blinded them with the stormy showers and the fire continually streaming from the clouds."-PLUT. Timol. c. 28. "We are told that the Gauls, when plundering Delphi, were destroyed by a storm. A like storm now discomfited the Thracians when they were approaching the summit of the mountain Donuca. They were not only overwhelmed with a deluge of rain, followed by prodigious thick showers of hail, and accompanied with tremendous noises in the sky, peals of thunder, and flashes of lightning which dazzled their sight; but the thunderbolts also fell so thick on all sides that they seemed to be aimed at their bodies, and not only the soldiers, but their officers also were struck by them and fell. They fled therefore precipitately."-LIV. 1. XL. c. 58. 12. Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. In Homer, Minerva lengthens out the night; and Hyperion's mighty son stops his horses ." "Minerva checked Night's almost finished course, and held meantime The golden dawn close prisoner in the deep; HOм. Odyss. 1. XXIII. v. 243. "The celebrated son of Hyperion stopped, for a long time, his swift-footed horses." IBID. Hymn. in Pallad. v. 13. "The Egyptians asserted that the sun had four times_deviated from his ordinary course, having twice risen where he uniformly goes down, and twice gone down where he uniformly rises."—HDт. l. II. v. 142. Callimachus makes the sun stand still to listen to the chorus of the nymphs— The "When Sol himself leans downward from the sky, Beholds the virgins with enraptured eye, CALLIM. H. in Dian. v. 180. power of arresting the stars in their courses, and of lengthening the days and nights was imputed by the poets not only to the deities, but also to those who professed the art of magic. Tibullus, describing the enchantments of a sorceress, says :— "I've seen her tear the planets from the sky; Whose voice the stars from heaven can tear, HOR. I. v. Carm. 5. "Whene'er the proud enchantress gives command, No more Heav'n's rapid circles journey on, LUCAN. Phars. 1. vI. v. 462. Statius describes the sun's standing still, and the heavens blushing at the unnatural murder of Atreus, which, he says, took place about the time of the Theban war, a period which corresponds nearly with that of the conquest of Canaan by Joshua. "Late and unwilling to his watery bed STAT. Theb. 1. v. 177. 24. Come near and put your feet upon the necks of these kings. 'Dioxippus, having thrown his enemy Horratas to the ground, drew his sword, and standing over him, placed his foot upon his neck."-Q. CURT. 1. IX. c. 7. JOSHUA XI. 8. Great Zidon. Sidon was famous for the superiority of its artificers, whose works were highly esteemed in all civilized countries. Homer speaks of a ship from Sidon laden with rich ornaments, and vessels of gold and silver.-See Isaiah XXIII. 2, 8. "This silver bowl, whose costly margins shine "Glorious Sidon."-IBID. v. 425. ; Hoм. Odyss. 1. xv. v. 115. 20. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly. So Homer says of the evils which came upon the Greeks from the quarrels between Achilles and Agamemnon "Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove." IBID. II. 1. 1. v. 5. When fortune is determined upon the ruin of a people she can so blind them as to render them insensible to danger, even of the greatest magnitude.”—Liv. l. v. c. 37. For other notices of judicial blindness see Exod. IV. 21. JOSHUA XII. 1. These are the kings of the land which the children of Israel smote. The number of kings here mentioned may be compared with the list of those sent forth by Greece and its islands to the Trojan war. Justin tells us that in the most ancient times each separate division of a country was a kingdom, however small its extent. Adonibezek subdued threescore and ten kings, and made them " gather their meat under his table." (Judges 1. 7.) Strabo says : "The descendants of the Ionian princes are called kings, and receive certain honours, as the chief seat at the public games, a purple robe as a symbol of royal descent, a staff instead of a sceptre, and the superintendence of the sacrifices in honour of the Eleusinian Ceres."-STRAB. 1. XIV. c. 1. "The Aradii were anciently governed by their own kings in the same manner as all other Phoenician cities. Afterwards the Persians, Macedonians, and now the Romans, have changed their government to its present state."-IBID. 1. XvI. c. 2. JUDGES I. 7. And Adoni-bezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died. "Philocles persuaded the people to make a decree that the prisoners of war should have their right thumbs cut off, that they might be disabled from handling a pike, but might still be serviceable at the oar."-PLUT. Lysander, c. 9. 18. Gaza and Askelon. onions. Gaza and Askelon are both mentioned by Strabo as cities of Judæa. "The town of Askelon is small. The country of the Ascalonitæ produces excellent "Gaza is next to Raphia, where a battle was fought between Ptolemy and Antiochus the Great."-STRAB. 1. XVI. c. 2. 31. Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Accho. Accho never having been wrested from its original inhabitants, is reckoned by the ancient geographers among the cities of Phoenicia. It afterwards fell, with the rest of Phoenicia, to the lot of Egypt, and was called Ptolemais, after one of the Ptolemies. It is now St. Jean D'Acre. "Ptolemais in Phoenicia."-STRAB. 1. II. c. 39. "Close to the river Pacida, or Belus, is Ptolemais, formerly called Ace, a colony of Claudius Cæsar."-PLIN. Hist. nat. 1. v. c. 19. JUDGES III. 21. And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly: 66 To lay low a tyrant that grindeth down his people, even as you will, is no call for wrath on the part of the gods."-THEOGN. v. 1181. "Has he then involved himself in guilt who slays a tyrant, however intimate? It does not appear so to the Roman people, who of all great deeds esteemed that the most honourable."-Cic. de off. 1. III. c. 4. 31. And after him was Shamgar, the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad: and he also delivered Israel. 66 Lycurgus put to flight Bacchus and his votaries, driving them from the sacred grove of Nyssa with an ox goad (Bovrλny.")-Hoм. I. 1. VI. v. 135. JUDGES IV. 4. And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time. 5. And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el in mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. A sacred palm-tree, most probably, like those trees and groves noticed under Deut. xvI. 21., II Kings XXIII. 7., Ezek. VI. 13., &c. Pausanias mentions an image of Diana set up under a beech tree, where a temple was subsequently built, and which is alluded to by Callimachus in the following lines : "Fierce amazonian dames to battle bred Around the tree they clash their maiden shields, With sounding strokes that echo through the fields." Hymn. in Dian. v. 237. Some have supposed that the prophetess of Israel, dwelling in Mount Ephraim, gave rise to the fable of the Theban Sphinx, which uttered her riddles from the mount on which she dwelt. The story of the Sphinx is given under Judges XIV. 12. 15. Sisera lighted down off his chariot and fled away on his feet. So, when Phegeus had been slain by the spear of Diomed— "Seized with unusual fear, Idæus fled, Left the rich chariot, and his brother dead."-Hoм. Пl. 1. v. v. 20. JUDGES V. 23. Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. "I show myself a helper to the god (Te Bonov) ."-PLAT. Apol. Socrat. c 9. " "'I am willing to concur with you in giving help to God." DEMOSTH. de Coron. c. 51. They have taken a solemn and mighty oath to help the god and the sacred land, with hand and foot, and with all their might, and I, too, with hand and foot, and voice, will do the same."-ESCHIN. in Ctesiph. c. 36. 30. Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey to every man a damsel or two; to Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of divers colours of needlework, of divers colours of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil? It will be seen from the following extracts that garments embroidered with the needle were worn, not by females only, but by men, for whom they were often wrought by the hands of their wives. ORESTES (to Electra): "This tissue, view it ; The texture is thine own, the rich embroidery; It is said of Hercules "Arrayed In no rich vest, whose floating folds displayed THEOCR. Idyl. XXIV. Polynices, when about to meet his brother Eteocles in single combat- Nor on his back a vulgar tunic wore : Th' embroidery his skilful consort (taught Each art that Lydian damsels practice) wrought." STAT. Theb. 1. xi. v. 400. JUDGES VI. 3. And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them; 4. And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. 5. For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number and they entered into the land to destroy it. sians A similar stratagem was adopted by Alyattes, the Lydian king, against the Mile "As the time of harvest approached he marched an army into their country, to the sound of the pastoral pipe, harp, and flutes, masculine and feminine. On his arrival in their territories he neither burned nor in any way injured their edifices which stood in the fields; but he totally destroyed the produce of their land, and then returned. His motives for not destroying their buildings was that they might be induced again to cultivate their lands, and that on every repetition of his incursions he might be secure of plunder."-HDT. 1. t. c. 17. 20. And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so. 21. Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. Ulysses being arrived at the court of Alcinoüs, whither he was conducted under a veil of clouds "Then from around him dropped the veil of night, Sudden he shines, and manifest to sight The nobles gaze, with awful fear oppress'd; Alcinoüs thus addresses him : "If descended from th' Olympian bower, HOM. Odyss. 1. VII. v. 144, 199. |