not what they do." Thorn■ of the wilder- .T erome, as being the sa1ne its n cl\Stle called neBB. The nnture of the punishment here Carcaria, near Petra, is quite out of tho ques- thrrRtened, Rnd the execution of which is tion, as being greRtly too far south. As an rclate,l in ver. 16, is uncrrtain. The word ~ppellative it suggests the idea of a walled- her,, rendered tear means liternllv l-0 thrr.sh. Hence some suppose that the punishment m space (kir = a wall ; kir-kir = walled all ronnd ; cf. the Lntin career a a spnce l1ere spoken of was a severe kind of capital prison); possibly an enclosed sheep or ca.ttle punishment inflicted by thrcshin1< instru- fold on II large scale (see Numb. xxxii. 36 : ments ,,ith sha.rp iron points, called here "built . . . folds for sheep"), nffording "thorns of the wilderness," and "briers" some protection to the Midinnite soldiers. (though some again understand literally Ver. 11.-Gideon went up. See ver. 8, th-0r1U1 and briers) ; and they compare 2 note. Implying thnt his direction was east- Sam. xii. 31, where the word rendered ward away from the ,Tordan valley. Nobah harrmi;s means t.Jireshing i11strum,ents, as was in the half-tribe of llfunasseh. Nobah, nlso Isa. xxnii. 27; xii. 15. But others, as who gave his name to the city, which was Bertheau, Keil. and Delitzsch, do not think before called Kenath, seems to have been of it was a capital punishment at all, arid take the family of Ma.chir (Numb. xxxii. 42). the word thresh figuratively in the sense of .Togbehah was in the tribe of Gad (Numb. punishing sercrely, and think that literal x=ii. 35). These two cities a.ppear to ha.ve thorns nnd thistles were the implements of been on the eastern frontier of their respective punishment. tribes, but the exact site of them is utterlv Ver. 8.-He went up thence to Penuel. unknown. It is a. conjecture that possibly When Jacob was returning from Patlan-a.ram Kunawat ma.y be Nobah, retaining its ancient to Canaan he reached Penuel first, and Suc- name of Kenatli. East of these cities wa.a coth afterwards (Gen. xxxii. 30; =xiii. 17). the desert, inhabited by nomads dwelling in Gideon, tra veiling in the opposite direction tents, where Karkor Wll-'l, and where Zebah from Cana.an, naturally reaches Snccoth first, a.nd Ze.lmunna had encamped out of reach, and Penuel afterwards. Going from Succoth as they thought, of their pursuers. But to Pennel too, he went up out of the Jordan Gideon, falling suddenly upon them, routed nllev towards the mountains on the east. the host, and took the two kings prisoners Penuel appears t-0 have been a place of im- (see Ps. lxxxiii. 11). portance, since Jeroboam repaired its forti- Ver. 12.-He discom.B.ted. Rather, as in fications with a new of retaining his hold on the ma.rgin, ke t,e,rrified. Those who were trans-Jordanic Israel (1 Kings xii 25). The not killed in the first onslaught, when "he tuwer here mentioned shows it Wa.<l a strong smote the host," were so terrified that they p1~ce, hut its exact situation is unknown. fled without further resistance, and ma.ny Ver. 10.-Xa.rkor. Or, rather, the Karkor. probably escaped, a.s all Gideon's efforts were We are still on unknown ground. The directed to the capture of the two kings. situation assigned to it by Eusebius and
HOMILETICS. , erR. 4-12.-" Faint, vet pursuing." We do wrong in look_ing to the ~criptur~s o~ly for spiritual le~sons: they teach us also lessons of conduct m the affairs of tl11s _life. And it is n matter of ,11:?eat moment that we should conduct ourselves well and wisely in all tl,e business of life. That lessons of worldly wisdom are not beneath the scope of Holy Scripture the whole Book of Proverbs teaches us, as does Solomon's prayer (2 Chron. i. 10) for wisdom to rule well and judge rightly, and the whole body of the law of Moses. The biographies of remarkable men given in the historical boo~s teach us the same thing if we would use them rightly. But the ex3:ggerated ha~1t of allegorising and spiritualising the Old Testament has somewhat mterfered with their usefulness in this respect. I. The lesson which this portion of Gideon s history seems to teach us is THE VALUE OF PEllSEVEB.ANCE; of doing thoroughly whatever we take in hand, of going through with it to the end, and not leaving off till it is completed. Joash king of Israel was rehuked by Elisha the prophet on his death-bed because he only smote npon .the ground tl1rice, and then stayed, satisfied with an imperfect result. The example oi Gideon slwwH us one who was not satisfied with imperfect results, who had formed a complete conception of what he had to do, and did it. He was not st?pped in his career hy either successes or difficulties. 'l'111e, he had driven the children of the east acrusR the Jorda11. There had been a great Hlaughter at the rock Oreb, the kings were :fugitive11, the power of Midillll was broken. Some might t!Jink e1:uugh had bl)0.Q' rn. rnr. 4-12.] TIIE BOOK OF ,JUDGES. Fl7