upon their borderers; Jabes Gilead being one of the nearest. Besides, it may further be conjectured that the Ammonites were emboldened against Jabes Gilead, in respect of their weakness, since the Israelites destroyed a great part of them, for not joining with them against the Benjamites; at which time they did not only slaughter the men and male children, but took from them their young women, and gave them to the Benjamites; and therefore they were not likely to have been increased to any great numbers: and if they had recovered themselves of this great calamity, yet the Ammonite might flatter himself with the opinion, that Israel, having for long time been disarmed by the Philistines, was not apt to succour those whom they had so deeply wounded and destroyed. But contrary wise when the tidings came to Saul of their danger, and that the Ammonites would give them no other condition to ransom themselves, but by pulling out their right eyes, by which they should be utterly disabled for the war, as elsewhere hath been spoken; Saul, both to value himself in his first year's reign, and because perchance he was descended of one of those 400 maids taken from the Gileadites and given to the Benjamites, gave order to assemble the forces of Israel; hewing a yoke of oxen into pieces, and sending them by messengers over all the coasts, protesting thus, That whosoever came not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so should his oxen be served; threatening the people by their goods, and not by their lives at the first. Seven days had Saul to assemble an army, by reason that the Gileadites had obtained the respite of these seven days to give Nahas the Ammonite an answer; who, could they have obtained any reasonable condition, they were contented to have severed themselves from Israel, and to become vassals and tributaries to the heathen. In the mean while Saul assembled the forces which repaired unto him at Bezec, near Jordan, that he might readily pass the river; which done, he might in one day with a speedy march arrive at Jabes, under the hills of Gilead.

The army by Saul led, consisting of 330,000: he returned an answer to those of Jabes, that they should assure themselves of succour by the next day at noon. For as it seemeth Saul marched away in the latter part of the day, and went on all night; for in the morning-watch he surprised the army of Nahas the Ammonite. And to the end that he might set on them on all sides, he divided his force in three parts, putting them to the sword, until the heat of the day, and the weariness of Saul's troops, enforced them to give over the pursuit. Now the Ammonites were become the more careless and secure, in that those of Jabes promised the next morning to render themselves and their city to their mercy. After this happy success, the people were so far in love with their new king, that they would have slain all those Israelites that murmured against his election, had not himself forbidden and resisted their resolutions. Such is the condition of worldly men, as they are violent lovers of the prosperous, and base vassals of the time that flourisheth; and as despiteful and cruel without cause against those whom any misadventure or other worldly accident hath thrown down.

After the army removed, PSamuel summoned the people to meet at Gilgal, where Saul was now a third time acknowledged, and, as some commenters affirm, anointed king: and here Samuel used an exhortation to all the assembly, containing precepts, and a rehearsal of his own justice during the beginning of his government to that day. After Saul had now reigned one year before he was established in Gilgal, or Galgala, he strengthened himself with a good guard of 3000 chosen men, of which he assigned 1000 to attend on Jonathan his son at Gibeah, the city of his nativity; the rest he kept about his own person in Micmas, and in the hill of Bethel.

1 Sam. xi. 8.

PI Sam. xi.

91 Sam. xii.

SECT. IV.

Of Saul's disobedience in his proceedings in the wars with the Philistines and Amalekites, which caused his final rejection. JONATHAN, with his small army or regiment that attended him, taking a time of advantage, surprised a garrison of Philistines; the same, as some think, which Saul passed by, when he came from Rama, where he was first anointed by Samuel, which they think to have been Cariath-jearim; because a place where the Philistines had a garrison, 1 Sam. x. is called the hill of God, which they understand of Cariath-jearim: but Junius understands this garrison to have been at Gebah, in Benjamin near Gibha, where Jonathan abode with his thousand followers. Howsoever, by this it appeareth, that the Philistines held some strong places, both in the times of Samuel and of Saul, within the territory of Israel: and now being greatly enraged by this surprise they assembled 30,000 armed chariots, and 6000 horse, wherewith they invaded Judæa, and encamped at Machmas, or Michmas, a city of Benjamin, in the direct way from Samaria to Jerusalem, and in the midst of the land between the sea and Jordan. With this sudden invasion the Israelites were strucken in so great a fear, as some of them hid themselves in the caves of the mountains, other fled over Jordan into Gad and Gilead; Saul himself, with some 2000 men of ordinary, and many other people, stayed at Galgala in Benjamin, not far from the passage of Joshua, when he led Israel over Jordan. Here Saul, by Samuel's appointment, was to attend the coming of Samuel seven days; but when the last day was in part spent, and that Saul perceived his forces to diminish greatly, he presumed (as some expound the place, 1 Sam. xiii. 9.) to exercise the office which appertained not unto him, and to of fer a burnt-offering and a peace-offering unto God, contrary to the ecclesiastical laws of the Hebrews, and God's commandments: others expound the word obtulit, in this place, by obtulit per sacerdotem, and so make the sin of Saul not to have been any intrusion into the priest's office, but first a r1 Sam. xiii. 5.

RALEGH, HIST. WORLD. VOL. II.

I i

disobedience to God's commandment, in not staying according to the appointment, 1 Sam. x. 8; secondly, a diffidence or mistrust in God's help, and too great relying upon the strength of the people, whose departing from him he could not bear patiently; and lastly, a contempt of the holy prophet Samuel, and of the help which the prayers of so godly a man might procure him. But whatsoever was his sin, notwithstanding his excuses, he was by Samuel reprehended most sharply, in terms unfitting his estate, had not extraordinary warrant been given to Samuel so to do from God himself, at which time also Samuel feared not to let him know, that the kingdom should be conferred to another, (a man after God's own heart,) both from Saul and his posterity.

After this, Samuel and Saul returned to Gibeah, where Saul, when he had taken view of his army, found it to consist of 600 men; for the most were fled from him and scattered, yea, and among those that stayed, there was not any that had either sword or spear, but Saul and his son Jonathat only. For the Philistines had not left them any smith in all Israel that made weapons; besides, they that came to "Saul came hastily, and left such weapons and armour as they had, behind them in the garrisons: for if they had had none at all, it might be much doubted how Saul should be able the year before, or in some part of this very year, to succour Jabes Gilead with 330,000 men, if there had not now been any iron weapon to defend themselves withal, save only in the hand of Saul and Jonathan his son. But howsoever all the rest of the people were formerly disarmed by the Philistines, and all those craftsmen carried out of the land that made weapons; there being left unto the Israelites only files, to sharpen and amend such stuff as served for the plough, and for nought else; yet that they had some kind of arms it is manifest, or else they durst not have attempted upon the Philistines as they did. And it is not said in the text, that there was not any sword in all Israel, but only that there was not any found amongst those 600 sol"I Sam. xiii. 7.

1 Sam. xiii.

t1 Sam. xiv.

diers which stayed with Saul after Samuel's departure; and it seemeth that when Samuel had publicly reprehended Saul, that his own guards forsook him, having but 600 remaining of his 3000 ordinary soldiers, and of all the rest that repaired unto him, of which many were fled from him before Samuel arrived.

With this small troop he held himself to his own city of Gibeah, as a place of more strength and better assured unto him than Gilgal was. Neither is it obscure how it should come to pass that the Philistines should thus disarm the most part of the Israelites, howsoever in the time of Samuel much had been done against them. For the victories of Samuel were not got by sword or spear, but by thunder from heaven; and when these craftsmen were once rooted out of the cities of Israel, no marvel if they could not in a short peace under Samuel be replanted again. For this tyranny of the Philistines is to be understood rather of the precedent times than under Samuel; and yet under him it is to be thought that by their crafts they proceeded in the policy, not suffering their artificers to teach the Israelites, and so even to the times of Saul kept them from having any store of armour. The same policy did Nabuchodonosor use after his conquest in Judæa, Dionysius in Sicily, and many other princes elsewhere in all ages. But these lost weapons in part the Israelites might repair in Gilead; for over Jordan the Philistines had not invaded. The rest of their defences were such as antiquity used, and their present necessity ministered unto them; to wit, clubs, bows, and slings. For the Benjamites exceeded in casting stones in slings: and that these were the natural weapons, and the first of all nations, it is manifest; and so in 1 Chron. xii. 2. it is written of those that came to succour David against Saul, while he lurked at Ziklag, That they were weaponed with bows, and could use the right and the left hand with stones; and with a sling it was that David himself slew the giant Goliath.

While the state of Israel stood in these hard terms, the

XI Sam. xiii. 22.