even beast slain, in obedience to the hasty vow; all but 600 of the strongest men, who made their way to the rock Rimmon, or "of the Pomegranates," a steep, conical, chalk hill, with deep caverns in it; and there for four months they held out, while all the land around was laid desolate.

But when this deadly work was done, the Israelites reflected on the effect, the twelfth tribe, old Jacob's darling, would drop out of the reckoning of the tribes; and they wept when they met at Shiloh for a festival and the place of Benjamin was empty. There were only the 600 left, not a woman nor a child; and every one was bound by an oath not to allow his daughter to marry one of them, so that with them the tribe would be extinct. Still, it was not of the Lord they sought counsel, but of themselves. They reckoned whether any place had failed to send its men to the muster against Benjamin, and they found that Jabesh-Gilead-far out beyond Jordan-the Gileadite capital, had done so. This omission they ferociously requited, by sending an expedition to destroy the place and the dwellers therein, all but the maidens; and having captured 400 virgins out of their desolated homes, they called the Benjamnites on the Rock of Pomegranates to come peaceably down, take the wives thus provided for them, and return to their cities.

Still there were 200 not provided for, and in order that they should obtain wives without a breaking of the oath, advice was given them that when the great feast of the vintage came at Shiloh, and the maidens of the place came out to dance in the vineyards, they should lie in wait, and suddenly break out upon the festivity, each one securing for himself a young girl! This strange device - was carried out, and Benjamin again took its place among the tribes; but the effect of this frightful reduction in the numbers was, that Judah overflowed into the mountains of Renin the villages were inhabited by persons

LESSON XXIV.

THE ANGEL AT BOCHIM.

B.C. 1400.-JUDGES ii. 1-5, 11-23.

And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.

And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this?

Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.

And it came to pass, when the angel of the LORD spake these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice, and wept. And they called the name of that place Bochim,* and they sacrificed there unto the LORD.

And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim :

And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger.

And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal + and Ashtaroth.‡

And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies.

Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn unto them and they were greatly distressed.

Nevertheless the LORD raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.

And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the LORD; but they did not so.

And when the LORD raised them up judges, then the LORD was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge for it repented the LORD because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them.

:

* Weeping.

+ The Sun-god.

The Moon-goddess.

And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way.

And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel; and he said, Because that this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice;

I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died:

That through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the LORD to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it, or not.

Therefore the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily; neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua.

COMMENT. This book of the Holy Scripture is a collection of the lives and exploits of the great men whom God raised up from time to time to lead and rescue His people. The word Judge-as we now have it in English—means one whose office it is to weigh causes and do justice between man and man, or to try criminals; but this does not express the character of the men here described. They were rather heroes, who, having led the people of Israel or of some tribe to battle and victory, were then treated as heads and chiefs, with power to call out the warriors of the tribe in case of need. The Phoenicians of Carthage had governors much like these Judges, who were known to the Romans as suffetes.

The first chapter of the Book of Judges tells what remnants of the idolatrous nations each tribe failed to drive out, and then ensues that wonderful Divine rebuke, when the Angel of the Lord came from Gilgal, where Israel had passed the Jordan and renewed the covenant, and appearing to the people, probably near Shiloh, at some solemn assembly, gave them warning of the consequence of their slackness. There was no longer to be on their side the miraculous strength that made no man able to stand before them, but the hostile people would remain, to be the temptation and the punishment that had been foretold. The supernatural grace had been neglected-it was now taken away.

Just so, if we do not fight with our bad habits in the fresh grace of Baptism, Confirmation, and First Communion, there will be these besetting sins, not uprooted, but left to be our snares' and our traps for life, kept perhaps from being our destruction, but only by a far more trying and perpetual watch than if we had resisted and

conquered them in the freshness of our youth, while our character was still forming itself.

The people wept so bitterly at the warning, that the place was called Bochim (or "weeping"). It is the place of repentance, the vale of Baca, or of weeping, that the good man passes through in the 84th Psalm. It is not quite clear whether this angel appeared before or after the death of Joshua; at any rate it was before the generation had passed away who overlived him, and before the corruption foretold had begun. The weeping and sacrifice of Bochim were so far accepted that God forgave these men for their faint-hearted indolence, but the whole country was in a worse state in consequence of their neglect, and their children suffered for it. Just so those who do not destroy their evil habits early must be in a much lower state of holiness all their lives than those who do.

The rest of the chapter is really a sketch in short of the whole Book to come-the sin, the repentance, the deliverance, the relapse.

Baal was the great Sun-god worshipped by most Eastern nations. His name meant "lord," and was added to the names of other gods. With the addition of im, the Hebrew plural, the word (Baalim) stood for all the Canaanite gods. Astarte (or Ashtaroth) was the goddess of the Moon, and her name was also applied to all other goddesses. Her worship was very tempting, as it had to do with the joy at the awakening of spring, and the women of Israel were continually tempted by it.

LESSON XXV.

DEBORAH AND BARAK.

JUDGES iv. 1-17.

B.C. 1296.-The first great chastisement of the Israelites was one of the inroads of the kings of Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. A king called in the Book of Judges

Chusan-rishathaim conquered the country, but after eight years the brave Othniel, the nephew and son-in-law of Caleb, took the command of Israel, delivered the country from the enemy, and so ruled Israel that it was kept from idolatry, and had rest.

But after Othniel's death there was another falling away, and this was punished by an invasion of the Moabites, from the other side of the Dead Sea, with the Ammonites and Amalekites. They overran the southern tribes, and forced them to pay a tribute for eighteen years, until Ehud the Benjamite, being sent to carry the tribute to Eglon, king of Moab, contrived to kill him, and in the confusion that followed freed the country for another period of rest, only broken by an attack from the Philistines in the south, when an Israelite named Shamgar, with no better weapon than the iron spike used for driving oxen, slew six hundred enemies.

And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, when Ehud was dead.

And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles.

And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.

And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time.

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.

And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kadesh-naphtali, and said unto him, Hath not the LORD God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?

And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand.

And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go.

And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.

And Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; and he went up with ten thousand men at his feet: and Deborah went up with him.

Now Heber the Kenite, which was of the children of Hobab the father in law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the plain of Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh.

And they shewed Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam was gone up to mount Tabor.

And Sisera gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots