of Ruth. think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few.-Wherefore From Judges it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon Mount to the end Sion, and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks;" and in like manner here, when by the hand of the Benjamites, he had chastised the rest of the Israelites, by the hand of the Israelites he punished the Benjamites for their gross impieties, making use of their respective passions, and furious resentments, to accomplish his will; albeit "they meant it not so, neither did their heart think so; but it was only in their hearts to destroy and cut off one another." When the heat of their fury however was abated, and the Israelites began to look back with a little coolness upon what they had done; how they had almost totally destroyed one tribe of their brethren, and bound themselves by an oath never to marry their daughters to any of the poor remains of it, (which could not but prove the extirpation of the whole) the joy and triumph of their late victory was turned into mourning and bitter lamentation. Whether this oath, against contracting any affinity with the Benjamites, was in itself lawful and obligatory or no, (a) some interpreters, without any manner of reason, as I think, have disputed. For whatever was attended with such pernicious consequences, as to oblige their brethren, either to live unmarried, which would prove the extinction of their tribe, or to marry the daughters of heathens, which was contrary to their divine law, or to take to themselves wives wherever they could find them by force and violence, which was contrary to the universal law of nations: Whatever, I say, was attended with such evil consequences as these, could not be lawful in itself, nor of any obligation to the consciences of those that made it; and therefore it is somewhat wonderful, how the Israelites, when they found themselves involved in such difficulties (as (b) they themselves testify), that, for the preservation of this their oath, they were forced to have recourse to acts of the utmost cruelty and violence, did not perceive the illegality of it, and themselves, consequently, absolved from its observation. It is not the intent of the sacred historian to relate matters otherwise than they happened; nor is it any part of our business to apologize for actions that in themselves are abominable, and will admit of no excuse. The massacre of the people of Jabesh-gilead, without ever sending to know the reason of their absenting themselves from the war, was a cruel expedient to extricate the Israelites from a difficulty, in which their superstitious observance of an unlawful oath had involved them; and a sad instance it is of the iniquity and barbarity of those times: For how severe soever the laws of military discipline may be, or with (c) what justice soever recusants, as well as deserters in war, may be deemed guilty, and the Jabeshites be called public enemies, because they did not obey the order of the whole congregation, and by refusing to join with them against the Benjamites, made themselves partakers of their crimes; yet, certainly, to slay the innocent with the guilty, and to put women and children to death, who were never made to bear arms, was the very height of injustice and barbarity. If it be said, that the cherem, or the sentence of utter execration was passed upon them, I do not see with what justice the virgins could be spared, (as we find they were by a public decree) unless we suppose that God, from the tabernacle at Shiloh, (before which the Israelites were now assembled) signified his intentions of dispensing with the full execution of the sentence by reason of the public necessity. And indeed the public necessity is the only good reason that can be given for that other act of violence, the rape of the virgins at Shiloh. For whatever may be said in vindication of the Benjamites, viz. that what they put in execution was by order and advice of their superiors, and that their intent in doing it was just and honest, and de (a) Vide Calmet's Commentary. (b) Judg. xxi. 6, &c. (c) Calmet's and Patrick's Commentaries. Ant. Chris. A. M. 2561, void of that brutal lust which is incident to common ravishers; whatever may be said &c. or 4189. in excuse of these, the elders of Israel, who gave them this counsel and authority, had 1413, &c. certainly no right to dispose of other people's children without their parents consent and or 1222. approbation *The rape of the Sabine virgins is usually produced as a piece of history parallel to this; (d) but Romulus, in whose reign it happened, was one of those princes who accounted every point that contributed to the establishment of his dominion, not only lawful, but glorious, and that every thing ceased to be a crime, when once it became necessary for reasons of state: But the rulers of Israel either had, or should have had, different notions. They were governed by God," whose throne is established in righteousness," and should therefore, one would think, have contrived some other means of reestablishing a diminished tribe, than those violent ways of rapes and forced marriages. But the sacred historian has assigned a reason for these unrighteous proceedings, when (in (a) four different places in the book of Judges) he tells us, that " in those days there was no king in Israel;" and (b) for want of such a supreme authority, every tribe, and every city, nay, which is more, every private man committed many horrid things, which were not publicly allowed. This (c) was the cause of Micah's idolatry, as we noted before; of the Benjamites filthiness and abominable lusts; and of all the enormous things done by the main body of the Israelites; their killing all the Benjamites without distinction; their binding themselves by rash and unlawful oaths; their killing all the women of Jabesh-gilead who were not virgins; and here, their permitting, nay, their ordering this rape for the preservation of a rash and unjustifiable oath: And this should teach us to be very thankful for the authority that is set over us, in order to preserve us from the commissions of such like enormities; for which end, the custom was, among the ancient Persians, (as our learned Usher observes) to let the people loose to do even what they listed, for five days after their king died; that, by the disorders which were then committed, they might see the necessity of having a king to govern them, and, when one was settled in the throne, the great reason of being obedient to him. Thus we have endeavoured to clear up most of the passages in the book of Judges, which seem to imply any inconsistency or incredibility during this period: And if any heathen testimonies may be thought a farther confirmation of their truth, we may say, that the seeming incongruity of Shamgar's slaying so many Philistines with an ox-goad is mightily abated, by what is told of Lycurgus, viz. that he overthrew the forces of *This piece of history we find thus related: "Romulus, perceiving that his new city was surrounded by several very powerful and warlike nations, who bore them no good-will, formed a design to make them his friends by contracting marriages with them. But considering with himself, that these neighbouring nations would hardly enter into that affinity with a people, as yet famous neither for their riches, nor great exploits, without being in some measure com. pelled into it; he was resolved to put in practice the stratagem of his uncle Numitor, and to enter into this alliance with them by carrying off their daughters. This design he communicated to the senate; and, having obtained their approbation of it, he proclaimed a public feast to be celebrated in honour of Neptune, and invited all the neighbouring cities to the many diversions and spectacles which he then intended to exhibit. Crowds of people, with their wives and children, flocked to the feast; but on the last day, when it began to draw to a conclusion, Romulus ordered all the young men, that upon a signal given, they should seize and carry off every one a virgin, keep them all night, without offering any rudeness to them, and (b) Chap. xvii. 6. xviii. 1. xix. 1. and xxi. 25. of Ruth. Bacchus with the self same weapon; that from Deborah's being a prophetess, a gover- From Judges ness, and dwelling upon a mount, the story of the Thebean sphinx (as some learned men i. to the end imagine) was invented by the Greeks; that their Hercules was certainly the Samson of, Sacred Writ, his Omphale and Dalilah the same, and that his pillars at Cales were of near affinity with those of Gaza; that his fatal locks gave rise to the fable of Nisus king of Megara, upon whose hair the fortune of his kingdom depended; that his foxes were commemorated at Rome, every return of their harvest, *2 by a similar ceremony of tying them tail to tail, and so letting them go; and (to name no more) that Jephthah's sacrificing his daughter to God is partly adumbrated by Agamemnon's offering his Iphigenia to Diana, and partly by Idomeneus's promising to make a victim to Neptune of the first thing he should meet on shore, if he escaped the present storm), which happened to be his own son. So happily do many fictions of the poets concur to confirm the truth and authority of Holy Writ. DISSERTATION II. JEPHTHAH'S RASH VOW. THIS Vow of Jephthah's, which has employed the thoughts and pens of so many learned men, is conceived in these words :-" And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into my hands, The story is thus told by Ovid. Nisus was besieged by Minos in his capital city Megara. The fate of that city, which was the strength of his kingdom, depended upon a certain lock of red hair, which was concealed under the rest. The siege had now been continued for six months, when the daughter of Nisus, who had frequent opportunities of beholding her father's enemy Minos from a tower that looked into his camp, was so taken with his goodly mien and deportment, that she fell desperately in love with him. Her love, and the occasion of it, the poet has thus related : -Hac judice Minos, Seu caput abdiderat cristatâ casside pennis, N their first circumstances, they are very different in ** There was anciently a feast in Rome, called Vul- Cur igitur missæ vinctis ardentia tædis he resolves the matter, by telling us, that a certain Admovet; urentes effugit illa manus. Factum abiit; monumenta manent: nam vivere Nunc quoque lex vulpem Carseolana vetat. But Bochart has confuted this notion of Ovid's con- &c. or 4189. A. M. 2561, then it shall be, that whosoever cometh forth out of the doors of my house to meet me, Ant. Chris. When I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and 1443, &c. or I will offer it up for a burnt-offering." And the result of this vow was,-" That Jeph1222. thah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his hands; whereupon he came to Mizpeh unto his house, and behold his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and dances, and she was his only child, besides her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me; for I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot go back. And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which proceeded out of thy mouth, forasmuch as the Lord has taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon: Only let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. And he said go; and he sent her away for two months, and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And it came to pass at the end of two months that she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed, and she knew no man: And it was a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah four days in a year." I set the whole passage before the reader that he may the better judge of the depending controversy; for a great controversy there is among commentators, whether this daughter of Jephthah's was really sacrificed or no: And for his farther satisfaction in this point, I will fairly state the arguments on both sides; consider a little on which side they proponderate; and then enquire, in case he did sacrifice his daughter, or (as others will have it) devote her only to God's service in a single life, whether the thing was lawful for him to do, and what might possibly be the motive of his doing it. Those (a) who maintain the negative, or more merciful side of the question, argue in this manner:-That Jephthah was certainly a very good man, because we find him ranked among the worthies of old that are commemorated with honour by the author of the Hebrews: That he was an Israelite, and as such lived under the law, which prohibited human sacrifices by the severest penalties: That had the vow been intended in this sense, God would never have vouchsafed Jephthah so signal a victory as he did, which must have terminated in the violation of his own laws; and therefore they conclude, that so kind and tender a father as Jephthah is represented, would never have sacrificed an innocent, dutiful, and obedient child, as her whole carriage seems to denote her, in discharge of a rash and inconsiderate vow; especially when, according to the prescription of the law, he might have redeemed his daughter at a price so inconsiderable (b) "as ten shekels of silver." It must be something else, therefore, say they, that Jephthah did unto his daughter, and that (according to the import of the text) was to devote her to a state of celibacy, or that she might live in the manner of a religious nun all the days of her life: For the particle vah, which we render AND (" it shall surely be the Lord's, AND I will offer it up"), is a disjunctive in this place (as it is elsewhere), and signifies OR; so that the true version of the passage should be, "whatever cometh forth to meet me shall surely be the Lord's, OR I will offer it up for a burnt-offering," i. e. if it be an human creature I will dedicate it to the service of God; if a beast, of any kind proper for sacrifice, I will instantly offer it up: For that in this sense the vow is to be understood, is evident from her going into the mountains "to bewail her virginity," which, had she been doomed to be sacrificed, had not been near so proper as to bewail her untimely end. Nor can we (a) Patrick's and Le Clerc's Commentaries. Jenkin's Reasonableness, vol. ii. c. 18. Selden, de Jure Nat. et Gent. lib. iv. c. 11. Howell's History, &c. (b) Lev, xxvii. 5. of Ruth. think that Jephthah would have ever suffered her to have made a circuit of two months From Judges among her companions for fear of making her escape, or procuring some of her friends i. to the end and acquaintance, either to rescue her or intercede for her, had she been destined tosuffer death upon her return. On the contrary, when she returned to her father, and " he had done to her according to his vow," it immediately follows, that "she knew not man ;" which shows that the purpose of his vow was answered by obliging her to a state of perpetual viginity in some retired place, where she was secluded from all society, except that the daughters of Israel (those especially of her acquaintance) went up, either to talk and converse with her, or to celebrate her praise, or to comfort her concerning her solitary condition (for to all these senses may the word letannoth be applied) four days in the year, i. e. one day every quarter. Upon the whole, therefore, they infer, that Jephthah's daughter did not fall a sacrifice, but was consecrated to God and his service, i. e. devoted to a single life, and to remain a recluse all her days; which could not but occasion Jephthah no small grief and trouble, because by this means his family became extinct, and himself destitute of issue to inherit his estate and perpetuate his name. These are some of the most plausible arguments that are generally employed to prove, not the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter, but only her obligation to a perpetual virginity in the worship and service of God. Those (a) that maintain the affirmative, or harsher side of the question, viz. that Jephthah, in pursuance to his vow, did actually sacrifice his daughter, form their arguments in this manner :-(b) "That the times wherein Jephthah lived were so sadly addicted to idolatry, that (c)" to burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods" was a common practice among the Israelites as well as other nations; and that the manner (d) in which he lived (before he was called to the assistance of his country), which was chiefly by plunder and rapine and bloodshed, might make him not incapable of vowing to sacrifice the first of his domestics that should meet him upon his victorious return: That this vow is delivered in general and indefinite terms, viz. that "whatsoever should come forth of the doors of his house to meet him, that should surely be the Lord's ;" and it should be the Lord's, "by being offered up for a burnt-offering:" That though the particle vah be sometimes used in a disjunctive sense, yet it can only be so where things are really distinct and different from each other, but cannot be admitted where the one manifestly includes the other, as it is in the passage before us; that therefore it is much more congruous to all the rules of good sense to understand the words of Jephthah so, as that, by promising "whatsoever he met should be the Lord's," he obliged himself in general to consecrate it to God, and that, by promising farther, that "he would offer it up for a burnt-offering," he specified the manner in which he intended to make his consecration. Vows of perpetual virginity, say they, are institutions of a modern date: The word of God knows nothing of them; nor has this pretended celibacy of Jephthah's daughter any manner of foundation in Scripture; and therefore, when this circumstance is inserted, that "she knew no man," it is not to signify that she lived a perpetual virgin, but only, that she was so unhappy as to leave the world in her youth, and before she had the knowledge of a man. Had Jephthah meant no more, say they, by performing his vow, than consecrating his daughter as a perpetual virgin to the service of God, what cause was there for rending his clothes, and bemoaning himself, as we find he did? Had Jephthah made only a vow of celibacy for his daughter, whereby she was bound to nothing more painful (b) Deut. xii. 81. (a) Edwards's Enquiry into some remarkable Texts. |