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The Legends of the Jews — Volume 4

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Title: The Legends of the Jews — Volume 4

Author: Louis Ginzberg

Translator: Paul Radin
        Henrietta Szold


        
Release date: October 1, 2001 [eBook #2882]
                Most recently updated: February 4, 2022

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2882

Credits: David Reed


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS — VOLUME 4 ***




The Legends of the Jews

by Louis Ginzberg


TRANSLATED PROM THE GERMAN MANUSCRIPT


VOLUME IV
BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS
FROM JOSHUA TO ESTHER




Contents

 I. JOSHUA
 The Servant of Moses
 Entering the Promised Land
 Conquest of the Land
 The Sun Obeys Joshua
 War with the Armenians
 Allotment of the Land

 II. THE JUDGES
 The First Judge
 Campaigns of Kenaz
 Othniel
 Boaz and Ruth
 Deborah
 Gideon
 Jephthah
 Samson
 The Crime of the Benjamites

 III. SAMUEL AND SAUL
 Elkanah and Hannah
 The Youth of Samuel
 Eli and His Sons
 The Activities of Samuel
 The Reign of Saul
 The Court of Saul

 IV. DAVID
 David's Birth and Descent
 Anointed King
 Encounter with Goliath
 Pursued by Saul
 Wars
 Ahithophel
 Joab
 David's Piety and His Sin
 Absalom's Rebellion
 David's Atonement
 Visitations
 The Death of David
 David in Paradise
 The Family of David
 His Tomb

 V. SOLOMON
 Solomon Punishes Joab
 The Marriage of Solomon
 His Wisdom
 The Queen of Sheba
 Solomon Master of the Demons
 The Building of the Temple
 The Throne of Solomon
 The Hippodrome
 Lessons in Humility
 Asmodeus
 Solomon as Beggar
 The Court of Solomon

 VI. JUDAH AND ISRAEL
 The Division of the Kingdom
 Jeroboam
 The Two Ahijabs
 Asa
 Jehoshaphat and Ahab
 Jezebel
 Joram of Israel

 VII. ELIJAH
 Elijah before His Translation
 After His Translation
 Censor and Avenger
 Intercourse with the Sages
 God's Justice Vindicated
 Elijah and the Angel of Death
 Teacher of the Kabbalah
 Forerunner of the Messiah

 VIII. ELISHA AND JONAH
 Elisha the Disciple of Elijah
 The Shunammite
 Gehazi
 The Flight of Jonah
 Jonah in the Whale
 The Repentance of Nineveh

 IX. THE LATER KINGS OF JUDAH
 Joash
 Three Great Prophets
 The Two Kingdoms Chastised
 Hezekjah
 Miracles Wrought for Hezekiah
 Manasseh
 Josiah and His Successors

 X. THE EXILE
 Zedekiah
 Jeremiah
 Nebuchadnezzar
 The Capture of Jerusalem
 The Great Lament
 Jeremiah's Journey to Babylon
 Transportation of the Captives
 The Sons of Moses
 Ebedmelech
 The Temple Vessels
 Baruch
 The Tombs of Baruch and Ezekie1
 Daniel
 The Three Men in the Furnace
 Ezekiel Revives the Dead
 Nebuchadnezzar a Beast
 Hiram
 The False Prophets
 Daniel's Piety

 XI. THE RETURN OF THE CAPTIVITY
 Belshazzar's Feast
 Daniel under the Persian Kings
 The Grave of Daniel
 Zerubbabel
 Ezra
 The Men of the Great Assembly

 XII. ESTHER
 The Feast for the Grandees
 The Festivities in Shushan
 Vashti's Banquet
 The Fate of Vashti
 The Follies of Ahasuerus
 Mordecai
 Esther's Beauty and Piety
 The Conspiracy
 Haman the Jew-baiter
 Mordecai's Pride
 Casting the Lots
 The Denunciation of the Jews
 The Decree of Annihilation
 Satan Indicts the Jews
 The Dream of Mordecai Fulfilled
 The Prayer of Esther
 Esther Intercedes
 The Disturbed Night
 The Fall of Haman
 The Edict of the King




I.
JOSHUA

THE SERVANT OF MOSES

The early history of the first Jewish conqueror (1) in some respects is
like the early history of the first Jewish legislator. Moses was
rescued from a watery grave, and raised at the court of Egypt. Joshua,
in infancy, was swallowed by a whale, and , wonderful to relate, did
not perish. At a distant point of the sea-coast the monster spewed him
forth unharmed. He was found by compassionate passers-by, and grew up
ignorant of his descent. The government appointed him to the office of
hangman. As luck would have it, he had to execute his own father. By
the law of the land the wife of the dead man fell to the share of his
executioner, and Joshua was on the point of adding to parricide another
crime equally heinous. He was saved by a miraculous sign. When he
approached his mother, milk flowed from her breasts. His suspicions
were aroused, and through the inquiries he set a foot regarding his
origin, the truth was made manifest. (2)

Later Joshua, who was so ignorant that he was called a fool, became the
minister of Moses, and God rewarded his faithful service by making him
the successor to Moses. (3) He was designated as such to Moses when, at
the bidding of his master, he was carrying on war with the Amalekites.
(4) In this campaign God's care of Joshua was plainly seen. Joshua had
condemned a portion of the Amalekites to death by lot, and the heavenly
sword picked them out for extermination. (5) Yet there was as great a
difference between Moses and Joshua as between the sun and the moon.
(6) God did not withdraw His help from Joshua, but He was by no means
so close to him as to Moses. This appeared immediately after Moses had
passed away. At the moment when the Israelitish leader was setting out
on his journey to the great beyond, he summoned his successor and bade
him put questions upon all points about which he felt uncertain.
Conscious of his own industry and devotion, Joshua replied that he had
no questions to ask, seeing that he had carefully studied the teachings
of Moses. Straightway he forgot three hundred Halakot, and doubts
assailed him concerning seven hundred others. The people threatened
Joshua's life, because he was not able to resolve their difficulties in
the law. It was vain to turn to God, for the Torah once revealed was
subject to human, not to heavenly, authority. (7) Directly after Moses'
death, God commanded Joshua to go to war, so that the people might
forget its grievance against him. (8) But it is false to think that the
great conqueror was nothing more than a military hero. When God
appeared to him, to give him instructions concerning the war, He found
him with the Book of Deuteronomy in his hand, whereupon God called to
him: "Be strong and of good courage; the book of the law shall not
depart out of thy mouth." (9)

ENTERING THE PROMISED LAND

The first step in preparation for war was the selection of spies. To
guard against a repetition of what had happened to Moses, Joshua chose
as his messengers Caleb and Phinehas, on whom he could place dependence
in all circumstances. (10) They were accompanied on their mission by
two demons, the husbands of the she-devils Lilith and Mahlah. When
Joshua was planning his campaign, these devils offered their services
to him; they proposed that they be sent out to reconnoitre the land.
Joshua refused the offer, but formed their appearance so frightfully
that the residents of Jericho were struck with fear of them. (11) In
Jericho the spies put up with Rahab. She had been leading an immoral
life for forty years, but at the approach of Israel, she paid homage to
the true God, lived the life of a pious convert, and, as the wife of
Joshua, became the ancestress of eight prophets and of the prophetess
Huldah. (12) She had opportunity in her own house of beholding the
wonders of God. When the king's bailiffs came to make their
investigations, and Rahab wanted to conceal the Israelitish spies,
Phinehas calmed her with the words: "I am a priest, and priests are
like angels, visible when they wish to be seen, invisible when they do
not wish to be seen." (13)

After the return of the spies, Joshua decided to pass over the Jordan.
The crossing of the river was the occasion for wonders, the purpose of
which was to clothe him with authority in the eyes of the people.
Scarcely had the priests, who at this solemn moment took the place of
the Levites as bearers of the Ark, set foot in the Jordan, when the
waters of the river were piled up to a height of three hundred miles.
All the peoples of the earth were witnesses of the wonder. (14) In the
bed of the Jordan Joshua assembled the people around the Ark. A Divine
miracle caused the narrow space between its staves to contain the whole
concourse. Joshua then proclaimed the conditions under which God would
give Palestine to the Israelites, and he added, if these conditions
were not accepted, the waters of the Jordan would descend straight upon
them. Then they marched through the river. When the people arrived on
the further shore, the holy Ark, which had all the while been standing
in the bed of the river, set forward of itself, and, dragging the
priests after it, overtook the people.

The day continued eventful. Unassailed, the Israelites marched seventy
miles to Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, and there performed the ceremony
bidden by Moses in Deuteronomy: six of the tribes ascended Mount
Gerizim, and six Mount Ebal. The priests and the Levites grouped
themselves about the holy Ark in the vale between the two peaks. With
their faces turned toward Gerizim, the Levites uttered the words:
"Happy the man that maketh no idol, an abomination unto the Lord," and
all the people answered Amen. After reciting twelve blessings similar
to this in form, the Levites turned to Mount Ebal, and recited twelve
curses, counterparts of the blessings, to each of which the people
responded again with Amen. Thereupon an altar was erected on Mount Ebal
with the stones, each weighing forty seim, which the Israelites had
taken from the bed of the river while passing through the Jordan. The
altar was plastered with lime, and the Torah written upon it in seventy
languages, so that the heathen nations might have the opportunity of
learning the law. At the end it was said explicitly that the heathen
outside of Palestine, if they would but abandon the worship of idols,
would be received kindly by the Jews.

All this happened on one day, on the same day on which the Jordan was
crossed, and the assembly was held on Gerizim and Ebal,   the day on
which the people arrived at Gilgal, where they left the stones of which
the altar had been built. (15) At Gilgal Joshua performed the rite of
circumcision on those born in the desert, who had remained
uncircumcised on account of the rough climate and for other reasons.
(16) And here it was that the manna gave out. It had ceased to fall at
the death of Moses, but the supply that had been stored up had lasted
some time longer. (17) As soon as the people were under the necessity
of providing for their daily wants, they grew negligent in the study of
the Torah. Therefore the angel admonished Joshua to loose his shoes
from off his feet, for he was to mourn over the decline of the study of
the Torah, (18) and bare feet are a sign of mourning. The angel
reproached Joshua in particular with having allowed the preparations
for war to interfere with the study of the Torah and with the ritual
service. Neglect of the latter might be a venial sin, but neglect of
the former is worthy of condign punishment. (19) At the same time the
angel assured Joshua that he had come to aid him, and he entreated
Joshua not to draw back from him, like Moses, who had refused the good
offices of the angel. (20) He who spoke to Joshua was none other than
the archangel Michael. (21)

CONQUEST OF THE LAND

Joshua's first victory was the wonderful capture of Jericho. The whole
of the city was declared anathema, because it had been conquered on the
Sabbath day. Joshua reasoned that as the Sabbath is holy, so also that
which conquered on the Sabbath should be holy. (22) The brilliant
victory was followed by the luckless defeat at Ai. In this engagement
perished Jair, the son of Manasseh, whose loss was as great as if the
majority of the Sanhedrin had been destroyed. (23) Presently Joshua
discovered that the cause of the defeat was the sinfulness of Israel,
brought upon it by Achan, who had laid hands on some of the spoils of
Jericho. Achan was a hardened transgressor and criminal from of old.
During the life of Moses he had several times appropriated to his own
use things that had been declared anathema, (24) and he had committed
other crimes worthy of the death penalty. (25) Before the Israelites
crossed the Jordan, God had not visited Achan's sins upon the people as
a whole, because at that time it did not form a national unit yet. But
when Achan abstracted an idol and all its appurtenances from Jericho,
(26) the misfortune of Ai followed at once.

Joshua inquired of God, why trouble had befallen Israel, but God
refused to reply. He was no tale-bearer; the evil-doer who had caused
the disaster would have to be singled out by lot. (27) Joshua first of
all summoned the high priest from the assembly of the people. It
appeared that, while the other jewels in his breastplate gleamed
bright, the stone representing the tribe of Judah was dim. (28) By lot
Achan was set apart from the members of his tribe. Achan, however,
refused to submit to the decision by lot. He said to Joshua: "Among all
living men thou and Phinehas are the most pious. Yet, if lots were cast
concerning you two, one or other of you would be declared guilty. Thy
teacher Moses has been dead scarcely one month, and thou has already
begun to go astray, for thou hast forgotten that a man's guilt can be
proved only through two witnesses."

Endued with the holy spirit, Joshua divined that the land was to be
assigned to the tribes and families of Israel by lot, and he realized
that nothing ought to be done to bring this method of deciding into
disrepute. He, therefore, tried to persuade Achan to make a clean
breast of his transgression. (29) Meantime, the Judeans, the tribesmen
of Achan, rallied about him, and throwing themselves upon the other
tribes, they wrought fearful havoc and bloodshed. This determined Achan
to confess his sins. (30) The confession cost him his life, but it
saved him from losing his share in the world to come. (31)

In spite of the reverses at Ai, (32) the terror inspired by the
Israelites grew among the Canaanitish peoples. The Gibeonites planned
to circumvent the invaders, and form an alliance with them. Now, before
Joshua set out on his campaign, he had issued three proclamations: the
nation that would leave Canaan might depart unhindered; the nation that
would conclude peace with the Israelites, should do it at once; and the
nation that would choose war, should make its preparations. If the
Gibeonites had sued for the friendship of the Jews when the
proclamation came to their ears, there would have been no need for
subterfuges later. But the Canaanites had to see with their own eyes
what manner of enemy awaited them, and all the nations prepared for
war. The result was that the thirty-one kings of Palestine perished, as
well as the satraps of many foreign kings, who were proud to own
possessions in the Holy Land. (33) Only the Girgashites departed out of
Palestine, and as a reward for their docility God gave them Africa as
an inheritance. (34)

The Gibeonites deserved no better fate than all the rest, for the
covenant made with them rested upon a misapprehension, yet Joshua kept
his promise to them, in order to sanctify the name of God, by showing
the world how sacred an oath is to the Israelites. (35) In the course
of events it became obvious that the Gibeonites were by no means worthy
of being received into the Jewish communion, and David, following
Joshua's example, excluded them forever, a sentence that will remain in
force even in the Messianic time. (36)

THE SUN OBEYS JOSHUA

The task of protecting the Gibeonites involved in the offensive and
defensive alliance made with them, Joshua fulfilled scrupulously. He
had hesitated for a moment whether to aid the Gibeonites in their
distress, but the words of God sufficed to recall him to his duty. God
said to him: "If thou dost not bring near them that are far off, thou
wilt remove them that are near by." (37) God granted Joshua peculiar
favor in his conflict with the assailants of the Gibeonites. The hot
hailstones which, at Moses' intercession, had remained suspended in the
air when they were about to fall upon the Egyptians, were now cast down
upon the Canaanites. (38) Then happened the great wonder of the sun's
standing still, the sixth (39) of the great wonders since the creation
of the world.

The battle took place on a Friday. Joshua knew it would pain the people
deeply to be compelled to desecrate the holy Sabbath day. Besides, he
noticed that the heathen were using sorcery to make the heavenly hosts
intercede for them in the fight against the Israelites. He, therefore,
pronounced the Name of the Lord, and the sun, moon and stars stood
still. (40) The sun at first refused to obey Joshua's behest, seeing
that he was older than man by two days. Joshua replied that there was
no reason why a free-born youth should refrain from enjoining silence
upon an old slave whom he owns, and had not God given heaven and earth
to our father Abraham? (41) Nay, more than this, had not the sun
himself bowed down like a slave before Joseph? "But," said the sun,
"who will praise God if I am silent?" (42) Whereupon Joshua: "Be thou
silent, and I will intone a song of praise." (43) And he sang thus:

1. Thou hast done mighty things, O Lord, Thou has performed great
deeds. Who is like unto Thee? My lips shall sing unto Thy name.

2. My goodness and my fortress, my refuge, I will sing a new song unto
Thee, with thanksgiving I will sing unto Thee, Thou art the strength of
my salvation.

3. All the kings of the earth shall praise Thee, the princes of the
world shall sing unto Thee, the children of Israel shall rejoice in Thy
salvation, they shall sing and praise Thy power.

4. In Thee, O God, did we trust; we said, Thou art our God, for Thou
wast our shelter and our strong tower against our enemies.

5. To Thee we cried, and we were not ashamed; in Thee we trusted, and
we were delivered; when we cried unto Thee, Thou didst hear our voice,
Thou didst deliver our souls from the sword.

6. Thou hast shown unto us Thy mercy, Thou didst give unto us Thy
salvation, Thou didst rejoice our hearts with Thy strength.

7. Thou wentest forth for our salvation; with the strength of Thy arm
Thou didst redeem Thy people; Thou did console us from the heavens of
Thy holiness, Thou didst save us from tens of thousands.

8. Sun and moon stood still in heaven, and Thou didst stand in Thy
wrath against our oppressors, and Thou didst execute Thy judgements
upon them.

9. All the princes of the earth stood up, the kings of the nations had
gathered themselves together, they were not moved at Thy presence, they
desired Thy battles.

10. Thou didst rise against them in Thine anger, and Thou didst bring
down Thy wrath upon them, Thou didst destroy them in Thy fury, and Thou
didst ruin them in Thy rage.

11. Nations raged from fear of Thee, kingdoms tottered because of Thy
wrath, Thou didst wound kings in the day of Thine anger.

12. Thou didst pour out Thy fury upon them, Thy wrathful anger took
hold of them, Thou didst turn their iniquity upon them, and Thou didst
cut them off in their wickedness.

13. They spread a trap, they fell therein, in the net they hid their
foot was caught.

14. Thine hand found all Thine enemies, who said, through their sword
they possessed the land, through their arm thy dwelt in the city.

15. Thou didst fill their faces with shame, Thou didst bring their
horns down to the ground.

16. Thou didst terrify them in Thy wrath, and thou didst destroy them
from before Thee.

17. The earth quaked and trembled from the noise of Thy thunder against
them; Thou didst not withhold their souls from earth, and Thou didst
bring down their lives to the grave.

18. Thou didst pursue them in Thy storm, Thou didst consume them in the
whirlwind, Thou didst turn their rain into hail, they fell in floods,
so that they could not rise.

19. Their carcasses were like rubbish cast out in the middle of the
streets.

20. They were consumed, and they perished before Thee, Thou hast
delivered Thy people in Thy might.

21. Therefore our hearts rejoice in Thee, our souls exult in Thy
salvation.

22. Our tongues shall relate Thy might, we will sing and praise Thy
wondrous works.

23. For Thou didst save us from our enemies, Thou didst deliver us from
those who rose up against us, Thou didst destroy them from before us,
and depress them beneath our feet.

24. Thus shall all Thine enemies perish, O Lord, and the wicked shall
be like chaff driven by the wind, and Thy beloved shall be like trees
planted by the waters. (44)

WAR WITH THE ARMENIANS

Joshua's victorious course did not end with the conquest of the land.
His war with the Armenians, after Palestine was subdued, marked the
climax of his heroic deeds. Among the thirty-one kings whom Joshua had
slain, there was one whose son, Shobach by name, was king of Armenia.
With the purpose of waging war with Joshua, he united the forty-five
kings of Persia and Media, and they were joined by the renowned hero
Japheth. The allied kings in a letter informed Joshua of their design
against him as follow: "The noble, distinguished council of the kings
of Persia and Media to Joshua, peace! Thou wolf of the desert, we well
know what thou didst to our kinsmen. Thou didst destroy our palaces;
without pity thou didst slay young and old; our fathers thou didst mow
down with the sword; and their cities thou didst turn into desert.
Know, then, that in the space of thirty days, we shall come to thee,
we, the forty-five kings, each having sixty thousand warriors under
him, all them armed with bows and arrows, girt about with swords, all
of us skilled in the ways of war, and with us the hero Japheth. Prepare
now for the combat, and say not afterward that we took thee at
unawares."

The messenger bearing the letter arrived on the day before the Feast of
Weeks. Although Joshua was greatly wrought up by the contents of the
letter, he kept his counsel until after the feast, in order not to
disturb the rejoicing of the people. Then, at the conclusion of the
feast, he told the people of the message that had reached him, so
terrifying that even he, the veteran warrior, trembled at the heralded
approach of the enemy. Nevertheless Joshua determined to accept the
challenge. From the first words his reply was framed to show the
heathen how little their fear possessed him whose trust was set in God.
The introduction to his epistle reads as follows: "In the Name of the
Lord, the God of Israel, who saps the strength of the iniquitous
warrior, and slays the rebellious sinner. He breaks up the assemblies
of marauding transgressors, and He gathers together in council the
pious and the just scattered abroad, He the God of all gods, the Lord
of all lords, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is the Lord of
war! From me, Joshua, the servant of God, and from the holy and chosen
congregation to the impious nations, who pay worship to images, and
prostrate themselves before idols: No peace unto you, saith my God!
Know that ye acted foolishly to awaken the slumbering lion, to rouse up
the lion's whelp, to excite his wrath. I am ready to pay you your
recompense. Be ye prepared to meet me, for within a week I shall be
with you to slay your warriors to a man."

Joshua goes on to recite all the wonders God had done for Israel, who
need fear no power on earth; and he ends his missive with the words:
"If the hero Japheth is with you, we have in the midst of us the Hero
of heroes, the Highest above all the high."

The heathen were not a little alarmed at the tone of Joshua's letter.
Their terror grew when the messenger told of the exemplary discipline
maintained in the Isrealitish army, of the gigantic stature of Joshua,
who stood five ells high, of his royal apparel, of his crown graven
with the Name of God. At the end of seven days Joshua appeared with
twelve thousand troops. When the mother of King Shobach, who was a
powerful witch, espied the host, she exercised her magic art, and
enclosed the Isrealitish army in seven walls. Joshua thereupon sent
forth a carrier pigeon to communicate his plight to Nabiah, the king of
the trans-Jordanic tribes. He urged him to hasten to his help and bring
the priest Phinehas and the sacred trumpets with him. Nabiah did not
tarry. Before the relief detachment arrived, his mother reported to
Shobach that she beheld a star arise out of the East against which her
machinations were vain. Shobach threw his mother from the wall, and he
himself was soon afterward killed by Nabiah. Meantime Phinehas arrived,
and, at the sound of his trumpets, the wall toppled down. A pitched
battle ensued, and the heathen were annihilated. (45)

ALLOTMENT OF THE LAND

At the end of seven years of warfare, (46) Joshua could at last venture
to parcel out the conquered land among the tribes. This was the way he
did it. The high priest Eleazar, attended by Joshua and all the people,
and arrayed in the Urim and Thummim, stood before two urns. One of the
urns contained the names of the tribes, the other the names of the
districts into which the land was divided. The holy spirit caused him
to exclaims "Zebulon." When he put his hand into the first urn, lo, he
drew forth the word Zebulon, and from the other came the word Accho,
meaning the district of Accho. Thus it happened with each tribe in
succession. (47) In order that the boundaries might remain fixed,
Joshua had had the Hazubah (48) planted between the districts. The
rootstock of this plant once established in a spot, it can be
extirpated only with the greatest difficulty. The plough may draw deep
furrows over it, yet it puts forth new shoots, and grows up again amid
the grain, still marking the old division lines. (49)

In connection with the allotment of the land Joshua issued ten
ordinances intended, in a measure, to restrict the rights in private
property: Pasturage in the woods was to be free to the public at large.
Any one was permitted to gather up bits of wood in the field. The same
permission to gather up all grasses, wherever they might grow, unless
they were in a field that had been sown with fenugreek, which needs
grass for protection. For grafting purposes twigs could be cut from any
plant except the olive-trees. Water springs belonged to the whole town.
It was lawful for any one to catch fish in the Sea of Tiberias,
provided navigation was not impeded. The area adjacent to the outer
side of a fence about a field might be used by any passer-by to ease
nature. From the close of the harvest until the seventeenth day of
Marheshwan fields could be crossed. A traveler who lost his way among
vineyards could not be held responsible for the damage done in the
effort to recover the right path. A dead body found in a field was to
be buried on the spot where it was found. (50)

The allotment of the land to the tribes and subdividing each district
among the tribesmen took as much time as the conquest of the land. (51)

When the two tribes and a half from the land beyond Jordan returned
home after an absence of fourteen years, they were not a little
astonished to hear that the boys who had been too young to go to the
wars with them had in the meantime shown themselves worthy of the
fathers. They had been successful in repulsing the Ishmaelitish tribes
who had taken advantage of the absence of the men capable of bearing
arms to assault their wives and children. (52)

After a leadership of twenty-eight years (53), marked with success (54)
in war and in peace, Joshua departed this life. His followers laid the
knives he had used in circumcising the Israelites (55) into his grave,
and over it they erected a pillar as a memorial of the great wonder of
the sun's standing still over Ajalon. (56) However, the mourning for
Joshua was not so great as might justly have been expected. The
cultivation of the recently conquered land so occupied the attention of
the tribes that they came nigh forgetting the man to whom chiefly they
owed their possession of it. As a punishment for their ingratitude,
God, soon after Joshua's death, brought also the life of the high
priest Eleazar and of the other elders to a close, and the mount on
which Joshua's body was interred began to tremble, and threatened to
engulf the Jews. (57)




II.
THE JUDGES

THE FIRST JUDGE

After the death of Joshua the Israelites inquired to God whether they
were to go up against the Canaanites in war. They were given the
answer: "If ye are pure of heart, go forth unto the combat; but if your
hearts are sullied with sin, then refrain." They inquired furthermore
how to test the heart of the people. God ordered them to cast lots and
set apart those designated by lot, for they would be the sinful among
them. Again, when the people besought God to give it a guide and
leader, an angel answered: "Cast lots in the tribe of Caleb." The lot
designated Kenaz, and he was made prince over Israel. (1)

His first act was to determine by lot who were the sinners in Israel,
and what their inward thought. He declared before the people: "If I and
my house be set apart by lot, deal with us as we deserve, burn us with
fire." The people assenting, lots were cast, and 345 of the tribe of
Judah were singled out, 560 of Reuben, 775 of Simon, 150 of Levi, 665
of Issachar, 545 of Zebulon, 380 of Gad, and 665 of Asher, 480 of
Manasseh, 448 of Ephraim, and 267 of Benhamin. (2) So 6110 (3) persons
were confined in prison, until God should let it be know what was to be
done with them. The united prayers of Kenaz, Eleazar the high priest,
and the elders of the congregation, were answered thus: "Ask these men
now to confess their iniquity, and they shall be burnt with fire."
Kenaz thereupon exhorted them: "Ye know that Achan, the son of Zabdi,
committed the trespass of taking the anathema, but the lot fell upon
him, and he confessed his sin. Do ye likewise confess your sins, that
ye may come to life with those whom God will revive on the day of the
resurrection." (4)

One of the sinful, a man by the name of Elah, (5) said in reply
thereto: "If thou desirest to bring forth the truth, address thyself to
each of the tribes separately." (6) Kenaz began with his own, the tribe
of Judah. The wicked of Judah confessed to the sin of worshipping the
golden calf, like unto their forefathers in the desert. The Reubenites
had burnt sacrifices to idols. The Levites said: "We desired to prove
whether the Tabernacle is holy." Those of the tribe of Issachar
replied: "We consulted idols to know what will become of us." (7) The
sinners of Zebulon: "We desired to eat the flesh of our sons and
daughters, to know whether the Lord loves them." The Danites admitted,
they had taught their children out of the books of the Amorites, which
they had hidden then under Mount Abarim, (8) where Kenaz actually found
them. The Naphtalites confessed to the same transgression, only they
had concealed the books in the tent of Elah, and there they were found
by Kenaz. The Gadites acknowledged having led an immoral life, and the
sinners of Asher, that they had found, and had hidden under Mount
Shechem, the seven golden idols called by the Amorites the holy nymphs 
 the same seven idols which had been made in a miraculous way after the
deluge by the seven sinners, Canaan, Put, Shelah, Nimrod, Elath, Diul,
and Shuah. (9) They were of precious stones from Havilah, which
radiated light, making night bright as day. Besides, they possessed a
rare virtue: if a blind Amorite kissed one of the idols, and at the
same time touched its eyes, his sight was restored. (10) After the
sinners of Asher, those of Manasseh made their confession   they had
desecrated the Sabbath. The Ephraimites owned to having sacrificed
their children to Moloch. Finally, the Benjamites said: "We desired to
prove whether the law emanated from God or from Moses."

At the command of God these sinners and all their possessions were
burnt with fire at the brook of Pishon. Only the Amorite books and the
idols of precious stones remained unscathed. Neither fire nor water
could do them harm. Kenaz decided to consecrate the idols to God, but a
revelation came to him, saying: "If God were to accept what has been
declared anathema, why should not man?" He was assured that God would
destroy the things over which human hands had no power. Kenaz, acting
under Divine instruction, bore them to the summit of a mountain, where
an altar was erected. The books and the idols were placed upon it, and
the people offered many sacrifices and celebrated the whole day as a
festival. During the night following, Kenaz saw dew rise from the ice
in Paradise and descend upon the books. The letters of their writing
were obliterated by it, and then an angel came and annihilated what was
left. (11) During the same night an angel carried off the seven gems,
and threw them to the bottom of the sea. Meanwhile a second angel
brought twelve other gems, engraving the names of the twelve sons of
Jacob upon them, one name upon each. No two of these gems were alike:
(12) the first, to bear the name of Reuben, was like sardius; the
second, for Simon, like topaz; the third, Levi, like emerald; the
fourth, Judah, like carbuncle; the fifth, Issachar, like sapphire; the
sixth, Zebulon, like jasper; the seventh, Dan, like ligure; the eighth,
Naphtali, like amethyst; the ninth, Gad, like agate; the tenth, Asher,
like chrysolite; the eleventh, Joseph, like beryl; and the twelfth,
Benjamin, like onyx.

Now God commanded Kenaz to deposit twelve stones in the holy Ark, and
there they were to remain until such time as Solomon should build the
Temple, and attach them to the Cherubim. (13) Furthermore, this Divine
communication was made to Kenaz: "And it shall come to pass, when the
sin of the children of men shall have been completed by defiling My
Temple, the Temple they themselves shall build, that I will take these
stones, together with the tables of the law, and put them in the place
whence they were removed of old, and there they shall remain until the
end of all time, when I will visit the inhabitants of the earth. Then I
will take them up, and they shall be an everlasting light to those who
love me and keep my commandments." (14)

When Kenaz bore the stones to the sanctuary, they illumined the earth
like unto the sun at midday.

CAMPAIGNS OF KENAZ

After these preparations Kenaz took the field against the enemy, with
three hundred thousand men. (15) The first day he slew eight thousand
of the foe, and the second day five thousand. But not all the people
were devoted to Kenaz. Some murmured against him, and calumniating him,
said: "Kenaz stays at home, while we expose ourselves on the field."
The servants of Kenaz reported these words to him. He ordered the
thirty-seven (16) men who had railed against him to be incarcerated,
and he swore to kill them, if God would but grant him assistance for
the sake of His people.

Thereupon he assembled three hundred men of his attendants, supplied
them with horses, and bade them be prepared to make a sudden attack
during the night, but to tell none of the plans he harbored in his
mind. The scouts sent ahead to reconnoitre reported that the Amorites
were too powerful for him to risk an engagement. Kenaz, however,
refused to be turned away from his intention. At midnight he and his
three hundred trusty attendants advanced upon the Amorite camp. Close
upon it, he commanded his men to halt, but to resume their march and
follow him when they should hear the notes of the trumpet. If the
trumpet was not sounded, they were to return home.

Alone Kenaz ventured into the very camp of the enemy. Praying to God
fervently, he asked that a sign be given him: "Let this be the sign of
the salvation Thou wilt accomplish for me this day: I shall draw my
sword from its sheath, and brandish it so that it glitters in the camp
of the Amorites. If the enemy recognize it as the sword of Kenaz, then
I shall know Thou wilt deliver them into my hand; if not, I shall
understand Thou hast not granted my prayer, but dost purpose to deliver
me into the hand of the enemy for my sins."

He heard the Amorites say: "Let us proceed to give battle to the
Israelites, for our sacred gods, the nymphs, are in their hands, and
will cause their defeat." When he heard these words, the spirit of God
came over Kenaz. He arose and swung his sword above his head. Scarce
had the Amorites seen it gleam in the air when they exclaimed: "Verily,
this is the sword of Kenaz, who has come to inflict wounds and pain.
But we know that our gods, who are held by the Israelites, will deliver
them into our hands. Up, then, to battle!" Knowing that God had heard
his petition, Kenaz threw himself upon the Amorites, and mowed down
forty-five thousand of them, and as many perished at the hands of their
own brethren, for God had sent the angel Gabriel (17) to his aid, and
he had struck the Amorites blind, so that they fell upon one another.
On account of the vigorous blows dealt by Kenaz on all sides, his sword
stuck to his hand. A fleeing Amorite, whom he stopped, to ask him how
to loose it, advised him to slay a Hebrew, and let his warm blood flow
over his hand. Kenaz accepted his advice, but only in part: instead of
a Hebrew, he slew the Amorite himself, and his blood freed his hand
from the sword. (18)

When Kenaz came back to his men, he found them sunk in profound sleep,
which had overtaken them that they might not see the wonders done for
their leader. They were not a little astonished, on awakening, to
behold the whole plain strewn with the dead bodies of the Amorites.
Then Kenaz said to them: "Are the ways of God like unto the ways of
man? Through me the Lord hath sent deliverance to this people. Arise
now and go back to your tents." The people recognized that a great
miracle had happened, and they said: "Now we know that God hath wrought
salvation for His people; He hath no need of numbers, but only of
holiness."

On his return from the campaign, Kenaz was received with great
rejoicing. The whole people now gave thanks to God for having put him
over them as their leader. They desired to know how he had won the
great victory. Kenaz only answered: "Ask those who were with me about
my deeds." His men were thus forced to confess that they knew nothing,
only, on awakening, they had seen the plain full of dead bodies,
without being able to account for their being there. Then Kenaz turned
to the thirty-seven men imprisoned, before he left for the war, for
having cast aspersions upon him. "Well," he said, "what charge have you
to make against me?" Seeing that death was inevitable, they confessed
they were of the sort of sinners whom Kenaz and the people had
executed, and God had now surrendered them to him on account of their
misdeeds. They, too, were burnt with fire.

Kenaz reigned for a period of fifty-seven years. When he felt his end
draw nigh, he summoned the two prophets, Phinehas and Jabez, (19)
together with the priest Phinehas, the son of Eleazar. To these he
spake: "I know the heart of this people, it will turn from following
after the Lord. Therefore do I testify against it." Phinehas, the son
of Eleazar, replied: "As Moses and Joshua testified, so do I testify
against it; for Moses and Joshua prophesied concerning the vineyard,
the beautiful planting of the Lord, which knew not who had planted it,
and did not recognize Him who cultivated it, so that the vineyard was
destroyed, and brought forth no fruit. These are the words my father
commanded me to say unto this people."

Kenaz broke out into loud wailing, and with him the elders and the
people, and they wept until eventide, saying: "Is it for the iniquity
of the sheep that the shepherd must perish? May the Lord have
compassion upon His inheritance that it may not work in vain."

The spirit of God descended upon Kenaz, and he beheld a vision. He
prophesied that this world would continue to exist only seven thousand
years, to be followed then by the Kingdom of Heaven. These words
spoken, the prophetical spirit departed from him, and he straightway
forgot what he had uttered during his vision. Before he passed away, he
spoke once more, saying: "If such be the rest which the righteous
obtain after their death, it were better for them to die than live in
this corrupt world and see its iniquities." (20)

As Kenaz left no male heirs, Zebul was appointed his successor. Mindful
of the great service Kenaz had performed for the nation, Zebul acted a
father's part toward the three unmarried daughters of his predecessor.
At his instance, the people assigned a rich marriage portion to each of
them; they were given great domains as their property. The oldest of
the three, Ethema by name, he married to Elizaphan; the second, Pheila,
to Odihel; and the youngest, Zilpah, to Doel.

Zebul, the judge, instituted a treasury at Shiloh. He bade the people
bring contributions, whether of gold or of silver. They were only to
take heed not to carry anything thither that had originally belonged to
an idol. His efforts were crowned with success. The free-will offerings
to the temple treasure amounted to twenty talents of gold and two
hundred and fifty talents of silver.

Zebul's reign lasted twenty-five years. Before his death he admonished
the people solemnly to be God-fearing and observant of the law. (21)

OTHNIEL

Othniel was a judge of a very different type. His contemporaries said,
that before the sun of Joshua went down, the sun of Othniel, his
successor in the leadership of the people , appeared on the horizon.
The new leader's real name was Judah; Othniel was one of his epithets,
as Jabez was another. (22)

Among the judges, Othniel represents the class of scholars. His acumen
was so great that he was able, by dint of dialect reasoning, to restore
the seventeen hundred traditions (23) which Moses had taught the
people, and which had been forgotten in the time of mourning for Moses.
Nor was his zeal for the promotion of the study of the Torah inferior
to his learning. The descendants of Jethro left Jericho, the district
assigned to them, and journeyed to Arad, only that thy might sit at the
feed to Othniel. (24) His wife, the daughter of his half-brother Caleb,
was not so well pleased with him. She complained to her father that her
husband's house was bare of all earthly goods, and his only possession
was knowledge of the Torah. (25)

The first event to be noted in Othniel's forty years' reign (26) is his
victory over Adoni-bezek. This chief did not occupy a prominent
position among the Canaanitish rulers. He was not even accounted a
king, nevertheless he had conquered seventy foreign kings. (27) The
next event was the capture of Luz by the Israelites. The only way to
gain entrance into Luz was by a cave, and the road to the cave lay
through a hollow almond tree. If the secret approach to the city had
not been betrayed by one of its residents, it would have been
impossible for the Israelites to reach it. God rewarded the informer
who put the Israelites in the way of capturing Luz. The city he founded
was left unmolested both by Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar, and not
event the Angel of Death has power over its inhabitants. They never
die, unless, weary of life, they leave the city. (28)

The same good fortune did not mark Othniel's reign throughout. For
eight years Israel suffered oppression at the hands of Cushan, the
evil-doer who in former days had threatened to destroy the patriarch
Jacob, as he was now endeavoring to destroy the descendants of Jacob,
for Cushan is only another name for Laban. (29)

Othniel, however, was held so little answerable for the causes that had
brought on the punishment of the people, that God granted him eternal
life; he is one of the few who reached Paradise alive. (30)

BOAZ AND RUTH

The story of Ruth came to pass a hundred (31) years after Othniel's
reign. Conditions in Palestine were of such a nature that if a judge
said to a man, "Remove the mote from thine eye," his reply was, "Do
thou remove the beam from thine own." (32) To chastise the Israelites
God sent down them one of the ten seasons of famine which He had
ordained, as disciplinary measures for mankind, from the creation of
the world until the advent of Messiah. (33) Elimelech (34) and his
sons, (35) who belonged to the aristocracy of the land, attempted
neither to improve (36) the sinful generation whose transgressions had
called forth the famine, nor alleviated the distress that prevailed
about them. They left Palestine, and thus withdrew themselves from the
needy who had counted upon their help. They turned their faced to Moab.
(37) There, on account of their wealth and high descent, they were made
officers in the army. (38) Mahlon and Chilion, the sons of Elimelech,
rose to still higher distinction, they married the daughters of the
Moabite king Eglon (39) But this did not happen until after the death
of Elimelech, who was opposed to intermarriage with the heathen. (40)
Neither the wealth nor the family connections of the two men helped
them before God. First they sank into poverty, and, as they continued
in their sinful ways, God took their life. (41)

Naomi, their mother, resolved to return to her home. Her two
daughters-in-law were very dear to her on account of the love they had
borne her sons, a love strong even in death, for they refused to marry
again. (42) Yet she would not take them with her to Palestine, because
she foresaw contemptuous treatment in store for them as Moabitish
women. (43) Orpah was easily persuaded to remain behind. She
accompanied her mother-in-law a distance of four miles, and then she
took leave of her, shedding only four tears as she bade her farewell.
Subsequent events showed that she had not been worthy of entering into
the Jewish communion, for scarcely had she separated from Naomi when
she abandoned herself to an immoral life. But with God nothing goes
unrewarded. For the four miles which Orpah travelled with Naomi, she
was recompensed by bringing forth four giants, Goliath and his three
brothers. (44)

Ruth's bearing and history were far different. She was determined to
become a Jewess, and her decision could not be shaken by what Naomi, in
compliance with the Jewish injunction, told her of the difficulties of
the Jewish law. Naomi warned her that the Israelites had been enjoined
to keep Sabbaths and feast days, (45) and that the daughters of Israel
were not in the habit of frequenting the threatres and circuses of the
heathen. Ruth only affirmed her readiness to follow Jewish customs.
(46) And when Naomi said: "We have one Torah, one law, one command; the
Eternal our God is one, there is none beside Him," Ruth answered: "Thy
people shall be my people, thy God my God." (47) So the two women
journeyed together to Bethlehem. They arrived there on the very day on
which the wife of Boaz was buried, and the concourse assembled for the
funeral saw Naomi as she returned to her home. (48)

Ruth supported herself and her mother-in-law sparsely with the ears of
grain which she gathered in the fields. Association with so pious a
woman as Naomi (49) had already exercised great influence upon her life
and ways. Boaz was astonished to notice that if the reapers let more
than two ears fall, in spite of her need she did not pick them up, for
the gleaning assigned to the poor by law does not refer to quantities
of more than two ears inadvertently dropped at one time. (50) Boaz also
admired her grace, her decorous conduct, her modest demeanor. (51) When
he learned who she was, he commended her for her attachment to Judaism.
To his praise she returned: "Thy ancestors found no delight even in
Timna, (52) the daughter of a royal house. As for me, I am a member of
a low people, abominated by thy God, and excluded from the assembly of
Israel." For the moment Boaz failed to recollect the Halakah bearing on
the Moabites and Ammonites. A voice from heaven reminded him that only
their males were affected by the command of exclusion. (53) This he
told to Ruth, and he also told her of a vision he had had concerning
her descendants. For the sake of the good she had done to her
mother-in-law, kings and prophets would spring from her womb. (54)

Boaz showed kindness not only to Ruth and Naomi, but also to their
dead. He took upon himself the decent burial of the remains of
Elimelech and his two sons. (55) All this begot in Naomi the thought
that Boaz harbored the intention of marrying Ruth. She sought to coax
the secret, if such there was, from Ruth. (56) When she found that
nothing could be elicited from her daughter-in-law, she made Ruth her
partner in a plan to force Boaz into a decisive step. Ruth adhered to
Naomi's directions in every particular, except that she did not wash
and anoint herself and put on fine raiment, until after she had reached
her destination. She feared to attract the attention of the lustful, if
she walked along the road decked out in unusual finery. (57)

The moral conditions in those days were very reprehensible. Though Boaz
was high-born and a man of substance, yet he slept on the
threshing-floor, so that his presence might act as a check upon
profligacy. In the midst of his sleep, Boaz was startled to find some
one next to him. At first he thought it was a demon. Ruth calmed his
disquietude (58) with these words: "Thou art the head of the court, thy
ancestors were princes, thou art thyself an honorable man, and a
kinsman of my dead husband. As for me, who am in the flower of my
years, since I left the home of my parents where homage is rendered
unto idols, I have been constantly menaced by the dissolute young men
around. (59) So I have come hither that thou, who art the redeemer,
mayest spread out thy skirt over me." (60) Boaz gave her the assurance
that if his older brother Tob (61) failed her, he would assume the
duties of a redeemer. The next day he came before the tribunal of the
Sanhedrin (62) to have the matter adjusted. Tob soon made his
appearance, for an angel led him to the place where he was wanted, (63)
that Boaz and Ruth might not have long to wait. Tob, who was not
learned in the Torah, did not know that the prohibition against the
Moabites had reference only to males. Therefore, he declined to marry
Ruth. (64) So she was taken to wife (65) by the octogenarian (66) Boaz.
Ruth herself was forty years old (67) at the time of her second
marriage, and it was against all expectations that her union with Boaz
should be blessed with offspring, a son Obed the pious. (68) Ruth lived
to see the glory of Solomon, but Boaz died on the day after the
wedding. (69)

DEBORAH

Not long after Ruth, another ideal woman arose in Israel, the
prophetess Deborah.

When Ehud died, there was none to take his place as judge, and the
people fell off from God and His law. God, therefore, sent an angel to
them with the following message: "Out of all the nations on earth, I
chose a people for Myself, and I thought, so long as the world stands,
My glory will rest upon them. I sent Moses unto them, My servant, to
teach them goodness and righteousness. But they strayed from My ways.
And now I will arouse their enemies against them, to rule over them,
and they will cry out: 'Because we forsook the ways of our fathers,
hath this come over us.' Then I will send a woman unto them, and she
will shine for them as a light for forty years." (70)

The enemy whom God raised up against Israel was Jabin, (71) the king of
Hazor, who oppressed him sorely. But worse than the king himself was
his general Sisera, one of the greatest heroes know to history. When he
was thirty years old, he had conquered the whole world. At the sound of
his voice the strongest of walls fell in a heap, and the wild animals
in the woods were chained to the spot by fear. The proportions of his
body were vast beyond description. If he took a bath in the river, and
dived beneath the surface, enough fish were caught in his beard to feed
a multitude, and it required no less than nine hundred horses to draw
the chariot in which he rode. (72)

To rid Israel of this tyrant, God appointed Deborah and her husband
Barak. Barak was an ignoramus, like most of his contemporaries. It was
a time singularly deficient to scholars. (73) In order to do something
meritorious in connection with the Divine service, he carried candles,
at his wife's instance, to the sanctuary, wherefrom he was called
Lipidoth, "Flames." Deborah was in the habit of making the wicks on the
candles very thick, so that they might burn a long time. Therefore God
distinguished her. He said: "Thou takest pains to shed light in My
house, and I will let thy light, thy flame, shine abroad in the whole
land." Thus it happened that Deborah became a prophetess and a judge.
She dispensed judgement in the open air, for it was not becoming that
men should visit a woman in her house. (74)

Prophetess though she was, she was yet subject to the frailties of her
sex. Her self-consciousness was inordinate. She sent for Barak (75) to
come to her instead of going to him, (76) and in her song she spoke
more of herself than was seemly. The result was that the prophetical
spirit departed from her for a time while she was composing her song.
(77)

The salvation of Israel was effected only after the people, assembled
on the Mount of Judah, had confessed their sins publicly before God and
besought His help. A seven days' fast was proclaimed for men and women,
for young and old. Then God resolved to help the Israelites, not for
their sakes, but for the sake of keeping the oath he had sworn to their
forefathers, never to abandon their seed. Therefore He sent Deborah
unto them. (78)

The task allotted to Deborah and Barak, to lead the attack upon Sisera,
was by no means slight. It is comparable with nothing less than
Joshua's undertaking to conquer Canaan. Joshua had triumphed over only
thirty-one of the sixty-two kings of Palestine, leaving at large as
many as he had subdued. Under the leadership of Sisera these thirty-one
unconquered kings opposed Israel. (79) No less than forty thousand
armies, each counting a hundred thousand warriors, were arrayed against
Deborah and Barak. (80) God aided Israel with water and fire. The river
Kishon and all the fiery hosts of heaven (81) except the star Meros
(82) fought against Sisera. The Kishon had long before been pledged to
play its part in Sisera's overthrow. When the Egyptians were drowned in
the Red Sea, God commanded the Angel of the Sea to cast their corpses
on the land, that the Israelites might convince themselves of the
destruction of their foes, and those of little faith might not say
afterward that the Egyptians like the Israelites had reached dry land.
The Angel of the Sea complained of the impropriety of withdrawing a
gift. God mollified him with the promise of future compensation. The
Kishon was offered as security that he would received half as many
bodies again as he was now giving up. When Sisera's troops sought
relief from the scorching fire of the heavenly bodies in the coolness
of the waters of the Kishon, God commanded the river to redeem its
pledge. And so the heathen were swept down into the Sea by the waves of
the river Kishon, whereat the fishes in the Sea exclaimed: "And the
truth of the Lord endureth forever." (83)

Sisera's lot was no better than the lot of the men. He fled from the
battle on horseback (84) after witnessing the annihilation of his vast
army. When Jael saw him approach, she went to meet him arrayed in rich
garments and jewels. She was unusually beautiful, and her voice was the
most seductive ever a woman possessed. (85) These are the words she
addressed to him: "Enter and refresh thyself with food, and sleep until
evening, and then I will send my attendants with thee to accompany
thee, for I know thou wilt not forget me, and thy recompense will not
fail." When Sisera, on stepping into her tent, saw the bed strewn with
roses which Jael had prepared for him, he resolved to take her home to
his mother as his wife, as soon as his safety should be assured.

He asked her for milk to drink, saying: "My soul burns with the flame
which I saw in the stars contending for Israel." Jael went forth to
milk her goat, meantime supplicating God to grant her His help: "I pray
to Thee, O Lord, to strengthen Thy maid-servant against the enemy. By
this token shall I know that Thou wilt aid me   if, when I enter the
house, Sisera will awaken and ask for water to drink." Scarcely had
Jael crossed the threshold when Sisera awakened and begged for water to
quench his burning thirst. Jael gave him wine mixed with water, which
caused him to drop into a sound sleep again. The woman then took a
wooden spike in her left hand, approached the sleeping warrior, and
said: "This shall be the sign that Thou wilt deliver him into my hand  
if I draw him from the bed down on the ground without awaking him." She
tugged at Sisera, and in very truth he did not awaken even when he
dropped from the bed to the floor. Then Jael prayed: "O God, strengthen
the arm of Thy maid-servant this day, for Thy sake, for the sake of Thy
people, and for the sake of those that hope in Thee." With a hammer she
drove the spike into the temple of Sisera, who cried out as he was
expiring: "O that I should lose my life by the hand of a woman!" Jael's
mocking retort was: "Descend to hell and join thy fathers, and tell
them that thou didst fall by the hand of a woman." (86)

Barak took charge of the body of the dead warrior, and he sent it to
Sisera's mother, Themac, (87) with the message: "Here is thy son, whom
thou didst expect to see returning laden with booty." He had in mind
the vision of Themac and her women-in-waiting. When Sisera went forth
to battle, their conjuring tricks had shown him to them as he lay on
the bed of a Jewish woman. This they had interpreted to mean that he
would return with Jewish captives. "One damsel, two damsels for ever
man." (88) they had said. Great, therefore, was the disappointment of
Sisera's mother. No less than a hundred cries did she utter over him.
(89)

Deborah and Barak thereupon intoned a song of praise, thanking God for
the deliverance of Israel out of the power of Sisera, and reviewing the
history of the people since the time of Abraham. (90)

After laboring for the weal of her nation for forty years, Deborah
departed this life. Her last words to the weeping people were an
exhortation not to depend upon the dead. They can do nothing for the
living. So long as a man is alive, his prayers are efficacious for
himself and for others. They avail naught once he is dead.

The whole nation kept a seventy days' period of mourning in honor of
Deborah, and the land was at peace for seven years. (91)

GIDEON

Elated by the victory over Sisera, Israel sang a hymn of praise, the
song of Deborah, and God, to reward them for their pious sentiments,
pardoned the transgression of the people. (92) But they soon slipped
back into the old ways, and the old troubles harassed them. Their
backsliding was due to the witchcraft of a Midianite priest named Aud.
He made the sun shine at midnight, and so convinced the Israelites that
the idols of Midian were mightier than God, and God chastised them by
delivering them into the hands of the Midianties. (93) They worshipped
their own images reflected in the water, (94) and they were stricken
with dire poverty. They could not bring so much as a meal offering, the
offering of the poor. (95) On the eve of one Passover, Gideon uttered
the complaint: "Where are all the wondrous works which God did for our
fathers in this night, when he slew the first-born of the Egyptians,
and Israel went forth from slavery with joyous hearts?" God appeared
unto him, and said: "Thou who art courageous enough to champion Israel,
thou art worthy that Israel should be saved for thy sake." (96)

An angel appeared, and Gideon begged him for a sign, that he would
achieve the deliverance of Israel. He excused his petition with the
precedent of Moses, the first prophet, who likewise has asked for a
sign. The angel bade him pour water on the rock, and then gave him the
choice of how he would have the water transformed. Gideon desired to
see one-half changed into blood, and one-half into fire. Thus it
happened. The blood and the fire mingled with each other, yet the blood
did not quench the fire, nor did the fire dry out the blood. Encouraged
by this and other signs, (97) Gideon undertook to carry on the war
against the Midianites with a band of three hundred God-fearing men,
and he was successful. Of the enemy one hundred and twenty thousand
corpses covered the field, and all the rest fled precipitately. (98)

Gideon enjoyed the privilege of bringing salvation to Israel because he
was a good son. His old father feared to thresh his grain on account of
the Midianites, and Gideon once went out to him in the field and said:
"Father, thou art too old to do this work; go thou home, and I shall
finish thy task for thee. If the Midianites should surprise me out
here, I can run away, which thou canst not do, on account of thy age."
(99)

The day on which Gideon gained his great victory was during the
Passover, and the cake of barley bread that turned the camp of the
enemy upside down, of which the Midianite dreamed, was a sign that God
would espouse the cause of His people to reward them for bringing a
cake of barley bread as an 'Omer offering. (100)

After God had favored Israel with great help through him, Gideon had an
ephod made. In the high priest's breastplate, Joseph was represented
among the twelve tribes by Ephraim alone, not by Manasseh, too. To wipe
out this slight upon his own tribe, Gideon made an ephod bearing the
name of Manasseh. He consecrated it to God, but after his death homage
was paid to it as an idol. (101) In those days the Israelites were so
addicted to the worship of Beelzebub that they constantly carried small
images of this god with them in their pockets, and every now and then
they were in the habit of bringing the image forth and kissing it
fervently. (102) Of such idolaters were the vain and light fellows who
helped Abimelech, the son of Gideon by his concubine from Shechem, to
assassinate the other sons of his father. But God is just. As Abimelech
murdered his brothers upon a stone, so Abimelech himself met his death
through a millstone. It was proper, then, that Jotham, in his parable,
should compare Abimelech to a thorn-bush, while he characterized his
predecessors, Othniel, Deborah, and Gideon, as an olive-tree, or a
fig-tree, or a vine. This Jotham, the youngest of the sons of Gideon,
was more than a teller of parables. He knew then that long afterward
the Samaritans would claim sanctity for Mount Gerizim, on account of
the blessing pronounced from it upon the tribe. For this reason he
chose Gerizim from which to hurl his curse upon Shechem and it
inhabitants. (103)

The successor to Abimelech equalled, if he did not surpass, him in
wickedness. Jair erected an altar unto Baal, and on penalty of death he
forced the people to prostrate themselves before it. Only seven men
remained firm in the true faith, and refused to the last to commit
idolatry. Their names were Deuel, Abit Yisreel, Jekuthiel, Shalom,
Ashur, Jehonadab, and Shemiel. (104) They said to Jair: "We are mindful
of the lessons given us by our teachers and our mother Deborah. 'Take
ye heed,' they said, 'that your heart lead you not astray to the right
or to the left. Day and night ye shall devote yourselves to the study
of the Torah.' Why, then, dost thou seek to corrupt the people of the
Lord, saying, 'Baal is God, let us worship him'? If he really is what
thou sayest, then let him speak like a god, and we will pay him
worship." For the blasphemy they had uttered against Baal, Jair
commanded that the seven men be burnt. When his servants were about to
carry out his order, God sent the angel Nathaniel, the lord over the
fire, and he extinguished the fire though not before the servants of
Jair were consumed by it. Not only did the seven men escape the danger
of suffering death by fire, but the angel enabled them to flee
unnoticed, by striking all the people present with blindness. Then the
angel approached Jair, and said to him: "Hear the words of the Lord ere
thou diest. I appointed thee as prince over my people, and thou didst
break My covenant, seduce My people, and seek to burn My servants with
fire, but they were animated and freed by the living, the heavenly
fire. As for thee, thou wilt die, and die by fire, a fire in which thou
wilt abide forever."

Thereupon the angel burnt him with a thousand men, whom he had taken in
the act of paying homage to Baal. (105)

JEPHTHAH

The first judge of any importance after Gideon was Jephthah. He, too,
fell short of being the ideal Jewish ruler. His father had married a
woman of another tribe, an unusual occurrence in a time when a woman
who left her tribe was held in contempt.(106) Jephthah, the offspring
of this union, had to bear the consequences of his mother's irregular
conduct. So many annoyances were put upon him that he was forced to
leave his home and settle in a heathen district. (107)

At first Jephthah refused to accept the rulership which the people
offered him in an assembly at Mizpah, for he had not forgotten the
wrongs to which he had been subjected. In the end, however, he yielded,
and placed himself at the head of the people in the war against Getal,
the king of the Ammonites. At his departure, he vowed before God to
sacrifice to Him whatsoever came forth out of the doors of his house to
meet him when he returned a victor from the war.

God was angry and said: "So Jephthah has vowed to offer unto me the
first thing that shall meet him! If a dog were the first to meet him,
would a dog be sacrificed to me? Now shall the vow of Jephthah be
visited on his first-born, on his own offspring, yea, his prayer shall
be visited on his only daughter. But I assuredly shall deliver my
people, not for Jephthah's sake, but for the sake of the prayers of
Israel."

The first to meet him after his successful campaign was his daughter
Sheilah. Overwhelmed by anguish, the father cried out: "Rightly was the
name Sheilah, the one who is demanded, given to thee, that thou
shouldst be offered up as a sacrifice. Who shall set my heart in the
balance and my soul as the weight, that I may stand and see whether
that which happened to me is joy or sorrow? But because I opened my
mouth to the Lord, and uttered a vow, I cannot take it back." Then
Sheilah spoke, saying: "Why dost thou grieve for my death, since the
people was delivered? Dost thou not remember what happened in the day
of our forefathers, when the father offered his son as a burnt
offering, and the son did not refuse, but consented gladly, and the
offerer and the offered were both full of joy? Therefore, do as thou
hast spoken. But before I die I will ask a favor of thee. Grant me that
I may go with my companions upon the mountains, sojourn among the
hills, and tread upon the rocks to shed my tears and deposit there the
grief for my lost youth. The trees of the field shall weep for me, and
the beasts of the field mourn for me. I do not grieve for my death, nor
because I have to yield up my life, but because when my father vowed
his heedless vow, he did not have me in mind. I fear, therefore, that I
may not be an acceptable sacrifice, and that my death shall be for
nothing." Sheilah and her companions went forth and told her case to
the sages of the people, but none of them could give her any help. Then
she went up to Mount Telag, where the Lord appeared to her at night,
saying unto her: "I have closed the mouth of the sages of my people in
this generation, that they cannot answer the daughter of Jephthah a
word; that my vow be fulfilled and nothing of what I have thought
remain undone. I know her to be wiser than her father, and all the wise
men, and now her soul shall be accepted at her request, and her death
shall be very precious before My face all the time." Sheilah began to
bewail her fate in these words: "Hearken, ye mountains, to my
lamentations, and ye hills, to the tears of my eyes, and ye rocks,
testify to the weeping of my soul. My words will go up to heaven, and
my tears will be written in the firmament. I have not been granted the
joy of wedding, nor was the wreath of my betrothal completed. I have
not been decked with ornaments, nor have I been scented with myrrh and
with aromatic perfumes. I have not been anointed with the oil that was
prepared for me. Alas, O mother, it was in vain thou didst give birth
to me, the grave was destined to be my bridal chamber. The oil thou
didst prepare for me will be spilled, and the white garments my mother
sewed for me, the moth will eat them; the bridal wreath my nurse wound
for me will wither, and my garments in blue and purple, the worms will
destroy them, and my companions will all their days lament over me. And
now, ye trees, incline your branches and weep over my youth; ye beasts
of the forest, come and trample upon my virginity, for my years are cut
off, and the days of my life grow old in darkness." (108)

Her lamentations were of as little avail as her arguments with her
father. In vain she sought to prove to him from the Torah that the law
speaks only of animal sacrifices, never of human sacrifices. In vain
she cited the example of Jacob, who had vowed to give God a tenth of
all the possessions he owned, and yet did not attempt later to
sacrifice one of his sons. Jephthah was inexorable. All he would yield
was a respite during which his daughter might visit various scholars,
who were to decide whether he was bound by his vow. According to the
Torah his vow was entirely invalid. He was not even obliged to pay his
daughter's value in money. But the scholars of his time had forgotten
this Halakah, and they decided that he must keep his vow. The
forgetfulness of the scholars was of God, ordained as a punishment upon
Jephthah for having slaughtered thousands of Ephraim.

One man there was living at the time who, if he had been questioned
about the case, would have been able to give a decision. This was the
high priest Phinehas. But he said proudly: "What! I, a high priest, the
son of a high priest, should humiliate myself and go to an ignoramus!"
Jephthah on the other hand said: "What! I, the chief of the tribes of
Israel, the first prince of the land, should humiliate myself and go to
one of the rank and file!" So only the rivalry between Jephthah and
Phinehas caused the loss of a young life. Their punishment did not miss
them. Jephthah dies a horrible death. Limb by limb his body was
dismembered. As for the high priest, the holy spirit departed from him,
and he had to give up his priestly dignity. (109)

As it had been Jephthah's task to ward off the Ammonites, so his
successor Abdon was occupied with protecting Israel against the
Moabites. The king of Moab sent messengers to Abdon, and they spoke
thus: "Thou well knowest that Israel took possession of cities that
belonged to me. Return them." Abdon's reply was: "Know ye not how the
Ammonites fared? The measure of Moab's sins, it seems, out against the
enemy, slew forty-five thousand of their number, and routed the rest.
(110)

SAMSON

The last judge but one, Samson, was not the most important of the
judges, but he was the greatest hero of the period and, except Goliath,
the greatest hero of all times. He was the son of Manoah of the tribe
of Dan, and his wife Zelalponit (111) of the tribe of Judah, (112) and
he was born to them at a time when they had given up all hope of having
children. Samson's birth is a striking illustration of the
shortsightedness of human beings. The judge Ibzan had not invited
Manoah and Zelalponit to any of the one hundred and twenty feasts in
honor of the marriage of his sixty children, which were celebrated at
his house and at the house of their parents-in-law, because he thought
that "the sterile she-mule" would never be in a position to repay his
courtesy. It turned out that Samson's parents were blessed with an
extraordinary son, while Ibzan saw his sixty children die during his
lifetime. (113)

Samson's strength was superhuman, (114) and the dimensions of his body
were gigantic   he measured sixty ells between the shoulders. Yet he
had one imperfection, he was maimed in both feet. (115) The first
evidence of his gigantic strength he gave when he uprooted two great
mountains, and rubbed them against each other. Such feats he was able
to perform as often as the spirit of God was poured out over him.
Whenever this happened, it was indicated by his hair. In began to move
and emit a bell-like sound, which could be heard far off. Besides,
while the spirit rested upon him, he was able with one stride to cover
a distance equal to that between Zorah and Eshtaol. (116) It was
Samson's supernatural strength that made Jacob think that he would be
the Messiah. When God showed him Samson's latter end, then he realized
that the new era would not be ushered in by the hero-judge. (117)

Samson won his first victory over the Philistines by means of the
jawbone of the ass on which Abraham had made his way to Mount Moriah.
It had been preserved miraculously. (118) After this victory a great
wonder befell. Samson was at the point of perishing from thirst, when
water began to flow from his own mouth as from a spring. (119)

Besides physical prowess, Samson possessed also spiritual distinctions.
He was unselfish to the last degree. He had been of exceeding great
help to the Israelites, but he never asked the smallest service for
himself. (120) When Samson told Delilah that he was a "Nazarite unto
God," she was certain that he had divulged the true secret of his
strength. She knew his character too well to entertain the idea that he
would couple the name of God with an untruth. There was a weak side to
his character, too. He allowed sensual pleasures to dominate him. The
consequences was that "he who went astray after his eyes, lost his
eyes." Even this severe punishment produced no change of heart. He
continued to lead his old life of profligacy in prison, and he was
encouraged thereto by the Philistines, who set aside all considerations
of family purity in the hope of descendants who should be the equals of
Samson in giant strength and stature. (121)

As throughout life Samson had given proofs of superhuman power, so in
the moment of death. He entreated God to realize in him the blessing of
Jacob, (122) and endow him with Divine strength. (123) He expired with
these words upon his lips: "O Master of the world! Vouchsafe unto me in
this life a recompense for the loss of one of my eyes. For the loss of
the other I will wait to be rewarded in the world to come." Even after
his death Samson was a shield unto the Israelites. Fear of him had so
cowed the Philistines that for twenty years they did not dare attack
the Israelites. (124)

THE CRIME OF THE BENJAMITES

A part of the money which Delilah received from the Philistine lords as
the price of Samson's secret, she gave to her son Micah, and he used it
to make an idol for himself. (125) This sin was the more unpardonable
as Micah owed his life to a miracle performed by Moses. During the
times of the Egyptian oppression, if the prescribed number of bricks
was not furnished by the Israelites, their children were used as
building material. Such would have been Micah's fate, if he had not
been saved in a miraculous way. Moses wrote down the Name of God, and
put the words on Micah's body. The dead boy came to life, and Moses
drew him out of the wall of which he made a part. (126) Micah did not
show himself worthy of the wonder done for him. Even before the
Israelites left Egypt, he made his idol, (127) and it was he who
fashioned the golden calf. At the time of Othniel the judge, (128) he
took up his abode at a distance of not more than three miles from the
sanctuary at Shiloh, (129) and won over the grandson of Moses (130) to
officiate as priest before his idol.

The sanctuary which Micah erected harbored various idols. He had three
images of boys, and three of calves, one lion, an eagle, a dragon, and
a dove. When a man came who wanted a wife, he was directed to appeal to
the dove. If riches were his desire, he worshipped the eagle. For
daughters both, to the calves; to the lion for strength, and to the
dragon for long life. Sacrifices and incense alike were offered to
these idols, and both had to be purchased with cash money from Micah,
even didrachms for a sacrifice, and one for incense. (131)

The rapid degeneration in the family of Moses may be accounted for by
the fact that Moses had married the daughter of a priest who ministered
to idols. Yet, the grandson of Moses was not an idolater of ordinary
calibre. His sinful conduct was not without a semblance of morality.
From his grandfather he had heard the rule that a man should do "Abodah
Zarah" for hire rather than be dependent upon his fellow-creatures. The
meaning of "Abodah Zarah" here naturally is "strange," in the sense of
"unusual" work, but he took the term in its ordinary acceptation of
"service of strange gods." (132) So far from being a whole-souled
idolater, he adopted methods calculated to harm the cause of idol
worship. Whenever any one came leading an animal with the intention of
sacrificing it, he would say: "What good can the idol do thee? It can
neither see nor hear nor speak." But as he was concerned about his won
livelihood, and did not want to offend the idolaters too grossly, he
would continue: "If thou bringest a dish of flour and a few eggs, it
will suffice." This offering he would himself eat.

Under David he filled the position of treasurer. David appointed him
because he thought that a man who was willing to become priest to an
idol only in order to earn his bread, must be worthy of confidence.
However sincere his repentance may have been, he relapsed into his
former life when he was removed from his office by Solomon, who filled
all position with new incumbents at his accession to the throne.
Finally he abandoned his idolatrous ways wholly, and became so pure a
man that the was favored by God with the gift of prophecy. This
happened on the day on which the man of God out of Judah came to
Jeroboam, for the grandson of Moses is none other than the old prophet
at Beth-el who invited the man of God out of Judah to come to his
house. (133)

The mischief done by Micah spread further and further. Especially the
Benjamites distinguished themselves for their zeal in paying homage to
his idols. God therefore resolved to visit the sins of Israel and
Benjamin upon them. The opportunity did not delay to come. It was not
long before the Benjamites committed the outrage of Gibeah. Before the
house of Bethac, a venerable old man, they imitated the disgraceful
conduct of the Sodomites before the house of Lot. When the other tribes
exacted amends from the Benjamites, and were denied satisfaction,
bloody combats ensued. At first the Benjamites prevailed, in spit of
the fact that the Urim and Thummim questioned by Phinehas had
encouraged the Israelites to take up the conflict, with the words: "Up
to war, I shall deliver them into your hands." After the tribes had
again and again suffered defeat, they recognized the intention of God,
to betray them as a punishment for their sins. They therefore ordained
a day of fasting and convocation before the holy Ark, and Phinehas the
son of Eleazar entreated God in their behalf: "What means this, that
Thou leadest us astray? Is the deed of the Benjamites right in Thine
eyes? Then why didst Thou not command us to desist from the combat? But
if what our brethren have done is evil in Thy sight, then why dost Thou
cause us to fall before them in battle? O God of our fathers, hearken
unto my voice. Make it known this day unto Thy servant whether the war
waged with Benjamin is pleasing in Thine eyes, or whether thou desirest
to punish Thy people for its sins. Then the sinners among us will amend
their ways. I am mindful of what happened in the days of my youth, at
the time of Moses. In the zeal of my soul I slew two for the sin of
Zimri, and when his well-wishers sought to kill me, Thou didst send an
angel, who cut off twenty-four thousand of them and delivered me. But
now eleven of Thy tribes have gone forth to do Thy bidding, to avenge
and slay, and, lo, they have themselves been slain, so that they are
made to believe that Thy revelations are lying and deceitful. O Lord,
God of our forefathers, naught is hidden before Thee. Make it manifest
why this misfortune has overtaken us."

God replied to Phinehas at great length, setting forth why eleven
tribes had suffered so heavily. The Lord had wanted to punished them
for having permitted Micah and his mother Delilah to pursue their evil
ways undisturbed, though they were zealous beyond measure in avenging
the wrong done to the woman at Gibeah. As soon as all those had
perished who were guilty of having aided and abetted Micah in his
idolatrous practices, whether directly or indirectly, God was willing
to help them in their conflicts with the Benjamites.

So it came. In the battle fought soon after, seventy-five thousand
Benjamites fell slain. Only six hundred of the tribe survived. (134)
Fearing to remain in Palestine, the small band emigrated to Italy and
Germany. (135)

At the same time the punishment promised them by God overtook the two
chief sinners. Micah lost his life by fire, and his mother rotted
alive; worms crawled from her body. (136)

In spite of the great mischief caused by Micah, he had one good
quality, and God permitted it to plead for him when the angel stood up
against him as his accusers. He was extremely hospitable. His house
always stood wide open to the wanderer, and to his hospitality he owed
it that he was granted a share in the future world. (137) In hell Micah
is the first in the sixth division, which is under the guidance of the
angel Hadriel, and he is the only one in the division who is spared
hell tortures. (138) Micah's sons was Jeroboam, whose golden calves
were sinful far beyond anything his father had done. (139)

In those days God spake to Phinehas: "Thou art one hundred and twenty
years old, thou hast reached the natural term of man's life. Go now,
betake thyself to the mountain Danaben, and remain there many years. I
will command the eagles to sustain thee with food, so that thou
returnest not to men until the time when thou lockest fast the clouds
and openest them again. Then I will carry thee to the place where those
are who were before thee, and there thou wilt tarry until I visit the
world, and bring thee thither to taste of death." (140)




III.
SAMUEL AND SAUL

ELKANAH AND HANNAH

The period of the Judges is linked to the period of the Kingdom by the
prophet Samuel, who anointed both Saul and David as kings. Not only was
Samuel himself a prophet, but his forebears also has been prophets, (1)
and both his parents, Elkanah and Hannah, were endowed with the gift of
prophecy. (2) Aside from this gift, Elkanah possessed extraordinary
virtue. He was a second Abraham, the only pious man of his generation,
who saved the world from destruction when God, made wroth by the
idolatry of Micah, was on the point of annihilating it utterly. (3) His
chief merit was that he stimulated the people by his example to go on
pilgrimages to Shiloh, the spiritual centre of the nation. Accompanied
by his whole household, including kinsmen, he was in the habit of
making the three prescribed pilgrimages annually, and though he was a
man of only moderate means, (4) his retinue was equipped with great
magnificence. In all the towns through which it passed, the procession
caused commotion. The lookers-on invariably inquired into the reason of
the rare spectacle, and Elkanah told them: "We are going to the house
of the Lord at Shiloh, for thence come forth the law. Why should you
not join us?" Such gentle, persuasive words did not fail of taking
effect. In the first year five households undertook the pilgrimage, the
next year ten, and so on until the whole town followed his example.
Elkanah chose a new route every year. Thus he touched at many towns,
and their inhabitants were led to do a pious deed. (5)

In spite of his God-fearing ways, Elkanah's domestic life was not
perfectly happy. He had been married ten years, and his union with
Hannah had not been blessed with offspring. (6) The love he bore his
wife compensated him for his childlessness, but Hannah herself insisted
upon his taking a second wife. Peninnah embraced every opportunity of
vexing Hannah. In the morning her derisive greeting to Hannah would be:
"Dost thou not mean to rise and wash thy children, and send them to
school?" (7) Such jeers were to keep Hannah mindful of her
childlessness. Perhaps Peninnah's intentions were laudable: she may
have wanted to bring Hannah to the point of praying to God for
children. (8) However it may have been forced from her, Hannah's
petition for a son was fervent and devout. She entreats God: "Lord of
the world! Hast Thou created aught in vain? Our eyes Thou hast destined
for sight, our ears for hearing, our mouth for speech, our nose to
smell therewith, our hands for work. Didst Thou not create these
breasts above my heart to give suck to a babe? (9) O grant me a son,
that he may draw nourishment therefrom. Lord, Thou reignest over all
beings, the mortal and the heavenly beings. The heavenly beings neither
eat nor drink, they do not propagate themselves, nor do they die, but
they live forever. Mortal man eats, drinks, propagates his kind and
dies. If, now, I am of the heavenly beings, let me live forever. But if
I belong to mortal mankind, let me do my part in establishing the
race." (10)

Eli the high priest, who at first misinterpreted Hannah's long prayer,
dismissed her with the blessing: "May the son to be born unto thee
acquire great knowledge in the law." (11) Hannah left the sanctuary,
and at once her grief-furrowed countenance changes. She felt beyond a
doubt that the blessing of Eli would be fulfilled. (12)

THE YOUTH OF SAMUEL

Hannah's prayer was heard. At the end of six months and a few days (13)
Samuel was born to her, in the nineteenth year of her married life,
(14) and the one hundred and thirtieth of her age. (15) Samuel was of a
frail constitution, (16) and required tender care and nurture. For this
reason he and his mother could not accompany Elkanah on his
pilgrimages. Hannah withheld her boy from the sanctuary for some years.
Before Samuel's birth a voice from heaven had proclaimed that in a
short time a great man would be born, whose name would be Samuel. All
men children of that time were accordingly named Samuel. As they grew
up, the mothers were in the habit of getting together and telling of
their children's doings, in order to determine which of them satisfied
the expectations the prophecy had aroused. When the true Samuel was
born, and by his wonderful deed excelled all his companions, it became
plain to whom the word of God applied. (17) His preeminence now being
undisputed, Hannah was willing to part with him.

The following incident is an illustration of Samuel's unusual qualities
manifested even in infancy. He was two years old when his mother
brought him to Shiloh to leave him there permanently. An occasion at
once presented itself for the display of his learning and acumen, which
were so great as to arouse the astonishment of the high priest Eli
himself. On entering the sanctuary Samuel noticed that they were
seeking a priest to kill the sacrificial animal. Samuel instructed the
attendants that a non-priest was permitted to kill the sacrifice. The
high priest Eli appeared at the moment when, by Samuel's directions,
the sacrifice was being killed by a non-priest. Angered by the child's
boldness, he was about to have him executed, regardless of Hannah's
prayer for his life. "Let him die," (18) he said, "I shall pray for
another in his place." Hannah replied: "I lent him to the Lord.
Whatever betide, he belongs neither to thee nor to me, but to God."
(19) Only then, after Samuel's life was secure, Hannah offered up her
prayer of thanksgiving. Beside the expression of her gratitude, it
contains also many prophecies regarding Samuel's future achievements,
and it recited the history of Israel from the beginning until the
advent of Messiah. (20) Her prayer incidentally brought relief to the
Sons of Korah. Since the earth had swallowed them, they had been
constantly sinking lower and lower. When Hannah uttered the words, "God
bringeth down to Sheol, and bringeth up," (21) they came to a
standstill in their downward course.

Hannah was spared to witness, not only the greatness of her son, but
also the undoing of her rival. Every time Hannah bore a child, Peninnah
lost two of hers, until eight of her ten children had died, and she
would have had to surrender all, had not Hannah interceded for her with
prayer. (22)

ELI AND HIS SONS

Shortly (23) before Samuel entered upon his novitiate in the sanctuary,
Eli succeeded to the three highest offices in the land: he was made
high priest, president of the Sanhedrin, and ruler over the political
affairs of Israel. Eli was a pious man, and devoted to the study of the
Torah, wherefore he attained to a good old age and to high honors. (24)
In his office as high priest he was successor to no less a personage
than Phinehas, who had lost his high-priestly dignity on account of his
haughty bearing toward Jephthah. With Eli the line of Ithamar rose to
power instead of the line of Eleazar. (25) However, the iniquitous deed
of his two sons brought dire misfortune upon Eli and upon his family,
though the Scriptural account of their conduct may not be taken
literally. The sons of Eli transgressed only in that they sometimes
kept the women waiting who came to the sanctuary to bring the
purification offerings, and so they retarded their return to their
families. (26) This was bad enough for priest of God. Their misdeeds
recoiled upon their father, who was not strict enough in rebuking them.
Eli's punishment was that he aged prematurely, and, besides, he had to
give up his various offices.

During his lifetime, his youngest son Phinehas, the worthier of the
two, (27) officiated as high priest. The only reproach to which
Phinehas laid himself open was that he made no attempt to mend his
brother's ways.

The worst of God's decree against Eli he learned from Elkanah, (28) the
man of God who came unto Eli, and who announced that the high-priestly
dignity would be wrested from his house, and once more conferred upon
the family of Eleazar, and, furthermore, his descendant would all die
in their prime. The latter doom can be averted by good deeds, devotion
in prayer, and zealous study of the Torah. These means were often
employed successfully. (29) But against the loss of the high priest's
office there is no specific. The house of Eli forfeited it irrevocably.
Abiathar, the great-grandson of Eli's son Phinehas, (30) the last of
the high priest of the line of Ithamar, had to submit to the fate of
seeing David transfer his dignity to Zadok, in whose family it remained
forever.

The sons of Eli brought misfortune also upon the whole of Israel. To
their sins and the ease with which the people condoned them was
attributed the unhappy issue of the war with the Philistines. The holy
Ark, the receptacle for the broken table of the law, which accompanied
the people to the camp, (31) did not have the expected effect of
compelling victory for the Israelites. What Eli feared happened. He
enjoined upon his sons not to appear before him if they should survive
the capture of the Ark. (32) But they did not survive it; they died
upon the battlefield on which their nation had suffered bitter defeat.
The Philistines, to be sure, had to pay dearly for their victory,
especially those who had spoken contemptuous words when the holy Ark
had appeared in the Israelitish camp: "The God of the Israelites had
ten plagues, and those he expended upon the Egyptians. He no longer has
it in His power to do harm." But God said: "Do ye but wait to see. I
shall bring plague down upon you like of which hath never been." (33)
This new plague consisted in mice crawling forth out of the earth, and
jerking the entrails out of the bodies of the Philistines while they
eased nature. If the Philistines sought to protect themselves by using
brass vessels, the vessels burst at the touch of the mice, and, as
before, the Philistines were at their mercy. (34) After some months of
suffering, when they realized that their god Dagon was the victim
instead of the victor, they resolved to send the Ark back to the
Israelites. Many of the Philistines, (35) however, were not yet
convinced of God's power. The experiment with the milch kine on which
there had come no yoke was to establish the matter for them. The result
was conclusive. Scarcely had the cows begun to draw the cart containing
the Ark when they raised their voices in song:

Arise thou, O Acacia! Soar aloft in the fulness of thy splendor,

Thou who art adorned with gold embroidery,

Thou who art reverenced within the Holiest of the palace,

Thou who art covered by the two Cherubim! (36)

When the holy Ark was thus brought into the Israelitish domain, there
was exceeding great rejoicing. Yet the people were lacking in due
reverence. They unloaded the holy vessel while doing their usual work.
God punished them severely. (37) The seventy members of the Sanhedrin
perished, and with them fifty thousand of the people. (38) The
punishment was meet for another reason. At first sight of the Ark some
of the people had exclaimed: "Who vexed these that thou didst feel
offended, and what had mollified thee now?" (39)

THE ACTIVITIES OF SAMUEL

In the midst of the defeats and other calamities that overwhelmed the
Israelites, Samuel's authority grew, and the respect for him increased,
until he was acknowledged the helper of his people. His first efforts
were directed toward counteracting the spiritual decay in Israel. When
he assembled the people at Mizpah for prayer, he sought to distinguish
between the faithful and the idolatrous, in order to mete out
punishment to the disloyal. He had all the people drink water, whose
effect was to prevent idolaters from opening their lips. (40) The
majority of the people repented of their sins, and Samuel turned to God
in their behalf: "Lord of the world! Thou requirest naught of man but
that he should repent of his sins. Israel is penitent, do Thou pardon
him." (41) The prayer was granted, and when, after his sacrifice,
Samuel led an attack upon the Philistines, victory was not withheld
from the Israelites. God terrified the enemy first by an earthquake,
and then by thunder and lightning. Many were scattered and wandered
about aimlessly; many were precipitated into the rents torn in the
earth, the rest had their faces scorched, and in their terror and pain
their weapons dropped from their hands. (42)

In peace as in war Samuel was the type of a disinterested,
incorruptible judge, who even refused compensation for the time,
trouble, and pecuniary sacrifices entailed upon him by his office. (43)
His sons fell far short of resembling their father in these respects.
Instead of continuing Samuel's plan of journeying from place to place
to dispense judgment, they had the people come to them, and they
surrounded themselves with a crew of officials who preyed upon the
people for their maintenance. (44) In a sense, therefore, the curse
with which Eli threatened Samuel in his youth was accomplished: both he
and Samuel had sons unworthy of their fathers. (45) Samuel at least had
the satisfaction of seeing his sons mend their ways. One of them is the
prophet Joel, whose prophecy forms a book of the Bible. (46)

Though, according to this account, the sons of Samuel were by no means
so iniquitous as might be inferred from the severe expressions of the
Scripture, still the demand for a king made by the leaders of the
people was not unwarranted. All they desired was a king in the place of
a judge. What enkindled the wrath of God and caused Samuel vexation,
was the way in which the common people formulated the demand. "We want
a king," they said, "that we may be like the other nations." (47)

THE REIGN OF SAUL

There were several reasons for the choice of Saul as king. He had
distinguished himself as a military hero in the unfortunate engagement
of the Philistines with Israel under the leadership of the sons of Eli.
Goliath captured the tables of the law. When Saul heard of this in
Shiloh, he marched sixty miles to the camp, wrested the tables from the
giant, and returned to Shiloh on the same day, bringing Eli the report
of the Israelitish misfortune. (48) Besides, Saul possessed unusual
beauty, (49) which explains why the maidens whom he asked about the
seer in their city sought to engage him in a lengthy conversation. (50)
At the same time he was exceedingly modest. When he and his servant
failed to find the asses they were looking for, he said, "My father
will take thought of us," putting his servants on a level with himself,
(51) and when he was anointed king, he refused to accept the royal
dignity until the Urim and Thummin were consulted. (52) His chief
virtue, however, was his innocence. He was as free from sin as "a one
year old child." (53) No wonder, then, he was held worthy of the
prophetic gift. The prophecies he uttered concerned themselves with the
war of Gog and Magog, the meting out of reward and punishment at the
last judgment. (54) Finally, his choice as king was due also to the
merits of his ancestors, especially his grandfather Abiel, a man
interested in the public welfare, who would have the streets lighted so
that people might go to the houses of study after dark. (55)

Saul's first act as king was his successful attack upon Nahash, king of
the Ammonites, who had ordered the Gileadites to remove the injunction
from the Torah barring the Ammonites from the congregation of Israel.
(56) In his next undertaking, the campaign against the Philistines, he
displayed his piety. His son Jonathan had fallen under the severe ban
pronounced by Saul against all who tasted food on a certain day, and
Saul did not hesitate to deliver him up to death. Jonathan's trespass
was made know by the stones in the breastplate of the high priest. All
the stones were bright, only the one bearing the name Benjamin had lost
its brilliancy. By lot it was determined that its dimmed lustre was due
to the Benjamite Jonathan. Saul desisted from his purpose of executing
Jonathan only when it appeared that he had transgressed his father's
command by mistake. A burnt offering and his weight in gold paid to the
sanctuary were considered an atonement for him. (57) In the same war
Saul had occasion to show his zeal for the scrupulous observance of the
sacrificial ordinances. He reproached his warriors with eating the meat
of the sacrifices before the blood was sprinkled on the altar, (58) and
he made it his task to see to it that the slaughtering knife was kept
in the prescribed condition. As recompense, an angel brought him a
sword, there being none beside Saul in the whole army to bear one. (59)

Saul manifested a different spirit in the next campaign, the war with
the Amalekites, whom, at the bidding of God, he was to exterminate.
When the message of God's displeasure was conveyed to Saul by the
prophet Samuel, he said: "If the Torah ordains that a heifer of the
herd shall be beheaded in the valley as an atonement for the death of a
single man, how great must be the atonement required for the slaughter
of so many men? And granted they are sinners, what wrong have their
cattle done to deserve annihilation? And granted that the adults are
worthy of their fate, what have the children done?" Then a voice
proclaimed from heaven, "Be not overjust." Later on, when Saul
commissioned Doeg to cut down the priests at Nob, the same voice was
heard to say, "Be not overwicked." (60) It was this very Doeg, destined
to play so baleful a part in his life, who induced Saul to spare Agag,
the king of Amalekites. His argument was the law prohibits the slaying
of an animal and its young on the same day. How much less permissible
is it to destroy at one time old and young, men and children. (61) As
Saul had undertaken the war of extermination against Amalek only
because forced into it, he was easily persuaded to let the people keep
a part of the cattle alive. As far as he himself was concerned, he
could have had no personal interest in the booty, for he was so
affluent that he took a census of the army by giving a sheep to every
one of his soldiers, distributing not less than two hundred thousand
sheep. (62)

Compared with David's sins, Saul's were not sufficiently grievous to
account for the withdrawal of the royal dignity from him and his
family. The real reason was Saul's too great mildness, a drawback in a
ruler. Moreover, his family was of such immaculate nobility that his
descendants might have become too haughty. (63) When Saul disregarded
the Divine command about the Amalekites, Samuel announced to him that
his office would be bestowed upon another. The name of his successor
was not mentioned on that occasion, but Samuel gave him a sign by which
to recognize the future king: he who would cut off the corner of Saul's
mantle, would reign in his stead. Later on, when David met Saul in the
cave and cut off a piece of the king's skirt, Saul knew him for a
certainty to be his destined successor. (64)

So Saul lost his crown on account of Agag, and yet did not accomplish
his purpose of saving the life of the Amalekite king, for Samuel
inflicted a most cruel death upon Agag, and that not in accordance with
Jewish, but with heathen, forms of justice. No witnesses of Agag's
crime could be summoned before the court, nor could it be proved that
Agag, as the law requires, had been warned when about to commit the
crime. (65) Though due punishment was meted out to Agag, in a sense it
came too late. Had he been killed by Saul in the course of the battle,
the Jews would have been spared the persecution devised by Haman, for,
in the short span of time that elapsed between war and his execution,
Agag became the ancestor of Haman. (66)

The Amalekite war was the last of Saul's notable achievements. Shortly
afterward he was seized by the evil spirit, and the rest of his days
were passed mainly in persecuting David and his followers. Saul would
have died immediately after the Amalekite war, if Samuel had not
interceded for him. The prophet prayed to God that the life of the
disobedient king be spared, at least so long as his own years had not
come to their destined close: "Thou regardest me equal to Moses and
Aaron. (67) As Moses and Aaron did not have their handiwork destroyed
before their eyes during their life, so may my handiwork not cease
during my life." God said: "What shall I do? Samuel will not let me put
an end to Saul's days, and if I let Samuel die in his prime, people
will speak ill of him (68) Meanwhile David's time is approaching, and
one reign may not overlap the time assigned to another by his
hairbreadth." God determined to let Samuel age suddenly, and when he
died at fifty-two, (69) the people were under the impression the days
of an old man had come to an end. So long as he lived, Saul was secure.
(70) Scarcely was he dead, when the Philistines began to menace the
Israelites and their king. Soon it appeared how well justified had been
the mourning services for the departed prophet in all the Israelitish
towns. (71) It was not remarkable that the mourning for Samuel should
have been universal. During his active administration as judge, he had
been in the habit of journeying through every part of the country, and
so he was known personally to all the people. This practice of his
testifies not only to the zeal with which he devoted himself to his
office, but also to his wealth, for the expenses entailed by these
journeys were defrayed from his own purse. Only one person in all the
land took no part in the demonstrations of grief. During the very week
of mourning Nabal held feasts. "What!" God exclaimed, "all weep and
lament over the death of the pious, and this reprobate engages in
revelry!" Punishment was not withheld. Three days after the week of
mourning for Samuel Nabal dies. (72)

There was none that felt the death of Samuel more keenly than Saul.
Left alone and isolated, he did not shrink from extreme measures to
enter into communication with the departed prophet. With his two
adjutants, (73) Abner and Amasa, he betook himself to Abner's mother,
the witch of En-dor. (74) The king did not reveal his identity, but the
witch had no difficulty in recognizing her visitor. In necromancy the
peculiar rule holds good that, unless it is summoned by a king, a
spirit raised from the dead appears head downward and feet in the air.
(75) Accordingly, when the figure of Samuel stood upright before them,
the witch knew that the king was with her. Though the witch saw Samuel,
she could not hear what he said, while Saul heard his words, but could
not see his person another peculiar phenomenon in necromancy: the
conjuror sees the spirit, and he for whom the spirit had been raised
only hears it. Any other person present neither sees nor hears it.

The witch's excitement grew when she perceived a number of spirits
arise by the side of Samuel. The dead prophet, when he was summoned
back to earth, thought that the judgement day had arrived. He requested
Moses to accompany him and testify to his always having executed the
ordinances of the Torah as Moses had established them. With these two
great leaders a number of the pious arose, all believing that the day
of judgment was at hand. Samuel was apparelled in the "upper garment"
his mother had made for him when she surrendered him to the sanctuary.
This he had worn throughout his life, and in it he was buried. At the
resurrection all the dead wear their grave clothes, and so it came
about that Samuel stood before Saul in his well-known "upper garment."

Only fragments of the conversation between Samuel and Saul have been
preserved in the Scriptures. Samuel reproached Saul with having
disturbed him. "Was it not enough," he said, "for thee to enkindle the
wrath of thy Creator by calling up the spirits of the dead, must thou
need change me into an idol? For is it not said that like unto the
worshippers so shall the worshipped be punished?" Samuel then consented
to tell the king God's decree, that he had resolved to rend the kingdom
out of his hand, and invest David with the royal dignity. Whereupon
Saul: "These are not the words thou spakest to me before." (76) "When
we dwelt together," rejoined Samuel, "I was in the world of lies. Now I
abide in the world of truth, and thou heardest lying words from me, for
I feared thy wrath and thy revenge. Now I abide in the world of truth,
and thou hearest words of truth from me. As to the thing the Lord hath
done unto thee, thou hast deserved it, for thou didst not obey the
voice of the Lord, nor execute his fierce wrath upon Amalek." Saul
asked: "Can I still save myself by flight?" "Yes," replied Samuel, "if
thou fleest, thou art safe. But if thou acceptest God's judgment, by
to-morrow thou wilt be united with me in Paradise."

When Abner and Amasa questioned Saul about his interview with Samuel,
he replied: "Samuel told me I should go into battle to-morrow, and come
forth victorious. More than that, my sons will be given exalted
positions in return for their military prowess." The next day his three
sons went with him to the war, and all were stricken down. God summoned
the angels and said to them: "Behold the being I have created in my
world. A father as a rule refrains from taking his sons even to a
banquet, lest he expose them to the evil eye. Saul goes to war knowing
that he will lose his life, yet he takes his sons with him, and
cheerfully accepts the punishment I ordain." (77)

So perished the first Jewish king, as a hero and a saint. His latter
days were occupied with regrets on account of the execution of the
priest of Nob, (78) and his remorse secured pardon for him. (79)
Indeed, in all respects his piety was so great that not even David was
his equal: David had many wives and concubines; Saul had but on wife.
David remained behind, fearing to lose his life in battle with his son
Absalom; Saul went into the combat knowing he should not return alive.
Mild and generous, Saul led the life of a saint in his own house,
observing even the priestly laws of purity. Therefore God reproached
David with having pronounced a curse upon Saul in his prayer. (80)
Also, David in his old age was punished for having cut off the corner
of Saul's mantle, for no amount of clothing would keep him warm. (81)
Finally, when a great famine fell upon the land during the reign of
David, God told him it had been inflicted upon him because Saul's
remains had not been buried with the honor due to him, and at that
moment a heavenly voice resounded calling Saul "the elect of God." (82)

THE COURT OF SAUL

The most important figure at the court of Saul was his cousin Abner,
the son of the witch of En-dor. (83) He was a giant of extraordinary
size. A wall measuring six ells in thickness could be moved more easily
than one of Abner's feet. (84) David once chanced to get between the
feet of Abner as he lay asleep, and he was almost crushed to death,
when fortunately Abner moved them, and David made his escape. (85)
Conscious of his vast strength he once cried out: "If only I could
seize the earth at some point, I should be able to shake it." Even in
the hour of death, wounded mortally by Joab, he grasped his murderer
like a worsted ball. He was about to kill him, but the people crowded
round them, and said to Abner: "If thou killest Joab, we shall be
orphaned, and our wives and children will be prey to the Philistines."
Abner replied: "What can I do? He was about to extinguish my light."
The people consoled him: "Commit thy cause to the true Judge." Abner
thereupon loosed his hold upon Joab, who remained unharmed, while Abner
fell dead instantly. God had decided against him. (86) The reason was
that Joab was in a measure justified in seeking to avenge the death of
his brother Asahel. Asahel, the supernaturally swift runner, (87)   so
swift that he ran through a field without snapping the ears of wheat
(88)   had been the attacking party. He had sough to take Abner's life,
and Abner contended, that in killing Asahel he had but acted in
self-defense. Before inflicting the fatal wound, Joab held a formal
court of justice over Abner. He asked: "Why didst thou no render Asahel
harmless by wounding him rather than kill him?" Abner replied that he
could not have done it. "What," said Joab, incredulous, "if thou wast
able to strike him under the fifth rib, dost thou mean to say thou
couldst not have made him innocuous by a wound, and saved him alive?"
(89)

Although Abner was a saint, (90) even a "lion in the law," (91) he
perpetrated many a deed that made his violent death appear just. It was
in his favor that he had refused to obey Saul's command to do away with
the priests of Nob. (92) Yet a man of his stamp should not have rested
content with passive resistance. He should have interposed actively,
and kept Saul from executing his blood design. And granted that Abner
could not have influenced the king's mind in this matter, (93) at all
events he is censurable for having frustrated a reconciliation between
Saul and David. When David, holding in his hand the corner of the
king's mantle which he had cut off, sought to convince Saul of his
innocence, it was Abner who turned the king against the suppliant
fugitive. "Concern not thyself about it," he said to Saul. "David found
the rag on a thornbush in which thou didst catch the skirt of thy
mantle as thou didst pass it." (94) On the other hand, no blame
attaches to Abner for having espoused the cause of Saul's son against
David for two years and a half. He knew that God had designated David
for the royal office, but, according to an old tradition, God had
promised two kings to the tribe of Benjamin, and Abner considered it
his duty to transmit his father's honor to the son of Saul the
Benjamite. (95)

Another figure of importance during Saul's reign, but a man of
radically different character, was Doeg. Doeg, the friend of Saul from
the days of his youth, (96) died when he was thirty-four years old,
(97) yet at that early age he had been president of the Sanhedrin and
the greatest scholar of his time. He was called Edomi, which means, not
Edomite, but "he who causes the blush of shame," because by his keen
mind and his learning he put to shame all who entered into argument
with him. (98) But his scholarship lay only on his lips, his heart was
not concerned in it, and his one aim was to elicit admiration. (99)
Small wonder, then, that his end was disastrous. At the time of his
death he had sunk so low that he forfeited all share in the life to
come. (100) Wounded vanity caused his hostility to David, who had got
the better of him in a learned discussion. (101) From that moment he
bent all his energies to the task of ruining David. He tried to poison
Saul's mind against David, by praising the latter inordinately, and so
arousing Saul's jealousy. (102) Again, he would harp on David's Moabite
descent, and maintain that on account of it he could not be admitted
into the congregation of Israel. Samuel and other prominent men had to
bring to bear all the weight of their authority to shield David against
the consequences of Doeg's sophistry. (103)

Doeg's most grievous transgression, however, was his informing against
the priests of Nob, whom he accused of high treason and executed as
traitors. For all his iniquitous deeds he pressed the law into his
service, and derived justification of his conduct from it. Abimelech,
the high priest at Nob, admitted that he had consulted the Urim and
Thummim for David. This served Doeg as the basis for the charge of
treason, and he stated it as an unalterable Halakah that the Urim and
Thummim may be consulted only for a king. In vain Abner and Amasa and
all the other members of the Sanhedrin demonstrated that the Urim and
Thummim may be consulted for any on whose undertaking concerns the
general welfare. Doeg would not yield, and as no one could be found to
execute the judgement, he himself officiated as hangman. (104) When the
motive of revenge actuated him, he held cheap alike the life and honor
of his fellow-man. He succeeded in convincing Saul that David's
marriage with the king's daughter Michal had lost its validity from the
moment David was declared a rebel. As such, he said, David was as good
as dead, since a rebel was outlawed. Hence his wife was no longer bound
to him. (105) Doeg's punishment accorded with his misdeeds. He who had
made impious use of his knowledge of the law, completely forgot the
law, and even his disciples rose up against him, and drove him from the
house of study. In the end he died a leper.

Dreadful as this death was, it was not accounted an atonement for his
sins. One angel burned his soul, and another scattered his ashes in all
the house of study and prayer. (106) The son of Doeg was Saul's
armor-bearer, who was killed by David for daring to slay the king even
though he longed for death. (107)

Along with Abner and Doeg, Jonathan distinguished himself in the reign
of his father. His military capacity was joined to deep scholarship. To
the latter he owed his position as Ab Bet Din. (108) Nevertheless he
was one of the most modest men known in history. (109) Abinadab was
another one of Saul's sons who was worthy of his father, wherefore he
was sometimes called Ishvi. (110) As for Saul's grandson Mephibosheth.
He, too, was reputed a great man. David himself did not scorn to sit at
his feet, and he revered Mephibosheth as his teacher. (111) The wrong
done him by David in granting one-half his possessions to Ziba, the
slave of Mephibosheth, did not go unavenged. When David ordered the
division of the estate of Mephibosheth, a voice from heaven prophesied:
"Jeroboam and Rehoboam shall divide the kingdom between themselves."
(112)




IV.
DAVID

DAVID'S BIRTH AND DESCENT

David, the "elect of God," (1) was descended from a family which itself
belonged to the elect of Israel. Those ancestors of his who are
enumerated in the Bible by name are all of them men of distinguished
excellence. Besides, David was a descendant of Miriam, (2) the sister
of Moses, and so the strain of royal aristocracy was reinforced by the
priestly aristocracy. Nor was David the first of his family to occupy
the throne of a ruler. His great-grandfather Boaz was one and the same
person with Ibzan, the judge of Bethlehem. (3) Othniel, too, the first
judge in Israel after the death of Joshua, and Caleb, (4) the brother
of Othniel, were connected with David's family. As examples of piety
and virtue, David had his grandfather and more particularly his father
before him. His grandfather's whole life was a continuous service of
God, (5) whence his name Obed, "the servant," and his father Jesse was
one of the greatest scholars of his time, (6) and one of the four who
died wholly untainted by sin. (7) If God had not ordained death for all
the descendants of our first parents after their fall, Jesse would have
continued to live forever. As it was, he died at the age of four
hundred, (8) and then a violent death, by the hand of the Moabite king,
(9) in whose care David, trusting in the ties of kinship between the
Moabites and the seed of Ruth, left his family when he was fleeing
before Saul. Jesse's piety will not go unrewarded. In the Messianic
time he will be one of the eight princes to rule over the world. (10)

In spite of his piety, Jesse was not always proof against temptation.
One of his slaves caught his fancy, and he would have entered into
illicit relations with her, had his wife, Nazbat, the daughter of
Adiel, not frustrated the plan. She disguised herself as the slave, and
Jesse, deceived by the ruse, met his own wife. The child borne by
Nazbat was given out as the son of the freed slave, so that the father
might not discover the deception practiced upon him. This child was
David. (11)

In a measure David was indebted for his life to Adam. At first only
three hours of existence had been allotted to him. When God caused all
future generations to pass in review before Adam, he besought God to
give David seventy of the thousand years destined for him. A deed of
gift, signed by God and the angel Metatron, was drawn up. Seventy years
were legally conveyed from Adam to David, and in accordance with Adam's
wishes, beauty, dominion, and poetical gift (12) went with them.

ANOINTED KING

Beauty and talent, Adam's gifts to David, did not shield their
possessor against hardship. As the supposed son of a slave, he was
banished from association with his brothers, and his days were passed
in the desert tending his father's sheep. (13) It was his shepherd life
that prepared him for his later exalted position. With gentle
consideration he led the flocks entrusted to him. The young lambs he
guided to pastures of tender grass; the patches of less juicy herbs he
reserved for the sheep; and the full-grown sturdy rams were given the
tough weeds for food. Then God said: "David knows how to tend sheep,
therefore he shall be the shepherd of my flock Israel." (14)

In the solitude of the desert David had opportunities of displaying his
extraordinary physical strength. One day he slew four lions and three
bears, (15) though he had no weapons. His most serious adventure was
with the reem. David encountered the mammoth beast asleep, and taking
it for a mountain, he began to ascend it. Suddenly the reem awoke, and
David found himself high up in the air on its horns. He vowed, if he
were rescued, to build a temple to God one hundred ells in height, as
high as the horns of the reem. Thereupon God sent a lion. The king of
beasts (16) inspired even the reem with awe. The reem prostrated
himself, and David could easily descend from his perch. At that moment
a deer appeared. The lion pursued after him, and David was saved from
the lion as well as the reem. (17)

He continued to lead the life of a shepherd until, at the age of
twenty-eight, (18) he was anointed king by Samuel, who was taught by a
special revelation that the despised youngest son of Jesse was to be
king. Samuel's first charge had been to anoint one of the sons of
Jesse, but he was not told which one. When he saw the oldest, Eliab, he
thought him the king of God's choice. God had allowed him to be
deceived, in order to punish Samuel for his excessive
self-consciousness in calling himself the seer. It was thus proved to
him that he could not foresee all things. (19) However, Samuel's error
was pardonable. God's first choice had rested upon Eliab. Only on
account of his violent nature, his swiftness to anger against David,
the position destined for him was transferred to his youngest brother.
(20) Eliab was in a sense compensated by seeing his daughter become the
wife of Rehoboam. Thus he, too, enjoys the distinction of being among
the ancestors of the Judaic kings, and Samuel's vision of Eliab as king
was not wholly false. (21)

The election of David was obvious from what happened with the holy oil
with which he was anointed. (22) When Samuel had tried to pour the oil
on David's brothers, it had remained in the horn, but at David's
approach it flowed of its own accord, and poured itself out over him.
The drops on his garments changed into diamonds and pearls, and after
the act of anointing him, the horn was as full as before.

The amazement was great that the son of a slave should be made king.
Then the wife of Jesse revealed her secret, and declared herself the
mother of David. (23)

The anointing of David was for a time kept a secret, but its effect
appeared in the gift of prophecy which manifested itself in David, (24)
and in his extraordinary spiritual development. His new accomplishments
naturally earned envy for him. None was more bitterly jealous than
Doeg, the greatest scholar of his time. When he heard that Saul was
about to have David come to court as his attendant, Doeg began to
praise David excessively, with the purpose of arousing the king's
jealousy and making David hateful in his eyes. He succeeded, (25) yet
Saul did not relinquish his plan of having David at court. David had
become known to Saul in his youth, and at that time the king had
conceived great admiration for him. The occasion was one on which David
had shown cleverness as well as love of justice. A rich woman had had
to leave her home temporarily. She could not carry her fortune with
her, nor did she wish to entrust it to any one. She adopted the device
of hiding her gold in honey jars, and these she deposited with a
neighbor. Accidentally he discovered what was in the jars, and he
abstracted the gold. On her return the woman received her vessels, but
the gold concealed in them was gone. She had no evidence to bring up
against her faithless neighbor, and the court dismissed her complaint.
She appealed to the king, but he was equally powerless to help. When
the woman came out of the palace of the king, David was playing with
his companions. Seeing her dejection, he demanded an audience of the
king, that truth might prevail. The king authorized him to do as he saw
fit. David ordered the honey jars to be broken, and two coins were
found to adhere to the inner side of the vessels. The thief had
overlooked them, and they proved his dishonesty. (26)

ENCOUNTER WITH GOLIATH

David was not long permitted to enjoy the ease of life at court. The
aggressive manner assumed by Goliath drove him to the front. It was a
curious chance that designated David to be the slayer of Goliath, who
was allied with him by the ties of blood. Goliath, it will be
remembered, was the son of the Moabitess Orpah, (27) the sister-in-law
of David's ancestress Ruth, and her sister as well, both having been
the daughters of the Moabite king Eglon. (28) David and Goliath
differed as widely as their grandams, for in contrast to Ruth, the
pious, religious Jewess, Orpah had led a life of unspeakable infamy.
Her son Goliath was jeered at as "the son of a hundred fathers and one
mother." (29) But God lets naught go unrewarded, even in the wicked. In
return for the forty steps Orpah had accompanied her mother-in-law
Naomi, (30) Goliath the Philistine, her son, was permitted to display
his strength and skill for forty days, and in return for the four tears
Orpah had shed on parting from her mother-in-law, she was privileged to
give birth to four giant sons. (31)

Of the four, Goliath was the strongest and greatest. What the
Scriptures tell about him is but a small fraction of what might have
been told. The Scriptures refrain intentionally from expatiating upon
the prowess of the miscreant. Nor do they tell how Goliath, impious as
he was, dared challenge the God of Israel to combat with him, and how
he tried by every means in his power to hinder the Israelites in their
Divine worship. Morning and evening he would appear in the camp at the
very time when the Israelites were preparing to say the Shema. (32)

All the more cause, then, for David to hate Goliath and determine to
annihilate him. His father encouraged him to oppose Goliath, for he
considered it David's duty to protect Saul the Benjamite against the
giant, as Judah, his ancestor, had in ancient days pledged himself for
the safety of Benjamin, the ancestor of Saul. (33) For Goliath was
intent upon doing away with Saul. His grievance against him was that
once, when, in a skirmish between the Philistines and the Israelites,
Goliath had succeeded in capturing the holy tables of the law, Saul had
wrested them from the giant. (34) In consequence of his malady, Saul
could not venture to cross swords with Goliath, and he accepted David's
offer to enter into combat in his place. David put on Saul's armor, and
when it appeared that the armor of the powerfully-built king fitted the
erstwhile slender youth, Saul recognized that David had been
predestined for the serious task he was about to undertake, but at the
same time David's miraculous transformation did not fail to arouse his
jealousy. (35) David, for this reason, declined to array himself as a
warrior for his contest with Goliath. He wanted to meet him as a simple
shepherd. Five pebbles came to David of their own accord, (36) and when
he touched them, they all turned into one pebble. (37) The five pebbles
stood for God, the three Patriarchs, and Aaron. Hophni and Phinehas,
the descendants of the last, had only a short time before been killed
by Goliath. (38)

Scarcely did David begin to move toward Goliath, when the giant became
conscious of the magic power of the youth. The evil eye David cast on
his opponent sufficed to afflict him with leprosy, (39) and in the very
same instant he was rooted to the ground, unable to move. (40) Goliath
was so confused by his impotence that he scarcely knew what he was
saying, and he uttered the foolish threat that he would give David's
flesh to the cattle of the field, as though cattle ate flesh. One can
see, David said to himself, that he is crazy, and there can be no doubt
he is doomed. (41) Sure of victory, David retorted that he would cast
the carcass of the Philistine to the fowls of the air. At the mention
of fowls, Goliath raised his eyes skyward, to see whether there were
any birds about. The upward motion of his head pushed his visor
slightly away from his forehead, and in that instant the pebble aimed
by David struck him on the exposed spot. (42) An angel descended and
cast him to the ground face downward, so that the mouth that had
blasphemed God might be choked with earth. He fell in such wise that
the image of Dagon which he wore on his breast touched the ground, and
his head came to lie between the feet of David, who now had no
difficulty in dispatching him. (43)

Goliath was encased, from top to toe, in several suits of armor, and
David did not know how to remove them and cut off the head of the
giant. At this juncture Uriah the Hittite offered him his services, but
under the condition that David secure him an Israelitish wife. David
accepted the condition, and Uriah in turn showed him how the various
suits of armor were fastened together at the heels of the giant's feet.

David's victory naturally added fuel to the fire of Saul's jealousy.
Saul sent Abner, his general, to make inquiry whether David, who, he
knew, was of the tribe of Judah, belonged to the clan of the Perez or
to the clan of the Zerah. In the former case his suspicion that David
was destined for kingship would be confirmed. Doeg, David's enemy from
of old, observed that David, being the descendant of the Moabitess
Ruth, did not even belong to the Jewish communion, and Saul need
entertain no fears from that quarter. A lively discussion arose between
Abner and Doeg, as to whether the law in Deuteronomy regarding Moabites
affected women as well as men. Doeg, an expert dialectician,
brilliantly refuted all of Abner's arguments in favor of the admission
of Moabitish women. Samuel's authority had to be appealed to in order
to establish for all times the correctness of Abner's view. (44)
Indeed, the dispute could be settled only by recourse to threats of
violence. Ithra, the father of Amasa, in Arab fashion, for which reason
he was sometimes called the Ishmaelite, threatened to hew down any one
with his sword who refused to accept Samuel's interpretation of the
law, that male Moabites and male Ammonites are forever excluded from
the congregation of Israel, but not Moabite and Ammonite women. (45)

PURSUED BY SAUL

As God stood by David in his duel with Goliath, so he stood by him in
many other of his difficulties. Often when he thought all hope lost,
the arm of God suddenly succored him, and in unexpected ways, not only
bringing relief, but also conveying instruction on God's wise and just
guidance of the world.

David once said to God: "The world is entirely beautiful and good, with
the one exception of insanity. What use does the world derive from a
lunatic, who runs hither and thither, tears his clothes, and is pursued
by a mob of hooting children?" "Verily, a time will come," said God in
reply, "when thou wilt supplicate me to afflict thee with madness."
Now, it happened when David, on his flight before Saul, came to Achish,
the king of the Philistines, who lived in Gath, that the brothers of
Goliath formed the heathen king's body-guard, and they demanded that
their brother's murderer be executed. Achish, though a heathen, was
pious, for which reason he is called Abimelech in the Psalms, after the
king of Gerar, who also was noted for piety. He therefore sought to
pacify David's enemies. He called their attention to the fact that
Goliath had been the one to challenge the Jews to combat, and it was
meet, therefore, that he should be left to bear the consequences. The
brothers rejoined, if that view prevailed, then Achish would have to
give up his throne to David, for, according to the conditions of the
combat, the victor was to have dominion over the vanquished as his
servants. In his distress, David besought God to let him appear a
madman in the eyes of Achish and his court. God granted his prayer. As
the wife and daughter of the Philistine king were both bereft of
reason, we can understand his exclamation: "Do I lack madmen, that ye
have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence?" Thus it
was that David was rescued. Thereupon he composed the Psalm beginning
with the words, "I will bless the Lord at all times," which includes
even the time of lunacy. (46)

On another occasion David expressed his doubt of God's wisdom in having
formed such apparently useless creatures as spiders are. They do
nothing but spin a web that has no value. He was to have striking proof
that even a spider's web may serve an important purpose. On one
occasion he had taken refuge in a cave, and Saul and his attendants, in
pursuit of him, were about to enter and seek him there. But God sent a
spider to weave its web across the opening, and Saul told his men to
desist from fruitless search in the cave, for the spider's web was
undeniable proof that no one had passed through its entrance. (47)

Similarly, when David became indebted to one of them for his life, he
was cured of his scorn for wasps. He had thought them good for nothing
but to breed maggots. David once surprised Saul and his attendants
while they were fast asleep in their camp, and he resolved to carry
off, as proof of his magnanimity, the cruse that stood between the feet
of the giant Abner, who like the rest was sleeping. Fortunately his
knees were drawn up, so that David could carry out his intention
unhindered. But as David was retiring with the cruse, Abner stretched
out his feet, and pinned David down as with two solid pillars. His life
would have been forfeit, if a wasp had not stung Abner, who
mechanically, in his sleep, moved his feet, and released David. (48)

There were still other miracles that happened to David in his flight.
Once, when Saul and his men compassed David round about, an angel
appeared and summoned him home, to repulse the raid of the Philistines
upon the land. Saul gave up the pursuit of David, but only after a
majority had so decided, for some had been of the opinion that the
seizure of David was quite as important as the repulse of the
Philistines. (49) Again, in his battle with the Amalekites, David
enjoyed direct intervention from above. Lightning in flashes and sheets
illumined the dark night, so enabling him to carry on the struggle.
(50)

WARS

David's first thought after ascending the throne was to wrest
Jerusalem, sacred since the days of Adam, Noah, and Abraham, from the
grasp of the heathen. The plan was not easy of execution for various
reasons. The Jebusites, the possessors of Jerusalem, were the posterity
of those sons of Heth who had ceded the Cave of Machpelah to Abraham
only on condition that their descendants should never be forcibly
dispossessed of their capital city Jerusalem. In perpetuation of this
agreement between Abraham and the sons of Heth, monuments of brass were
erected, and when David approached Jerusalem with hostile intent, the
Jebusites pointed to Abraham's promise engraven upon them and still
plainly to be read. (51) They maintained that before David could take
the city, which they had surrounded with a high wall, he would have to
destroy the monuments. Joab devised a plan of getting into Jerusalem.
He set up a tall cypress tree near the wall, bent it downward, and
standing on David's head, he grasped the very tip of the tree. When the
tree rebounded, Joab sat high above the wall, and could jump down upon
it. Once in the city, he destroyed the monuments, and possessed himself
of Jerusalem. (52) For David a miracle had happened; the wall had
lowered itself before him so that he could walk into the city without
difficulty. David, however, was not desirous of using forcible means.
He therefore offered the Jebusites six hundred shekels, fifty shekels
for each Israelitish tribe. The Jebusites accepted the money, and gave
David a bill of sale. (53)

Jerusalem having been acquired, David had to prepare for war with the
Philistines, in which the king gave proof at once of his heroic courage
and his unshakable trust in God. The latter quality he displayed
signally in the battle that took place in the Valley of the Giants. God
had commanded David not to attack the host of the Philistines until he
heard "the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees." God
desired to pass judgment upon the tutelary angels of the heathen,
before surrendering the heathen themselves to the pious, (54) and the
motion of the tops of the trees was to indicate that the battle could
proceed. The enemy advanced until there were but four ells between them
and the Israelites. The latter were about to throw themselves against
the Philistines, but David restrained them, saying: "God forbade me to
attack the Philistines before the tops of the trees begin to move. If
we transgress God's command, we shall certainly die. If we delay, it is
probable that we shall be killed by the Philistines, but, at least, we
shall die as pious men that keep God's command. Above all, let us have
confidence in God." Scarcely had he ended his speech when the tops of
the trees rustled, and David made a successful assault upon the
Philistines. Whereupon God said to the angels, who were constantly
questioning him as to why he had taken the royal dignity from Saul and
given it to David: "See the difference between Saul and David." (55)

Of David's other campaigns, the most notable is his war with Shobach
the Aramean, whom he conquered in spite of his gigantic size and
strength. Shobach was very tall, as tall as a dove-cote, and one look
at him sufficed to strike terror to the heart of the beholder. (56) The
Aramean general indulged in the belief that David would treat the
Syrians gently on account of the monument, still in existence at that
time, which Jacob and Laban had erected on the frontier between
Palestine and Aram as a sign of their covenant that neither they nor
their descendants should wage war with each other. But David destroyed
the monument. (57) Similarly, the Philistines had placed trust in a
relic from Isaac, the bridle of a mule which the Patriarch had given to
Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, as a pledge of the covenant
between Israel and his people. David took it from them by force. (58)

However, David was as just as he was bold. Disregard of the covenants
made by the Patriarchs was far removed from his thoughts. Indeed,
before departing for the wars with the Arameans and the Philistines, he
had charged the Sanhedrin to investigate carefully the claims of the
two nations. The claims of the Philistines were shown to be utterly
unfounded. In no sense were they the descendants of those Philistines
who had concluded a treaty with Isaac; they had immigrated from Cyprus
at a much later date. The Arameans, on the other hand, had forfeited
their claims upon considerate treatment, because under the "Aramean"
Balaam, and later again, in the time of Othniel, under their king
Cushan-rishathaim, they had attacked and made war upon the Israelites.
(59)

AHITHOPHEL

Among David's courtiers and attendants, a prominent place is occupied
by his counsellor Ahithophel, (60) with whom the king was connected by
family ties, Bath-sheba being his granddaughter. (61) Ahithophel's
wisdom was supernatural, for his counsels always coincided with the
oracles rendered by the Urim and Thummim, and great as was his wisdom,
it was equalled by his scholarship. Therefore David did not hesitate to
submit himself to his instruction, (62) even though Ahithophel was a
very young man, at the time of his death not more than thirty-three
years old. (63) The one thing lacking in him was sincere piety, (64)
and this it was that proved his undoing in the end, for it induced him
to take part in Absalom's rebellion against David. Thus he forfeited
even his share in the world to come. (65)

To this dire course of action he was misled by astrologic and other
signs, which he interpreted as prophecies of his own kingship, when in
reality they pointed to the royal destiny of his granddaughter
Bath-sheba. (66) Possessed by his erroneous belief, he cunningly urged
Absalom to commit an unheard-of crime. Thus Absalom would profit
nothing by his rebellion, for, though he accomplished his father's
ruin, he would yet be held to account and condemned to death for his
violation of family purity, and the way to the throne would be clear
for Ahithophel, the great sage in Israel. (67)

The relation between David and Ahithophel had been somewhat strained
even before Absalom's rebellion. Ahithophel's feelings had been hurt by
his being passed over at the time when David, shortly after ascending
the throne, invested, on a single day, no less than ninety thousand
functionaries with positions.

On that day a remarkable incident occurred. When the Ark was to be
brought up from Geba to Jerusalem, the priests who attempted to take
hold of it were raised up in the air and thrown violently to the
ground. In his despair the king turned for advice to Ahithophel, who
retorted mockingly: "Ask thy wise men whom thou hast but now installed
in office." It was only when David uttered a curse on him who knows a
remedy and withholds it from the sufferer, that Ahithophel advised that
a sacrifice should be offered at every step taken by the priests.
Although the measure proved efficacious, and no further disaster
occurred in connection with the Ark, yet Ahithophel's words had been
insincere. He knew the real reason of the misadventure, and concealed
it from the king. Instead of following the law of having the Ark
carried on the shoulders of priests, David had had it put on a wagon,
and so incurred the wrath of God. (68)

Ahithophel's hostility toward David showed itself also on the following
occasion. When David was digging the foundations of the Temple, a shard
was found at a depth of fifteen hundred cubits. David was about to lift
it, when the shard exclaimed: "Thou canst not do it." "Why not?" asked
David. "Because I rest upon the abyss." "Since when?" "Since the hour
in which the voice of God was heard to utter the words from Sinai, 'I
am the Lord thy God,' causing the earth to quake and sink into the
abyss. I lie here to cover up the abyss." Nevertheless David lifted the
shard, and the waters of the abyss rose and threatened to flood the
earth. Ahithophel was standing by, and he thought to himself: "Now
David will meet with his death, and I shall be king." Just then David
said: "Whoever knows how to stem the tide of waters, and fails to do
it, will one day throttle himself." (69) Thereupon Ahithophel had the
Name of God inscribed upon the shard, and the shard thrown into the
abyss. The waters at once commenced to subside, but they sank to so
great a depth that David feared the earth might lose her moisture, and
he began to sing the fifteen "Songs of Ascents," to bring the waters up
again. (70)

Nevertheless David's curse was realized. Ahithophel ended his days by
hanging himself. His last will contained the following three rules of
conduct: (71) 1. Refrain from doing aught against a favorite of
fortune. 2. Take heed not to rise up against the royal house of David.
3. If the Feast of Pentecost falls on a sunny day, then sow wheat. (72)

Posterity has been favored with the knowledge of but a small part of
Ahithophel's wisdom, and that little through two widely different
sources, through Socrates, (73) who was his disciple, and through a
fortune-book written by him. (74)

JOAB

Joab, the warrior, was a contrast to Ahithophel in every essential. He
was David's right hand. It was said, if Joab had not been there to
conduct his wars, David would not have had leisure to devote himself to
the study of the Torah. He was the model of a true Jewish hero,
distinguished at the same time for his learning, piety, and goodness.
His house stood wide open for all comers, and the campaigns which he
undertook redounded invariably to the benefit of the people. They were
indebted to him for luxuries even, (75) and more than that, he took
thought for the welfare of scholars, he himself being the president of
the Sanhedrin. (76)

It interested Joab to analyze the character of men and their opinions.
When he heard King David's words: "Like as a father pitieth his
children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him," he expressed his
astonishment that the comparison should be made with the love of a
father for a child, and not with the love of a mother; mother love as a
rule is considered the stronger and the more self-sacrificing. He made
up his mind to keep his eyes open, and observe whether David's idea was
borne out by facts. On one of his journeys he happened into the house
of a poor old man who had twelve children, all of whom the father
supported, however meagrely, with the toil of his own hands. Joab
proposed that he sell him one of the twelve children; he would thus be
relieved of the care of one, and the selling-price could be applied to
the better support of the rest. The good father rejected the
proposition brusquely. Then Joab approached the mother, offering her a
hundred gold denarii for one of the children. At first she resisted the
temptation, but finally she yielded. When the father returned in the
evening, he cut the bread, as was his wont, into fourteen pieces, for
himself, his wife, and his twelve children. In allotting the portions
he missed a child, and insisted upon being told its fate. The mother
confessed what had happened during his absence. He neither ate nor
drank, and next morning he set out, firmly resolved to return the money
to Joab and to slay him if he should refuse to surrender the child.
After much parleying, and after the father had threatened him with
death, Joab yielded the child to the old man, with the exclamation:
"Yes, David was right when he compared God's love for men to a father's
love for his child. This poor fellow who has twelve children to support
was prepared to fight me to the death for one of them, which the
mother, who calmly stayed at home, had sold to me for a price."

Among all the heroic achievements of Joab, the most remarkable is the
taking of the Amalekite capital. For six months the flower of the
Israelitish army, twelve thousand in number, under the leadership of
Joab, had been besieging the capital city of the Amalekites without
result. The soldiers made representations to their general, that it
would be well for them to return home to their wives and children. Joab
urged that this not only would earn for them contempt and derision, but
also would invite new danger. The heathen would be encouraged to unite
against the Israelites. He proposed that they hurl him into the city by
means of a sling, and then wait forty days. If at the end of this
period they saw blood flow from the gates of the fortress, it should be
a sign to them that he was still alive.

His plan was executed. Joab took with him one thousand pieces of money
and his sword. When he was cast from the sling, he fell into the
courtyard of a widow, whose daughter caught him up. In a little while
he regained consciousness. He pretended to be an Amalekite taken
prisoner by the Israelites, and thrown into the city by his captors,
who thus wished to inflict death. As he was provided with money, which
he dispensed lavishly among his entertainers, he was received kindly,
and was given the Amalekite garb. So apparelled, he ventured, after ten
days, on a tour of inspection through the city, which he found to be of
enormous size.

His first errand was to an armorer, to have him mend his sword, which
had been broken by his fall. When the artisan scanned Joab's weapon, he
started back—he had never seen a sword like it. He forged a new one,
which snapped in two almost at once when Joab grasped it firmly. So it
happened with a second sword, and with a third. Finally he succeeded in
fashioning one that was acceptable. Joab asked the smith whom he would
like him to slay with the sword, and the reply was, "Joab, the general
of the Israelitish king." "I am he," said Joab, and when the smith in
astonishment turned to look at him, Joab ran him through so skillfully
that the victim had no realization of what was happening. Thereupon he
hewed down five hundred Amalekite warriors whom he met on his way, and
not one escaped to betray him. The rumor arose that Asmodeus, the king
of demons, was raging among the inhabitants of the city, and slaying
them in large numbers.

After another period of ten days, which he spent in retirement with his
hosts, Joab sallied forth a second time, and caused such bloodshed
among the Amalekites that his gory weapon clave to his hand, and his
right hand lost all power of independent motion, it could be made to
move only in a piece with his arm. He hastened to his lodging place to
apply hot water to his hand and free it from the sword. On his way
thither the woman who had caught him up when he fell into the city
called to him: "Thou eatest and drinkest with us, yet thou slayest our
warriors." Seeing himself betrayed, he could not but kill the woman.
Scarcely had his sword touched her, when it was separated from his
hand, and his hand could move freely, for the dead woman had been with
child, and the blood of the unborn babe loosed the sword.

After Joab had slain thousands, the Israelites without, at the very
moment when they were beginning to mourn their general as dead, saw
blood issue from the city, and joyfully they cried out with one accord:
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." Joab mounted a
high tower, and in stentorian tones shouted: "The Lord will not forsake
his people." Inspired with high and daring courage, the Israelites
demanded permission to assault the city and capture it. As Joab turned
to descend from the tower, he noticed that six verses of a Psalm were
inscribed on his foot, the first verse running thus: "The Lord answers
thee in the day of trouble, the name of the God of Jacob is thy
defense." Later David added three verses and completed the Psalm.
Thereupon the Israelites took the Amalekite capital, destroyed the
heathen temples in the city, and slew all its inhabitants, except the
king, whom, with his crown of pure gold on his head, they brought
before David. (77)

DAVID'S PIETY AND HIS SIN

Neither his great achievements in war nor his remarkable good fortune
moved David from his pious ways, or in aught changed his mode of life.
Even after he became king he sat at the feet of his teachers, Ira the
Jairite (78) and Mephibosheth. To the latter he always submitted his
decisions on religious questions, to make sure that they were in
accordance with law. (79) Whatever leisure time his royal duties
afforded him, he spent in study and prayer. He contented himself with
"sixty breaths" of sleep. (80) At midnight the strings of his harp,
(81) which were made of the gut of the ram sacrificed by Abraham on
Mount Moriah, (82) began to vibrate. The sound they emitted awakened
David, and he would arise at once to devote himself to the study of the
Torah. (83)

Besides study, the composition of psalms naturally claimed a goodly
portion of his time. Pride filled his heart when he had completed the
Psalter, and he exclaimed: "O Lord of the world, is there another
creature in the universe who like me proclaims thy praise?" A frog came
up to the king, and said: "Be not so proud; I have composed more psalms
than thou, and, besides, every psalm my mouth has uttered I have
accompanied with three thousand parables." (84) And, truly, if David
indulged in conceit, it was only for a moment. As a rule he was the
exemplar of modesty. The coins which were stamped by him bore a
shepherd's crook and pouch on the obverse, and on the reverse the Tower
of David. (85) In other respects, too, his bearing was humble, as
though he were still the shepherd and not the king. (86)

His great piety invested his prayer with such efficacy that he could
bring things in heaven down to earth. (87) It is natural that so godly
a king should have used the first respite granted by his wars to carry
out his design of erecting a house of worship to God. But in the very
night in which David conceived the plan of building the Temple, God
said to Nathan the prophet: "Hasten to David. I know him to be a man
with whom execution follows fast upon the heels of thought, and I
should not like him to hire laborers for the Temple work, and then,
disappointed, complain of me. I furthermore know him to be a man who
obligates himself by vows to do good deeds, and I desire to spare him
the embarrassment of having to apply to the Sanhedrin for absolution
from his vow." (88)

When David heard Nathan's message for him, he began to tremble, and he
said: "Ah, verily, God hath found me unworthy to erect His sanctuary."
But God replied with these words: "Nay, the blood shed by thee I
consider as sacrificial blood, but I do not care to have thee build the
Temple, because then it would be eternal and indestructible." "But that
would be excellent," said David. Whereupon the reply was vouchsafed
him: "I foresee that Israel will commit sins. I shall wreak My wrath
upon the Temple, and Israel will be saved from annihilation. However,
thy good intentions shall receive their due reward. The Temple, though
it be built by Solomon, shall be called thine." (89)

David's thinking and planning were wholly given to what is good and
noble. He is one of the few pious men over whom the evil inclination
had no power. (90) By nature he was not disposed to commit such
evil-doing as his relation to Bath-sheba involved. God Himself brought
him to his crime, that He might say to other sinners: "Go to David and
learn how to repent." (91) Nor, indeed, may David be charged with gross
murder and adultery. There were extenuating circumstances. In those
days it was customary for warriors to give their wives bills of
divorce, which were to have validity only if the soldier husbands did
not return at the end of the campaign. Uriah having fallen in battle,
Bath-sheba was a regularly divorced woman. As for the death of her
husband, it cannot be laid entirely at David's door, for Uriah had
incurred the death penalty by his refusal to take his ease in his own
house, according to the king's bidding. (92) Moreover, from the first,
Bath-sheba had been destined by God for David, but by way of punishment
for having lightly promised Uriah the Hittite an Israelitish woman to
wife, in return for his aid in unfastening the armor of the prostrate
Goliath, the king had to undergo bitter trials before he won her. (93)

Furthermore, the Bath-sheba episode was a punishment for David's
excessive self-consciousness. He had fairly besought God to lead him
into temptation, that he might give proof of his constancy. It came
about thus: He once complained to God: "O Lord of the world, why do
people say God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, and why not God
of David?" The answer came: "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were tried by
me, but thou hast not yet been proved." David entreated: "Then examine
me, O Lord, and try me." And God said: "I shall prove thee, and I shall
even grant thee what I did not grant the Patriarchs. I shall tell thee
beforehand that thou wilt fall into temptation through a woman."

Once Satan appeared to him in the shape of a bird. David threw a dart
at him. Instead of striking Satan, it glanced off and broke a wicker
screen which hid Bath-sheba combing her hair. The sight of her aroused
passion in the king. (94) David realized his transgression, and for
twenty-two years he was a penitent. Daily he wept a whole hour and ate
his "bread with ashes." (95) But he had to undergo still heavier
penance. For a half-year he suffered with leprosy, and even the
Sanhedrin, which usually was in close personal attendance upon him, had
to leave him. He lived not only in physical, but also in spiritual
isolation, for the Shekinah departed from him during that time. (96)

ABSALOM'S REBELLION

Of all the punishments, however, inflicted upon David, none was so
severe as the rebellion of his own son.

Absalom was of such gigantic proportions that a man who was himself of
extraordinary size, standing in the eye-socket of his skull, sank in
down to his nose. (97) As for his marvellous hair, the account of it in
the Bible does not convey a notion of its abundance. Absalom had taken
the vow of a Nazarite. As his vow was for life, and because the growth
of his hair was particularly heavy, the law permitted him to clip it
slightly every week. (98) It was of this small quantity that the weight
amounted to two hundred shekels.

Absalom arranged for his audacious rebellion with great cunning. He
secured a letter from his royal father empowering him to select two
elders for his suite in every town he visited. With this document he
travelled through the whole of Palestine. In each town he went to the
two most distinguished men, and invited them to accompany him, at the
same time showing them what his father had written, and assuring them
that they had been chosen by him because he had a particular affection
for them. So he succeeded in gathering the presidents of two hundred
courts about him. This having been accomplished, he arranged a large
banquet, at which he seated one of his emissaries between every two of
his guests, for the purpose of winning them over to his cause. The plan
did not succeed wholly, for, though the elders of the towns stood by
Absalom, in their hearts they hoped for David's victory. (99)

The knowledge that a part of Absalom's following sided with him in
secret,—that, though he was pursued by his son, his friends remained
true to him,—somewhat consoled David in his distress. He thought that
in these circumstances, if the worst came to the worst, Absalom would
at least feel pity for him. (100) At first, however, the despair of
David knew no bounds. He was on the point of worshipping an idol, when
his friend Hushai the Archite approached him, saying: "The people will
wonder that such a king should serve idols." David replied: "Should a
king such as I am be killed by his own son? It is better for me to
serve idols than that God should be held responsible for my misfortune,
and His Name thus be desecrated." Hushai reproached him: "Why didst
thou marry a captive?" "There is no wrong in that," replied David, "it
is permitted according to the law." Thereupon Hushai: "But thou didst
disregard the connection between the passage permitting it and the one
that follows almost immediately after it in the Scriptures, dealing
with the disobedient and rebellious son, the natural issue of such a
marriage." (101)

Hushai was not the only faithful friend and adherent David had. Some
came to his rescue unexpectedly, as, for instance, Shobi, the son of
Nahash, who is identical with the Ammonite king Hanun, the enemy of
David at first, and later his ally. (102) Barzillai, another one of his
friends in need, also surprised him by his loyalty, for on the whole
his moral attitude was not the highest conceivable. (103)

Absalom's end was beset with terrors. When he was caught in the
branches of the oak-tree, he was about to sever his hair with a sword
stroke, but suddenly he saw hell yawning beneath him, and he preferred
to hang in the tree to throwing himself into the abyss alive. (104)
Absalom's crime was, indeed, of a nature to deserve the supreme
torture, for which reason he is one of the few Jews who have no portion
in the world to come. (105) His abode is in hell, where he is charged
with the control of ten heathen nations in the second division.
Whenever the avenging angels sit in judgment on the nations, they
desire to visit punishment on Absalom, too, but each time a heavenly
voice is heard to call out: "Do not chastise him, do not burn him. He
is an Israelite, the son of My servant David." Whereupon Absalom is set
upon his throne, and is accorded the treatment due to a king. (106)
That the extreme penalties of hell were thus averted from him, was on
account of David's eightfold repetition of his son's name in his lament
over him. Besides, David's intercession had the effect of re-attaching
Absalom's severed head to his body. (107)

At his death Absalom was childless, for all his children, his three
sons and his daughter, died before him, as a punishment for his having
set fire to a field of grain belonging to Joab. (108)

DAVID'S ATONEMENT

All these sufferings did not suffice to atone for David's sin. God once
said to him: "How much longer shall this sin be hidden in thy hand and
remain unatoned? On thy account the priestly city of Nob was destroyed,
(109) on thy account Doeg the Edomite was cast out of the communion of
the pious, and on thy account Saul and his three sons were slain. What
dost thou desire now—that thy house should perish, or that thou thyself
shouldst be delivered into the hands of thine enemies?" David chose the
latter doom.

It happened one day when he was hunting, Satan, in the guise of a deer,
enticed him further and further, into the very territory of the
Philistines, where he was recognized by Ishbi the giant, the brother of
Goliath, his adversary. Desirous of avenging his brother, he seized
David, and cast him into a winepress, where the king would have
suffered a torturous end, if by a miracle the earth beneath him had not
begun to sink, and so saved him from instantaneous death. His plight,
however, remained desperate, and it required a second miracle to rescue
him.

In that hour Abishai, the cousin of David, was preparing for the advent
of the Sabbath, for the king's misfortune happened on Friday as the
Sabbath was about to come in. When Abishai poured out water to wash
himself, he suddenly caught sight of drops of blood in it. Then he was
startled by a dove that came to him plucking out her plumes, and
moaning and wailing. Abishai exclaimed: "The dove is the symbol of the
people of Israel. It cannot be but that David, the king of Israel, is
in distress." Not finding the king at home, he was confirmed in his
fears, and he determined to go on a search for David on the swiftest
animal at his command, the king's own saddle-beast. But first he had to
obtain the permission of the sages to mount the animal ridden by the
king, for the law forbids a subject to avail himself of things set
aside for the personal use of a king. Only the impending danger could
justify the exception made in this case.

Scarcely had Abishai mounted the king's animal, when he found himself
in the land of the Philistines, for the earth had contracted
miraculously. He met Orpah, the mother of the four giant sons. She was
about to kill him, but he anticipated the blow and slew her. Ishbi,
seeing that he now had two opponents, stuck his lance into the ground,
and hurled David up in the air, in the expectation that when he fell he
would be transfixed by the lance. At that moment Abishai appeared, and
by pronouncing the Name of God he kept David suspended 'twixt heaven
and earth.

Abishai questioned David how such evil plight had overtaken him, and
David told him of his conversation with God, and how he himself had
chosen to fall into the hands of the enemy, rather than permit the ruin
of his house. Abishai replied: "Reverse thy prayer, plead for thyself,
and not for thy descendants. Let thy children sell wax, and do thou not
afflict thyself about their destiny." The two men joined their prayers,
and pleaded with God to avert David's threatening doom. Abishai again
uttered the Name of God, and David dropped to earth uninjured. Now both
of them ran away swiftly, pursued by Ishbi. When the giant heard of his
mother's death, his strength forsook him, and he was slain by David and
Abishai. (110)

VISITATIONS

Among the sorrows of David are the visitations that came upon Palestine
during his reign, and he felt them all the more as he had incurred them
through his own fault. There was first the famine, which was so
desolating that it is counted among the ten severest that are to happen
from the time of Adam to the time of the Messiah. (111) During the
first year that it prevailed, David had an investigation set on foot to
discover whether idolatry was practiced in the land, and was keeping
back the rain. His suspicion proved groundless. The second year he
looked into the moral conditions of his realm, for lewdness can bring
about the same punishment as idolatry. Again he was proved wrong. The
third year, he turned his attention to the administration of charity.
Perhaps the people had incurred guilt in this respect, for abuses in
this department also were visited with the punishment of famine. (112)
Again his search was fruitless, and he turned to God to inquire of Him
the cause of the public distress. God's reply was: "Was not Saul a king
anointed with holy oil, did he not abolish idolatry, is he not the
companion of Samuel in Paradise? Yet, while you all dwell in the land
of Israel, he is 'outside of the land.'" David, accompanied by the
scholars and the nobles of his kingdom, at once repaired to
Jabesh-gilead, disinterred the remains of Saul and Jonathan, and in
solemn procession bore them through the whole land of Israel to the
inheritance of the tribe of Benjamin. There they were buried. The
tributes of affection paid by the people of Israel to its dead king
aroused the compassion of God, and the famine came to an end. (113)

The sin against Saul was now absolved, but there still remained Saul's
own guilt in his dealings with the Gibeonites, who charged him with
having killed seven of their number. David asked God why He had
punished His people on account of proselytes. God's answer to him was:
"If thou dost not bring near them that are far off, thou wilt remove
them that are near by." To satisfy their vengeful feelings, the
Gibeonites demanded the life of seven members of Saul's family. David
sought to mollify them, representing to them that they would derive no
benefit from the death of their victims, and offering them silver and
gold instead. But though David treated with each one of them
individually, the Gibeonites were relentless. When he realized their
hardness of heart, he cried out: "Three qualities God gave unto Israel;
they are compassionate, chaste, and gracious in the service of their
fellow-men. The first of these qualities the Gibeonites do not possess,
and therefore they must be excluded from communion with Israel." (114)

The seven descendants of Saul to be surrendered to the Gibeonites were
determined by letting all his posterity pass by the Ark of the law.
Those who were arrested before it were the designated victims.
Mephibosheth would have been one of the unfortunates, had he not been
permitted to pass by unchecked in answer to the prayer of David, (115)
to whom he was dear, not only as the son of his friend Jonathan, but
also as the teacher who instructed him in the Torah. (116)

The cruel fate that befell the descendants of Saul had a wholesome
effect. All the heathen who saw and heard exclaimed: "There is no God
like unto the God of Israel, there is no nation like unto the nation of
Israel; the wrong inflicted upon wretched proselytes has been expiated
by the sons of kings." So great was the enthusiasm among the heathen
over this manifestation of the Jewish sense of justice that one hundred
and fifty thousand of them were converted to Judaism. (117)

As for David, his wrong in connection with the famine lay in his not
having applied his private wealth to the amelioration of the people's
suffering. When David returned victorious from the combat with Goliath,
the women of Israel gave him their gold and silver ornaments. He put
them aside for use in building the Temple, and even during the three
years' famine this fund was not touched. God said: "Thou didst refrain
from rescuing human beings from death, in order to save thy money for
the Temple. Verily, the Temple shall not be built by thee, but by
Solomon." (118)

David is still more blameworthy on account of the census which he took
of the Israelites in defiance of the law in the Pentateuch. When he was
charged by the king with the task of numbering the people, Joab used
every effort to turn him away from his intention. But in vain.
Incensed, David said: "Either thou art king and I am the general, or I
am king and thou art the general." Joab had no choice but to obey. He
selected the tribe of Gad as the first to be counted, because he
thought that the Gadites, independent and self-willed, would hinder the
execution of the royal order, and David would be forced to give up his
plan of taking a census. The Gadites disappointed the expectations of
Joab, and he betook himself to the tribe of Dan, hoping that if God's
punishment descended, it would strike the idolatrous Danites. Disliking
his mission as he did, Joab spent nine months in executing it, though
he might have dispatched it in a much shorter time. Nor did he carry
out the king's orders to the letter. He himself warned the people of
the census. If he saw the father of a family of five sons, he would bid
him conceal a few of them. Following the example set by Moses, he
omitted the Levites from the enumeration, likewise the tribe of
Benjamin, because he entertained particularly grave apprehensions in
behalf of this greatly decimated tribe. (119) In the end, David was not
informed of the actual number obtained. Joab made two lists, intending
to give the king a partial list if he found that he had no suspicion of
the ruse. (120)

The prophet Gad came to David and gave him the choice of famine,
oppression by enemies, or the plague, as the penalty for the heavy
crime of popular census-taking. David was in the position of a sick man
who is asked whether he prefers to be buried next to his father or next
to his mother. The king considered: "If I choose the calamities of war,
the people will say, 'He cares little, he has his warriors to look to.'
If I choose famine, they will say, 'He cares little, he has his riches
to look to.' I shall choose the plague, whose scourge strikes all
alike." (121) Although the plague raged but a very short time, (122) it
claimed a large number of victims. The most serious loss was the death
of Abishai, whose piety and learning made him the counterpoise of a
host of seventy-five thousand. (123)

David raised his eyes on high, and he saw the sins of Israel heaped up
from earth to heaven. In the same moment an angel descended, and slew
his four sons, the prophet Gad, and the elders who accompanied him.
David's terror at this sight, which was but increased when the angel
wiped his dripping sword on the king's garments, settled in his limbs,
and from that day on they never ceased to tremble. (124)

THE DEATH OF DAVID

David once besought God to tell him when he would die. His petition was
not granted, for God has ordained that no man shall foreknow his end.
One thing, however, was revealed to David, that his death would occur
at the age of seventy on the Sabbath day. David desired that he might
be permitted to die on Friday. This wish, too, was denied him, because
God said that He delighted more in one day passed by David in the study
of the Torah, than in a thousand holocausts offered by Solomon in the
Temple. Then David petitioned that life might be vouchsafed him until
Sunday; this, too, was refused, because God said it would be an
infringement of the rights of Solomon, for one reign may not overlap by
a hairbreadth the time assigned to another. Thereafter David spent
every Sabbath exclusively in the study of the Torah, in order to secure
himself against the Angel of Death, who has no power to slay a man
while he is occupied with the fulfillment of God's commandments. The
Angel of Death had to resort to cunning to gain possession of David.
(125) One Sabbath day, which happened to be also the Pentecost holiday,
(126) the king was absorbed in study, when he heard a sound in the
garden. He rose and descended the stairway leading from his palace to
the garden, to discover the cause of the noise. No sooner had he set
foot on the steps than they tumbled in, and David was killed. The Angel
of Death had caused the noise in order to utilize the moment when David
should interrupt his study.  The king's corpse could not be moved on
the Sabbath, which was painful to those with him, as it was lying
exposed to the rays of the sun. So Solomon summoned several eagles, and
they stood guard over the body, shading it with their outstretched
pinions. (127)

DAVID IN PARADISE

The death of David did not mean the end of his glory and grandeur. It
merely caused a change of scene. In the heavenly realm as on earth
David ranks among the first. The crown upon his head outshines all
others, and whenever he moves out of Paradise to present himself before
God, suns, stars, angels, seraphim, and other holy beings run to meet
him. In the heavenly court-room a throne of fire of gigantic dimensions
is erected for him directly opposite to the throne of God. Seated on
this throne and surrounded by the kings of the house of David and other
Israelitish kings, he intones wondrously beautiful psalms. At the end
he always cites the verse: "The Lord reigns forever and ever," to which
the archangel Metatron and those with him reply: "Holy, holy, holy, is
the Lord of hosts!" This is the signal for the holy Hayyot and heaven
and earth to join in with praise. Finally the kings of the house of
David sing the verse: "And the Lord shall be king over all; in that day
shall the Lord be one, and His name one." (128)

The greatest distinction to be accorded David is reserved for the
judgment day, when God will prepare a great banquet in Paradise for all
the righteous. At David's petition, God Himself will be present at the
banquet, and will sit on His throne, opposite to which David's throne
will be placed. At the end of the banquet, God will pass the wine cup
over which grace is said, to Abraham, with the words: "Pronounce the
blessing over the wine, thou who art the father of the pious of the
world." Abraham will reply: "I am not worthy to pronounce the blessing,
for I am the father also of the Ishmaelites, who kindle God's wrath."
God will then turn to Isaac: "Say the blessing, for thou wert bound
upon the altar as a sacrifice." "I am not worthy," he will reply, "for
the children of my son Esau destroyed the Temple." Then to Jacob: "Do
thou speak the blessing, thou whose children were blameless." Jacob
also will decline the honor on the ground that he was married to two
sisters at the same time, which later was strictly prohibited by the
Torah. God will then turn to Moses: "Say the blessing, for thou didst
receive the law and didst fulfil its precepts." Moses will answer: "I
am not worthy to do it, seeing that I was not found worthy to enter the
Holy Land." God will next offer the honor to Joshua, who both led
Israel into the Holy Land, and fulfilled the commandments of the law.
He, too, will refuse to pronounce the blessing, because he was not
found worthy to bring forth a son. Finally God will turn to David with
the words: "Take the cup and say the blessing, thou the sweetest singer
in Israel and Israel's king. And David will reply: 'Yes, I will
pronounce the blessing, for I am worthy of the honor.'" (129) Then God
will take the Torah and read various passages from it, and David will
recite a psalm in which both the pious in Paradise and the wicked in
hell will join with a loud Amen. Thereupon God will send his angels to
lead the wicked from hell to Paradise. (130)

THE FAMILY OF DAVID

David had six wives, including Michal, the daughter of Saul, who is
called by the pet name Eglah, "Calfkin," in the list given in the Bible
narrative. (131) Michal was of entrancing beauty, (132) and at the same
time the model of a loving wife. Not only did she save David out of the
hands of her father, but also, when Saul, as her father and her king,
commanded her to marry another man, she acquiesced only apparently. She
entered into a mock marriage in order not to arouse the anger of Saul,
who had annulled her union with David on grounds which he thought
legal. Michal was good as well as beautiful; she showed such
extraordinary kindness to the orphan children of her sister Merab that
the Bible speaks of the five sons of Michal "whom she bore to Adriel."
Adriel, however, was her brother-in-law and not her husband, but she
had raised his children, treating them as though they were her own.
(133) Michal was no less a model of piety. Although the law exempted
her, as a woman, from the duty, still she executed the commandment of
using phylacteries. (134) In spite of all these virtues, she was
severely punished by God for her scorn of David, whom she reproached
with lack of dignity, when he had in mind only to do honor to God. Long
she remained childless, and at last, when she was blessed with a child,
she lost her own life in giving birth to it. (135)

But the most important among the wives of David was Abigail, in whom
beauty, wisdom, and prophetical gifts were joined. With Sarah, Rahab,
and Esther, she forms the quartet of the most beautiful women in
history. She was so bewitching that passion was aroused in men by the
mere thought of her. (136) Her cleverness showed itself during her
first meeting with David, when, though anxious about the life of her
husband Nabal, she still, with the utmost tranquility, put a ritual
question to him in his rage. He refused to answer it, because, he said,
it was a question to be investigated by day, not by night. Thereupon
Abigail interposed, that sentence of death likewise may be passed upon
a man only during the day. Even if David's judgment were right, the law
required him to wait until daybreak to execute it upon Nabal. David's
objection, that a rebel like Nabal had no claim upon due process of
law, she overruled with the words: "Saul is still alive, and thou art
not yet acknowledged king by the world."

Her charm would have made David her captive on this occasion, if her
moral strength had not kept him in check. By means of the expression,
"And this shall not be unto thee," she made him understand that the day
had not yet arrived, but that it would come, when a woman, Bath-sheba,
would play a disastrous part in his life. Thus she manifested her gift
of prophecy.

Not even Abigail was free from the feminine weakness of coquetry. The
words "remember thine handmaid" should never have been uttered by her.
As a married woman, she should not have sought to direct the attention
of a man to herself. (137) In the women's Paradise she supervises the
fifth of the seven divisions into which it is divided, and her domain
adjoins that of the wives of the Patriarchs, Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel,
and Leah. (138)

Among the sons of David, Adonijah, the son of Haggith, must be
mentioned particularly, the pretender to the throne. The fifty men whom
he prepared to run before him had fitted themselves for the place of
heralds by cutting out their spleen and the flesh of the soles of their
feet. That Adonijah was not designated for the royal dignity, was made
manifest by the fact that the crown of David did not fit him. This
crown had the remarkable peculiarity of always fitting the legitimate
king of the house of David. (139)

Chileab was a son worthy of his mother Abigail. The meaning of his name
is "like the father," which had been given him because of his striking
resemblance to David in appearance, a circumstance that silenced the
talk against David's all too hasty marriage with the widow of Nabal.
(140) Intellectually, too, Chileab testified to David's paternity. In
fact, he excelled his father in learning, as he did even the teacher of
David, Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan. (141) On account of his piety
he is one of the few who have entered Paradise alive. (142)

Tamar cannot be called one of the children of David, because she was
born before her mother's conversion to Judaism. Consequently, her
relation to Amnon is not quite of the grave nature it would have been,
had they been sister and brother in the strict sense of the terms.

To the immediate household of David belonged four hundred young
squires, the sons of women taken captive in battle. They wore their
hair in heathen fashion, and, sitting in golden chariots, they formed
the vanguard of the army, and terrified the enemy by their appearance.
(143)

HIS TOMB

When David was buried, Solomon put abundant treasures into his tomb.
Thirteen hundred years later the high priest Hyrcanus took a thousand
talents of the money secreted there to use it in preventing the siege
of Jerusalem by the Greek king Antiochus. King Herod also abstracted
great sums. But none of the marauders could penetrate to the
resting-place of the kings,—next to David his successors were
interred,—for it was sunk into the earth so skillfully that it could
not be found. (144)

Once on a time, a Moslem pasha visited the mausoleum, and as he was
looking through the window in it, a weapon of his ornamented with
diamonds and pearls dropped into the tomb. A Mohammedan was lowered
through the window to fetch the weapon. When he was drawn up again, he
was dead, and three other Mohammedans who tried to enter in the same
way met the fate of their comrade. At the instigation of the kadi, the
pasha informed the Rabbi of Jerusalem that the Jews would be held
responsible for the restoration of the weapon. The Rabbi ordered a
three days' fast, to be spent in prayer. Then lots were cast to
designate the messenger who was to be charged with the perilous errand.
The lot fell upon the beadle of the synagogue, a pious and upright man.
He secured the weapon, and returned it to the pasha, who manifested his
gratitude by kindly treatment of the Jews thereafter. The beadle later
told his adventures in the tomb to the Hakam Bashi. When he had
descended, there suddenly appeared before him an old man of dignified
appearance, and handed him what he was seeking. (145)

Another miraculous tale concerning the tomb of David runs as follows: A
poor but very pious Jewish washerwoman was once persuaded by the keeper
of the tomb to enter it. Hardly was she within, when the man nailed up
the entrance, and ran to the kadi to inform him that a Jewess had gone
in. Incensed, the kadi hastened to the spot, with the intention of
having the woman burnt for her presumptuousness. In her terror the poor
creature had begun to weep and implore God for help. Suddenly a flood
of light illumined the dark tomb, and a venerable old man took her by
the hand, and led her downward under the earth until she reached the
open. There he parted from her with the words: "Hasten homeward, and
let none know that thou wert away from thy house." The kadi had the
tomb and its surroundings thoroughly searched by his bailiffs, but not
a trace of the woman could be discovered, although the keeper again and
again swore by the Prophet that the woman had entered. Now the
messengers whom the kadi had sent to the house of the woman returned,
and reported they had found her washing busily, and greatly astonished
at their question, whether she had been at the tomb of David. The kadi
accordingly decided that for his false statements and his perjury, the
keeper must die the very death intended for the innocent woman, and so
he was burnt. The people of Jerusalem suspected a miracle, but the
woman did not divulge her secret until a few hours before her death.
She told her story, and then bequeathed her possessions to the
congregation, under the condition that a scholar recite Kaddish for her
on each anniversary of her death. (146)




V.
SOLOMON

SOLOMON PUNISHES JOAB

At the youthful age of twelve (1) Solomon succeeded his father David as
king. His real name was Jedidiah, the "friend of God," but it was
superseded by the name Solomon on account of the peace that prevailed
throughout the realm during his reign. He bore three other names
besides: Ben, Jakeh, and Ithiel. He was called Ben because he was the
builder of the Temple; Jakeh, because he was the ruler of the whole
world; and Ithiel, because God was with him. (2)

The rebellion Adonijah intended to lead against the future king was
suppressed during David's lifetime, by having Solomon anointed in
public. On that occasion Solomon rode upon a remarkable she-mule,
remarkable because she was not the product of cross-breeding, but of a
special act of creation. (3)

As soon as he ascended the throne, Solomon set about executing the
instructions his father had given him on his death-bed. The first of
them was the punishment of Joab. (4)

Notwithstanding all his excellent qualities, which fitted him to be not
only David's first general, but also the president of the Academy, (5)
Joab had committed great crimes, which had to be atoned for. Beside the
murder of Abner (6) and Amasa of which he was guilty, he had incurred
wrong against David himself. The generals of the army suspected him of
having had Uriah the Hittite put out of the way for purposes of his
own, whereupon he showed them David's letter dooming Uriah. David might
have forgiven Joab, but he wanted him to expiate his sins in this
world, so that he might be exempt from punishment in the world to come.
(7)

When Joab perceived that Solomon intended to have him executed, he
sought the protection of the Temple. He knew full well that he could
not save his life in this way, for the arm of justice reaches beyond
the doors of the sanctuary, to the altar of God. What he wished was to
be accorded a regular trial, and not suffer death by the king's order.
In the latter case he would lose fortune as well as life, and he was
desirous of leaving his children well provided for. Thereupon Solomon
sent word to him that he had no intention of confiscating his estates.
(8)

Though he was convinced of Joab's guilt, Solomon nevertheless granted
him the privilege of defense. The king questioned him: "Why didst thou
kill Abner?"

Joab: "I was the avenger of my brother Asahel, whom Abner had slain."

Solomon: "Why, it was Asahel who sought to kill Abner, and Abner acted
in self-defense."

Joab: "Abner might have disabled Asahel without going to extremes."

Solomon: "That Abner could not do."

Joab: "What! Abner aimed directly at Asahel's fifth rib, and thou
wouldst say he could not have managed to wound him lightly?"

Solomon: "Very well, then, we shall drop Abner's case. But why didst
thou slay Amasa?"

Joab: "He acted rebelliously toward King David. He omitted to execute
his order to gather an army within three days; for that offense he
deserved to suffer the death penalty."

Solomon: "Amasa failed to obey the king's order, because he had been
taught by our sages that even a king's injunctions may be set at
defiance if they involve neglect of the study of the Torah, which was
the case with the order given to Amasa. And, indeed," continued
Solomon, "it was not Amasa but thou thyself who didst rebel against the
king, for thou wert about to join Absalom, and if thou didst refrain,
it was from fear of David's strong-fisted troops." (9)

When Joab saw that death was inevitable, he said to Benaiah, who was
charged with the execution of the king's order: "Tell Solomon he cannot
inflict two punishments upon me. If he expects to take my life, he must
remove the curse pronounced by David against me and my descendants on
account of the slaying of Abner. If not, he cannot put me to death."
Solomon realized the justness of the plea. By executing Joab, he
transferred David's curse to his own posterity: Rehoboam, his son, was
afflicted with an issue; Uzziah suffered with leprosy; Asa had to lean
on a staff when he walked; the pious Josiah fell by the sword of
Pharaoh, and Jeconiah lived off charity. So the imprecations of David
were accomplished on his own family instead of Joab's. (10)

THE MARRIAGE OF SOLOMON

The next to suffer Joab's fate was Shimei ben Gera, whose treatment of
David had outraged every feeling of decency. His death was of evil
portent for Solomon himself. So long as Shimei, who was Solomon's
teacher, was alive, he did not venture to marry the daughter of
Pharaoh. When, after Shimei's death, Solomon took her to wife, the
archangel Gabriel descended from heaven, and inserted a reed in the
sea. About this reed more and more earth was gradually deposited, and,
on the day on which Jeroboam erected the golden calves, a little hut
was built upon the island. This was the first of the dwelling-places of
Rome. (11)

Solomon's wedding-feast in celebration of his marriage with the
Egyptian princess came on the same day as the consecration of the
Temple. (12) The rejoicing over the king's marriage was greater than
over the completion of the Temple. As the proverb has it: "All pay
flattery to a king." Then it was that God conceived the plan of
destroying Jerusalem. It was as the prophet spoke: "This city hath been
to me a provocation of mine anger and of my fury from the day that they
built it even unto this day."

In the nuptial night Pharaoh's daughter had her attendants play upon a
thousand different musical instruments, which she had brought with her
from her home, and as each was used, the name of the idol to which it
was dedicated was mentioned aloud. The better to hold the king under
the spell of her charms, she spread above his bed a tapestry cover
studded with diamonds and pearls, which gleamed and glittered like
constellations in the sky. Whenever Solomon wanted to rise, he saw
these stars, and thinking it was night still, he slept on until the
fourth hour of the morning. The people were plunged in grief, for the
daily sacrifice could not be brought on this very morning of the Temple
dedication, because the Temple keys lay under Solomon's pillow, and
none dared awaken him. Word was sent to Bath-sheba, who forthwith
aroused her son, and rebuked him for his sloth. "Thy father," she said,
"was known to all as a God-fearing man, and now people will say,
'Solomon is the son of Bath-sheba, it is his mother's fault if he goes
wrong.' Whenever thy father's wives were pregnant, they offered vows
and prayed that a son worthy to reign might be born unto them. But my
prayer was for a learned son worthy of the gift of prophecy. Take care,
'give not thy strength unto women nor thy ways to them that destroy
kings,' for licentiousness confounds the reason of man. Keep well in
mind the things that are necessary in the life of a king. (13) 'Not
kings, Lemuel.' Have naught in common with kings who say: 'What need
have we of a God?' It is not meet that thou shouldst do like the kings
who drink wine and live in lewdness. Be not like unto them. He to whom
the secrets of the world are revealed, (14) should not intoxicate
himself with wine." (15)

Apart from having married a Gentile, whose conversion to Judaism was
not dictated by pure motives, Solomon transgressed two other Biblical
laws. He kept many horses, which a Jewish king ought not to do, and,
what the law holds in equal abhorrence, he amassed much silver and
gold. Under Solomon's rule silver and gold were so abundant among the
people that their utensils were made of them instead of the baser
metals. (16) For all this he had to atone painfully later on.

HIS WISDOM

But Solomon's wealth and pomp were as naught in comparison with his
wisdom. When God appeared to him in Gibeon, in a dream by night, and
gave him leave to ask what he would,   a grace accorded to none beside
except King Ahaz of Judah, and promised only to the Messiah in time to
come, (17)   Solomon chose wisdom, knowing that wisdom once in his
possession, all else would come of itself. (18) His wisdom, the
Scriptures testify, was greater than the wisdom of Ethan the Ezrahite,
and Heman, and Calcol, and Darda, the three sons of Mahol. This means
that he was wiser than Abraham, (19) Moses, (20) Joseph, (21) and the
generation of the desert. (22) He excelled even Adam. (23) His proverbs
which have come down to us are barely eight hundred in number.
Nevertheless the Scripture counts them equal to three thousand, for the
reason that each verse in his book admits of a double and a triple
interpretation. In his wisdom he analyzed the laws revealed to Moses,
and he assigned reasons for the ritual and ceremonial ordinances of the
Torah, which without his explanation had seemed strange. (24) The
"forty-nine gates of wisdom" were open to Solomon as they had been to
Moses, but the wise king sought to outdo even the wise legislator. He
had such confidence in himself that he would have dispensed judgment
without resort to witnesses, had he not been prevented by a heavenly
voice. (25)

The first proof of his wisdom was given in his verdict in the case of
the child claimed by two mothers as their own. When the women presented
their difficulty, the king said that God in His wisdom had foreseen
that such a quarrel would arise, and therefore had created the organs
of man in pairs, so that neither of the two parties to the dispute
might be wronged. on hearing these words from the king, Solomon's
counsellors lamented: "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a youth."
In a little while they realized the wisdom of the king, and then they
exclaimed: "Happy art thou, O land, when thy king is a free man." The
quarrel had of set purpose been brought on by God to the end that
Solomon's wisdom might be made known. In reality the two litigants were
not women at all, but spirits. That all doubt about the fairness of the
verdict might be dispelled, a heavenly voice proclaimed: "This is the
mother of the child." (26)

During the lifetime of David, when Solomon was still a lad, he had
settled another difficult case in an equally brilliant way. A wealthy
man had sent his son on a protracted business trip to Africa. On his
return he found that his father had died in the meantime, and his
treasures had passed into the possession of a crafty slave, who had
succeeded in ridding himself of all the other slaves, or intimidating
them. In vain the rightful heir urged his claim before King David. As
he could not bring witnesses to testify for him, there was no way of
dispossessing the slave, who likewise called himself the son of the
deceased. The child Solomon heard the case, and he devised a method of
arriving at the truth. He had the father's corpse exhumed, and he dyed
one of the bones with the blood first of one of the claimants, and then
of the other. The blood of the slave showed no affinity with the bone,
while the blood of the true heir permeated it. So the real son secured
his inheritance. (27)

After his accession to the throne, a peculiar quarrel among heirs was
brought before Solomon for adjudication. Asmodeus, the king of demons,
once said to Solomon: "Thou art the wisest of men, yet I shall show
thee something thou hast never seen." Thereupon Asmodeus stuck his
finger in the ground, and up came a double-headed man. He was one of
the Cainites, who live underground, and are altogether different in
nature and habit from the denizens of the upper world. (28) When the
Cainite wanted to descend to his dwelling-place again, it appeared that
he could not return thither. Not even Asmodeus could bring the thing
about. So he remained on earth, took unto himself a wife, and begot
seven sons, one of whom resembled his father in having two heads. When
the Cainite died, a dispute broke out among his descendants as to how
the property was to be divided. The double-headed son claimed two
portions. Both Solomon and the Sanhedrin were at a loss; they could not
discover a precedent to guide them. Then Solomon prayed to God: "O Lord
of all, when Thou didst appear to me in Gibeon, and didst give me leave
to ask a gift of Thee, I desired neither silver nor gold, but only
wisdom, that I might be able to judge men in justice."

God heard his prayer. When the sons of the Cainite again came before
Solomon, he poured hot water on one of the heads of the double-headed
monster, whereupon both heads flinched, and both mouths cried out: "We
are dying, we are dying! We are but one, not two." Solomon decided that
the double-headed son was after all only a single being. (29)

On another occasion Solomon invented a lawsuit in order to elicit the
truth in an involved case. Three men appeared before him, each of whom
accused the others of theft. They had been travelling together, and,
when the Sabbath approached, they halted and prepared to rest and
sought a safe hiding-place for their money, for it is not allowed to
carry money on one's person on the Sabbath. They all three together
secreted what they had in the same spot, and, when the Sabbath was
over, they hastened thither, only to find that it had been stolen. It
was clear one of the three must have been the thief, but which one?

Solomon said to them: "I know you to be experienced and thorough
business men. I should like you to help me decide a suit which the king
of Rome has submitted to me. In the Roman kingdom there lived a maiden
and a youth, who promised each other under oath never to enter into a
marriage without obtaining each other's permission. The parents of the
girl betrothed their daughter to a man whom she loved, but she refused
to become his wife until the companion of her youth gave his consent.
She took much gold and silver, and sought him out to bribe him. Setting
aside his own love for the girl, he offered her and her lover his
congratulations, and refused to accept the slightest return for the
permission granted. On their homeward way the happy couple were
surprised by an old highwayman, who was about to rob the young man of
his bride and his money. The girl told the brigand the story of her
life, closing with these words: 'If a youth controlled his passion for
me, how much more shouldst thou, an old man, be filled with fear of
God, and let me go my way.' Her words took effect. The aged highwaymen
laid hands neither on the girl nor on the money.

"Now," Solomon continued to the three litigants, "I was asked to decide
which of the three persons concerned acted most nobly, the girl, the
youth, or the highwayman, and I should like to have your views upon the
question."

The first of the three said: "My praise is for the girl, who kept her
oath so faithfully." The second: "I should award the palm to the youth,
who kept himself in check, and did not permit his passion to prevail."
The third said: "Commend me to the brigand, who kept his hands off the
money, more especially as he would have been doing all that could be
expected of him if he had surrendered the woman   he might have taken
the money."

The last answer sufficed to put Solomon on the right track. The man who
was inspired with admiration of the virtues of the robber, probably was
himself filled with greed of money. He had him cross-examined, and
finally extorted a confession. He had committed the theft, and he
designated the spot where he had hidden the money. (30)

Even animals submitted their controversies to Solomon's wise judgment.
A man with a jug of milk came upon a serpent wailing pitifully in a
field. To the man's question, the serpent replied that it was tortured
with thirst. "And what art thou carrying in the jug?" asked the
serpent. When it heard what it was, it begged for the milk, and
promised to reward the man by showing him a hidden treasure. The man
gave the milk to the serpent, and was then led to a great rock. "Under
this rock," said the serpent, "lies the treasure." The man rolled the
rock aside, and was about to take the treasure, when suddenly the
serpent made a lunge at him, and coiled itself about his neck. "What
meanest thou by such conduct?" exclaimed the man. "I am going to kill
thee," replied the serpent, "because thou art robbing me of all my
money." The man proposed that they put their case to King Solomon, and
obtain his decision as to who was in the wrong. So they did. Solomon
asked the serpent to state what it demanded of the man. "I want to kill
him," answered the serpent, "because the Scriptures command it, saying:
'Thou shalt bruise the heel of man.'" Solomon said: "First release thy
hold upo

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