Heptateuch (the first seven books of the Bible in verse) 6.1–7.26

Meanwhile the Lord, deigning to speak to Joshua, promises that he will be exalted with mighty gifts, and tells him to cross the ford of the pleasant Jordan and set the measured camp on the enemy’s bank, and to establish new seats in the remote part of the lands and settle the people in rich places. Moreover he learns the nations by their distinct names as far as the great mountain the inhabitant calls Lebanon, as far as your banks, Euphrates, who glide down in your course, parting the Persians from the Syrian border, or the sea that surges swollen with windy waves. For besides the outstanding strength joined in battle, putting terror far and wide into pale peoples, the Jewish soldier trusts in the Lord’s protection. To him the Lord, bestowing notable merit from the stars, granted that he should take rich lands without a wound. “Come now,” God thunders, “take up manly cares, so that the people may soon take up the realms given them. And do not turn your eyes from the book of the law, so that, safe, you may never be bereft of the everlasting Lord.” He at once tells the scribes who carry the commands that the people should take food and fitting weapons, as he is about to move strong cohorts to the wars at hand when the third dawn marks the world with purple. And addressing the tribes that remain by the Jordan,

that they should leave their cattle and children in the fields they had received, but wage the common war and then, the enemy conquered, return to the peoples they would drive out with the Lord as chief. They eagerly join their companies and mingle their columns, seeking every hardship alike with sword and vows. Meanwhile he orders young men chosen from the fighting column to track out what places there were, what men held them, where the nation’s walls stood, and to report quickly what they had seen. While they survey the rich estates of the land, they burst into the approaches of the city, empty of guards, and secretly survey the site and buildings of Jericho. A harlot receives them, who was then called Rahab, and secretly hides them in their fear and diligently soothes them with words. After this was told to the king, with threatening terror he demands those hidden; she, speaking with steady mind, says that both had long since gone out by the double gates. Yet she had hidden them secretly in a hollow among the wood. The leader’s care seeks them through every byway and, as though an enemy were coming, closes the gates. But the harlot, after the tyrant’s search had stopped, turns to the young men and spoke like a prophet: “I know, brothers, what rewards the Lord has brought you since he first took you out of dark Egypt: how in the middle of the sea the water was suspended with swelling wave like huge walls for you,

or when, through the empty sands of the barren wilderness, snowy manna supplied you the food of heaven’s dwellers, or when terrifying kings, set beyond the roaring streams of the Jordan, falling by your blade, left their native cities to you as victors. Why do I delay? Pallor has besieged minds and hearts; no one takes up weapons or trusts in the curved bow; no foot-soldier thickens bronze ranks for battle; no war chariot flies with its iron-clad car. To you, young men, true victory is given, to you, from the starry King who made earth and stars. And now, young men, say with sworn words that, when the walls are laid low and fall, my safety shall be placed and entrusted in your right hands, lest I become a captive with my kin and house, my fathers and dear ones, for whom my care wearies me.” It is agreed, and she is told to keep at home all whom she wishes to live with her, and, as a sign, to hang her cord of broom carefully from her window, so that, when the legion has poured through the captured city, the wool dyed with crimson colour may be seen. They eagerly cross the ditches and reach safety on a hill, hiding for three days, lest, while they hurry back to their camp, they run into pursuers coming from another side.

But the harlot, secure, carries out his commands. And the chief too, taught by the young men’s report, quickly moves the camp from the valley of Shittim and from afar hastens on, and soothes their minds, giving rest to all for three days, and urges the scribes to tell the people that when they see the sacred ark carried before them and the priests going on behind the lofty altar, they should promptly and eagerly raise the standards and leave a space that comes to two thousand cubits, and should purify their bodies in streams, to be set before the Lord’s face. Meanwhile the chief, honoured with the Lord’s favour, shines forth, outstanding, worthy of the line of Moses. And now the priests, commanded to cross the river, dip their bare feet at the edge of the bank; then the command gives twelve chosen tribunes to the tribes, to gather shining stones from the middle of the bed, so that twelve pebbles taken from the wet sands might witness to the people that the streams were dried for them as they passed. They also set like stones, in number and manner, in the middle of the channel, which the moving wave washes and floods, slippery, with its roaring current. But the tribe of Reuben crosses the bared river, followed by Gad, with the half of Manasseh hastening, sending forty thousand men to war.

when suddenly the flood, used to running down the river, is checked and the course of the waters is bridled with ice; the lower part of the river flies off and hides itself in the ocean and is plunged into the vast tide, from the region that holds the limbs of pious Moses as far as the immense sea with its uncertain waves. And when they had crossed the Jordan in their crowds, the ice is loosened, softened by the warmth of the sun, and joins again with its stream the banks sucked dry before. When the tyrants on the other side learned this, they lose heart; no constancy strengthens anyone. Here the chief prepared knives from twelve stones, with which, as commanded, he removed the foreskins of the people; for through twice twenty years in the wilderness so great a people had produced strong sons, grown to more thousands. They are granted slow rest, so that the scar, gradually closing, may soften the sad wounds of the sufferers. Then the Passover is kept, and the shining manna is denied to those rich in grain, which a very great harvest everywhere offered to the people as they reaped the grain in rivalry. Unleavened bread of snowy flour feeds them gladly. The festival of the holy night is kept in the open plain in the month of new things, when twice six suns had passed. Above, from the gates, a crowd of the fearful looks down on this, guarding only the camp and the walls with chosen soldiers.

Meanwhile the prophet sees someone threatening with a blade and is eager to approach him quickly, saying: “From what side do you come? Are you ours, or rather of the Phoenician race? Speak.” At once he receives the speech he desired, God on high declaring: “I have now come, gliding down from high heaven, I for whom a notable legion fights with all the stars, and under whose leadership it lives.” At this he silently rejoices, mixed with fear, prostrate on the ground and worshipping God, as he begins thus: “O Lord, who have deigned to leave your immense seat, what do you bid your servant hasten to do?” He is told to loose the straps of his feet quickly, since he had set his feet on holy ground. Moreover he sees that Jericho, strong with walls and bars, will fall, and the fierce nations, and the death of the kings, to which ruin is joined. He quickly surrounds the walls with his whole army, placing the priests and the sacred ark behind, commanding the priests, so that the people might be bolder, to blow out the terrifying sounds of seven trumpets. Then the legion, as ordered, silently goes round the city, so that then, massed together, it might raise the war cry when the chief’s watchword had given the terrifying signal. And now the seventh day had opened the glad world,

when Joshua orders the bronze ranks to bring forward a confident step into battle and send a vast shout from their breasts, which weapons promptly follow. No ram shakes the masonry and batters down the towers, assailing the walls and the proud gates too; but the crash and the vast voices with harmonious roar work as a deadly engine, by which the walls sink down, and all lay open, stripped of their bars. They eagerly burst at once into the overthrown city, turning everything over with sword and devouring flame. The woman alone was granted the safety she had earned, set apart from the citizens’ death and hidden in the camp, with her kin accompanying her, lest a soldier, not knowing her, should kill her as he roams among all the doorways. The rich furnishings won by valour are kept for the Lord, of all the things that could feast the eye. These things done, the chief made the people swear that no one should try to rebuild the fallen walls; he would be punished with his firstborn for the foundations, then with his last if he tried to set up the gates. Meanwhile depraved acts spoil success. The people follow idols and worship, bowed down, stones set up by hand, believing rocks to be divinities. The standard-bearer is Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zimri, following whom the band left the Lord and the law.

not glad for long in forbidden things: for after three thousand men, the customary number (a sinful act!), were sent through enemy fields, believing that the youth of Ai would be easily put to flight, they turn their backs in fear through the fields and in headlong flight seek again their camp and their leader. After this disgrace reached the leader’s ears, he tears his clothes and beats his foreseeing breast. A crowd of mourning elders accompanying him at once makes supplication, while Joshua asks with innocent words: “O Lord, what cause was there to lead your people out of the seat of Egypt? Why suspend the waves of the sea and all the things you know were then handed over by your mighty giving hand, than which nothing is richer? Was it for this, that the swollen Amorite might lay the afflicted low? It would have been safer to live beyond the great river, which lay open to us, dried, with thirsty sand. What will wounded Israel do, or what will it say in confusion, that you should rather wish to thrust your chosen into slavery? And yet true salvation and the gifts of sure healing are in your power, and whatever gentle mercy provides. The nations will gather that you had given us to conquer; the Jebusite and the Amorite, in a mixed phalanx, will move fierce wars against you, highest Sower. Will you then let the proud laugh at your name, and nations unknown to you have more right?”

The Lord is moved by this and bade the prophet rise, recounting little by little the guilt of the hideous offence, to be punished by the death of the one who had urged such things. Then, when the first day had removed the dark night, he rouses his body from sleep and stirs his companions and visits the kindred tribes name by name; catching the guilty head, he gives the wicked to death, while the cattle too are sent into the fire. Unhappy Achan first said that he had committed the crime, inflamed by love of plunder and spoils, which he had buried at home and covered in his own earth. At once men sent search for them; they are quickly found and set out before the leader and the crowded people. When he saw that the plunder sought was not missing, the ruler speaks thus and terrifies the frightened man: “Come now, tell everyone what madness seized you, or what ignorant use of things helped you, that, forgetful of the law, you followed the rite of the guilty? And had the lofty glory not saved the people, the victorious Amorite would have pressed our free necks with the yoke. Come now, pay for all the guilt you have committed, so that God and the Lord may return to the camp now saved.” When he had said this, a shower of stones is raised and crushes the condemned man and beats down his family;

and the cattle and whatever things he had kept the white flame seizes and dissolves into grey dust. These things done, their cares were removed: God gently looks again on all and restores to all alike their accustomed strength, by which they could drive back every rank. Here the ruler receives the notable commands of the Lord, to draw up the allied cohorts for any war, choosing a thousand young men notable in body and years, so that, while they prepare the stratagems of war, they hide in the thickets, hiding them silently not far from the walls of Ai, so that when he began to turn his back in feigned fear and draw the shut-in men out onto the plain, they would at once quickly leave their wooded lairs and strive to burst through the gates stripped of men. Without delay all goes as the prophet had planned. After the companies had fought in slanting column, the chief ordered his men at once to turn their backs; the hostile crowd rushes upon them in dense column and presses on with much shouting and brandishes its swords. Seeing this, the band that lay hidden in the hollow valley flies out and bursts into the walls by the empty gates, setting swift fires to the lofty roofs. Then a confused sound and a tearful murmur compelled the men of Ai to turn their heads and look.

They look back and see black ash flying to heaven and balls of flame that the captured roofs belched out, and another band threatening their rear and front; caught, they shudder and let their useless weapons fall. Pierced before the eyes and faces of their weeping parents, some are driven into the steep ditches as the victor rushes on, or dash themselves against the gates of the captured city. Twice six thousand young men are laid low by the sword. The king himself too, exulting and daring to burst out onto the plain, is taken at the first onset and held in chains, and fixed to a cross; stones give the wretch a tomb. When all was consumed, the fire did not swallow only what the hasty hand had seized; and only the beasts of burden, which carry loads on their backs, were spared from death. Meanwhile the news of victory flies to the kings. All hear it: the Amorite joined to the pleasant Jordan, and those who set their halls in the thorny mountains or dwell in glad plains and sloping valleys, and those who live on the margin of the blue sea. The Hittite and the Canaanite whisper together, the Hivite fears and the Perizzite wavers, and the Jebusite and Girgashite bands grow pale alike. Yet, not wholly broken and wholly prostrate, they raise their spirits and steel themselves for battle; all have one desire, to drive Joshua from their realms.

and they gather at Gibeon in one place and halt their columns. Joshua himself, amid the cares of war, builds an altar to God in the manner of Moses, which no bonds of iron bind, while the stones hold together, fitted side by side; bringing out offerings pleasing to God, from which a sweet odour breathes on high. Moreover he writes out the statutes of the teaching law: its name is Deuteronomy, since it goes over what was done before, and it is right for the whole world alike to know it. The life-giving ark is carried on the necks of the priests, so that all may see the gifts of the highest Lord. And the prophet, used to blessing the people, runs through what was commanded before and what was later safeguarded, with like reckoning of the deeds and in sure order. But after the band of Gibeon saw that with lofty successes the Jews had grown and the tyrants were slain, the cities overturned and none able to resist, they hasten to a cunning collusion by a crafty deed, and, though the region had joined them to Israel in neighbouring fields, they pretend that they have come from a land far away, admiring the man’s trophies and fresh palms, to see whether by prayers they could join right hands with the victor and ally their houses and attach their whole nation, so as to survive by an agreement given, unless discordant hearts should despise the humble and reject the necks submitted to them.

And so that they might keep up the appearance of sure faith, they drive mules loaded with heavy weight, carrying mouldy grain with swift effort, which old sacks held in their weary covering; and wineskins sewn up with many a wound scarcely hold the wine, while the gash refuses to bind the liquid. Their clothing bared their bodies with torn rags, and their shoes gave wretched covering to their worn soles. The leader of the people is broken by this, while he is won by their suppliant hands and believes their minds agree with their speech. He receives them as they ask for pardon and admits them to the camp. But, as often happens, feigned things are not long hidden, and the witness of the truth uncovers the contrived deceit. At once the prophet chastises them openly, but in friendship; and, because he had sworn by the name of the eternal Lord, the friendly faith remained; but common rights were denied them: they were ordered, in the service of camp-followers, to carry water from pure springs around the sanctuary, without a share. After it was reported that they had gone over, Adoni-zedek, who then ruled the Jebusite realm in his hall, moves five kings, faithful to the war he undertook, more fiercely hostile to the allies for breaking the treaty than against the people who had routed immense ranks with arms. But Gibeon, terrified by the gathering of many kings, sends envoys and begs the friendly prophet

to help the sorrowful at once with all his soldiers. Without delay he takes up the standards and leaves Gilgal, making for the enemy camp, the Lord giving him strength with these words: “Do not fear the many names of kings together, nor think their cohorts strong; however much their bands trust in an immense cloud of men, the infantry will achieve nothing, nor will the horsemen’s weapons prevail; scorn the four-horse chariots armed with curved scythes. For I will shake the nations with pale fear; nowhere will the enemy meet you face to face with equal front, scattered in swollen slaughter by your strong soldiers.” When he learned this, he advances against the numerous enemy; for the warring tyrants held the seat of Aphek, and at once, dismissing their soldiers, they take to flight. The rest of the crowd fell in a heap of confused slaughter and, strewn about, filled the open plains. Nor did the sword of the victors strike so many dead as the ice-cold clouds dense with hail; and though here swords, there bright lightnings flash, one day is not long enough for such great triumphs. So, seeing the swords grown dull and the slaughter slow, the chief asks the Lord for the help he was used to: “However its hours are stretched, this light is not enough, unless you bid the hours of night be joined to the day.

Let the flame of the wandering sun now stand in balanced weight, and let the circle of the moon not move its trembling fires, so that the elements, as though not knowing how to run to their goals, may prolong the time while the dense enemy falls.” He is heard at once: the sun stands still, and the wandering moon held back her easy course at either pole. And the kings too, whom hollow rocks had hidden, he ordered to stand openly with bound necks. Then from every side, weapons laid down, Judea runs together and, pressing with the knee, tramples the necks of the groaning kings. At once the bloodless men are fixed on high crosses, hanging until the black night returned. Then he takes down the hung bodies of the men from the wood, and they are loaded with stones heaped upon them. These things done, the warrior hastens to subdue Libnah, and kills the aged; nor was the sword spared the boys; none at all of the whole nation was allowed to live. Then Lachish is attacked and burns with its walls laid low; the king of the people too is captured and killed with the sword. Debir too, buried in like ruins, perishes, its legion destroyed along with its allied tyrant. And whoever held citadels on thorny hills or dwelt in curving valleys and level plains fell, his companies destroyed along with their king. And while all things flow gladly with favourable success,

Jabin, seeing the mighty deeds of the victorious nation, he who ruled the rich realms of Hazor for its peoples, hastening to put out the flame of the war nearby, gathers outstanding kings and fierce peoples. Jobab comes to him quickly from the hall of Madon, and the king of Shimron, and Achshaph, made a companion in arms, and he who reigned as leader in the citadel of Sidon, Chinneroth and the Arabah, whose neighbouring realms strengthened their spirits by love of an allied sceptre. Dor is joined, and the Canaanite who tills the fields joined to the sea, and those who see the red beginnings of the sun when the rosy sky first opens. Besides these the Amorite hastens, neighbour to the Jebusite; the Hittite and the Hivite and the Perizzite follow, who dwell in the desert byways of barren Mizpah. All are minded to charge in a massed crowd. Then each hurls his darts in his own fashion: here the legion of infantry advances in a dense cloud, and four-horse chariots rush on with iron-clad soldiers, so that the very crash may rout the enemy as he strains near. But on the other side Joshua, not at all terrified, presses on, coming by the waters called by the name of Merom; and when he had climbed a hill with chosen soldiers, rushing down from above he crushes the careless enemy. Everything is wet with slaughter and the earth is stained with gore.

Soon fire set beneath them devours the swift chariots, and the horses’ feet are cut off with the sharp sword. The prince of the kings himself, of Hazor, gives his breast to the sword; the city too falls, undermined with all its walls. Here all the plunder is given in common to the victors. In this war he slew twice ten and nine leaders, he alone who had received the sign from the starry hall. At once the prophet records and divides man by man the cities taken from such perishing nations, set in the shelter and the pole of the land, from where the saffron flame of the coming day reddens, beyond the river called by the ancient name of Jordan, as far as the sloping valley called by the name of Hebron, to Mount Hermon, which rises with vast summit, and to the sea of Chinnereth and its grey-green waters, and Pisgah set apart and what was long called Ashdoth. When the wars were settled, one prey alone remained, the ruler of Bashan (the ancients called him Og), fierce with the strength of the giants whom he ruled, whose house was Ashtaroth and his seat in Edrei. His land is given to two tribes and a half to plough, since the glad and grassy valley pleased them, to Reuben and Gad together and allied Manasseh. The rest the leader divides justly among all the allies.

The region is added where Lebanon rises into the air, and the sea of Misrephoth and the fertile fields of Sidon. The Lord withholds the title of estates from the Levites. Balaam falls, he who used to foretell the future. But Caleb, his companion, whose heart was always joined to the leader, speaks, relying on a calm breast: “You know, leader, the judgment of my mind from that time when, sent together to see the enemy’s lands, while all trembled, I alone, with you as partner, declared that nothing could stand against us; however immense the giants who might wage new wars, God stood against them and helped our side. Surely you remember how the old man graciously promised us all the greatest things and by a separate lot gave this hill to me and all mine. And now, since war with the race of Anak remains, I will wage it with my kindred youth, not degenerate with age, though twice forty years are now rolling for me. Remember the order and assign the seat to me who ask it, for my sons and my sons’ offspring to hold as their own.” To him, asking this, he gave the hill of Hebron, and Arba, no less than great cities, is added. These things done, he hastens to destroy the people of Debir, whose usual work was to write learned speech and for grave masters to dictate the letters to boys.

He calls out a man for the covenant of the promised daughter, one whose valour is ready and whose courage is present in his breast. Meanwhile, though all the peoples were compelled to serve, the Jebusite band does not leave its ancestral fields, and the Canaanite remains at home in the houses of his fathers. The rest of the land, measured out, is given to three times three tribes. For the Levites he rightly sets apart twice three cities and gave them as a refuge to one who feared for a guilty deed, lest punishment should strike faults committed by chance; these he charges the chiefs to weigh with balanced scale, so that a fitting death may condemn the guilty for a graver deed. He himself assigns four times ten cities to the Levites, free from tribute. Then, by the harmonious voice of the people, he receives the hill country of Ephraim for times to come, with a city joined above it whose name remained Timnath. Here he laid up the knives made of hard stone, with which he had cut the parts shameful to name. All this completed, to the allies wishing to return beyond the waters of the wandering Jordan he gave these words: “Band pleasing to us and chosen by the holy Thunderer, by your brave deeds you have earned equal honours, which the Almighty has given to all who on these hills have built their houses. And now return rejoicing. This above all I will repeat and often warn you:

be mindful with how great an everlasting care the Almighty loves you and what rewards he has given you, and know that what he has established by his holy words must be kept, because everlasting life is sought by these things, if the grace of the law remains unbroken with God and always lives in the heart. So let God and the Lord be both feared and loved with all our inward parts and all our heart: so it will be that nations are pressed under your yoke.” When he had said these words and wished all well, they complete the journey they had begun and approach the river, and set up a conspicuous mass with a towering top. When this monument became known to the nine tribes, they wish to clash with them in war as men forgetful of the Lord; yet first men were sent who could learn the truth: Phinehas is chosen, the shining heir of Aaron, and ten leaders of the tribes, first in merit and place, who, mindful, together set out the commands of the chief and the fathers, though the sorrowful men had committed no crime: “Say, what was the purpose of the shrine you have built? Has God slipped from your minds? The oracles of the holy law? Have you then deserted the Thunderer to seek gentile rites, and do you, living, found altars of the dead? Did Peor give little warning to all, condemned to hideous destruction for its wretched daring?

These things they command, in their hatred of foreign nations, to peoples and fathers, while they prepare a war among allies and take up arms again. “Have you been given too few acres of land, the land that pleased you? Or if you wish to extend and advance your borders, take from our plains, provided that the congregation, ever consecrated to the starry Thunderer, is our common parent and does not stand apart from us in discord. Let the deed of mad Achan warn your minds, when he formed dead idols from rigid stones. Did not the headlong evil of the crime he contracted drive on the avenger, who struck the people for the guilt of one?” They humbly answer with gentle words: “We worship him who created all things by his holy word and who sees the crimes that cling to silent hearts; nor do we need to call witnesses to public deeds: God himself knows why we built the altar. Our care was to build a lasting mass by the river, so that it might remain a testimony to the conquered land, lest the divided oracles of the holy temple should ever become a reproach to the coming offspring of believers. We know of no offerings made to vain gods. No indeed, may no such madness change the pious, that anything should please us that displeases the Lord on high! For us it is right to sacrifice and lay out only what the congregation has been used to offer to the everlasting God.”

With these words their good faith was manifest, and the calm tribunes left them rejoicing, honoured with deserved praise. Meanwhile the prophet, now old with long age, fills the people he has summoned with faithful warnings: “You see, citizens, how long old age now weighs me down and my limbs are slowed by their last movement. And now I either warn you or, if you do not mind, I beg you, that God and the law be your life, ever in your mouth, and that your mind recount with mindful speech what he has granted us and all the fathers of our parents. For the fierce nations whose realms you now hold our sword did not tame, our bow did not strike, but the Lord, who graciously went before the standards and the column, going before us whenever the enemy is near; who subdued such peoples, sending cold fear, and willed that kings should yield to us; and who, preparing fields empty for our tillers, after war and arms bade wild creatures burst forth, to take the remaining part with their hired stings. Come then, and learn that the sea was dried for you and the river halted in an unaccustomed way, frozen, though the thin water above was not usually bound into ice and hardened in the summer heat; so that God may receive through mighty ages the praise due for his immense deed, while the tongue sings in harmonious applause that nothing is more sublime than the one God.

Go where the teachable judgment of the law leads, lest ambition, driven through varied turnings, go astray. Let no idols of the men of the conquered nation remain. Let the Lord be your God, lofty God and mighty God. But if empty things and dead divinities please your heart, say so; I will depart, lest worshippers of vanities harm me. Choose, all of you, what suits you. The Almighty deserts those who desert him and rejects them far away, he who once, at the monuments of baneful Balak, promised all glad things instead through the friendly prophet. Look at what you hold, what strong enemies you have routed, and how great the things God adds to all the faithful. Worship him and bind strong minds to the law.” The harmonious judgment of the people answered the prophet: “Hear, greatest of leaders, what our confidence is: him who deigned to lead us out of the lands of the Nile we worship, and all acknowledge him alone to be God of heaven and earth and of the deep sea, at whose command the waters of the Red Sea lay open, and who gave signs well suited to our prayers, who has subjected all nations to our steps.” When the people had spoken these faithful words, a praiseworthy page of holy words is read. The old man himself sets a stone under the terebinth, recording it in the book, to be known as a witness of everlasting faith.

So, the deeds of his life completed, the best of leaders, whose life was stretched through a hundred and ten years, having died, gives his limbs, as he deserved, to a tomb on the hill of Ephraim, which had been suited to his dwelling. For the merit of his justice he is mourned by no friend, only they joined to the chief’s ashes the knives with which the Jewish youth had been circumcised; and the bones of Joseph, laid at Shechem, rest where the limbs of Jacob too had been buried. After him Eleazar leaves the deeds of earth. So, after such great men had died after notable deeds, the people took up gentile cults and idols, fleeing the Lord of the earth and Lord of the heavens. For these deeds it is made subject to the tyrant Eglon and lived captive for forty years.

After Joshua had departed with conspicuous deeds and God had given his servant rest after his wars, at once Judea, swelling, begins to ask for a king for itself and asks the Lord what his judgment is, so that the Canaanite band, not yet subdued in war, which was stirring rival hearts in warlike tumult, might learn to submit to commands, the sword struck from its hand. Judah is set over them, who with his brother Simeon at once destroys the Canaanites in the battle they began, and with them the Perizzites are laid low in mingled slaughter: nearly ten thousand fell, their blood poured out. The head of the war himself, the cause of great evils, was the leader and prince Adoni-bezek; wandering off, he is caught and pays the deserved penalty for his crime. For, with hands and feet cut off together against all custom, he mourns with abundant tears the limbs he no longer has, or those he has, while the wicked man rages in the same way: he had once maimed the bodies of seventy kings. So he paid the penalty he had inflicted, and, suffering fitting evils, he died at Jerusalem and left his kingdom. Jerusalem itself is taken and, burned by flames, falls, quickly torn down in a mighty ruin; after it Hebron falls and the Canaanite youth that holds the lofty ridges of the land rising to heaven. Debir is taken afterwards, rich in its fearful war,

skilled in setting out the numbers of a learned tongue. And so that its walls might fall the more quickly, Caleb her father offered to join his daughter Achsah in marriage to whoever, lofty in strong arms, should overturn its frowning citadels from the base. At once, inflamed with desire for the promised wife, Othniel, the praised son of Kenaz, takes it, and when he had fulfilled his joys with his vows completed, he receives her, well earned, with her father’s great dowry. For he gave very high acres, steep on curving hills, and granted the use of the waters she desired. Dismissed, the Kenites hasten, and leaving the known walls of the Phoenicians, search out the lonely sands of the wilderness. They come swiftly where the south wind, roused, spreads its wings and covers the stars with shady clouds. A home is made for both, which they call by the name Arad, and Amalek, admitted, is joined to its pleasant fields. Then Judah attacks Zephath, tilled by the Canaanite, and calls the subdued land by a sad name, that it might be outcast and always set apart. Only Gaza he could not bring under his sceptre, nor Ashkelon and Ekron, nor subdue the borders of Ashdod. Trusting in God and joined to the eternal Lord, he won easy successes in every war.