The Pulpit Commentary — Judges — Section 196

net David thanked them (2 Sam. ii. 5). The must be heirs to succeerl, and therefore we rnune of Jabcsli is only preserved in the must find wives for them. The wordpeleyfoh Wady Yabio, which debouches on the east- without the article can hardly mean the ern bank of the Jordan about !at. 32·24. remnant, as has ueen proposed, hut must be Robinson thinks the ruins called ed Deir in defined by being taken with Benjamin. this valley are the remains of J abesh, which Ver. 18.-We are not able. Note "-"'•in ngrecs exactly with the situation assigned to the evil of rash vows, and how often chica~ery it by Eusebil1e in the ' Onomasticon.' is necessary in order to evade tl1eir evil Vera. 10, 11.-Ye shall utterly destroy, consequences. &c. Devote to destruction, as a 'hercm, an Ver. 19.-There is a feast of the Lord in accursed thing. They followed in the Shiloh yearly. Compare the exactly similar severity of the punishment the precedent description, 1 Sam. i. 3, 7.. There is a "Teat of the destruction of the Midianites (see difference of opinion among commentato°;.s as Numb. xxxi. 17), and even in the numbers to what feast is here meant. Hengsten berg, sent to destroy them-a thousand from every Keil, Delitzsch, and others think it wa.s tribe (Numb. xxxi. 5). Revolting to our the passover ; Bishop Patrick and others feelings as such wholesale massacres are, think it was the feast of tabernacles, a including women and children, it must be more joyous feast; Rosenmli.ller and others remembered iu mitigation that the 'herem think it was a festival peculiar to Shiloh, was the solemn devotion of a thing or person after the analogy of the yearly sacrifice of the to destruction under the sanction of an oath. family of Jesse at Bethlehem (1 Sam. xx. Of the valiantest. Tlie sons of valour simply 29), and more or less in accordance with means valia,nt 10). = (2 Sam. xiii. 28 ; xvii. Deut. xii. 10-12. It is not easy to say which view is right, but the last seems not Ver. 12.-To Shiloh, whither it should improbable. In a place which is on the seem they had now taken the tabernacle north side, &c. The words in a place are back, the war with Benjamin no longer not in the Hebrew, and do not seem to be requiring its presence at Bethel. Them. implied by the context. But the description It is masculine in the Hebrew, though it is that of the situation of Shiloh itself, which refers to the women. So again in ver. 22, is very exact (see 'Palestine Exploration tlieir fatliers and, tlieir lYl'otliers in the mas- Fund,' Map of West Palestine). Lebonah culine (see above, eh. xix. 23, and vers. survives in el • Lnbbun, about two miles 21, 22). It is perhaps an archaism. In the north-west of Seilfln, and to the west of land of Canaan. This is inserted to contrast the road to Shechem or Nablus. It seems it with Jabesh in Gilead (Gen. xxxiii. 17, 18, strange that so particular a description of the and eh. viii. 5, note). situation of Shiloh should be given ; but it Yer. 13.-Translate the whole verse thus: may probably indicate that the writer lived And the whole congr,gation sent and spake after the tabernacle had been moved to J e- to tlie cliildren of Benjamin, &c., and pro. rusalem, and Shiloh had relapsed into an claimed peace to tliem (see Dent. xx. 10). obscure village (see eh. xx. 27, note). The They sent ambassadors or heralds to them as situation of the descriptive words in the it were with a flag of truce. Hebrew, with the pronoun which, separated Ver. 14.-Benjamin C!Lllle again, i e. re- from Shiloh, by the word yearly, indicates tiwned to their own homes in the tribe of that they are an explanation added by the Benjamin, as in ver. 23. Yet so·they sufficed narrator. them not-or, Yet so they (the Israelites) Ver. 21.-Come out. The verb is in the did not provide enough for tliem (the Ben- masculine gender, though the daughters of jamites) ; or, Yet so t,h,ey (the Benjamites) Shiloh, is the subject (see above, ver. 12, liad not en<YUflk for themselves. note). To dance in dances. Bishop Patrick Yer. 16.-Seeingthewomen. Itisrather says that the feast of tabernacles was the only more in aocordance with the Hebrew style to feast at which Jewish maidens were permitted take the words as the narrator's explanation to dance. Go to the lsnd of Benj!Llllin. of the question, What skall we do! They The close vicinity of the high road leading said this because all the women of Benjamin from Shechem to Bethel on the border of had been destroyed. Benjamin would facilitate their flight. Ver. 17.-There must be an inheritance Ver. 22,-Be favourable unto them for for them that be escaped of Benjamin. The our aakes. Rather, Grant t!S them as ,, passage is difficult to construe and to explain. favour, the masculine the?n referring to the If the words Tliere must be are properly sup- daughters of Shiloh,, as in ver. 12, and the plied in the A. V., the sense will come out verb grant a favcntr being followed by a more cloerly if we take the word inheritance double accusative. We reserved not to each to me1tn rather succus-ion, which is the idea man his wife, &c. These words are some- contained in the root. There must be a suc- what difficult. If we may insert the word «.Bsion for the escaped of Benjamin, i. e. there lo, as the A. Y. does, before each, man (for It JUDGES, l' 210 THI<~ BOOK OF JUDGES. [en. XXI. 1-25.