The Lord is with thee, O most valiant of men.

And

Gedeon said to him: I beseech thee, my lord, if the Lord be with us, why have these evils fallen upon us? Where are His miracles, which our fathers have told us of, saying: The Lord brought us out of Egypt? but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hand of Madian. And the Lord looked upon him, and said: Go in this thy strength, and thou shalt deliver Israel out of the hand of Madian: know that I have sent thee. He answered and said: I beseech thee, my lord, wherewith shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the meanest in Manasses, and I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord said to him: I will be with thee: and thou shalt cut off Madian as one man. And he said: If I have found grace before thee, give me a sign that it is thou that speakest to me, and depart not hence, till I return to thee, and bring a sacrifice, and offer it to thee. And he answered: I will wait thy coming. So Gedeon went in, and boiled a kid, and made unleavened loaves of a measure of flour: and putting the flesh in a basket, and the broth of the flesh into a pot, he carried all under the oak, and presented to him. And the angel of the Lord said to him: Take the flesh and the unleavened loaves, and lay them upon that rock, and pour out the broth thereon. And when

he had done so, the angel of the Lord put forth the tip of the rod, which he held in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened loaves: and there arose a fire from the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened loaves: and the angel of the Lord vanished out of his sight.

Gedeon's first act in furtherance of the angel's instructions was, to cut down a neighbouring grove and altar dedicated to the idol Baal; and, filled with the Spirit of God, he prepared to attack the Madianites. Before he went upon the assault, he entreated from God that a fresh sign might be given to him of the Divine protection that would uphold him. He said to the Almighty If Thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as Thou hast said, I will put this fleece of wool on the floor:

if there be dew in the fleece only, and it be dry on all the ground beside, I shall know that by my hand, as Thou hast said, Thou wilt deliver Israel. And it was so. And rising before day, wringing the fleece, he filled a vessel with the dew. And he said again to God: Let not Thy wrath be kindled against me, if I try once more, seeking a sign in the fleece. I pray that the fleece only may be dry, and all the ground wet with dew. And God did that night as he had requested: and it was dry on the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.

With two-and-twenty thousand men he then approached the Madianitish camp. But first he cleared his army of all who would be an encumbrance to its movements, and bidding every one that was fainthearted return home, he found his numbers reduced at once to 10,000 men. Still the number was to be reduced much further, that the glory of the conquest might be God's alone, through the manifest weakness of the conquering band. Three hundred were chosen from the rest, not because of their greater valour, but by a mere accidental mark, namely, the way in which they drank water from a stream; these men were furnished each with a trumpet, an empty pitcher, and a lighted lamp, which he hid within his pitcher, that the approach of the band might be unobserved by the Madianites. Thus prepared, they marched at night into the hostile camp, and at midnight the trumpets were sounded, and they clapped their pitchers against each other, to increase the tumult and terrify their sleeping foes. Then, breaking their pitchers, they lifted up the lamps, and blew the trumpets, standing still while the hand of the Lord fought for them. A panic seized the camp of the Madianites, and they turned their swords against one another; and those who escaped from the indiscriminate slaughter fled from out of the country of the Israelites.

Thus the people were once more free. In their joy, they sought to raise Gedeon at once to the dignity and title of their king, so little were they impressed with the truth that God alone was their deliverer, and Gedeon

his humble instrument. Gedeon refused the unlawful honour, but ruled them as a judge until his death.

CHAP. VII. Abimelech and his Brothers. Jephte's Vow. GEDEON left seventy sons behind him at his death. One of them, Abimelech, a man of ambitious and bloody character, got together a party for himself in Sichem, the native place of his mother, and by their aid murdered all his brothers but one, the youngest, Joatham by name. He then caused himself to be chosen king. Joatham, however, ventured from his hiding-place, and in a parable reproached the assembled multitude for their ingratitude to his father Gedeon (or Jerobaal, as he was surnamed). "The trees," he said, "went to anoint a king over them: and they said to the olivetree Reign thou over us. And it answered: Can I leave my fatness, which both gods and men make use of, to come to be promoted among the trees? And the trees said to the fig-tree: Come thou, and reign over us. And it answered them: Can I leave my sweetness, and my delicious fruits, and go to be promoted among the other trees? And the trees said to the vine: Come thou, and reign over us. And it answered them: Can I forsake my wine, that cheereth God and men, and be promoted among the other trees? And all the trees said to the bramble: Come thou, and reign over us. And it answered them: If indeed you mean to make me king, come ye and rest under my shadow: but if you mean it not, let fire come out from the bramble, and devour the cedars of Libanus. Now therefore, if you have done well, and without sin in appointing Abimelech king over you, and have dealt well with Jerobaal, and with his house, and have made a suitable return for the benefits of him, who fought for you, and exposed his life to dangers, to deliver you from the hands of Madian, and you are now risen up against my father's house, and have killed his sons, seventy men upon one stone, and have made Abimelech the son of his hand

maid king over the inhabitants of Sichem, because he is your brother: if therefore you have dealt well, and without fault with Jerobaal, and his house, rejoice ye this day in Abimelech and may he rejoice in you. But if unjustly, let fire come out from him, and consume the inhabitants of Sichem, and the town of Mello : and let fire come out from the men of Sichem, and from the town of Mello, and devour Abimelech. And when he had said thus, he fled, and went into Bera; and dwelt there for fear of Abimelech his brother.

After three years had passed, the warnings of Joatham were fulfilled. The tyranny of Abimelech roused the Sichemites to rebel against his authority; and he took a bloody vengeance upon them, burning their town to the ground with all its inhabitants, both men and women. Then marching to inflict a similar chastisement upon the neighbouring town of Thebes, which was also in arms against him, he lost his life by means of a woman, who stood upon the top of the wall, and hurled upon his head a stone that crushed him to the earth.

About fifty years after the death of Abimelech, the Israelites were again grievously oppressed by the Ammonites, into whose hands God had given them, as a punishment for their idolatries and immoralities. A chief of the town of Galaad at length set them free from their tyrants. Jephte aroused the spirit of his fellow-countrymen, and marched at their head against the Ammonitish army, first making a vow to the Lord, that if He should grant him the victory, he would offer to Him the first living thing that came forth from the door of his house on his return as a conqueror. God gave the victory to Jephte, and returning in triumph, to his horror, he beheld his only daughter coming forth with music and dancing, to greet him as the deliverer of his people. But the vow was past, and could not be broken; and when the damsel had mourned her fate with her companions for two months, her father fulfilled his promise to Almighty God. How he fulfilled it, Scripture does not say; it merely tells us that he did to her as he had

vowed. By some it has been believed that he actually offered her as a burnt sacrifice upon the altar; by others, that he consecrated her to God, by condemning her to a perpetual virginity; for among the Jews it was desired by all women to become the mother of children, each one hoping that from herself might spring the promised Saviour of the world. With Christians, virginity is accounted more honourable than marriage; for the seed of the woman has already been born.

CHAP. VIII. Samson and his Riddle.

VARIOUS judges followed Jephte in ruling the Israelites for many years. At length they again fell under the dominion of their heathen neighbours the Philistines, as a chastisement for renewed idolatries. For forty years this bold and cruel race oppressed them, till they groaned beneath the bondage. A deliverer was given to them in the person of Samson, a man of extraordinary personal strength and courage, but of ill-disciplined mind and violent passions. Before he was born, the work he was to do was foretold to his father Manue by an angel, who commanded that the infant should be consecrated to God from his birth, as a Nazarite, or person specially set apart for the honour of Almighty God, and, as a token of his consecration, was never to have his hair cut or shorn.

As soon as Samson was grown up, the Spirit of God came upon him, and he began to resist the tyranny of the Philistines. He wished to marry a woman of their nation, and went to stay with her father and mother at their house. There, walking among the vineyards, he encountered a young lion, and seizing him, tore him in pieces as he would have torn a kid. After a few days he found that bees had swarmed in the carcass, and a honeycomb was already built in its mouth. Taking some of the honey, he then went to his wife, and gave it to her father and mother, not mentioning where he had found it. His marriage-feast was soon after cele