King James Version · The judges
Judges 4
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And the again did evil in the sight of , when was . And sold them into the hand of king of , that reigned in ; the captain of whose host was , which dwelt in Harosheth of the . And the cried unto : for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the . And , a , the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time. And she dwelt under the palm tree of between and Beth–el in mount : and the came up to her for . And she sent and called the son of Abinoam out of –naphtali, and said unto him, Hath not of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward mount , and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of and of the children of ? And I will draw unto thee to the river , the captain of ’s army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will him into thine hand. And said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go. And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine ; for shall sell into the hand of a woman. And arose, and went with to . And called and to ; and he went up with ten thousand men at his feet: and went up with him. Now the , which was of the children of Hobab in , had severed himself from the , and pitched his tent unto the plain of Zaanaim, which is by . And they shewed that the son of Abinoam was gone up to mount . And gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people that were with him, from Harosheth of the unto the river of . And said unto , Up; for this is the day in which hath into thine hand: is not gone out before thee? So went down from mount , and ten thousand men after him. And discomfited , and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of before ; so that lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet. But pursued after the chariots, and after the host, unto Harosheth of the : and of fell upon the edge of ; and there was not a man left. Howbeit fled away on his feet to the tent of the wife of the : for there was peace between the king of and the house of the . And went out to meet , and said unto him, Turn in, my , turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle. And he said unto her, Give me, I thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him. Again he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and enquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, No. Then ’s wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was asleep and weary. So he . And, behold, as pursued , came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, lay , and the nail was in his temples. So subdued on that day the king of before the . And the hand of the prospered, and prevailed against the king of , until they had destroyed king of .
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.