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persons, or to the possibility of its being sufficiently extensive to accommodate so large a multitude. It is, however, only necessary to refer to the note on Deut. xxii. 8, and to observe, that oriental roofs, being intended for accommodation, and not merely, as with us, designed as a defence of the interior from the weather, are formed with much greater strength and durability in proportion to their size, than any which our buildings exhibit. They are either constructed with a number of small domes, the external hollows between which are filled up to give a flat surface; or else the roofing, altogether flat, is laid on strong horizontal beams supported on walls and pillars. In all our experience we never heard of a roof, in good condition, concerning which any apprehension was entertained that it could be broken down by any weight which might be placed upon it. As to the extent of roof required for three thousand persons, there was of course as much room on the roof as in the interior; and considering the large scale of many ancient temples and theatres, interior accommodation for three thousand persons, with room for as many more on the flat roof, is indeed a large, but by no means an enormous, estimate. Who that recollects the old temples of Egypt, with their vast flat roofs, of immense blocks and slabs of stone, on which the modern Fellahs establish their villages, will question that a temple-roof might afford room for even a greater number of persons, and be strong enough to bear their weight? Indeed, when we consider the origin of the Philistines, and their near vicinity to the Egyptians, it is no unlikely supposition that the roofs of their public buildings, and indeed the buildings themselves, were on the same large scale and general principles of arrangement as those of their great neighbours. In the Egyptian temples, as in the buildings to which we have referred, there was an interior open area, with the main building opposite the gate which leads to it; and if Samson had made sport' in the area of such a structure as an Egyptian temple, thousands of spectators might, under ordinary circumstances, have stood in perfect security on the roof of the main building and of the

cloisters which usually extend along the other three sides of the quadrangle.

29.

The two middle pillars upon which the house stood. To this it has been objected, how could a roof capable of accommodating three thousand persons, be supported on two pillars? In the first place, we do not see that it is said there were no more than two. Indeed the expression two middle pillars' implies that there were others not in the middle; and if need be, we may translate: The two midmost of the pillars on which the house stood.' We have explained, that the main building, very open in front, does in most oriental buildings, public or private, occupy one side of an inclosed quadrangle. To illustrate our further ideas, we give a wood-cut of an oriental residence of a superior description. It is only intended to bear on the general principle of arrangement; as we, of course, do not suppose that the house' of the text bore any detailed resemblance to it. It will be seen that the large central hall (divan) being quite open in front, the weight of the roof there rests on two pillars (there might be more) which would rest upon the front wall if there had been any. These pillars support in the centre a heavy beam, the ends of which lodge on the side walls; and on it, of course, falls a very considerable part of the weight of the roof, whether it be flat or low, or composed of small domes, one series of which would rest their edges on this beam. Now, if these central pillars were withdrawn, the cross beam would probably not, in ordinary circumstances, break; but its unrelieved weight and that of the part of the roof (always very heavy) supported by it, would either break down the side walls on which the whole weight would then rest; or else the beam would be forced out, when of course the immediately inferior parts of the roof would fall in; and this, connected as the different parts of the roof are with each other and with the walls, would in all probability involve the fall of the whole roof, which, from its great weight, would render the simultaneous breaking down of the walls also a very natural result. If this might happen under ordinary

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circumstances, how much inore, when the roof bore the weight of three thousand people, who were doubtless crowded in front, the better to witness the performances of Samson in the open area? We should then consider the fall of the roof, and with it of the walls, an inevitable consequence of the destruction of the pillars. The fall indeed of the front parts alone would have been sufficient for the purposes of destruction; for while the people on the roof would be thronged in front to see the spectacle, those greater personages below would also be towards the

front of the building, not only for the same reason, but because, if the structure was really a temple, the interior apartment-the adytum, the sanctuary-could not have been a place of concourse, that being (as in the Hebrew tabernacle and temple, and in most heathen temples) sacred to the priests. We add another cut which will assist the reader in apprehending the views expressed in this note by generally illustrating the extent in which 'pillars' contribute to the support of Eastern buildings.

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1 Of the money that Micah first stole, then restored, his mother maketh images, 5 and he ornaments for them. 7 He hireth a Levite to be his priest.

AND there was a man of mount Ephraim, whose name was Micah.

2 And he said unto his mother, The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from thee, about which thou cursedst, and spakest of also in mine ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it. And his mother said, Blessed be thou of the LORD, my son.

mother; and his mother took two hundred shekels of silver, and gave them to the founder, who made thereof a graven image and a molten image and they were in the house of Micah.

5 And the man Micah had an house of gods, and made an 'ephod, and 'teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.

6 'In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his

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3 And when he had restored the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver unto the LORD from my hand for my son, to make a graven image and a molten image: now therefore I will restore it unto thee. 4 Yet he restored the money unto his 2 Gen. 31. 19. Hosea 3. 4. 3 Heb. filled the hand.

1 Chap. 8. 27.

8 And the man departed out of the city from Beth-lehem-judah to sojourn where he could find a place: and he came to mount Ephraim to the house of Micah, as he journeyed.

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Here begins what may properly be considered as an appendix to the book of Judges, and which includes the five remaining chapters, the events recorded in which happened long before the time of Samson, and probably in the interval of anarchy which ensued upon, or began not long after, the death of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him. In chronological order, the proper place for these chapters would probably be between ch. ií. and iii. This appendix consists of two main histories; one explaining the origin of idolatry (or at least of improper worship) in the tribe of Dan, and detailing the foundation of the settlements which the Danites established near the sources of the Jordan. This history, comprehended in the present and following chapter, exhibiting the measures to which the Danites resorted in consequence of their confined territory, is obviously connected with ch. i. 34, where the cause of their insufficient inheritance is stated: The Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain; for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley.' The sad history which occupies the remainder of the appendix (ch. xix.-xxi.) is expressly said to have occurred while Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron (xx. 28), was high-priest; and must therefore be assigned to about the same period.

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Verse 3. I had wholly dedicated the silver unto the Lord.' -This chapter strikingly illustrates the mistaken ideas which had arisen, and which, by insensible degrees, led to downright idolatry. Micah and his mother clearly intended to honour the true God by their proceedings; which were nevertheless such as the law declared to be punishable with death. What they designed seems to have been to set up a little religious establishment in imitation of that at Shiloh, probably with an imitation of the ark, of the images of the cherubim, and of the priestly dress, and ultimately com

CHAPTER XVIII.

1 The Danites send five men to seek out an inheritance. 3 At the house of Micah they consult with Jonathan, and are encouraged in their way. 7 They search Laish, and bring back news of good hope. 11 Six hundred men are sent to surprise it. 14 In the way they rob Micah of his priest and his consecrated things. 27 They win Laish, and call it Dan. 30 They set up idolatry, wherein Jonathan inherited the priesthood.

IN 'those days there was no king in Israel: and in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in; for unto that day all their inheritance had not fallen unto them among the tribes of Israel.

2 And the children of Dan sent of their family five men from their coasts, men of

1 Chap. 17. 6, and 21. 25.

11 And the Levite was content to dwell with the man; and the young man was unto him as one of his sons.

12 And Micah consecrated the Levite; and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah.

13 Then said Micah, Now know I that the LORD will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest.

7 Heb. an order of garments.

pleting the establishment by obtaining a Levite to officiate as priest. And all the while they thought that they were doing God service. But perhaps there was an under speculation of gain: for the proprietor of the establishment would certainly have got into thriving circumstances, if the want of a correct understanding of the law, together with the desire to save the trouble and (in disturbed times) the apparent danger of travelling to Shiloh, had induced the people to bring any portion of their stated offerings to Micah's chapel. That they might the more readily be induced to do so, is probably the reason why Micah, after having tried with his own son as priest, was anxious to obtain for his establishment the sort of credit which the presence of an officiating Levite would appear to give. We need not add that the Levite had no more right to officiate as a priest than Micah's own son. It will be remembered how awfully the attempt of Korah had formerly been punished.

5. An house of gods.'-' A house of God,' or 'a house for his god,' would be more probably correct. The word usually translated ‘God' (Delohim) is always plural; and as Micah evidently intended his establishment in honour of Jehovah, however mistakenly or interestedly, it might be more proper to render the word here in the singular, as it always is rendered when our translators understood it to refer to the true God.

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valour, from Zorah, and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land, and to search it; and they said unto them, Go, search the land: who when they came to mount Ephraim, to the house of Micah, they lodged there.

3 When they were by the house of Micah, they knew the voice of the young man the Levite and they turned in thither, and said unto him, Who brought thee hither? and what makest thou in this place? and what hast thou here?

4 And he said unto them, Thus and thus dealeth Micah with me, and hath hired me, and I am his priest.

5 And they said unto him, Ask counsel, we pray thee, of God, that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous.

2 Heb. sons.

6 And the priest said unto them, Go in peace before the LORD is your way wherein ye go.

7 Then the five men departed, and came to Laish, and saw the people that were therein, how they dwelt careless, after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure; and there was no "magistrate in the land, that might put them to shame in any thing; and they were far from the Zidonians, and had no business with any man.

8 And they came unto their brethren to Zorah and Eshtaol: and their brethren said unto them, What say ye?

9 And they said, Arise, that we may go up against them for we have seen the land, and, behold, it is very good and are ye still? be not slothful to go, and to enter to possess the land.

10 When ye go, ye shall come unto a people secure, and to a large land: for God hath given it into your hands; a place where there is no want of any thing that is in the earth.

11 ¶ And there went from thence of the family of the Danites, out of Zorah and out of Eshtaol, six hundred men appointed with weapons of war.

12 And they went up, and pitched in Kirjath-jearim, in Judah: wherefore they called that place Mahaneh-dan unto this day behold, it is behind Kirjath-jearim.

13 And they passed thence unto mount Ephraim, and came unto the house of Micah. 14 ¶ Then answered the five men that went to spy out the country of Laish, and said unto their brethren, Do ye know that there is in these houses an ephod, and teraphim, and a graven image, and a molten image? now therefore consider what ye have to do.

15 And they turned thitherward, and came to the house of the young man the Levite, even unto the house of Micah, and 'saluted

him.

16 And the six hundred men appointed with their weapons of war, which were of the children of Dan, stood by the entering of the gate.

17 And the five men that went to spy out the land went up, and came in thither, and took the graven image, and the ephod, and the teraphim, and the molten image and the priest stood in the entering of the gate with the six hundred men that were appointed with weapons of war.

3 Heb. possessor, or, heir of restraint.

4 Heb. girded.

18 And these went into Micah's house, and fetched the carved image, the ephod, and the teraphim, and the molten image. Then said the priest unto them, What do ye?

19 And they said unto him, Hold thy peace, lay thine hand upon thy mouth, and go with us, and be to us a father and a priest: is it better for thee to be a priest unto the house of one man, or that thou be a priest unto a tribe and a family in Israel?

20 And the priest's heart was glad, and he took the ephod, and the teraphim, and the graven image, and went in the midst of the people.

21 So they turned and departed, and put the little ones and the cattle and the carriage before them.

22¶ And when they were a good way from the house of Micah, the men that were in the houses near to Micah's house were gathered together, and overtook the children of Dan.

23 And they cried unto the children of Dan. And they turned their faces, and said unto Micah, What aileth thee, that thou comest with such a company?

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24 And he said, Ye have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and ye are gone away and what have I more? and what is this that ye say unto me, What aileth thee?

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25 And the children of Dan said unto him, Let not thy voice be heard among us, lest 'angry fellows run upon thee, and thou lose thy life, with the lives of thy houshold.

26 And the children of Dan went their way: and when Micah saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back unto his house.

27 ¶ And they took the things which Micah had made, and the priest which he had, and came unto Laish, unto a people that were at quiet and secure: and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and burnt the city with. fire.

28 And there was no deliverer, because it was far from Zidon, and they had no business with any man; and it was in the valley that lieth by Beth-rehob. And they built a city, and dwelt therein.

29 And they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who was born unto Israel: howbeit the name of the city was Laish at the first.

30 And the children of Dan set up the Heb. that thou art gathered together.

5 Heb. asked him of peace.

7 Heb. bitter of soul.

8 Josh. 19. 47.

graven image and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land.

Verse 19. Priest unto a tribe.'-All this transaction obviously means that the Danites wished to have, and had, a religious establishment independent of that at Shiloh and to this course they were probably the more induced by considering the distance of the colony they were about to establish from the present seat of the tabernacle, to which the law required them to resort with their offerings three times every year. On the unlawfulness of such innovations, and the evils they were calculated to produce, we have already remarked in the notes to chaps. viii. and xvii. [APPENDIX, No. 28.]

28. There was no deliverer, because it was far from Zidon.'-As the people of this place lived after the manner of the Sidonians, and were so circumstanced as to have a claim on their assistance, it is highly probable they formed a colony from Sidon, and were connected with or dependent on that state.

30. Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh.-There is but the difference of one small letter between the name of Manasseh (), as here, and that of Moses (); and it is now generally agreed that this Jonathan was really the son of Moses's son Gershom, the Jews having interpolated the in order to hide this disgrace upon the family of their great lawgiver and prophet. The singular name of Gershom, and the date of the trans

31 And they set them up Micah's graven image, which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh.

action, concur in establishing this view. Accordingly, the Vulgate and some copies of the Septuagint have the name of Moses' instead of Manasseh. Indeed, the interpolation has been very timidly executed. The letter ♬ was originally placed above the line of the other letters (as it now appears in the printed Hebrew Bibles), as if rather to suggest than to make an alteration; but in process of time the letter sunk down into the body of the word. The Hebrew writers themselves admit this; and say that the intention was to veil this disgrace on the house of Moses, by suggesting a figurative descent of Jonathan from Manasseh, the idolatrous king of Judah, who lived about 800 years after the date of the present transactions.

It seems almost certain that this Jonathan, the grandson of Moses, was the same who had been Micah's priest: and how touchingly does it speak for the magnanimous disinterestedness of that truly great man, that not only did he twice decline the offer of the aggrandizement of his own family, when the Lord proposed to make of him a great nation,' rejecting the Israelites for their rebellions:- but that, neglecting all opportunities of enriching his descendants, he left his sons undistinguished from commou Levites by rank or patrimony, and so poor, that one of his grandsons was glad to accept a situation which afforded only his victuals, with a suit of clothes and a salary of less than twenty-five shillings by the year!

CHAPTER XIX.

1 A Levite going to Beth-lehem to fetch home his wife, 16 An old man entertaineth him at Gibeah. 22 The Gibeathites abuse his concubine to death. 29 He divideth her into twelve pieces, to send them to the twelve tribes.

AND it came to pass in those days,' when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the side of mount Ephraim, who took to him a concubine out of Beth-lehem-judah.

2 And his concubine played the whore against him, and went away from him unto her father's house to Beth-lehem-judah, and was there four whole months.

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3 And her husband arose, and went after her, to speak friendly unto her, and to bring her again, having his servant with him, and a couple of asses: and she brought him into her father's house: and when the father of the damsel saw him, he rejoiced to meet him.

4 And his father in law, the damsel's father, retained him; and he abode with him three days: so they did eat and drink, and lodged there.

5 And it came to pass on the fourth day,

1 Chap. 17. 6, and 18. 1, and 21. 25.
4 Heb. days four months.

72

Heb. is weak.

when they arose early in the morning, that he rose up to depart: and the damsel's father said unto his son in law, Comfort thine heart with a morsel of bread, and afterward go your

way.

6 And they sat down, and did eat and drink both of them together: for the damsel's father had said unto the man, Be content, I pray thee, and tarry all night, and let thine heart be merry.

7 And when the man rose up to depart, his father in law urged him: therefore he lodged there again.

8 And he arose early in the morning on the fifth day to depart: and the damsel's father said, Comfort thine heart, I pray thee. And they tarried until afternoon, and they did eat both of them.

9 And when the man rose up to depart, he, and his concubine, and his servant, his father in law, the damsel's father, said unto him, Behold, now the day 'draweth toward evening, I pray you tarry all night: behold, "the day groweth to an end, lodge here, that thine heart may be merry; and to morrow get you early on your way, that thou mayest go 'home.

Heb. a woman a concubine, or, a wife a concubine. 5 Heb. to her heart. 6 Heb. Strengthen. 9 Heb. it is the pitching time of the day.

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3 Or, a year and four months. 7 Heb. till the day declined. Heb. to thy tent.

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