strange gods, they did not incline to disbelieve it, but thinking this defamatory report, as if it were built for divine worship, was credible, they appeared in arms, as though they would avenge themselves upon those that built the altar, and they were about to pass over the river, and to punish them for their subversion of the laws of their country for they did not think it fit to regard them on account of their kindred, or the dignity of those that had given the occasion, but to regard the will of God, and the manner wherein he desired to be worshipped; so these men put themselves in array for war; but Joshua, and Eleazar the high-priest, and the senate, restrained them, and persuaded them first to make trial by words of their intention; and afterwards, if they found that their intention was evil, then only to proceed to make war upon them. Accordingly, they sent as ambassadors to them Phineas, the son of Eleazar, and ten more persons that were in esteem among the Hebrews, to learn what was in their mind, when, upon passing over the river, they had built an altar upon its banks. But, as soon as these ambassadors were passed over, and were come to them, and a congregation was assembled, Phineas stood up, and said, "The offence you have been guilty of is of too heinous a nature to be punished by words alone, or by them only to be amended for the future. Yet we do not so look at the heinousness of your transgression, as to have recourse to arms, and to a battle, for your punishment immediately; but, on account of our kindred, and the probability that you may be reclaimed, we have taken this method of sending an ambassage; that when we have learned the true reasons by which you have been moved to build this altar, we may neither seem to have been too rash in assaulting you by our weapons of war, if it prove that you made the altar for justifiable reasons, and may then justly punish you, if the accusation prove true; for we can hardly suppose that you, who have been acquainted with the will of God, and have been hearers of those laws which he himself hath given us, now you are separated from us, and gone to that patrimony of yours, which you, through the grace of God, and that providence he exercises over you, have obtained by lot, can forget him, and can leave that ark, and that altar which is peculiar to us, and can introduce strange gods, and imitate the wicked practices of the Canaanites. Now this will appear to have been a small crime, if you repent now, and proceed no farther in your madness, but pay a due reverence to, and keep in mind, the laws of your country. But if you persist in your sins, we will not grudge our pains to

preserve your laws, but will pass over Jordan, and defend them, and defend God also; and shall esteem of you as of men noway differing from the Canaanites, but shall destroy you in the like manner as we destroyed them; for do not you imagine that because you are got over the river you are beyond the reach of God's power. You are everywhere in places that belong to him, and it is impossible to overrun his power, and the punishment he will bring on men thereby. But if you think that your settlement here will be any obstruction to your conversion to what is good, nothing need hinder us from dividing the land anew, and leaving this old land to be for the feeding of sheep; but you will do well to return to your duty, and to leave off these new crimes. And we beseech you, by your wives and children, not to force us to punish you. Take therefore such measures in this assembly, as supposing that your own safety, and the safety of those that are dearest to you, is therein concerned; and believe that it is better for you to be conquered by words, than to continue in your purpose, and thereby to experience deeds and war."

When Phineas had discoursed thus, the governors of the assembly, and the whole multitude, began to make an apology for themselves, concerning what they were accused of; and they said, "We neither will depart from the relation we bear to you, nor have we built the altar in way of innovation; we own one and the same God with all the Hebrews, and that brazen altar which is before the tabernacle, on which we will offer our sacrifices. As to the altar we have raised, on account of which we are thus suspected, it was not built for worship; but that it might be a sign and a monument of our relation to you for ever; and a necessary caution to us to act wisely, and to continue in the laws of our country; but not a handle for transgressing them, as you suspect. And let God be our authentic witness, that this was the occasion of our building this altar. Whence we beg you will have a better opinion of us; and do not impute such a thing to us as would render any of the posterity of Abraham well worthy of perdition; in case they attempt to bring in new rites, and such as are different from our usual practices."

When they had made this answer, and Phineas had commended them for it, he came to Joshua, and explained before the people what answer they had received. Now Joshua was glad that he was under no necessity of setting them in array, or of leading them to shed blood, and make war against men that were of their own kindred; and accordingly he offered sacrifices of thanksgiving to God

CHAP. II.

OF THE AFFAIRS OF THE ISRAELITES AFTER THE DEATH OF JOSHUA; THEIR TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAWS OF THEIR COUNTRY; AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TRIBE OF BENJAMIN, EXCEPTING ONLY SIX HUNDRED MEN.

for the same; so Joshua, after that, dissolved this great assembly of the people, and sent them to their own inheritances, while himself lived at Shechem. But in the twentieth year after this, when he was very old, he sent for those of the greatest dignity in the several cities, with those in authority, and the senate and gathered together as many of the common people as he could; and when they were come, he put them in mind of all the benefits God had bestowed on them; which could not but be a great many, since from a low estate they were advanced to so great a degree of glory and plenty; and exhorted them to take notice of the intentions of God, which had been so gracious towards them; and told them that the Deity would continue their friend by nothing else but their piety, and that it was proper for him, now he was about to depart out of this life, to leave such an admonition to them; and he desired that they would keep in memory this his exhortation to them.

So Joshua, when he had thus discoursed to them, died; having lived an hundred and ten years, forty of which he lived with Moses, in order to learn what might be for his advantage afterwards. He also became their commander after Moses's death for twenty-five years. He was a man that wanted no wisdom nor eloquence to declare his intentions to the people; but was eminent on both accounts. He was of great courage and magnanimity in action and in dangers; and very sagacious in procuring the peace of the people, and of great virtue at all proper seasons. He was buried in the city of Timnath, of the tribe of Ephraim.§ About the same time died Eleazar, the high-priest; leaving the high-priesthood to his son Phineas. His monument also and sepulchre are in the city Gabatha.

* An. 1467.

From An. 1492 to An. 1467.

† Josh. xxiv. 29.

This place is, in Judges ii. 9, called Timnath Heres, because of the image of the sun engraven on his sepulchre, in memory of that famous day when the sun stood still till he had completed his victory. This is asserted by several of the Jewish authors, that memorials alluding to particular transactions in the lives of great men were frequently made use of to adorn their tombs. Tully has recorded concerning Archimedes, that a sphere and a cylinder were put upon his monument. B.

Since not only Procopius and Suidas, but an earlier author, Moses Chorenensis, p. 52, 53, and perhaps from his original author, Mariba Catina, one as old as Alexander the Great, sets down the famous inscription at Tangier, concerning the old Canaanites driven out of Palestine by Joshua, take it here in that author's own words: "We are those exiles that were governors of the Canaanites; but have been driven out by Joshua, the robber; and are come to inhabit here." See the note there. Nor is it unworthy our notice what Moses Chorenensis adds, page 53, and this upon a diligent examination, viz. that "One of those eminent men among the Canaanites came at the same

AFTER the death of Joshua and Eleazar, Phineas prophesied, that, according to God's will, they should commit the government to the tribe of Judah, and that this tribe should destroy the race of the Canaanites; for then the people were concerned to learn what was the will of God. They also took to their assistance the tribe of Simeon; but upon this condition, that when those that had been tributary to the tribe of Judah should be slain, they should do the like for the tribe of Simeon.

But the affairs of the Canaanites were at this time in a flourishing condition; and they expected the Israelites with a great army at the city Bezek; having put the government into the hands of Adonibezek; which name denotes the lord of Bezek, for Adoni in the Hebrew tongue is called Lord. Now they hoped to have been too hard for the Israelites, because Joshua was dead; but when the Israelites had joined battle with them, I mean the two tribes before mentioned, they fought valiantly, and slew above ten thousand of them, and put the rest to flight; and in the pursuit they took Adonibezek; who, when his fingers and toes were cut off by them, said, "Nay, indeed, I was not always to lie concealed from God, as I find by what I now endure; while I have not been ashamed to do the same to** seventy-two kings."tt So they carried him alive as far as Jerusalem; and when he was dead they buried him in the earth, and went on still in taking the cities; and, when they had taken the greatest part of them, they be sieged Jerusalem; and when they had taken the

time into Armenia, and founded the Genthunian family or tribe; and that this was confirmed by the manners of the same family or tribe, as being like those of the Canaanites."

By prophesying, when spoken of a high-priest, Josephus, both here and frequently elsewhere, means no more than consulting God by Urim; which the reader is still to bear in mind upon all occasions. And if St. John, who was contemporary with Josephus, and of the same country, made use of his style, when he says that Caiaphas, being high-priest that year, prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation, and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God, that were scattered abroad, xi. 51, 52, he may possibly mean, that this was revealed to the high-priest by an extraordinary voice from between the cherubim, when he had his breastplate, or Urim and Thummim on, before or in the most holy place of the temple; which was no other than the oracle of Urim and Thummim. Of which above, in the note on Antiq. III. 8.

** This great number of Reguli, or small kings over whom Adonibezek had tyrannized, and for which he was punished according to the Lex Talionis; as well as the thirty-one kings of

lower city, which was not under a considerable time, they slew all the inhabitants. But the upper city was not to be taken without great difficulty, through the strength of its walls and the nature of the place.

For this reason they removed their camp to Hebron; and when they had taken it, they slew all the inhabitants. There were till then left the race of giants ;* who had bodies so large, and countenances so entirely different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight, and terrible to the hearing. The bones of these men are shown to this very day, unlike to any credible relations of other men. Now they gave this city to the Levites, as an extraordinary reward, with the suburbs of two thousand cubits. But the land thereto belonging they gave as a free gift to Caleb, according to the injunctions of Moses. This Caleb was one of the spies which Moses sent into the land of Canaan; they also gave land for habitation to the posterity of Jethro, the Midianite, who was the father-in-law to Moses. For they had left their own country and followed them, and accompanied them in the wilderness.

Now the tribes of Judah and Simeon took the cities which were in the mountainous part of Canaan, as also Ascalon and Ashdod, of those that lay near the sea. But Gaza and Ekron escaped them; for they, lying in a flat country, and having a great number of chariots, sorely galled those that attacked them. So these tribes, when they were grown very rich by this war, retired to their own cities, and laid aside their weapons of war.

But the Benjamites, to whom belonged Jerusalem, permitted its inhabitants to pay tribute; so they all left off, the one to kill, and the other to expose themselves to danger, and had time to cultivate the ground. The rest of the tribes imitated that of Benjamin, and did the same; and contenting themselves with the tributes that were paid them, permitted the Canaanites to live in peace.

Canaan, subdued by Joshua, and named in one chapter, Josh. xii. and thirty-two kings, or royal auxiliaries, to Benhadad king of Syria, 1 Kings xx. 1. Antiq. VIII. 14, intimate to us, what was the ancient form of government among several nations, before the monarchies began; viz. That every city or large town, with its neighbouring villages, was a distinct government by itself. Which is the more remarkable, because this was certainly the form of ecclesiastical government that was settled by the apostles, and preserved throughout the Christian church, in the first age of Christianity. Mr. Addison is of opinion, that it would be for the good of mankind, to have all the mighty empires and monarchies of the world cantoned out into petty states and principalities; that, like so many large families, might lie under the observation of their proper governors; so that the care of the prince might extend itself to every individual person under his protection; though he despairs of such a scheme being brought

However, the tribe of Ephraim, when they besieged Bethel, made no advance; nor performed any thing worthy of the time they spent, and of the pains they took about that siege. Yet did they persist in it, still sitting down before the city; though they endured great trouble thereby. But, after some time, they caught one of the citizens, that came to them to get necessaries; and they gave him some assurances, that if he would deliver up the city, they would preserve him and his kindred. So he sware that, upon those terms, he would put the place into their hands. Accordingly, he was preserved with his family, while the Israelites slew all the other inhabitants, and retained the city for themselves.

After this the Israelites grew effeminate as to fighting any more against their enemies; but applied themselves to the cultivation of the land; which producing great plenty and riches, they neglected the regular disposition of their settlement, and indulged themselves in luxury and pleasures. Nor were they any longer careful to hear the laws that belonged to their political government. Whereupon God was provoked to anger, and put them in mind, first how contrary to his directions they had spared the Canaanites; and, after that, how those Canaanites, as opportunity served, used them very barbarously. But the Israelites, though they were in heaviness at these admonitions from God, yet were they still very unwilling to go to war. And since they got large tributes from the Canaanites, and were indisposed for taking pains by their luxury, they suffered their aristocracy to be corrupted also, and did not ordain themselves a senate, nor any such magistrates as their laws had formerly required. But they were very much given to cultivating their fields, in order to get wealth; which great indolence of theirs brought a terrible sedition upon them; and they proceeded so far as to fight one against another, from the following occasion.

about; and thinks that if it were, it would quickly be destroyed. Remarks on Italy, 4to. p. 151. Nor is it unfit to be observed here, that the Armenian records, though they give us the history of thirty-nine of their ancientest heroes or governors, after the flood, before the days of Sardanapalus, had no proper king till the 40th Pararus. See More's Chorenensis, p. 55, and the note there. And the Almighty God does not approve of such absolute or tyrannical monarchies, as one may learn, that reads Deut. xvii. 14-20. and 1 Sam. viii. 1-22. xii. 1-26. Although if such kings are set up, as own him for their supreme King; and aim to govern according to his laws, he hath admitted of them, and protected them, and their subjects, in all generations. tt Judge i. 7.

*Of the old giants, their several species, statures, and remaining bones, see Authent. Rec. Part I. p. 260-293, and Part II. 872-938, at large.