During the lives of Joshua and the elders who out- lived him, indeed, they kept true to their allegiance ; but the generation following, who knew not Jehovah, nor the works he had done for Israel, swerved from the plain path of their fathers, and were caught in the toils of the foreigner (Judg. ii). From this time forth their history becomes little more than a chronicle of the in- evitable sequence of offence and punishment. " They provoked Jehovah to anger . . . and the anger of Je- hovah was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them" (Judg. ii, .12, 14). The narratives of the book of Judges, contem- poraneous or successive, tell of the fierce struggle main- tained against their hated foes, and how women forgot their tenderness and forsook their retirement to sing the song of victory over the oppressor. By turns, each con- quering nation strove to establish the worship of its national god. During the nUe of INIidian, Joash, the father of Gideon, had an altar to Baal, and an Asherah (Judg. vi, 25), though he proved but a lukewarm wor- sl:.ipper (ver. 31). Even Gideon himself gave occasion to idolatrous worship; yet the ephod which he made from the spoils of the Midianites was perhaps but a vo- tive offering to the true God (Judg. viii, 27). It is not improbable that the gold ornaments of which it was composed were in some way connected with idolatry (comp. Isa. iii, 18-24), and that, from their having been worn as amulets, some superstitious virtue was conceived to cling to them even in their new form. But, though in Gideon's lifetime no overt act of idolatry was prac- tised, he was no sooner dead than the Israelites again returned to the service of the Baalim, and, as if in sol- emn mockery of the covenant made with Jehovah, chose from among them Baal-Bcrith, " Baal of the Covenant"
(comp. Zn<Q opiciog'), as the object of their special ado- ration (Judg. viii, 33). Of this god we know only that his temple, probably of wood (Judg. ix, 49), was a strong- hold in time of need, and that his treasury was filled with the silver of the worshippers (ix, 4). Nor were the calamities of foreign oppression confined to the land of Canaan. The tribes on the east of Jordan went astray after the idols of the land, and were delivered into the hands of the children of Ammon (Judg. x, 8). But they put away from among them " the gods of the foreigner," and with the baseborn Jephthah for their leader gained a signal victory over their oppressors. The exploits of Samson against the PhiUstines, though achieved within a narrower space and with less important results than those of his predecessors, fill a brilliant page in his coun- try's historj-. But the talc of his marvellous deeds is prefaced by that ever-recurring phrase, so mournfully familiar, "the children of Israel did evil again in the eyes of Jehovah, and .Jehovah gave them into the hand of the Philistines." Thus far idolatry is a national sin. The episode of ]\Iicah, in Judg. xvii, xviii, sheds a lurid light on the secret practices of individuals, who, without formally renouncing Jehovah, though ceasing to recog- nise him as the theocratic king (xvii, 6), linked with his worship the symbols of ancient idolatry. The house of God, or sanctuary, which Micah made in imitation of that at Shiloh, was decorated with an ephod and ter- aphim dedicated to God, and with a graven and molten image consecrated to some inferior deities (Selden, I>e l)is Syris, synt. i, 2). It is a significant fact, showing how deeply rooted in the people was the tendency to idolatry, that a Levite, who, of all others, should have been most sedulous to maintain Jehovah's worship in its purity, was found to assume the office of priest to the images of Blicah; and that this Levite, priest after- wards to the idols of Dan, was no other than Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses. Tradition says that these idols were destroyed when the Philistines defeated the army of Israel and took from them the ark of the covenant of Jehovah (1 Sam. iv). The Danites are supposed to have carried them into the field, as the other tribes bore the ark, and the Philistines the im- ages of their gods, when they went forth to battle (2 Sam. Y, 21 ; Lewis, Orig. Hehr. v, 9). But the Seder Olam Rahha (c. 24) interprets "the captivity of the land" (Judg. xviii, 30), of the captivity of ]\Ianasseh; and Benjamin of Tudela mistook the remains of later Gentile worship for traces of the altar or statue which Micah had dedicated, and which was worshipped by the tribe of Dan (Selden, Fri Dis Syr. synt. i, 2 ; Stan- ley, 8. and Pal. p. 398). In later times the practice of secret idolatry was carried to greater lengths. Images were set up on the corn-floors, in the wine-vats, and be- hind the doors of private houses (Isa. Ivii, 8 ; Hos. ix, 1, 2); and to check this tendency the statute in Deut. xxvii, 15 was originally promulgated. It is noticeable that they do not seem during this period to have gen- erally adopted the religions of any but the Canaanites, although in one remarkable passage they are said, be- tween the time of Jair and that of Jephthah, to have forsaken the Lord, and served Baalim, and Ashtarothj and the gods of Syria, Zidon, Moab, the children of Am- mon, and the Pliilistines (Judg. x, 6), as though there had then been an utter and profligate apostasy. The cause, no doubt, was that the Canaanitish worship was borrowed in a time of amity, and that but one Canaan-, itish oppressor is spoken of, whereas the Abrahamites of the east of Palestine, and the Philistmes, were almost always enemies of the Israelites. Each time of idolatrj was punished by a servitude, each reformation followed by a deliverance. Speedily as the nation retimied ta idolatry, its heart was fresher than that of the ten tribesj which followed Jeroboam, and never seem to have had one thorough national repentance.