what we now possess through God's favor, only then chose to claim your own share of it. And beyond the goods you already have, the toils we shared have brought abundant wealth: much plunder to carry home, gold and silver, and more besides, along with our goodwill and readiness to repay you however you wish. For you have not fallen short of anything Moses foretold, even after his death, out of contempt for him, nor is there anything for which we do not owe you thanks. So we release you gladly to your allotted portions, and we urge you not to regard our kinship as bounded by anything, nor, because a river now runs between us, to think of us as strangers rather than as Hebrews. For we are all descendants of Abraham, both those who live here and those who live there, and there is one God who brought both our ancestors and yours into being. Hold fast to the worship and the constitution of that God, which he himself established through Moses, keeping it in its entirety — for if you remain faithful to these things, God will show himself well disposed toward you and will fight on your side, but if you turn aside to imitate other nations, he will turn away from your people."

Having said this, and having embraced the leaders individually and the whole multitude together, he himself remained behind, while the people escorted them on their way, not without tears, and they parted from one another only with difficulty.

Once the tribe of Reuben and the tribe of Gad, together with those of the Manassites who had gone with them, had crossed the river, they set up an altar on the bank of the Jordan, meant as a monument for those to come and a symbol of their kinship with those settled on the other side. But when the tribes on the far side heard that those who had been released had set up an altar, they did not credit the intention with which it had actually been raised; instead, believing a slander about impiety toward God plausible enough — that it had been done to introduce innovation and the worship of foreign gods — they took up arms, intending to cross the river to punish those who had built the altar for departing from ancestral custom. For it did not seem to them to be a matter for weighing kinship or the standing of those under suspicion, but only what God wills and how he wishes to be honored.

So they set out to war in anger, but Joshua, the high priest Eleazar, and the council of elders restrained them, urging that they first test the intentions of the men in question with words, and only afterward, if they learned their purpose to be malicious, proceed against them with arms. They therefore sent as envoys to them Phinehas, son of Eleazar, and ten men of standing among the Hebrews with him, to learn what had been in their minds when they crossed and set up the altar on the riverbank.

When these men had crossed over and come to them, an assembly was gathered, and Phinehas rose and said that their offense was too great to be corrected merely by being rebuked in words and warned for the future; that instead of considering the enormity of the wrongdoing and rushing straight to arms and vengeance by force, however, out of regard for kinship, and because words might well bring them to their senses, the delegation had been arranged in this way — so that, once they had learned the reasoning that had led them to build the altar, they might not seem hasty in coming against them with weapons if the men's judgment in building the altar proved sound, and yet might justly take vengeance if the accusation were shown to be true. "For we did not think it right," he said, "that you, who have had experience of God's purposes and have been hearers of the laws he himself gave us, should be separated from us and, now settled in your own portion — which you received by God's grace and his providence toward us — forget him, abandon the tabernacle and the ark, and, by setting up an altar of your own that is not our ancestral one, bring in foreign gods to join the evils of the Canaanites. Yet you will incur no wrong if you repent now and go no further in this madness, but instead show reverence and remembrance for our ancestral laws. But if you persist in your wrongdoing, we will not shrink from the labor owed to the laws, but will cross the Jordan and fight on their behalf and, before that, on God's behalf, considering you no different from the Canaanites but corrupting yourselves just as they do. Do not imagine that, because you have crossed the river, you are beyond the reach of God's power — you are everywhere within it, and it is impossible to escape his authority or the judgment that follows from it. And if you think that your presence here is an obstacle to your good sense, nothing prevents you from redistributing the land and leaving even this portion to pasture flocks. You will do well to come to your senses and, while your wrongdoing is still recent, to change your course. And we beg you, for the sake of your children and your wives, not to force us to take vengeance upon you. So then, since your own safety and that of those dearest to you rests on the decision of this assembly, deliberate accordingly, judging it more to your advantage to yield to words than to await the trial of deeds and of war."

When Phinehas had said all this, the leaders of the assembly and the whole multitude began to defend themselves against the charges brought against them, saying that they would never abandon their kinship with the others, nor had they set up the altar out of any spirit of innovation; rather, they acknowledged one God, common to all the Hebrews, and the bronze altar before the tabernacle, on which they would offer their sacrifices. The altar they had now raised, on account of which suspicion had fallen on them, had not been set up for worship, but so that it might stand for all time as a token and proof of their kinship with the rest, and as a necessary reminder to be prudent and remain faithful to their ancestral ways — not as the beginning of any transgression, as had been suspected of them. "Let God himself," they said, "be a sufficient witness that this was our reason for building the altar; and so, thinking better of us, hold none of these things against us — offenses for which all who are of Abraham's race and who attempt new customs at variance with the accustomed way would rightly deserve destruction."

When they had said this, Phinehas commended them, went back to Joshua, and reported to the people what they had said. Joshua, rejoicing that there was now no need to muster an army or lead them out to arms and war against kinsmen, offered thank offerings to God on their behalf. Then, having dismissed the multitude to their own allotted portions, Joshua himself remained living at Shechem.

Twenty years later, now extremely old, he summoned the men of highest standing from the cities, the magistrates, the council of elders, and as many of the people as he could gather. When they had come, he reminded them of all the benefits God had given them — and they were many, for people who had risen from a humble condition to such glory and prosperity — and urged them to keep to God's design toward them just as it stood, and to remain devoted to piety, since only through that would the divine remain their friend. For it was good, he said, that as he was now about to depart from life he should leave them such counsel, and he asked that they keep his exhortation in memory.

Having spoken these words to those present, he died, having lived a hundred and ten years. Of these he spent forty in the company of Moses, being instructed in what was useful, and after Moses' death he served as commander for twenty-five years. He was a man lacking neither in understanding nor in the ability to set forth clearly to the multitude what he had conceived, but excelling in both — courageous and bold in the face of deeds and dangers, most skillful in managing affairs in time of peace, and a man whose virtue was suited to every occasion. He was buried in the city of Timnah, in the tribe of Ephraim.

About this same time the high priest Eleazar also died, leaving the priesthood to his son Phinehas; his monument and tomb are at Gabatha. After the death of these men, Phinehas prophesied, according to the will of God, that the leadership for the destruction of the Canaanite nation should be given to the tribe of Judah — for the people were eager to learn what God thought best. Judah took Simeon's tribe as a partner, on condition that, once Simeon's tributaries were removed, the men of Simeon would do the same for the tribe of Judah in its own portion. The Canaanites, since affairs were then flourishing for them, awaited them near Bezek with a large army, having entrusted command to Adoni-bezek, king of the people of Bezek — a name meaning "lord of the Bezekites," for in the Hebrew tongue "adoni" means "lord." They hoped to overcome the Israelites because Joshua was dead. But when the Israelites met them, the two tribes I have mentioned fought brilliantly and killed more than ten thousand of them.

Having routed the rest and pursued them, they captured Adoni-bezek, who, after his hands and feet had been cut off by them, said that after all he was not going to escape the notice of God for what he had now suffered — things he had not hesitated to do to seventy-two kings before him. They carried him alive as far as Jerusalem, and when he died there they buried him in the ground. They then went on capturing cities, and having taken a great many, they laid siege to Jerusalem. They took the lower city and, in time, killed all its inhabitants, but the upper city was difficult for them to capture, owing to the strength of its walls and the nature of the terrain. From there they moved their camp to Hebron, and having taken it, they killed everyone in it. There still remained a race of giants, whose bodies were of such size and shape, quite unlike other men, that they were an astonishing sight and a terrifying thing to hear about. Even now their bones are on display, unlike anything that those who come to examine them are familiar with.

This they gave to the Levites as a special privilege, together with the two thousand cubits of surrounding land, while they gave the land itself to Caleb as a gift, in accordance with the commands of Moses; for Caleb had been one of the spies whom Moses sent into Canaan. They also gave land to the descendants of Jethro the Midianite, for he had been Moses' father-in-law, so that they might have a place to live, since they had left their own homeland to follow Moses and Israel and had lived with them in the wilderness. The tribe of Judah and the tribe of Simeon took the cities in the hill country of Canaan, and, of those in the plain and by the sea, Ashkelon and Ashdod. Gaza and Ekron escaped them, since these lay in flat country well supplied with chariots, which dealt harshly with anyone who attacked there.

These tribes, then, having prospered greatly through their fighting, withdrew to their own cities and laid down their weapons. The Benjaminites, since Jerusalem belonged to them, allowed its inhabitants to remain there on condition of paying tribute. And so, once all of them had ceased, some from killing, others from being in danger, they had leisure to work the land. The rest of the tribes, following the example of Benjamin, did the same, and, content with the tribute paid to them, allowed the Canaanites to live without further war. The tribe of Ephraim, besieging Bethel, found no result worth the time and effort of the siege, but its men, though weary of the blockade, persisted in it. Then, having seized a man from the city who had come out for supplies, they gave him assurances that if he handed over the city, they would spare him and his relatives.

He, on these terms, swore to deliver the city into their hands. And so, having betrayed it in this way, he was saved along with his household, while the rest killed all the inhabitants and took possession of the city. After this the Israelites grew lax toward their enemies, and turned instead to caring for the land and its cultivation. As their wealth increased, they grew careless through luxury and pleasure in material things, and were no longer strict in their observance of the laws governing their commonwealth. Angered by this, the divine brought ruin upon them — first because they had, against his own judgment, spared the Canaanites, and then because the Canaanites, seizing their opportunity, would treat them with great cruelty.

The Israelites themselves were ill-disposed toward what came from God and unwilling to fight, having received much from the Canaanites and grown soft, through their luxury, toward hardship. And it happened that their aristocratic government had already broken down: they no longer appointed councils of elders or any other office previously established by custom, but lived in the fields, devoted to the pleasure of making money. And because of this great license, terrible civil strife once again overtook them, and they were led into war with one another for a reason of the following kind. A Levite, one of the common people of the district of Ephraim, living there, took as his wife a young woman from Bethlehem, a town in the tribe of Judah. Being deeply in love with the woman and overcome by her beauty,

he found himself unlucky, for she did not return his feelings in kind. As she grew estranged from him, and he, because of this, burned all the more with passion, constant quarrels arose between them, until finally the woman, worn down by these disputes, left her husband and went to her parents' house, in the fourth month. The man, taking the loss of his love hard, came to his father-in-law's house and, having settled their disputes, was reconciled.

He stayed there four days while her parents entertained him warmly, and on the fifth day, having decided to leave for home, he set out toward evening—for the parents were slow to release their daughter and kept drawing the day out. A servant went with them, and they had a donkey, on which the woman rode. When they reached the vicinity of Jerusalem, having already traveled thirty stadia, the servant advised stopping somewhere for the night, so that nothing untoward might befall them while traveling after dark, especially since they were not far from hostile country, for the times often made even friendly places dangerous and suspect. But the plan did not please him, to lodge among foreigners—the city was Canaanite—and instead he insisted they press on twenty stadia farther to a city of their own people.

His view prevailed, and he arrived at Gibeah, in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin, when it was already late. No one at the marketplace invited him in as a guest, but an old man coming down from the fields—an Ephraimite by tribe who lived in Gibeah—met him and asked who he was and for what reason, now that it was already dark, he was making arrangements for his dinner. The man said he was a Levite, and that he was on his way home bringing a woman from her parents' house; he explained that his home was in the allotment of Ephraim. The old man, both because of their kinship and because they belonged to the same tribe, and because of the chance meeting, took him in to be his guest.

But some young men of Gibeah, having seen the woman in the marketplace and marveled at her beauty, once they learned she was lodging with the old man, despised his weakness and his small numbers and came to the door. When the old man urged them to go away and not to use force or outrage, they demanded that he hand over the stranger woman to be rid of the matter. When the old man said she was his kinswoman and a Levite's wife, and that they would be doing terrible things, they made light of justice and mocked him, disregarding that they were sinning against the laws, and threatened to kill him for obstructing their desires. Driven to this extremity, and unwilling to see his guests outraged, he offered them his own daughter instead, saying that they would satisfy their desire more lawfully this way, without the outrage of violating guests, and that he himself would do no wrong to those he had received as guests, thinking this the better course.

But since they yielded nothing of their eagerness for the stranger woman, and instead pressed all the more to seize her, the old man kept begging them to dare nothing unlawful, while they seized her and, giving themselves over still more to violent lust, dragged the woman off with them and, after abusing her the whole night through, released her as day was beginning. Worn out by what had happened to her, she came to the lodging, and from grief at what she had suffered and from shame that kept her from daring to come into her husband's sight—for she reckoned that he above all would find what had happened impossible to bear—she collapsed and gave up her life.

Her husband, thinking his wife was sunk in a deep sleep and suspecting nothing amiss, tried to wake her, meaning to comfort her with the thought that she had not given herself to her abusers by her own free choice, but that they had seized her when they came to the lodging. But when he learned she was dead, controlling himself in the face of so great a disaster, he laid the dead woman on the animal and brought her home. There he cut her body limb by limb into twelve parts and sent them to each of the tribes, instructing the bearers to say who was responsible for the woman's death and what outrage the tribe of Benjamin had committed.

The Israelites, sickened both by the sight and by the report of what had been done by violence, having had no previous experience of such a thing, gathered at Shiloh in pure and righteous anger, and, assembled before the Tabernacle, were ready at once to take up arms and treat the men of Gibeah as enemies. But the Council of Elders held them back, persuading them that they ought not to bring war so hastily against fellow tribesmen before first discussing the charges in words—since the law did not permit an army to be led even against foreigners without first sending an embassy and making such an attempt to bring those judged to be in the wrong to a change of heart. It was better, therefore, to obey the law and send to the men of Gibeah demanding the guilty parties, and if they were handed over, to be content with their punishment, but if the Gibeonites showed contempt, then to take up arms against them.

So they sent to the men of Gibeah, accusing the young men of what had been done to the woman and demanding, for the sake of justice, that those who had done what was unlawful be handed over to die in the place of their victim. But the men of Gibeah neither surrendered the young men, and considered it shameful to obey the commands of others, judging themselves, out of fear of war, inferior to no one in arms, whether in numbers or in courage. They were, moreover, in great readiness, and the men of the other tribes joined in this resolve, conspiring with them to defend themselves against attack.

When such an answer from the men of Gibeah was reported to the Israelites, they swore oaths that none of them would give a daughter in marriage to a man of Benjamin, and that they would march against them, being angrier at them than, as we have learned, our ancestors ever were toward the Canaanites. At once they led out against them an army of four hundred thousand hoplites; the Benjaminite force of hoplites numbered under twenty-six thousand six hundred, of whom about five hundred were the finest slingers with the left hand, so that when battle was joined near Gibeah the Benjaminites routed the Israelites, and about twenty-two thousand of them fell—and perhaps more would have perished had not nightfall checked them and broken off the fighting.

The Benjaminites withdrew rejoicing into the city, while the Israelites, dismayed by the defeat, withdrew to their camp. The next day, when they joined battle again, the Benjaminites prevailed once more, and eighteen thousand of the Israelites died; fearing the slaughter, they abandoned their camp. Coming to the city of Bethel, which lay very near, and fasting there, on the following day they besought God, through Phinehas the high priest, to cease his anger against them and, satisfied with their two defeats, to grant them victory and mastery over their enemies. God promised this through the prophecy of Phinehas.

Dividing the army into two parts, they set half in ambush by night around the city, while the other half engaged the Benjaminites and, when pressed hard, gave ground. The Benjaminites pursued the Hebrews as they fled slowly, wanting to draw them out entirely from the city, and followed as they withdrew, so that even the old men and the young left behind in the city ran out, despite their weakness, wanting to join in overpowering the enemy along with everyone else. But when they had gone far from the city, the Hebrews stopped fleeing, turned about, and took their stand for battle, raising for those lying in ambush the signal that had been agreed upon.

Those in ambush rose up with a shout and attacked the enemy. The Benjaminites, realizing at once that they had been deceived, fell into confusion, and, driven into a hollow, ravine-like place, were surrounded and shot down with javelins, so that all perished except six hundred. These banded together, closed ranks, and forced their way through the midst of the enemy, fled to the nearby hills, and, seizing them, settled there. All the rest, about twenty-five thousand, were killed. The Israelites burned Gibeah, and put to death the women and the males not yet of fighting age; they did the same to the other cities of the Benjaminites.

They were so inflamed with rage that, because Jabesh in Gilead had not joined them against the Benjaminites, they sent twelve thousand men from their ranks and ordered them to destroy it. The men sent killed the fighting population of the city, along with the children and women, except for four hundred virgins—so far had they been driven by anger, from grief over the woman together with the loss of their armed men.

Then remorse seized them over the disaster that had befallen the Benjaminites, and they proclaimed a fast for them, even though they judged that the Benjaminites deserved to suffer for having sinned against the laws; and they summoned the six hundred survivors, through envoys, for they had settled above a certain rock called Rimmon, in the wilderness. The envoys, since the disaster had befallen not them alone but the envoys too had lost kinsmen, lamented and gently urged them to bear it and to come together again with the rest, and not to vote to bring about the utter destruction of the tribe of Benjamin, at least as far as depended on the Israelites. "We grant you," they said, "the land of the whole tribe, and whatever spoil you are able to carry off." The Benjaminites, since it had come about by God's judgment against themselves and through their own wrongdoing, changed their minds and came down to rejoin their ancestral tribe, obeying those who summoned them.

The Israelites gave them the four hundred virgins of Jabesh as wives, and deliberated about the remaining two hundred, so that they too might be supplied with wives and beget children. But since oaths had been sworn that no one would give a daughter in marriage to a man of Benjamin before the war, some advised setting the oaths lightly aside, since they had sworn in anger and not by considered judgment, and that they would do nothing contrary to God's will if they were able to save an entire tribe from the danger of destruction—for perjuries, they said, were harsh and dangerous not when committed under necessity, but when ventured in wickedness. When the Council of Elders was troubled at the very word "perjury," someone said he could tell them a way both to provide the men with wives and to keep the oaths. When they asked what he had in mind, he said: "Three times a year, when we gather at Shiloh, the women and daughters accompany us for the festival. Let it be permitted for the Benjaminites, by seizure, to marry whichever of these they are able to take, with us neither urging it nor forbidding it. And to their fathers, if they are aggrieved and demand punishment, we will say that they themselves are to blame, for neglecting to guard their daughters, and that our anger against the Benjaminites ought to be relaxed, having already been exercised too much and too swiftly."

Persuaded by this, they voted to allow the Benjaminites marriage by abduction. When the festival came, the two hundred lay in wait in twos and threes before the city, in the vineyards and other places where they would go unnoticed, waiting for the virgins to pass by; the girls, playing and suspecting nothing of what was coming, walked along unguarded, and the men, once they had scattered, seized them as they rose up. Having married in this way, they went off to work the land and took thought to return once more to their former prosperity. Thus the tribe of Benjamin, which had been in danger of complete destruction in the way described, was saved by the wisdom of the Israelites, and at once flourished, making swift increase both in numbers and in everything else. This is how that war came to an end.

Something similar to this befell the tribe of Dan as well, brought about for the following reason. Since the Israelites had by now abandoned the practice of war and devoted themselves to working the land, the Canaanites, despising them, joined forces together; expecting to suffer nothing themselves, and gaining firm hope of doing the Hebrews harm, they resolved to live in their cities thereafter in security. They prepared chariots and mustered their infantry, and their cities made common cause; from the tribe of Judah they seized Ashkelon and Ekron and many other cities in the plain, and forced the Danites to take refuge in the hills, leaving them no foothold whatever in the plain.

The Danites, being neither strong enough to make war nor possessed of sufficient land, sent five men of their number into the interior to reconnoiter land to which they might migrate. These men, going a day's journey not far from Mount Lebanon and the lesser springs of the Jordan, near the great plain by the city of Sidon, and having surveyed a good and all-productive land, reported back to their own people. Setting out with an army, the Danites founded there a city called Dan, after the name of Jacob's son, from whom their tribe also took its name.

For the Israelites things went from bad to worse, both from inexperience in hardship and from neglect of religion; for once they had shifted away from the order of their constitution, they were carried toward living as pleasure and private will dictated, so that they even became infected with the evils practiced among the Canaanites. God therefore grew angry with them, and the prosperity they had won through countless labors they lost through indulgence. When Chushan-rishathaim, king of the Assyrians, marched against them, they lost many of those who fought in the battle line, and, besieged, were taken by force; some, out of fear, went over to him voluntarily. Assessed tribute beyond their means, they paid it and endured every kind of outrage for eight years, after which they were freed from these evils in the following way.

A certain man of the tribe of Judah, Othniel by name, a man of action and noble spirit, was told by an oracle not to look on while the Israelites lay under such compulsion, but to dare to deliver them into freedom. Urging some to join him in facing the danger—there were few of these, but they felt shame at the present state of things and eagerness for a change—he first destroyed the garrison of Chushan-rishathaim that was stationed among them, and, as more men joined the struggle once the first stage of the enterprise had succeeded, he joined battle with the Assyrians and, driving them back completely, forced them to cross the Euphrates.

Othniel, having thus given proof by deed of his valor, received as a reward for it authority from the people, so as to judge them, and, having ruled for forty years, ended his life.

When he died, the affairs of the Israelites again sickened under lack of leadership, and because they did not honor God nor obey the laws, they suffered still worse—so that, in contempt of their disorderly conduct of their commonwealth, Eglon, king of the Moabites, made war on them, defeated them in many battles, subdued those who excelled the rest in spirit, brought their power entirely low, and imposed tribute upon them. Establishing his royal seat at Jericho, he left no form of oppression untried against the people, and reduced them to poverty for eighteen years. Then, taking pity,

the God of the Israelites was moved by their sufferings, and, softened by their pleas, delivered them from their humiliation under the Moabites. This is how their freedom came about. Among the tribe of Benjamin there was a young man named Ehud, son of Gera, a man of great daring and physically capable for action, who was stronger with his left hand and relied chiefly on that. He too lived in Jericho, and he grew close to Eglon, courting him with gifts and flattering attentions, so that through this he came to be well regarded by those around the king. On one occasion, bringing gifts to the king with two servants, he strapped a short sword secretly to his right thigh and went in to him. It was summer, and since it was already midday, the guards had relaxed their watch because of the heat and had turned to their meal.

So the young man gave the gifts to Eglon, and since he was spending time in a chamber that was well arranged for summer comfort, they fell into conversation. They were alone, for the king had ordered the attendants who kept entering to leave, since he wished to talk with Ehud. He was sitting on his throne, and Ehud felt afraid that he might miss his aim and fail to deliver a fatal blow. So he made him rise, saying he had something to reveal to him by God's command. And Eglon, delighted at the prospect of the revelation, leaped up from his throne, whereupon Ehud struck him in the heart, left the short sword embedded in the wound, and went out, pulling the door shut behind him. The servants, thinking the king had turned to sleep, remained undisturbed.

Ehud then signaled secretly to the people of Jericho and urged them to seize their freedom. They heard him gladly, took up arms themselves, and sent men through the countryside to sound the signal on rams' horns, for it was their custom to summon the people together with these. Eglon's men remained ignorant of what had happened to him for a long time, but when evening came, fearing that some mishap had befallen him, they went into the chamber, found him dead, and stood in helpless confusion. Before the guard could regroup, the mass of the Israelites fell upon them. Some were cut down on the spot, while others turned to flee toward Moab hoping to find safety there — there were more than ten thousand of them. But the Israelites had already seized the crossing of the Jordan ahead of them, and pursuing them they killed many at the crossing itself; not one escaped their hands. In this way the Hebrews were freed from their servitude under the Moabites, and Ehud, honored for this deed with leadership over the whole people, held that office for eighty years until his death — a man who, apart from the exploit just described, deserved praise in his own right.

After him Shamgar, son of Anath, was chosen to rule, but died in the first year of his office. The Israelites, once again — for they had learned nothing from the discipline of their earlier misfortunes about failing to honor God and obey the laws — before they had even had time to draw breath from their servitude under the Moabites, were enslaved for a short while to Jabin, king of the Canaanites. He, based in the city of Hazor, which lies above Lake Semechonitis, maintained an army of three hundred thousand infantry, ten thousand cavalry, and had at his disposal three thousand chariots. Sisera, the commander of this force, held the highest place of honor with the king, and when the Israelites gathered to oppose him he inflicted terrible harm on them, forcing them to pay tribute.

For twenty years they endured this treatment, unable to come to their senses through their misfortune, while God, wishing to humble their arrogance still further on account of their ingratitude toward him — so that, once changed, they might in future learn wisdom, having been taught that their calamities arose from their contempt of the laws — they turned in supplication to a certain prophetess named Deborah, which means "bee" in the Hebrew tongue, begging her to entreat God to take pity on them and not to look on while they perished at the hands of the Canaanites. God granted them deliverance and chose as their commander Barak, of the tribe of Naphtali — Barak means "lightning" in the Hebrew tongue. Deborah summoned Barak and ordered him, having chosen ten thousand of the young men, to march against the enemy, for God had declared beforehand that this number would suffice and had foretold victory.

"I will not command," Barak replied, "unless you command alongside me." Indignant, she said, "So you would hand over to a woman the honor God has given you? I, for my part, do not refuse it."

So, having mustered their ten thousand, they encamped near Mount Tabor. Sisera came out to meet them at the king's command and pitched camp not far from the enemy. The Israelites and Barak, terrified at the enemy's numbers, had resolved to withdraw, but Deborah restrained them, urging that the battle be joined that very day, for God would grant them victory and fight on their side. So they engaged, and as the armies closed a great storm broke — heavy rain and hail — and a wind drove the rain into the faces of the Canaanites, blinding their eyes, so that their bows and slings were useless to them, and their heavy infantry, because of the cold, could not wield their swords. The Israelites, by contrast, were far less troubled, since the storm struck them from behind, and, taking courage from the thought of God's aid, they pushed into the midst of the enemy and killed great numbers of them. Some fell at the hands of the Israelites, others, thrown into confusion by their own cavalry, were trampled, so that many died beneath the chariots.

Sisera, when he saw the rout beginning, leaped down from his chariot and, fleeing, arrived at the tent of a Kenite woman named Jael, who agreed to hide him at his request and, when he asked for a drink, gave him milk that had already gone sour. Having drunk more than his fill, he fell into a deep sleep. Jael, while he slept, drove an iron tent-peg through his mouth and jaw with a hammer, pinning it into the ground, and a little later, when Barak's men arrived, she showed them the body fastened to the earth. And so this victory, as Deborah had foretold, fell to a woman. Barak then marched against Hazor, killed Jabin when he came out to meet him, and, after the commander's fall, razed the city to the ground. He led the Israelites for forty years.

After Barak and Deborah died at about the same time, the Midianites, having called in the Amalekites and the Arabs as allies, marched against the Israelites, defeated them in battle, ravaged their crops, and carried off the plunder. Doing this for seven years, they drove the mass of the Israelites back into the hills, forcing them to abandon the plains and dig tunnels and caves, in which they kept whatever escaped the enemy's notice, guarding it there. For the Midianites, campaigning in the summer season, allowed the Israelites to farm through the winter, so as to have something to plunder once their labor had produced it. There was famine and scarcity of food, and the people turned to supplication, begging God to save them.

Gideon, son of Joash, of the tribe of Manasseh, was threshing a small quantity of sheaves of grain secretly in the winepress — for he was afraid to do so openly at the threshing floor because of the enemy. A phantom appeared to him in the form of a young man and declared him blessed and beloved by God. "This, at least," he replied, "is a fine token of his favor — that I now have to use a winepress instead of a threshing floor!" When the figure urged him to take courage and attempt to recover their freedom, he said he was powerless to do so, for the tribe from which he came was too small, and he himself was young and too weak for such great undertakings. But God himself promised to make up what was lacking and to grant victory to the Israelites while he commanded.

Gideon then told this to some of the young men, and they believed him; at once an army of ten thousand men stood ready for the struggle. But God, appearing to Gideon in his sleep, showed him that human nature is inclined to self-regard and hostile to those who excel in virtue, and that if they won with so great a host, thinking themselves a match for the enemy, they would set aside God's role in the victory and consider it their own. So, that they might learn the outcome depended on his help, God advised that around midday, at the height of the heat, he should lead the army to the river, and that those who lay down and drank in that posture should be judged brave, while those who drank hastily and in a hurry should be reckoned cowardly and terrified of the enemy. When Gideon did as God instructed, three hundred men were found who brought the water to their mouths with their hands, fearfully and in disorder, and God said these were the men with whom he should take on the enemy.

The Midianites were encamped beyond the Jordan, intending to cross over the next day. Gideon, being afraid — for God had told him beforehand to attack by night — was told, in order to relieve him of his fear, to take one of his soldiers and go near the tents of the Midianites, for from the enemy themselves he would gain confidence and courage. Persuaded, he went, taking with him his own servant Phurah, and drawing near a certain tent he found the men in it awake, one of them recounting a dream to his tent-companion, in such a way that Gideon overheard it. The dream was this: a barley loaf, too poor a thing for men to eat, seemed to roll through the camp and knock down the king's tent, and all the soldiers' tents with it. The man judged the vision to portend destruction for the army, explaining how he had come to this conclusion: barley, of all grains, is agreed to be the cheapest, and of all the peoples of Asia the Israelites can now be seen to be the most despised, resembling this cheap grain.

"And whatever now shows spirit among the Israelites," he said, "must be Gideon and the army with him. Since, then, you say you saw the loaf overturning our tents, I fear that God has granted Gideon victory over us." Hearing this dream, Gideon was filled with good hope and courage, and ordered his own men to take up arms, telling them also of the enemy's vision. They, emboldened by what he described, stood ready for his commands. At about the fourth watch Gideon led his army forward, having divided it into three companies of a hundred men each. All of them carried empty jars with torches burning inside, so that their approach would not be discovered by the enemy, and in their right hand a ram's horn, which they used in place of a trumpet.

The enemy's army occupied a great stretch of ground, for they had an enormous number of camels, and, distributed by nation, they all lay together within a single circle. The Hebrews, as instructed, once they drew near the enemy, at a given signal sounded their horns, broke their jars, and rushed forward with the torches, shouting their war cry, trusting God to grant Gideon's victory — and this they did. Confusion and terror seized the men, still half asleep, for it was night and God willed it so. Few were killed by the enemy proper; most died at the hands of their own allies, owing to the confusion of languages. Once panic took hold, they cut down whatever they came upon, taking it for the enemy, and there was great slaughter.

When word of Gideon's victory reached the Israelites, they took up arms, and pursuing the enemy caught them in a hollow ringed by ravines that could not be crossed, and, surrounding them, killed them all, including two of their kings, Oreb and Zeeb. The rest of the commanders, leading the remaining soldiers — there were eighteen thousand of them — encamped at a great distance from the Israelites. Gideon, however, was not worn out or ready to give up; pursuing with his entire army and engaging them, he destroyed the enemy utterly and brought back the remaining commanders, Zebah and Zalmunna, as captives. About one hundred and twenty thousand of the Midianites and their Arab allies died in this battle, and much plunder — gold, silver, fine cloth, camels, and pack animals — fell to the Hebrews. Gideon, arriving at Ophrah, his home town, put the Midianite kings to death.

The tribe of Ephraim, resentful of Gideon's success, had resolved to march against him, complaining that he had not informed them in advance of his undertaking against the enemy. Gideon, being a moderate man and supreme in every virtue, did not claim to have attacked the enemy on his own initiative and by his own judgment, without them, but said God had commanded it, and declared the victory to belong no less to them than to those who had actually fought. By these words he soothed their anger, and in doing so benefited the Hebrews even more than by his success against the enemy, for he saved them from what would have become civil strife just as it was beginning. That tribe, however, would later pay the penalty for this insolence, as we shall relate at its proper time.

Gideon, wishing to lay down his authority, was compelled to keep it, and held it for forty years, rendering just judgments for the people; whatever he pronounced in disputes brought before him was final. He died in old age and was buried in Ophrah, his home town. He had seventy legitimate sons, for he had married many wives, and one illegitimate son by a concubine from Shechem, named Abimelech, who, after his father's death, withdrew to Shechem to his mother's relatives — for that was his origin — and, taking money from them (men notorious for the great number of their crimes), came with them to his father's house and killed all his brothers except Jotham, who managed to escape and so was saved. Abimelech then turned the government into a tyranny, making himself master to do whatever he wished in place of the laws, and dealing harshly with those who stood up for justice. On one occasion, when a public festival was being held at Shechem and the whole populace had gathered there, his brother Jotham — the one we said had escaped — went up onto the

— on Mount Gerizim, which rises above the city of Shechem, and shouted loudly enough for the crowd to hear. When they had fallen silent to listen, he asked them to hear what he had to say, and once quiet had settled he spoke: he said that the trees, having once had a human voice, had come together in an assembly and asked the fig tree to rule over them. The fig tree refused, since the honor paid to its fruit was its own and did not come to it from outside; and so the trees did not give up their concern for finding a ruler, and it seemed good to them to offer the honor to the vine. The vine, when chosen, used the same words as the fig tree and declined the office. The olive trees did the same, so the trees asked the thorn bush to take up the kingship, since it is good at supplying kindling from its wood, and it promised to take up the rule and do so without hesitation — provided, however, that the trees would gather beneath its shade; and if they had destruction in mind against it, they would be consumed by the fire within it.

"I do not say this," he went on, "for the sake of a joke, but because you, who have experienced many good things from Gideon, are letting Abimelech — who joined with you in killing his brothers — hold power over everything, though he is no different from fire." Having said this he withdrew and lived in hiding in the mountains for three years, in fear of Abimelech.

Not long after the festival, the Shechemites — for they had come to regret the murder of Gideon's sons — drove Abimelech out of the city and the tribe, and he began plotting to harm the city. When the season for gathering the grape harvest came, they were afraid to go out and collect the fruit, lest Abimelech do them some harm. But when one of the officers, Gaal, arrived among them with armed men and his own kinsmen, the Shechemites asked him to provide them protection until they had finished the harvest. He agreed to their request, and they went out with Gaal, who brought his own armed force along. So the harvest was gathered in safety, and as they feasted by companies they grew bold enough to openly curse Abimelech, while the officers, catching men in ambushes around the city, seized and killed many of Abimelech's people.

Now a certain Zabulus, one of the rulers of Shechem and a guest-friend of Abimelech, sent messengers to inform him of everything Gaal was stirring up the people to do, and advised him to lie in ambush before the city; for he would persuade Gaal to come out against him, and after that it would be in Abimelech's power to take revenge — for once this had happened, Zabulus would negotiate a reconciliation for him with the people. So Abimelech took his position in ambush, while Gaal, less on his guard, was spending time in the suburb together with Zabulus. When Gaal saw armed men advancing, he said to Zabulus that men in arms were coming against them. Zabulus replied that these were the shadows of the rocks — but as the men drew nearer, and their outlines became clear, he said, "Those are not shadows, but a band of armed men." And Zabulus said, "Was it not you who accused Abimelech of cowardice? Why not show now the greatness of your courage by engaging him in battle?" Gaal, thrown into confusion, joined battle with Abimelech's men; some of those with him fell, and he himself fled into the city, bringing the rest with him.

Zabulus then worked to have Gaal expelled from the city, accusing him of having fought feebly against Abimelech's soldiers. Abimelech, learning that the Shechemites were about to go out again at the time of the grape harvest, set ambushes around the city; and when the people came out, a third part of his army seized the gates to cut off the citizens' way back in, while the rest chased down those who had scattered — and there was killing everywhere.

He razed the city to the ground, since it could not hold out against the siege, and sowed salt over the ruins as he advanced. All the Shechemites perished in this way; but those who had escaped the danger by scattering through the countryside found a strong rock and settled on it, preparing to fortify it. Abimelech, learning of their intention, moved quickly against them with his forces, and had bundles of dry wood carried and piled around the place, ordering his army to do this. Once the rock had been quickly surrounded on all sides with the wood, they threw fire onto it, using whatever kindled most readily, and raised a great blaze. No one escaped from the rock; men, women, and children perished together, about one thousand five hundred men, and a considerable number of others besides.

Such was the disaster that fell upon the people of Shechem, greater even than the grief it caused, except that it was just: they had joined with a man to do so great a wrong against their own benefactor. Abimelech, having terrified the Israelites with the sufferings of the Shechemites, was clearly reaching for even greater things and showed no sign of setting a limit to his violence unless he destroyed everyone. He therefore marched against Thebez and took the city by a sudden assault; but there was a great tower in it, into which the whole population had fled for refuge, and he prepared to besiege it. As he rushed close to the gates, a woman struck him on the head with a piece of a millstone she threw down. Abimelech fell, and begged his armor-bearer to kill him, so that his death would not be thought the work of a woman. The man did as he was ordered.

So Abimelech paid the penalty for his crime against his brothers and for the outrages he had dared against the people of Shechem; this disaster befell them in accordance with Jotham's prophecy. When Abimelech fell, the army that was with him scattered and returned to their homes.

Leadership of the Israelites then passed to Jair of Gilead, of the tribe of Manasseh, a man prosperous in other respects and blessed with thirty fine sons, all excellent horsemen, who had been entrusted with the governance of the cities of Gilead. He held the leadership for twenty-two years, died at an advanced age, and was thought worthy of burial in the city of Kamon in Gilead.

Now the whole conduct of the Hebrews had degenerated into disorder and contempt for God and the laws, and the Ammonites and Philistines, despising them for it, plundered the country with a great army; having seized all of Perea, they were even venturing to cross over and take possession of the rest as well. The Hebrews, chastened by their sufferings, turned to supplicate God and brought sacrifices, imploring him to soften his anger and, moved by their entreaty, to relent. God, changing to a gentler disposition, was about to help them.

When the Ammonites had marched against Gilead, the local people met together on the mountain, asking for someone to lead them in war. There was a certain Jephthah, a man of power because of his father's valor and because of the private force of mercenaries he himself maintained. They sent to him and asked him to fight on their side, promising to give him the leadership over them for all time to come. He would not accept their appeal, and reproached them for not helping him when he had been openly wronged by his brothers; for he was not their full brother by the same mother, but a stranger — his mother had been brought to his father's house out of erotic desire — and, despising his weakness, they had driven him out. So he had gone to live in the region called Gilead, taking in for pay anyone who came to him from wherever they might be. When the elders of Gilead pleaded with him and swore that they would grant him the leadership forever, he took the field.

He moved quickly to set matters in order, and stationing his army at the city of Mizpah, he sent an embassy to the king of Ammon to complain of the seizure of the land. The king sent back word charging the Israelites over their exodus from Egypt and demanding that they give up the land of the Amorites as territory that had belonged to his ancestors from the beginning. Jephthah replied that their ancestors had no just complaint against the Amorites, and that the Ammonites ought rather to be grateful, since it had been in Moses' power to take their land too, but he had spared it and called it their own — land which, once God had won it for them, they had held for three hundred years. He said he would fight them, and having said this to the envoys, he sent them away.

He himself, having prayed for victory and vowed that if he returned safe to his home he would sacrifice as a burnt offering whatever should first meet him, engaged the enemy and won a decisive victory, pursuing and slaughtering them as far as the city of Maniath. Crossing into Ammonite territory, he destroyed many cities, drove off plunder, and freed his own people from the slavery they had endured for eighteen years.

On his way back he met with a disaster in no way like the successes he had won: for his daughter came out to meet him — his only child, and still a virgin. He cried out in anguish at the magnitude of the blow and reproached his daughter for her eagerness in coming out to meet him, for he had vowed to dedicate her to God. She, however, took what was to happen without dismay, since it came with her father's victory and her people's freedom, and though she must die for it, she asked only that he grant her two months to go and mourn her lost youth with her companions before he carried out his vow. He agreed to the time she had named, and when it had passed he sacrificed his daughter, offering her up as a burnt offering — a sacrifice neither lawful nor pleasing to God, since he had not weighed carefully in his own mind how such an act, once done, would appear to those who heard of it.

When the tribe of Ephraim marched against him, angry that he had not shared with them the campaign against the Ammonites but had kept both the plunder and the glory of what had been done for himself alone, he told them first that their kinsmen had not gone unnoticed while under attack, and that they, though called on for help, had not come, though they ought to have hastened to their aid even before being asked; and second, that they were now trying to do wrong to their kinsmen, having not dared to face the enemy in battle. He warned that with God's help he would exact justice from them if they did not come to their senses. When this failed to persuade them and they engaged him with an army that had been summoned from Gilead, he inflicted heavy losses on them, and as he pursued them in their rout, having sent a detachment ahead to seize the fords of the Jordan, he killed about forty-two thousand of them.

Jephthah himself, having ruled for six years, died and was buried in his own home city of Sebee, in Gilead. After Jephthah's death, Abzan succeeded to the leadership, a man of the tribe of Judah from the city of Bethlehem. He had sixty children, thirty sons and the rest daughters, all of whom he lived to see married — the daughters given to husbands, the sons provided with wives. He accomplished nothing worth recording or remembering in the seven years of his rule, and died at an advanced age, receiving burial in his native city.

After Abzan's death in this way, the man who took up the leadership after him, Elon, of the tribe of Zebulun, held it for ten years and accomplished nothing of note either. Abdon, son of Elon, of the tribe of Ephraim and from the city of the Pirathonites, was appointed sole ruler after Elon, and would be remembered only for the number of his children, since he himself accomplished no notable deed, owing to the peace and security of the times. He had forty sons, and left behind, through these, thirty grandsons; and he used to ride out together with all seventy of them, every one an excellent horseman. He died at an advanced age, leaving all of them alive, and received a splendid burial at Pirathon.

After his death the Philistines overpowered the Israelites and took tribute from them for forty years. They were freed from this compulsion in the following way: a certain Manoah, of the Danites, outstanding among the few and acknowledged as first in his homeland, had a wife renowned for her beauty and unsurpassed among the women of her time. Since they had no children, he was distressed at his childlessness and repeatedly went with his wife to the plain outside the city to entreat God to grant them true offspring — for this is a large plain. He was also madly in love with his wife, and for that reason uncontrollably jealous.

Once, when his wife was alone, a vision of God appeared to her in the likeness of a beautiful young man, tall in stature, and announced good news to her: that by the providence of God she would bear a son, handsome and manifestly strong, under whom the Philistines would suffer once he had grown to manhood. He instructed her not to let his hair be cut; this would be, for him, an abstention imposed by God's command with respect to one kind of drink, but he would have a natural affinity for water alone. Having said this, he departed, having come in accordance with the will of God.

When her husband returned, she related to him what the angel had said, marveling at the young man's beauty and stature, so that from her praises he was thrown into a state of alarm through jealousy, and the suspicion natural to such a feeling took hold of him. Wishing to put an end to her husband's unreasonable distress, she implored God to send the angel again, so that her husband might also see him. By the grace of God the angel came again while they were in the field, and appeared to the woman when she was alone, her husband being elsewhere. She asked him to wait so that she could bring her husband, and when he agreed she went to fetch Manoah. When he saw him, even this did not put an end to his suspicion, and he asked that the angel reveal to him too whatever he had told his wife. The angel replied that it would be enough for her alone to know it; but when Manoah asked him to say who he was, so that when the child was born they might show him gratitude and give him a gift, he said he had no need of anything, since he had not brought this good news in expectation of reward concerning the birth of the child. Manoah then urged him to stay and share in hospitality, and though the angel did not agree at first, he was persuaded by his insistence to remain, so that Manoah might bring him some gift of hospitality.

Manoah sacrificed a kid and told his wife to roast it; and when everything was ready, the angel directed that the loaves and the meat be set out on the rock, apart from the vessels. When this was done, he touched the meat with the staff he held, and flame shot up and consumed it along with the loaves, and the angel went up to heaven through the smoke as though through a chariot, visible to them both. Manoah, afraid that some harm might come to them from having seen God, was reassured by his wife, who told him to take courage, since God would not have let himself be seen by them except for their benefit.

And she conceived, and kept the commands she had been given; and when the child was born they called him Samson, a name that signifies "strong." The boy grew,

He grew easily, and it was clear from his moderate diet and his unshorn hair that he would become a prophet. Traveling with his parents to Thamna, a city of the Philistines, while a festival was underway, he fell in love with a young woman of the place and urged his parents to arrange a marriage with her for him. They refused, because she was not of his own people, but since God intended this marriage for the advantage of the Hebrews, his desire prevailed and he became engaged to the girl.

Going often to visit her parents, he came upon a lion and, though unarmed, met it and strangled it with his bare hands, then threw the carcass into a wooded spot off the road. Going again to see the girl, he found a swarm of bees that had nested in the lion's carcass, and taking three honeycombs along with the other gifts he was bringing, he gave them to the girl.

At the wedding feast — for he entertained all the Thamnites — thirty of the sturdiest young men were given to him, ostensibly as companions but in fact as guards, for fear of the young man's strength, in case he should try to cause trouble. As the drinking went on and there was joking, as usually happens on such occasions, Samson said, "But let me put a riddle to you: if you solve it within seven days of searching, I will give each of you linen garments and robes as the prize for your cleverness." Eager both to seem clever and to win the prize, they asked him to state it. He said that the all-devouring had produced from itself something sweet to eat, though it was itself thoroughly repellent.

When for three days they were unable to find the answer, they urged the girl to learn it from her husband and reveal it to them, and indeed they threatened to burn her if she failed to do this. Samson, when the girl begged him to tell her, at first tried to hold out, but when she pressed him and broke into tears, taking this refusal to speak as proof of his ill will toward her, he told her about his killing of the lion and how he had taken from it three honeycombs and brought them to her. She, suspecting nothing treacherous, revealed the whole matter, and she in turn disclosed the answer to those who had begged it of her.

So on the seventh day, on which the riddle had to be explained to him, before the sun set they came together and said, "Nothing is more repellent to those who encounter it than a lion, and nothing sweeter to those who taste it than honey." And Samson said, "Nothing is more treacherous than a woman, since she is the one who has revealed our secret to you." He gave them what he had promised, having made spoil of the Ascalonites who happened to meet him along the road — for they too are Philistines. But he renounced that marriage, and the girl, despising him for his anger, lived instead with his friend, the one who had acted as his groomsman.

Enraged at this insult, Samson resolved to take vengeance on all the Philistines together with her. It was summer, and the crops were already ripe for harvest, so he caught three hundred foxes, tied lighted torches to their tails, and released them into the fields of the Philistines. The crop was destroyed in this way, and when the Philistines learned that this was Samson's work and the reason he had done it, they sent their leaders to Thamna and burned alive the woman who had been his wife, together with her relatives, as being responsible for the disaster.

Samson killed many Philistines on the plain and then settled at Etam, a fortified rock in the territory of Judah. The Philistines marched against that tribe. When the men of Judah protested that it was unjust to make them pay the penalty for Samson's offenses when they themselves paid tribute, the Philistines said that, if they wished to be free of blame, they must hand Samson over to them. Wanting to avoid any charge against themselves, three thousand armed men came to the rock and, reproaching him for what he had dared against the Philistines — men able to bring disaster on the whole race of the Hebrews — said they had come to seize him and hand him over, and they urged him to submit to this willingly.

He, after taking oaths from them that they would do nothing further to him themselves but only deliver him into the hands of the enemy, came down from the rock and placed himself in the power of his own tribesmen. They bound him with two new ropes and led him off to hand him over to the Philistines. When they reached a place now called Jawbone because of the feat of valor Samson performed there — though before that it had no name — with the Philistines encamped not far off, coming out to meet him with joy and shouting as though their wishes had been accomplished, Samson snapped his bonds, snatched up a donkey's jawbone lying at his feet, charged the enemy, and, striking them with the jawbone, killed about a thousand of them, and put the rest to flight in confusion.

But Samson, thinking too highly of himself for this deed, said that it had not come about through God's cooperation but credited his own courage for what had happened, boasting that some of the enemy had fallen and others had fled from fear of him alone. Then, overtaken by a violent thirst, he came to recognize that human excellence is nothing before God, and he confessed all of this and pleaded that God, not taking his words in anger, should not deliver him into the hands of the enemy, but should provide help against his distress and rescue him from his trouble.

Moved by his supplication, God sent up a sweet and abundant spring from a certain rock, and for this reason Samson called the place Jawbone, and it is still called that to this day. After this battle, Samson, holding the Philistines in contempt, went to Gaza and stayed in one of the inns there. When the leaders of Gaza learned of his presence there, they set an ambush before the gates so that he would not slip away unnoticed when he left. Samson, however — for their scheme did not escape him — rose about the middle of the night, tore loose the gates together with their very doorposts and bars and all the other woodwork around them, hoisted the whole mass onto his shoulders, and carried it to the mountain above Hebron, where he set it down.

He had by now begun to transgress the customs of his fathers and to corrupt his own way of life through imitation of foreign practices, and this became for him the beginning of disaster. Falling in love with a woman among the Philistines who worked as a prostitute, named Delilah, he lived with her. The leaders of the Philistine community came to her and, with promises, persuaded her to learn from Samson the source of the strength that made him unassailable by his enemies.

Over wine and in their intimacy she pretended to marvel at his exploits and worked to discover by what means he so surpassed others in strength. Samson, still keeping his wits about him, deceived her in turn, saying that if he were bound with seven fresh vine-withes still supple enough to be twisted around him, he would become weaker than any man. She said nothing for the moment, but having reported this to the Philistine leaders, she stationed some soldiers inside the house and, while he was drunk, bound him tightly with the withes in the strongest manner she could, then woke him and told him that some men were coming upon him. He snapped the withes and tried to defend himself as though enemies were indeed attacking.

When Samson kept coming to her, the woman said it was a terrible thing that, out of distrust in his affection for her, he would not tell her what she asked, since she would not keep silent about anything he thought it better she not know. When he deceived her again, saying he would lose his strength if bound with seven new ropes, and this too, when tried, achieved nothing, she pressed him a third time, and he told her that if his hair were woven together it would take away his strength. When this too proved false,

at her final pleading Samson — for he was fated to meet with disaster — wishing to gratify Delilah, said: "God cares for me, and, having been born by his providence, I grow this hair because God commanded that it not be cut; for my strength depends on its growing and remaining uncut." Learning this, and cutting off his hair, she handed him over to the enemy, no longer strong enough to fend off their assault. They gouged out his eyes and led him off in bonds.

As time passed, Samson's hair grew back. During a public festival of the Philistines, when their leaders and most prominent men were feasting together in a hall supported by two pillars, Samson was sent for and brought into the banquet so that they could mock him over their drinking. He, considering it a worse misfortune not to be able to avenge himself for the abuse than the abuse itself, persuaded the boy who guided him by the hand — saying he needed to rest from weariness — to bring him close to the pillars. When he arrived there, he threw himself against them, and the house collapsed as the pillars gave way, killing three thousand men, all of whom died, and Samson among them.

Such was the end that overtook him, after he had led the Israelites for twenty years. It is right to admire the man for his courage, his strength, and the greatness of spirit he showed at his death, as well as the anger he maintained against his enemies right up to the moment of dying. His capture through a woman ought to be attributed to human nature, which is too weak to resist such faults, but this should not obscure the credit due to him for his surpassing excellence in everything else. His relatives took up his body and buried it in Zorah, his homeland, with the tombs of his ancestors.

After Samson's death, Eli the high priest became leader of the Israelites. In his time, when the land was suffering from famine, a man named Elimelech from Bethlehem — a city belonging to the tribe of Judah — unable to bear the hardship, moved with his wife Naomi and the sons born to him by her, Chilion and Mahlon, to the land of Moab. As his affairs prospered there, he took Moabite wives for his sons, Orpah for Chilion and Ruth for Mahlon. Ten years later, Elimelech and, soon after him, his sons died one after another,

and Naomi, grieving bitterly over what had happened and unable to bear the loss of her loved ones before her eyes — the very reason she had left her homeland — decided to return to it, since she had now heard that things there had turned out well. Her daughters-in-law could not bear to be separated from her, and though she urged them not to, she could not persuade them to give up their wish to go with her. But as they pressed her, she prayed that they might find a happier marriage than the one they had missed with her own sons, and the acquisition of other blessings, given how matters stood for her, and urged them to remain there rather than share in uncertain fortunes by abandoning their native land. So Orpah stayed, but Ruth would not be persuaded, and Naomi took her along to share whatever fate might bring. When Ruth arrived with her mother-in-law in

Bethlehem, Boaz, a relative of Elimelech, received them as guests. When people greeted Naomi by name, she said, "You should more rightly call me Mara," for in the Hebrew tongue Naomi means good fortune, and Mara means grief. When the harvest came, Ruth went out to glean, with her mother-in-law's permission, so that they might have food, and she happened to come to the field of Boaz. Soon after, Boaz arrived

and, seeing the girl, asked the field overseer about her. The overseer, having already learned everything from her a little earlier, told his master. Boaz, out of goodwill toward the mother-in-law and in memory of her son, whom Ruth had married, greeted her and prayed that good fortune would come to her; he did not think it fitting that she should merely glean, but allowed her to reap whatever she could and

to keep it, instructing the overseer not to hinder her from taking grain and to provide her with food and drink whenever he fed the reapers. Ruth took the grain he gave her and kept it for her mother-in-law, and came home late bringing it along with the ears she had gleaned. Naomi too had saved her portions of certain foods with which the neighbors had looked after her. Ruth told her also what Boaz had said to her.

When Naomi learned that he was a relative and might well, out of piety, look after them, Ruth went out again on the following days to gather ears of grain along with the maidservants of Boaz. Not many days later, Boaz himself came and, since the barley had already been threshed, lay down to sleep on the threshing floor. Learning of this, Naomi contrived to have Ruth lie down near him,

for she said it would turn out well for them if he came to know the girl, and she sent her to sleep at his feet. Ruth, considering it improper to object to anything her mother-in-law commanded, went and for a time escaped the notice of Boaz, who was sleeping deeply; but waking around midnight and becoming aware of someone lying beside him, he asked who it was. When she

told him her name and said that her master permitted this, he then kept quiet, but early, before the servants began to stir for work, he woke her and told her to take as much barley as she could carry and go to her mother-in-law before anyone saw that she had been sleeping there, since it was prudent to guard against slander on such matters, especially about things that had not happened. "But concerning the whole matter," he said,

"it will be settled thus: I will ask the man who is my nearest relative whether he needs you as a wife, and if he says yes, you will follow him, but if he declines, according to the law I will take you as my own." When she told this to her mother-in-law, good cheer took hold of them in the hope that Boaz would look after them. And he, when the day was already half over, went down into the city, gathered the elders,

and, sending for Ruth, called the kinsman as well; and when he arrived, Boaz said, "Do you hold the inheritance of Elimelech and his sons?" When he agreed that the laws permitted this by right of kinship, Boaz said, "Then it is not right to remember only half the laws, but to do everything according to them. For a woman has come here from Moab, and if you wish to hold the fields, you must marry her,"

according to the laws. He ceded to Boaz both the inheritance and the woman, since Boaz too was a relative of the dead, but he said that he himself already had a wife and children. So Boaz, calling the elders to witness, told the woman to come forward, remove his sandal, according to the law, and spit in his face. When this was done, Boaz married

Boaz married Ruth, and after a year a son was born to them. Naomi, who nursed him, on the advice of the women named him Obed, since he was to be raised for her support in old age — for "Obed" in the Hebrew tongue means "one who serves." To Obed was born a son, Jesse, and to Jesse, David, who became king and left the rule to his own descendants for twenty-one generations of men. I have told the story of Ruth as a matter of necessity, wishing to show the power of God, that he is able to advance even ordinary people to splendid rank, as he raised up David from such origins.

The Hebrews, now that their affairs had again taken a turn for the worse, went to war once more with the Philistines, for the following reason. Eli the high priest had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. These men, insolent toward their fellow men and impious toward the divine, abstained from no wrongdoing: some of the offerings they took as their due honor, but others they seized outright as plunder, and the women who came to worship they abused, forcing themselves on some and seducing others with gifts. Their way of life fell short of tyranny in nothing. Their father himself was deeply troubled by this, expecting that punishment from God would come upon them at any moment for what they were doing, and the people at large were distressed as well. And when God revealed to his servants Eli and the young prophet Samuel the disaster that was coming, Eli then openly mourned over his sons.

But I wish first to relate the story of the prophet before going on to tell what happened to Eli's sons and the calamity that befell the whole people of the Hebrews.

Elkanah, a Levite, a man of middling standing among the citizens of the tribal portion of Ephraim, who lived in the city of Ramathaim, had married two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. By the latter he had children, but the other, who was childless, he continued to love. When Elkanah went up with his wives to the city of Shiloh to sacrifice — for the tabernacle of God had been set up there, as we have said before — and again, at the feast, as he was distributing portions of meat to the wives and children, Hannah, seeing the other wife's children seated about their mother, burst into tears and lamented her own childlessness and isolation. Overcoming her husband's attempts to console her grief, she went to the tabernacle to entreat God to grant her offspring and make her a mother, promising to dedicate her firstborn to the service of God, to live a manner of life unlike that of ordinary people.

While she spent a long time at her prayers, Eli the high priest — for he sat before the tabernacle — supposing her drunk, ordered her to leave. She replied that she had drunk only water, but that, grieved at her want of children, she was entreating God. Eli then encouraged her to take heart, declaring that God would grant her children. Returning to her husband full of hope, she took food joyfully, and when they had gone back to their homeland she conceived, and a son was born to them, whom they named Samuel — one might render it "asked of God."

They came, then, to offer sacrifice for the child's birth and to bring the tithes. And the woman, remembering the vow she had made concerning the child, handed him over to Eli, dedicating him to God to become a prophet. His hair was accordingly left uncut, and his drink was water. And Samuel was raised, living in the temple, while to Elkanah, by Hannah, sons were born as well, and three daughters. When Samuel had already completed his twelfth year, he began to prophesy.

Once, as he lay sleeping, God called him by name. Thinking he had been summoned by the high priest, he came to him. But when the high priest said he had not called him, God did this a third time. Then Eli, enlightened, said to him, "I, Samuel, have kept silence as before, but it is God who is calling. Answer him, and say that I am here."

And when God spoke again, Samuel, having heard, asked leave to speak of what he had been told, for he said he would not fail those who asked of him whatever service they wished. And God said, "Since you are here, learn of a disaster that is to come upon the Israelites, greater than words and beyond the belief of those who hear of it: the sons of Eli will die on a single day, and the priesthood will pass to the house of Eleazar, for Eli loved his sons more than my service and against their own good."

Eli forced the prophet under oath to tell him these things, for Samuel had not wished to grieve him by speaking; and thereby he came to hold an even firmer expectation of the loss of his children. Samuel's reputation grew ever greater, as all that he had prophesied was seen to come true.

At that time the Philistines took the field against the Israelites and encamped near the city of Aphek. The Israelites went out to meet them after a short delay, and on the following day they engaged; the Philistines won, and killed about four thousand of the Hebrews, and pursued the rest of the host to their camp. Fearing for their whole cause, the Hebrews sent to the elders and the high priest, ordering that the ark of God be brought, so that with it present they might overpower their enemies in battle — not knowing that he who had decreed their disaster was greater than the ark, on whose account the ark's presence would come to nothing.

So the ark came, and with it the sons of the high priest, their father having instructed them, if they wished to live should the ark be taken, not to appear before him again. Phinehas was already serving as priest, his father having yielded the office to him because of his old age. Great courage now came upon the Hebrews, as though through the ark's arrival they would prevail over their enemies, while the enemies were struck with dread, fearing the ark's presence among the Israelites. Yet the outcome did not match either side's expectations: when the armies met, the victory the Hebrews had hoped for went to the Philistines, and the defeat the Philistines had feared, the Hebrews suffered, and learned that they had put their trust in the ark in vain. For they were at once routed when they came to close quarters with the enemy, and lost about thirty thousand men, among whom fell the sons of the high priest as well, and the ark was carried off by the enemy.

When the defeat was reported at Shiloh, and the capture of the ark — for a young man of Benjamin came to them as messenger, having been present at what had happened — the whole city was filled with mourning. And Eli the high priest, who sat by one of the gates on a lofty seat, hearing the wailing and supposing that something more serious had happened to his own household, sent for the young man; and when he learned the outcome of the battle, he bore it more easily, since he had already learned from God what would happen to his sons around the camp and had foretold it — for foreknowledge lessens the sting of misfortunes that come as expected. But when he heard that the ark too had been captured by the enemy, overwhelmed by grief at this blow falling upon him against all hope, he fell backward from his seat and died, having lived ninety-eight years in all, of which he had held the office forty.

On that same day there also died the wife of his son Phinehas, unable to go on living after her husband's misfortune. Word of what had befallen her husband reached her while she was pregnant, and she gave birth to a seven-month child, who, when he lived, they named Ichabod — the name signifying "without glory," on account of the disgrace that had then fallen upon the army.

Eli was the first to rule as high priest from the house of Ithamar, the other son of Aaron; for the house of Eleazar had held the priesthood first, a son receiving the honor from his father — Eleazar handed it down to his son Phinehas, after whom Abiezer, his son, received the honor and left it to his own son, named Bukki, from whom it passed to Uzzi, his son, after whom Eli held the priesthood, of whom our account now speaks; and the line from him continued down to the time of Solomon's reign. Then the house of Eleazar recovered it once more.

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