and spears, and knelt down and scooped up a draft of the water with both
hands together like a cup. These men Gideon commanded to stand in one
company.
There were a few men who did not stop to take a large draft of water.
Holding spear and shield in the right hand, to be ready for the enemy if
one should suddenly appear, they merely caught up a handful of the water
in passing and marched on, lapping up the water from one hand. God said
to Gideon:
"Set by themselves these men who lapped up each a handful of water.
These are the men whom I have chosen to set Israel free."
Gideon counted these men, and found that there were only three hundred
of them, while all the rest bowed down on their faces to drink. The
difference between them was that the three hundred were earnest men, of
one purpose; not turning aside from their aim even to drink, as the
others did. Then, too, they were watchful men, always ready to meet
their enemies.
So Gideon, at God's command, sent back to the camp on Mount Gilboa all
the rest of his army, nearly ten thousand men, keeping with himself only
his little band of three hundred.
Gideon's plan did not need a large army; but it needed a few careful,
bold men, who should do exactly as their leader commanded them. He gave
to each man a lamp, a pitcher, and a trumpet, and told the men just what
was to be done with them. The lamp was lighted, but was placed inside
the pitcher, so that it could not be seen. He divided his men into three
companies, and very quietly led them down the mountain in the middle of
the night, and arranged them all in order around the camp of the
Midianites.
[Illustration: _The men blew their trumpets with a mighty noise_]
Then at one moment a great shout rang out in the darkness, "The sword of
the Lord and of Gideon," and after it came a crash of breaking pitchers,
and then a flash of light in every direction. The three hundred men had
given the shout, and broken their pitchers, so that on every side
lights were shining. The men blew their trumpets with a mighty noise;
and the Midianites were roused from sleep, to see enemies all round
them, lights beaming and swords flashing, while everywhere the sharp
sound of the trumpets was heard.
They were filled with sudden terror, and thought only of escape, not of
fighting. But wherever they turned, their enemies seemed to be standing
with swords drawn. They trampled each other down to death, flying from
the Israelites. Their own land was in the east, across the river Jordan,
and they fled in that direction, down one of the valleys between the
mountains.
Gideon had thought that the Midianites would turn toward their own land,
if they should be beaten in the battle, and he had already planned to
cut off their flight. The ten thousand men in the camp he had placed on
the sides of the valley leading to the Jordan. There they slew very many
of the Midianites as they fled down the steep pass toward the river. And
Gideon had also sent to the men of the tribe of Ephraim, who had thus
far taken no part in the war, to hold the only place at the river where
men could wade through the water. Those of the Midianites who had
escaped from Gideon's men on either side of the valley were now met by
the Ephraimites at the river, and many more of them were slain. Among
the slain were two of the princes of the Midianites, named Oreb and
Zeeb.
A part of the Midianite army was able to get across the river, and to
continue its flight toward the desert; but Gideon and his brave three
hundred men followed closely after them, fought another battle with
them, destroyed them utterly, and took their two kings, Zebah and
Zalmunna, whom he killed. After this great victory the Israelites were
freed forever from the Midianites. They never again ventured to leave
their home in the desert to make war on the tribes of Israel.
After this, as long as Gideon lived, he ruled as Judge in Israel. The
people wished him to make himself a king.
"Rule over us as king," they said, "and let your son be king after you,
and his son king after him."
But Gideon said:
"No, you have a king already; for the Lord God is the King of Israel. No
one but God shall be king over these tribes."
Of all the fifteen men who ruled as Judges of Israel, Gideon, the fifth
Judge, was the greatest, in courage, in wisdom, and in faith in God.
THE STORY OF SAMSON, THE STRONG MAN
Now we are to learn of three judges who ruled Israel in turn. Their
names were Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon. None of these were men of war, and in
their days the land was quiet.
But the people of Israel again began to worship idols; and as a
punishment God allowed them once more to pass under the power of their
enemies. The seventh oppression, which now fell upon Israel, was by far
the hardest, the longest and the most widely spread of any, for it was
over all the tribes. It came from the Philistines, a strong and warlike
people who lived on the west of Israel upon the plain beside the Great
Sea. They worshipped an idol called Dagon, which was made in the form of
a fish's head on a man's body.
These people, the Philistines, sent their armies up from the plain
beside the sea to the mountains of Israel and overran all the land. They
took away from the Israelites all their swords and spears, so that they
could not fight; and they robbed their land of all the crops, so that
the people suffered for want of food. And as before, the Israelites in
their trouble, cried out to the Lord, and the Lord heard their prayer.
In the tribe-land of Dan, which was next to the country of the
Philistines, there was living a man named Manoah. One day an angel came
to his wife and said:
"You shall have a son, and when he grows up he will begin to save Israel
from the hand of the Philistines. But your son must never drink any wine
or strong drink as long as he lives. And his hair must be allowed to
grow long and must never be cut, for he shall be a Nazarite under a vow
to the Lord."
When a child was given especially to God, or when a man gave himself to
some work for God, he was forbidden to drink wine, and as a sign, his
hair was left to grow long while the vow or promise to God was upon him.
Such a person as this was called a Nazarite, a word which means "one who
has a vow"; and Manoah's child was to be a Nazarite, and under a vow, as
long as he lived.
The child was born and was named Samson. He grew up to become the
strongest man of whom the Bible tells. Samson was no general, like
Gideon or Jephthah, to call out his people and lead them in war. He did
much to set his people free; but all that he did was by his own
strength.
When Samson became a young man he went down to Timnath, in the land of
the Philistines. There he saw a young Philistine woman whom he loved,
and wished to have as his wife. His father and mother were not pleased
that he should marry among the enemies of his own people. They did not
know that God would make this marriage the means of bringing harm upon
the Philistines and of helping the Israelites.
As Samson was going down to Timnath to see this young woman, a hungry
lion came out of the mountain, roaring against him. Samson seized the
lion, and tore him in pieces as easily as another man would have killed
a little kid of the goats, and then went on his way. He made his visit
and came home, but said nothing to any one about the lion.
After a time Samson went again to Timnath for his marriage with the
Philistine woman. On his way he stopped to look at the dead lion; and in
its body he found a swarm of bees, and honey which they had made. He
took some of the honey and ate it as he walked, but told no one of it.
At the wedding-feast, which lasted a whole week, there were many
Philistine young men, and they amused each other with questions and
riddles.
"I will give you a riddle," said Samson. "If you answer it during the
feast, I will give you thirty suits of clothing; and if you cannot
answer it then you must give me the thirty suits of clothing." "Let us
hear your riddle," they said. And this was Samson's riddle:
"Out of the eater came forth meat,
And out of the strong came forth sweetness."
They could not find the answer, though they tried to find it all that
day and the two days that followed. And at last they came to Samson's
wife and said to her:
"Coax your husband to tell you the answer. If you do not find it out, we
will set your house on fire, and burn you and all your people."
And Samson's wife urged him to tell her the answer. She cried and
pleaded with him and said:
"If you really loved me, you would not keep this a secret from me."
At last Samson yielded, and told his wife how he had killed the lion and
afterward found the honey in its body. She told her people, and just
before the end of the feast they came to Samson with the answer. They
said:
"What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?" And
Samson said to them:
"If you had not plowed with my heifer,
You had not found out my riddle."
By his "heifer,"--which is a young cow,--of course Samson meant his
wife. Then Samson was required to give them thirty suits of clothing. He
went out among the Philistines, killed the first thirty men whom he
found, took off their clothes, and gave them to the guests at the feast.
But all this made Samson very angry. He left his wife and went home to
his father's house. Then the parents of his wife gave her to another
man.
But after a time Samson's anger passed away, and he went again to
Timnath to see his wife. But her father said to him:
"You went away angry, and I supposed that you cared nothing for her. I
gave her to another man, and now she is his wife. But here is her
younger sister; you can have her for your wife, instead."
But Samson would not take his wife's sister. He went out very angry;
determined to do harm to the Philistines, because they had cheated him.
He caught all the wild foxes that he could find, until he had three
hundred of them. Then he tied them together in pairs, by their tails;
and between each pair of foxes he tied to their tails a piece of dry
wood which he set on fire. These foxes with firebrands on their tails he
turned loose among the fields of the Philistines when the grain was
ripe. They ran wildly over the fields, set the grain on fire, and
burned it; and with the grain the olive trees in the fields.
When the Philistines saw their harvests destroyed, they said, "Who has
done this?"
And the people said, "Samson did this, because his wife was given by her
father to another man."
The Philistines looked on Samson's father-in-law as the cause of their
loss; and they came and set his home on fire, and burned the man and his
daughter whom Samson had married. Then Samson came down again, and alone
fought a company of Philistines, and killed them all, as a punishment
for burning his wife.
After this Samson went to live in a hollow place in a split rock, called
the rock of Etam. The Philistines came up in a great army, and overran
the fields in the tribe-land of Judah.
"Why do you come against us?" asked the men of Judah, "what do you want
from us?"
"We have come," they said, "to bind Samson, and to deal with him as he
has dealt with us."
The men of Judah said to Samson:
"Do you not know that the Philistines are ruling over us? Why do you
make them angry by killing their people? You see that we suffer through
your pranks. Now we must bind you and give you to the Philistines, or
they will ruin us all."
And Samson said, "I will let you bind me, if you will promise not to
kill me yourselves; but only to give me safely into the hands of the
Philistines."
They made the promise; and Samson gave himself up to them, and allowed
them to tie him up fast with new ropes. The Philistines shouted for joy
as they saw their enemy brought to them, led in bonds by his own people.
But as soon as Samson came among them, he burst the bonds as though they
had been light strings; and picked up from the ground the jawbone of an
ass, and struck right and left with it as with a sword. He killed almost
a thousand of the Philistines with this strange weapon. Afterward he
sang a song about it, thus:
"With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps,
With the jawbone of an ass, have I slain a thousand men."
After this Samson went down to the chief city of the Philistines, which
was named Gaza. It was a large city; and like all large cities, was
surrounded with a high wall. When the men of Gaza found Samson in their
city, they shut the gates, thinking that they could now hold him as a
prisoner. But in the night Samson rose up, went to the gates, pulled
their posts out of the ground, and put the gates with their posts upon
his shoulder. He carried off the gates of the city and left them on the
top of a hill not far from the city of Hebron.
After this Samson saw another woman among the Philistines, and he loved
her. The name of this woman was Delilah. The rulers of the Philistines
came to Delilah and said to her:
"Find out, if you can, what it is that makes Samson so strong, and tell
us. If you help us to get control of him, so that we can have him in our
power, we will give you a great sum of money."
[Illustration: _He carried off the gates of the city_]
And Delilah coaxed and pleaded with Samson to tell her what it was that
made him so strong. Samson said to her:
"If they will tie me with seven green twigs from a tree, then I shall
not be strong any more."
They brought her seven green twigs, like those of a willow tree; and she
bound Samson with them while he was asleep. Then she called out to him:
"Wake up, Samson, the Philistines are coming against you!"
And Samson rose up and broke the twigs as easily as if they had been
charred in the fire, and went away with ease.
And Delilah tried again to find his secret. She said:
"You are only making fun of me. Now tell me truly how you can be bound."
And Samson said:
"Let them bind me with new ropes that have never been used before; and
then I cannot get away."
While Samson was asleep again, Delilah bound him with new ropes. Then
she called out as before:
"Get up, Samson, for the Philistines are coming!" And when Samson rose
up, the ropes broke as if they were thread. And Delilah again urged him
to tell her; and he said:
"You notice that my long hair is in seven locks. Weave it together in
the loom, just as if it were the threads in a piece of cloth."
Then, while he was asleep, she wove his hair in the loom, and fastened
it with a large pin to the weaving-frame. But when he awoke, he rose up,
and carried away the pin and the beam of the weaving-frame; for he was
as strong as before.
And Delilah, who was anxious to serve her people, said:
"Why do you tell me that you love me, as long as you deceive me and keep
from me your secret?" And she pleaded with him day after day, until at
last he yielded to her and told her the real secret of his strength. He
said:
"I am a Nazarite, under a vow to the Lord, not to drink wine, and not to
allow my hair to be cut. If I should let my hair be cut short, then the
Lord would forsake me, and my strength would go from me, and I would be
like other men."
Then Delilah knew that she had found the truth at last. She sent for the
rulers of the Philistines, saying:
"Come up this once, and you shall have your enemy; for he has told me
all that is in his heart."
Then while the Philistines were watching outside, Delilah let Samson go
to sleep, with his head upon her knees. While he was sound asleep, they
took a razor and shaved off all his hair. Then she called out as at
other times.
"Rise up, Samson, the Philistines are upon you."
He awoke, and rose up, expecting to find himself strong as before; for
he did not at first know that his long hair had been cut off. But the
vow to the Lord was broken, and the Lord had left him. He was now as
weak as other men, and helpless in the hands of his enemies. The
Philistines easily made him their prisoner; and that he might never do
them more harm, they put out his eyes. Then they chained him with
fetters, and sent him to prison at Gaza. And in the prison they made
Samson turn a heavy millstone to grind grain, just as though he were a
beast of burden.
But while Samson was in prison, his hair grew long again; and with his
hair his strength came back to him; for Samson renewed his vow to the
Lord.
One day, a great feast was held by the Philistines in the temple of
their fish-god, Dagon. For they said:
"Our god has given Samson, our enemy, into our hand. Let us be glad
together and praise Dagon."
And the temple was thronged with people, and the roof over it was also
crowded with more than three thousand men and women. They sent for
Samson, to rejoice over him; and Samson was led into the court of the
temple, before all the people, to amuse them. After a time, Samson said
to the boy who was leading him:
[Illustration: _He bowed forward with all his might and pulled the
pillars with him_]
"Take me up to the front of the temple, so that I may stand by one of
the pillars, and lean against it."
And while Samson stood between the two pillars, he prayed:
"O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and give me strength, only this
once, O God: and help me, that I may obtain vengeance upon the
Philistines for my two eyes!"
Then he placed one arm around the pillar on one side, and the other arm
around the pillar on the other side; and he said: "Let me die with the
Philistines."
And he bowed forward with all his might, and pulled the pillars over
with him, bringing down the roof and all upon it upon those that were
under it. Samson himself was among the dead; but in his death he killed
more of the Philistines than he had killed during his life.
Then in the terror which came upon the Philistines the men of Samson's
tribe came down and found his dead body, and buried it in their own
land. After that it was years before the Philistines tried again to rule
over the Israelites.
Samson did much to set his people free; but he might have done much
more, if he had led his people, instead of trusting alone to his own
strength; and if he had lived more earnestly, and not done his deeds as
though he was playing pranks. There were deep faults in Samson, but at
the end he sought God's help, and found it, and God used Samson to set
his people free.
THE STORY OF RUTH, THE GLEANER
In the time of the Judges in Israel, a man named Elimelech was living in
the town of Bethlehem, in the tribe of Judah, about six miles south of
Jerusalem. His wife's name was Naomi, and his two sons were Mahlon and
Chilion. For some years the crops were poor, and food was scarce in
Judah; and Elimelech with his family went to live in the land of Moab,
which was on the east of the Dead Sea, as Judah was on the west.
There they stayed ten years, and in that time Elimelech died. His two
sons married women of the country of Moab, one named Orpah, the other
named Ruth. But the two young men also died in the land of Moab; so that
Naomi and her two daughters-in-law were all left widows.
Naomi heard that God had again given good harvests and bread to the land
of Judah, and she rose up to go from Moab back to her own land and her
own town of Bethlehem. The two daughters-in-law loved her, and both
would have gone with her, though the land of Judah was a strange land to
them, for they were of the Moabite people.
Naomi said to them: "Go back, my daughters, to your own mothers' homes.
May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have been kind to your
husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you may yet find
another husband and a happy home."
Then Naomi kissed them in farewell, and the three women all wept
together. The two young widows said to her:
"You have been a good mother to us, and we will go with you, and live
among your people."
"No, no," said Naomi. "You are young, and I am old. Go back and be happy
among your own people."
Then Orpah kissed Naomi, and went back to her people; but Ruth would not
leave her. She said:
"Do not ask me to leave you, for I never will. Where you go, I will go;
where you live, I will live; your people shall be my people; and your
God shall be my God. Where you die, I will die, and be buried. Nothing
but death itself shall part you and me."
When Naomi saw that Ruth was firm in her purpose, she ceased trying to
persuade her; so the two women went on together. They walked around the
Dead Sea, and crossed the river Jordan, and climbed the mountains of
Judah, and came to Bethlehem.
Naomi had been absent from Bethlehem for ten years, but her friends
were all glad to see her again. They said:
"Is this Naomi, whom we knew years ago?"
Now the name Naomi means "pleasant." And Naomi said:
"Call me not Naomi; call me Mara, for the Lord has made my life bitter.
I went out full, with my husband and two sons; now I come home empty,
without them. Do not call me 'Pleasant,' call me 'Bitter.'"
The name "Mara," by which Naomi wished to be called means "bitter." But
Naomi learned later that "Pleasant" was the right name after all.
There was living in Bethlehem at that time a very rich man named Boaz.
He owned large fields that were abundant in their harvests; and he was
related to the family of Elimelech, Naomi's husband, who had died.
It was the custom in Israel when they reaped the grain not to gather all
the stalks, but to leave some for the poor people, who followed after
the reapers with their sickles, and gathered what was left. When Naomi
and Ruth came to Bethlehem, it was the time of the barley harvest; and
Ruth went out into the fields to glean the grain which the reapers had
left. It so happened that she was gleaning in the field that belonged to
Boaz, this rich man.
Boaz came out from the town to see his men reaping, and he said to
them, "The Lord be with you"; and they answered him, "The Lord bless
you."
And Boaz said to his master of the reapers: "Who is this young woman
that I see gleaning in the field?"
The man answered: "It is the young woman from the land of Moab, who came
with Naomi. She asked leave to glean after the reapers, and has been
here gathering grain since yesterday."
Then Boaz said to Ruth: "Listen to me, my daughter. Do not go to any
other field, but stay here with my young women. No one shall harm you;
and when you are thirsty, go and drink at our vessels of water."
[Illustration: _Ruth went out into the fields to glean the grain_]
Then Ruth bowed to Boaz, and thanked him for his kindness, all the more
kind because she was a stranger in Israel. Boaz said: "I have heard how
true you have been to your mother-in-law Naomi, in leaving your own
land and coming with her to this land. May the Lord, under whose wings
you have come, give you a reward!"
And at noon, when they sat down to rest and to eat, Boaz gave her some
of the food. And he said to the reapers:
"When you are reaping, leave some of the sheaves for her; and drop out
some sheaves from the bundles, where she may gather them."
That evening, Ruth showed Naomi how much she had gleaned, and told her
of the rich man Boaz, who had been so kind to her. And Naomi said:
"This man is a near relation of ours. Stay in his fields, as long as the
harvest lasts." And so Ruth gleaned in the fields of Boaz until the
harvest had been gathered.
At the end of the harvest, Boaz held a feast on the threshing-floor. And
after the feast, by the advice of Naomi, Ruth went to him, and said to
him:
"You are a near relation of my husband and of his father, Elimelech. Now
will you not do good to us for his sake?"
And when Boaz saw Ruth, he loved her; and soon after this he took her as
his wife. And Naomi and Ruth went to live in his home; so that Naomi's
life was no more bitter, but pleasant. And Boaz and Ruth had a son,
whom they named Obed; and later Obed had a son named Jesse; and Jesse
was the father of David, the shepherd boy who became king. So Ruth, the
young woman of Moab, who chose the people and the God of Israel, became
the mother of kings.
THE STORY OF DAVID, THE SHEPHERD BOY
Living at Ramah, in the mountains of Ephraim, there was a man whose name
was Elkanah. He had two wives, as did many men in that time. One of
these wives had children, but the other wife, whose name was Hannah, had
no child.
Every year Elkanah and his family went up to worship at the house of the
Lord in Shiloh, which was about fifteen miles from his home. And at one
of these visits Hannah prayed to the Lord, saying:
"O Lord, if thou wilt look upon me, and give me a son, he shall be given
to the Lord as long as he lives."
The Lord heard Hannah's prayer, and gave her a little boy, and she
called his name Samuel, which means "Asked of God"; because he had been
given in answer to her prayer.
Samuel grew up to be a good man and a wise Judge, and he made his sons
Judges in Israel, to help him in the care of the people. But Samuel's
sons did not walk in his ways. They did not try always to do justly.