If these 600 survivors o.re added to the 25,000, July 1880,' P. 173). The other is advocated or 25,100, enumernted as slain (vers. 35, by Mr. W. F. Birch (' Pal. Expl., Quart. 44), it gives o. total of 25,700. But the total State. for April 1880 '). This identifies it number of Benjamites, as given in ver. 15, with the Wady er-Rwmm(YTI,, discoverecl by was 26,700. There remain, therefore, 1000 Mr. Rawnsley, where there is a vast cavo, men unaccounted for. These may have been Mugharet el Jai, about a mile and a half killed partly in the two first clays' successful from Geba, capable, according to the local battles (vers. 21, 25), nnd partly in the cliffer- tradition, of holding 600 men, and used to ent cities into which they hacl escaped, when the present clay by the villagers as a place the general massacre recorcled in ver. 48 took of refuge from the government persecutions place. The rock Ri.mmon. There are two .According to this view, the statement that proposed identifications of this place. One they abocle in the rock Rimmon is strictly makes it the same as Runnmon, "a village correct. perched on the summit of a conical chalky Ver. 48.-Turnedagain, not the same word hill," "rising on the south side to a height as the turned of vers. 45, 47, but turned back, of several hundred feet from the Wacly Muti- came again by the way by which they hacl gone yah," and defended on the west side " by a in pursuit of the Benjamites, and on their cross valley of great depth," which lies three return towards Bethel (eh. xxi. 2) entered miles east of Bethel, and seven miles north- into all the Benjamite cities, which lay thick east of Gibeah (Tuleil el-Ful), and is situated together east and north of Gibea.h, anrl ruth- in the wilderness between the highlands of lessly put all the remaining population to Benjamin and the Jordan. This is advocated the sword; burning all the cities, and treat- by Robinson (' Biblical Researches,' i. 440), ing the whole tribe of Benjamin, with all hy Mr. Grove in the • Dictionary of the that belonged to them, a.s a 'herem, a thing Bible,' and by Lt. Conder(' Quart. State. for devoted to utter destruction, like Jericho.
HOMILETICS. Vera. 18-48.-Pwre and impure zeal. That the indignation of Israel was justly excited by the wickedness of the men of Gibeah who can doubt? That they had a just cause of quarrel with the men of Benjamin for refusing to join them in the punishment of the offenders is no less certain. But that the merciless destruction of the whole tribe by fire and sword was a ferocious and cruel deed equally admits of no contradiction. A state of mind, therefore, was generated between the first rising of their wrath on account of the foul crime of their countrymen, and the final execution of the fierce vengeance, which calla for our notice and our reprobation. That state of mind was what the Greeks called t,j>..or:, e. burning, unreasoning passion or heat, which hurries men on to words or actions of which in their cooler moments they repent and are ashamed. Under the influence of such passion, whether it be anger, or jealousy, or envy, or e.ny other intemperate emotion of the mind, men are no longer their own masters. As in the case of that state of feeling which we lately considered under the name of temper (Homiletics on eh. :xx.1-17), reason ceases to guide and control the actions, and the voice of conscience cannot make itself heard. The man is like a ship without a rudder, driven by the storm whither he would not. Now when we consider that under the influence of passion we are liable to say and do things that are wrong, and that are very contrary to our own real feelings and opinions, and, maybe, very hurtful to our neighbours, it is obvious how watchful every Christian man should be to keep such passion under strict control, and to set a wntch upon the various movements of his heart. This is doubly necessary, because, as we have seen in the history before us, what in its beginning is right is npt in its course to become wrong. It is not merely a question of degree. But for the most part the natitre. of the passion changes in its onward flow. Thus, in the case of the Israelites, the first feeling of indignation at a grent wrong, the shame at the pollution of the name of farael, their common inheritance, and their grief at the dishonour done to the name of God, were righteous and commendable feelings. There was no need to water them down or to reason them nway. It would have been base and wrong not to follow them out to their legitimate consequences in action. But in the course of doing so the pure stream became fouled by far baser passion. Anger at the contra- diction and opposition offered to themselves, wounded pride at the success of their adversaries in the first days' battles, the fierce determination to quell and destroy their enemies, and the heat and blood-thirstiness which are the natural result of war 20fi THE BOOK OF JUDGES. [ce. xx. 18-48.