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The Antiquities of the Jews - Table of Contents
The Antiquities of the Jews
Written by Flavius Josephus
Translated by William Whiston
Book Five
Chapter 2
How, After The Death Of Joshua Their
Commander, The Israelites Transgressed The Laws Of Their
Country, And Experienced Great Afflictions; And When There Was A
Sedition Arisen, The Tribe Of Benjamin Was Destroyed Excepting
Only Six Hundred Men
1. After the death of Joshua and Eleazar, Phineas prophesied,
(10) that according to God's will they should commit the
government to the tribe of Judah, and that this tribe should
destroy the race of the Canaanites; for then the people were
concerned to learn what was the will of God. They also took to
their assistance the tribe of Simeon; but upon this condition,
that when those that had been tributary to the tribe of Judah
should be slain, they should do the like for the tribe of
Simeon.
2. But the affairs of the Canaanites were at this thee in a
flourishing condition, and they expected the Israelites with a
great army at the city Bezek, having put the government into the
hands of Adonibezek, which name denotes the Lord of Bezek, for
Adoni in the Hebrew tongue signifies Lord. Now they hoped to
have been too hard for the Israelites, because Joshua was dead;
but when the Israelites had joined battle with them, I mean the
two tribes before mentioned, they fought gloriously, and slew
above ten thousand of them, and put the rest to flight; and in
the pursuit they took Adonibezek, who, when his fingers and toes
were cut off by them, said, "Nay, indeed, I was not always to
lie concealed from God, as I find by what I now endure, while I
have not been ashamed to do the same to seventy-two kings." (11)
So they carried him alive as far as Jerusalem; and when he was
dead, they buried him in the earth, and went on still in taking
the cities: and when they had taken the greatest part of them,
they besieged Jerusalem; and when they had taken the lower city,
which was not under a considerable time, they slew all the
inhabitants; but the upper city was not to be taken without
great difficulty, through the strength of its walls, and the
nature of the place.
3. For which reason they removed their camp to Hebron; and when
they had taken it, they slew all the inhabitants. There were
till then left the race of giants, who had bodies so large, and
countenances so entirely different from other men, that they
were surprising to the sight, and terrible to the hearing. The
bones of these men are still shown to this very day, unlike to
any credible relations of other men. Now they gave this city to
the Levites as an extraordinary reward, with the suburbs of two
thousand cities; but the land thereto belonging they gave as a
free gift to Caleb, according to the injunctions of Moses. This
Caleb was one of the spies which Moses sent into the land of
Canaan. They also gave land for habitation to the posterity of
Jethro, the Midianite, who was the father-in-law to Moses; for
they had left their own country, and followed them, and
accompanied them in the wilderness.
4. Now the tribes of Judah and Simeon took the cities which were
in the mountainous part of Canaan, as also Askelon and Ashdod,
of those that lay near the sea; but Gaza and Ekron escaped them,
for they, lying in a flat country, and having a great number of
chariots, sorely galled those that attacked them. So these
tribes, when they were grown very rich by this war, retired to
their own cities, and laid aside their weapons of war.
5. But the Benjamites, to whom belonged Jerusalem, permitted its
inhabitants to pay tribute. So they all left off, the one to
kill, and the other to expose themselves to danger, and had time
to cultivate the ground. The rest of the tribes imitated that of
Benjamin, and did the same; and, contenting themselves with the
tributes that were paid them, permitted the Canaanites to live
in peace.
6. However, the tribe of Ephraim, when they besieged Bethel,
made no advance, nor performed any thing worthy of the time they
spent, and of the pains they took about that siege; yet did they
persist in it, still sitting down before the city, though they
endured great trouble thereby: but, after some time, they caught
one of the citizens that came to them to get necessaries, and
they gave him some assurances that, if he would deliver up the
city to them, they would preserve him and his kindred; so he
aware that, upon those terms, he would put the city into their
hands. Accordingly, he that, thus betrayed the city was
preserved with his family; and the Israelites slew all the
inhabitants, and retained the city for themselves.
7. After this, the Israelites grew effeminate as to fighting any
more against their enemies, but applied themselves to the
cultivation of the land, which producing them great plenty and
riches, they neglected the regular disposition of their
settlement, and indulged themselves in luxury and pleasures; nor
were they any longer careful to hear the laws that belonged to
their political government: whereupon God was provoked to anger,
and put them in mind, first, how, contrary to his directions,
they had spared the Canaanites; and, after that, how those
Canaanites, as opportunity served, used them very barbarously.
But the Israelites, though they were in heaviness at these
admonitions from God, yet were they still very unwilling to go
to war; and since they got large tributes from the Canaanites,
and were indisposed for taking pains by their luxury, they
suffered their aristocracy to be corrupted also, and did not
ordain themselves a senate, nor any other such magistrates as
their laws had formerly required, but they were very much given
to cultivating their fields, in order to get wealth; which great
indolence of theirs brought a terrible sedition upon them, and
they proceeded so far as to fight one against another, from the
following occasion:
8. There was a Levite (12) a man of a vulgar family, that
belonged to the tribe of Ephraim, and dwelt therein: this man
married a wife from Bethlehem, which is a place belonging to the
tribe of Judah. Now he was very fond of his wife, and overcome
with her beauty; but he was unhappy in this, that he did not
meet with the like return of affection from her, for she was
averse to him, which did more inflame his passion for her, so
that they quarreled one with another perpetually; and at last
the woman was so disgusted at these quarrels, that she left her
husband, and went to her parents in the fourth month. The
husband being very uneasy at this her departure, and that out of
his fondness for her, came to his father and mother-in-law, and
made up their quarrels, and was reconciled to her, and lived
with them there four days, as being kindly treated by her
parents. On the fifth day he resolved to go home, and went away
in the evening; for his wife's parents were loath to part with
their daughter, and delayed the time till the day was gone. Now
they had one servant that followed them, and an ass on which the
woman rode; and when they were near Jerusalem, having gone
already thirty furlongs, the servant advised them to take up
their lodgings some where, lest some misfortune should befall
them if they traveled in the night, especially since they were
not far off enemies, that season often giving reason for
suspicion of dangers from even such as are friends; but the
husband was not pleased with this advice, nor was he willing to
take up his lodging among strangers, for the city belonged to
the Canaanites, but desired rather to go twenty furlongs
farther, and so to take their lodgings in some Israelite city.
Accordingly, he obtained his purpose, and came to Gibeah, a city
of the tribe of Benjamin, when it was just dark; and while no
one that lived in the market-place invited him to lodge with
him, there came an old man out of the field, one that was indeed
of the tribe of Ephraim, but resided in Gibeah, and met him, and
asked him who he was, and for what reason he came thither so
late, and why he was looking out for provisions for supper when
it was dark? To which he replied, that he was a Levite, and was
bringing his wife from her parents, and was going home; but he
told him his habitation was in the tribe of Ephraim: so the old
man, as well because of their kindred as because they lived in
the same tribe, and also because they had thus accidentally met
together, took him in to lodge with him. Now certain young men
of the inhabitants of Gibeah, having seen the woman in the
market-place, and admiring her beauty, when they understood that
she lodged with the old man, came to the doors, as contemning
the weakness and fewness of the old man's family; and when the
old man desired them to go away, and not to offer any violence
or abuse there, they desired him to yield them up the strange
woman, and then he should have no harm done to him: and when the
old man alleged that the Levite was of his kindred, and that
they would be guilty of horrid wickedness if they suffered
themselves to be overcome by their pleasures, and so offend
against their laws, they despised his righteous admonition, and
laughed him to scorn. They also threatened to kill him if he
became an obstacle to their inclinations; whereupon, when he
found himself in great distress, and yet was not willing to
overlook his guests, and see them abused, he produced his own
daughter to them; and told them that it was a smaller breach of
the law to satisfy their lust upon her, than to abuse his
guests, supposing that he himself should by this means prevent
any injury to be done to those guests. When they no way abated
of their earnestness for the strange woman, but insisted
absolutely on their desires to have her, he entreated them not
to perpetrate any such act of injustice; but they proceeded to
take her away by force, and indulging still more the violence of
their inclinations, they took the woman away to their house, and
when they had satisfied their lust upon her the whole night,
they let her go about daybreak. So she came to the place where
she had been entertained, under great affliction at what had
happened; and was very sorrowful upon occasion of what she had
suffered, and durst not look her husband in the face for shame,
for she concluded that he would never forgive her for what she
had done; so she fell down, and gave up the ghost: but her
husband supposed that his wife was only fast asleep, and,
thinking nothing of a more melancholy nature had happened,
endeavored to raise her up, resolving to speak comfortably to
her, since she did not voluntarily expose herself to these men's
lust, but was forced away to their house; but as soon as he
perceived she was dead, he acted as prudently as the greatness
of his misfortunes would admit, and laid his dead wife upon the
beast, and carried her home; and cutting her, limb by limb, into
twelve pieces, he sent them to every tribe, and gave it in
charge to those that carried them, to inform the tribes of those
that were the causes of his wife's death, and of the violence
they had offered to her.
9. Upon this the people were greatly disturbed at what they saw,
and at what they heard, as never having had the experience of
such a thing before; so they gathered themselves to Shiloh, out
of a prodigious and a just anger, and assembling in a great
congregation before the tabernacle, they immediately resolved to
take arms, and to treat the inhabitants of Gibeah as enemies;
but the senate restrained them from doing so, and persuaded
them, that they ought not so hastily to make war upon people of
the same nation with them, before they discoursed them by words
concerning the accusation laid against them; it being part of
their law, that they should not bring an army against foreigners
themselves, when they appear to have been injurious, without
sending an ambassage first, and trying thereby whether they will
repent or not: and accordingly they exhorted them to do what
they ought to do in obedience to their laws, that is, to send to
the inhabitants of Gibeah, to know whether they would deliver up
the offenders to them, and if they deliver them up, to rest
satisfied with the punishment of those offenders; but if they
despised the message that was sent them, to punish them by
taking, up arms against them. Accordingly they sent to the
inhabitants of Gibeah, and accused the young men of the crimes
committed in the affair of the Levite's wife, and required of
them those that had done what was contrary to the law, that they
might be punished, as having justly deserved to die for what
they had done; but the inhabitants of Gibeah would not deliver
up the young men, and thought it too reproachful to them, out of
fear of war, to submit to other men's demands upon them;
vaunting themselves to be no way inferior to any in war, neither
in their number nor in courage. The rest of their tribe were
also making great preparation for war, for they were so
insolently mad as also to resolve to repel force by force.
10. When it was related to the Israelites what the inhabitants
of Gibeah had resolved upon, they took their oath that no one of
them would give his daughter in marriage to a Benjamite, but
make war with greater fury against them than we have learned our
forefathers made war against the Canaanites; and sent out
presently an army of four hundred thousand against them, while
the Benjamites' army-was twenty-five thousand and six hundred;
five hundred of whom were excellent at slinging stones with
their left hands, insomuch that when the battle was joined at
Gibeah the Benjamites beat the Israelites, and of them there
fell two thousand men; and probably more had been destroyed had
not the night came on and prevented it, and broken off the
fight; so the Benjamites returned to the city with joy, and the
Israelites returned to their camp in a great fright at what had
happened. On the next day, when they fought again, the
Benjamites beat them; and eighteen thousand of the Israelites
were slain, and the rest deserted their camp out of fear of a
greater slaughter. So they came to Bethel, (13) a city that was
near their camp, and fasted on the next day; and besought God,
by Phineas the high priest, that his wrath against them might
cease, and that he would be satisfied with these two defeats,
and give them the victory and power over their enemies.
Accordingly God promised them so to do, by the prophesying of
Phineas.
11. When therefore they had divided the army into two parts,
they laid the one half of them in ambush about the city Gibeah
by night, while the other half attacked the Benjamites, who
retiring upon the assault, the Benjamites pursued them, while
the Hebrews retired by slow degrees, as very desirous to draw
them entirely from the city; and the other followed them as they
retired, till both the old men and the young men that were left
in the city, as too weak to fight, came running out together
with them, as willing to bring their enemies under. However,
when they were a great way from the city the Hebrews ran away no
longer, but turned back to fight them, and lifted up the signal
they had agreed on to those that lay in ambush, who rose up, and
with a great noise fell upon the enemy. Now, as soon as ever
they perceived themselves to be deceived, they knew not what to
do; and when they were driven into a certain hollow place which
was in a valley, they were shot at by those that encompassed
them, till they were all destroyed, excepting six hundred, which
formed themselves into a close body of men, and forced their
passage through the midst of their enemies, and fled to the
neighboring mountains, and, seizing upon them, remained there;
but the rest of them, being about twenty-five thousand, were
slain. Then did the Israelites burn Gibeah, and slew the women,
and the males that were under age; and did the same also to the
other cities of the Benjamites; and, indeed, they were enraged
to that degree, that they sent twelve thousand men out of the
army, and gave them orders to destroy Jabesh Gilead, because it
did not join with them in fighting against the Benjamites.
Accordingly, those that were sent slew the men of war, with
their children and wives, excepting four hundred virgins. To
such a degree had they proceeded in their anger, because they
not only had the suffering of the Levite's wife to avenge, but
the slaughter of their own soldiers.
12. However, they afterward were sorry for the calamity they had
brought upon the Benjamites, and appointed a fast on that
account, although they supposed those men had suffered justly
for their offense against the laws; so they recalled by their
ambassadors those six hundred which had escaped. These had
seated themselves on a certain rock called Rimmon, which was in
the wilderness. So the ambassadors lamented not only the
disaster that had befallen the Benjamites, but themselves also,
by this destruction of their kindred; and persuaded them to take
it patiently; and to come and unite with them, and not, so far
as in them lay, to give their suffrage to the utter destruction
of the tribe of Benjamin; and said to them, "We give you leave
to take the whole land of Benjamin to yourselves, and as much
prey as you are able to carry away with you." So these men with
sorrow confessed, that what had been done was according to the
decree of God, and had happened for their own wickedness; and
assented to those that invited them, and came down to their own
tribe. The Israelites also gave them the four hundred virgins of
Jabesh Gilead for wives; but as to the remaining two hundred,
they deliberated about it how they might compass wives enough
for them, and that they might have children by them; and whereas
they had, before the war began, taken an oath, that no one would
give his daughter to wife to a Benjamite, some advised them to
have no regard to what they had sworn, because the oath had not
been taken advisedly and judiciously, but in a passion, and
thought that they should do nothing against God, if they were
able to save a whole tribe which was in danger of perishing; and
that perjury was then a sad and dangerous thing, not when it is
done out of necessity, but when it is done with a wicked
intention. But when the senate were affrighted at the very name
of perjury, a certain person told them that he could show them a
way whereby they might procure the Benjamites wives enough, and
yet keep their oath. They asked him what his proposal was. He
said, "That three times in a year, when we meet in Shiloh, our
wives and our daughters accompany us: let then the Benjamites be
allowed to steal away, and marry such women as they can catch,
while we will neither incite them nor forbid them; and when
their parents take it ill, and desire us to inflict punishment
upon them, we will tell them, that they were themselves the
cause of what had happened, by neglecting to guard their
daughters, and that they ought not to be over angry at the
Benjamites, since that anger was permitted to rise too high
already." So the Israelites were persuaded to follow this
advice, and decreed, That the Benjamites should be allowed thus
to steal themselves wives. So when the festival was coming on,
these two hundred Benjamites lay in ambush before the city, by
two and three together, and waited for the coming of the
virgins, in the vineyards and other places where they could lie
concealed. Accordingly the virgins came along playing, and
suspected nothing of what was coming upon them, and walked after
an unguarded manner, so those that laid scattered in the road,
rose up, and caught hold of them: by this means these Benjamites
got them wives, and fell to agriculture, and took good care to
recover their former happy state. And thus was this tribe of the
Benjamites, after they had been in danger of entirely perishing,
saved in the manner forementioned, by the wisdom of the
Israelites; and accordingly it presently flourished, and soon
increased to be a multitude, and came to enjoy all other degrees
of happiness. And such was the conclusion of this war.
Continue on to
Book
Five,
Chapter 3,
The Antiquities of the Jews
by
Flavius Josephus
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The Antiquities of the Jews - Table of Contents
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