God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land. Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed? Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke,1 and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them: and take the ark of the Lord, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return him for a trespass offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go. And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Beth-shemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us." And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home: and they laid the ark of the Lord upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods. And the kine took the straight way by the way to Beth-shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left: and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Beth-shemesh. And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: and they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth-shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the Lord. And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day. A witness is the great stone, whereon they set down the ark of the Lord: which stone remaineth unto this day in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite. But the sons of Jeconiah did not rejoice with the men of Beth-shemesh, when they looked upon the ark of the Lord, and he smote of them threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter. And the men of Beth-shemesh said: "Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? and to whom shall he go up from us?" And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim, saying: "The Philistines have brought again the ark of the Lord; come ye down, and fetch it up to you." And the men of Kirjath-jearim came, and fetched up the ark of the Lord, and brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the Lord. And it came to pass, while the ark abode in Kirjathjearim, that the time was long; for it was twenty years. its writer evidently understood that there was a plague of mice. The passage suggests the symbolic magic by which superstitious people believe that if the image of a person or thing be subjected to hurt with fitting spells, its original will take harm. 1 The cart and kine would have been profaned by previous use. 1 Shiloh had perhaps fallen into the hands of the Philistines. It does not appear again as a national meeting-place. 4 IX THE EARLY MONARCHY 1. SAUL Saul Anointed by Samuel (1 Sam. ix. ; x. 1-16; xi. 1-11,15). Now there was a man of Gibeah, whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bechorath, the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite, a man well to do. And he had a son, whose name was Saul, a choice young man, and a goodly: and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people. And the asses of Kish Saul's father were lost. And Kish said to Saul his son: "Take now one of the servants with thee, and arise, go seek the asses." And they passed through the hill country of Ephraim, and passed through the land of Shalisha, but they found them not: then they passed through the land of Shalim, and there they were not: and they passed through the land of the Benjamites, but they found them not. When they were come to the land of Zeph, Saul said to his servant that was with him: "Come, and let us return; lest my father leave caring for the asses, and take thought for us." And he said unto him: "Behold now, there is in this city a man of God, and he is an honorable man; all that he saith cometh surely to pass: now let us go thither; peradventure he can shew us our way that we should go." Then said Saul to his servant: "But, behold, if we go, what shall we bring the man? for the bread is spent in our vessels, and there is not a present to bring to the man of God: what have we?" And the servant answered Saul again, and said: "Behold, I have here at hand the fourth part of a shekel of silver: that shalt thou give to the man of God, to tell us our way." (Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God, thus he spake: "Come, and let us go to the seer: " for he that is now called a prophet was beforetime called a seer.) Then said Saul to his servant: "Well said; come, let us go." So they went unto the city where the man of God was. And as they went up the hill to the city, they found young maidens going out to draw water, and said unto them, "Is the seer here?" And they answered them, and said: "He is; be hold, he is before you: make haste now, for he came to-day to the city; for there is a sacrifice of the people to-day in the high place: 1 as soon as ye be come into the city, ye shall straightway find him, before he go up to the high place to eat: for the people will not eat un til he come, because Pillar-stones (mazzebahs) unearthed in the High Place at Taanach he doth bless the sacrifice; and afterwards they eat that be bidden. Now therefore get you up; for about this time ye shall find him." And they went up into the city: and when they were come into the city, behold, Samuel came out against them, for to go up to the high place. Now the Lord had told Samuel in his ear a day before Saul came, saying: "To-morrow about this time I will send thee a man out of the land of Benjamin, and thou shalt anoint him to be captain over my people Israel, that he may save my people out of the hand of the Philistines: for I have looked upon my people, because their cry is come unto me." And when Samuel 1 high place. Beginning as a natural place for burnt-offerings, the barren hilltop above a town would in time become its sanctuary. Every Canaanite town had such a spot for the worship of its Baal and Ashtart, fitted up with altar, pillar-stones or mazzebahs and sacred poles or asherahs. With the Hebrew settlement of Canaan these local sanctuaries were taken over almost without change and became the regular places of Jehovah worship. But since their rites almost inevitably retained features of the old heathen cults, they were finally attacked by Hosea and other eighth-century prophets as seats of idolatry. 2 It was part of the sacrificial rite to eat the victim's flesh, after its blood and fat had been offered. 1 Chapters vii., viii., and xii. present a view of the kingship so different from that expressed here, and give Samuel so much more prominent a position before Israel, that it is better to take their account as a distinct whole : And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. And he went from year to year in circuit to Beth-el, and Gilgal, and Mizpeh, and judged Israel in all those places. And his return was to Ramah; for there was his house; and there he judged Israel; and there he built an altar unto the Lord. And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel. Now the name of his firstborn was Joel; and the name of his second, Abijah: they were judges in Beer-sheba. And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment. Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, and said unto him: "Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations." But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said: "Give us a king to judge us." And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Samuel: "Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them." And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said: "This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be perfumers, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest cattle, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day." Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said: "Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our kings may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles." And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel: "Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king." And Samuel said unto the men of Israel: "Go ye every man unto his city." And Samuel called the people together unto the Lord to Mizpeh; and said unto the children of Israel: "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all the kingdoms that oppressed you: and ye have this day rejected your God, who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your 1 |