King James Version · The judges
Judges 11
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Now the Gileadite was a , and he was the son of an : and begat . And ’s wife him sons; and his wife’s sons grew up, and they thrust out , and said unto him, Thou shalt not in ’s house; for thou art the son of a strange woman. Then fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of : and there were gathered men to , and went out with him. And it came to pass in process of time, that made war against Israel. And it was so, that when made war against Israel, the of went to fetch out of the land of : 6And they said unto , Come, and be our captain, that we may fight with . And said unto the of , Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of ’s house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress? And the of said unto , Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight against , and be our head over all the inhabitants of . And said unto the of , If ye bring me home again to fight against , and them before me, shall I be your head? And the of said unto , be between us, if we do not so according to thy words. Then went with the of , and the people made him head and captain over them: and uttered all his words before in . And sent unto the king of , saying, What hast thou to do with me, that thou art come against me to fight in my land? And the king of answered unto the of , Because Israel took away my land, when they came up out of , from even unto , and unto Jordan: now therefore restore those lands again peaceably. And sent again unto the king of : And said unto him, Thus saith , Israel took not away the land of , nor the land of : But when Israel came up from , and walked through unto , and came to ; Then Israel sent unto the king of , saying, Let me, I thee, pass through thy land: but the king of would not thereto. And in like manner they sent unto the king of : but he would not consent: and Israel abode in . Then they went along through , and compassed the land of , and the land of , and came by the east side of the land of , and pitched on the other side of , but came not within the border of : for was the border of . And Israel sent unto king of the , the king of ; and Israel said unto him, Let us pass, we thee, through thy land into my place. But trusted not Israel to pass through his coast: but gathered all his people together, and pitched in , and fought against Israel. 21And of Israel and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they smote them: so Israel all the land of the , the inhabitants of that country. And they all the coasts of the , from even unto , and from even unto Jordan. 23So now of Israel hath dispossessed the from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it? Wilt not thou possess that which thy giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever our shall drive out from before us, them will we possess. And now art thou any thing better than the son of , king of ? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them, While Israel dwelt in and her towns, and in and her towns, and in all the cities that be along by the coasts of , three hundred years? why therefore did ye not recover them within that time? Wherefore I have not against thee, but thou doest me wrong to war against me: the Judge be judge this day between the and . Howbeit the king of hearkened not unto the words of which he sent him. Then of came upon , and he passed over , and , and passed over of , and from of he passed over unto . And a unto , and said, If thou shalt without fail into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from , shall surely be ’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. So passed over unto to fight against them; and them into his hands. And he smote them from , even till thou come to , even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus were subdued before the . And came to unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my unto , and I cannot go back. And she said unto him, , if thou hast opened thy unto , do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy ; forasmuch as hath taken for thee of thine , even of . And she said unto her , Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. 38And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her , who did with her according to his which he had : and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel, 40That the daughters of Israel went yearly to the daughter of the Gileadite four days in a year.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The judges, 1200 BC to 1050 BC ›
No central government and no standing army. The great empires are weak, which is precisely why Israel's troubles come from close neighbors: Moab, Ammon, Midian, and the newly arrived Philistines on the coast.
- Egypt
- Broken into competing power centres and no longer able to project force into Canaan. Its withdrawal is the single biggest reason this period has no imperial overlord.
- Mesopotamia
- Assyria exists but is dormant, hemmed in and looking east. The century that would have crushed a stateless Israel simply has not arrived yet.
- The coast
- The Philistines settle their five cities after arriving from the Aegean world, bringing Mycenaean-style pottery, a taste for pork, and an early advantage in ironworking. Further north the Phoenician ports of Tyre and Sidon start the trading expansion that will eventually give the alphabet to Greece.
- Further afield
- Greece has entered its dark age: the palaces are gone, Linear B is forgotten, and writing disappears from the Aegean for three centuries. In China the Zhou dynasty replaces the Shang in 1046 BC and issues the doctrine that heaven withdraws its mandate from unjust kings, an idea with an interesting resemblance to the book of Judges.