Период пятый. От завоевания земли обетованной до учреждения царской власти

XXIII. Promised land. Its external position and nature. Population, its language, religion and civil status The Promised Land, on the border of which the Israelites now stood, was that small mountainous strip that is now known as Palestine. Stretching along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea from the spurs of the Lebanese Mountains in the north to the Arabian Desert in the south, it is only about 30 geographical miles in length and up to twelve miles in width (including the Trans-Jordanian lands). But, despite its outward insignificance, it occupied a highly advantageous and important position in the ancient world. This country, in essence, was secluded: nowhere did it come into direct contact with large idolatrous nations, and yet it was not so remote from them as not to have any information about them. On the contrary, thanks to its unique position, it was located right in the middle of the most powerful monarchies, fighting among themselves for dominance, but in such a way that this struggle did not inevitably affect its existence. The roads of merchants and warriors, both by land and by sea, passed along its borders; caravans and regiments moving from the banks of the Euphrates to the banks of the Nile and back came into contact with its outskirts, but no important route passed through the country itself. The natural barriers that separated it from the surrounding world separated it from this world, giving its population the freedom to enter into relations with foreign countries at will, or to maintain their alienation and complete independence and originality. It seemed to be in contact with all three parts of the world of that time. Near it, Asia, Africa and Europe met each other. It was a center from which, at a certain time, light could spread to all surrounding countries. Its safety was ensured by nature itself: the waterless desert in the south, impassable mountain ranges in the north, the vast and inhospitable sea along these shores in the west, and the deep Jordan Valley with the adjoining great Syrian Desert in the east - made it, with some prudence and vigilance, almost inaccessible to conquest. There, true religion, far from all foreign influences, could flourish unhindered among the chosen people, who, however, themselves had every means to enter into relations with the outside world and thus share with it the treasure entrusted to them. Since the Promised Land occupied exactly the middle position in the ancient historical world, and it was around it that the great paths along which the historical life of this world flowed and gradually moved from east to west, to the great basin of the Mediterranean Sea converged and diverged, the people who fell to own this land not only became observers of the entire course of the historical life of the surrounding world, but, at the same time, became the heir to all the historical wealth of the old peoples the east and at the same time held in his hands the best hopes of the young emerging world - in the west. No other country on the globe could imagine a more advantageous situation for the people, whom Providence destined to be “a light for the nations.” In terms of its external character, Palestine is a predominantly mountainous country. Starting from the northern border, from the group of mountains of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, chains of mountains in continuous and regular ridges descend in parallel to the very south of the country and stretch on both sides of the Jordan River. Leaning to the west, the mountain ranges turn into lowlands, from which the Jordan River flows along one, and the other adjoins the very shore of the Mediterranean Sea and was known in ancient times as the Philistine and Sharon plains. The western range of mountains, stretching across Palestine in the proper sense of the word, is interrupted in the middle by the large plain of Esdrilon, which divides the country into two parts - northern and southern. In both of these parts, the mountain range is scattered into many hills interspersed with valleys, and among the hills in some places mountains rise up, protruding in their height above the surrounding area. These are Hermon, Tabor and Carmel in the north, and Gerizim, Ebal, Zion and the Mount of Olives in the south. The most majestic of them is Mount Hermon, which, rising 9,300 feet above sea level, with its snowy peak looks over the entire promised land and is itself visible one and a half hundred miles away from every more or less elevated place in the country. Other mountains do not exceed a third of this height and are more famous for the historical memories associated with them than for their external grandeur 115. The intermediate valleys and plains are either flat hills, sometimes rising to three thousand feet above sea level (such as the plain of Hebron, lying at an altitude of 3,029 feet), or deep depressions, sometimes lying below sea level, like the Jordan Valley, lying almost five hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean Sea. As a result of this unique structure, Palestine presents features that are not found anywhere else on the globe. In the small space it occupies, the most striking contrasts occur. The snowy peaks of Lebanon and Hermon look, so to speak, upon the valleys and deserts of the south, where the scorching heat at times burns all vegetation. In close proximity grow the most diverse trees - a slender palm tree that loves the heat, and a stately oak tree that requires a more moderate and humid climate. On the western and eastern sides, Palestine is bordered by water: from the west by the Mediterranean Sea, and from the east by the Jordan River, which, originating in the bowels of Hermon, flows almost in a straight direction from north to south, slightly meandering along the valley. On its way, the Jordan flows through two lakes - Merom and Gennesaret - and flows into the Dead Sea, thus having a length of up to one and a half hundred miles, with a width of 10-12 fathoms and a depth of 1-2 fathoms in the summer. Of the two lakes it flows, Lake Gennesaret is especially remarkable, so named due to its harp-shaped shape. It is about 20 versts long and 10 versts wide, and is distinguished by the extreme transparency of its waters, filled with fish of all kinds. The surrounding area amazes with its picturesqueness and fertility. Palm trees, fig trees, grapes and fruit trees of all kinds grow successfully along its banks. The extremely warm and well-dissolved air contributes to the fact that all the fruits on its banks ripen a month earlier than at the surrounding heights. No wonder the Jews said that if heaven still exists on earth, then here is the door that leads to it. The exact opposite is the Dead Sea, into which the Jordan flows. It is up to 70 versts long and up to 20 versts wide. Lying gloomily in a deep hollow, it produces a heavy and overwhelming impression. Its yellow-murky waters are so saturated with salt and bitterness that almost no life can exist in them. The very air around him is saturated with salty bitterness, and the surrounding soil, with its sulfur-salty blocks, represents a terrible desert. Flinty banks, rising in steps from its surface to more than 1,700 feet and devoid of any vegetation, complete the gloomy picture, which in its entirety recalls the terrible judgment of God that once befell the lawless and wicked cities of the flowering valley. Traces of former fertility are only small oases, on which rare balsam plants and various palm trees still grow. The position of Palestine at the transitional stage from the temperate zone to the hot zone (between 31° and 33° north latitude and 34° and 36° east) gives its climate a certain regularity that is unique to it. The length of days and nights is almost always equal to 12 hours, and only in the hottest summer months and the coldest winter months there is a difference of two hours between days and nights. The transition from day to night and vice versa occurs with extraordinary speed. Night comes almost suddenly after a clear day, and the dawn of the day with the same speed disperses the darkness of the night. The seasons change with the same regularity. In Palestine, in fact, there are only two seasons - wet and dry. At the beginning of autumn, the so-called early rains come, which fall with such regularity that if they slow down, the population begins to seriously worry about the future harvest. For several months, rainy days alternate with sunny ones; thunder and lightning herald and accompany the fall of rain, which sometimes turns into snow flakes and hail. Towards the end of the wet season, the rain begins to fall even more heavily and is called the late rains, which sometimes make up for the insufficiency of the early ones. This regular distribution of rain is directly dependent on two main sources of moisture: the Lebanese Mountains in the north and the Mediterranean Sea in the west. The melting snow on these mountains during the summer fills the autumn atmosphere with moisture, forms rain clouds, which are driven south by air currents formed at sea in the autumn, where they fall as rain. During the dry season, i.e. in the summer, lasting from April to October, the sky becomes completely cloudless and not a single drop of rain falls to refresh the earth and man. But the vegetation does not die, since the rich dew that forms at night sufficiently compensates for the lack of rain, and the north-west wind, blowing from the sea throughout the summer, significantly moderates the heat of the day. Occasionally, a scorching east wind (kadim) rages, which drives caustic dust into all pores of clothing and body. But this wind in Palestine is not as destructive as the African simoom. Owing to the prevailing regularity, the climate of Palestine is very healthy and contributes to the high growth and bodily strength of the population. There are absolutely no rotten swamps in it that poison the atmosphere. Diseases are generally rare, and those that sometimes rage in it are mostly of an imported nature. Currently, Palestine seems deserted and barren. But she was not like that in ancient times. When it was given into the possession of the chosen people, it was like an artificial garden, carefully planted among the surrounding deserts, and was distinguished by amazing fertility, which gave it the full right to be called the country “where milk and honey flow” (Ex. 3:8), “the beauty of all lands” (Ezek. 20:6). It was, as Moses described, “a good land, where there is wheat, barley, vines, fig trees and pomegranate trees, olive trees and honey, a land in which the people will eat bread and lack nothing” (Deut. 8:7–9). Even now the valleys are distinguished by their extreme fertility, and with some hard work they produce two harvests a year. Even the area lying north of the Ezdrilon plain is very generously endowed with nature, and in ancient times there were so many olive trees that the tribe that inherited it, so to speak, was drowned in oil 116. The middle of the country, lying south of this plain, was also distinguished by its abundance of everything and generously rewarded labor. Streams gurgle from the rocks everywhere, irrigating the land and providing power for the mills. This area, given over to the possession of Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh, was distinguished by “the coveted gifts of heaven, the dew, the coveted fruits of the sun and the coveted products of the moon, the most excellent products of the ancient mountains and the coveted gifts of the eternal hills” (Deut. 33:13-15). Along the slopes of the mountains there were luxurious gardens and vineyards everywhere, and the mountains themselves, now striking in their desolation, were covered with dense forest - terebinth, beech, oak and many other deciduous trees. In especially warm places, slender palm trees rose up, bearing sweet fruits and often pouring their juice onto the ground from excess. To the south, fertility decreases as the valleys give way to continuous limestone hills. But there were also good pastures for herds. Only to the south of Hebron does the area acquire a completely deserted character, and only in places do you come across oases irrigated by spring water, in which the vegetation is all the more luxurious and rich. But the entire coastal strip was amazingly fertile, and even now, despite the general desolation of the country, grain plants produce a bountiful harvest with the slightest cultivation of the land, and all sorts of palm trees, olives, lemons and bananas grow luxuriously from the trees, although, unfortunately, in the absence of a hardworking population, the coastal sand increasingly fills up this once fertile strip of land every year. With its extraordinary fertility and all the amenities for the body, the promised land provided healthy food for the soul. It was insignificantly small in comparison with the vast spaces occupied by such states of the ancient world as Egypt, India, Assyro-Babylonia. From some points on the mountain peaks in the middle of the earth you can immediately see its border both in the east and in the west: on one side the waves of the Mediterranean Sea, on the other - the darkly sparkling surface of the Dead Sea with the Jordan and the mountains of Gilead towering beyond it. From Mount Hermon, the eye takes in a larger space, and before it opens a marvelous panorama of the most beautiful landscapes, which in the amazingly transparent air are drawn before the eyes like a series of wonderful pictures drawn by the hand of the divine Artist. How much healthy food such species provided for the soul, and how many sublime feelings and thoughts they awakened! In this blessed land, every hill and every valley was capable of awakening in a responsive soul feelings of boundless reverence and gratitude to the Creator, whose finger was felt everywhere. Only under the impressions of such wondrous divine beauty could those wondrous psalms pour out from the soul of the Israeli king-poet, the divinely inspired psalmist David, in which all animate and inanimate nature, the sun and moon, animals and birds, mountains and hills, youths and maidens, elders and youths - all are called to praise the name of the Lord, whose glory is in heaven and on earth (Ps. 148 ). It is not surprising that this blessed country did not remain deserted. Since ancient times, it was densely populated by various tribes, and precisely by the descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham, as a result of which the land itself was called Canaan. Canaan had eleven sons, who became the founders of eleven separate tribes. Four of them settled in Syria and Phenicia, and the remaining seven (Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, Gergesites, Hivites, Canaanites and Perizzites) occupied and settled Palestine. The southern part of the coastal plain was occupied by the Philistines, with whom Abraham and Isaac came into contact and who subsequently achieved such power that after them the country itself began to be called Palestine (Philistines - Pelishtim, hence Palestine). Among them, in places, there were also remnants of the gigantic primitive tribe of Rephaim, traces of which remained until later times. All these peoples, with particular differences, spoke a language very close to Hebrew, so that the Israelites could freely understand them and speak with them. In any case, in all relations with them, both the patriarchs and the later Israelites, the matter was completely dispensed with without translators, and the very names of the kings of these tribes and the names of the cities sounded completely Jewish (such as Abimelech, Melchizedek, Shechem, Kiriath-Sepher, etc.). Along with the language, true religion was also preserved among them in some places, as we see in the person of Melchizedek, who was a priest of the Most High God, and even in the person of the Philistine king Abimelech, who also revealed the knowledge of the true God - Elohim, the very One in whom Abraham believed (Gen. 21, 23). But besides these traces of true religion, in general these tribes were immersed in the darkest idolatry. It was in its most developed form among the Phoenicians, who, as the most enlightened among them, served as a model for them in religious terms. Both the Phoenicians and all the other Canaanite peoples idolized the forces of nature, which were personified in the divine couple under the names of Baal and Astarte. Baal personified the sun, and Ashtoreth the moon, but not as the purest heavenly bodies, but as the productive forces of nature, insofar as they stimulate the earth, animals and people to bear fruit. In addition, the Canaanites revered seven more lower gods, personifying the seven planets known at that time, and with them a special eighth god named Asmun, who was personified as a serpent and was considered a healing god. The service to these gods was distinguished by an extreme degree of crude sensuality. In this case, women played the main role. Altars and churches were built on the tops of mountains, under trees, and were dedicated to Baal and Ashtoreth. In each church of Baal there was a cone-shaped stone, as an image of the fertilizing organ, which served as the main object of religious honor. At the end of autumn there was a festival of sadness, ending in the grossest debauchery. During the seven days of tribulation, the women searched for the missing Baal, i.e. his wooden or stone image, out of frenzied grief, they tore out their hair and hit themselves in the chest. The priests, to the irritating sounds of dull music, cut their hands and bodies with knives and stabbed them with spears. But towards the end of the festival of sorrows, everyone frantically exclaimed: “Baal lives!” and out of this ecstatic joy the girls shamelessly sacrificed their honor for the money that was intended as a sacrifice to Astarte. At the churches there were special church harlots who indulged in debauchery both in the churches and on the streets for a whole year, and were called “dedicated” (kedeshot). In honor of Astarte, men and youths castrated themselves and dressed in women's clothes, in order to thereby become like God, who was both Baal and Astarte, the masculine and feminine principles. These fanatical eunuchs, who begged for alms for the churches, were also called initiations (kedeshim). It is clear that such a religion made the entire life of these peoples unclean and disgusting, already incurring the terrible wrath of God - in the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah. As a result, Moses expressly forbade the Israelites from entering into an alliance with the Canaanite peoples. In order to liberate and cleanse the promised land from such desecration, they had to completely destroy or expel them, as tribes that had brought upon themselves the righteous judgment of God - because they not only did not glorify the true God for the blessed gifts of the fertile land they inhabited, but, on the contrary, found in them the source of disgusting idolatry and wickedness. Civilly, the Canaanite peoples were already at a fairly high degree of civilization. Not to mention the Phoenicians, who at that time were already conducting extensive maritime trade and were familiar with all aspects of civilized life, other Canaanite tribes, following them, knew how to extract metals from mines, forged gold and silver items for decoration, weapons and chariots for war, built churches and palaces, knew how to fortify cities with walls, conducted trade and were familiar with bookkeeping and writing. The high development and prevalence of writing is indicated by the remarkable circumstance that one of the cities in southern Palestine was called Kiriath-Sepher, i.e. the city of books, which name suggests the existence of an entire library or book house in it. The development of civil life was facilitated by the density of the population. The country was filled with cities and villages, between which stretched the most luxurious fields and pastures. The cities, most of them heavily fortified, were built primarily on the heights of the mountains, which made them even more impregnable to enemy attack and which, by the way, especially frightened the Israeli spies. Despite this, however, the Canaanite peoples could not provide insurmountable opposition to the Israelites, since there was no state unity between them. Not only individual tribes, but also individual cities considered themselves completely independent from others, ruled by their own kings, who constantly competed with each other and mutually exhausted their strength in continuous wars. Even the common danger that threatened them all could not unite them among themselves, and each city defended itself with its own forces. Only later were alliances formed from several cities, which together tried to defend their existence. But even with this political disunity of the Canaanite tribes, in order to conquer the promised land with its numerous strongholds, which required high military art and siege engines to take them, which, naturally, such a shepherd people as the Israelites could not possess, and to defeat the kings who had a battle-tested army and terrible iron destruction chariots - this required not only extraordinary courage on the part of the leader and his people, but also the special help of God. And this help was promised to the new leader of the people of Israel - the valiant and experienced warrior Joshua. XXIV. Joshua, conquest of the promised land and division of it. Religious animation of the Israeli people 117 The glorious successor of Moses came from the tribe of Ephraim and was one of those two courageous and devoted people to Moses, to whom alone it was given, out of all the people brought out of Egypt, to see the Promised Land. When Joshua left Egypt, he was about forty-five years old and, thus, by the time he entered the Promised Land, the weight of eighty-five years of age already lay on his shoulders. But like his great predecessor, Joshua, even at this age, was still full of strength and undaunted courage and fully corresponded to the height of his position. As the closest companion of Moses, he was fully familiar with everything related to the government of the people and therefore did not need detailed instructions. For him, one divine word was enough: “be strong and courageous” in order to completely devote himself to the fulfillment of the task entrusted to him - the conquest of the promised land. The last camp of the Israelites was in Shittim, near the mountain on which Moses slept. The area around was amazing with its luxury, purely tropical vegetation, supported by many streams murmuring everywhere. They were separated from the promised land only by the Jordan, behind which, in all their splendor, stood the mountains and hills of the land flowing with milk and honey. But she was not completely open to them. First of all, it was necessary to cross the Jordan itself, and then, twelve miles away from it, rose the formidable strongholds of Jericho, which seemed to hold in its hands the keys to the Promised Land. Therefore, it was necessary to investigate both the place of crossing the Jordan and especially the state of Jericho. For this purpose, Joshua sent two spies who were supposed to secretly penetrate Jericho and scout out the state of both it and the surrounding country. Making their way to Jericho, the spies were probably amazed at the luxury and richness of the surrounding area, which even now amazes with the generosity of the gifts of its nature. Palm groves and balsam gardens filled the air with a wonderful aroma, and the whole area rang with the chirping of many different and rare birds. In Jericho itself, a lot of wealth, both natural and industrial, was collected, and its capture promised rich booty. But the city was one of the strongest in the country, and its citizens were on their guard. In order not to incur suspicion, the spies, having secretly entered the city, stopped at its very outskirts and found shelter with a certain Raava, who kept on the outskirts of the city, in the city wall itself, something like an inn, but so dirty and dubious that the owner herself had the bad reputation of a harlot in the city. Despite all the precautions of the spies, the people of Jericho, apparently in terrible anxiety and vigilantly watching for all suspicious persons, learned of their presence and reported to the king, who immediately demanded their extradition from Rahab. But she, amazed by the stories of miracles that accompanied the procession of the Israelites to the Promised Land, and recognizing the superiority of their God, hid them in sheaves of flax on her roof and secretly released them through the window of the wall outside the city, directing them along a completely different road than the one along which the Jerichoites went in pursuit of them. Anticipating the imminent fall of the city, she made the spies promise to spare her and her relatives during the capture of the city, having agreed that the sign of her house, unlike others, would be the same “scarlet rope” on which she lowered the Israelites over the wall. Having safely returned to the camp, the spies reported that both the inhabitants of Jericho and other nations were struck with horror by the victories of the Israelites, and the very next morning Joshua ordered them to move across the Jordan. It was the time of the wheat harvest (in April), when the Jordan usually overflows its banks, thanks to the melting of the snow on the Anti-Lebanon mountains, and therefore crossing the river was more difficult than at any other time. But when, according to a special revelation, the priests, carrying the Ark of the Covenant at the head of the people, stepped into the river, the waters in it divided, the upper part became a wall, and the lower part flowed into the Dead Sea, so that a land passage was formed on the other side. The priests moved with the ark to the middle of the riverbed and stood there, as if holding back the water, until all the Israelites had crossed the river. In commemoration of this miracle, twelve chosen men took twelve stones from the riverbed, from which a monument was later erected in Gilgal in front of Jericho, where the Israelites camped after crossing the Jordan, and from the other twelve stones taken on land, a monument was erected on the very spot where the priests stood with the Ark of the Covenant. A fortified camp was set up in Gilgal, which became not only a place for a long stay, but also a stronghold for conquest. There, the Israelites celebrated the Passover for the fortieth time after leaving Egypt, and since during their wanderings in the desert, due to constant worries and disasters, the law of circumcision was often left unfulfilled, then before celebrating the Passover on the soil of the Promised Land, the people had to fulfill this law, and the entire male sex was subjected to circumcision. Immediately the manna on which the people had hitherto fed ceased, and now they had to feed on the fruits of the promised land itself. Finally, it was necessary to begin to capture the terrible strongholds of Jericho 118. When Joshua was inspecting the fortifications of the enemy city, he suddenly saw a man in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. “Are you one of ours, or one of our enemies?” the brave leader asked him. “No, I am the leader of the army of the Lord,” answered the stranger. Joshua fell on his face in awe and received a revelation of how Jericho could be taken. According to this supreme order, Joshua ordered the priests to come out with the ark of the covenant and carry it around the walls of Jericho, with seven priests walking in front of the ark and blowing the trumpets, and armed soldiers walking silently in front and behind the ark. For six days they walked around the city once at a time - to the great amazement of the people of Jericho, who, of course, expected an attack on the city. On the seventh day, the procession was repeated seven times; at the end of the last round, suddenly a stunning cry was heard from the hitherto silent people, and the terrible strongholds of Jericho fell from a miraculous shaking, leaving the city completely defenseless against the Israelites. All the inhabitants, except Rahab and her relatives, were exterminated, the city itself was destroyed, and a curse was pronounced on anyone who would try to build it again. Rahab, for her faith in the omnipotence of the true God, was rewarded by her acceptance into the society of the chosen people. And this branch from the wild olive tree bore good fruit. Having married Salmon, she became the mother of Boaz, David's great-grandfather, and her name, along with three other women, is included in the genealogy of Christ (Matthew 1:5) 119. The fall of such a strong city as Jericho was very important for the Israelites, since the art of proper siege of cities was generally in its infancy, and even more so among such a shepherd people as the Israelites. Cities east of the Jordan were taken in battles on the open field, and some fortified cities in Palestine itself held out long after the Israelis settled there. Encouraged by this success, Joshua sent a detachment of 3,000 men against the neighboring city of Ai, which, according to the testimony of spies, was too weak to bother the entire army 120. But this arrogance was punished by the fact that the Gayans defeated the Israeli detachment and put it to flight. This failure struck fear into the entire people, and Joshua and the elders, tearing their clothes, fell in front of the tabernacle. Then the leader of the people had a revelation that the cause of this misfortune was one Israeli, who, out of self-interest, withheld part of the spoils of Jericho. The lot was cast, and he pointed to Achan, from the tribe of Judah, who was stoned, and his corpse with all his property was burned - as a warning to others who would want to be carried away by self-interest and appropriate something from the common property of the people. After this, the Israelites again went against Ai and, using military stratagem, took the city. All the inhabitants were exterminated, the king was hanged, and the property became the property of the victors. The capture of the first two fortified cities placed a vast area of ​​the promised land at the disposal of the Israelites and served to ensure further successes of the conquest. But before continuing their aggressive activities, the people of Israel had to solemnly accept the obligation to sacredly preserve the law of God entrusted to them. The divine purpose in giving the Promised Land to the Israelites was not simply to replace the former inhabitants with new ones, but to destroy the pagans and settle in their place a chosen and sanctified people so as to establish the kingdom of God on the ruins of the kingdom of this world. As evidence of this, the people had to take an oath in the most solemn atmosphere 121. The main provisions of the Sinai legislation were engraved on stone slabs, and abundant sacrifices were made on Mount Ebal. Then the priests with the Ark of the Covenant occupied the valley between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, and the people, divided into two halves, six tribes each, were to camp on the mountains themselves. And so, when the priests proclaimed a certain position of the law, the people responded to his blessing from Mount Gerizim and his curse from Mount Ebal with a loud and unanimous “Amen,” thereby confirming the truth and inevitability of both blessings for fulfilling the law and curses for breaking it. “The place where this solemn act was performed was capable, at the same time, of infusing new courage into the people and inspiring them with the most sublime feelings. All around were undulating hills, green on the slopes with vineyards and fields, among them the valley of Shechem lay like an emerald stripe, the same one where Abraham once erected his first altar to God and Jacob built his first headquarters in the Promised Land (Gen. 12:7; 33:19), and at both ends of it the mountains Gerizim and Ebal rose like giants, a friendly “Amen” from which echoes of thunder echoed across the valley, dying away in the distant hills. And from these mountains, before the amazed eyes of the people, a wonderful picture of the whole of central Palestine unfolded. To the north rose successively Gelbua, Tabor, Carmel and the snow-whitened northern guardian of the earth - Hermon, with green valleys and plains between them. To the east sparkled the clear waters of Lake Genissaret with the blue ribbon of the Jordan stretching from it, and to the west one could see the wonderful blue of the Mediterranean Sea with a sandy strip bordering it. Thus, it was as if the whole promised land was a witness to the great oath of Israel, and the whole of it, with its mountains, lakes, rivers, hills and valleys, was solemnly dedicated to the Lord. Meanwhile, a hundred thousand rumors about the victories and self-confident behavior of the Israelites, who ruled Palestine as if they were their own land, spread throughout the entire country and brought even more horror to the Canaanite tribes. Residents of some cities, not hoping to withstand the conquerors, even began to resort to tricks 122. Envoys arrived at the Israelite camp, still at Gilgal, who, judging by their worn clothes and shoes, were from afar; They declared to the elders that they had indeed come from a distant country, where, however, rumors had reached about the great victories of Israel, and asked for a peace treaty. The Israelis agreed to a treaty with them, but then it turned out that these were ambassadors from the inhabitants of the nearby city of Gibeon and the villages belonging to it. The treaty was considered sacred, and therefore its inhabitants were spared from beating, but turned into slaves to perform religious duties in the tabernacle, in which position they are found in subsequent times. Meanwhile, other nations, seeing that each of them individually could not withstand the Israelis, concluded a defensive alliance among themselves 123. It was the five kings who united under their leadership. Adonizedek, king of Jerusalem, and they, first of all, decided to punish the Gibeonites for their betrayal of the common cause. The Gibeonites turned to Joshua for help, who moved against the combined forces of the enemy. Having overtaken the enemy with a quick night march, he suddenly attacked him, defeated him and put him to flight. The hail of stones caused even greater devastation in it than the weapons of the Israelites. The sun was already setting towards evening, and yet the pursuit was not yet over. Then Joshua, strong in faith in the omnipotence of God, exclaimed commandingly: “Stay, sun, over Gibeon, and moon, over the valley of Aijalon! And the sun stood still and the moon stood while the people took revenge on their enemies. And there was no such day, either before or after that, on which the Lord would listen to the human voice so much; for the Lord fought for Israel." 124 This new extraordinary miracle again showed the Israelites what a strong Helper and Patron they had, and at the same time even more frightened the Canaanites, who now saw that their very gods (the sun and the moon) had taken the side of the conquering people. The allied kings, having fled from the battlefield, tried to hide in a cave, from which, however, they were taken and put to death. After this victory, conquest began to be accomplished easily and quickly. The cities fell one after another, and along with them the peoples who owned them were exterminated or expelled. Thus the entire southern half of the Promised Land was conquered, with the exception of a few strong fortresses, such as. Jerusalem, and Joshua returned to Gilgal with rich spoils. Now it remained to conquer the northern half. Seeing the approaching thunderstorm, the kings of the northern tribes began to prepare for defense. At the head of the alliance of seven kings was King Navin of Hazor, who gathered a large army “like the sand of the sea” and encamped near Lake Merom. The cavalry, which consisted of many military chariots, gave this army special strength. But strong in faith in a just cause, Joshua suddenly attacked them, and one battle decided the fate of this part of the country. The enemies were defeated, the cavalry was captured and destroyed, the city of Hazor, as “the head of all these kingdoms,” was burned, the inhabitants were exterminated and all their wealth became the spoils of the victors. This decisive victory gave the entire promised land into the hands of the conquerors. They could no longer encounter strong opposition, although there were still fortified cities that held out thanks to the strength of their walls. The war lasted about seven years; During it, seven nations were conquered, although not completely exterminated, and thirty-one kings fell in battle. Finally, the Israelis were tired of the war and wanted to take advantage of the fruits of their victories. The warriors of the Trans-Jordanian tribes, long separated from their families, began to ask for leave to return to their possessions. As a result, the war was suspended, although the conquest was not ended, and many Canaanites remained within the promised land, subsequently becoming a source of terrible evils and all kinds of disasters for the Israelites. Finally, the division of the land 125 followed. Apart from the two and a half Trans-Jordanian tribes, which received allotments for themselves even before crossing the Jordan, the entire conquered land was divided between the remaining nine and a half tribes. The division was carried out according to a special lot, which indicated to each tribe a plot of land commensurate with its number. The first lot fell to the tribe of Judah, which received a vast district with Hebron in the center. Next to it, even further south, the tribe of Simeon, which formed the southern border of the land, received an inheritance, and then, starting from the north, the inheritances were distributed as follows. The northernmost part of the land went to the tribe of Naphtali, precisely in the beautiful valleys of Anti-Lebanon. The tribe of Asher was assigned the seaside coast, a long and narrow strip of land, from the borders of Sidon to Mount Carmel. The tribe of Zebulun occupied a transverse strip of land between Lake Gennesaret and the Mediterranean Sea. To the south of it, one after another, the tribes of Issachar, the second half of Manasseh and Ephraim were located, occupying the space between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. The tribe of Ephraim thus occupied the very middle of the Promised Land and, thanks to this happy position, as well as its large number, it received special significance in the fate of the Israeli people, since the main centers of the religious and political life of the people were located precisely within this tribe. – In the southern half of the country, the sea coast and the western part of the mainland fell to the lot of the tribe of Dan. The tribe of Benjamin was located along the plain of Jericho and along the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea, reaching west to the unconquered fortress of Jerusalem. And then the rest of the southern half of the country, as said before, went to the inheritance of the tribes of Judah and Simeon. In general, the Trans-Jordanian plots were distinguished by rich pastures, the northern and middle ones were the most convenient for agriculture, and the southern ones abounded in vineyards and olive trees. After the division of the land, according to a special revelation, an allotment was given to the leader of the people Joshua himself, namely the city of Timnath-Sarai in the tribe of Ephraim. Since the tribe of Levi, due to its special service, was left without a land allotment, forty-eight cities with land belonging to them were allocated to it among the various tribes; of these, thirteen cities were designated specifically for priests and six special cities with the right of refuge for innocent murderers. “Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land which he swore to their fathers; and they received it as an inheritance and settled in it. And the Lord gave them rest on all sides, as he swore to their fathers; and none of all their enemies stood against them; and the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hands. Of all the good words that the Lord spoke to the house of Israel, not one word remained unfulfilled; everything has come true.” The Trans-Jordanian tribes 126 also returned to their inheritance, whose soldiers Joshua, with an expression of gratitude for their assistance in the common cause and with an exhortation to hold on to the faith in the one true God, finally found it possible to release. With great booty that fell to their share from the riches of Canaan, they went beyond the Jordan and erected a large altar at the place where the Israelites crossed the river. But this circumstance extremely alarmed the remaining tribes, who saw in this the desire of the Trans-Jordanian tribes to separate from their brothers in religious terms. The indignation was so great that a fratricidal war was ready to break out. But fortunately, prudence prevented this disaster. A special deputation appointed for this matter, consisting of the priest Phinehas and ten elected elders, found out the essence of the matter and, from the explanations of the Trans-Jordanian tribes, came to the conviction that, by creating the altar, they not only did not think of separating from the religion of their fathers, but, on the contrary, with this visible altar they wanted to clearly confirm their connection with the other tribes and for their future generations. The common connection for all tribes was the tabernacle with the Ark of the Covenant, but in order to make this national shrine accessible to all tribes, Joshua moved it to Shiloh, in the tribe of Ephraim, as it occupied the middle position in the country. And from here Joshua continued to rule the people peacefully until his death. His entire administration lasted twenty-five years. Finally, “he entered old age” 127. Feeling the approach of death, he called representatives and leaders of all tribes to his deathbed and addressed them with a strong exhortation to fulfill everything commanded in the book of the law of Moses. At the same time, he reminded them of everything that God had done to the Canaanite peoples for their sake, as well as of His promise that if they remained faithful to Him, the whole earth would become their complete possession, all the pagans would be driven out of it. He repeated the same admonition in Shechem, the sacred dwelling of Abraham and Isaac, and ended his dying conversation with the words: “Therefore fear the Lord and serve Him in purity and sincerity, reject the strange gods that your fathers served beyond the river in Egypt, and serve the Lord. If it is not pleasing for you to serve the Lord, then choose for yourself now whom to serve; ... but I and my house will serve the Lord, for He is holy.” “And the people answered and said: No, it will not happen that we will leave the Lord and begin to serve other gods!” The dying leader wrote these words in the book of the law, took a large stone and placed it under the oak tree at the sanctuary, saying to the people: “Behold, this stone will be a witness for you... let it be a witness against you in the days to come, so that you will not lie before the Lord your God.” Having then released the people to their destinies, Joshua died peacefully and with the consciousness of fulfilled duty at the age of 110 and was buried in his hereditary allotment in Timnath-Sarai. Soon after him, the high priest Eleazar, son of Aaron, died. The remains of Joseph, carried by the Israelites from Egypt, were duly interred in Shechem, on the site that Jacob had once purchased and given to his beloved son. “And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders whose lives were prolonged after Joshua, and who saw all the works of the Lord that he did to Israel” (Jos. 24:31) The forty years of upbringing in the wilderness obviously had a very beneficial effect on the people. We almost never encounter such devoted faith in God in any of the subsequent periods in the history of the Israeli people. XXV. The Israelites' deviations into idolatry and turning to their God during the disasters that befell them. Deborah and Barak 128 After the death of Joshua, the Israelites were left without a leader. The period had come when the government of God, which lay at the basis of the Mosaic legislation on the state administration of the Israeli people, should have been fully realized. Each tribe was to be governed by its own elders, with a separate prince or chief of the tribe at its head, and the connecting link for them, in addition to natural kinship and common historical memories, was to serve as their common faith in the one true God, as the only King and Judge of the people, the common living consciousness that all tribes constitute one indivisible kingdom of Jehovah. A visible sign of this religious and political unity was the national shrine - the tabernacle, erected for this purpose in the middle of the country - in Shiloh, in the tribe of Ephraim. But such a government presupposes a truly high degree of religious and moral state of the people, and therefore the first years of the Israelis’ life in the Promised Land, when “Israel served the Lord,” i.e. was faithful to His covenant and obedient to His laws, there was a time of general peace and prosperity, and every Israelite dwelt peacefully under his own fig tree. This state continued as long as the generation that witnessed the great blessings of God and miracles performed for the sake of the chosen people was still alive. During this time, some tribes (Judah and Simeon) managed to continue the conquest of the promised land, but since the final conquest had not been made earlier through joint efforts, the Israelites had to come to terms with this circumstance and, tolerating the hated and cursed Canaanites around them, had to defeat them by the power of their religious and moral superiority and thus introduce them to the common property of the kingdom of God on earth. Unfortunately, the people of Israel, even in those cases when they had the opportunity to defeat the Canaanites by force of arms, did not always expel and exterminate them, but often preferred to leave them as tributaries for themselves, thus violating the direct command of God out of self-interest. But by this the Israelites prepared for themselves terrible disasters, because, as the Angel of the Lord predicted to them, these remaining nations became a snare for them and their gods became a snare for them. The younger generation, which took the place of the previous one, which had seen all the great benefits and miracles of God for the people, did not know and did not want to know “the Lord and His works that He did to Israel. The children of Israel began to do evil in the sight of the Lord and began to serve the Baals; they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and turned to other gods, the gods of the nations surrounding them, and began to worship them, and provoked the Lord; they left the Lord and began to serve the Baals and Ashtoreth” 129, Canaanite deities, whose idolatry was accompanied by the most vile wickedness and debauchery. The deviation from true religion was followed by a general weakening of morality among the people, the reign of untruth, unbridled tyranny, disobedience to authorities was established, which, in turn, was followed by a complete breakdown of state and public administration and a complete weakening of the political power of the people. This state, of course, was taken advantage of by the native and neighboring peoples, who attacked and robbed and killed the Israelis with impunity, forcing them to pay tribute to themselves, so that the period that was supposed to serve as the implementation of true government, due to the inconstancy and unfaithfulness of the Israeli people, became for them a time of terrible trials, a new school of religious and moral education. As punishment for apostasy and lawlessness, God gave them into the hands of local enemies, but out of pity for the ill-fated people, he raised up special deliverers for them, the so-called judges, who, with the help of God, delivered the people from oppressors and foreign yoke. The most famous of these judges are: Othniel, Ehud, Deborah with Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, Eli and Samuel. Some of them were called by God, others were chosen by the people themselves, and some ruled the people by right of inheritance. The reign of the Israelite judges spanned a period of about 350 years. When the Israelites, having forgotten the command of God, began to befriend the wicked Canaanites and enter into marriages with them, which entailed idolatry, God struck them with the first disaster and delivered them into the hands of the Mesopotamian king Husarsafem 130, who enslaved them for eight years. This disaster forced the people to come to their senses, and they cried out to the Lord for deliverance. Then the Lord raised up a deliverer for them, in the person of the first judge Othniel, the grandson of Caleb. Strengthened by the Spirit of God, he became the ruler of the people, gathered an army and overthrew the Mesopotamian yoke, after which the people enjoyed peace for forty years, until the death of Othniel. But the prolonged prosperity was again turned into evil by the people, and after the death of Othniel, “the children of Israel again began to do evil in the sight of the Lord.” As punishment for this, Eglon, the king of Moab, was sent against them, who, in alliance with neighboring tribes, defeated the Israelites and enslaved them for eighteen years, until a deliverer appeared in the person of the second judge of Ehud, 131 who personally, through cunning, killed the fat Eglon and then, with the army of Israel, defeated the Moabites, after which the promised land rested for eighty years. After Ehud, the judge was Samegar, famous for the fact that he beat 600 Philistines who raided the Israelites with an ox horn, and thereby saved them from the devastation that threatened to disrupt the period of eighty years of prosperity. Since even after this the people “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord,” they had to bear an even heavier yoke 132 . Taking advantage of the weakness of the Israelites, the Canaanites in northern Palestine became extremely powerful. The Canaanite king Jabin, having formed a strong alliance from the surrounding small tribes, went on the offensive. His commander, the cruel Sisera, made a devastating invasion of the northern tribes, which could not withstand his terrible cavalry, which consisted of 900 iron chariots. Suppressed by force, the northern tribes, feeling their complete helplessness, had to endure the most severe oppression from the triumphant enemy for twenty years. But when the people were already losing hope of deliverance, and the bravest men did not dare to think about overthrowing the yoke of the formidable enemy, a woman acted as the deliverer of the oppressed tribes. In the mountainous region, between Ramah and Bethel, a little north of Jerusalem, lived the famous Deborah, the prophetess. The fame of her wisdom thundered throughout the country and the entire people of Israel came to her for judgment. The groans of the oppressed tribes also reached her, and she courageously stepped forward to deliver them. About a hundred and fifty versts north of her home, in the very center of the oppressed country, in the city of Kedesh, tribe of Naphtali, near Lake Merom, lived a certain Barak, whose very name is “lightning,” as if indicating his courageous spirit 133 . It was him who the wise Deborah decided to make the leader of the army that was to gather at her call under the liberation banner. Having sent an embassy to him, Deborah, in the name of God, who revealed to her the hope of deliverance from the enemy, ordered Barak to become the head of a ten-thousand-strong detachment of warriors from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun and oppose the cruel Sisera. But even the courageous Barak was embarrassed by such an assignment, and he did not dare to take up the matter until Deborah personally came to him. Hastening north, she personally appeared among the oppressed people, and her appearance not only encouraged Barak, but also awakened enthusiasm among the people, who began to gather under her banner. At the news of the uprising, Sisera quickly equipped his deadly chariots and occupied the plain of Esdraelon, this is the main battlefield of Palestine. The small river Kison meandering here, almost all drying up in the summer, turns into a rapid stream in winter and after rains, which, overflowing its banks, floods the entire surrounding area, turning it in places into impassable swamps. The courageous and wise leader of the Israeli army, gathered under the banner of Barak on Mount Tabor, dominating the Ezdrilon plain, immediately appreciated the benefit for herself of this circumstance and gave a sign to Barak to rush at the enemy with unexpected speed. Proud of his power and iron chariots, Sisera, perhaps, disdainfully treated the Israeli army, which, moreover, together with Barak, was led by the woman Deborah. But this should have given even more significance to the lightning onslaught of Barak, who immediately mixed up the ranks of the enemies and sent them into disorderly flight. The road to those fleeing was blocked by the flooded Kison; in the swamps it created, the chariots got stuck and became completely useless, so that the entire army suffered complete destruction - both from the water and from the sword of triumphant Israel. Sisera himself, with the pitiful remnants of his army, fled to the north, trying to hide in the mountain passes. The lightning-fast Barak overtook him there too, and he, seeing no more salvation, wanted to hide even in the tent of one Kenite woman, Jael. But the latter, being a descendant of Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, and aware of her spiritual connection with the people of Israel, did not spare the formidable oppressor of this people. Receiving him in her tent with an air of friendliness, she killed him with her own hands when he fell asleep from fatigue. This great victory over a cruel and powerful oppressor filled the hearts of the victors with rejoicing, and “that day Deborah and Barak sang with these words: Israel has been avenged, the people have shown zeal; glorify the Lord! Listen kings, listen nobles; I am to the Lord, I sing, I jingle to the Lord, the God of Israel” (Jd. 5:1). This famous song of Deborah then details the Israelites' plight and glorious deliverance, and ends with the triumphant words: “So let all your enemies perish, O Lord! Let those who love Him be like the sun rising in all its strength!” - “And the earth rested for forty years.” XXVI. Gideon and Jephthah 134 Although the miraculous deliverance performed by Deborah and Barak from the foreign yoke established peace and prosperity in the promised land for forty years, the very state of the people in religious and civil terms was such that similar disasters could threaten in the future. Living among idolaters, the people of Israel, at the sight of the voluptuous forms of their idolatry, were themselves carried away by them, their moral strength weakened, and the disunity between the tribes intensified within, which finally led to the fact that each tribe began to consider itself as a separate, completely independent state. When this state fragmentation completely weakened the people, the surrounding nomadic tribes, who were constantly attracted to the riches and luxury of the promised land, did not fail to take advantage of this. And so, when “the children of Israel began again to do evil in the sight of the Lord, the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Midianites” and the nomadic tribes related to them. The Midianites, Amalekites and all the “sons of the east” in countless numbers, with oxen and camels, made an invasion of Palestine, crossing the Jordan and breaking all resistance that the fragmented forces of the Israelites could offer them, they flooded the entire country from the Ezdrilon plain in the north to Gaza in the very south. And this invasion was repeated from year to year. As soon as the Israelis were sowing the fields, this wild horde appeared again, which covered all the hills and valleys with its wagons, stole all the livestock they encountered and poisoned all vegetation with their herds. Nothing could be harder and more destructive than such invasions, since after them there was no grain or livestock left. Fire and sword spread terror throughout the country; the desperate resistance of individual detachments of Israelis only led to the merciless beating of the brave defenders of their fatherland, and, finally, the only salvation was the complete flight of the population to the mountains, where they hid in caves. This went on for seven whole years. “And Israel became very poor,” and he cried out to the Lord again. Then the Lord again took pity on his unfaithful and fickle people and sent them a deliverer in the person of Gideon. Gideon came from the city of Ofra, which lay in the hills of central Palestine, the very district of Palestine that was subjected to the greatest devastation from the savage horde. He was, as his very name shows, a “brave warrior”, distinguished by royal grandeur in his appearance. He was the youngest member of a family that had already produced several brave warriors and defenders of the fatherland from foreigners, and his two older brothers had already laid down their lives in the fight against these very predators in a desperate skirmish at Tabor. Living among a disheartened people, he alone did not lose hope for deliverance and waited for the awakening of the spirit of repentance and revival among the people. At this time, a prophet appeared among the people, who with a fiery speech called for repentance, reproaching the Israelites for forgetting all the blessings of God since their exit from Egypt. This, naturally, awakened the spirit of the people, who began to ask even more fervently for deliverance from the heavy yoke. And then it was Gideon who received the highest calling to the work of delivering the suffering people. In the fall of the seventh year of the Midianite invasions, Gideon secretly and hastily threshed wheat in order to quickly hide from the enemies prowling everywhere. The shady oak tree gave him protection from the scorching sun. Busy with hasty work, Gideon did not notice how a traveler appeared under the oak tree. But it was the “Angel of the Lord” who said to him: “The Lord is with you, a strong man!” This greeting strangely struck Gideon and painfully affected in him the feeling of the oppressed situation in which both he and the entire people found themselves. Is this not evil irony on the part of a stranger? “Sir,” Gideon answered him: “If the Lord is with us, then why has all this disaster befallen us? and where are all His miracles, which our fathers told about, saying: The Lord brought us out of Egypt. Now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites,” Gideon concluded with sadness and despair. But the angel assured him of his impending deliverance. From the miraculous sign (the miraculous appearance of fire in the sacrifice) Gideon was convinced of his highest calling for the deliverance of the people, and in his soul that slightest shadow of doubt and despair, which began to creep into his courageous and believing spirit, disappeared. But in order to have greater success in the task entrusted to him, Gideon had, first of all, to arouse the spirit of true religion among the people, suppressed by the invasion of idolatry. Idolatry even penetrated into the family itself, of which Gideon was the youngest member. His father Joash, despairing of Jehovah's help, indulged in idolatry, and on one of the nearby mountains he erected an altar to Baal, the sun god of his Canaanite neighbors. Next to the altar stood a tree dedicated to Astarte. Gideon received a divine inspiration to destroy this church and thereby express open protest against idolatry. And he, burning with zeal for faith in the true God, immediately fulfilled this suggestion. Taking ten of his servants and a couple of bulls, he destroyed the church at night, cut down the sacred tree, erected an altar to the true God on the site of the overthrown altar of Baal and sacrificed one of the bulls, using the very tree of Astarte for firewood. All this was done at night, since during the day it would have aroused superstitious horror and an uprising of his household and the inhabitants of the city. But these latter were seized with even greater amazement and indignation when, with the onset of day, they saw what had been done to the church and the shrine. Popular rumor was not slow to attribute this alleged “sacrilege” to Gideon, and furious voices were heard among the inhabitants of the city, demanding the death of the culprit. But he was saved by the courageous determination and resourcefulness of his father Joash. The latter, before anyone else, was convinced from the feat of his son of the pitiful insignificance of Baal, and to the demand of the crowd for the extradition of Gideon he boldly answered: “Should you intercede for Baal, should you defend him? If he is a god, he will stand up for himself.” This bold and enlightened speech truly shamed the crowd and made them realize their error, and Gideon received the name Jerubbaal, i.e. "opponent of Baal." The fame of this feat quickly spread throughout the country, Gideon’s name was on everyone’s lips, and he could now act as a deliverer from external enemies. “The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet.” The sounds of this trumpet found a quick echo in the surrounding tribes, and 32,000 warriors gathered under the banner of Gideon, ready to lay down their lives for the true faith and their fatherland. Having once again received assurance of his calling by two miraculous signs (the appearance of dew on wool when there was no dew on the surrounding land and its absence on wool when there was plenty of it around), Gideon set out against the enemy. But deliverance had to be accomplished not by the people’s own strength, but by the power of God, and therefore Gideon was ordered to reduce his army, releasing all the fearful and timid. Only 10,000 people remained; but even this was enough for victory. Through a special test at a watering hole on the river, only three hundred people were chosen, but obviously the bravest and most experienced warriors, who were so seasoned that even the water from the river, neglecting all amenities, “lapped with their tongues like a dog laps.” With this handful of soldiers, Gideon had to march against the enemies, who, with a huge horde of 135,000 people, were located in the plain of Esdrilon. Having penetrated the enemy camp at night and learned about the anxious mood of the enemies, who had already heard rumors of a movement among the Israelites, Gideon decided to hit them with a surprise attack and a special strategic technique, often used in ancient times. Dividing his detachment into three parts and giving each warrior a pipe and a lamp in a jug, Gideon ordered these units to move around the enemy at night. At this signal, all the soldiers immediately blew the trumpets, broke the jugs and loudly exclaimed: “The sword of the Lord and Gideon!” Struck by the sudden appearance of many lamps and the thunder of trumpets and military shouts, the enemies fell into terrible confusion, killed each other in the confusion and rushed into a disorderly flight across the Jordan. But there, while crossing, they were met by the tribe of Ephraim, subjecting them to an even greater defeat, during which two Midian kings, Oreb and Zibah, were killed. Gideon himself, reinforced by a detachment of ten thousand, pursued the enemy beyond the Jordan, where he defeated him, capturing two more Midian kings Zebah and Salman, who, as having turned out to be the murderers of Gideon’s brothers, were killed by him. Upon returning from the victorious campaign, he had to meekly calm down the discontent of the Ephraimites that they had not been called earlier for the war with the Midianites, as a result of which they lost a significant part of the booty, and severely punish the inhabitants of the cities of Succoth and Peniel, who, not hoping for the defeat of the strong Midian kings by Gideon, out of fear of the latter’s vengeance, denied his soldiers bread, mockingly saying to him: “Has the hand of Zebah and Zalman already in your hand, so that we can give bread to your army?” When indeed these once terrible Midian kings were already in the hands of Gideon, he arrived with them in Succoth and, reminding its inhabitants of their treason, “took the elders of the city and the desert thorns and the jagged threshing boards, and punished the inhabitants of Succoth with them, and destroyed the tower of Penuel and killed the inhabitants of the city.” The fame of Gideon’s victory spread throughout the whole country, and the grateful Israelites said to Gideon: “Rule over us, you and your son, and your son’s son, for you saved us from the hand of the Midianites.” But the courageous liberator of the country was pleased with the knowledge of his duty fulfilled and modestly refused the hereditary power offered to him, answering the Israelites: “Neither I will rule you, nor my son will rule you; May the Lord rule over you." He was content with only part of the war booty (1,700 gold shekels, in addition to buckles, buttons and purple clothes from the Midian kings and except for gold chains from the necks of their camels). Unfortunately, he had the imprudence to make an ephod or priestly robe out of this booty, and the superstitious people, giving it a magical meaning, began to “follow him there prodigally,” committing something like idolatry. However, the earth rested for forty years, and Gideon himself lived peacefully to a ripe old age, leaving seventy sons from his many wives, and, most importantly, that good glory that later gave him the great honor of being recorded among the most glorious heroes of the faith (Heb. 11:32). After the death of Gideon, the stiff-necked and unfaithful people again “began to walk prodigally after the Baals,” forgot their Lord God, who delivered them from the surrounding enemies, and even “did not show mercy to the house of Gideon for all the good deeds that he did to Israel.” Troubles came, and Gideon’s side son, from his Shechem concubine, Abimelech, thought to take advantage of this, and decided to usurp royal power for himself, which Gideon himself had refused 135 . Having entered into an agreement with his mother’s relatives, he gathered an army, attacked Ofra, where the sons of Gideon lived, and, having beaten them, then achieved the proclamation of himself as king. Of the seventy sons of Gideon, only one youngest son, Jotham, was saved. From the top of Gerizim, overlooking the city of Shechem, he addressed the treacherous inhabitants with an accusatory parable, in which, under the guise of the trees that chose their king, he depicted the injustice of the people and the treachery of Abimelech: the fig tree and the vine refused to assume royal dignity, and the thorny burdock immediately accepted the offer and invited everyone to rest under its shadow. This apparently brought the Shechemites to their senses. Three years had barely passed when discord began between them and Abimelech, leading to civil strife; The enraged impostor besieged the city, destroyed it and sowed it with salt, and burned the city tower, in which the inhabitants had taken refuge, along with the thousand men and women who found themselves in it. During the siege of another rebellious city, Tevets, he was wounded by a fragment of a millstone thrown at him by a woman, and, ashamed of dying at the hand of a woman, he ordered his squire to pierce him with a sword. “This is how God rewarded Abimelech for the crime that he did to his father, killing seventy of his brothers,” and thus the first attempt to arbitrarily establish royal power in the people of Israel ended ingloriously. During the administration of the next two judges, Tholas and Jairus, the Israelites apparently enjoyed peace and prosperity, but this prosperity only further increased idolatry and corruption among the people, who began to indiscriminately “serve the Baals, the Asherahs, and the gods of the Aramaeans, and the gods of the Sidonians, and the gods of the Moabites, and the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines,” forgetting only the one true Lord God. “And the wrath of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites. They oppressed and tormented the children of Israel for eighteen years.” The disaster that befell was all the more severe because the enemies were pressing the people simultaneously from two sides - from the east and the west. As usual, this disaster again forced the Israelites to turn to their forgotten Lord with a plea for help; but this time the Lord, in His righteous anger, answered them: “You left Me and began to serve other gods; therefore I will no longer save you. Go, call upon the gods whom you have chosen, let them save you in your time of need.” But God's mercy is limitless. When the Israelis in repentance turned to Him again and rejected foreign gods, beginning to serve only the Lord, then “His soul did not tolerate the suffering of Israel,” and He sent them a deliverer in the person of Jephthah 136. Even in his origin, he was completely the son of his dissolute time. His mother was a harlot from Gilead, in the trans-Jordanian half-tribe of Manasseh, and he, deprived of his inheritance by his half-brothers in the house of his illegitimate father, retired to the free land of Tob and there, gathering idle and homeless people around him, he became the leader of a gang of robbers. But with her freemen, Jephthah did not forget her patriotic duty, and therefore he attacked the enemies of his country, taking away their herds and caravans. His courage and bravery drew the attention of the elders of Gilead to him. especially suffered from the attacks of the Ammonites, and they invited him to lead them to fight the enemies. It was hard for Jephthah to accept the invitation from the elders of the city, where he suffered terrible insult and injustice. But love for his homeland prevailed, and he, having negotiated for himself the condition of supremacy among the people as a judge, accepted the offer. Having become the head of a quickly formed detachment, he moved against the enemy, but first tried to settle the matter peacefully and entered into negotiations with the Ammonites to determine the rights of the two warring peoples to the Trans-Jordanian regions. At the same time, Jephthah discovered a subtle knowledge of the entire previous history of the conquest of the land of Israel, and, relying on historical data, demanded the removal of the Ammonites. When the Ammonites proudly rejected all peace proposals, declaring their claims to all the Trans-Jordanian regions, Jephthah was forced to seek his right with weapons. Strong by his own courage and the enthusiasm of the people, he set out on a campaign, but before that, according to the custom of ancient times, he made a vow to the Lord, saying: “If you deliver the Ammonites into my hands, then, upon my return in peace from the Ammonites, whatever comes out from the gates of my house to meet me will be to the Lord, and I will offer it as a burnt offering.” The campaign was successful, the enemy was defeated and pacified. In triumph, the winner returned to his city of Mizpah and headed towards his home. “And so his daughter comes out to meet him with timbrels and faces,” his only daughter, who wanted more than anyone to celebrate the victory of her victorious father. “When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said: Oh, my daughter! you struck me down; and you are among the disturbers of my peace.” I have opened my mouth before the Lord about you and cannot deny.” Having learned the terrible secret, the valiant daughter of the brave father, however, did not give in to inconsolable despair and asked him only for two months to go to the mountains and mourn her virginity with her friends. “After two months had passed, she returned to her father, and he fulfilled his vow to her, which he had made, and she did not know her husband.” As for the method of fulfilling the vow, due to the mysterious ambiguity of the biblical text, it is understood differently. Some interpreters (mostly the ancients) understand it in the literal sense, that it was the maiden who was actually sacrificed as a burnt offering; but some newer interpreters, based on the clear prohibition of human sacrifice in the Law of Moses (Lev. 18:21; 20:2–5; Deut. 12:31), believe that she remained only a virgin and was dedicated to the service of the tabernacle. This meaning of the vow, apparently, is indicated by the expression that Jephthah’s daughter mourned not her youth, but her “virginity,” and that she died “without knowing a husband,” i.e. in a virgin (vowed) state. But another test awaited Jephthah. He had to witness a sad event, which showed to what extent the separation between the tribes had reached at this time. The proud Ephraimites, arrogantly treating the Trans-Jordanian tribes and especially the Manasseh half-tribe, which they considered part of their tribe, refused to recognize its right to a separate independent existence, much less the right to be a “judge” of the people, and brought the matter to civil strife. But the people’s enthusiasm was still strong: the Ephraimites suffered a terrible defeat in the battle and tried to escape by fleeing to the opposite bank of the Jordan; but the enraged Gileadites intercepted the fords and, recognizing the Ephraimites by their peculiar pronunciation of the word shibboleth (they pronounced sibboleth), beat 42,000 of them, thus subjecting the troublemakers to the public peace to cruel punishment. This sad event must have weighed heavily on the soul of such an ardent patriot as Jephthah was. He was a judge of Israel for only six years and died, being buried in one of the cities of Gilead. He lived alone, and died alone, without leaving in his posterity even memories of the exact place of his burial. The three judges of Israel who followed Jephthah ruled the people peacefully—Heshbon for seven years, Elon for ten years, and Abdon for eight years. All of them enjoyed family blessings, had numerous sons, and also owned significant wealth, so for example. Judge Abdon “had forty sons and thirty grandsons, riding on seventy young donkeys,” as a sign of special dignity and wealth. Meanwhile, in the absence of a strong and generally recognized government that would rule the entire people with a firm hand, the Israelites succumbed more and more to wickedness and idolatry, weakening at the same time politically. The Philistines took advantage of this and enslaved them. The Philistines were one of the most warlike peoples of the land of Canaan. They moved from Fr. Crete and even in the time of Abraham were firmly entrenched in the rich coastal plain (Shephelah), north and south of Ascalon. Subsequently, they greatly expanded their possessions and achieved such power that their influence was felt throughout the entire country, in which they maintained their dominance until David himself. Having united with several native tribes that still continued to live in Gaza, Hebron and other places, they completely crushed the forces of the Israelites, who, as an agricultural people, were not able to withstand the pressure of a people whose main craft was war. Even the brave tribe of Judah had to lay down their weapons before them and submit to a heavy and shameful yoke, to ensure which the Philistines, moreover, completely disarmed the vanquished, took captive all their blacksmiths and armorers, so that the Israelites were forced to turn to their cruel enemies for all blacksmith and plumbing work. It is not surprising that under such circumstances the Philistine yoke could linger for as long as forty years without even causing an attempt to free itself from it. The people lost heart and, in complete despondency, despaired of any hope of any deliverance. But the deliverer had already appeared in his midst and was ready to come to the defense of his people. It was an extraordinary hero named Samson. Samson was the son of the hitherto childless couple Manoah and his wife from the tribe of Dan, neighboring the Philistine land and therefore suffering the most from cruel enemies. His very birth was announced by an angel, who announced to Manoah’s wife, “that she will conceive and bear a son, and no razor will touch his head, because from the very womb this child will be a Nazarite of God, and he will begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” The same news was repeated to Manoah himself, confirmed by a special vision of an angel rising in the flames of the altar. At a certain time, a son was actually born to them, who was given the name Samson. The tribe of Dan, to which Samson belonged, was always relatively small and was not even able to win the inheritance assigned to it by Joshua from the Philistines, who completely cut it off from the coastal plain and confined it in the mountains. Its position was so cramped that subsequently it was even forced to evict a significant part of itself, leaving it to seek a place of residence on the northern border of the country. But they had a fortified camp on the mountains that dominated the Philistine plain, and it was there that Samson grew up. Being a Nazirite, i.e. a man wholly devoted to the service of God and His kingdom, 138 and presenting the living lesson that the strength and salvation of the chosen people lay only in their invisible King, who gave His help only for the fulfillment of His holy laws, Samson grew in sight of the cities and villages of his oppressors. Seeing the oppressed condition of his people from the inhabitants of these idolatrous cities and suffering for the honor of his fatherland and his God, the young Nazirite was indignant in spirit, and rumors were already circulating among the people about how the “Spirit of the Lord” at times acted in the long-haired youth, who was already beginning to display extraordinary strength. Having reached manhood, Samson did not immediately come out to save his people from their enemies, but first showed the same weakness that all the Israelis suffered from. In moral terms, he was like a mirror of his people. Being, like all the people, dedicated to God, he embodied in his life both the virtues and vices of his people, and therefore at first he became attached to a Philistine woman and asked his parents to allow him to marry her. Seeing how futile their resistance would be to the unreasonable act of their ardent young son, they agreed. On the way to his bride, Samson first discovered his extraordinary strength. Not far from the vineyards of Timnatha, the residence of his bride, he was attacked by a young lion; but Samson, feeling the miraculous power in himself, was not embarrassed, but tore the lion to pieces like a kid, although he did not have any weapons in his hands. He didn’t tell anyone about this, but, walking the same road another time, he saw that in the corpse of the lion he had killed, which had managed to completely dry out under the scorching heat, there was a swarm of bees. Taking honey with him, Samson, as a groom, arranged a seven-day feast for thirty of his marriage friends and, being in a cheerful mood, invited them to guess the riddle, under the condition, if successful, to pay them thirty sindons (shirts made of fine linen) and thirty changes of clothes, reprimanding the same to himself if they were unable to guess it. They agreed, and he told them: “from the eater came the eatable, from the strong came the sweet.” For three days the marriage friends struggled fruitlessly over this mystery, which was mysterious to them, and finally, seeing that they were unable to solve it, they turned to his newlywed wife and began to pester her so that she would get Samson to answer the question, threatening otherwise to burn her and her father’s house. “Did you call us to rob us?” the puzzled marriage friends approached her rudely. With tears and prayers, the newlywed persuaded Samson to guess the riddle for her, and having obtained a solution from him, she passed it on to her marriage friends, who triumphantly guessed it to Samson. “What is sweeter than honey and what is stronger than a lion!” They said to the indignant Samson, who immediately realized his wife’s betrayal and remarked to them: “If you had not screamed at my heifer, you would not have guessed my riddle.” However, it was necessary to pay according to the condition, and here for the first time he took the opportunity to take revenge on the Philistines. Arriving at the Philistine city of Ascalon, he killed thirty people there, took off their clothes and gave the changes of their clothes to those who had solved the riddle. In anger, he left his unfaithful wife and she married one of his marriage friends. Tormented by jealousy, he wanted to get back together with his wife, but, having received a refusal from his former father-in-law, he cruelly took revenge on the Philistines by releasing three hundred foxes with lighted torches tied to their tails into their wheat fields ripe for harvest. This, in turn, brought the vengeance of the Philistines upon his former father-in-law, whose house they burned along with Samson's ex-wife. To punish the very author of their disaster, they marched with an army against the Israelites, and the latter, having completely lost all hope of getting rid of the heavy yoke, humiliated themselves in their servility before their enemies to the point that they were ready to hand over their only patriotic hero to the Philistines. Bound with two new ropes, Samson was taken to the Philistines; but when they, seeing him in this position, cried out in vengeful gloating, the Spirit of the Lord descended on Samson, and the ropes that were on his hands became like burnt flax, and his bonds fell from his hands,” and he, grabbing a fresh jawbone of a donkey that came his way, beat a thousand stunned Philistines with it. Having quenched his thirst from the miraculously formed spring, Samson returned home and “was a judge of Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years.” Over time, however, the depravity characteristic of all people more and more overpowered the hero-judge, and the wonderful conqueror of brave warriors succumbed to a sensual passion for treacherous women. Once caught in Gaza, a Philistine city, spending the night with a harlot, Samson was surrounded by enemies who decided to kill him in the morning. But he, getting up at midnight, tore out the city gates along with the ropes and, putting them on his mighty shoulders, carried them to the top of the mountain, half an hour from the city. Thus he once more escaped the vengeance of the Philistines; but the hour of his fall was already close. He violated his Naziriteship by shameful debauchery, and therefore, even wearing long hair, he no longer carried the Spirit of God within himself. And his death was soon completed by a new woman, the insidious Dalida, who drew him into her network. She was a famous beauty who abused her beauty. Knowing Samson’s voluptuous disposition, the Philistine princes decided to use this woman to destroy their terrible enemy and, as was often done in ancient times, they bribed her so that with her caresses she would persuade him to reveal to her what the secret of his wonderful supernatural power was. Three times Samson avoided revealing the secret, but Delilah’s treachery finally prevailed. Having learned that Samson’s strength lay in his Nazirite hair, she put him to sleep on her knees, “and calling a man, she ordered him to cut off the seven braids of his head. And he began to weaken and his strength departed from him.” This was just what his mortal enemies were waiting for. Having captured their exhausted enemy, the Philistines gouged out his eyes, brought him to their main city of Gaza and, shackling him with two copper chains, forced him to grind “in the house of the prisoners.” After some time, the Philistines, in honor of their national god Dagon (an idol with a human body and a fish tail), arranged a magnificent feast, combining with him a celebration in memory of the victory over their terrible enemy. To amuse the helpless hero, they also brought Samson to the feast, where they subjected him to all kinds of bullying and beatings. Meanwhile, his hair had already grown back. Having again felt the strength in himself, the blinded hero ordered his leader to lead him to the columns on which the house of pleasure, crowded with merry Philistines, was established. Grabbing the two middle pillars and exclaiming with the last prayer to God: “die, my soul, with the Philistines,” Samson shook the columns, and the whole house, with all those who were having fun in it, collapsed on Samson, burying him under his ruins, along with thousands of Philistines who avenged him for their reproach. Struck by horror, the Philistines did not prevent Samson’s relatives from taking his body, which was buried in his homeland, between Tzor and Estaol, in the tomb of his father Manoah. To understand and appreciate the greatness of Samson, one must take into account the circumstances of his time. Truly great and strong in faith in the immutability of the divine promise of the appointment of the chosen people was the man who alone, amid general despondency and depression, dared to speak out against the cruel oppressors. And this was at such a dark time of moral decline, when even the tribe of Judah completely lost heart and was ready to hand over the Israeli hero to his mortal enemies, making him an insulting reproach. “Don’t you know,” his servile and cowardly brethren told him, “that the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us by incurring the vengeance of the Philistines?” The people had already come to terms with their difficult situation and agreed to live in slavery to idolaters, and for such and such a people Samson, having no support from them, had to wage a desperate struggle against the enemies. He himself fell hard and often morally, but, despite all these falls, he retained the most touching loyalty to Jehovah, which became even stronger in him under the influence of the difficult trials of his subsequent life. Despite the apparent abandonment of him by the God of his fathers, when he was captured by the Philistines and, blinded, was condemned to hard labor, his faith did not weaken even there, and he irrefutably proved it when he shook the pillars of the building in which idolaters were having fun, celebrating the victory of their god Dagon over the champion of Jehovah. And it is not surprising that the memory of him was sacredly preserved from century to century, and from this memory the people drew new courage and new vitality. But besides personal greatness, Samson’s story was deeply instructive for the entire people. The whole point of it is that he was a Nazirite. He owed his extraordinary strength to his Naziriteship, as dedication to God; but his weakness lay in his devotion to sensual and carnal lusts, indulging in which he violated his vow. In both respects, he was not only a type of his people, but also a mirror in which Israel could see both itself and its history with its own eyes. Israel was also a kind of Nazirite, as a people dedicated to God, and as long as he kept his covenant with God, he was invincible in his strength, but when he violated this covenant, indulged in sensuality and dirty idolatry, this spiritual adultery, then his strength weakened, he became a miserable slave and plunged into the abyss of spiritual and civil fall. Thus, the story of Samson is, as it were, the personification of the history of the Israeli people themselves, and it showed that the strength of the people lies only in maintaining their covenant with God. With his life, Samson taught all the people an amazing and profound lesson that Israel, breaking its covenant, will inevitably find its insidious Delilah, who, having deprived him of his Nazariteship, will give it to his enemies to trample and mock. XXVIII. The religious and moral state of the Israelis during the time of the judges. The Story of Ruth 139 The life of Samson, as well as some other Israeli judges, clearly shows to what religious and moral decline the people of Israel had reached in the Promised Land. The whole history of the period of the judges is a sad story of constant errors, iniquities and idolatry with the disasters that inseparably followed them. Even in the life of the judges themselves, vices often take precedence over virtues, and evil lusts drown out the timid voice of conscience and consciousness of duty. Among the chosen people, true religion was almost completely forgotten and in its place were pitiful superstitions, spread by various wandering, dissolute Levites. Immorality became so universal that adulterous cohabitation was considered commonplace and, as it were, replaced marriage, and in some cities even such vile vices developed that once brought the terrible wrath of God upon the Sodom Pentacity. Internal anarchy and general arbitrariness complete the picture of the life of the Israeli people “in those days when they had no king and when everyone did what seemed fair to him.” In support of all this, the book of “Judges,” which sets out the history of the time of the judges before the death of Samson, concludes with several striking cases and events that clearly characterize the religious, moral and social-state state of the people at that time. In the tribe of Ephraim lived a certain Micah, who stole one thousand and one hundred shekels of silver from his mother. The mother cursed a thief unknown to her, but the son, frightened by the curse, confessed his guilt, returned the money, and the superstitious mother used this money to merge the idol and the idol, which were placed in the house, which, as a result, became, as it were, “the house of God.” To complete the semblance of the sanctuary, Micah made an ephod and teraphim and voluntarily ordained one of his sons as a priest. But seeing the illegality of his act, he soon took advantage of one idle young Levite from Bethlehem in Judea for this purpose and hired him to serve himself as a priest for an annual salary of ten shekels of silver with ready-made clothing and food. But here the sons of Dan happened to pass through in search of new possessions for themselves. Having once entered the house of Micah, they stole his shrines and lured a young Levite to them, and then, having conquered the city of Laish, which they renamed Dan, they made their own special sanctuary out of the image of Micah, which they worshiped throughout the time when the true shrine of the people, the “House of God,” was in Shiloh. Another incident reveals even more clearly the terrible moral and social disorder of the Israeli people during the period of the government of the judges. One Levite, who was traveling to Bethlehem for his concubine who had run away from him, returning home, on the way he stopped with her for the night in the city of Gibeah, in the tribe of Benjamin. But when he, having found shelter in the house of an old man, enjoyed his hospitable treats, the depraved inhabitants of the city attacked this house and demanded the Levite wanderer himself to satisfy their vile lusts. The elder stood up for his guest. “Here I have a daughter, a maiden, and he has a concubine,” he said to the depraved crowd: “I will bring them out, humble them, and do with them what you please; But don’t do this crazy thing to this person. But they didn't want to listen to him." However, the Levite actually took his hostage out into the street and the dirty mob “cursed at her all night until the morning,” and in the morning she was found dead at the threshold of the house. Then the Levite cut the corpse of the unfortunate woman into twelve pieces and sent them to all the tribes with the news of the atrocity that had happened. And “everyone who saw it said: nothing like this has happened or been seen since the day the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt until this day.” Terrible indignation spread throughout the land and warriors began to gather from everywhere to punish the vile villains. Gathering in the city of Mizpah, they demanded that the tribe of Benjamin hand over the criminals in order to put them to death and thus “eradicate evil from Israel.” But the Benjamites refused this, and then civil war became inevitable. Twice the Israelites failed in a clash with the army of the tribe of Benjamin, but then, through military cunning, they captured the city of Gibeah, destroyed the criminal city to the ground, destroying all the neighboring cities with all their population and wealth. 50,100 of the sons of Benjamin fell in the battle, and only 600 people remained, fleeing to the deserted Mount Rimmon, where they remained for four months. Meanwhile, when the feeling of vengeance was satisfied and the ardor of indignation cooled down in the Israelis, they involuntarily were horrified by everything that had happened and, having gathered in the House of God, began to cry bitterly: “O Lord God of Israel! Why did this happen in Israel, that now Israel has no one tribe!” Burnt offerings were made as a sign of reconciliation, and it was decided to take care of the restoration of the destroyed tribe. But in their anger they swore not to give their daughters in marriage to the criminal tribe. To get out of the difficulty, they took advantage of the infidelity of the inhabitants of the city of Jabesh-Gilead, who refused to take part in the nationwide task of punishing the guilty, and as punishment for this they destroyed all of them except four hundred maidens, whom they gave in marriage to the surviving Benjamites. The remaining two hundred people had to get wives for themselves by kidnapping the maidens of Shiloh during festive round dances in the vineyards, as they did with the consent of the elders of Israel. Then, having calmed down for the fate of the twelfth tribe, the Israelites went home, each to his own inheritance. “Israel had no king then,” the narrator concludes this sad story; everyone did what seemed fair to him.” No matter how dark this era was in the history of the Israeli people, there are also bright sides in it, showing that the light of true religion and virtue still shone in this terrifying moral darkness, although its rays, to the shame of the Israelites themselves, sometimes came from the hated Canaanites. The story of one woman, who later acquired enormous significance for the history of the people and all of humanity, dates back to this exact time, towards the end of the period of the judges. This is exactly the story of Ruth. During the reign of the judges, one day there was a famine in the land of Israel, and one family, consisting of four persons - Elimelech with his wife Naomi and two sons Mahlon and Chileon, moved to the land of Moab for food. There their sons married Moabite women Orpah and Ruth. About ten years later, however, Elimelech and both of his sons died, and Naomi was left alone with her two daughters-in-law. Hearing that fruitful years had come in the land of Israel, she decided to return to her native land and began to say goodbye to her daughters-in-law. But they both declared their determination to go with her. As a result of her admonitions, Orpah, however, agreed to leave her, but Ruth did not want to part with her under any circumstances and resolutely declared that she wanted to fully share her fate: “Where you live,” she told Naomi, “there I will live; Your people will be my people, and your God my God; Death alone will separate me from you.” Then they went together to the land of Israel and came to Bethlehem just at the time of the barley harvest. To feed herself and her mother-in-law, Ruth went to gather the ears of corn left by the reapers in the harvest field, as was allowed to the poor inhabitants under the Law of Moses. The field where she had to gather ears turned out to belong to the rich and noble man Boaz, a relative of her late father-in-law Elimelech. Boaz, seeing her in the field and learning who she was, ordered his servants to show her every attention, fed her together at the same table with him and gave her permission to gather ears of corn even between the sheaves, where there were of course more of them, so she gathered and threshed about an ephah of barley, which she brought home along with the leftovers of food captured after dinner - for her mother-in-law. Naomi, delighted by all this and seeing God’s special intention here, explained to Ruth that she had the right to marry Boaz, since he was her husband’s closest relative and, by law, must restore the seed of her deceased childless husband. When she actually declared this (in accordance with the custom of that time) to Boaz, he blessed her in the name of Jehovah, praised her virtuous life and fidelity to the one whom the law made her lawful husband, and promised her to fulfill everything according to the law. And he kept his word. The next morning, he convened the elders of the city and declared before them that he, as a relative of Ruth’s late husband, intended to fulfill the law of celibacy in relation to her, if only this right would be granted to him by a relative of the late son Elimelech who was even closer than himself in the city. This relative actually ceded his right to him, expressing this by publicly removing his boot and handing it over to Boaz, as required by custom, and Boaz truly became the legal husband of Ruth the Moabite. The marriage was approved by the elders of the city who, having blessed it, wished the newlyweds family happiness and prosperity. This marriage was blessed by God. Boaz and Ruth had a son, Obed, who was later the father of Jesse, the father of King David. And thus this pious Moabite woman, who discovered a faith rare in Israel, and whose husband was a descendant of Rahab, the believing harlot of Jericho, became one of the ancestors of Christ “the son of David.” - The story of Ruth is the subject of a separate book in St. The Scriptures of the Old Testament, namely the “book of Ruth.” The story of Ruth represents a bright ray of true virtue and legality amid the darkness of prevailing corruption and lawlessness, and this darkness, as a result, becomes even darker. The religious, moral and social state of the people of Israel had already reached a sad decline during the judgment of Samson; but after it, an event soon happened that threatened the final death of the people, although, at the same time, it also served as the salutary beginning of a religious-moral and state-social revival. XXIX. Eli – high priest and judge 140 After Samson's death, the position of the people of Israel remained the same. All his heroic deeds were not able to overthrow the heavy yoke of the Philistines and only irritated them even more against the Israelites. But they had great moral significance, awakening the fallen spirit of the people, who finally began to increasingly come to the conviction that their misfortunes would not end until they themselves were reborn spiritually and overthrew, first of all, the yoke of unbelief and internal division that weighed on them. And so, a step towards this internal revival was that after the death of Samson, the position of judge was given to the person who, by his position, more than any other could contribute to the spiritual uplift and unification of the people, namely the high priest Eli. The very appearance of a high priest at the head of the people (about whom history is completely silent during the troubled period of the former judges) indicates the awakening of the religious spirit among the people, and the combination in his person and the position of a civil ruler or judge clearly indicates that the people of Israel finally realized that their main strength was in religion and precisely in faith in the true God, and by combining the position of a judge with the position of the supreme servant of religion they wanted to show their loyalty to the Supreme King of Israel. Only one religion with its shrine could unite the people among themselves into one integral state, capable of finally throwing off the yoke of idolaters. The high priest-judge lived, of course, at the tabernacle, which since the time of Joshua had always been in Shiloh, a place located about thirty miles north of Jerusalem. Lying on an elevated valley, closed on all sides by mountains covered with gardens and vineyards, Shiloh, due to its central position in the country, was the most convenient place for a national shrine. But general depravity also affected this shrine. The people gathered in masses for sacrifices in the tabernacle and for celebrating holidays, but many customs were already mixed in, borrowed from the surrounding idolaters, and religious festivals were often accompanied by the same dancing and the same public revelry and debauchery, as was the case around pagan temples and temples. In order to cleanse religious life of this impure impurity, a strong character was needed, and, unfortunately, Eli did not possess it. His very high priesthood did not have sufficient justification, since he was descended not from Aaron’s eldest son Eleazar, but from his last son Ithamar. But at the same time he was weak by his very nature. True, we see him already in old age, and his reign, as far as can be judged in general, was distinguished by dignity and meekness, which established some external order in the life of the people. But he did not have the firmness that was required from the ruler of such a dissolute people, and when the infirmities of old age were added to the weakness of his character, he turned out to be so weak that he was not even able to curb the extreme self-will and terrible sacrilege of his own adult sons Hophni and Phinehas, who with their impudent and shameful behavior not only set a bad example for the people, but also alienated them from the tabernacle. Thus, they impudently took away the meat brought for sacrifices, and even seduced the women who gathered at the tabernacle. The elderly high priest grieved over this behavior of his sons and even reprimanded them, “but they did not listen to the voice of their father, for the Lord had already decided to put them to death” 141. But when in this way the judgment of God was being prepared over the house of the elderly high priest, one youth arose at the tabernacle, to whom the Providence of God determined to transfer leadership of the destinies of the people. This is precisely Samuel, the son of Elkanah and Hannah, from Armathem, in the tribe of Ephraim 142. For the pious Anna (who represents gratifying proof that true faith and ardent piety have not yet completely died out among the people) he was a blessed fruit, requested from God by a tearful prayer for the disgrace of childlessness to be averted from her, and in gratitude to God he was dedicated to service at the tabernacle as a Nazirite. By his life and behavior, he fully justified the vow of his pious mother and, in zealous service to God, “more and more came into age and favor with the Lord and people,” not in the least succumbing to the corrupting influence and example of the wicked sons of Eli. And this piety soon made him worthy of the terrible revelation of God. One night he heard a voice calling him by name. Thinking that it was the high priest calling him, he stood up and approached him, awaiting orders. But the high priest was surprised at this, since he had not called him, and when the same thing was repeated again, he realized that it was the voice of God, and ordered Samuel to prepare to listen to the divine revelation. And indeed, for the third time, the Lord, calling the youth to the high position of His prophet, told Samuel a terrible revelation about God’s judgment over the house of Eli and, in general, about the upcoming commission of such “a deed in Israel, which whoever hears about it will ring in both his ears.” Samuel was at first afraid to tell Eli about this, but when he insisted, he told him a terrible secret, and the elderly high priest met it with complete trust in the will of God, saying only: “He is the Lord; whatever He pleases, let Him do.” The prediction was soon fulfilled in all its terrible accuracy 143. The Philistines, after several years of comparative peace for the Israelites, noticing among them a movement towards unification, decided to make a formidable invasion in order to radically cut off the strength of this people. But the latter had already become strong enough to enter into an open fight with his enemy. The hostile troops met at Aphek, in the northern part of the tribe of Judah. A battle took place in which the Israelis were defeated, losing about 4,000 people. No longer hoping to hold out against the enemy on their own, the Israelites resorted to God’s help and sent to Shiloh for the Ark of the Covenant, with which the wicked sons of the high priest, Hophni and Phinehas, arrived in the army. The appearance of the people's shrine immediately raised the spirits of the Israeli army, from whose joyful rejoicing “the earth groaned,” and led to confusion and fear of the Philistines, in whose camp sad exclamations were heard: “Woe to us!” who will deliver us from the hand of this mighty God? This is the God who struck the Egyptians with all sorts of plagues in the desert,” as terrible, but not entirely clear rumors reached them. But despondency did not take away their courage, and in the ensuing battle they inflicted such a defeat on the Israelites that the latter fled in disorder, losing thirty thousand killed. But the most terrible thing was that the most sacred thing of the people, the ark of the covenant, was taken captive, and both sons of the high priest were killed in its defense. The aged high priest “sat on a seat by the road by the gate and looked; for his heart trembled for the ark of God.” But then one messenger from the battlefield ran into the city with terrible news, and “the whole city groaned loudly.” The ninety-eight-year-old high priest asked him in alarm: “What happened, my son?” “And the messenger answered and said, Israel fled before the Philistines, and a great slaughter took place among the people, and both your sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died, and the ark was taken.” The elder could not bear the last news. As soon as the messenger mentioned the ark, “Eli fell from his seat on his back at the gate; broke his back and died; for he was old and heavy.” The wife of the murdered Phinehas went into premature labor due to the terrible news; when the women around her wanted to console her with the joyful news of the birth of her son, she was inconsolable and, dying, cried out not about her dead husband, but about the fact that “the glory has departed from Israel: for the ark of God is taken,” in sad memory of which she gave her son the name Ichabod, i.e. Ignominy. And indeed, this terrible disaster threatened not only disgrace, but also complete destruction of the people. God Himself had now abandoned him; with the Ark of the Covenant not only his glory departed from him, but also his political existence, which was to be followed by slavery and complete destruction from his triumphant enemies. But God’s mercy is limitless, and even this terrible disaster was only a new lesson to the unfaithful people and new proof of the truth and omnipotence of the one God of Israel. Amidst the cries, the Israelites soon heard the amazing news that the Philistines, after seven months, were returning the Ark of the Covenant back to the people of Israel with extraordinary reverence. After taking him prisoner, the Philistines triumphantly took him to their city of Azoth and placed him in the church of their god Dagon as a victory trophy. But the next morning it turned out that “Dagon was lying with his face to the ground before the ark of the covenant.” The Philistines again put him in his place; but when the priests opened the doors of the church again the next morning, they were presented with an even more terrible sight: their god was not only overthrown from his place, but his very members seemed to have been cut off from the monstrous human-fish-like body and were lying on the floor of the church. At the same time, the inhabitants of the city were struck by a terrible disease (growths on the body), and mice multiplied within the country, eating bread and increasing misery and despair. Then the Azotians decided to transfer the ark of the covenant to another city of Gath, and from there to Askelon, but the same disasters were repeated everywhere where the ark of the covenant appeared. Overwhelmed by horror, the Philistines finally, on the advice of their soothsayers, decided to return him back to the Israelites and, placing him on a chariot along with golden images of the disasters that befell them, sent him on two first-bred cows to the land of Israel, driving them alone beyond the borders of their land. The chariot came to the field of a certain Jesus the Bethshemite and stopped there. At this time, the wheat harvest was taking place in the field and, seeing their shrine, the people rejoiced with joy, the Levites took down the ark of the covenant, and the cows that brought it were immediately sacrificed as burnt offerings. But among the inhabitants of Bethshemesh and the masses of people gathered from everywhere, curiosity was stronger than reverence, and they, contrary to the strict prohibition of the law, “looked into the ark of the Lord,” and for this fifty thousand and seventy people were slain among the people. Then the ark was transferred to the city of Kiriathyarim, where it remained all the time until David transferred it to Jerusalem, and thus the tabernacle, which remained in Shiloh, disgraced by the wicked life of the sons of the high priest, was temporarily deprived of its main shrine, as the main sign of the presence of the Divine. XXX. Samuel – prophet and judge 144. Schools of the Prophets. Education. Chronology After the terrible event - the captivity of the Ark of the Covenant, at least twenty more years passed, during which the rule of the Philistines continued. But the lesson of these sad years did not remain lost for Samuel, who, although after the death of Eli was not immediately called to the position of people's judge, he already enjoyed wide fame and great influence among the people. With his insightful mind, he discovered the very source of the misfortunes of his people and decided to carry out a religious and social transformation. He devoted himself entirely to the cause of raising the religious spirit among the people, and, being a universally recognized prophet and teacher, in his long mantle assigned to this ministry, he constantly wandered through the inheritances of the tribes and everywhere aroused zeal for the faith of the fathers. With a fiery speech, he exhorted the people to reject all foreign gods, all these Baals and Astartes, who captivated the fickle people with the dirty delights of idolatry, bringing, at the same time, all kinds of disasters. And the people, under the pressure of the difficult trials they had experienced, did not remain deaf to his preaching. A religious and moral revival began. The statues of Baal and Ashtoreth were thrown down and broken everywhere, and the worship of Jehovah alone was established. To consolidate this good mood with an external act, Samuel called the people from all tribes to a solemn meeting in Mizpah, a mountain city in the tribe of Benjamin, where the public repentance of the people and the renewal of the covenant with God were to take place. It has been a long time since the Israeli people had such solemn gatherings. The whole people fasted, repenting of their previous sins, and then, as it were, they again accepted the faith of their fathers that they had forgotten. Samuel prayed fervently for the repentant people, and the meeting ended with a solemn sacrifice. Rumors of this extraordinary meeting, meanwhile, reached the Philistines, and they, supposing that the Israelites intended to rebel against their oppressors, marched against them with a strong army; but the Lord was now with His chosen people, and with a strong thunder brought such terror upon the Philistines that they fled, and the Israelites pursued them, finally overthrowing their long and difficult yoke and returning the cities that had been taken from them by the Philistines. In memory of this, Samuel erected a monument, calling it “the stone of help.” From that time on, Samuel became a completely popular judge, and under his rule the country enjoyed peace and prosperity. He lived in his hometown of Ramah, which became the center of the state life of the people, and from here he annually toured Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpeh and other cities, everywhere holding the office of people's judge. Since the time of Moses, no ruler has enjoyed such enormous influence over the people as Samuel. Being at the same time a Levite, a Nazirite, a prophet and a judge, he concentrated in his personality both spiritual and civil power among the people, and as an ardent zealot for the faith of the fathers, he decided to use this influence for the good of the people, and not only in the present, but also in the future. For this purpose, he himself, being a prophet and teacher of the faith, came to the idea of ​​founding an institution that could forever serve as a source of teaching and enlightenment and from which enlightened zealots of the faith could emerge. Such an institution appeared in the form of prophetic schools or “hosts of prophets.” Prophets, as special heralds of the will of God, appeared before Samuel, but they did not yet bear the high title of “prophets,” but were simply called “seers,” “men of God.” Only Samuel began to be called in the proper sense a prophet (nabi), and after him all those who followed him. Even earlier, during the time of the judges, when the religious and moral decline of the people had reached its greatest extent, people of God appeared in places to awaken the conscience of the people, stir up the spirit in them and reproach them for wickedness. But by the time of Samuel, many such zealots had already appeared, and it was from them that Samuel founded the correct “hosts of prophets,” which formed something like religious brotherhoods or schools. Although in St. Scripture tells us very little about the external and internal life of these brotherhoods, but it is still possible to get some idea about them. Those who belonged to them were called “sons” or “disciples,” and their head was called “father.” Most of them were young people - a sign that the younger generation, as the most sensitive to good moral influences, most likely responded to Samuel's call. They lived in communities, enjoyed communal support, ate together, wore a special robe with a leather belt that distinguished them, walked in whole hosts or crowds and were so numerous, at least in later times, that there are references to cases when the prophets gathered in groups of a hundred or more people (1 Kings 18:4; 22:6). The main schools were in Samuel's hometown of Ramah, then in Bethel and Gilgal; but smaller schools were also located in other cities. Individual communities were under the supervision and care of the senior and most famous prophets, to whom the “sons” or “disciples” showed due obedience and respect, and some of the community members even served them when the senior prophet-teachers had to be on the side. The elder prophets or teachers, in turn, took care of the welfare of their “sons”, and there are cases such as. The prophet Elisha once fed at least a hundred disciples during a famine and, after the death of one of them, gave his widow the opportunity to pay the debts he had left (2 Kings 4). The sources of support for the brotherhoods were, at least in some cases, ordinary labor in agriculture and cattle breeding, as well as crafts in general, for which someone was accustomed and capable; but, at the same time, they also accepted those offerings that were given to them by strangers who sought edification, consolation and enlightenment from them. Admission to the brotherhood, apparently, was free: everyone was accepted who, in their life, was more or less capable of doing the work that was the task of these brotherhoods. – The main purpose of their founding was to promote the ongoing movement towards the restoration of the true faith and the revival of the religious and moral life of the people. In accordance with this goal, the main subject of study in prophetic schools was the Law of God, and not only in its letter, but also in spirit. At the same time, they studied religious rituals and sacred music. The latter was one of the distinctive features of the hosts, the prophecy of which was accompanied by “psalms and tympanum, pipes and harp,” which was especially capable of attracting people. Community life under the beneficial religious and moral influence of the elder prophets was capable of strengthening the characters of the “sons” of the prophets, and from them emerged those valiant men who fearlessly spoke the bitter truth to the powers that be. Inspired by selfless zeal for the true good of the people, they were fearless champions of the true religion and acted as decisive defenders of it in any danger that threatened it. Their activities developed and strengthened as the historical life of the people progressed, and over time they became formidable avengers for any violation of religion, truth and justice. From that time on, with their tireless preaching, they never ceased to awaken the conscience of the people and their rulers, and thereby supported in them the spirit of true religion and good morality. Samuel's wise reign continued until his old age, when he, feeling the heavy burden of years, called on his sons Joel and Abijah to help him manage the people, who became assistants to the judge-father in the analysis of ordinary court cases 145. But with what grief the great elder judge was struck when rumors soon reached him that his sons “deviated into self-interest, took gifts and judged incorrectly.” In view of Samuel's strict character, it is obvious that this behavior of his sons was not the result of his fatherly weakness towards children, as was the case with the high priest Eli. On the contrary, it was a victim of his selfless social activities, which completely absorbed his strength and attention and deprived him of the opportunity to properly raise his children. And this circumstance served as a direct reason for an important revolution in the history of the Israeli people. The time of the judges was a time of anarchy and the disasters associated with it, since due to the lack of firm power, the people lost political power and constantly suffered defeats from neighboring peoples who had strong royal power at their head. Seeing now that even the sons of such a pious and wise ruler and judge as Samuel were incapable of ruling the people, the Israelites gathered for a meeting, and the elders decided to ask Samuel to install a king over them who would “judge them like other nations.” This desire of the people was not illegal, but was provided for in the legislation. The wise legislator of the people Moses, foreseeing with his prophetic glance the future fate of the historical life of his people, gave in advance a law that determined the circle of royal power. “When you come to the land, he said, which the Lord your God will give you, and you take possession of it and settle in it, and you say: I will set a king over me, like the other nations that are around me; then set over you a king whom the Lord your God will choose” (Deut. 22:15). But the elderly judge reacted unfavorably to this request, and not only for the sake of his unworthy sons, but mainly because the desire of the people was expressed without first asking the will of God. At the inspiration of God, Samuel laid out before the people the dangers of extreme despotism, oppression and self-will of kings. But the people, tired of anarchy, were ready to endure all these dangers, just to have firm power, and answered Samuel: “No, let the king be over us: and we will be like other nations: our king will judge us, and walk before us, and fight our wars.” Then the Lord commanded Samuel to satisfy the desire of the people and install a king over them. The desire to have a king was caused in the people of Israel by the final consciousness of their inability to self-govern according to those lofty principles of government that were set out in the legislation of Moses. During the time of the judges, the entire life of the people, both religious and moral, and state-social and family, came into disarray. Although worship continued to be performed mainly at the tabernacle, sacrifices were also made in other places, which easily led to the development of superstition and directly to deviation into idolatry. In the absence of a firm authority to monitor the implementation of the laws, morality, to the great regret of some pious people, fell further and further. The self-will and predation that prevailed everywhere increasingly weakened the strength of the people, which was taken advantage of by the Canaanites, who plundered the kingdom of Jehovah with impunity. This condition was all the more difficult because during this time the enlightenment of the Israelis had advanced significantly. In the person of the prophets, worthy teachers appeared who, teaching the people the law of God, awakened in their consciousness its highest purpose, and showing how far reality did not correspond to it, kindled patriotism in them and forced them to seek an outcome from a disastrous situation, which outcome seemed to them only in the establishment of firm royal power. Two books serve as a monument to the writing of this time: “Joshua” and the book of “Judges of Israel”. The first twenty-four chapters describe the history of the conquest and division of the Promised Land. It was written by Joshua himself (except for verses 29–36 of the last chapter) and constituted a historical document in which the boundaries of the inheritance of each tribe were precisely marked and which, therefore, could be referred to in litigation over land ownership. The “Book of Judges” consists of twenty-one chapters and it records the events that followed the death of Joshua, and covers the entire period of the reign of the judges until the birth of Samuel, who was its author. In I. Nav. 10 tbsp. a special “book of the righteous” is also mentioned, which, in all likelihood, was a collection of religious, moral and patriotic songs of the Israeli people; but it has not survived to us. An example of these songs is the famous victory song of Deborah (Judges 5:2–31). With regard to chronology, the fifth period is extremely vague, especially due to the beginningless time of the judges. But there is reason to think that it lasted at least 350 years. The basis for this figure is the indication that the Temple of Solomon began to be built in 480 after the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt (1 Kings 6:1). If from this figure we exclude 40 years of wandering in the desert, 80 years of the reign of kings Saul (together with Samuel) and David, and 3 years of the reign of Solomon before the founding of the church, then the remainder will serve as an approximate determination of the time from the death of Moses to the anointing of the first king. Of these, Favor has 1,865 feet. heights, Carmel - 1,720 f., Gerizim 2,650 f., Ebal - 2,700, Zion - 2,610, Olivet - 2,700 f. above sea level. Pointing to this, Moses in his blessing to the tribe of Asher said that it would “dip its foot in oil” (Deut. 33:24). Book I. Navina, ch. 1 et seq. Capture of Jericho, Nav. 5:13–6:26. Defeat at Gai, Nav. 7. The trick of the Gibeonites, Nav. 9 . The fight against the alliance of the Canaanite kings, Nav. 10–12 . See appendix. IX at the end of the book. Division of land, Nav. 13–21. The death of I. Navin, ch. 24. General condition of the people at this time: Judgment. 1–3:7. See in our Bible. Stories in the light of the new. research." vol. I, pp. 893 et ​​seq. See also I. Troitsky, “The religious and moral state of the Jews during the time of the judges.” Husarsafem was the king of “Aram of the two rivers”, i.e. Mesopotamia. Since Balaam was also called from Aram to curse the Israelites, this king was probably an ally of Israel’s constant enemies - the Moabites and Midianites. Court, 3ff. The Canaanite Yoke and the Rule of Deborah, Judgment. 4 and 5 ch. The name Barak or Barak is of Canaanite origin, and it is remarkable that the famous Carthaginian surname Barca, from which came the brilliant commander Hannibal, bore the same name. Gideon, Judgment. 6–9; Jephthah, Judgment. 10 ch. Imposture of Abimelech, Judgment. 9 . The story of Jephthah, Judgment. 11–12:7. For the laws of the Nazirites, see Num. 6:1–21. Birth and education of Samuel, 1 Sam. 1 et seq. God's judgment on the house of Elijah, 1 Sam. 4–7:2. The reign of the sons of Samuel and the question of choosing a king, 1 Sam. 8:1–22. You might be interested in: