World English Bible · The judges
Judges 18
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In those days there was no king in Israel. In those days the tribe of the sought an to in; for to that day, their had not fallen to them among the tribes of Israel. The children of Dan sent five men of their family from their whole number, men of valor, from and from , to spy out the land and to search it. They said to them, "Go, explore the land!" They came to the hill country of , to the house of , and lodged there. When they were by the house of , they knew the voice of the young man the ; so they went over there and said to him, "Who brought you here? What do you do in this place? What do you have here?" He said to them, "Thus and thus has dealt with me, and he has hired me, and I have become his priest." They said to him, "Please ask of , that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous." The priest said to them, "Go in peace. Your way in which you go is before ." Then the five men departed and came to and saw the people who were there, how they lived in safety, in of the , quiet and secure; for there was no one in the land possessing , that might put them to in anything, and they were far from the , and had no dealings with anyone else. They came to their brothers at and ; and their brothers asked them, "What do you say?" They said, "Arise, and let's go up against them; for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good. Do you stand still? Don't be slothful to go and to enter in to possess the land. When you go, you will come to an unsuspecting people, and the land is large; for has given it into your hand, a place where there is no lack of anything that is in the earth." The family of the set out from and with six hundred men armed with weapons of war. They went up and encamped in in Judah. Therefore they call that place Mahaneh Dan to this day. Behold, it is behind . They passed from there to the hill country of , and came to the house of . Then the five men who went to spy out the country of answered and said to their brothers, "Do you know that there is in these houses an , and teraphim, and a , and a molten ? Now therefore consider what you have to do." They went over there and came to the house of the young man, even to the house of , and asked him how he was doing. The six hundred men armed with their weapons of war, who were of the children of Dan, stood by the entrance of the . The five men who went to spy out the land went up, and came in there, and took the engraved , the , the teraphim, and the molten ; and the priest stood by the entrance of the with the six hundred men armed with weapons of war. 18When these went into house, and took the engraved , the , the teraphim, and the molten , the priest said to them, "What are you doing?" They said to him, "Hold your peace, put your hand on your , and go with us. Be a and a priest to us. Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and a family in Israel?" The priest's was glad, and he took the , the teraphim, and the engraved , and went with the people. 21So they turned and departed, and put the little ones, the livestock, and the goods before them. 22When they were a good way from the house of , the men who were in the houses near house gathered together and overtook the children of Dan. As they called to the children of Dan, they turned their faces, and said to , "What ails you, that you come with such a company?" He said, "You have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and have gone away! What more do I have? How can you ask me, 'What ails you?'" The children of Dan said to him, "Don't let your voice be heard among us, lest angry fellows fall on you, and you lose your life, with the lives of your household." 26The children of Dan went their way; and when saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back to his house. They took that which had made, and the priest whom he had, and came to , to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of ; then they burned the city with . There was no deliverer, because it was far from , and they had no dealings with anyone else; and it was in the valley that lies by Beth . They built the city and lived in it. They called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their , who was born to Israel; however the name of the city used to be . The children of Dan set up for themselves the engraved ; and Jonathan, the son of , the son of , and his sons were priests to the tribe of the until the day of of the land. So they set up for themselves engraved which he made, and it remained all the time that house was in .
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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.