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Gift of
Br .Arthur Twining Hadley
President Emeritus
19>2-'

This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in
cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You
may not reproduce this digitized copy of the book for
any purpose other than for scholarship, research,
educational, or, in limited quantity, personal use. You
may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy
(or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes.

THE LITTLE BIBLE

THE
LITTLE BIBLE

BEING THE STORY OF GOD S CHOSEN
PEOPLE BEFORE THE COMING OF OUR
LORD JESUS CHRIST UPON EARTH.
WRITTEN ANEW FOR CHILDREN.

BY
T. W. MACKAIL
SOMETIME FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD

NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO.
1900

A LIST OF THE CHAPTERS OF
THIS BOOK
I. The Fall of the Morning Star "Page 1
II. The Six Days of Creation 3
III. The ^Garden of Eden 6
IV. The Serpent in Paradise 8
V. The Mark of Cain 10
VI. The Children of Lamech 1 1
VII.- The World before the Flood 12
VIII. Noah's Ark 13
IX. The Bow in the Cloud 1 5
X. The World after the Flood 17
XI. The Tower of Babel 18
XII. The Shepherd Princes 19
XIII. The Battle of Four Kings against Five 20
XIV. The City of Peace 21
XV. The Promised Land 22
XVI. The Well in the Wilderness 23
XVII. The Visit of the Three Angels 24
XVIII. The Riot in Sodom 27
XIX. The Pillar of Salt 28
XX. The Bondwoman and her Son 29
XXI. The Altar on the Hill-Top 31
XXII. The Cave in the Field 32
XXIII. The Camels at the Well 33
XXIV. The Meeting in the Dusk 35
XXV. The Mess of Pottage 37
XXVI. The Dish of Savoury Meat 38
XXVII. The Anger of Esau 41

XXVIII. Jacob's Ladder "Page 42
XXIX. The Fair Shepherdess 43
XXX. The Sisters 44
XXXI. Laban's Flocks +5
XXXII. The Flight from Haran 47
XXXIII. The Angel by the River 49
XXXIV. Jacob's Home-Coming 5 '
XXXV. The Coat of Many Colours 52
XXXVI. The Midianite Merchants 53
XXXVII. Potiphar's Wife 56
XXXVIII. Joseph in Prison 57
XXXIX. King Pharaoh's Dreams 59
XL. The Seven Years of Plenty 61
XLI. The First Journey to Egypt 62
XLII. The Second Journey to Egypt 65
XLIII. The Dinner in Joseph's House 66
XLIV. The Silver Cup 67
XLV. Judah's Pleading 69
XLVI. The Mercy of Joseph 71
XLVII. The Third Journey to Egypt 72
XLVIII. The Grandchildren 73
XLIX. The Mourning in the Meadow 75
L. The Ark of Bulrushes 77
LI. The Exile in the Desert 78
LII. The Burning Bush 80
LIII. The Taskmasters 81
LIV. The Ten Plagues 82
LV. The Passover 85
LVI. The Pillar of Cloud and Fire 86
LVII. The Passage of the Red Sea 87
LVIII. Angels' Bread 89
LIX. The Ten Commandments 91
LX. The Tables of Stone 92
LXI. The Golden Calf 93
LXII. The Tabernacle in the Wilderness 95
LXIII. The Twelve Spies 97
LXIV. The Murmuring in the Wilderness 98

LXV. Aaron's Rod Tage
LXVI. The Serpent of Brass
LXVII. The Victories in the Wilderness
LXVIII. Balaam's Ass
LXIX. The Hidden Grave
LXX. The Scarlet Ribbon
LXXI. The Crossing of Jordan
LXXII. The Walls of Jericho
LXXIII. The Ambassadors
LXXIV. The Staying of the Sun and Moon
LXXV. The Days of the Judges
LXXVI. The Iron Chariots
LXXVII. Jael's Hammer
LXXVIII. The Oak in Ophrah
LXXIX. Gideon's Fleece
LXXX. The Choosing of the Three Hundred
LXXXI. The Trumpets at Midnight
LXXXII. The Chase of the Kings
LXXXIII. The Story of the Trees who went
out to choose a King
LXXXIV. The Tower of Thisbe
LXXXV. Jephthah's Daughter
LXXXVI. The Lion in the Vineyards
LXXXVII. Samson's Riddle
LXXXVIII. The Gates of Gaza
LXXXIX. The Stolen Secret
XC. Samson's Revenge
XCI. The Famine at Bethlehem
XCII. The Vow of Ruth
XCIII. The Gleaner
XCIV. The Threshing-Floor in the Dark
XCV. The Kinsmen
XCVI. The Child in the Temple
XCVII. The Voice by Night
XCVIII. The Ark in Battle
XCIX. The Terror of the Ark
C. The Lost Asses

CI. The Street at Dawn Tuge I 50
CII. The Gap in the Cliffs 152
CIII. The Boy Harper 154
CIV. The Giant's Challenge 155
CV. The Five Smooth Stones I 57
CVI. The Image under the Counterpane 158
CVII. The Camp in the Forest 159
C VIII. The Witch of Endor 161
CIX. The Woeful Battle on Mount Gilboa 163
CX. The Stolen Crown 164
C XI. The Castle of Zion 165
CXII. The Triumph of the Ark 167
CXIII. The Thirty Knights 168
CXIV. The Shot from the Wall 170
CXV. The Story ofthe Ewe-Lamb 172
CXVI. The Sick Child 173
CXVII. The Rebellion of Absalom 174
C XVIII. The Flight into the Wilderness 176
CXIX. The Counsel of Ahithophel 177
CXX. The Well in the Courtyard 178
CXXI. The Battle in the Wood 179
CXXII. The Two Runners 181
CXXIII. The Sorrowful Victory 182
CXXIV. The City of Meadows 183
CXXV. The Watching of Rizpah 184
CXXVI. The Angel's Sword 186
CXXVII. The Choice in the Dream 187
CX XVIII. The Judgment of Solomon 18S
CXXIX. The Glory of Solomon 189
CXXX. The Building ofthe Temple 191
CXXXI. The Feast of the Dedication 192
CXXXII. The Cedar Palace 193
CXXXIII. The Queen of Sheba 194
CXXXIV. The Division of the Kingdoms 195
CXXXV. The Man of God from Judah 197
CXXXVI. The Widow's Jar 199
CXXXVII. The Altars on Mount Carmel 200

CX XXVIII. The Little Cloud Tage 202
CXXXIX. The Still Small Voice 203
CXL. Naboth's Vineyard 205
CXLI. The Council ofthe Kings 206
CXLII. The Random Arrow 208
CXL.III. The Chariot of Fire 209
CXLIV. The Lady of Shunem 210
CXLV. The Syrian Captain 212
CXL VI. The Bags of Silver 213
CXLVII. The Blind Army 215
C XLVIII. The Famine in Samaria 216
CXLIX. The Empty Camp 218
CL. The Arrows of King Joram 220
CLI. The Mutiny of the Captains 221
CLII. The Ride from Ramoth-Gilead 222
CLIII. The Window over the Gate 223
CLIV. The Story of the Cedar and the
Thistle 225
CLV. The Assyrian Captivity 226
CLVI. The Tempest 227
CLV1I. Jonah's Gourd 228
CLVIII. The Destroying Angel 230
CLIX. The Graveyard on the Hill 232
CLX. The Waters of Babylon 233
CLXI. The Vision of the Cherubim 235
CLXII. The Vision of the Horses in the
Valley 236
CLXIII. The Vision ofthe Golden Lamps 237
CLXIV. The Vision ofthe Four Chariots 238
CLXV. The Complaint of the Captives in
Babylon 238
CLXVI. The Valley of Dry Bones 240
CLXVII. The Magicians 241
CLXVIII. The Wisdom of Daniel 242
CLXIX. The Fiery Furnace 244
CLXX. The Proud King 247
CLXXI. The Writing on the Wall 248

CLXXII. The Den of Lions "Page 250
CLXXIII. The Feast in the Palace of the
Lily 252
CLXXIV. The Malice of Haman 254
CLXXV. The Golden Sceptre 255
CLXXVI. The Book of the Chronicles of
the Kingdom 257
CLXXVII. The Banquet in the Queen's
Pavilion 259
CLXXVIII. The Riding of the Posts 260
CLXXIX. The Return from Babylon 261
CLXXX. The Ruins at Night ' 262
CLXXXI. The Building of the Wall 263
CLXXXII. The Heathen Host 264
CLXXXIII. The Valour of Judith 266
CLXXXIV. The Supper in the Tent 267
CLXXXV. The Head of Holofernes 269
CLXXXVI. The Errand of the Archangel 270
CLXXXVII. The Journey to Media 271
CLXXXVIII. The Flight ofthe Evil Spirit 273
CLXXXIX. The Return from Ecbatana 274
CXC. The Wages of Raphael 276
CXCI. The Angel of Accusing 277
CXCII. The Four Messengers 278
CXCIII. The Patience of Job 279
CXCIV. Job's Comforters 280
CXCV. The Prosperity of Job 282
CXCVI. The Man in Golden Armoui 283
CXCVII. The King's Elephants 284
CXCVIII. The Wisdom ofthe Romans 285
CXCIX. The Peace of the Empire 286
CC. The Vision of the Kingdom of the
Saints 287

THE LITTLE BIBLE

CHAPTER I
THE FALL OF THE MORNING STAR
BEFORE the beginning of the world God was
in heaven ; about his throne were the
angels and archangels and all the heavenly host in
their orders, who praised and served God continu
ally. Nearest the throne of God were the seven
great archangels, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel,
Israfiel, and Azrael, and a seventh whose name is
now blotted out of the book of life. This last
was the brightest of all the heavenly people ; he
was called Lucifer, the Morning Star, because
he was more splendid than all the rest. But he
grew proud over his own beauty, and though he
was next to God, nothing would content him but
to be first of all, and to sit in God's place on the
throne. Therefore he plotted to cast down the
Most High and become lord in heaven ; and a
third part of the heavenly host joined him, being
dazzled by his brightness and thinking him as
A I

great as God. Then there was war in heaven ;
and the faithful angels, with Michael the arch
angel as their chief captain, won the victory over
Lucifer and the rebel angels, and drove them out
of heaven. The crystal walls of heaven opened
before them, and the wicked angels poured down
out of heaven into the gulf of night. Then
Michael and the victorious angels returned into
heaven, the walls closed again behind them,
and there was peace. But the place nearest the
throne of God was empty, and the brightest of thi
Morning Stars had fallen out of heaven. Then
to fill up the dark empty place and restore the
splendour of his house, it pleased God to create
man. And as Lucifer had fallen from the place
next to God through pride, God ordained that
man should rise to the place next to God through
humility ; and that when the time was fulfilled,
the Son of God should humble himself and
become man, that through him man might be
lifted up to heaven and become more glorious
than the angels who fell.

CHAPTER II
THE SIX DAYS OF CREATION
IN the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth as a dwelling place for man.
The earth was without shape or light or sub
stance, void and empty, like a boiling steam of
darkness, till the Spirit of God spread out his
wings and brooded over it. For six days of
creation God wrought on the house of man, to
make it perfect. On the first of the six days
God said, " Let there be light ; " and there was
light. He looked at the light and saw that it
was good ; then he divided it from the darkness,
and called the light Day and the darkness Night ;
between day and night he made Evening to
bring peace, and between night and day he made
Morning to bring joy ; so the evening and the
morning were the first day. On the second day
God divided the world of waters, parting the
waters above from the waters below by the
strong arch of the sky which he stretched
between. Below the sky there was nothing yet
but the steaming waste of waters ; above it were
the clouds, and the store-houses of the rain and
3

snow ; so the evening and the morning were the
second day. On the third day God drew the
dry land out of the waters below, and gathered
them into one place by themselves ; and the dry
land was Earth, and the waters in the hollows of
the land were the Seas. Then he created out of
the earth grass and all kinds of plants and trees
with their leaves and flowers and fruit ; so the
evening and the morning were the third day.
On the fourth day God created lights in heaven
to divide day from night, and to give light on
earth, and to be signs of the seasons and the
days and the years. He made the two great
lamps of light, the sun to be lord of the day, the
moon to be lady ofthe night, and in the night also
he set the whole multitude of the stars, which
he numbered and named ; so the evening and the
morning were the fourth day. On the fifth day
God created out of the waters all kinds of fishes
and birds, and all the creatures that swim or fly ;
then he blessed the living things which he had
made, and commanded them to multiply, so that
the waters might be full of fish, and the land full
of birds ; so the evening and the morning were
the fifth day. On the sixth day God created
out of the ground all the beasts, both wild and
4

tame, and all the creatures that walk or run or
creep upon the land. Thus the house of man
was made and furnished : the green earth and the
sea, both filled with live things, the sky above
them and the waters above the sky, the sun and
moon and stars, evening and morning, night and
day. Then, seeing that the house was ready
and that all was well made and ordered in it, God
created man out of the dust of the ground, mak
ing him in his own likeness, and breathing his
own spirit into him ; and he blessed him, and
gave him lordship over the whole earth and all
that lived in it. Thus God finished the six days
of his creation, and on the seventh day he rested
from his work and was well pleased, seeing that
it was all good ; therefore he blessed the seventh
day and appointed it to be the day of his rest ;
and for delight over the new world the Morning
Stars sang together, and all the sons of God
shouted for joy.

CHAPTER III
THE GARDEN OF EDEN
THE whole earth then was fresh, green, and
bright ; no rain fell, but a mist rose from
the earth daily and watered the ground. But in
all the earth the most beautiful place was the
Garden of Paradise, which God planted eastward
in Eden. A wall ran all round it, with one gate
that looked to the rising sun. Inside it a river
rose out of the ground, that watered the garden,
and then parted into four streams that ran into
the four quarters of the world. The first of the
four rivers was Pison, which flowed south
through Havilah, the land of gold and spice and
precious stones ; the second was Gihon, which
ran west and flowed into the land of the blacks ;
the third was Hiddekel, which went eastward
into Asia ; and the fourth was Euphrates.
Paradise was planted with every kind of tree
that is lovely in leaf, or good for fruit ; and in the
middle of it two trees grew side by side and rose
higher than all the rest, one the tree of the
Knowledge of good and evil, the other the tree
of Life. In this garden God put the man whom
6

he had created, whose name was Adam, and
gave the keeping of it into his charge. All the
beasts and birds came in pairs before Adam in
the garden, and worshipped him as their master,
and he gave them each their own name. But
he himself was alone in the garden, and had no
companion. Then God made a deep sleep fall
on him, and as he slept, took out one of his ribs
and closed up the flesh again, and made the rib
into a woman ; then he brought her to Adam
and woke him again out of sleep. Adam at
once knew that the woman was sent him to be
his wife. He called her Eve, the mother ; and
Adam and Eve lived in Paradise together, and
were without sin or fear or shame. God gave
Adam leave to eat the fruit of all the trees in
the garden except the apples growing on the
tree of the Knowledge of good and evil; he
forbade Adam to eat of them, that he might not
lose his innocence and die.

CHAPTER IV
THE SERPENT IN PARADISE
OF all the beasts with whom Adam and Eve
lived and talked in Paradise, the wisest
was the serpent. He asked Eve, " Has God
told you not to eat of any tree in the garden ? "
She answered, "We may eat the fruit of any
tree except the tree of the Knowledge of good
and evil ; but we must not eat that, nor even touch
it, or we shall die." He said, " You shall not
die : if you eat of it you shall know good and
evil, and be as wise as God himself." Eve
looked at the tree ; it was pleasant to the eye ;
the fruit seemed good to eat ; and in her desire to
know good and evil she forgot her obedience.
From looking, she fell to wishing ; from wishing,
to touching ; at last she plucked an apple and
ate it ; then she gave another to Adam, and he
ate it also. Till then they had only known
good ; now they knew good and evil, and the
clothing of innocence fell off them. Now they
were afraid of God ; and trying to conceal their
nakedness and shame, they made themselves
coverings of fig-leaves, and hid among the trees
8

all the rest of the day. In the cool of the
evening God came to walk in the garden, and they
heard his voice calling them. They came before
him in great fear and misery ; and Adam said to
God, " I heard the sound of thee in the garden,
and was afraid, because I was naked, and hid
myself." God said to Adam, "Who told you
that you were naked ? Have you been eating
-of the tree of which I told you not to eat ? "
Adam answered, " The woman whom thou gavest
to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree,
and I ate." Then God said to Eve, " What is
this that you have done?" She answered, "The
serpent beguiled me, and I ate." Then God
gave judgment upon all the three. He con
demned the serpent to go crawling on the ground
and eat dust for ever ; and Adam and Eve were
sentenced to be driven out of Paradise and not
to eat any more of the tree of Life ; for it did
not grow anywhere except in that garden.
Labour and sorrow were sent into their life, and
in the end they had to die ; the ground was
cursed to them, and made to bear thorns and
thistles, and only to yield food by hard work
and the sweat of Adam's brow ; and Eve had to
bear her children with sorrow and pain. Then
9

God clothed them both with coats of skins and
drove them out of the garden ; and when they
left Paradise it was barred behind them, and
a guard of angels set at the gate with a flaming
sword that turned every way, so that no man
thenceforth might be able to go in and eat fruit
from the tree of Life.
CHAPTER V
THE MARK OF CAIN
AFTER Adam and Eve were driven out of
Paradise they had two children, Cain and
Abel ; Abel was a shepherd, and Cain a tiller of
the ground. But Cain was proud and displeased
God ; and when they were both making sacrifice
to God, Abel of his sheep and lambs, Cain of
his fruit and corn, God accepted Abel's offering
but refused Cain's. At that Cain's face fell ;
and when he and his brother Abel were alone in
the field, he struck Abel to the ground and killed
him, and buried the body, thinking that the mur
der would never be known. But the voice of
Abel's blood cried out of the ground to God ;
and God called Cain and said to him, " Where
is Abel your brother ? " Cain lied, and said,
io

" I do not know ; am I my brother's keeper ? "
Therefore God laid this curse on him, to go on
tilling the ground without its yielding anything
to him, because he had spilt his brother's blood
upon it ; and to be a fugitive and vagabond in
the earth, and hid from the face of God. Cain
said to God, " My punishment is greater than I
can bear ; I am driven out to wander upon the
earth, and any one who finds me will kill me."
Then God set a mark upon him, that he might
be known, and promised that vengeance should
be taken sevenfold upon any one who killed him.
CHAPTER VI
THE CHILDREN OF LAMECH
CAIN went out from the presence of God,
and lived alone to the east of Eden, where
he built a city and had many children, who
peopled that land. Long afterwards one of his
family called Lamech, who was old and nearly
blind, met something as he went in a wood that
he thought was a wild beast, and shot two arrows
at it. But this was Cain ; and the first arrow
shot him dead, and the second killed Lamech's
own son. When Lamech found out what he
ii

had done, he made great lamentation, crying to
his wives, " Hear my voice, O wives of Lamech,
listen to my speech ; for I have slain a man to
my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.
If the vengeance for Cain was sevenfold, truly
the vengeance for me shall be seventy times
seven." Lamech had three sons and a daughter.
Two of his sons were called Jabal and Jubal ;
Jabal was the first of all men to live in tents,
and keep herds of cattle ; Jubal was the first
musician, and invented the harp and pipe. The
third son, who was called Tubal-cain, invented
the use of metals and was the first workman in
brass and iron. But Lamech's daughter Naamah
was very beautiful, and became the wife of one of
the fallen angels ; for many of the fallen angels
married daughters of men when they saw them
to be fair, and had children, who were the giants
and the mighty men of old.
CHAPTER VII
THE WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD
AFTER Abel was dead and Cain gone away
into his banishment, Adam and Eve had
many more children, and as time went on the
12

world became full of people. But all the while
men grew worse and worse, and turned to
wickedness and evil thoughts. Enoch the pro
phet warned them to beware of God's judgments ;
but when his warnings were in vain, God took
him up alive to heaven in a chariot of fire, and
he did not see death. After him lived Noah,
who walked with God upon earth. He was
a just man, and a good son, and comforted
his parents for their work and the toil of their
hands. But the wickedness of the rest of the
world grew greater and greater continually, and
the earth was filled with corruption and vio
lence ; so that God determined to destroy them
all in the Flood.
CHAPTER VIII
NOAH'S ARK
GOD warned Noah that the Flood was
coming to destroy all that was alive on
the earth, except Noah himself and his family,
and one pair of every kind of creature, which
were to be saved along with Noah in an ark.
Then at God's bidding Noah began to build the
ark of wooden planks and beams, and built at it
13

diligently for years until it was finished. It had
three stories, with a door in the side and win
dows near the top ; and was covered with pitch
both inside and out, to keep it sound and dry.
Noah stored in it food enough to feed himself
and his family and all the beasts and birds
and creeping things that were to be with them.
At last there came a day in spring when the ark
was ready; then Noah went into it with his wife
and his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and
their three wives, eight persons in all. The
creatures followed him in, beasts and birds and
creeping things, one pair of each kind ; and at
the end of a week all were in their places.
Then God shut the door of the ark and made it
fast. That same day the fountains of the great
deep were broken up and the windows of
heaven were opened ; and for forty days and
nights a great rain fell unceasingly, and all the
waters under the earth broke their bars and
spouted up from below. Soon the ark floated
and began to drift on the surface of the water.
Before the end of the forty days all the hills
were covered with water, and nothing was to be
seen but the ark floating on the rainy sea. By
midsummer all that had been alive on the earth
14

was drowned, both men and beasts ; and the
world lay under water for a hundred and fifty
days.
CHAPTER IX
THE BOW IN THE CLOUD
THEN the fountains of the deep were stopped
and the windows of heaven were shut, and
the rain ceased to fall. A clear drying wind
rose and blew, and the flood began to ebb, and
the water sank lower and lower continually. The
peaks of the mountains soon began to show
above the flood, and in autumn the ark touched
ground on the mountains of Ararat and settled
fast there. Still the waters went on sinking.
When winter was over, hill-tops could be seen
out of the windows of the ark. Then Noah
opened the window, and sent out a raven and
a dove as messengers to see what news they
would bring. The raven flew off and wandered
to and fro until the ground was dry, and never
came back to Noah ; but the dove, finding no
where to settle, because the face of the earth
was still covered with water, came back; and
Noah put out his hand at the window and
pulled her in again to the ark. After seven days
15

he sent her out again a second time ; and in the
evening she came back to the ark, carrying in
her beak a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah
knew that the earth was drying up and the trees
beginning to grow green again. He waited
seven more days and sent the dove out a third
time ; and this time she flew into the green
woods and lived there, and did not come back
to him any more. Then Noah set to work and
broke open the roof of the ark, and all round him
there was dry ground; so he came out of the
ark with his wife and children and all the
creatures. They had been in the ark a year
and ten days. When Noah came out of the ark
he built an altar and offered sacrifice to God,
who blessed him and his children, and com
manded them to increase and fill the earth once
again. Also God promised never to send
another flood to destroy the earth, and for a
token of his promise he made the rainbow and set
it in the cloud, that when the clouds brought
rain men might see the rainbow in them and
take courage, knowing that a new flood was not
coming to drown the world.

16

CHAPTER X
THE WORLD AFTER THE FLOOD
BUT the flood had swept over the garden of
Paradise, and thrown down the wall, and
left it bare and open like the rest of the earth,
and washed away the Tree of Life ; so that the
guard of angels with the flaming sword were
not there any more. In the flood also died
Methusaleh, the son of the prophet Enoch, who
had the longest life of any man who has ever
lived, nine hundred and sixty-nine years. After
the flood Noah became a husbandman ; also he
planted the first vineyards and made wine ; and
the world grew to be peopled again as it had
been before the flood. In those days lived
Nimrod, who was a mighty hunter before the
Lord. He was the first of the great kings
of the world ; the beginning of his kingdom
was in Babylon ; and out of that land he went
into Assyria and built himself a city, and called
it Nineveh.

17

CHAPTER XI
THE TOWER OF BABEL
THE whole world then were of one race and
spoke one language. As they journeyed
all together from the East, they came to the
plain of Babel in the land of Shinar and settled
in it. There they dug clay and burned it into
bricks, and made mortar from bitumen, and in
the pride of their hearts they began to build a
city with a vast tower, which they planned to
build up until its top reached heaven, to be a
mark for them from vast distances all across
the land, that they might not wander, and be
scattered abroad over the face of the earth.
But as they were building it, God sent con
fusion of tongues among them, so that they
did not understand one another's speech ; and
they left off building the city, and were scattered
over the face of all the earth. But the half-
built tower of Confusion was left standing there
in the middle of the plain, until little by little
the sun and the rains crumbled it away.

t8

CHAPTER XII
THE SHEPHERD PRINCES
THERE were three brothers called Abraham,
Nahor, and Haran, who all lived together
and fed their flocks on the eastern hills beyond
the river, in Ur of the Chaldees. There Haran
died, leaving a son called Lot to inherit his
share of the flocks ; and afterwards Abraham
and Lot went westward to seek a new home,
while Nahor stayed in Ur. Between the river
and the sea lay the land of Canaan, a pleasant
country full of corn and wine and olives and
honey, watered by rivers and wells, and set
between great mountains on the north and the
rocks and sands of the southern desert. Abra
ham and Lot crossed the river and passed into
the land of Canaan, and lived there in tents
under a tree or by a well, moving with their
flocks and herds from one pasture to another,
and so travelling slowly down the country
towards the south. A time of famine came,
when they went into Egypt and lived there till
the famine was over; then they returned with
such a quantity of flocks and herds that one

pasture could not hold them all ; so they sepa
rated, and Abraham gave Lot the first choice of
land. Lot looked about him, and seeing the
plain of Jordan to be well watered and like a
garden of God, he chose to live there, and
pitched his tents among the five Cities of the
Plain, near Sodom ; but Abraham remained at
Bethel, among the hills of the midland. When
Lot was gone, God said to Abraham, " Lift up
your eyes and look from this hill northward and
southward and eastward and westward ; all the
land which you see I will give to you and to
your children for ever."
CHAPTER XIII
THE BATTLE OF FOUR KINGS AGAINST
FIVE
IN the days of Amraphel king of Shinar,
Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king
of Elam, and Tidal king of nations, these four
kings made war with the five kings of the Cities
of the Plain, the king of Sodom, the king of
Gomorrah, and the kings of Admah, Zeboiim,
and Zoar. For twelve years the five cities
obeyed Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth

year they rebelled. In the fourteenth year
Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with
him came with an army, and conquered the
giants in the lowlands and the cave-dwellers in
the wilderness, and as they returned through the
plain, the kings of the five Cities of the Plain
went out to battle against them ; and they
joined battle in the vale of Siddim, four kings
with five. There the five kings were beaten by
the four, and fled to the mountains ; and the
kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fell in the flight
among the naphtha-pits. Then the four kings
plundered the five cities and went on their way,
carrying off Lot among their prisoners.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CITY OF PEACE
WHEN Abraham heard the news of this
battle and of Lot being taken prisoner,
he armed his household servants and pursued
the four kings ; and coming on their camp
suddenly by night in two bands, surprised and
routed them, and rescued Lot and all the
prisoners. As Abraham returned, Melchizedek
the king of Salem came out of his City of Peace

to meet him. He was priest of the most high
God, and had neither parents nor children, and
neither beginning of days nor end of life, but
lived in the City of Peace for ever. He blessed
Abraham, and gave him bread and wine. Then
the king of Sodom came, and begged Abraham
to keep all the plunder and only give him back
his people who had been taken prisoners. But
Abraham gave him everything back, and would
not keep for himself so much as a thread or a
shoe-latchet out of all that he had taken ; then
he went back to his home in the hills, and Lot
lived in a house in Sodom.
CHAPTER XV
THE PROMISED LAND
ABRAHAM began to grow old, and had no
children ; therefore he cried to God, and
said, " Lord God, what wilt thou give me ? for
I shall die childless, and my steward, Eliezer of
Damascus, possess my house." But God
brought him out of his tent into the clear night,
and said, " Look at the sky and number the
stars in it, if you are able ; so many shall your
children be. I am the Lord that brought you

out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land
to inherit it." Abraham answered, " Lord God,
how shall I know that I shall inherit it ? "
Then a deep sleep came on him as he waited,
and a horror of great darkness fell on him ; and
in the darkness God spoke, and said, " Know that
your children shall be strangers and servants in a
land that is not theirs, and shall be afflicted four
hundred years ; then I will judge the nation that
holds them in bondage, and they shall come out
with great riches ; and in the fourth generation
they shall return again to this land, for the time
is not full till then." After God had spoken
thus, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp
passed before Abraham through the darkness,
and the voice of God spoke once more and said,
" To your children have I given this land."
CHAPTER XVI
THE WELL IN THE WILDERNESS
WHILE Abraham and Sarah his wife still
had no child and were waiting for the
promise of God to come, there was an Egyptian
maid called Hagar in the household, who was
going to have a child, and because of this she
23

despised her mistress ; and then Sarah treated
her so harshly that she ran away into the
wilderness. As she sat by a roadside well in
the wilderness, an angel of God appeared to her
and said to her, " Return and submit yourself
to Sarah your mistress ; for you shall have a
son, who will grow up to be a wild man living
in the east, and twelve princes and a great
nation shall descend from him." Then Hagar
returned out of the wilderness, and soon after
wards she had a son, who was called Ishmael.
But that well in the wilderness was called thence,
the well of the Sight of the Living One ; for
Hagar said, " Do I still live after seeing
God ? "
CHAPTER XVII
THE VISIT OF THE THREE ANGELS
IT was in the heat of the day, and Abraham
was sitting in the door of his tent under the
great oak on the plain of Mamre, when he looked
up and saw three strangers coming on foot across
the plain. He rose from the tent-door and ran
to meet them, and welcomed them courteously,
asking them to stay and rest under the tree and
24

eat a morsel of bread before they went on. So
they stopped and sat down in the cool of the
tent. Then Sarah baked cakes upon the hearth,
and Abraham chose a calf from the herd and
had it dressed, and brought butter and milk, and
stood by the strangers while they sat and ate
under the tree. Now these three strangers were
angels, but Abraham did not know it. When
the heat of the day was over, they rose up and
set their faces toward Sodom ; and Abraham
went with them to bring them on their way.
As they went, one of the three strangers stopped
and said to Abraham, "The cry of Sodom and
Gomorrah is great, and their sin is very grievous ;
I am going now to see whether they have done
altogether according to the cry which is come to
me ; if not, I will know." Meanwhile the other
two had turned away and gone on towards
Sodom. Then Abraham knew that he was a
great angel, and drew nearer and said, "Wilt
thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked ?
Perhaps there are fifty righteous men within the
city ; wilt thou not spare the place for the fifty
righteous that are therein ? " The sun was
going down, and the angel answered, " If I find
in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I
25

will spare all the place for their sake." Then
Abraham said, " I have taken upon me to speak
unto my lord, I who am but dust and ashes.
Perhaps there may lack five of the fifty righteous ;
wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five ? "
He said, " If I find there forty and five I will
not destroy it." The sun sank a little lower, and
Abraham spoke again : " Perhaps there shall be
only forty found there." The angel answered, " I
will not do it for forty's sake." Then he said, " Oh,
let not my lord be angry, and I will speak : per
haps there shall be but thirty found in it." The
angel answered, " I will not do it if I find thirty
there." Then he said once more, "Behold now,
I have taken upon me to speak to my lord :
perhaps there shall be twenty found there."
The angel answered, "I will not destroy it for
twenty's sake." Then for the last time Abraham
said, " Oh, let not my lord be angry, and I will
speak yet but this once : perhaps ten shall be
found there." The angel answered, " I will not
destroy it for ten's sake ; " and as the sun set,
he passed out of sight, and Abraham returned
home.

26

CHAPTER XVIII
THE RIOT IN SODOM
AT dusk that same evening the two angels
came to Sodom, and there Lot sat in the
city gate. He rose up to meet them and bowed
to the ground, and prayed them to stay the night
in his house. They excused themselves at first,
and said, " We will lodge in the street," but he
would take no refusal ; so they went home with
him, and he made them a feast. But late at
night, before they lay down to rest, the whole
mob of Sodom, old and young, came round the
house and shouted to Lot, "Where are the men
who came here to night ? Bring them out."
Lot went out, shutting the door behind him, and
tried to pacify the people. But they refused to
listen, crying, " Stand back," and " This fellow
is a stranger here, and he will needs play the
judge," and threatening to make it worse for him
than for the strangers ; and at last they made a
rush at the door to break it open. Then the
two angels coming to the door pulled Lot in and
shut the door again behind him, and struck all
the people outside with blindness, so that they
27

went about till they were weary and could not
find the door, but raged vainly in the street all
night.
CHAPTER XIX
THE PILLAR OF SALT
THEN the angels said to Lot, " Have you
any here besides ? If so, bring them out
of this place ; for the cry of Sodom is grown
great before the face of God, and he has sent us
to destroy it." Lot had a wife and two daughters
at home, and two other daughters who were
married and lived in the town ; he went to their
houses and woke them in the night, that they
might fly with him ; but they would not believe
he was in earnest. So the rest of the night was
soon gone ; and at break of dawn the angels
hastened him, and bade him be gone at once as
he was ; and while he still lingered they took
him and his wife and his two daughters by the
hand and dragged them out of the town, and
there bade him escape for his life and not look
behind him or stand still in all the plain, but
hasten to the mountain, lest he should be swept
away. Lot said, " Oh, not so, my lord ; we
cannot reach the mountain before the destruction
28

overtake us, but yonder close by is the city of
Zoar, and it is a very little one ; may we escape
to it, and live ? " The angel answered, " This
also is granted you ; make haste, and escape
thither ; for after sunrise we cannot delay any
longer, and now it is clear day." So Lot fled
across the plain, and the sun rose over the earth
as he entered Zoar ; and then a rain of fire fell
from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and
overthrew the cities and destroyed the whole
land, so that there was not a live soul nor a
green, blade left in all the plain. Lot's wife
neglected the angel's warning, and lingered out
side Zoar to look behind her at Sodom ; and she
was caught in the rain of fire, and turned into a
pillar of salt. When Abraham rose that morn
ing, and looked from his tent towards the land
of the plain, he saw the smoke of the country
going up like the smoke of a furnace.
CHAPTER XX
THE BONDWOMAN AND HER SON
A YEAR after the visit of the three angels,
Abraham and Sarah had a son born, whom
they called Isaac. By this time Ishmael the son
29

of Hagar was a boy of fourteen ; and when
Sarah saw him playing by the tents, she became
jealous, and said to Abraham, " Send away that
slave-woman and her son into the wilderness,
for he shall not inherit along with a son of
mine." Abraham was sorry to do this, but saw
no help for it ; therefore early in the morning
he rose and sent away Hagar and her boy, with
some bread and a leather bottle of water which
she carried on her shoulder. They wandered in
the wilderness till the bottle was empty, and
they could find no more water, and began to
faint for thirst. At last in despair Hagar laid
Ishmael under a bush, and went and sat down
about a bow-shot off, that she might not see
him die, and wept aloud. But God heard the
crying of the boy, and an angel called to Hagar
out of heaven, saying, " Do not fear, for your
boy shall live, and a great nation come of
him, and twelve princes who shall build castles
and towns in all the waste country of the
south." Then God opened her eyes, and she
saw a well of water close by, where she filled
her bottle and gave her boy drink ; and he
lived, and grew up, and became an archer in the
wilderness. 30

CHAPTER XXI
THE ALTAR ON THE HILL-TOP
GOD proved Abraham, and said to him,
" Take now your son, your only son
Isaac, whom you love, and go to a land that I
will show you, and offer him there for a burnt
offering upon the mountain top." Early in the
morning Abraham rose and saddled his ass, and
rode away with Isaac and two servants. They
went through the land for three days ; and on
the third day Abraham saw far off a shining
mountain top and knew it for the place that God
had told him of. He said to his men, " Stay
here, while I and the boy go yonder and worship,
and we will come back again to you." So
Abraham and Isaac left the two servants with
the ass at the bottom of the mountain, and
began to climb up on foot, Isaac carrying the
bundle of faggots, and Abraham the fire. Then
Isaac said, " Father, here are the fire and the
wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offer
ing ? " Abraham answered, " My son, God
himself will provide the lamb ; " and they went
on together. When they came to the hill-top
3i

Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in
order on it ; then he bound Isaac and laid him
on the altar. But as he took the knife in his hand
an angel called to him out of heaven, " Do not
lay hand on the boy, to do him harm." Then
Abraham looked up, and close behind him he saw
a ram caught by his horns in a thicket, which he
took and offered up to God ; then he and Isaac
went down the hill again and rode home.
CHAPTER XXII
THE CAVE IN THE FIELD
SARAH fell ill and died in the city of Hebron,
and Abraham mourned over her. Then he
stood up from before his dead and said to the
sons of Heth, who lived in the city, "I am a
stranger among you; give me a burying-place
that I may bury my dead out of my sight."
The sons of Heth answered him, " Hear us, my
lord ; you are a prince of God among us ; take
the choice of our burying-places and bury your
dead there." Then Abraham stood up and
bowed to the people of the land, and said,
" Intreat for me then to Ephron the son of
Zohar to sell me his field and cave, called
32

Machpelah, which he has in Hebron." Ephron
stood up in the city gate and answered, " My
lord, I give you the field and the cave ; they are
worth four hundred pieces of silver, but what is
that between you and me ? " Then Abraham
weighed out the full price to Ephron there in the
gate, four hundred pieces of silver in good
money, and so in presence of all the people the
cave of Machpelah with the field and the row of
trees planted round it were made sure to him in
possession ; and there he buried Sarah with
great mourning.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE CAMELS AT THE WELL
WHEN Sarah was dead and Abraham very
old, he wished, before he died, to find a
wife for his son Isaac among their own kindred.
He called his steward, Eliezer of Damascus, and
said to him, " Go across the river to Haran,
where my brother Nahor lives with his people,
and bring a wife for my son from there ; for he
must not marry among the daughters of the land
where we dwell." Eliezer said, "What if the
woman will not come ? Shall Isaac go back to
c 33

Haran and live there ? " Abraham answered,
" When God brought me to this land, he promised
to give it to my children ; therefore Isaac must
not go back ; but God will send his angel with
you, that you may bring a wife for my son to
this land." So Eliezer went on his journey with
servants and ten camels, carrying rich presents
with him. After travelling for many days, he
came at evening to a little town where the
women were drawing water at a well outside the
wall. There he made his camels kneel down by
the well, and prayed to God to prosper his
errand. As the words were in his mouth, a
beautiful girl came out of the town gate with her
water-jar upon her shoulder, and went down to
the well. When she had filled her jar, and come
up, he went to meet her and asked her for a
drink of water. " Drink, my lord," she said,
and let down her jar on her hand to give him
drink ; and when he had drunk, she said, " I
will draw water for the camels too." So she
emptied her jar into the trough and ran down
again to the well, and drew water till there was
enough for all the camels. While they were
drinking, Eliezer opened a package and took out
two bracelets and a fojrehead-jewel of gold, and
34

put the bracelets on her arms and the jewel on
her forehead, asking her, " Fair maid, whose
daughter are you ? and is there room in your
father's house for me to lodge ? " " Yes," she
said ; " we have corn and straw for the camels,
and room for you to lodge in. I am Rebekah,
the daughter of Bethuel the son of Nahor."
Then Eliezer bowed down and blessed God,
because he had brought him straight to the
house of his master's brethren.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE MEETING IN THE DUSK
REBEKAH ran home to tell the household,
and shewed them the forehead-jewel and
the gold bracelets on her hands. Then her
brother Laban hastened out to the well, where
Eliezer stood by his camels, and brought him to
the house. He ungirthed his camels and shook
out straw for them and gave them fodder ; then
they brought him indoors and set out food before
him, but he would not eat till he had told his
errand. So he told them how God had blessed
Abraham and given him great riches ; and how
Sarah had borne him a son in his old age, who
35

would inherit all he had ; and how Abraham
would not take a wife for his son from the
people of the land, but had sent to find one
among his kindred across the river ; and of his
own journey, and how he had come to the well
and prayed God to shew him the woman whom
he had appointed, and how he had met Rebekah.
" And now," he said, " give me my answer."
They answered, "This is the very hand of
God ; take Rebekah, and let her be your
master's son's wife ; " and that night they held
the feast of betrothal, and Eliezer gave costly
presents of gold and silver and stuffs to them
all. The next morning he said he must set off
at once to go back to his master. They would
fain have had Rebekah stay with them for a
little while, ten days at the least ; but when it
was left to her to decide, she said, " I will go
now ; " and so they gave her their blessing and
let her go, taking her nurse and her maidens
with her. They crossed the river and travelled
back into the south till one day at evening they
came in sight of Abraham's tents. Isaac had
gone out by the well of the Sight of the Living
One, and walked in the field alone, mourning for
his mother, when he saw the line of camels
36

coming in the dusk. Rebekah asked Eliezer of
Damascus, "What man is this that walks in the
field ? " and he looked, and answered, " It is my
master's son." Then she alighted from her
camel and covered her face with her veil. So
she became Isaac's wife, and he loved her, and
was comforted for his mother's death.
CHAPTER XXV
THE MESS OF POTTAGE
ISAAC and Rebekah had two sons who
were twins, and no more children ; and
soon after they were born, Abraham died at a
great age, an old man and full of years, and
they buried him in the cave among the trees at
Hebron, beside Sarah his wife. After his death
God blessed Isaac with the blessing of Abraham,
and he lived peaceably in the land of Canaan,
going from one place to another, and digging
wells and pasturing his flocks and herds. The
elder of the twins, who was called Esau, grew
up a rough hairy man, a cunning hunter and a
man of the field ; but the younger, Jacob, was
a smooth-faced man who lived indoors and did
his business about the tents. Esau was his
37

father's favourite child, and Jacob his mother's.
When they were both grown up, Esau came in
from a hard day's hunting faint with hunger,
and found Jacob in the tent cooking a mess of
pottage. He said, " Give me some of that ; "
and Jacob said, " You may have it all if you will
sell me your birthright for it." Esau was
careless and hungry, and said to himself, " What
good is my birthright to me ? " so he sold it to
Jacob for the mess of pottage; then he ate and
rose up and went his way, thinking no more
about it.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE DISH OF SAVOURY MEAT
WHEN Isaac was very old and weak and
nearly blind, and did not know when he
might die, he called Esau to his bedside and
told him, " Take your bow and arrows and go
out after game, and dress me a dish of savoury
meat such as I love, that I may eat of it and
bless you before I die." So Esau took his bow
and arrows and went out into the field after
game. But Rebekah had heard what Isaac said
to him ; and as soon as Esau was gone she said
to Jacob, " Do as I tell you : go to the flock and
38

fetch me two good kids, and I will make of them
savoury meat for your father such as he loves,
and you shall take it to him and have the
blessing." For Isaac was so blind that he
could not tell one person from another but by
their voice or by touching them. Jacob said,
" My brother is hairy and I am smooth ; if my
father feels me and finds out who I am, I shall
get his curse and not his blessing." " The curse
be on me, my son," said Rebekah ; " only do as
I tell you and fetch me the kids." So he
brought them, and she made a dish of savoury
meat. Then she took clothes of Esau's that she
kept in the house, and made Jacob put them on,
and covered his hands and neck with the rough
skins of the kids. When he was dressed up, he
took the dish to his father, with bread and wine,
and invited him to sit up and eat. Isaac asked,
" Who are you ? " and he said, " I am Esau
your first-born." Isaac said, " How are you
back so soon, my son ? come near, that I may
feel you, whether you be my very son Esau or
not." Then Jacob went up to the bed ; and
Isaac felt him, and said, " The voice is Jacob's
voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau ; are
you my very son Esau ? " Jacob answered, " I
39

am ; " then he was satisfied, and sat up and ate,
and then gave Jacob his blessing : and this was,
that he should possess the dew of heaven and
the fatness of earth, and have plenty of corn and
wine, and be lord over his brethren. Then Jacob
went away ; and he was hardly gone, when Esau
came in from his hunting with his dish of savoury
meat, and brought it in to Isaac, saying, " Rise
and eat and bless me." Then Isaac trembled
greatly, and cried, " I have given my blessing
already, and now I cannot take it back." When
Esau heard this, he cried out aloud with a bitter
cry, " Bless me, even me also, O my father ;
have you not kept a blessing for me ? " But
Isaac answered, " See, I have made him your
lord, and given him corn and wine ; what shall
I do now for you, my son ? " Esau cried out
again, " Have you but one blessing, O my
father ? Bless me, even me also." Then Isaac
blessed him also, as well as he could ; but all
that he could give him was a dwelling far from
the fatness of earth and the dew of heaven ;
and to live by the sword, and serve his brother,
yet not for ever.

40

CHAPTER XXVII
THE ANGER OF ESAU
THEN Esau, who once had cared so little
about his birthright, hated Jacob for having
stolen the blessing of the first-born from him,
and thought with himself, " When my father is
dead, and that will not be long, I will kill Jacob."
Rebekah saw what was in his mind, and deter
mined that Jacob must go away out of danger,
till Esau's anger was spent and he had forgotten
his wrong. " And then," she thought with her
self, " I will send and fetch him back again."
Now Esau had married one of the daughters of
Heth from among the people of the land, and
this was a grief of mind to both Isaac and
Rebekah ; so she complained to Isaac that she
was weary of her life because of the daughters
of Heth. " If Jacob too were to marry another
of them," she said, " it would break my heart ;
let us send him to Haran to our kindred across
the river, that he may take a wife there among
his own people, as I was brought to be your
wife long ago." Isaac agreed ; and they sent
Jacob away quietly, going on foot and alone, to
4i

the house of his uncle in Haian. But Rebekah
never saw him again, for she died before he
came back.
CHAPTER XXVIII
JACOB'S LADDER
JACOB travelled all day, till the sun had set
and it grew dark ; then, as there was no
place of shelter near, he wrapped himself in his
cloak and lay down in the field, putting a stone
under his head for a pillow, and so fell asleep
under the open night. As he slept he dreamed,
and in his dream he saw a ladder set up with its
foot on earth and its top reaching to heaven, and
the angels of God went up and down on it.
Above it God himself stood, and in his dream
Jacob heard God say, " This land on which you
lie shall be given to you and to your children,
who shall be as many as the dust of the earth ;
and I myself will be with you and keep you in
all places where you go, and in the end I will
bring you back to rest in this land." Then
Jacob awoke out of his sleep and said to him
self, " Surely the Lord is in this place, and I
knew it not ; " and he saw the darkness and the
42

stars, and was afraid, and said, " How dreadful
is this place ! this is none other but the house
of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Early
with dawn he rose, and taking the stone that his
head had lain on, set it up on end for a pillar of
memorial, and made a vow that if God kept him
safely and gave him bread and clothing and
brought him back at last in peace to his home,
that stone should be the place of God's house.
So the place of Jacob's dream was afterwards
called Bethel, the House of God.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE FAIR SHEPHERDESS
JACOB went on his journey and crossed the
river and came at last to the land of the
people of the east. There he saw a well in the
field covered with a great stone, and three flocks
of sheep lying by it ; for it was the well out of
which they watered the flocks. He went up to
the shepherds and gave them greeting, asking
whence they were, and if they knew Laban the
son of Nahor. They answered, " We are shep
herds of Haran, and we know Laban. He is
well ; and see, there is his daughter Rachel
43

coming with her flock of sheep." Jacob said,
" Lo, it is yet high day, and it is not time to
fold the cattle ; water your sheep, and go and
feed them." They answered, " We are only
waiting for Rachel and her flock, that when she
comes, we may roll the stone from the well's
mouth and water all the flocks together, and
drive them afield." With that Rachel the fair
shepherdess came up, leading her flock ; and
Jacob kissed her, and lifted up his voice and
wept, and told her that he was her cousin,
Rebekah's son. Rachel ran home and told her
father Laban, who came out and embraced Jacob
and brought him in ; and when Jacob had told
all his story, he lived there and kept Laban's
flocks in the land of the east.
CHAPTER XXX
THE SISTERS
AFTER a month's time, Laban said to Jacob,
" You shall not serve me for nothing,
though you are my kinsman ; tell me, what shall
your wages be ? " Now Laban had two daughters,
Leah and Rachel, but Rachel was the younger
and fairer of the two, and Jacob loved her ;
44

therefore he said to Laban, " I will serve
you seven years for your daughter." So he
stayed with Laban and served him seven years ;
and they seemed to him but a few days, for the
love he had to Rachel. When the seven years
were finished, a feast was made to all the people
of the place, and at night Laban brought in the
bride to Jacob, covered with a veil. But the
next morning by daylight Jacob found that it
was Leah, the elder sister, who had been given
him instead of his own fair maid Rachel. He
went in anger to Laban, saying, " What is
this ? " Then Laban said, " In our country the
younger sister is never given in marriage before
the first-born ; but if you will serve me other
seven years for Rachel, you may have her as well."
Jacob could do no nothing better ; so he had both
Laban's daughters to wife, and kept his flocks
and herds for seven years more.
CHAPTER XXXI
LABAN'S FLOCKS
AT the end of the other seven years Jacob
wished to go back to his own country ;
but Laban begged him to stay, and asked him
45

to name his own wages and he should have
them ; for the flocks and herds, which had been
little before Jacob came, had increased into a
multitude since they were in his keeping. Jacob
agreed to stay, and for his hire he chose to have
all the speckled and spotted cattle and the
brown sheep and the striped goats for his own ;
and so he served Laban six years more. But
Jacob was so skilful a herdsman that his own
sheep and cattle increased more than Laban's
and were better and stronger than the others ;
and so it remained, however they divided them :
so that at the end of six years Laban's sons
complained that Jacob had taken away all their
wealth, and Laban himself was not so friendly
to him as before. Therefore Jacob made a plan
to be gone suddenly ; and his wives took his
side, saying, " Since our father gave us to you,
we are become strangers here, and have no
inheritance in our father's house."

4<5

CHAPTER XXXII
THE FLIGHT FROM HARAN
THE time of sheep-shearing came, and
Laban was gone to see after some flocks
that fed three days' journey off. Then Jacob,
taking his opportunity, gathered all his goods
and flocks and cattle, and mounted his wives
and children on camels, and crossing the river,
set forth in haste towards his own land. But
Rachel, unknown to Jacob, had stolen Laban's
gods and taken them away with her among the
household stuff. The third day after, word
came to Laban at his sheep-shearing that Jacob
was fled. He gathered his kinsmen and pursued
him, and at the end of seven days overtook him
among the mountains, and said, " What is this
that you have done, stealing away from me
unawares, and not telling me, that I might kiss
my daughters and send you on your way with
music and singing and mirth ? This is a foolish
thing to do ; and but that God warned me last
night in a dream not to hurt you, you are
helpless in my hand. And if you must needs
be gone, why have you stolen my gods ? "
Jacob answered, " I was afraid you would not
47

let your daughters go with me ; but I have
stolen nothing of yours ; I give you leave to
search the camp with your kinsmen." Laban
searched the tents, but could find nothing, for
Rachel had hidden his gods under the saddle of
a camel, and sat on it ; then Jacob in his turn
was angry, and said to Laban, " What wrong
have I done ? Why have you pursued me so
hotly ? Now let our kinsmen judge between
us. For twenty years I have served you faith
fully, fourteen years for your daughters, and
six for your cattle, in drought by day, and frost
by night ; you changed my wages ten times :
and now, had not God rebuked you yesternight,
you would have taken everything from me and
sent me away empty." Then Laban said, " Let
us make peace." So they piled a great mound
of stones for a memorial, and swore to each
other before God that neither of them would
ever pass that mound to harm the other. There
after they feasted, and early the next morning
Laban rose and kissed his daughters and blessed
them, and returned into his own land.

48

CHAPTER XXXIII
THE ANGEL BY THE RIVER
JACOB went on his way, sending messengers
before him to Esau, to ask his pardon ;
and when he lay at Penuel by the ford of the
river, they came back, saying they had given
Esau the message, and that for answer he was
coming himself to meet Jacob, with four hundred
men at his back. This news filled Jacob with
terror. He prayed to God, " Keep me now, O
Lord, as thou hast kept me till now ; for I am
not worthy of the least of all the mercies that
thou hast shewn me since I crossed this brook
twenty years ago with nothing but the staff in
my hand." Then he chose the best of his sheep,
goats, camels, oxen and asses, and sent them on
in separate droves with a space between each.
When Esau met the first drove and asked the
herdsman whose it was and where it was going,
he was to answer, " It is a present to my lord
Esau from his servant Jacob." The second
herdsman, when Esau met him, was to say the
same, and the rest in like manner ; for so, he
thought, Esau might be pacified before he met
d 49

him. So these separate droves crossed the river
by the ford and went forward each in order, and
the rest of the camp followed, and late at night
he sent his wives and children across last of all.
But he remained alone on the other side of the
river ; and there an angel wrestled with him all
night till the breaking of day. At dawn the
angel said, " Let me go, for day breaks ; " but
Jacob answered, " I will not let you go, except
you bless me." Then the angel said to him,
"As a prince you have had power with God and
with man, and have prevailed ; and your name
henceforth shall be no more Jacob, but Israel,
Prince of God." Then Jacob said, "What is
your own name ? " The angel answered, " Do
not ask me my name, for it is secret," and
passed away ; and at sunrise Jacob crossed the
ford of Penuel, and found that he went lame
where the angel had touched him on the hollow
of the thigh as they wrestled by night.

5<5

CHAPTER XXXIV
JACOB'S HOME-COMING
THEN Jacob looked forward and saw Esau
coming with his four hundred men, and
went on alone in front of the others to meet him,
bowing down to the ground before him seven
times as he came near. But Esau ran and
embraced Jacob and fell on his neck and kissed
him, and they both wept. Then Esau asked,
"What is the meaning of all the droves I met
on my way ? " " To find me grace in the sight
of my lord," said Jacob ; and Esau answered,
" I have enough, my brother ; keep them."
Then Esau said, " Let us go on together, and I
will travel with you ; '' but Jacob excused him
self, saying, " My lord, you see that I have
children and flocks with me, and I must not
overdrive the flocks or tire the little children ;
let me follow you softly at my own pace." So
Esau, after offering Jacob some of his men for a
guard, turned and went back home as he had
come ; and when he was gone, Jacob followed
slowly by little journeys. On his way he came
to Bethel, where he had dreamed of the ladder ;
5i

and there he built an altar, and God came down
to him and blessed him and went' up again into
heaven. As they journeyed on from Bethel,
Rachel died near Bethlehem among the corn
fields, leaving a newly-born baby, the last of
Jacob's children, who was called Benjamin ; and
they buried her there by the wayside, and set a
pillar over her grave. So at last Jacob came to
his old father Isaac at Hebron ; and not long
afterwards Isaac died, and his sons Esau and
Jacob buried him. Thereafter Esau and Jacob
parted, because they had so many cattle that one
land had not pasture enough for them both.
Esau went south towards the desert and lived in
the mountains ; but Jacob and his twelve sons
stayed at Hebron.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE COAT OF MANY COLOURS
JACOB'S favourite among his children was
Joseph, the elder son of his dear dead
Rachel ; for her younger son Benjamin was still
a little child. Jacob made Joseph a coat of
many colours, and loved him the best ; and
because of this his other brothers hated him.
52

When Joseph was a boy he had a dream, and
his dream was this : that he and his brothers
were binding sheaves in the cornfield, when his
sheaf rose and stood upright, and their sheaves
set themselves round about and bowed before
his sheaf. Afterwards he dreamed again ; and
this dream was that the sun and the moon and
the eleven stars came and bowed down before
him. When he told these dreams to his father
and brothers, his father chid him, and said,
" What foolish dream is this ? Shall I and your
mother and your eleven brothers bow down to
the earth before you ? " but nevertheless kept
the dream in his mind. But his brothers hated
him more than they did before.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE MIDIANITE MERCHANTS
JOSEPH'S brothers were away feeding their
flocks in Shechem, and Jacob sent him to
them to see how they all were, and bring him
word again. He went from Hebron to Shechem
and did not find them there ; but as he was
wandering in search of them, he met a man who
told him he had heard them say that they were
53

going further off to Dothan, where there was a
hill with two fountains. Then Joseph went on
there, and found them feeding their flocks on
the hill. But when his brothers saw him far off,
coming over the fields in his coat of many ,
colours, their anger broke out, and they said to
one another, " Here comes the dreamer ; let us
kill him and throw him into a pit, and say that a
wild beast has devoured him ; then we shall see
what becomes of his dreams." They all agreed
to this except Reuben, the eldest of Jacob's
sons, who pleaded for his life, but he could not
prevail on the others. Then he said, " At least
shed no blood ; cast him into a pit in the
wilderness without food or water, and let him die
there." He proposed this plan to save Joseph's
life, meaning to come back alone to the pit when
the others were gone, and take him out and send
him back home. The rest agreed to his plan ;
and when Joseph came, they seized him and
stripped off his coat of many colours, and cast
him into an empty pit. Then Reuben went away,
and the rest sat down to eat. As they were
eating, they saw a troop of camels in the
distance ; and presently a company of Midianite
merchantmen came up, who were on their road
54

to Egypt with their camels laden with spicery.
Then some one proposed that instead of leaving
Joseph to die in the pit to no profit, they should
sell him for a slave to the merchants, and so be
rid of him ; and they all agreed to this ; so they
drew him up out of the pit and sold him for
twenty pieces of silver, and the merchants took
him away. When Reuben came back to the pit
and found Joseph gone, he rent his clothes, not
knowing what had become of him, and cried,
" What shall I do ? for the child is gone." But
the rest had killed a kid and dipped Joseph's
coat in its blood, and took it back to Jacob,
saying, " We found this lying in the field ; is
it your son's coat, or not ? " Jacob knew the
coat, and believed that some wild beast had
devoured his son ; and he tore his clothes and
put on sackcloth and mourned for him many
days, refusing to be comforted as long as he
should live.

55

CHAPTER XXXVII
POTIPHAR'S WIFE
THE Midianite merchants carried Joseph into
Egypt with them, and sold him for a slave
to Potiphar, captain of the guards to Pharaoh
king of Egypt. So he served in Potiphar's
household, and God was with him, and he did
all his work so well that after a while he was
made steward, and put in charge over all the
house. Now Joseph was very beautiful, and his
mistress, Potiphar's wife, cast her eyes on him
and would have had his love. But he refused to
be false to his master, and though she spoke to
him day by day, he would not listen to her, or
be with her. At last he went into the house on
a day to do his business, when there were none
of the people of the house indoors. She found
him there alone, and when all her words and
wooing were in vain, she caught hold of him by
his garment ; and he left it in her hands and
escaped away. Then her love turned into
hatred ; she called her servants, and said to
them, " This Hebrew slave has been brought
into the house to mock me ; he came in now
56

and would have done me violence ; but when I
cried out aloud, he fled and left his garment
in my hand." When her husband came home
she told the same story to him ; and he believed
her, and put Joseph into the king's prison ; for
he was governor of the prison, arid it was close
by his house. But God gave Joseph favour in
the eyes of the keeper of the prison, who treated
him kindly, and put him in charge over the rest
of the prisoners.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
JOSEPH IN PRISON
WHILE Joseph was in prison, the chief
butler and the chief baker in the palace
of Pharaoh fell under suspicion of plotting to
poison their lord the king, and were put in ward
in the same prison ; there they lay for a while,
and Joseph had charge of them along with the
rest of the prisoners. On one night each of
them dreamed a strange dream ; and when
Joseph came in to them in the morning he found
them both sad because of their dream, and not
able to interpret it. " Tell me what it was you
dreamed," he said ; and the chief butler began :
57

" In my dream," he said, " I thought a vine was
before me, and on the vine there were three
branches ; and it seemed to bud and blossom,
and ripe grapes came on it. The king's cup
was in my hand ; and I plucked the grapes and
pressed them into the cup, and gave the cup
into the king's hand." Then Joseph said, " The
interpretation of your dream is this : The three
branches are three days ; and within three days
you shall be restored to your office and give the
cup into the king's hand as before. But re
member me, I pray you, when it is well with
you, and have me delivered out of prison ; for I
am here for no wrong that I have done." Then
the chief baker, when he heard the chief butler's
dream so well interpreted, was the readier to tell
his own. " In my dream," he said, " I thought
I had three baskets of white bread on my head ;
and in the uppermost basket were all sorts of
pastry for the king's table ; and the birds came
and ate them out of the basket upon my head."
Joseph answered him, " The three baskets are
three days ; within three days Pharaoh shall
take your office from you and hang you on a
gallows, and the birds shall eat your flesh
there." The third day after this was Pharaoh's
53

birthday, when he made a feast to all his house
hold ; and on that day the chief butler and the
chief baker were both taken out of prison, and
the chief butler was restored to his place, to give
the cup into the king's hand as before, and the
chief baker was hanged, just as Joseph had fore
told. Yet the chief butler did not remember
Joseph, but forgot him ; and he remained in
prison.
CHAPTER XXXIX
KING PHARAOH'S DREAMS
TWO years afterwards, king Pharaoh dreamed
a dream ; and in his dream he stood by
the river, when seven fat and goodly cows came
up out of it and fed in the meadow. Then after
them came up seven others, lean and ugly, and
ate up the first seven; and the king awoke.
Then he fell asleep and dreamed again, and in
his dream seven ears of corn came up on one
stalk, plump and good ; and after them sprang
up seven thin ears blasted with the east wind ;
and the seven thin ears devoured the seven full
ears ; and the king awoke out of his dream. In
the morning he was troubled, and sent for all the
magicians and wise men of Egypt and told them
59

his dream ; but none of them could interpret it
to him. Then the chief butler remembered
Joseph, and told the king of his dream and the
chief baker's dream in prison, and how Joseph
had interpreted them both, and it had befallen as
¦- he had said. Pharaoh sent for Joseph out of
prison ; and they brought him out hastily, and
he shaved and put on clean clothes and came to
the palace. Then the king told him his two
dreams, and Joseph interpreted them thus : " O
king," he said, " the seven cows, and the seven
ears of corn that you saw, both mean seven
years (for the two dreams are one) ; and God
shews you by the dreams what is about to befal
in Egypt. Seven years of great plenty are
coming throughout all the land ; and after them
shall be seven years of famine, so grievous that
the years of plenty shall be forgotten ; and the
doubling of the dream means that this is very
certain, and will shortly come to pass. Let
Pharaoh therefore look out a wise man and
set him over the whole land of Egypt, with
officers under him everywhere, to gather the
corn that is left over in the seven good
years, and lay it up in store-houses in every city
in Egypt ; and so the people shall have food
60

through the seven years of famine that are to
follow."
CHAPTER XL
THE SEVEN YEARS OF PLENTY
THEN King Pharaoh was pleased, and said
to his servants, " Who is wiser than this
young man himself, to whom God has shewn all
these things ? " and with that he took the ring
from his own hand and put it on Joseph's hand,
and gave orders to clothe him in fine linen and
put a gold chain about his neck, and made him
ride in the second of the royal chariots, next his
own, with men going before him and crying to
the people, " Bow the knee ;" and he made him
governor of all Egypt, to be above all men but
the king, and married him to a princess, the
daughter of the priest of the temple of the Sun.
Joseph was thirty years old when he began to
rule over Egypt. Seven years of great plenty
followed ; and Joseph gathered corn and put it
in granaries in every city, till there was such
great store that he had to leave off keeping count
of it. Then followed seven years of dearth ;
and in all other lands there was famine, but in
Egypt there was plenty of bread. For Joseph
61

opened his granaries and sold the corn to the
Egyptians, and to the people who came for corn
out of other countries where there was famine.
As the years of famine went on, the Egyptians
sold all their cattle and lands to the king for
food, and became the king's chattels, holding
their land of him ; and the king became owner
of the whole land of Egypt.
CHAPTER XLI
THE FIRST JOURNEY TO EGYPT
THE years of famine were in the land of
Canaan also ; but in the second year Jacob
heard that there was corn in Egypt, and told
his sons to go thither and buy bread. So
his ten sons went to buy corn in Egypt ; but
his youngest child Benjamin, Joseph's full
brother, stayed at home, lest any harm might
befal him on the journey. When the ten
brothers came to Egypt, they took their places
among the crowd that came every day to buy
corn of the governor, and when Joseph came out
of his palace they bowed down to the ground
before him. Joseph knew his brothers at once,
and remembered the dreams he had dreamed
62

so many years before, when he was a boy ; but
they did not know him ; for he was dressed as
a great lord, and spoke to them in Egyptian
through an interpreter. When he saw they did
not know him, he made himself strange and
spoke roughly to them. " Whence come you ? "
he said ; and they answered, " From the land of
Canaan to buy food, my lord." " You are spies,"
said he. " Nay, my lord," they said ; " your
servants are come to buy food ; we are all one
man's sons ; we are true men and no spies."
" No," said he again ; " you are come to see the
nakedness of the land." " My lord," they
answered, " we were twelve sons of one man in
the land of Canaan, and one brother is dead,
and the youngest is at home with our father."
But Joseph would not listen to them, and put
them all in prison for three days. On the third
day he called for them and said, " If you are
true men, you may go with the corn you came
to buy for your household ; but you must leave
one brother in prison here, and bring me that
other youngest brother of whom you speak ; so
I shall know if your story is true." At this
they were greatly troubled, and began to say to
one another, " This distress is come upon us
63

because of our brother Joseph when he cried to
us for mercy and we would not hear." " Did I
not plead with you in vain for his life ? " said
Reuben ; " and now you see how his blood is
being required at our hands." All this while
Joseph understood every word they said ; but
they did not know it, for he spoke to them in
Egyptian through an interpreter. But Joseph
was so moved that he turned away and wept.
Then he turned to them again, and passing over
Reuben, who was the eldest, he chose Simeon,
who was the next in age, to remain in prison,
and let the rest go ; and he ordered his steward
to fill their sacks with corn, and put back their
money into the sacks. So they started on their
way home. But at night, when they came to
their inn, one of them opened his sack to get out
some corn, and found his money lying in the
sack's mouth. He shewed it to his brothers,
and their heart failed them, for they did not
know what to think of it. So they went on
their journey, and came to their father, and told
him all their story ; and when they emptied out
their sacks of corn, there was a bundle of money
in each sack. But Jacob said bitterly to them,
"Joseph is gone, and Simeon is gone, and now
64

you wish to take Benjamin from me too, and
bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave."
CHAPTER XLII
THE SECOND JOURNEY TO EGYPT
THE famine continued in the land ; and
when the corn that Joseph's brothers had
brought with them from Egypt was all done,
Jacob told them to go again and buy some more
food. But they said that unless they took
Benjamin with them it would be useless to go,
for the governor would not so much as see them.
"Why did you tell him you had a brother at
all ? " Jacob said ; and they answered, " He
asked us closely about our home and kindred,
and we told him ; how could we know that he
would tell us to bring our brother to him ? "
And Judah went on, and said : " Send the lad
with me, and let us go, that we may all live,
and not die ; I will be surety for him ; if we
had not lingered, we might have been there and
back now." At last Jacob consented. " Take
Benjamin and go," he said, " and carry with you
a present of the fruits of the land for the
governor, balm and honey, spices and nuts and
e 65

almonds ; and take back the money that you
found in your sacks, as well as fresh money to
buy more corn with ; and may God Almighty
give you mercy before the man, that he may let
both Simeon and Benjamin go." So they went
again into Egypt.
CHAPTER XLIII
THE DINNER IN JOSEPH'S HOUSE
WHEN Joseph heard that they were come,
he told his steward to bring them in to
his house, and have dinner ready at noon.
When they were brought indoors, they were
afraid that they would be charged with having
stolen the money they had found in their sacks,
and be sold for slaves. They took the money to
the steward, and told him how they had found it
in their sacks and could not guess how it had
got there ; but he only said that they had paid
him for the corn and need not be afraid. Then
he brought Simeon out of prison to them, and
they all went into Joseph's house and washed,
and got ready their present for the governor ; for
the steward had told them they were to dine
with him. When Joseph came in at noon, they
66

brought him their present and bowed down
before him ; and he asked them after their
father, and said, " Is this your youngest brother
of whom you told me ? " But as he looked at
Benjamin, he could not refrain himself any
longer, and went away hastily into his own
room and wept. Then he washed his face and
came out again ; and dinner was served for
Joseph at a high table by himself, and for the
Egyptians of his household at another, and for
the brothers at a third ; and what made them
wonder most was that they were made to sit
exactly in the order of their age. Joseph sent
dishes to them from his table, but Benjamin's
dish was five times as much as any of the rest ;
and they ate and drank and were merry.
CHAPTER XLIV
THE SILVER CUP
AFTER dinner, Joseph said to his steward,
" Fill their sacks with corn, as much as
they can carry, and put my silver cup in the
mouth of the sack of the youngest, and send
them away as soon as it is light to-morrow
morning." So they started at day-break ; but
67

before they were far out of the city the steward
came riding after them and charged them with
having stolen his master's cup. They said,
" We know nothing of it ; if the cup is found
among us, we will all become the governor's
slaves, and the one on whom it is found shall
be put to death." " No," he said ; " not the
innocent for the guilty ; he on whom the cup is
found shall be my slave, and the rest of you go
free." Then they unloaded all their sacks and
opened them, and he searched them through,
beginning with the eldest, and going down to
the youngest ; and the cup was found in
Benjamin's sack. The steward seized Benjamin;
and the rest loaded their asses again and re
turned with him in grief to the city. They
found Joseph in his house, and fell on the
ground before him. " What deed is this that
you have done ? " he said. Judah answered,
" What shall we say unto my lord ? how can we
clear ourselves ? God has found out our iniquity,
and we are all my lord's slaves." " God forbid,"
Joseph answered ; " the man on whom the cup
was found shall be my slave ; but for you, get
you gone in peace to your father." Then Judah
came near and spoke to Joseph thus.
68

"O,

CHAPTER XLV
JUDAH'S PLEADING
MY lord," said Judah, " let thy servant,

pray thee, speak a word in my lord's
ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy
servant ; for thou art even as Pharaoh. My
lord asked his servants, saying : Have you a
father, or a brother ? and we said unto my lord,
We have a father, an old man, and a child of his
old age, a little one ; and his brother is dead,
and he alone is left of his mother, and his father
loves him. Then thou saidst unto thy servants :
Bring him to me, that I may set mine eyes upon
him ; and we said unto my lord : The lad can
not leave his father ; for if he should leave his
father, his father would die. And thou saidst
unto thy servants, Except your youngest brother
come with you, you shall see my face no more ;
and when we went back to thy servant our
father, we told him the words of my lord.
Then our father said : Go again, and buy us a
little food; and we said: We cannot go; if
our youngest brother be with us, then we will
go ; for we may not see the man's face except
69

our youngest brother be with us. And thy
servant my father said to us : You know that
my wife bore me two sons, and the one went out
from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces ;
and I saw him not since ; and if you take this
other also from me and mischief befal him, you
will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to
the grave. Now, therefore, when I come to thy
servant my father, and the lad be not with us,
he will die, and thy servants shall bring down
the grey hairs of thy servant our father with
sorrow to the grave : for thy servant became
surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I
bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the
blame to my father for ever. Now, therefore,
I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the
lad a bondman to my lord, and let the lad go up
with his brethren ; for how shall I go to my
father, and the lad be not with me ? lest I see
the evil that shall come on my father."

70

CHAPTER XLVI
THE MERCY OF JOSEPH
JOSEPH could bear no more ; he called out
hastily for every one to leave the room, and
as soon as he was left alone with his brothers he
wept aloud, so that the Egyptians outside heard
it, and said to his brothers in their own language,
" I am Joseph." They were so frightened that
they could not speak ; he told them to come
near him, and said again, " I am Joseph your
brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Do not be
grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sold
me hither ; for God sent me here before you,
that I might save your lives ; and he has made
me lord of Pharaoh's house and ruler throughout
all Egypt. Hasten back now to our father and
bid him come here with all his household, and I
will keep him ; for there are still five more years
of famine to come. Tell him of all my glory in
Egypt, and bring him hither to me." The news
quickly came to Pharaoh's palace ; the king was
pleased, and said, "Let Joseph's father come at
once, and he shall have the best of the land of
tgypt." Then the brothers went joyfully home,
n

taking with them waggons from Egypt to carry
their household stuff, and twenty asses laden
with bread and meat and good things for their
father by the way. When they came back to
Jacob and told him that Joseph was alive and
was governor of Egypt, his heart fainted, for he
could not believe it ; but when he saw the
waggons that Joseph had sent, and heard all
that he had said, he revived, and said, " It is
enough ; Joseph my son is yet alive ; I will go
and see him before I die."
CHAPTER XLVII
THE THIRD JOURNEY TO EGYPT
THEN Jacob took his journey with his whole
household, between sixty and seventy
persons in all ; and when he had come to the
border of Canaan, God spoke to him in a vision by
night, saying, " Do not fear to go into Egypt ; for
there I will make your children a great nation,
and bring them again thence." So he travelled
on across the desert to Egypt, and Judah went
on before to tell Joseph, who drove out in his
chariot to meet his father, and fell on his neck
and wept a good while ; and Jacob said, " Now
72

let me die, since I have seen your face." Then
Joseph went to the king and told him that his
father and all his household were come ; and he
presented them to the king, who received them
kindly and told Joseph to choose the best of the
land for them to dwell in, and appoint some of
them (for they were all shepherds) to be keepers
of the royal flocks. Joseph made them live in
the land of Goshen, between the river and the
desert, where there was good pasture, and gave
them bread through the rest of the years of
famine ; and they prospered and increased.
CHAPTER XLVIII
THE GRANDCHILDREN
WHEN Jacob felt the time of his death draw
near, he called Joseph to him and said,
" Promise me, as you are kind and true, not to
bury me in Egypt, but to take me home and
bury me with my fathers ; " and Joseph promised.
Not long after, a message came to Joseph that
his father was sick, and he went to see him,
taking his two boys, Manasseh and Ephraim,
with him. Then Jacob gathered his strength
and sat up in bed, and said to Joseph, " When
73

God Almighty appeared to me at Bethel and
blessed me, he promised the land of Canaan to
me and to my children for ever. Now your two
sons shall each have a full share in it as if they
were my own children." Then his mind wan
dered back to old days, "And as for me," he
said, " when I was coming home, Rachel died by
me in the land of Canaan on the way, when
there was yet but a little way to come to
Bethlehem ; and I buried her there by the road
of Bethlehem ; " and he looked at Joseph's sons
and said, " Who are these ? " Joseph said to
him, " These are my sons, whom God has
given me in this place." Then Jacob said,
" Bring them to me, and I will bless them."
Joseph took them both and brought them close,
holding Manasseh, the first-born, in his left-
hand towards Jacob's right hand, and Ephraim,
the younger, in his right hand towards Jacob's
left hand. But Jacob crossed his hands, and
laid his right hand on Ephraim's head, and his
left on Manasseh's. Then Joseph, thinking he
mistook the two boys, would have taken his
father's right hand, to remove it to Manasseh's
head from Ephraim's, saying, " Not so, my
father, this is the first-born." But Jacob said,
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" I know, my son, I know ; he also shall become
a people, and be great ; but his younger brother
shall be greater than he." Then he blessed
them both, and said to Joseph, " Behold, I die ;
but God shall be with you and bring you back
again to the land of your fathers ; and in that
land I have given you a double portion above
your brothers." Thereafter he called all his
sons together, and told them what should befal
them in the days to come, and blessed them, and
charged them to bury him, when he died, in
the cave in the field at Hebron, where Abraham
and Sarah and Isaac and Rebekah were buried,
and where he himself had buried his wife Leah ;
and when he had made an end of what he had to
say, he died, and was gathered to his people.
CHAPTER XLIX
THE MOURNING IN THE MEADOW
JOSEPH wept for his father and kissed him,
and closed his eyes ; and he commanded that
the body should be embalmed ; and they mourned
for him in Egypt for seventy days. When the
days of the mourning were over, Joseph asked
leave from the king to go and bury his father at
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Hebron as he had promised ; and Pharaoh gave
him leave. So Joseph and his brothers bore
him away, and the court of Pharaoh and the
princes of Egypt went with them on horseback
and in chariots, as far as the threshing-floor in
the meadow of the Egyptians, and there held a
great lamentation for seven days ; then the
Egyptians went back, and Jacob's sons carried
his body to Hebron, and buried it in the cave in
the field, and returned to Egypt. After Jacob
was dead, Joseph's brothers were afraid that he
might have only spared them for their father's
sake, and might punish them now for their
cruelty to him ; so they came and fell down
before him and prayed him to forgive them.
But Joseph wept for pity, and told them to have
no fear. " You did indeed devise evil against
me," he said, " but God meant it for good, to
save many people alive." So Joseph lived in
Egypt in great honour; and when he was old
and about to die, he told the children of Israel
that when the appointed time came, God would
visit them and lead them back out of Egypt to
their own land ; and he took an oath of them to
carry his bones with them when they went. So
he died, and they embalmed him, and put him in
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a coffin in Egypt ; and his brothers died, and all
that generation.
CHAPTER L
THE ARK OF BULRUSHES
THE children of Israel lived for a long time
in Egypt, till the land was filled with
them ; and new kings reigned, and Joseph was
forgotten. At last a king arose who oppressed
the children of Israel, and set taskmasters over
them to make them work in the brick-fields and
build cities for him, and made their lives bitter
with hard bondage. But the more they were
oppressed, the more they grew ; therefore the
king gave orders that all their male children
should be thrown into the river as soon as they
were born. Now a man and his wife among the
children of Israel had a boy born to them ; and
the mother kept her baby hidden for three
months to save him from the river ; but when
she could hide him no longer, she made an ark
of bulrushes, and putting him in, laid him among
the reeds by the river brink ; and his sister was
set to watch a little way off. As the baby lay
there among the reeds, the king's daughter
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came- down from the palace with her maidens to
bathe in the river, and saw the ark lying among
the reeds as she walked along the river bank ;
she sent a maid to fetch it; and when it was
fetched and opened the baby was crying inside,
and she had pity on him. Then his sister came
up and asked her, " Princess, shall I go and find
a woman to nurse the baby for you ? " " Go,"
said the princess ; and she went and fetched her
mother, to whom the princess gave her own
baby, and said, " Nurse this child for me." The
child lived and throve, and when he was grown
his mother brought him back to the princess.
She adopted him as her son, and called him
Moses, that is to say, Drawn out of the river ;
and he was taught all the wisdom of the
Egyptians.
CHAPTER LI

M'

THE EXILE IN THE DESERT
OSES went out from the palace to look at
the labours of his countrymen, and saw
one of them being cruelly beaten by an Egyptian.
He looked this way and that, and seeing no one
else near, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in
the sand. The next day, he found two of the
78

children of Israel quarrelling with one another,
and rebuked the one who was in the wrong ;
but the man turned on him and answered,
" Who made you a prince and a judge over us ?
Do you intend to kill me as you killed the
Egyptian yesterday ? " When Moses found that
what he had done was known, he was afraid
that Pharaoh might hear of it and put him to
death ; so he fled away from Egypt and escaped
into the Arabian desert, where he sat down by a
well. As he sat there, the seven daughters of
Jethro, the prince of Midian, brought their flocks
to the well ; and when they had filled the
watering-troughs, shepherds came and would
have driven them away ; but Moses took their
part, and helped them to water their flocks.
When they came home their father asked them :
" How is it that you are back so soon to-day ? "
They said, "An Egyptian stranger helped us,
and drew water for us." Then he said, " And
where is he ? why did you leave the man by the
well ? go back, and ask him to come and eat
bread with us." So they brought Moses to the
tents ; and he stayed there, and afterwards
married one of Jethro's daughters, and kept a
flock in the desert. 79

CHAPTER LII
THE BURNING BUSH
MOSES led his flock round behind the
desert for pasture, and came with it to
Mount Horeb : and there he saw a burning bush
on the mountain, all in a flame of fire and yet
not consumed. He turned aside to go near and
see, when a voice came to him out of the bush
and said, " Put off your shoes from off your feet,
for the place where you stand is holy ground."
So he put off his shoes, and stood barefoot ;
then God spoke to him out of the burning bush,
saying, " I have seen the affliction of my people
in Egypt and heard their cry and known their
sorrow ; and I am come down to deliver them.
I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let
them go, no, not by a mighty hand ; but I will
stretch out my arm, and smite Egypt with all
my wonders which I will do in the midst of it ;
go therefore, and lead them out." Moses asked
God, "Give me a sign, that the people may
believe my message." God said to him, "What
is that in your hand ? " and he answered, " A
rod." Then God told him to throw the rod in
80

his hand upon the ground. When he did so, it
became a serpent, and he started back from it,
but when he put out his hand and caught it by
the tail, it became a rod in his hand again as it
was at first. Then Moses returned, and took his
wife and children, and the wonderful rod in his
hand, and travelled back to Egypt. On the way
he met his brother Aaron, who had come to
search for him in the desert ; and he kissed him,
and told him the words and signs of God; then
they went together among the children of Israel,
who were making bricks in Egypt to build cities
for King Pharaoh, and told them how their
deliverance was at hand.
CHAPTER LIII
THE TASKMASTERS
AFTER this, Moses and Aaron went to King
Pharaoh, and said, " The Lord God of
Israel bids you let his people go that they may
hold a feast to him in the wilderness." But
Pharaoh answered, " Who is the Lord God, that
I should obey him ? I know him not, nor will I
let Israel go. Get you to your tasks, and do
not hinder the people from working." The
f 81

same day, he commanded his taskmasters not to
supply any more straw to the children of Israel
for making bricks. " Let them go and gather it
themselves," he said ; " they are idle, therefore
they cry, Let us go and hold a feast to our
God ; let more work be laid on them, and they
will not listen to vain talk." So the children of
Israel were worse treated than before, for they
had to go on making the full number of bricks
for their daily task and to gather straw as well,
and were beaten if they fell short ; and they
murmured against Moses and Aaron for having
led them into this trouble. Moses cried to God,
"Lord, why hast thou sent me? thou hast not
delivered thy people at all ; " and God answered
him, " Now you shall see what I will do ; I am
the Lord."
CHAPTER LIV
THE TEN PLAGUES
THEN God began to work great signs and
wonders in Egypt by the hand of Moses
and Aaron, and sent his plagues, one after
another, upon Pharaoh and his people, to make
them let the children of Israel go. For when
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Moses and Aaron had gone again to the king,
and he had refused to listen to them, they stood
on the brink of the river with the rod that
turned into a serpent in their hand, and stretched
it out over the river ; and the water in the river
and in all the ponds and pools was turned into
blood, and the fish died and the water could not
be drunk ; this was the first plague of Egypt.
Then they stretched out the rod over the waters
a second time ; and frogs came up out of the
water and covered all the land, so that the
houses and beds and ovens and dishes were
filled with them. But Pharaoh called his
magicians, and they too turned water into blood
and made frogs with their enchantments ; and
he hardened his heart against the two plagues of
the water, and would not let the people go.
Then Moses and Aaron stretched out the rod
over the dust of the land, and a third plague
came ; for the dust became lice that covered
both men and beasts. Pharaoh's magicians tried
to do this, but could not ; then they told him
that it was the work of God. But he was
stubborn and would not hear ; therefore a fourth
plague was sent, swarms of flies that came into
the land and filled the houses ; and then a fifth,
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which was a sore sickness upon all the Egyptian
sheep and cattle and horses : j'et Pharaoh's
pride was not broken, and he would not let the
people go for the three plagues of the earth.
So a sixth plague was sent on him ; for Moses
and Aaron took handfuls of ashes of the furnace
and sprinkled them towards heaven ; and it be
came a small dust in all the air over Egypt,
that made boils break out over man and
beast. Then a seventh plague followed ; Moses
stretched forth his rod towards heaven, and there
came thunder and lightning and hail, such as
never was known before or since in Egypt, and
it destroyed the flax and the barley, and beat
down all the crops in the fields and broke the
trees. Again for the eighth time Moses stretched
forth his rod, and all that day and all night an
east wind blew, and with the next morning it
brought up a cloud of locusts from across the
sea, that covered the land and devoured all that
the hail had left, so that there was not one
green thing left in Egypt : yet Pharaoh kept his
pride. Then once more, for the ninth time,
Moses stretched forth his hand, and there was a
thick darkness, darkness that might be felt, over
all Egypt for three days, so that no man saw
84

another, or dared to stir from his place. But
Pharaoh's heart was still hardened, and he
would not let the people go because of the
four plagues of the air. These nine plagues had
fallen on all Egypt, except where the children of
Israel were ; so that all the while the children of
Israel had water and pasture and fair weather,
and were not vexed by frogs, or lice, or flies,
and had no sickness on either man or beast.
When a plague came, Pharaoh would send for
Moses and promise to let the people go if it
were taken away ; but when it left off, he
hardened his heart again ; and after the ninth
plague of the three days' darkness, he told
Moses to be gone, and not to come in his sight
any more, or he would put him to death ; and
Moses answered him : " You say well ; you shall
not see my face again."
CHAPTER LV
THE PASSOVER
THEN God said to Moses, "Bid the people
make ready to go ; for I myself will come
down to-night and bring yet one more plague
upon the Egyptians, and that shall be the end."
«5

Moses called all the elders of Israel together and
said, " Make ready ; gather your households to
night, and in each household kill a lamb and
roast it, and sup off the roast meat with un
leavened bread and bitter herbs, each one of you
girt and shod and with staff in hand, as men
who are in haste to be gone ; for at midnight
God will pass through Egypt and smite the
Egyptians. When you kill the lamb take a
sprig of hyssop and dip it in the blood, and
shake it over the lintel and posts of the door
way ; and let no one go out at the door till
morning ; for when the Destroyer goes through
the land to-night he will only pass over the
houses that have blood on the doors."
CHAPTER LVI
THE PILLAR OF CLOUD AND FIRE
THE children of Israel did as Moses com
manded ; and at midnight the Destruction
of God went out and slew all the first-born in
Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on
his throne to the first-born of the slave behind
the mill ; and there was a great cry in Egypt ;
for in every house there was one dead.
86

Pharaoh sent hastily for Moses and Aaron in
Vne dark of night and besought them to be
gone ; and all the Egyptians, thinking them
selves as good as dead, were eager for them to
go, and brought them gold and silver and
raiment to Hasten them. So that night before
day Droke trie whole multitude of the children of
Israel were on their journey, with their women
and children and flocks and herds ; and that day
and the next they marched on as far as the edge
of the wilderness. They carried the bones of
Joseph with them in a coffin, as he had bidden
when he was dying, a hundred and fifty years
before ; and the angel of God went before them
to lead them on their journey, in a pillar of cloud
by day to shew them the way and a pillar of fire
by night to give them light.
CHAPTER LVII
THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA
FROM the edge of the wilderness the pillar of
cloud and fire no longer led them straight
forward out of Egypt, but wheeled to the right
and led them down between the mountains and
the Red Sea, till they came to where the cliffs
87

ran out into the sea and left no passage, and
there they encamped on the sea-shore. But
when Pharaoh heard of the way they had gone,
he thought that they were shut in there, like
beasts in a trap, and that if he pursued them he
might fall on them and cut them in pieces or
drive them back to be slaves in Egypt ; so he
armed six hundred chariots and a great host
of horsemen, and pursued them. When the
Egyptian army came in sight, the children of
Israel were afraid, and cried out that it was
better to be slaves in Egypt than to die in the
wilderness. But Moses said, " Do not be afraid ;
for after to-day you shall never see the Egyp
tians again ; stand still, and see the salvation
of the Lord." As night fell, the pillar of cloud
and fire removed from before their camp, and
went behind it, between them and the camp of
the Egyptians, so that it gave light to the children
of Israel, but was a cloud and darkness over the
Egyptian army and kept them from coming near.
Then Moses stretched out his rod over the sea,
and the waters were divided, and stood in heaps
on each side of a long lane of land ; and the
children of Israel marched into the midst of the
sea upon dry ground with a wall of waters on
88

their right hand and a wall of waters on their
left. The Egyptian army passed in after them
under the cloud, going slowly because they could
not see their way ; and before dawn the children
of Israel had crossed over and were on land on
the other side, and the Egyptians were in the
middle of the sea-path, still wrapped in thick
darkness, and with the wall of waters to right
and left. Then God looked on the Egyptians
through the pillar of fire and cloud, and troubled
their host, and took off the wheels of their
chariots ; and they turned confusedly and began
to go backward. But as morning broke, Moses
stretched out his rod over the sea again, and it
returned to its place, covering chariots and horse
men ; and Pharaoh and all his army were drowned
in the Red Sea.
CHAPTER LVIII
ANGELS' BREAD
THE children of Israel sang a song of victory
on the edge of the Red Sea, while the
women danced and played on tambourines.
Then they set out on their march through the
wilderness. But after a few days they began to
89

be hungry and thirsty ; for the food they had
brought with them out of Egypt was soon done,
and they had nothing to drink but the bitter
springs and wells of the desert : so that they
began to murmur against Moses and to wish
themselves back in Egypt, where they had sat
by the cooking-pots and eaten their fill of bread.
Then God sent manna from heaven to feed them.
Early in the morning the glory of God shone
in the pillar of cloud, and when the dew that
lay on the ground was drunk up by the rising
sun, they saw the face of the ground covered
with small round grains like coriander-seed,
coloured like spice, and tasting like cakes made
with flour and honey. They gathered as much
of this as they could eat that day, and when the
sun grew hot, the rest melted away where it lay
on the ground. Every night the manna felllike rain
all round their camp, and every morning they
gathered their daily food, and ground it in mills
or pounded it in a mortar and made cakes of it
and it did not keep till the next day. They called
it angels' bread, and they fed on it for all the
while they were in the wilderness. Also when
they had no water, Moses took the wonderful
rod which he had stretched out over the river
90

of Egypt and over the Red Sea, and struck a
rock in the desert, and water gushed out of the
rock enough for all to drink; and this rock fol
lowed them and gave them water in all their
wanderings. So they journeyed on through the
wilderness, eating angels' food day by day, and
drinking of the water from the rock that followed
them.
CHAPTER LIX
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
SO they went on their journey, and three
months after they had left Egypt they came
to Mount Sinai, where God had spoken to Moses
out of the burning bush, and encamped on the
plain below it for three days. On the morning
of the third day a thick cloud came down and
rested on the mountain-top, and there were
thunders and lightnings and a long loud trumpet-
blast out of the cloud ; and the whole mountain
smoked and shook, and God descended on it in
a flame of fire. Then out of the middle of the
cloud and thick darkness, among thunderings and
lightnings, the voice of God spoke thus, and
said: " I AM THE LORD THY GOD WHO
HAVE BROUGHT THEE OUT OF THE
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LAND OF EGYPT, OUT OF THE HOUSE
OF BONDAGE. THOU SHALT HAVE
NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME. THOU
SHALT NOT MAKE ANY GRAVEN IMAGE
TO BOW DOWN TO NOR SERVE. THOU
SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE
LORD THY GOD FALSELY. REMEMBER
THE SABBATH DAY TO KEEP IT HOLY.
HONOUR THY FATHER AND THY
MOTHER, THAT THY DAYS MAY BE
LONG UPON THE LAND. THOU SHALT
NOT KILL. THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT
ADULTERY. THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.
THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WIT
NESS. THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY
NEIGHBOUR'S HOUSE, NOR HIS WIFE,
NOR HIS SERVANT, NOR HIS OX, NOR
HIS ASS, NOR ANYTHING THAT IS HIS."
The voice of God spoke these words, and ceased.
CHAPTER LX
THE TABLES OF STONE
ALL the people saw the lightnings and felt
the earth tremble, and heard the thunder
and the noise of the trumpet, and the voice
92

of God giving his ten commandments ; and they
were afraid, and stood far off. But Moses
and Aaron, with seventy of the elders of Israel,
went up on to the mountain, and when they had
passed through the storm and darkness they saw
above them a pavement of sapphire-stone, like
the body of heaven in colour and clearness,
spread under the feet of God. Then Aaron and
the seventy elders went down again to the
people ; but Moses went higher up to the
mountain-top, and the cloud covered him from the
sight of the people for forty days and forty
nights. While he was there, God gave him
laws for the people ; and when he came down he
brought with him two tables of stone engraved
with the writing of God.
CHAPTER LXI
THE GOLDEN CALF
BUT while Moses was on the mountain the
people grew weary of waiting for him ;
till at last they came all together to Aaron, and
said, " Make us a god to lead us ; for Moses is
gone, and no man knows what is become of
him." Aaron told the people to take off their
93

gold rings, and lay them in a heap on the ground ;
then he melted them down in a furnace and cast
out of them the figure of a golden calf, which the
people set up in the middle of the camp, and
began to sing and dance round it, crying, " This
is the God of Israel, who brought us out of the
land of Egypt." That very day Moses came down
from the mountain carrying the two stone tables
of God. When he came near the camp, and saw
them dancing round the golden calf, he was so
angry that he threw the tables down and broke
them; then he came swiftly into the camp and took
the calf and ground itto powder, and then sprinkled
the powder into water and made the people drink
it. Then God called him up into the mountain
again, and there he wrote the commandments of
God on two new tables of stone like the first.
When he came down from the mountain where he
had spoken with God, his face shone so that no
one could look at him.

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CHAPTER LXII
THE TABERNACLE IN THE WILDERNESS
WHILE they stayed in Sinai, the children of
Israel made a tabernacle to be God's
house in their camp, from a pattern that God had
shewn Moses on the mountain. It was built
of wooden boards plated with gold, and was
hung with curtains of blue and purple and
scarlet; and the furniture in it was all covered
with gold plating, and the lamps and dishes in
it of pure gold. In this tabernacle the mercy-
seat of God was set between two golden cherubim
that spread out their wings over it from each
side till wing touched wing above. The voice
of God speaking came from off the mercy-seat
from between the two cherubim; and under the
mercy-seat was an ark, in which were laid the
two stone tables written with the words of God.
The ark was made of acacia-wood covered inside
and out with golden plates and with a rim of
gold round the top; and the mercy-seat and
cherubim that stood on it were of pure gold.
Round the tabernacle was a square courtyard
fenced off with linen curtains hung on silver rods.
95

The whole tabernacle took to pieces, so that they
could carry it with them on waggons as they made
their journeys; and when they set it up and laid
the ark in it, the pillar of cloud and fire settled
down on it, and the glory of God filled it. Aaron
was appointed high priest of the tabernacle, and
they made for him the holy oil of anointing,
which was steeped in spices, myrrh and cinna
mon and calamus and cassia, and the holy robe
of blue and purple and scarlet inwoven with gold
thread and clasped at the shoulders with onyx-
stones. Over his robe he wore a breastplate
set with twelve precious stones engraved with the
names of the twelve tribes of Israel, and fastened
on his breast with twisted chains of pure gold ;
and the skirt of his robe was hung with pome
granates and golden bells alternated, a bell and a
pomegranate and a bell and a pomegranate all
round about. As long as the pillar of cloud and
fire rested over the tabernacle, the children of
Israel remained in the camp where they were ;
but when it rose and moved on, then two
trumpeters blew an alarm upon silver trumpets,
and they broke up their camp, and followed the
cloud and the fire through the wilderness. Day
by day as the ark set forward, the people sang
96

" Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scat
tered, and let them that hate thee flee before
thee;" and night by night as it rested, they
sang, " Return, O Lord, unto the many thou
sands of Israel."
CHAPTER LXIII
THE TWELVE SPIES
ALL this while the children of Israel were
encamped below mount Sinai ; but in the
second. month of the second year after they came
out of Egypt they broke up their camp in Sinai
and took their journey through the wilderness
till they came to Kadesh, on the southern border
of the promised land. There Moses chose twelve
men, one from each tribe, and sent them to spy
out the land and bring back word whether it
were good or bad, and what kind of people lived
in it. They went and searched the land, along
and across, for forty days, and then came back,
bringing with them huge grapes and figs and
pomegranates, which were then just ripe. Among
the rest was one cluster of grapes so large that
one man could not carry it, and two men had to
carry it between them slung on a staff. They
g 97

shewed the fruits of the land to the people, and
said, "The land is a good land, flowing with
milk and honey, and full of cornfields and vine
yards and olive-orchards, and of fruits like these ;
but the inhabitants are very strong and fierce ;
they live in great walled cities, and there are
giants among them before whom we seemed in
our own sight like grasshoppers, so that our
hearts failed us for fear." Ten of the twelve
spies said this, and frightened the people ; but
the other two, Joshua and Caleb, encouraged
the people, and told them they need not be
afraid.
CHAPTER LXIV
THE MURMURING IN THE WILDERNESS
THEN the people forgot all the great deeds
that God had done for them, and the
whole camp was full of weeping and murmuring
against Moses and Aaron, and saying, " Would
God that we had died in the land of Egypt ! or
would God we had died in this wilderness ! were
it not better for us to return to Egypt ? " From
that they broke into open rebellion, and were
beginning to choose a captain to lead them back
to Egypt, when the glory of God shone out at
98

the door of the tabernacle, and the voice of God
spoke, saying that for their disobedience they
should wander for forty years in the wilderness
until they died there, and their children should
¦ enter into their inheritance, and that no one of
the grown men among them, except Joshua and
Caleb only, should ever see the promised land.
The next day the pillar of the cloud and fire rose
and turned, and led them back into the wilder
ness by the way of the Red Sea.
CHAPTER LXV
AARON'S ROD
WHEN the children of Israel returned into
the wilderness, three of their princes,
called Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, made a
mutiny against Moses and Aaron, saying that
they had deceived the people with promises of
a land flowing with milk and honey, and now,
because they could not keep their promise, meant
to kill the people in the desert. But the glory
shone out at the door of the tabernacle, and
Moses bade all th*^ people stand away ; and as
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram stood by their tents,
the ground cleft asunder below them and the
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earth opened her mouth and swallowed them
alive. Thereafter each of the princes of Israel
took his rod and laid it in the tabernacle, and
Aaron's rod was laid among them. They were
left there all night ; and in the morning, when
they were taken out, the rest of the rods were
not changed, but Aaron's rod had budded and
blossomed with almond-flowers and bore almonds.
CHAPTER LXVI
THE SERPENT OF BRASS
WHILE the people wandered in the wilder
ness as the cloud and fire led them, the
time came for Aaron to die ; and he went up to
the top of a mountain, and there Moses took off
his holy robes, and put them on Eleazer, Aaron's
son ; for his other two sons, Nadab and Abihu,
had died before this, when they offered strange
fire to the Lord in the wilderness ; and Aaron
died there on the mountain, and Moses and
Eleazer came down again to the people. After
wards they set out on their journey again, and
the people were discouraged, and murmured
against God. Then he sent fiery serpents into
the camp, who bit them, so that many of them

died ; and they repented and came to Moses,
praying him to take the serpents away. Moses
made a serpent of brass and set it up on a pole
in the camp, and any one who was bitten had
only to look at it, and he was cured at once.
This serpent of brass was laid up among the
treasures of the people for a long while after
wards, till at last one of their kings broke it in
pieces.
CHAPTER LXVII
THE VICTORIES IN THE WILDERNESS
WHEN the forty years of the wandering in the
wilderness were over, all the people who
had been grown men when they left Egypt were
dead, except Moses and Joshua and Caleb, and
the new generation of their children set out
again towards the land of Canaan. On their
way, they came down the valley of Arnon to
the border of the Amorites ; and they sent
messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites
asking for passage through his land ; and pro
mising not to hurt the fields or vineyards, or
even to take water from the wells without
paying for it, but to go along peaceably by the
king's highway till they had passed through.
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But king Sihon refused, and came out into the
wilderness with all his people to fight against
them. They fought at Jahaz, and the children
of Israel conquered him and took all his cities.
When Sihon's neighbour, Og king of Bashan,
heard of this, he armed his people also, and went
out to fight with the children of Israel at Edrei.
He was one of the giants who were still left on
the earth, and was twice as tall as common men,
and had a bedstead of iron. But the children
of Israel overcame him and his army in battle,
and took the sixty walled cities in his kingdom,
and possessed his land. Thus they became
masters of all the country up to the river Jordan;
and they encamped in the plains of Moab near
the river, waiting their time to cross over ; and
from their camp they could see the towers and
palm-trees of the city of Jericho opposite them.
CHAPTER LXVIII
BALAAM'S ASS
WHEN Balak king of Moab saw what had
befallen the two kings who had fought
against Israel, he was afraid to meet them in
battle ; but he sent to a great magician called
102

Balaam, who lived in the mountains of the east,
to come and curse Israel for him and drive them
out of his land. The king's messengers rode
into the east till they came to Balaam's house,
which stood by a river in the mountains. He
lodged them for the night, and the next morning
saddled his ass and set out to go back with them.
As he rode along a narrow lane among the vine
yards with a wall on each side, he met an angel,
who was standing in the path with his drawn
sword in his hand. Balaam did not see the
angel; but the ass saw him, and swerved aside;
and when Balaam struck her with his staff to
make her go on, she thrust herself to the wall
and crushed Balaam's foot against it. He struck
her again and made her go past on the other
side. But the angel went back a little and stood
in a narrow place of the path where there was no
room to pass on right or left ; and when the ass
came up and saw him, she fell down on the path
under her master. Balaam, who still did not see
the angel, grew very angry, and struck her a
third time. Then the ass opened her mouth and
said, " What have I done, that you have struck
me these three times ? " Balaam said, " You
have made a fool of me ; I wish I had a sword,
103

that I might kill you." She answered, "You
have ridden on me ever since I was yours until
to-day ; have I ever done so to you before ? "
" No," he said ; and his eyes were suddenly
opened, and he saw the angel with his drawn
sword standing in the path, and fell down on
his face before him. Then the angel rebuked
Balaam for striking the ass, " For your journey
is evil in my eyes," he said ; " and if she had
not turned out of the way, I would have slain
you and saved her alive." Balaam said, " I did
not know, my lord ; if it displease you, I will go
back." The angel answered, " You may go on
now ; but you must only speak what God shall
put in your mouth to say." So they all went
on ; and the king of Moab went out to his
border to meet Balaam, and brought him home
to the royal city. The next morning, the king
took Balaam up to a mountain-top from which
they looked down on the camp of Israel. It lay
in the plain by the river below them, and the long
rows of tents were like avenues of trees planted
by the water ; and the king pointed to it and
said to Balaam, " Curse Israel for me." Then
the Spirit of God came upon Balaam ; he fell
into a trance with his eyes open, and saw the
104

vision of God ; and instead of cursing Israel he
blessed them, and foretold that they should grow
greater and greater, and that out of them should
arise a Star and a Sceptre against which no
enchantments could prevail. So the king of
Moab sent Balaam away in great anger, and he
returned to his own land. But afterwards the
Spirit of God left him, and he went with the
tribes of the eastern desert to fight against
Israel, and was killed in battle.
CHAPTER LXIX
THE HIDDEN GRAVE
GOD said to Moses in the plain of Moab by
Jordan, " The time is come for you to
die ; you shall not live to see the entry into the
promised land, or to go over Jordan : only from
the top of the mountains of Abarim I will shew
you the land afar off." So Moses gathered the
people together, and gave them his last counsel,
and blessed them, and appointed Joshua the son
of Nun to be captain of the people after him, and
to lead them into the land of Canaan. Then he
went up alone to the mountain-top, and from
there God shewed him all the length and breadth
i°5

of the land, hill and valley and plain, the fields
and the cities, from Mount Lebanon to the
southern desert, and from the river to the great
sea. When he had looked his fill, the glory of
God descended upon him and kissed him, and
the kiss of God drew his spirit up to Paradise ;
but his body was buried by the four archangels
in a valley under the mountain, where until this
da}' no man knows the place of his grave. He
was a hundred and twenty years old when he
died, yet his eye was not dimmed nor his strength
abated ; and no such prophet ever arose after
him ; and all the children of Israel mourned for
him thirty days.
CHAPTER LXX
THE SCARLET RIBBON
WHEN the mourning for Moses was finished,
Joshua prepared to go over Jordan; but
first of all he sent two men across to spy out
the land secretly. They crossed the river and
came at evening to the city of Jericho, which lay
opposite the camp of the children of Israel ; and
they looked over the town, and lodged with a
woman called Rahab, who had a house on the
1 06

town wall. But some one saw them in the city,
and brought word to the king of Jericho, who
sent men to Rahab's house at night to seize
them and kill them. Rahab took the spies up
to the flat roof of the house and hid them under
a heap of flax that was spread out there to dry ;
and when the king's men came and asked for
them she said, "There were two men here, but
they left when it grew dark, about the time of
shutting the city gate for the night ; if you make
haste after them you will overtake them." The
king's men went off in haste to set guards at the
fords of the river, and the town gates were shut
after them as they went out, that if the spies
were still in the city, they might not be able to
escape. But Rahab went up to the spies and
told them how she had saved their lives, and
took an oath from them in the name of their
whole people to spare her and all her family if
the children of Israel took the city. They swore
to this ; then she let them down by a rope from
one of her windows on the town wall, bidding
them hide among the hills for three days till the
guards were taken off the fords ; and they gave
her a scarlet ribbon and told her to tie it in her
window, that her house might be known and no
107

harm come to it when the city were taken. Then
they stole off to the hills in the darkness, and
hid there till the search for them had been given
up ; and then they crossed the river again and
returned to Joshua and told him what they had
seen and heard in Jericho.

T

CHAPTER LXXI
THE CROSSING OF JORDAN
HEN the children of Israel broke up their
camp and marched down to the river, and
in front of them the priests went carrying the
ark of God. The river was in high flood and
over all its banks. But as soon as the priests
carrying the ark came to it and their feet
touched the edge, the water above them stood
still and rose up in a heap, and the water below
flowed away, and a dry passage was left, on
which all the people crossed over. The priests
stood with the ark in the middle of the river-bed
till all had passed ; then they came up out of the
river, and as soon as they reached the other side
the waters returned to their channel and filled
and overflowed all their banks as before. Joshua
picked out twelve men to take twelve great
108

stones from the place in the river-bed where the
priests had stood with the ark, and the stones
were carried up and laid on the bank for a
memorial, that when in times to come children
asked, "What do these twelve stones mean?"
their fathers might tell them, " It was here that
the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark
of the Lord when it passed over." The next
morning, the manna on which the children of
Israel had fed for forty years in the wilderness
ceased ; and they fed on the corn and fruits of
the land ; for it was harvest time. But one pot
of manna was kept in the tabernacle, that there
might be a memory of the angels' bread with
which God had fed his people in the wilderness.
CHAPTER LXXII
THE WALLS OF JERICHO
THE children of Israel encamped all round
Jericho, so that no man could go out or in,
and besieged it ; but the king of Jericho barred
the gates, and thought he was safe within the
great stone wall of his city. As Joshua was
setting the army in array, he saw an angel
standing near him with a drawn sword in his
109

hand. He went up and asked him, "Are
you for us, or for our adversaries ? " and the
angel answered, " I am captain of the Lord's
host." Joshua fell on his face before him,
saying, " What saith my lord to his servant ? "
and the angel told him what he must do to take
the city. Then Joshua gave orders accordingly ;
and the children of Israel marched round the
city with the ark in the middle of the host, and
in front of the ark seven priests blowing on
seven trumpets of rams' horns ; but the people
did not shout, or make any noise. The next day
they marched round Jericho again in the same
manner, and so every day for six days. On the
seventh day they rose early and marched round
the city seven times ; and at the seventh time
the priests blew a long blast on their trumpets,
and all the host shouted a great shout ; and with
that shout the wall of the city fell down flat,
and the army of Israel went up into Jericho,
every man straight before him, and took it, and
destroyed it utterly. But the two spies went to
the house of Rahab, where the scarlet ribbon
was fastened in the window, and brought her
away in safety to the camp with her family and
all she had.
no

CHAPTER LXXIII
THE AMBASSADORS
AFTER the taking of Jericho, great fear fell
upon all the kings and cities of the land of
Canaan, and some of them sent to submit them
selves to Joshua, while others prepared to fight
against him. But the people of Gibeon per
suaded the children of Israel to make peace
with them by this device. They took old sacks
on their asses, and old wine bottles split and
sewn up, and old clothes, and old patched shoes
on their feet, and dry mouldy bread, and came
to the camp of Israel, saying, " We are ambas
sadors from a very far country, who have heard
the fame of all that God has done for you in the
land of Egypt, and are come to make alliance
with you." Then they shewed their old worn
shoes and clothes, and their mouldy bread, and
said, " These clothes were new, and this bread
was hot from the oven when we left home, but
they have grown old because of the length of
our journey." Then Joshua made alliance with
them. But a day or two after, he found that
they lived in one of the cities of Canaan, quite

close by ; and he could not touch them, because
he had sworn peace with them ; but for their
deceit they were set to hew wood and draw
water for the people.
CHAPTER LXXIV
THE STAYING OF THE SUN AND MOON
WHEN the five kings of the Amorites who
dwelt in the hill country of the south
heard that the Gibeonites had made peace with
Joshua, they gathered a great army and besieged
Gibeon. The Gibeonites sent messengers to
Joshua to come quickly and help them ; and he
set out at once and marched all night, and in the
morning fell on the camp of the five kings before
Gibeon and routed them and pursued them down
the hill to Beth-horon, till it was near sunset.
But when he saw the sun going fast down, he
cried out in the sight of all Israel, " Sun, stand
thou still upon Gibeon ; and thou, moon, in the
valley of Ajalon." Then the moon stayed from
rising in the valley, and the sun stood still over
the city towers in the midst of heaven about a
whole day, till the children of Israel had quite
scattered their enemies. The five kings had
112

hidden in a cave, but were found there and
dragged out and hanged. Thereafter Joshua
conquered all the highlands and lowlands of the
south, and fought with seven kings, and over
threw them one by one ; and when all the kings
of the north gathered their armies by the waters
of Merom, he fell on them there and overthrew
them all together ; so he conquered the whole
land ; and it was divided among the twelve tribes
of Israel for their inheritance.
CHAPTER LXXV
THE DAYS OF THE JUDGES
THE children of Israel settled in the land of
Canaan and lived there by their tribes and
families, tilling the ground and pasturing their
flocks ; they had no king over them, but every
man did as was right in his own eyes. Only
from time to time the nations about them became
powerful and oppressed them ; and then judges
rose up who delivered them from their oppressors
and gave the land rest. Such was Ehud, who
delivered them from Eglon king of Moab, when
he had overrun the land and possessed the city
of palm-trees ; and Shamgar the son of Anath,
H 113

who killed six hundred Philistines at one time
with his ox-goad ; and Jair, who had thirty sons
that rode on thirty ass-colts and had thirty cities
on the hills ; and Barak, and Gideon, and Jeph
thah, and Samson, of whom it is told thus.
CHAPTER LXXVI
THE IRON CHARIOTS
KING Jabin and Sisera his captain, who
lived in a castle in the forest, oppressed
Israel with a great army and nine hundred
chariots of iron ; so that travellers went through
byways, and the highways and villages were
left without people. At that time Deborah the
wife of Lapidoth was a prophetess in Israel, and
sat under a palm tree on a mountain. She sent
for Barak the son of Abinoam to come to her
out of the north country ; and when he came,
she said, " The Lord God of Israel commands
you, Go and draw toward Mount Tabor with ten
thousand men ; and he will bring Sisera with
his army and his chariots to you to the river
Kishon, and deliver them into your hand."
Barak answered, " I will go if you will go with
me, but not else ; " and she said, " Then I will
114

go ; but the journey shall not be to your honour,
for Sisera shall fall by the hand of a woman."
Then they went up together to Mount Tabor
with ten thousand men at their feet, and Sisera
came out of the forest with his nine hundred
chariots of iron, and encamped on the plain
below by the river Kishon. There Barak and
his ten thousand men rushed down upon them
from the mountain, and the stars in their courses
fought on the side of Israel with thunder and
tempest ; the river swelled into a fierce torrent
and swept away the iron chariots, and all Sisera's
army was scattered like dust.
CHAPTER LXXVII
JAEL'S HAMMER
WHEN Sisera saw his army routed, he
alighted from his chariot and fled across
the plain on foot and alone till he came to where
the tents of Heber the Kenite were pitched by
a grove of oaks. The men were all away in the
fields ; but Jael the wife of Heber came out of
her tent to meet him, and bade him take refuge
with her. He went in with her into the tent,
and she covered him with a cloak, and brought
115

him milk to drink ; so being very weary, he fell
asleep. Then as he slept, she took a tent-pin
and a hammer, and going softly to him, struck
the pin through both his temples into the
ground, and he died. Soon after, Barak
came up in pursuit. Jael went out to him,
saying, "Come, and I will shew you the man
whom you seek ; " and when he went with her
into the tent, there Sisera lay dead. But in the
castle in the forest Sisera's mother sat long that
day looking out at her window over the gate, and
cried through the lattice, " Why is his chariot so
long in coming ? "
CHAPTER LXXVIII
THE OAK IN OPHRAH
AFTER this the land had peace, until the
Midianites gathered all the children of the
East, and came swarming in like grasshoppers,
with their camels and tents, and stripped all the
land bare, so that the people hid in the dens and
caves of the mountains for shelter, and cried to
God to deliver them. Then an angel came down
and sat under an oak in Ophrah, where Gideon
the son of Joash was threshing wheat by his
116

winepress on the rock, and said to him, " Go
forth, and save Israel." Gideon answered him,
" O my lord, how shall I save Israel ? for my
family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least
in my father's house." But the angel said, " I
will be with you ; " and he stretched out the rod
in his hand, and touched the rock, and fire rose
up out of it; and with that the angel vanished
out of sight. Then the Spirit of God came upon
Gideon, and he blew a trumpet and gathered the
people of the tribes around him, and encamped
by a well on the mountain-side with thirty-two
thousand men ; but the host of the Midianites lay
along in the valley below and were like the sand
by the sea-side for multitude.
CHAPTER LXXIX
GIDEON'S FLEECE
GIDEON prayed to God to grant him a sign
that he was to save Israel ; and the sign
he asked for was this : that if he left a fleece of
wool on the threshing-floor all night, there
should be dew on the fleece only, and all the rest
ofthe ground be dry. In the morning it was so;
for when he rose early, all the ground was dry,
117

but the fleece was wringing wet, and when he
squeezed it together, he wrung a bowlful of water
out of it. Then he prayed for another sign,
that it might be dry on the fleece and wet on all
the ground; and God gave him this also, for the
next morning the ground was all wet with dew,
and only the fleece was dry.
CHAPTER LXXX
THE CHOOSING OF THE THREE HUNDRED
THEN the word of God came to Gideon, say
ing, "The people with you are too many ;
they might boast afterwards that their own
strength had won them victory. Proclaim through
the army that all who are afraid may go home."
So he made proclamation ; and twenty-two
thousand of his men left him, and ten thousand
remained. But God said again, " Still there are
too many." Then Gideon brought his ten thousand
men down to the water to drink, and three hundred
of them lapped the water in the hollow of their
hand, and all the rest went down on their knees
to drink ; and he sent all the rest away, and only
kept the three hundred who lapped the water in
the hollow of their hand. When Gideon was
118

left with only three hundred men he began to
be afraid ; but God told him to go down into the
valley when it grew dark and listen to what he
should hear in the Midianite camp. At night
fall he crept down the hill, and when he got close
to the camp he heard one of the soldiers who
had just waked out of a dream, telling it to his
fellow : " I dreamed," he said, " that a cake of
barley bread tumbled into the camp and struck
a tent and overturned it, so that the tent lay flat
along." When his fellow heard the dream he
answered, "This is nothing else but the sword of
Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; for
God has delivered Midian and all our host into
his hand."
CHAPTER LXXXI
THE TRUMPETS AT MIDNIGHT
WHEN Gideon heard this he climbed up
again to his own camp, and divided his
three hundred men into three companies, giving
every man a trumpet and an empty jar with a
lighted lamp in it, and ordered them to spread
out silently round the enemy's camp ; and when
he gave the signal by blowing his trumpet, all
119

to blow their trumpets together on every side of
the camp, and cry, " The sword of the Lord and
of Gideon." So they went silently down and
surrounded the camp at midnight, just after the
middle watch was set ; and at the signal they all
broke their jars and held up their lamps in one
hand, and with the other they held their trumpets
and blew, and cried, " The sword of the Lord
and of Gideon." The Midianite army were
startled out of sleep, and rose and cried and fled,
and in the darkness they all turned their swords
against each other, till a hundred and twenty
thousand men that drew sword lay dead on the
ground.
CHAPTER LXXXII
THE CHASE OF THE KINGS
ALL next day Gideon and his three hundred
men pursued the two kings of Midian, who
had fled across Jordan into the desert with about
fifteen thousand men that were left of their army.
As he passed through the cities of Succoth and
Penuel he asked for bread, for he had brought
no food with him, and his men were faint with
hunger. But the townspeople refused it, saying,
120

" Are the hands of the kings of Midian in your
hand, that we should give you bread ? " Gideon
did not stop then, but followed the track across
the desert, and falling on the Midianite camp by
night, he scattered them and took both their
kings prisoners. Before the sun was up he re
turned upon Succoth and Penuel, and shewed
them the captive kings : then he took thorns and
briars of the wilderness, and with them he taught
the men of Succoth, and he beat down the tower
of Penuel and slew the men of the city. When he
returned home from the chase of the kings, the
people came to him and asked him to be king
over them, because he had delivered them from
the hand of Midian. But he would not, and
went back to live in his own house, and died there
in a good old age ; and for forty years more the
land had peace.

131

CHAPTER LXXXIII
THE STORY OF THE TREES WHO WENT
OUT TO CHOOSE A KING
WHEN Gideon died he left seventy sons (for
he had many wives) and also one son
called Abimelech, whose mother was a woman of
the city of Shechem. After his father's death Abi
melech went to Shechem to his mother's family
and made friends with the people of the town,
who gave him money out of their treasury.
With this money he hired a band of broken
men and went to his father's house, and there
killed his seventy brothers upon one stone, all
except the youngest, called Jotham, who hid
himself and escaped. Then the men of Shechem
assembled and made Abimelech king. But
Jotham went to the top of the hill above Shechem
and there stood and cried to the people of the
town : " Hear me, men of Shechem, that God
may hear you. Once upon a time, the trees
went forth to choose a king ; and they said to the
olive-tree, Reign over us. But the olive-tree
said to them, Should I leave my fatness, where
with by me they honour God and man, and go

to be promoted over the trees ? Then the trees
said to the fig-tree, Come you, and reign over us.
But the fig-tree said to them, Should I forsake
my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to be
promoted over the trees ? Then the trees said
to the vine, Come you, and reign over us. But
the vine said to them, Should I leave my wine,
which cheers God and man, and go to be pro
moted over the trees ? Then all the trees said to
the bramble : Come you, and reign over us.
And the bramble said to the trees, If you choose
me truly to be king over you, then come and put
your trust in my shadow ; and if not, let fire
come out of the bramble and devour the cedars
of Lebanon. Now look to it, O men of Shechem,
whether you have done well by my father's
house. My father fought for you, and adventured
his life far, and delivered you out of the hand of
Midian ; and you have risen up against my
father's house to-day, and have slain his sons,
threescore and ten persons, upon one stone, and
have made Abimelech, the son of his maidservant,
king. If you have dealt truly with my father's
house to-day, then rejoice in Abimelech and let
him also rejoice in you ; but if not, let fire come
out from each of you and destroy the other." 123

CHAPTER LXXXIV
THE TOWER OF THISBE
WHEN Jotham had spoken thus from the
hill, he ran away and hid himself, and
Abimelech reigned over Israel. But soon the
men of Shechem quarrelled with him, and when
he was away, they began to fortify their city
against him ; and the men of the city of Thisbe
joined them, and did likewise. Then the captain
whom Abimelech had left in Shechem sent to
him secretly, bidding him come by night and lie
in wait outside the city in four companies, and
set upon it in the morning as soon as the sun
was up. About sunrise next morning, the captain
of the men of Shechem stood in the city gate,
and saw one of the companies that were lying in
wait moving down from the hill. He said to
Abimelech's captain, who was standing beside
him, "Who are those yonder? " and he laughed,
and answered, " You see the shadows of the hills
as if they were men." But presently more bands
of men began to appear, coming by the middle
of the plain and past the Wizards' Oak ; then
the men of Shechem armed hastily and went
124

out to battle ; and they were beaten and chased
back into the city. They gathered to make a
stand in the tower of their temple ; but Abi
melech sent men to cut boughs from the forest,
and heaped them round the tower and set them
on fire, and burned the tower and all the people
in it. Then Abimelech marched against the city
of Thisbe and took it, driving the men of the
city into their tower like the men of Shechem.
But as he came up to the tower to set fire to the
door, a woman on the top of the tower threw
down a millstone on him which struck him on
the head and killed him ; and so the curse of
Jotham came on Abimelech, and on the men of
Shechem.
CHAPTER LXXXV
JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER
AFTERWARDS the children of Ammon op
pressed Israel. They conquered the tribes
that lived beyond Jordan in Gilead, and crossed
over Jordan to make war against the other tribes ;
and the children of Israel gathered to fight with
them and encamped in Mizpeh; but they had
no captain to lead them. Now there was a
mighty man then called Jephthah, whom his
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brothers had thrust out of his inheritance after
their father's death, because he was the son of a
strange woman ; and he had gone to a foreign
country and become a great captain; so the
elders of the people sent for him, and made him
judge over Israel to lead them in battle against
the children of Ammon. Jephthah came to the
camp at Mizpeh, and sent messengers to the king
of Ammon bidding him go back into his own
country ; but he would not, and so the two
armies prepared for battle. Before they met,
Jephthah made a vow that if he conquered the
enemy he would offer in sacrifice whatever first
came out of the door of his house to meet him
on his return. Then he joined battle, and smote
the children of Ammon with great slaughter from
Aroer to Minnith, and took twenty of their cities.
But when he returned from the battle to his
house at Mizpeh, his daughter, who was his only
child, came out to welcome him, dancing to
music ; and when he saw her, he rent his clothes,
and cried out, " Alas ! my daughter." But she
said, " Let me die, since my people have taken
vengeance on the children of Ammon ; only let
me go up and down on the mountains for two
months with my companions to bewail myself."
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So she went to the mountains with her com
panions, and at the end of two months she
returned to her father, and he did with her
according to his vow.
CHAPTER LXXXVI
THE LION IN THE VINEYARDS
AFTERWARDS the children of Israel were
oppressed by the Philistines : and an
angel appeared to a woman of Israel, the wife of
Manoah of Zorah, and told her that she should
bear a son who would deliver the people. She
told this to her husband, and he prayed to God :
" O Lord, let thine angel come again to us to tell
us how we shall bring up the child who shall be
born." Then the angel came again and told them
what they were to do, and that the child's hair
was never to be cut, for his strength would be
in it, and by his strength he would do great deeds.
Then Manoah offered sacrifice upon a rock, and
when the flame went up from the sacrifice, the
angel went up into heaven with the flame. After
wards they had a son born, whom they called
Samson ; as he grew up he became stronger than
all other men ; and his strength lay in his long
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uncut hair. On a day, as he was going through
the vineyards, a lion roared at him ; he had no
weapon in his hand, but he sprang on the lion
and tore him with his naked hands as if he bad
been a kid, and then went on his way and said
nothing about it. After a while he was going
to be married at Timnath and passed by the
place where he had killed the lion. He turned
aside to look at the dead lion, and found that a
swarm of bees had made their honey in the dry
carcase; and he took out a piece of the honey
comb and ate it as he went along.
CHAPTER LXXXVII
SAMSON'S RIDDLE
WHEN Samson came to Timnath, the mar
riage feast was made, and thirty of his
companions were there as guests. At the feast
they asked riddles ; and Samson said to his com
panions, " I will ask you a riddle, and if you
can tell me the answer before the seven days of
the feast are over, I will give each of you a
sheet and a change of garments ; but if you
cannot guess it, you shall give me thirty sheets
and thirty changes of garments." They all said,
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" Put forth your riddle." Then he said, " Out
of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong
came forth sweetness." They could not guess
the riddle ; and at last when it was the seventh
day they went to the bride and said to her,
" You must make Samson tell you the answer,
and let us know it, or we will burn your father's
house." She went to Samson and burst into
tears, saying, " You do not love me if you will
not tell me the answer to your riddle." For a
while he would not tell her, but at last she
wearied him into telling her ; then she went away
and told his thirty companions, and just before
sunset they came to Samson, and said, " What
is sweeter than honey ? and what is stronger
than a lion ? " He answered, " If you had not
ploughed with my heifer, you would not have
found out my riddle ; " and went away to the
country of the Philistines, who were at war with
Israel, and there killed thirty men in battle and
brought back their garments, and gave them to
his companions ; then he broke off his marriage,
and went back in anger to his father's house ;
but the bride was given in marriage to one of
his thirty companions.

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CHAPTER LXXXVIII
THE GATES OF GAZA
SAMSON had set fire to the standing corn of
the Philistines and gone to live on the top
of a rock; and the Philistines sent out armed
men to take him. The men of Judah promised
to give him up, if the Philistines would make
peace with them; so they climbed up the rock
and found him there, and said to him, " What
is this 3'ou have done tc the Philistines?" He
said, "I have only done to them as they have
done to me." They said; " We have come to
bind you and give ycu up to them." He
answered, "Very well; only swear to me that
you will not kill me yourselves." They swore
to this, and then he let them disarm him and
bind him with two new cords, and bring him
down from the rock. But when he came to the
Philistines, he snapped the cords like threads of
flax, and caught up the jawbone of an ass that
lay on the ground and killed a thousand Philistines
with it. Then he went to the city of Gaza, and
the men of the city, when they knew that he
was there, barred their gates and kept quiet all
13°

night, intending to search for him and kill him as
soon as it was daylight. But at midnight he
rose and went to the gate, and finding it locked,
he wrenched the gates off, with the gate-posts
and bar, and went away carrying them on his
shoulder, and left them on the top of a hill out
side the city on the road to Hebron.
CHAPTER LXXXIX
THE STOLEN SECRET
AFTERWARDS Samson loved a woman
called Delilah, who lived in the valley of
the vineyards ; and the five lords of the Philistines
bribed her with eleven hundred pieces of silver
to entice him to tell her the secret of his great
strength, that they might take him. So she asked
him, and he told her: "If I were bound with
seven green withies that were never dried, my
strength would leave me." Then the lords of
the Philistines brought her seven green withies
and set men to lie in wait in the chamber; and
she bound him while he slept, and cried, " The
Philistines are upon you, Samson." At the cry
he started up, and the withies broke like a thread
when it touches the fire; so the secret of his
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strength was not known. Then Delilah said to
him, " You have mocked me and told me lies ;
tell me now truly with what you may be bound ; "
and he said, " If they bind me with new ropes
that have never been used, I shall be weak like
another man." So the Philistines set men to lie
in wait again, and she bound him with new ropes,
and cried out, "The Philistines are upon you,
Samson." But he rose and broke the ropes off
his arms like a thread. Then she asked him again
to tell her truly ; and he told her to weave the
seven locks of his hair into the web on the
loom. But when she did so as he lay asleep,
and cried out to him, he awoke and tore the pin
out of the beam and went away carrying the web.
At last she said to him, " How can you say you
love me, when you will not tell me your secret,
and have mocked me and told me lies three
times?" and she wearied him and gave him no
peace day after day, till at last he told her the
truth, that if his hair were cut off, he would
become as weak as any other man. Then Delilah
sent for the lords of the Philistines to come once
more ; and they came with the money in their
hands and set armed men to lie in wait in the
chamber. While Samson was asleep with his
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head in her lap, a man came in and shaved off
the seven locks of his head, and his strength
went from him. Then Delilah cried out, " The
Philistines are upon you, Samson ; " and he awoke
and did not know what had been done to him, but
said, " I will go out as before and shake myself."
But the Philistines took him easily, and put out
his eyes and brought him to their city of Gaza ;
and there they bound him in fetters of brass and
set him to grind corn in the prison. But when
he was in prison his hair began to grow again,
and his strength to come back with it.
CHAPTER XC
SAMSON'S REVENGE
THE lords and people of the Philistines
assembled at Gaza to hold a great festival
and rejoice over Samson ; and when they had
feasted, they sent for Samson out of prison to
make sport for them. A boy led him from the
prison into the great hall where all the lords and
ladies sat below, and crowds of the common
people were outside on the roof looking on.
When Samson had made sport for them, he said
to the boy that led him, " Let me lean on the
i33

pillars that bear up the house, and rest for a
little." The boy guided him to the pillars and
set him between them ; and when he felt them
in his hands he called to God, and said, " O
Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and
strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O
God, that I may be avenged of the Philistines
for my two eyes." Then he took hold of the
two pillars with his two hands, and crying out,
" Let me die with the Philistines," he bowed
himself with all his might and tore the pillars
away, and the house fell in upon himself and
the lords and the people, and crushed them all
to death ; so the dead whom Samson slew at
his death were more than all those whom he
had slain in his life.
CHAPTER XCI
THE FAMINE AT BETHLEHEM
IN the days of the Judges there was a famine
in the land of Israel ; and a man of Beth
lehem in Judah, with his wife Naomi and their
two sons, because food was scarce at home, left
his plot of land there and went to live in the
country of Moab. There he died, and his two
134

sons married two women of Moab called Orpah
and Ruth. When they had lived there for
about ten years, the two sons both died also,
one after the other ; and Naomi set out to return
to her own land again ; for she had heard that
God had visited his people, and given them
abundance of bread.
CHAPTER XCII
THE VOW OF RUTH
NAOMI'S two daughters-in-law set forth
with her on her journey ; and when they
were gone a little way, Naomi bade them turn
and go back, saying to them, " Go, return each
of you to her mother's house ; may the Lord
deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the
dead and with me ; may the Lord grant you to
find rest, each of you in the house of her
husband." Then she kissed them, and they
wept and said to her, " Surely we will return
with you to your people." But she answered,
" Turn again, my daughters ; for I can do
nothing more for you ; it grieves me most for
your sake that the hand of the Lord is heavy on
me." Then they wept again, and Orpah kissed
135

her and returned home. But Ruth clung to her
and said, " Entreat me not to leave you, or to
return from following you ; for whither you go
I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge ;
your people shall be my people and your God
my God ; where you die will I die, and there
will I be buried ; may God forget me if anything
but death shall ever part you and me." When
Naomi saw that Ruth was fixed in her purpose,
she said no more, and they went on together
until they came to Bethlehem.
CHAPTER XCIII
THE GLEANER
BARLEY harvest was beginning at Bethle
hem ; and Ruth said to her mother-in-law,
" Let me go into the fields and glean corn,
wherever they will allow me ; " and Naomi said,
" Go, my daughter." So she went and gleaned
in the fields after the reapers ; and as it chanced,
she lighted on a field belonging to a rich man
called Boaz, a kinsman of Naomi's husband.
While she gleaned behind the reapers, Boaz
came out from Bethlehem, and gave greeting
to his harvesters, saying, "The Lord be with
136

you;" and they answering, "The Lord bless
you." When he saw Ruth among the gleaners,
he said to the servant who was in charge of his
reapers, "Whose girl is that?" and he answered,
" It is the woman of Moab that has come back
with Naomi out of the country of Moab ; she
asked leave to glean after the reapers among the
sheaves, and she has been at work from morning
till now." Then Boaz went up to Ruth and
said to her, " Do you hear, my child ? do not
go to glean in another field, but keep here by
my maidens ; I have told the young men not to
annoy you ; and when you are thirsty, go to the
vessels, and drink of what has been drawn for
the harvesters. I have heard of your goodness
to your mother-in-law ever since your husband
died, and how you left your own land and kin
to come here with her : may a full reward be
given you by the Lord God of Israel, under
whose wings you are come to trust." Ruth
thanked him and bowed to the ground before
him, and so she gleaned in his barley field all
morning. When dinner-time came, he told her
to sit among the reapers and eat and drink with
them. Then she rose up to glean again ; and
Boaz told his men to let her glean as close
137

among the sheaves as she would, and to let fall
some of the handfuls on purpose and leave them
for her. So she was busy in the field till
evening, and then beat out what she had gleaned.
This came to about three measures of barley,
which she took up and carried home into the
town, and she told Naomi of her day's work,
and the name of the man in whose field she had
gleaned. Then Naomi said, " God bless him,
because he has not failed in kindness to the
living and the dead ; he is one of our nearest
kinsmen." " He told me," said Ruth, " to keep
by his men till they had ended their harvest ; "
and Naomi said, "It is good, my daughter; go
out with his maidens, and do not be found in
any other field." So Ruth gleaned every day
among the maidens of Boaz till the end of the
harvest.
CHAPTER XCIV
THE THRESHING-FLOOR IN THE DARK
THEN Naomi said to Ruth, "My daughter,
shall I not seek rest for you, that it may
be well with you ? Boaz our kinsman is winnow
ing barley to-night on his threshing-floor ; go
there at nightfall, and after he has supped and
138

lain down to sleep, go and lie down at his feet
and for the rest, do as he tells you." So Ruth
washed and dressed herself, and went out at
nightfall to the winnowing-floor. When it grew
dark, Boaz ate his supper, and went to lie down
at the end of the heap of winnowed corn, and she
came softly and lay at his feet. In the middle
of the night he awoke and turned himself, and
felt a woman lying at his feet. He said, " Who
are you ? " and she said, " I am Ruth your
servant ; spread your skirt over me, for you are
my near kinsman." He answered, " God bless
you, my child, for coming to me and not going
after young men, whether they were poor or rich.
But there is a nearer kinsman than I ; if he will
do his part, it is well ; and if not, I will ; lie
down till morning." In the grey of the morning
he awoke her and made her hold her cloak, and
measured six measures of barley into it and sent
her home. Then Ruth told Naomi what had
happened, and she said to her, " Sit still, my
daughter, till you know how things will befal ; for
the man will not be at rest till he have finished
the matter this day."

139

CHAPTER XCV
THE KINSMEN
WHEN day broke Boaz went up from his
threshing-floor to the city and sat down
in the city gate, and presently the kinsman of
whom he had spoken to Ruth came by ; to whom
he said, " Ho, such a one ! turn aside and sit
down here ; " and he called ten of the elders of
the city, and they all sat down together in the gate.
Then Boaz said to his kinsman, " Naomi has come
back from the country of Moab, and has a plot
of land to sell which belonged to her husband ;
if you will buy it, let me know, for I am next of
kin after you." The kinsman said, " I am willing
to buy it." Then Boaz said, " Whoever buys
the land must also take with it Ruth the Moabitess,
her son's widow, to keep up the name of the dead
upon his inheritance." The kinsman said, " I
cannot do that ; do you buy the land and take the
woman." Then Boaz said to the elders and the
people in the gate, " Bear witness that I have
bought the plot of land from Naomi ; and that
with it I take Ruth to be my wife, that the name
of the dead may not be cut off from among his
140

brethren." So Boaz married Ruth ; and they
had a child, whom Naomi laid in her bosom and
nursed ; and the women said to her, " This child
shall be a new life to you ; for your daughter-in-
law, who is better to you than seven sons, has
borne him."
CHAPTER XCVI
THE CHILD IN THE TEMPLE
THERE was a man of the hill-country, who
had two wives, called Hannah and
Peninnah ; and he loved Hannah the best, but
she had no children, and Peninnah mocked her.
Every year he went up to worship and make
offerings at Shiloh, the house of God's rest ; and
when he went, he took his two wives with him.
But Hannah fretted sorely because she had no
children, and went to the temple, where Eli the
high priest sat on the high seat by the doorway,
and there she wept and prayed in an agony, so
that Eli thought she was a drunken woman and
spoke sharply to her. But when she told him
how she was in great sorrow and was pouring
out her soul before God, he said to her, " Go in
peace; and may God grant you your petition
141

that you have asked of him." So they went
home to the hill-country; and within a year after
wards Hannah had a son, whom she called
Samuel ; and when he was weaned, she took him
up with her to God's house in Shiloh and brought
him to Eli, and said, " My lord, I am the woman
that stood here praying to God ; for this child
I prayed, and God has given him to me ; there
fore he shall be given to the service of God for
all his life." So the child stayed at Shiloh and
served in the temple, being a little child with a
linen pinafore ; and every year his mother made
him a little coat and brought it up with her when
she came to see him.
CHAPTER XCVII
THE VOICE BY NIGHT
IN those days the words of God were precious,
and he did not show himself openly ; for
the sons of Eli the high priest were wicked men
who brought shame on the temple. Eli was
growing old, and his eyes were dim ; and Samuel
slept at nights in the temple before the ark.
One night when Samuel had lain down to sleep,
but before the lamp that burned in front of the ark
142

had gone out, a voice called him by his name.
He thought that Eli had called him, and cried,
" Here I am, " and ran to Eli. But Eli said, " I
did not call you ; lie down again." He
went back and lay down ; and again a voice
called, " Samuel ! " He rose a second time and
went to Eli ; but Eli said, " I did not call you ;
lie down again ; " so he went back to bed.
Then once more the voice in the dark temple
called, " Samuel ! " and when he rose and went
to Eli the third time, Eli perceived that God had
called the child, and said to him, " Go, lie down ;
and if the voice calls you again, say, Speak,
Lord, for thy servant heareth." So Samuel went
and lay down in his place, and God came and
stood and called, " Samuel ! Samuel ! " He
answered, " Speak, Lord, for thy servant
heareth ; " and God said, " Because Eli's sons
have given themselves up to wickedness, and he
has not restrained them, I will send a judgment
on his house which shall make the ears of all
who hear of it tingle ; and no sacrifice shall purge
them ; for what I begin, that I end." When
God had finished speaking to him, Samuel lay
still until morning, and then rose and opened the
doors of the temple as he did every morning ;
H3

but he was afraid to tell Eli of his vision, until
Eli called him and asked him, "What is it that
he has said to you ? " Then Samuel told him of
it all, and hid nothing from him ; and he said,
" It is the Lord ; let him do what seems him
good." But when Samuel grew up, God con
tinued with him, and he became a prophet, and
his words went through all Israel.
CHAPTER XCVIII
THE ARK IN BATTLE
THE children of Israel fought against the
Philistines, and were beaten ; therefore
they sent for the ark out of Shiloh to come
to the army and give them victory. Eli's two
sons brought the ark into the camp, and when
it came, all the people shouted a great shout,
so that the earth rang again. The Philistines
heard it and wondered ; and when they learned
that the ark was come into the camp, they were
mightily afraid, and said to one another, " God
is come into their camp ; woe unto us ! who
shall deliver us out of the hands of these mighty
gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues
in the wilderness ? " Yet they resolved to do
144

their best, saying to one another, " Quit your
selves like men, and fight, O Philistines, that you
may not be servants to the men of Israel, as they
have been to you." Then they joined battle ;
and the men of Israel fled, and there was a great
slaughter ; and the ark was taken by the Philis
tines, and both Eli's sons were slain. A man
ran out of the army and came to Shiloh the same
day, with his clothes rent and earth upon his head,
telling the news, and a great crying rose. Eli
was sitting on a seat by the roadside at the city
gate, waiting for news of the ark ; he heard the
crying, and asked, " What does this noise
mean ? " The messenger came up to him and
said, " I fled to-day out of the army." Eli said,
"What has happened there, my son?" He
answered, " Israel is fled before the Philistines,
and there has been a great slaughter among the
people ; your two sons also are dead ; and the
ark of God is taken." When Eli heard of the
ark, he fell from off his seat backward by the
side of the gate, dead.

«4S

CHAPTER XCIX
THE TERROR OF THE ARK
THE Philistines took the ark away with them
to their own city of Ashdod, and there
they set it in the temple of their god Dagon, and
left it there for the night. The next morning
when they opened the temple doors Dagon was
fallen on his face to the ground before the ark.
They took him and set him up in his place again,
and left him ; but the morning after, he had fallen
down on his face again before the ark, and his
head and both his hands were broken off and
lay upon the threshold. Then the people of Ash
dod were afraid, and called a council of the lords
of the Philistines, by whose advice the ark was
sent away to other cities, first to Gath, and then
to Ekron ; but in each city where it stayed it
brought plague and sickness on the people; and
after seven months they were afraid to keep it
among them any longer. Then they took
counsel of their magicians, who advised them to
send back the ark. " Make a new cart," they
said, " and take two cows who have never been
under the yoke ; harness them to the cart, and
146

shut their calves up at home ; then take the ark
and lay it upon the cart, and put jewels and gold
for a trespass-offering in a coffer on the cart
beside it, and leave the cows to take their own
way. If they go up by the House of the Sun
to the border of Israel, then we shall know that
it is the ark that has done us this evil ; but if they
do not, then it is not the God of the ark who
has smitten us, but it was all a chance that
happened." The Philistines did so ; and when
the ark was laid on the cart, the cows set off by
themselves and took the straight way to the
House of the Sun, and went along the highway
lowing as they went and not turning aside either to
right or left ; and the five lords ofthe Philistines
followed the cart as far as the border, watching
them. The men of the House of the Sun were
reaping their wheat harvest in the valley, when
they looked up and saw the ark coming. The
cows came into the field and stood still of their
own accord by a great stone. The reapers came
round and took the ark off the cart, and laid it
on the stone ; and when the five lords of the
Philistines saw this, they went back to Ekron.
After this there was peace between Israel and
the Philistines ; and the people of the City of
U7

Woods sent down to the House of the Sun and
fetched the ark up into the hills, and kept it
there.
CHAPTER C
THE LOST ASSES
WHEN Samuel grew old, he set his sons to
judge the people of Israel ; but they took
bribes and perverted justice ; then all the people
gathered together and said to Samuel, " Give us
a king to judge us, and to go out before us to
battle, like the kings of other nations ; " and God
said to Samuel, "Do as they ask, and make
them a king." In those days there was a man
of the tribe of Benjamin called Saul, who was
the goodliest of presence among all the children
of Israel, and stood higher by the head and
shoulders than any of the people. The asses of
Saul's father strayed and were lost ; and he told
Saul to take a servant with him and go to seek
them. They went through the land along and
across for three days, searching for the asses,
until they came to the hill-country of Judah ;
but they could not find them. At last Saul said
to the servant, " Come, let us go home again,
or my father will leave off caring for the asses
148

and be anxious about us." The servant answered,
" There is a wise man who lives in yonder town
on the hill-top, and all that he says comes true ;
perhaps he might shew us the way we should
go." " But we have nothing to give him," said
Saul, "even the food we brought with us is all
done." The servant said, " I have a small piece
of silver with me ; I will give it to the wise man
to tell us our way." Saul answered, " Well
said ; come, let us go ; " so they went up the
hill to the town. As they went up, they met
the girls of the town coming out to draw water,
and asked them, " Is the wise man here ? "
They answered, all speaking at once, "Yes, he
is in front of you, if you make haste ; he has
just come to the city to-day, for there is a feast
to-day in the high place ; if you make haste into
the city you will find him at once, before he goes
up to the high place to eat ; the people will not
eat till he comes, because he first blesses the
feast, and afterwards those who are invited sit
down and eat ; go up, and you will find him
now." Then Saul and his servant went up, and
met the wise man coming out of the gate on his
way to the high place. Now this wise man was
Samuel ; and when he met Saul, God said to
149

him, " This is the man whom I have chosen to
be captain over my people Israel."
CHAPTER CI
THE STREET AT DAWN
SAUL came up and asked Samuel where the
wise man lived ; and Samuel answered, " I
am he. Come with me and eat, and to-morrow
I will let you go. As for the asses that were
lost three days ago, do not be troubled about
them, for they are found ; and on whom but you
is the desire of all Israel ? " Then he took
Saul with him to the high place, and gave him
the chief seat among all the guests ; so they
feasted, and Samuel took Saul home with him
at night. At daybreak the next morning they
rose and went out together. No one was
stirring in the street ; and as they went along
Samuel stopped and said to Saul, " Bid the
servant pass on before us, and stand still here
alone with me." Then he took out a vial of oil
and anointed him, saying, "You are the man
that shall be king of Israel. When you have
left me, you will meet two men by Rachel's
grave, who will tell you that the asses you went
15°

out to seek have been found. Then you will go
on, and come to the oak on the hill, and there
you will meet three men, one carrying three kids,
another three loaves of bread, and the third a
bottle of wine ; they will give you greeting and
two loaves of bread. Then you will come to
the hill of God, and near it you will meet a
company of prophets coming down from the
high place with harps and flutes, prophesying ;
and the spirit of God will come upon you, and
you will prophesy along with them. Afterwards
you must go to the gathering-place of the people,
and wait for me there." Then Samuel went
back to his house, and Saul went on his way,
and everything happened that day as Samuel
had foretold him. At the gathering-place of the
people his uncle met him and asked him, " Where
have you been ? " Saul said, " To seek the
asses that were lost ; and when we did not see
them anywhere, we went to Samuel." "What
did Samuel say to you ? " his uncle asked. Saul
said nothing about the kingdom, but only
answered, " He told us plainly that the asses
were found." Presently Samuel came, and lots
were drawn among the people by tribes and
families to choose a king. The lot fell on Saul's
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tribe, and then on his family, and then on him
self; and when they fetched him and brought
him out before the people, he stood higher than
any one else by his head and shoulders. Samuel
said, " See you him whom the Lord hath chosen,
that there is none like him among all the
people ? " and all the people shouted, and said,
" God save the Kins ! "

'O '

CHAPTER CII
THE GAP IN THE CLIFFS
THE Philistines overran the land of Israel
with a great army, so that the people hid
themselves in caves and thickets and rocks and
pits, or went away across Jordan ; and Saul
could only gather a little army of about six
hundred men. He encamped under a pome
granate tree, and the army of the Philistines lay
on the hills opposite him, and there was a nar
row way up to their camp through a gap in the
cliffs. As the armies lay there, Jonathan the
son of Saul said to his armour-bearer, " Come,
let us go over and attack the Philistines." He
answered, " I am with you." Jonathan said,
"We will shew ourselves, and if they bid us
come up, we will go up, but if they say, Stay
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there until we come to you, we will stand still."
Then they shewed themselves in front of the
hill, and the Philistines said to one another,
" See, the children of Israel are coming out of the
holes where they had hid themselves," and called
down to them, " Come up to us, and we will
shew you something." Then Jonathan, bidding
his armour-bearer follow him, climbed up the
rocks on his hands and knees, and attacked
them ; and the whole of their army was seized
with panic and took to flight, beating one another
down as they fled. The noise came across the
valley to Saul, who gathered his men and started
in pursuit ; and the people who were hidden in
the hills came out of their holes and joined him,
and the battle rolled far away. As he started,
Saul laid a curse on any one who should taste
food or turn aside in the pursuit till nightfall.
When it grew towards evening, and they were
faint for hunger, the battle passed into a wood
where honey dropped from the trees ; and no
one dared to touch it. But Jonathan, who had
not heard the curse, dipped the end of his spear
into the honey and ate of it and was strengthened.
At nightfall they stopped in the pursuit, and
supped in haste, and Saul enquired of the oracle
whether he should go on after the enemy all
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night ; but it would not answer. Then Saul
said, " Some one has broken the curse ; he must
die, were it my own son." So they cast lots to
find out who it was, and the lot fell on Jonathan.
Saul said to him, " What have you done ? " and
he said, " I did but taste a little honey with the
end of the rod that was in my hand, and lo ! I
must die." But the people all cried out, "Shall
Jonathan die, who has wrought this great salva
tion in Israel ? There shall not one hair of his
head fall to the ground." So they rescued Jona
than, and Saul stopped from pursuing the Philis
tines, and both the armies broke up and returned
home.
CHAPTER CIII
THE BOY HARPER
FROM time to time an evil spirit troubled
King Saul, and his servants sought out a
harp-player to come and play before him when
the evil spirit troubled him. They found in the
town of Bethlehem in Judah a shepherd boy
called David, the youngest of the seven sons of
Jesse of Bethlehem, who was the grandson of
Boaz and Ruth. David was a cunning harp-
player ; and when the evil spirit came on Saul,
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he came and played to him until he was well ;
then he went back to Bethlehem and fed his
father's sheep. But his six brothers were all in
the army that fought under king Saul.
CHAPTER CIV
THE GIANT'S CHALLENGE
THE Philistines made war again upon the
children of Israel ; and now they had a
great giant in their army called Goliath of Gath.
He was eleven feet high, and was all armed in
brass, with helmet and mail-coat and gorget and
greaves ; his coat of mail weighed two hundred
and fifty pounds. The two armies lay facing
each other in a wooded valley ; and every morn
ing and every evening Goliath came out in front
of the camp, with his armour-bearer going before
him and carrying his shield, and challenged the
army of Israel ; but no one dared to go out to
fight with him. On a day, Jesse said to David,
" Go to-morrow to the camp and take your
brothers some bread and cheese and parched
corn, and see how they all are." Next morning,
David rose at the first break of dawn, leaving
his sheep with a keeper, and made such good
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speed that when he reached the camp it was still
morning and they were setting the battle in array.
Then the giant Goliath came out in front of the
army of the Philistines and cried, " I challenge
the whole army of Israel ; send out a man, that
we may fight." David heard the soldiers saying
that any one who overcame the giant should have
great riches and marry the king's daughter; and
he said, " Why does no one go out and fight
with him ? " His eldest brother heard him, and
was very angry. " How have you got here,
boy ? " he said ; " and with whom have you left
those few sheep in the wilderness ? " "I only
asked a question," David answered ; and with
that he went straight to king Saul, and said to
him, " O king, let me go and fight with this
Philistine." " You cannot, you are too young,"
said the king. David answered, " When I was
keeping my father's sheep, a lion and a bear
came and took a lamb out of the flock. I went out
after them and pulled the lamb out of the lion's
mouth ; and when he turned on me, I caught
him by the mane and killed him, and then I
killed the bear too ; and God, who saved me from
the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, will
save me from the hand of this Philistine."
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CHAPTER CV
THE FIVE SMOOTH STONES
THEN King Saul gave David leave to go
forth and fight, and offered him his own
armour to wear ; but when David put it on and
tried to go in it, it was not easy, for he had
never worn armour before ; so he took it all off
again, and picked five smooth pebbles out of the
brook and put them in his shepherd's scrip, and
took his sling in his hand and went out against
Goliath. The giant came on, with his armour-
bearer carrying his shield before him, and when
he saw an unarmed boy coming to meet him, he
broke into a rage, and cursed him by his gods.
But David took a stone out of his scrip and laid
it in his sling, and ran towards Goliath and slung
it. It struck him on his forehead under the rim
of the helmet, and he fell forward on his face
stunned ; then David ran lightly up and drew
Goliath's sword out of the sheath as he lay, and
cut off his head at a blow. When the Philistines
saw their champion fallen, they all fled, and David
brought back the giant's head and his armour to
the camp. So he was married to Saul's daughter
157

Michal, and was made commander of the army ;
and Jonathan, Saul's son, loved him like his own
brother.
CHAPTER CVI
THE IMAGE UNDER THE COUNTERPANE
BUT when Saul and David came back to
gether, the women went out to meet them
dancing and singing, " Saul has slain his thou
sands, and David his ten thousands." Saul grew
very angry, and thought, " They have ascribed
to David ten thousands, and to me only thou
sands, and what can he have more but the
kingdom ? " and from that day forth he hated
David. The next day the evil spirit came on
him ; and when David went in to play to him as
he sat alone, he threw a javelin at him ; but
David slipped aside, and the javelin flew past him
and stuck into the wall. David ran away home,
and Saul sent men to keep watch at his door all
night and kill him when he came out in the
morning; but at night his wife Michal let him
down through a window, and he fled away. In
the morning Saul sent more men to fetch David;
then she took an image and laid it in David's
bed, with its head on the pillow, and drew the
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counterpane over it, and told them that David
was ill. They went back to Saul, who sent them
again, saying, "Bring him to me in the bed, that
I may kill him." So they went into the bedroom,
and when they pulled away the counterpane, they
found nothing but an image in the bed. But
David went to the temple at the high place
where the sword of Goliath was laid up behind
the altar-screen, and he took the sword and went
into the mountains, where he and a band of his
followers lived in caves in the forest.
CHAPTER CVII
THE CAMP IN THE FOREST
SAUL was told where David lay in hiding in
the wilderness, and he and his chief captain
Abner went with three thousand men to seek
him out. David withdrew further into the moun
tains, leaving watchmen to let him know when
Saul's men came. So they searched the forest
all day without finding him, and then encamped
on the hill for the night. But in the middle of
the night, David and his sister's son Abishai
crept in softly to Saul's camp, and found every
one asleep, and Saul asleep among them with his
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spear stuck in the ground by his pillow and a
jug of water at his head. Abishai whispered to
David, " God has delivered your enemy into your
hand ; let me run him through with the spear,
and I will not strike a second time." David
answered, " No ; his day shall come to die, or he
shall go into battle and perish ; but God forbid
that I should stretch forth my hand against the
Lord's anointed. Take the spear that is by his
pillow, and the water-jug, and let us go." So
they took the jug and the spear, and stole out of
the camp again silently without awaking anyone.
They climbed down into the bed of the torrent
at the foot of the hill and up the other side, until
at daybreak they were opposite the camp with
the deep narrow valley between ; then David
stood and shouted across, "Answer you not,
Abner?" Abner awoke and answered, "Who
are you that cry to the king ? " Then David
cried across the valley in the clear dawn, " Are
you not a valiant man ? why have you not kept
watch over your lord the king ? for there came
one of the people in to kill him. By God's life,
you deserve to be put to death for keeping your
master so ill. See where the king's spear is now,
and the jug of water that stood at his pillow."
160

So when Saul knew that David might easily have
killed him, and had spared his life, he said he
would do him no more harm, and returned home;
and David and his men came back and lived
again in the forest.
CHAPTER CVIII
THE WITCH OF ENDOR
SAMUEL was dead, and Saul's kingdom was
failing in his hands, and the Philistines made
war on him again with a great army. Saul was
afraid, and sought to use divinations, and find out
how the battle would go ; but he could get no
answer from dreams, or precious stones, or
prophets. Then he told his servants to find out
a witch, that he might enquire of her. This was
not easy, because Saul had put away all the
witches from his land ; but at last they found a
woman with a familiar spirit at Endor. Saul
disguised himself, and went with two servants at
dead of night to her house, and said to her,
" Divine to me by the familiar spirit, and bring
up to me him whom I shall name." The witch
answered, " You know that King Saul has put
away all the wizards and those who have familiar
L 161

spirits out of the land ; are you laying a trap for
my life ? " He swore that no harm should befal
her ; then she asked, " Whom shall I bring up
for you ? " " Bring me up Samuel," he said.
Suddenly the witch shrieked aloud and cried,
" Why have you deceived me ? you are Saul."
" Do not be afraid," said the king ; " whom did
you see ? " She said, " I saw a spirit ascending
out of the earth." " What form is he of ? " said
the king. She answered, "An old man comes
up, covered with a mantle." Then Saul saw the
ghost of Samuel rise before him, and bowed down
with his face to the ground. The phantom asked
him, " Why have you disquieted me, to bring me
up?" and Saul answered, "I am sore dis
tressed ; for the Philistines make war against
me, and God is departed from me, and answers
me no more, neither by prophets nor by dreams ;
therefore I have called yoil up to tell me what I
shall do." Then it said, " Why do you ask of
me, seeing the Lord is departed from you and is
become your enemy, and has rent the kingdom
out of your hand ? You and all Israel are
delivered into the hand of the Philistines ; and
to-morrow you shall be with me." With these
words it sank under earth again, and Saul fell
162

down in a swoon ; for he had eaten nothing for
a day and a night, and had no strength left. At
last the witch and his two servants roused him
and laid him on a bed and prepared food for
him ; then they ate and rose up hastily and went
away while it was still night.
CHAPTER CIX
THE WOEFUL BATTLE ON MOUNT
GILBOA
THE next day the battle was fought on Mount
Gilboa ; the army of Israel fled before the
Philistines, and there was a great slaughter.
Saul's three sons were killed fighting beside him.
and he himself was mortally wounded by an
arrow. When he could go no further, he bade
his armour-bearer draw his sword and thrust him
through, that the enemy might not take him
prisoner and torture him. But the armour-
bearer was afraid, and would not ; so Saul fell on
his own sword and died ; and when his armour-
bearer saw that he was dead, he also fell on his
own sword and died with him. The Philistines
came to strip the slain after the battle and found
the dead king among them ; the gold crown and
163

armlet had been stolen from the body ; but they
cut off his head and fastened it in the temple of
Dagon, and took his armour and put it in the
temple of Ashtaroth, and hung up his headless
body on the city wall. But the men of the City
of Dry Stones, whom Saul had saved from their
enemies when he was made king, came at night
and took his body down from the wall and
carried it home, and there they buried it and
made great lamentation.
CHAPTER CX
THE STOLEN CROWN
THE third day after the battle, a man came
running to David in his castle in the
wilderness, with his clothes all torn and earth
upon his head, and fell to the ground before him,
saying, "The people are fled from the battle,
and many are fallen and dead, and Saul and
Jonathan his son are dead also." Now this was
the man who had stolen the crown and armlet
from Saul's dead body as it upon the battle
field. David asked him how he knew. "I was
by chance on Mount Gilboa," he said, " and
there I saw the king leaning on his spear, and
164

the horsemen and chariots of the enemy close
after him. The king called to me, and when 1
came, told me to kill him, for he could not stand
up or go any further. Being sure that he could
not live after he was fallen, I killed him, and
took the crown from his head and the armlet
from his arm, and brought them to you ; see,
here they are, O king." But David answered
him, " Your blood be on your own head if your
story is true, for you have slain the Lord's
anointed ; " and ordered one of his guards to cut
him down where he stood ; so the liar died.
But David made great mourning for Saul and
for Jonathan.
CHAPTER CXI
THE CASTLE OF ZION
THEN the men of Judah made David king in
Hebron ; but Abner, Saul's chief captain,
took Eshbaal the son of Saul across the river,
and proclaimed him king in Mahanaim ; and for
two years they were both kings and their cap
tains fought with one another. But the house of
Saul grew weaker and weaker, and at last Abner
quarrelled with his master and went to Hebron
i65

to make peace with David. Now Joab, David's
chief captain, had a blood-feud with Abner be
cause he had killed one of Joab's brothers in
battle. Joab was away on a foray when Abner
came to Hebron ; but he came back soon after
Abner was gone, and was very angry with David
for letting him go in safety. Then he sent a
messenger after Abner to bring him back ; and
when he came, not suspecting any treachery,
Joab took him aside and stabbed him in the city
gate. Not long after, two of Eshbaal's officers
murdered him in his bed, and brought his head
to David ; but for all their reward, David hanged
them both in Hebron. So David was king over
all Israel ; and he besieged the castle of Zion,
which was so strong that the garrison set blind
and lame men on the ramparts in mockery of
him ; for they thought it impossible that their
castle should be taken. But David took it by
storm and lived in it, and built a palace and a
city there, which is the city of Jerusalem.

166

CHAPTER CXII
THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARK
WHEN David was established in his king
dom he went to the City of Woods to
fetch the ark of God from the house where it
had been since it came back on the cart from the
Philistines, and brought it up to his city of Jeru
salem with music and rejoicing, and the king
went dancing before the ark. But Queen Michal
looked through a window and saw King David
leaping and dancing before the ark, and despised
him in her heart ; and when he came back to the
palace, she could not hold her tongue, but up
braided him for not behaving like a king; so
David put her away from being the queen, and
she lived as a childless widow until the day of
her death. Then David counselled to build a
great temple for the ark ; but a word of God
came to him saying, " Because you have shed
much blood in war and still have wars all about
you, you may not build the house of God's rest ;
but your son who will be king after you shall
have peace all his days, and rest from his
enemies and a quiet throne ; and he shall build
167

God's house." So David set masons to hew
stones, and gathered store of gold and silver and
iron and brass, and cedar-trees out of Lebanon,
that his son might find everything ready for
building ; and meanwhile he fought against the
Philistines and the people of Edom and Ammon
and the Syrians beyond the river, and won
victories and great renown.
CHAPTER CXIII
THE THIRTY KNIGHTS
KING David had thirty mighty men ; the
first was Adino the Tachmonite who sat
in the seat, chief among the captains, and prince
among the thirty ; he lifted up his spear against
eight hundred men, and slew them at one time.
Next to him were Eleazer and Shammah ; and
these were the first three. These three chiefs
of the thirty came to David in harvest time,
when he was in a hold, and the garrison of the
Philistines was in Bethlehem; David looked
across the valley of Rephaim to the town of
Bethlehem where he had been born, and longed,
and said, " Oh, that one would give me drink
of the water of the well of Bethlehem which is
168

by the gate ! " Then these three mighty men
broke through the whole host of the Philistines,
and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem by
the gate, and brought it to David. But he
would not drink it, and poured it out on the
ground before God, saying, " Be it far from me,
O Lord, that I should drink this ; is not this the
blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their
lives for me ? " therefore he would not drink it.
After these three, Abishai the brother of Joab
was chief; he lifted up his spear against three
hundred, and slew them. Also when the Sitter
on the High Place, the son of the giant in
Gath, being girded with a new sword, thought to
have slain David, Abishai succoured David and
slew the Philistine. Next to him was Benaiah,
the captain of the Greek guards, who had done
many acts : he slew two lion-like men of Moab ;
he went down and slew a lion in a pit in the time
of snow ; also he slew an Egyptian, a goodly
man; and the Egyptian had a spear in his hand,
but he went up to him with a staff, and plucked
the spear out of the Egyptian's hand, and slew
him with his own spear. After these were the
other five-and-twenty knights, all mighty men :
among whom were Sibbechai, who slew Saph,
169

one of the sons of the giant, and Elhanan and
Jonathan, who slew the other two sons of the
giant, and Uriah the Hittite.
CHAPTER CXIV
THE SHOT FROM THE WALL
AT the time of year when kings go forth to
battle, David sent out Joab and his thirty
knights with an army, and they besieged the
city of Rabbah ; but David himself stayed at
Jerusalem. He was walking in an evening on
the roof of his cedar palace, when he looked
down and saw a very beautiful woman washing
herself at a fountain below. He sent to find
out who she was, and they told him she was
Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. David
desired to have her for his own wife. He sent a
message to the army for Uriah to come home,
and tell him how the war was going. Then he
kept him for two days feasting in the palace,
and sent him back with a letter to carry tp Joab,
which said, " Set Uriah in the front of the
battle where it is hottest, and retire from him,
that he may be smitten and die." When Joab
read the king's letter he ordered an attack on
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the city and set Uriah in front of the army.
The men of the town sallied out, and the rest 01
the army fell back from Uriah, who was killed
by a shot from the town wall ; and a few more
men who had stood by him were killed at the
same time. Joab sent off a messenger to David
immediately, and told him : " The king will be
angry when he hears we have attacked the city
and been beaten off, and will say, Why did you
fight so near the city? Did you not know that
they would shoot from the wall ? who smote
Abimelech the son of Gideon ? did not a woman
cast a piece of a millstone upon him from the
wall, so that he died in Thisbe ? Then say to
him : Uriah the Hittite, your captain, is dead
also." So the messenger took the news to
David, who sent back word by him to Joab,
saying, " Do not be troubled by this ; for the
sword devours one as well as another." Then
as soon as Bathsheba had finished her mourning
for Uriah, he had her brought to his palace, and
married her, and they had a child.

*7*

CHAPTER CXV
THE STORY OF THE EWE-LAMB
THEN the prophet Nathan came to David
and said, " 0 king, there were two men in
one city, the one rich and the other poor. The
rich man had many flocks and herds ; the poor
man had nothing but one little ewe-lamb, that
lived with him and his children ; it ate of his own
meat and drank of his own cup, and lay in his
bosom and was like a daughter to him. The
rich man had to prepare food for a traveller who
came to his house ; and he grudged to take one
of his own flocks and nerds to dress and set
before the traveller ; but he took the poor man's
lamb from him by violence and killed it and
dressed it." David's anger was kindled, and he
said, " By God's life, the man that did this
deserves to be put to death ; and he shall
restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this
thing and had no pity." Then Nathan answered
David, " You are the man. The Lord God
anointed you king over Israel, and delivered you
out of the hand of Saul, and gave the people
into your hand ; and if that had been too little,
172

he would have given you such and such things
besides : why have you despised him, to do evil
in his sight ? You have killed Uriah the Hittite
and taken his wife to be your wife ; therefore
the sword shall never depart from your house ;
God will raise up sorrow against you from your
own family, and what was done secretly shall be
punished before all Israel and before the sun.'
CHAPTER CXVI
THE SICK CHILD
THEN the child that had been born to David
and Bathsheba fell ill ; and David fasted
and lay all night on the ground, and would not
taste food or listen to his councillors. On the
seventh day the child died. David's servants
were afraid to tell him ; but when he saw them
whispering together, he asked, " Is the child
dead ? " and they said, " Yes." Then he rose
and washed himself and ate bread. They asked
him, " How is it that you fasted and wept for
the child while it was alive, but rose and ate
bread when it died ? " and he answered them,
"While the child was yet alive, I fasted and
wept, for I said, Who can tell whether God will
173

be pitiful to me, that the child may live ? But
now he is dead, why should I fast ? can I bring
him back again ? I shall go to him, but he
shall not return to me." So David took comfort,
and went about the work of his kingdom ; and
afterwards David and Bathsheba had another
child, whom they called Solomon.
CHAPTER CXVII
THE REBELLION OF ABSALOM
NO long time after, a bitter hatred broke out
between David's eldest son Amnon and
his second son Absalom, till, from bad to worse,
Absalom killed his brother by treachery at a
feast, and fled to the court of his grandfather,
the king of the Passage of the Wilderness.
After three years Absalom was allowed to come
back, but for two years more he was shut up in
his own house and David refused to see him.
Then at last they were reconciled, and Absalom
became heir to the kingdom ; but he was not
content with this, and conspired to dethrone his
father David and make himself king. Absalom
Was the most beautiful man in all Israel, and
lived in great state, with fifty men that ran
174

before him wherever he went ; and he was
gracious to all, and when he heard of any man
that lacked justice he would say, " O that I
were judge in the land, that every man that had
a suit or cause might come to me, and I would
do him justice ! " So he stole the people's
hearts away ; and at last he proclaimed himself
king at Hebron with sound of trumpet, and the
people gathered round him. Ahithophel, the
wisest of David's councillors, joined him there,
and ruled everything by his counsel. When
news came to David that the whole nation went
after Absalom, and that he was preparing to
march on Jerusalem, he left his palace of Zion
and fled into the wilderness. All his household
went on in front, except a few women who were
left to keep the house ; then the king followed
with his Greek guards and his captains (for they
remained faithful to him), and they all crossed
the valley and went up the ascent of Mount
Olivet, barefoot and with covered heads, weeping
as they went.

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CHAPTER CXVIII
THE FLIGHT INTO THE WILDERNESS
AT the top of the hill, Hushai of Erech, one
of David's councillors, came to join him,
with his coat rent and earth upon his head.
David said to him, " If you come with me, you
will be of no use to me ; return to the city and
join Absalom and pretend to be his servant, and
so you may help me by thwarting the counsel of
Ahithophel." So Hushai returned, and as he
came into the city by one gate, Absalom and his
men came in by another. By this time David
was beyond the top ofthe hill; and there Shimei
the son of Gera, a man of the house of Saul,
came out on the hillside as he passed, and threw
stones at him and cursed, crying, " Come out,
come out, you bloody man." Then Abishai,
David's nephew, said to him, " Why should this
dead dog curse my lord the king ? Let me go
over, I pray you, and take off his head." But
David said, " Let him curse ; behold, my son
seeks my life ; how much more may this Benja
mite do it ? Let him alone, and it may be that
God will requite me good for his cursing this day."
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CHAPTER CXIX
THE COUNSEL OF AHITHOPHEL
MEANWHILE Absalom was holding a coun
cil in the palace ; and Ahithophel advised,
" Let me pursue David this same evening with
a small force, and come on him suddenly at night
while he is weary and weak-handed ; then all
the people who are with him will take to flight,
and we shall seize David alone and kill him, and
the war will be over ; and I will bring back all
the people to \rou, as a bride is brought to her
husband." This advice pleased the council well.
Then Absalom said, " Call Hushai also, and let
us hear what he says." So Hushai was. brought
in, and Absalom said to him, "Ahithophel has
spoken after this manner ; shall we do accord
ingly ? If not, speak." Then Hushai said,
" Ahithophel's counsel is not wise. Your father
is a good captain, and his guards are mighty
men ; you will not take them by surprise ; if
you pursue him hastily he will lie in ambush in
a valley and attack you unawares, and if some
of your men fall, the cry will go abroad that
there is a slaughter among the people that follow
m 177

Absalom, and the hearts of the people will melt.
My counsel therefore is this : Gather all Israel
together and go forth yourself at the head of a
great army; then wherever we find David we
shall surround him and swallow him up ; or if
he have taken shelter in a city, we shall bring
ropes and draw the city into the river, until there
be not one small stone left where it stood."
CHAPTER CXX
THE WELL IN THE COURTYARD
HUSHAI'S advice pleased Absalom more
than Ahithophel's ; and so it was deter
mined, and the council broke up. Now David
had left two of his men by a fountain outside
the city (for they dared not shew themselves in
the city) to bring him news. Hushai sent a girl
out to tell them what had been determined at
the council, and to warn David not to stop the
night in the plain. But a boy saw them hiding
by the fountain, and told Absalom, who sent
soldiers after them ; then they crept down into
a well in the court of a house, and the woman
of the house put a lid on the well's mouth and
spread a heap of corn over it. When Absalom's
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men came and asked where they were, she said,
" They have gone over the brook of water."
So they searched, but could not find them, and
returned into the city. Then the men climbed
out of the well and ran to tell David ; so he
went on all through the night, and by the next
day's dawn had crossed Jordan and was safe in
the wilderness. But Ahithophel, when he saw
that his counsel was not followed, saddled his
ass and rode home to his own city, and hanged
himself in his house.
CHAPTER CXXI
THE BATTLE IN THE WOOD
DAVID gathered an army in the wilderness,
and there was a great battle in the wood
of Ephraim. Absalom fought at the head of
his men, but David could not bear to go out to
battle ; he watched his army march through the
city-gate, and gave charge to his captains in the
hearing of all the army to deal gently with
Absalom. When the armies met, Absalom's
men fled and there was a great slaughter in the
wood. As Absalom rode under a great oak in
the forest, a low bough caught his head ; his
179

long hair, of which he was so proud that he only
had it cut once a year, was entangled in the
branches, and his mule went away from under
him, so that he was left hanging in the oak-tree
between heaven and earth. One of David's
soldiers saw this happen, and ran to tell Joab.
" Why did you not strike him to the ground ? "
said Joab, " and I would have given you ten
pieces of silver." " I would not touch him for
a thousand pieces of silver," he answered ;
" nothing is long hid from our lord the king,
and you would have been the first to put me to
death for disobeying his orders." " I cannot
waste time talking," Joab said ; and with that
he galloped up to the oak and ran Absalom
through the body with his spear. Then he blew
a trumpet to stop the pursuit, and they took
Absalom's body and flung it into a pit in the
wood, and threw a great heap of stones over it ;
and his army fled and dispersed, each man to
his own home.

i So

CHAPTER CXXII
THE TWO RUNNERS
ORTHWITH two runners started to run to
the city and take the king news of the
battle. David was sitting in the gateway be
tween the inner and outer gate, and a watchman
stood on the roof of the gateway-tower and
looked across the plain. The watchman saw a
single man come running in the distance, and
cried to the king; who said, "If he be alone,
there is tidings in his mouth ; " and the runner
came apace and drew near. Then the watchman
espied another man running, and called down to
the gate ; and the king said, " He also brings
tidings." Presently the watchman said, " Me-
thinks the running of the foremost is like the
running of Ahimaaz son of Zadok." " He is a
good man, and comes with good tidings," said
the king. Then Ahimaaz came up running, and
cried to the king, " Peace ! " and fell down on his
face before him, and said, " Blessed be the Lord,
who has put down those who rose up against
my lord the king." But David only said, " Is
the young man Absalom safe ? " Ahimaaz
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answered, " When I was sent, I saw a great
tumult, but I do not know what it was about."
"Turn aside, and stand there," said the king.
In a few minutes more the second runner, who
was David's negro servant, came up, and cried,
" Tidings, my lord the king : for the Lord has
avenged you this day of all that rose up against
you." But the king said, " Is the young man
Absalom safe ? " He answered, " May the
enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise
against you to do you hurt, be as that young
man is." And the king was much moved, and
went up to the chamber over the gate, weeping ;
and as he went, he said, " O my son Absalom,
my son, my son Absalom, would God I had died
for you, O Absalom, my son, my son ! "
CHAPTER CXXIII
THE SORROWFUL VICTORY
SO the victory that day was turned into
mourning, when word went among the
people how the king was grieved for his son,
and they crept by stealth into the city, as shamed
men steal away when they have fled in battle.
At last Joab went in to the king, and told him
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that he had shamed the faces of all his servants,
who had fought for him and saved his life :
" For I see," he said, " that if Absalom had
lived and all we had died, it would have pleased
you well. Now rise and go forth, or I swear
by God it will be worse for you than all the
evil that has befallen you from your youth up
till now." Then the king rose, and sat in the
gate. But he never forgave Joab : and when he
was dying, he charged his son Solomon, who
became king after him, to put Joab to death as a
traitor and murderer.
CHAPTER CXXIV
THE CITY OF MEADOWS
THUS the war ended ; but when David
returned from the wilderness to his king
dom, the men of Judah began to quarrel with the
men of Israel over their shares in bringing him
back ; and the quarrel grew so fierce that when
a man of Benjamin called Sheba blew a trumpet
and cried, " We have no part in David," the tribes
followed him and revolted from David ; only the
army and the men of Judah remained loyal to
him. Joab went out with the army and besieged
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Sheba in the City of Meadows, and filled up the
moat with a mound and began to batter the wall.
Then a wise woman out of the city cried to Joab
to come near and speak with her. When he
came, she said, " You seek to destroy a city and
a mother in Israel ; why will you swallow up
the inheritance of the Lord ? " He answered,
"Far be it from me to swallow up or destroy;
but a man of Mount Ephraim, Sheba by name,
has rebelled against the king; give him up to
me, and I will take away my army from your
city." She said, " His head shall be thrown to
you over the wall." Then the woman went
to all the people in her wisdom, and they cut off
Sheba's head and threw it out to Joab. So he
blew the trumpet to retire, and all the people
dispersed to their homes, and the revolt came to
an end.
CHAPTER CXXV
THE WATCHING OF RIZPAH
THERE was a famine in the days of David
for three years, year after year, and when he
enquired of the precious stones, they answered,
" It is for Saul and his bloody house, because
he slew the Gibeonites." For Joshua and the
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children of Israel had sworn safety to the
Gibeonites when they conquered the land ; but
Saul had sought to destroy them, and broken
the oath. David said to the Gibeonites, " What
shall I do for you ? wherewith shall I make
atonement, that you may bless the inheritance
of the Lord ? " They answered, " We will have
no silver nor gold in repayment ; but let seven
of the sons of the man who destroyed us be
delivered to us, that we may hang them on the
hill." Then the king took the two sons of
Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to
Saul, and the five sons of Merab the daughter cf
Saul, and delivered them to the Gibeonites ; and
they hanged them on the hill under the open
sky, all seven together, at the beginning of
harvest time. But Rizpah the daughter of Aiah
took sackcloth and spread it upon the rock, and
kept the birds of the air off them by day and the
beasts of the field by night, sitting there night
and day from the beginning of harvest all
through the burning summer till the winter
rains dropped on them out of heaven. When
this was told the king, he took their bones and
buried them all together in the burying-place of
their family ; and after that the land had peace.
18S

CHAPTER CXXVI
THE ANGEL'S SWORD
DAVID offended God in numbering the
people ; and the prophet Gad came to
him, saying, " Choose one of three things : Shall
seven years of famine come unto you in your
land ? or will you flee three months before your
enemies while they pursue you ? or shall there
be three days' pestilence in your land ? Now
advise, and see what answer I shall return to
him that sent me." David chose the last, " For
the Lord's mercies are many," he said ; " let us
fall into his hand and not into the hand of man."
So at morning the Angel of the Pestilence went
forth among the people, and between morning
and midday had destroyed seventy thousand
men. At noon he reached Jerusalem and stood
over the city by the threshing-floor of Araunah ;
and when David looked up, he saw the angel
stand between earth and heaven, with a drawn
sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem.
Then David and all the elders of Israel fell upon
their faces in prayer ; and God was appeased, and
said to the angel, "It is enough; stay your hand,"
186

and the angel put up his sword into the sheath.
Then David would have bought the threshing-
floor from Araunah to build an altar on it ; but
Araunah gave him the floor and the oxen without
payment, as a king to a king. So David built an
altar there and offered sacrifice, and God answered
him by fire upon the altar out of heaven.
CHAPTER CXXVII
THE CHOICE IN THE DREAM
WHEN David grew old and near his death
he had his son Solomon crowned to be
king after him ; Solomon rode down the city on
the royal mule with the Greek guards round
him, and they blew the silver trumpets and set
the crown on his head and proclaimed him king,
and the whole people made rejoicing. So David
died, and Solomon was king. Then God ap
peared to Solomon in a dream by night and told
him to ask a gift ; and in his dream Solomon
said, " O Lord, thou hast made me king instead
of David my father, and I am like a little child
who does not know how to go out or come in :
give me therefore wisdom to judge thy people,
and to discern between good and bad." God
187

answered him : " Because you have asked this
thing, and have not asked long life, nor riches,
nor victory, see, I have given you a wise heart
such as no man has had before, nor shall any
man have after ; and also I have given you
besides that which you have not asked for,
riches, and honour, and length of days." So
Solomon awoke out of his dream.
CHAPTER CXXVIII
THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON
N the morning two women came before
Solomon as he sat upon his throne, and
cried to him for judgment. Each of them was
carrying a baby, but one of the two babies was
dead. The one woman cried to the king and
said : " O my lord, I and this woman live in
one house together alone, with no one else in
the house, and we each of us bore a child, the
one within three days of the other. But last
night this woman's child died in the night,
because she overlaid it ; and she rose in the
middle of the night and took my baby from me
while I slept, and laid her own dead baby in
my bosom ; but when I saw it by daylight, it
1 83

was not my child, the son that I bore." Then
the other woman said, " No ; but the living
child is mine, and the dead is yours ; " and the
first cried again, " No ; but the dead is yours,
and the living is mine." Thus they spoke
before the king ; and there was no one to bear
witness to one or the other. The king said,
" Bring me a sword." When it was brought,
he said, " Divide the living child in two, and
give half to the one woman, and half to the
other." But the woman who had spoken first,
and whose child it really was, cried out to the
king, " O my lord, give her the child, and slay
it not ! " for her heart melted over her child.
King Solomon answered and said, " Give her the
living child ; she is its mother." All the people
heard of this judgment of Solomon and praised
it, and saw that the wisdom of God was in him
to do justice.
CHAPTEPv CXXIX
THE GLORY OF SOLOMON
N king Solomon's days the people were as
the sand by the sea in multitude, eating and
drinking and making merry. Pie reigned over
all the kings round about him, and had peace all
his days ; the people lived safely under him,
189

every man under his vine and under his fig-tree.
He had four thousand chariots and forty thousand
chariot-horses ; he made silver and gold as
plentiful as stones, and cedar trees as common
wood. He built Tadmor in the wilderness, and
many other great cities with walls and brazen
bars. All the dishes in his palace, and in the
House of the Forest of Lebanon which he built,
were of pure gold. He had ships in his har
bours that sailed to Tarshish and the furthest
southern seas ; the voyage took three years to
go and return, and once in every three years his
fleet came back bringing gold and silver and
ivory, and apes and peacocks ; and he built
another fleet on the Arabian gulf, that sailed to
Ophir and brought back gold and sandalwood
and precious stones. So he was richer than all
other kings ; also God gave him such wisdom
as excelled all the wisdom of the children of the
East, and all the wisdom of Egypt. He made
three thousand proverbs, and a thousand and five
songs ; and he had all knowledge of trees, from
the cedar of Lebanon to the weed that grows out
of the wall, and of beasts and birds and fishes and
insects ; so that the kings of the peoples of the
earth came out of all lands to hear his wisdom.
190

CHAPTER CXXX
THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE
THE greatest of all Solomon's works was the
temple that he built at Jerusalem, of hewn
stone and cedarwood, with a pillared porch
before it carved over with lilies, and windows of
narrow lights along either wall. The stone of
which it was built was quarried underground
and made ready before it was brought up, so
that the house rose silently, and no noise of
hammer or axe or any tool of iron was heard in
it while it was building. The roof was of cedar
beams brought by sea on rafts from the forests
of Lebanon, and the floor and the panelling of
the walls were of cedar, and the whole of the
house within was carved with cherubim and
palm-trees and lions and wild vines and open
flowers, and all the carving overlaid with pure
gold. In the temple was an inner chamber,
called the Holy of Holies, shut off by golden
lattice work and a curtain of blue and purple
snd crimson with cherubim wrought into it.
In the Holy of Holies stood two great golden
cherubim each sixteen feet high, with vast
191

outstretched wings ; their wings reached across
the chamber outwards to either wall and inwards
till they touched one another in the middle of the
house ; and when the temple was finished, the ark
of God was set in the Holy of Holies under the
wings of the covering cherubim, and the curtain
drawn before it, and it remained there in thick
darkness except when the glory of God descended
upon it and lighted up all the golden room.
CHAPTER CXXXI
THE FEAST OF THE DEDICATION
IN front of the temple stood two great pillars
of brass seventy feet high, one on each
side of the doorway, with a raised pattern on
them of lilies and pomegranates ; and all round
the inner court ran a triple cloister of stone,
roofed with cedar. In this inner court stood
Solomon's molten sea, which he had cast of
brass and adorned round the edge with lilies and
wild vines cast in the metal ; it rested on the
backs of twelve oxen of brass that stood in a
circle under it, all looking outwards ; and it held
water for two thousand baths. But in the
temple itself all the metal work, even the nails
192

and the door-hinges, was of pure gold. At the
dedication of the temple, King Solomon made
a feast to all the people for seven days ; all the
priests and singers of the whole land were
assembled together, dressed in white linen, with
cymbals and harps and psalteries, and with them
a hundred and twenty priests to sound upon
trumpets ; and at a signal all the trumpeters
sounded together and the singers lifted up their
voice as one man with the trumpets and cymbals,
and sang, "PRAISE THE LORD, FOR HE
IS GOOD ; FOR HIS MERCY ENDURETH
FOR EVER." Then a bright cloud filled the
temple, so that the priests could not stand to
minister ; for the glory of God had filled his
house.
CHAPTER CXXXII
THE CEDAR PALACE
SOLOMON also built the palace of the Forest
of Lebanon, which was panelled with cedar
and ivory, and stood on four rows of cedar
pillars, with a cedar portico in front of it, and
two inner courts built of costly stones, one for
himself and the other for the queen his wife,
who was the daughter of king Pharaoh of Egypt.
N 193

When the palace was finished, the queen was
brought into it with great rejoicing, oarried on
cushions of tapestry and dressed all in cloth of
gold, with spices burning round her and music
sounding out of the ivory palace to welcome her
in. In the portico of the palace was King
Solomon's throne of judgment from which he
judged the people, of ivory and gold ; six steps
went up to it, and upon each step stood two
golden lions, one on either side, twelve lions in
all ; there was not the like of it in any kingdom.
CHAPTER CXXXIII
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
THE Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of
Solomon, and of his riches and wisdom,
and came from very far to visit him, with a
great train of camels bearing spices and gold and
precious stones. She proved Solomon with
hard questions, and he answered them all ; and
when she heard his wisdom, and saw the
splendour of his house, and the dresses of his
servants and his cupbearers, and the bridge by
which he went up to the house of God, she fell
into a swoon ; and when she came to herself
194

she gave Solomon great gifts of gold and spice
and precious stones (no such spices were ever
brought to the land again), and returned into the
south to her own land.
CHAPTER CXXXIV
THE DIVISION OF THE KINGDOMS
BUT the labour that built the temple and the
palace, and the wealth that was spent on
the splendours of Solomon's court, was all wrung
out of the people ; and though they were proud
of Solomon's glory, the burdens that he laid on
them were very heavy to bear ; so that when he
died and his son Rehoboam became king after
him, all the people assembled under Jeroboam
the son of Nebat, and asked the new king to
make their burdens lighter than they had been
in the days of Solomon. Rehoboam told them
to come back for their answer in three days,
and meanwhile he called his council. The old
men who had been Solomon's councillors advised
him to give a fair answer to the people. " Be
their servant to-day," they said, " and you will
have them for your servants for ever." But the
young men of his own age, who had grown up
195 ¦

with him, advised him to answer the people
roughly, and say, " My little finger shall be
thicker than my father's loins ; my father chas
tised you with whips, but I will chastise you
with scorpions." On the third day Jeroboam
and all the people came for their answer, and
the king answered them according to the counsel
of the young men, saying, " My father made
your burden heavy, but I will add to it ; he
chastised you with whips, but I will chastise
you with scorpions." When the people heard
this they cried out, " To your tents, O Israel :
now see to your own house, David ! " and all
the tribes except Judah revolted from king
Rehoboam and made Jeroboam king over Israel.
So the kingdom was divided, and from that day
forth there were two kingdoms, one of Judah and
one of Israel. But Jeroboam feared that if his
people went up to Jerusalem to sacrifice at
Solomon's temple, their heart might turn again
to the house of David ; therefore he made two
golden calves and set them up in two of his
cities, Bethel and Dan, and said, "It is too
much for you to go up to Jerusalem to worship ;
behold your gods, O Israel, which brought you
out of the land of Egypt."
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CHAPTER CXXXV
THE MAN OF GOD FROM JUDAH
A MAN of God out of Judah came to Bethel
while king Jeroboam stood by the altar
burning incense before his golden calf, and cried
against the altar, saying, " O altar, altar, a child
shall be born to the house of David, who shall offer
on you the priests of the high places that burn
incense on you, and men's bones shall be burnt
upon you." The king stretched out his hand,
crying, " Lay hold on him ! " when at once his
hand stiffened so that he could not draw it back
again ; and the altar was rent asunder and the
ashes poured out of it. But the man of God
returned to go home by another way ; for God
had said, when he sent him, " Eat no bread,
nor drink water there, nor turn again by the
same way that you came." Now there was an
old prophet in Bethel, whose sons came and
told him of the man out of Judah, and what he
had done that day. He told them to saddle his
ass, and mounted and rode after the man of
God till he found him sitting by the wayside
under an oak. He asked him, "Are you the
197

man of God that came from Judah ? " and he
answered, " I am." Then he said, " Come home
with me and eat bread." But the man of God
answered, " I may not ; for the word of the
Lord said to me, Eat no bread nor drink water
there, nor turn again to go by the way that you
came." The old prophet said, " I am a prophet
also as you are ; and an angel spoke a word
of the Lord to me also, saying, Bring him back
with you to your house, that he may eat bread
and drink water." But he lied. So the man
of God went back with him. But while they
sat at table, the word of the Lord came indeed
to the old prophet, and he cried to the man of
God and said, " Because you have disobeyed
the mouth of the Lord, and have eaten bread and
drunk water in the place of which the Lord said
to you, Eat no bread, nor drink water there, your
body shall never be laid in the grave of your
fathers." After they had eaten and drunk, the
man of God saddled his ass and went on his
way ; and on his way a lion met him and killed
him. His dead body lay in the road with his
ass standing by it, and the lion stood over it all
day. Men passed by and saw this sight and
brought the news to the city. When the old
198

prophet heard of it, he rode forth and found him
lying so with his ass beside him and the lion
standing by ; but the lion had not touched the
body, nor hurt the ass. The old prophet took
up the dead man and laid him on his ass and
brought him back to the city, and there buried
him in his own grave ; and they mourned over
him, saying, " Alas, my brother ! " Then he
said to his sons, " When I am dead, bury me in
the grave where the man of God is buried ; lay
my bones beside his bones ; for the saying which
he cried against the altar and against the high
places shall surely come."
CHAPTER CXXXVI
THE WIDOW'S JAR
AHAB son of Omri reigned over Israel, and
married Jezebel, the princess of Sidon.
He set up altars to Baal and Asherah, the gods
of Sidon, and served them ; therefore God sent
word to him by the prophet Elijah of Thisbe,
that there were to be three years of drought and
famine in the land. When Elijah had given his
message to the king, he went away and lived in
hiding by a brook in the desert; he drank the
199

water of the brook, and every day, morning and
evening, ravens brought him bread and meat.
After a while the brook dried up because there
was no rain, and he had to leave that place.
He went to a town, and outside the town gate
he found a widow woman gathering sticks, and
asked her to £,ive him a morsel of bread. She
said, " I have no food left but a handful of meal
in a barrel and a little oil in a jar ; I am gather
ing two sticks to light a fire and bake a cake for
myself and my son, that we may eat our last
meal and die." Elijah answered, " Go and do
so ; but make me a cake first, and the barrel of
meal shall not waste, nor the jar of oil fail, until
the day that God gives rain upon the earth."
So she went and did as he said ; and for a full
year she and her house lived upon the barrel of
meal that wasted not and the jar of oil that did
not fail.
CHAPTER CXXXVII
THE ALTARS ON MOUNT CARMEL
IN the third year of the famine, the word of
God came to Elijah, saying, " Go, show
yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain." So he
200

went to the king, and said to him, "Send, and
gather all Israel upon Mount Carmel, and let
the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and
the four hundred prophets of Asherah be there,
who eat at the queen's table." The people
gathered on Carmel ; and Elijah said to them,
" I only remain a prophet of the Lord, but
Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men ;
let us then build two altars, and lay sacrifices
on them, but kindle no fire ; then let them call
on the name of Baal, and I will call on the
name of the Lord ; and let the God be God that
answers by fire." All the people said, " It
is well spoken." So the priests of Baal made
their altar and called on their god from morning
till noon, crying, " O Baal, hear us ! " but there
was no voice, nor any that answered. At noon
Elijah mocked them, and said, " Cry aloud, for
he is a god ; either he is talking, or he is pur
suing, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he
sleeps, and must be awaked." So they cried
aloud and cut themselves with knives after their
manner from midday till the time of evening
prayer ; but there was no voice nor answer, nor
any that regarded. Then Elijah built his altar
of twelve great stones, and made a trench round
201

about it ; he laid his sacrifice on the altar, and
had twelve barrels of water brought from the
river and poured over the altar until it filled the
trench. Then Elijah cried to God, and the fire
of the Lord fell and consumed the sacrifice and
the stones of the altar and licked up the water
in the trench ; and when the people saw it they
fell on their faces, and cried, "The Lord is
God, the Lord is God 1"
CHAPTER CXXXVIII
THE LITTLE CLOUD
THEN Elijah said to Ahab, " Arise, eat and
drink ; for there is a sound of a noise of
rain." So Ahab arose to eat and drink ; but
Elijah went up to the top of Carmel and threw
himself down on the ground with his face
between his knees and said to his servant,
" Climb up, and look toward the sea." He
climbed up and looked, and said, " I see no
thing." Elijah bade him look again, but still
he saw nothing ; and so he looked seven times,
and at the seventh time he said, " I see a little
cloud rising out of the sea like a man's hand."
Then Elijah said, " Go, say to Ahab, Yoke and
202

get you down, that the rain stop you not." In
a little while the heaven was black with clouds
and wind, and there was a great rain, so that
the floods came out and covered the roads
behind Ahab as he drove back across the plain
to his palace.
CHAPTER CXXXIX
THE STILL SMALL VOICE
WHEN Queen Jezebel heard of what Elijah
had done on Carmel she threatened to
kill him ; so he fled out of the land and went a
day's journey into the wilderness. There he
lay down under a bush of broom and prayed
that he might die, saying, " It is enough ; now,
O Lord, take, away my life, for I am not better
than my fathers." Then he fell asleep there
under the bush of broom, until an angel touched
him and said, " Rise and eat." He awoke and
looked, and saw a cake baked among the embers
and a jug of water standing at his head ; so he
ate and drank, and went in the strength of that
meat forty days and forty nights, to the mount
of God in the wilderness. He lodged in a cave
on the mountain ; and the voice of God came
203

to him there, saying, " What are you doing
here, Elijah ? " He answered, " The children
of Israel have forsaken thee, thrown down
thine altars and slain thy prophets ; I only am
left ; and they seek my life to take it away."
The voice said, " Go forth and stand upon the
mount before the Lord." Elijah waited for the
Lord to pass by : and first a great wind rent
the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces
before him ; but the Lord was not in the wind :
and after the wind an earthquake ; but the Lord
was not in the earthquake : and after the earth
quake a fire ; but the Lord was not in the
fire : and after the fire a still small voice.
Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle and went
out, and stood in the entrance of the cave.
There the voice came to him and said again,
" What are you doing here, Elijah ? " and he
answered as before. Then the voice of the
Lord said, " Go, return ; I have yet left seven
thousand in Israel whose knees have not bowed
to Baal and whose mouth has not kissed him."
So Elijah went back to find king Ahab.

204

CHAPTER CXL
NABOTH'S VINEYARD
ALONGSIDE of the palace of king Ahab in
Jezreel there was a vineyard belonging
to Naboth the Jezreelite. The king wished to
have it to make it into a garden for himself,
and offered to buy it of Naboth or give him a
better vineyard in exchange for it. But Naboth
would not part with it, because it had belonged
to his family for a long while ; and the king
was so displeased that he lay down on his bed
with his face turned away to the wall, and would
not eat. Queen Jezebel came and asked What
ailed him ; and when he told her, she said to
him, " Are you not king of Israel ? Rise and
eat and be merry, for I will give you Naboth's
vineyard." Then she wrote letters to the nobles
of the city, sealed with the royal seal, ordering
them to seize Naboth and hire false witness
against him, and so put him to death. They
obeyed the queen ; Naboth was seized and
dragged before a meeting of the people, and two
men swore falsely that they had heard him
curse his lord the king; then they carried him
205

out of the city, and stoned him and his children
to death, and sent word to the queen. She
went in to king Ahab and said, " Naboth is dead,
and has left no children ; go, take possession
of his vineyard." So Ahab went down to
the vineyard ; and there in the vineyard Elijah
was waiting for him. " Have you found me, O
mine enemy ? " said the king. Elijah answered,
" Have you killed, and also taken possession ?
Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs
licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick your
blood ; God will bring evil on you and cut off
your household, and dogs shall eat Jezebel by
the city ditch."
CHAPTER CXLI
THE COUNCIL OF THE KINGS
JEHOSHAPHAT king of Judah made alliance
with king Ahab, and came to visit him in the
ivory house that he had built for himself at Sa
maria ; and there the two kings planned a war
against the Syrians, sitting in their striped robes
on two thrones by the city gate. Jehoshaphat
said, " Let us enquire at the mouth of the Lord,
whether we shall gc against Ramoth-Gilead to
206

battle." Ahab called all his four hundred
prophets ; and they said with one voice, " Go,
for God shall deliver it into the king's hand."
Then Jehoshaphat asked, " Is there not a
prophet of the Lord besides, of whom we may
enquire ? " Ahab answered, " There is one,
Micaiah the son of Imlah ; but I hate him ; for
he never prophesies good of me, but always
evil." However, he was sent for ; and the
messenger who fetched him said to him, " All
the prophets are prophesying good with one
mouth; you had much better do the same." But
he said, "By God's life, what the Lord says to
me, that will I speak ; " so he came before the
two kings, and Ahab asked him, " Micaiah, shall
we go against Ramoth-Gilead to battle ? " He
answered, " I saw the Lord sitting on his
throne, and all the host of heaven standing by
him on right and left, and the Lord said, Who
shall entice Ahab, that he may go and fall at
'Ramoth-Gilead? One said this, and another
that ; then a spirit came forth and stood before
the Lord and said, I will entice him. The Lord
said to Him, How ? and he said, I will go forth
and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his
prophets. And God said, You shall entice, and
207

prevail ; go forth." Ahab said to Jehoshaphat,
" Did I not tell you that he would prophesy no
good of me ? " Then he said to his guards,
"Take this fellow away, and keep him in
prison on bread and water till I return in peace."
But Micaiah said, " If you return in peace at all,
the Lord has not spoken by me." So the two
kings went to Ramoth-Gilead.
CHAPTER CXLII
THE RANDOM ARROW
THERE the two kings joined battle with the
Syrians ; and the king of Judah went
into battle in his royal robes, but Ahab disguised
himself as a common soldier that he might not
be known ; for the king of Syria had ordered
his captains to fight only against Ahab. But
when the battle began a certain man drew a
bow at aventure, and the arrow struck Ahab
between the joints of his armour. All day the
battle went on, and king Ahab held himself up
in his chariot till evening, slowly bleeding to
death. About sunset, word ran through the
army of Israel that the king was dead, and they
broke and fled, each to his own city. But the
208

dead king was brought back in his chariot to
Samaria, where they buried him ; and the
chariot and armour were washed in the pool
outside the city, and there the dogs licked up
his blood.
CHAPTER CXLIII
THE CHARIOT OF FIRE
ELIJAH and his servant Elisha went together
through the land ; and as they went, the
prophets came out of the towns to meet them,
and said to Elisha, " Do you know that the
Lord will take away your master from you to
day ? " He said, " Yes, I know." So they
passed on, and came to the river Jordan, and
fifty of the prophets stood watching them by
the river bank. Then Elijah took off his mantle
and struck the water with it, and the river was
divided, so that they went over on dry ground.
When they had crossed the river, they went on,
talking as they went ; and suddenly a chariot of
fire with horses of fire appeared and parted them
asunder, and Elijah went up in the chariot of
fire by a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha looked
up till he could see him no longer ; then he took
o 209

Elijah's mantle, which had fallen from him as he
went up to heaven, and went back and stood by
the bank of Jordan, and struck the water with
it, saying, " Where is the Lord God of Elijah ? "
The water divided and let him cross over ; and
the prophets who were watching came to meet
him and bowed down before him.
CHAPTER CXLIV
THE LADY OF SHUNEM
ELISHA passed through Shunem, where
there was a great lady, and she made him
eat bread at her house ; and afterwards as often
as he passed by, he turned in there. Then she
said to her husband, " This is a holy man ; let
us make a little chamber on the wall, and
furnish it for him with a bed and a table and a
stool and a candlestick, that he may lie there
whenever he comes to us." Elisha wished to
make her some return for her kindness ; and
first he asked her, "Shall I speak for you to
the king ? " But she said, "I am content to
live here among my own people." Then he
found that the one thing she desired was a child,
for she had none ; so he called her and said,
210

"Within a year you shall hold a son in your
arms." The next year she bore a son. When
her child was big enough to walk alone, he went
out one day in harvest time among the reapers.
The heat of the sun made him ill, and he cried
to his father, " My head, my head." A lad
carried him back to the house to his mother ;
and he sat on her lap in the house till noon, and
then died. She took her dead child up and laid
him on Elisha's bed, and went out, shutting the
door behind her ; then she told a servant to
saddle an ass, and rode across the plain through
the heat of the day without slacking, till she
came to Elisha's house on Mount Carmel ; and
there she fell at his feet, crying, " Did I ask a
son of you, my lord ? " Elisha rose and rode
back with her, and went up to the little room
on the wall where the dead child was lying on
his bed. He went in and shut the door and
prayed to God, and then bowed himself over the
child, putting his mouth upon his mouth, and
his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his
hands ; and the child grew warm, and sneezed
seven times, and opened his eyes. Then Elisha
called the mother, who came and fell at his feet
and took her child alive and well from his hands.
211

CHAPTER CXLV
THE SYRIAN CAPTAIN
NAAMAN, captain of the host of the king of
Syria, was a great man and a valiant, but
he was a leper. In his house was a little maid
out of the land of Israel, who had been taken
captive by a band of Syrians, and waited on
Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress,
" Would God that my lord were with the
prophet in Samaria ; for he would recover him
of his leprosy." The king of Syria heard of
this, and said to Naaman, "At least go and try
what the prophet in Samaria can do for you ; I
will give you a letter to his master the king of
Israel." So Naaman went with a great train of
servants and mules laden with gold and silver, and
delivered his master's letter to the king of Israel.
The king read the letter till he came to the
place where it said, " And now with this letter
I have sent my servant Naaman to you, that you
may recover him of his leprosy ; " then he tore
his robes for spite, and said to his court, " Am
I God, to kill and make alive, that this man
sends to me to cure a man of leprosy? See
212

how he seeks a quarrel against me." But
Elisha sent word to the king, " Send the Syrian
to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet
in Israel." So Naaman came in his chariot to
Elisha's door ; and Elisha sent out a message to
him, " Go and wash seven times in Jordan, and
you shall be cured." At this Naaman fell into
a rage : " Why did he not come out himself,"
he said, " and strike me with his mantle to cure
me ? and why does he bid me go and wash in
Jordan ? are not my own rivers at Damascus
better than all the rivers in Israel ? " and he
turned to go away in his anger. But his
servants came about him and pacified him. " O
our lord," they said, " if he had told you to do
some hard thing, would you not have done it ?
and this is an easy thing that he tells you to
do." So Naaman went and dipped seven times
in Jordan, and at once became well.
CHAPTER CXLVI
THE BAGS OF SILVER
NAAMAN came back to thank Elisha, and
ask him to accept a present ; but he
would not take anything ; so Naaman went away
213

to go home. Then Elisha's servant Gehazi
thought to himself, " My master has spared this
Syrian ; but by God's life, I will run after him
and get something from him." So when Naaman
had got a little way he ran after the chariot, and
Naaman, when he saw him come running, stopped
and alighted, and asked, " Is all well ? " He
said, " All is well ; but two young prophets
have just come to visit my master, and he has
sent me to ask you for a bag of silver and some
clothes for them." Naaman answered, " By all
means ; but take two bags of silver, one for
each of them ; " and he sent two of his men back
with Gehazi, carrying the silver and the clothes.
When they got to the house, he put the silver in
the turret-room, and the men went back to their
master ; then he went in and waited on Elisha.
Presently Elisha asked him, "Where have you
been, Gehazi ? " He answered, " Your servant
has been nowhere." But Elisha said, " Went not
my heart with you, when the man turned from his
chariot ? Is this a time to take money, and buy
vineyards and oliveyards and sheep and oxen and
servants ? The leprosy of Naaman therefore shall
be upon you for ever." And he went out from
his master's presence a leper as white as snow.
214

CHAPTER CXLVII
THE BLIND ARMY
THE king of Syria made war against the
king of Israel ; but when he planned an
attack on any place, Elisha sent word to the
king of Israel, who put a garrison there. This
happened more than once or twice, so that the
king of Syria thought there must be a traitor in
his household, till one of his servants said,
" The prophet in Israel tells his master the very
words that you speak in your bedchamber."
Then he sent men with horses and chariots to
take Elisha prisoner. Elisha lived then in a
town on the top of a hill ; and they came by
night, and surrounded the hill on every side.
Early in the morning Elisha's servant went out,
<ind seeing the valley full of Syrians, ran back to
his master, crying, "Alas, what will become of
us ? " But he answered, " Fear not ; there are
more with us than with them ; Lord, open his
eyes, that he may see." Then the young man's
eyes were opened, and he saw the whole hillside
between the town and the Syrians full of chariots
and horses of fire. But God smote the Syrians
215

with blindness, so that they did not know where
they were ; and Elisha went down and said to
them, " This is not the way ; follow me, and I
will lead you to the man whom you seek." So
they followed him, and he led them into Samaria ;
then their eyes were opened again, and they
found themselves in the middle of Samaria, with
the king of Israel's army all round about them.
The king asked Elisha, "Shall I kill them?"
but he answered, " Would you kill those whom
you had taken captive with your sword and
bow? let them eat and drink and go back to
their master." So for a while the Syrians ceased
to trouble the land of Israel.
CHAPTER CXLVIII
THE FAMINE IN SAMARIA
AFTERWARDS war broke out again, and
the king of Syria laid siege to Samaria.
There was a great famine in the city, but Elisha
shut himself up in his house and did nothing.
When the famine was at its worst, a woman
came and cried to the king of Israel, Joram son
of Ahab, as he went along on the wall, " Help
me, my lord, O king ! " He said to her, " God's
216

curse, how can I help you? out of the barn-
floor, or out of the winepress ? what ails you ? "
She answered, " My lord, this other woman said
to me yesterday, Give your child, that we may
eat him to-day, and we will eat my child to
morrow ; so we boiled my child and ate him,
and now to-day she has hidden her child and will
not give him to be eaten." When the king
heard this story, he rent his royal robe, so that
people saw the sackcloth that he wore under it
next his skin, and said, " God do so to me if the
head of Elisha shall stand on his shoulders a
day longer." But Elisha sat in his house ; and
when he heard steps outside, he said to the
people that were with him, " See, this son of a
murderer has sent to take away my head ; shut
the door and hold the messenger fast, for I hear
the sound of his master's feet behind him." The
words were hardly out of his mouth when the
king himself came ; then Elisha rose and said,
" Hear the word of the Lord ; to-morrow about
this time a measure of fine flour and two
measures of barley shall be sold for a piece of
silver in the city gate." The nobleman on whose
hand the king leaned answered, " If the Lord
were to make windows in heaven, might this
217

thing be ? " and Elisha turned to him, and said,
" You shall see it with your eyes, but shall not
eat of it."
CHAPTER CXLIX
THE EMPTY CAMP
THAT evening four beggar men who sat in
the city gate said to one another, "Why
do we sit here till we die of hunger? Let us
go to the camp of the Syrians ; if they give us
food we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall
but die." So at dusk they rose and went out ;
but when they reached the camp, they found it
empty, with the horses tied and the tents as
they were, but no man to be seen. For God
had made the Syrians hear a noise in the dusk
as of chariots and horses and a great host, so
that they thought that the kings of the Hittites
and the kings of the Egyptians had been hired
by the king of Israel and were marching against
them ; and in the twilight, leaving their tents
and horses and the camp as it was, they had
fled for their life. The four beggar men went
into a tent, and ate and drank, and finding silver
and gold and clothes in it, took them away and
218

hid them, and then went on to another tent and
did the same there. At last they said to one
another, " If we loiter here till morning light,
some mischief will come upon us ; let us go and
tell the king's household." So they went back
and called to the sentinels at the city-gate and
told them in what case they had found the camp.
The sentinels called up the king's house ; and
the king rose in the night and said to his ser
vants, " I will tell you what the Syrians have
done. They know that we are starving ; there
fore they have left their camp and hidden them
selves in the field, that when we come out they
may fall upon us suddenly and break into the
city." Then some one advised that they should
send four or five men and horses to see ; so they
harnessed two chariots and went after the Syrians
as far as Jordan, and found all the road full of
clothes and arms that they had dropped in their
flight. At daybreak they returned and told the
king ; then the gates were opened and the
people rushed out to plunder the camp; and
that day a measure of flour and two measures of
barley were sold for a piece of silver in the gate.
But the king appointed the nobleman on whose
hand he leaned, and who had asked how such a
219

thing might be, to have charge at the gate ; and
the crowd rushing through the gate knocked him
down and trod on him, and he died ; so he saw
the plenty with his eyes, but did not eat of it.
CHAPTER CL
THE ARROWS OF KING JORAM
WHEN Elisha lay very sick and near his
death, the king of Israel came to visit
him, and wept over his face, saying, "O my
father, my father, the chariot and horsemen of
Israel ! " The sick man said to the king,
" Take your bow and arrows." The king took
them ; then he said, " Draw the bow." The
king drew it ; and Elisha laid his hands upon
the king's hands, and said, " Open the east
window ; '' and when they had opened it, he
said to the king, " Shoot." The king shot
through the window ; and Elisha cried, " The
arrow of the Lord's deliverance ! " Then he said
to the king, " Take the sheaf of arrows, and
strike with them on the ground." The king
took them, and struck them on the ground
thrice, and stopped. Then Elisha said, "You
should have struck five or six times ; then you
220

would have smitten the Syrians till you had
destroyed them ; now you shall smite them but
thrice ; " and when he had said this, he died.
CHAPTER CLI
THE MUTINY OF THE CAPTAINS
KING Joram went out to war against the
Syrians, and won three battles over them ;
but afterwards he lost all his battles, and was
wounded and went home to be healed ; and
while he lay sick at Jezreel, his sister's son, the
young king Ahaziah of Judah, came to visit him.
Meanwhile his captains began to mutiny against
him ; and a prophet came to the army at
Ramoth-Gilead, where the captains were sitting
in a room together, and said to Jehu the son of
Nimshi, " I have an errand to you, O captain."
So they went into another room ; and there the
prophet poured a vial of oil on his head, saying,
" The Lord anoints you king over Israel," and
then opened the door and fled away. When Jehu
came out after him, the other captains asked,
" Why did this mad fellow come to you ? " He
told them ; and they all spread their cloaks under
him at the top of the staircase, and proclaimed 221

him king with sound of trumpets. Then Jehu
ordered that the gates should be shut, and no
news allowed to go forth of the city ; and he
harnessed his chariot and rode straight to Jezreel
as fast as he could go.
CHAPTER CLII
THE RIDE FROM RAMOTH-GILEAD
AT the palace in Jezreel the watchman on
the tower saw him coming in the distance,
and called down to king Joram, " I see a com
pany." Joram ordered the horseman who was
on guard at the palace gate to gallop out and
meet them and ask, "Is it peace ? " But when
he rode up and cried, " Is it peace ? " Jehu
answered, " What have you to do with peace ?
Turn and ride behind me." The watchman on
the tower looked, and told the king, " The
messenger has met them, but he does not come
back." Then the king sent out a second horse
man with the same message ; and presently the
watchman cried from the tower, " They have
met, but he does not come back ; and the
driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of
Nimshi ; for he drives furiously." King Joram
said, " Harness ! " and he and his nephew, king
222

Ahaziah of Judah, rode out each in his own
chariot ; but they were hardly out of the palace
when they met Jehu in the field of Naboth
the Jezreelite. When they came near, Joram
cried, " Is it peace, Jehu ? " Jehu answered,
" What peace, so long as your mother, Jezebel
the sorceress, is alive ? " King Joram turned
rein, crying to the king of Judah, " Treachery,
O Ahaziah ! " but as he turned, Jehu drew his
bow and shot ; and the arrow struck Joram
between the shoulders and went out through his
heart, and he fell dead on his face in the chariot.
Then Jehu said to his squire, " Take him up,
and cast him in the field of Naboth ; for re
member, how when I and you rode together
behind Ahab his father, the Lord laid this
burden on him, saying, Surely I have seen the
blood of Naboth and of his children, and I will
make repayment in this field."
CHAPTER CLIII
THE WINDOW OVER THE GATE
MEANWHILE the king of Judah had fled
by the way of the garden house ; but
Jehu pursued him, and within a little way over-
223

took him and killed him in his chariot ; then he
turned and rode back to Jezreel. When Queen
Jezebel heard the cry that her son was dead, she
had put on her richest dress and crowned her
self and painted her eyes, and sat in the window
above the gate ; and as Jehu rode in at the gate
below, she leaned over the window, and said,
" Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?"
Jehu only looked up at the window and said,
" Who is on my side ? " Two or three ser
vants of the royal household looked out to him,
and he said, " Throw her down." So they
threw her down into the street, and he trod her
under his feet as he went into the palace.
There he ate and drank, and then said, " Go
now to this cursed woman and bury her, for she
is a king's daughter." But when they went to
bury her they found that the dogs had eaten her
under the wall, and nothing was left of her but
her skull and the bones of her feet and hands.
So the house of Ahab was destroyed, and Jefc'"
reigned over Israel.

224

CHAPTER CLIV
THE STORY OF THE CEDAR AND THE
THISTLE
AFTER Jehu, his son Joash became king of
Israel; and king Amaziah of Judah, who had
won a great victory over the Edomites in the
Valley of Salt, sent to challenge Joash to battle.
Joash sent this message back : " The thistle that
was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in
Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son
to wife ; and the wild beast that was in Lebanon
passed by, and trod down the thistle. You have
indeed smitten Edom, and your heart has lifted
you up ; glory over this and tarry at home ; for
why should you meddle to your hurt, and fall,
even you and all Judah with you ? " But the
king of Judah would not listen to counsel ;
therefore the king of Israel went out to war, and
the two kings met in battle at the House of the
Sun. The king of Israel defeated the king of
Judah and took him prisoner ; then he marched
to Jerusalem and broke down the city wall and
took away all the treasures in the temple and
palace, and returned to Samaria. P 225

CHAPTER CLV
THE ASSYRIAN CAPTIVITY
BUT the king of Judah sent for help to the
king of Assyria in Nineveh ; and soon the
king of Assyria came from Nineveh with a great
army and took Samaria after a three years' siege
and carried the inhabitants away captive into
Media, and repeopled the land from Babylonia
and Susiana ; so there was an end of the king
dom of Israel and of ten out of the twelve tribes,
and the kingdom of Judah was left alone. But
when the ten tribes were carried away captive,
they took counsel among themselves to go forth
into a further country ; so they crossed Euphrates
by the narrow passages of the river (for the
Most High held still the flood till they had
passed over) and went a great way into the
mountains of the East ; there they lived waiting
for the Most High to stay the springs of the
river again and let them pass through, when the
time should come for them to return into their
own land ; and the story tells no more of them.

226

CHAPTER CLVI
THE TEMPEST
WHEN the kingdom of Nineveh ruled all the
East, the word of the Lord came to the
prophet Jonah bidding him go and prophesy
against it. But he did not wish to go ; so he
went down to the seaport of Joppa, and there
finding a ship in harbour ready to sail for Spain,
he paid his fare and got on board to go with
them to Spain away from the presence of the
Lord. Soon after they had set sail the wind
rose, and there was a great tempest. The
sailors were afraid that their ship would be
dashed to pieces ; they cried each to his god,
and lightened the ship by throwing their wares
overboard into the sea. But Jonah had gone
below and lay fast asleep, till the captain came
and awoke him, saying, " What do you mean,
sleeper? Rise, and call upon God, that we
perish not." Then all the crew cast lots to
know for whose cause they were in trouble ; and
the lot fell upon Jonah. They asked him who
and whence he was and what was his occupation ;
and when he told them how he was a prophet
227

and had fled from the presence of the Lord, they
said, "What shall we do, that the sea may be
calm for us ? " for the sea grew more and more,
and though they rowed hard they could not
bring the ship to land. He said, " Take me up
and cast me forth into the sea; for this great
tempest is upon you for my sake." So they
took him up and threw him into the sea, and
immediately it grew calm. But God had pre
pared a great fish to swallow Jonah ; and he
was in the belly of the fish three days and three
nights ; then God spoke to the fish, and it
vomited him out upon dry land.

T

CHAPTER CLVII
JONAH'S GOURD
HEN the word of the Lord came to Jonah
a second time, bidding him go to Nineveh
and deliver his message ; so he rose and went.
Now Nineveh was a very great city, three days'
journey from end to end ; and Jonah went a
day's journey into it, crying aloud as he went,
"Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be over
thrown." When the cry spread, and reached
the King of Nineveh in his palace, he came
228

down from his throne and put off his royal robes
and dressed himself in sackcloth ; and he pro
claimed throughout the city that all the people
should fast and pray and leave off all their wicked
ness, that God might have mercy. Then God
had mercy on them, and did not destroy the
city ; but Jonah was exceedingly angry, and cried
to God, " O Lord, was not this why I fled away
from thy presence ? for I knew thee for a
gracious God, slow to anger and of great kind
ness. Take away my life, I beseech thee, for
I had rather die than live." But God said,
" Do you well to be angry ? " Now Jonah had
gone out of Nineveh and sat on the east side of
the city in a booth that he had made for shelter
from the sun, waiting to see what would become
of the city ; and God prepared a gourd which
grew over the booth and kept it cool with the
shadow of its leaves, so that Jonah was glad
because of the gourd. But early next morning
God prepared a worm that ate into the gourd,
and it withered ; then God prepared a fierce
ea&t wind, and all day the sun beat upon Jonah
till he grew faint, and was so sorry for himself
and for the gourd that he said, " I wish I were
dead." Then God said, " You have had pity on
229

the gourd, for which you did not labour to make
it grow, which came up in a night and perished
in a night ; and should not I have pity on
Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than
six score thousand children too young to know-
their right hand from their left, and also much
cattle ? "
CHAPTER CLVIII
THE DESTROYING ANGEL
IN the reign of Hezekiah king of Judah,
Sennacherib king of Assyria came with his
army against Judah and took their fortresses
and prepared to lay siege to Jerusalem : but
first he sent three of his captains to summon it
to surrender. They rode up to the city gate
and called aloud to the king and all the people
on the wall in these words : " Thus saith the
great king, the king of Assyria ; make peace
with me, O people, and surrender your city, and
eat every man of his own vine and fig-tree and
drink every one of his own well, until I come
and take you away to another land, a land of
corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a
land of oil-olive and honey, that you may live
230

and not die. Do not be deceived and think
that the Lord will deliver you. Has any one
of the gods of the nations delivered his country
out of my hand ? where are the kings of Hamath
and Arpad ? where are the kings of Sepharvaim,
Hena, and Ivah, or the children of Eden in
Telassar? The feet of my armies have dried
up the rivers of besieged places, and made
walled cities into ruinous heaps." But the
prophet Isaiah said to the king of Judah, " Do
not be afraid ; for the Lord shall send a blast
upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and
return home by the way he came, and fall by
the sword in his own land." That same night
the angel of the Lord went out and smote the
camp of the Assyrians, and when they rose
early in the morning, a hundred and eighty-five
thousand men lay dead in the camp. So Sen
nacherib and the remnant of his army returned
with shame to Nineveh ; and there two of his own
sons killed him as he worshipped in a temple,
and fled out of the land. But King Hezekiah
had riches and honour, and made himself
treasuries for silver and gold and pleasant jewels,
and storehouses for corn and wine and oil, and
stalls for cattle and cotes for flocks ; and when
231

he was sick, God added fifteen years to his life,
and for a sign made the shadow on the sundial
go ten degrees backward ; and there was peace
and truth in his days.
CHAPTER CLIX
THE GRAVEYARD ON THE HILL
JOSIAH king of Judah put down all the
worshippers of strange gods in his land,
and those who burned incense to the sun and
moon and the host of heaven ; he took away the
horses that the kings of Judah had given to the
sun, which were stalled in the cloisters of the
temple, and burned the chariots of the sun with
fire, and broke down the altars of the sun and
moon that stood on the palace roof, and the high
place of Moloch and Ashtaroth that king Solomon
had built on the hill. Then he went to Bethel,
and broke down the altar that Jeroboam king of
Israel had made there for the worship of the
golden calf, and as he turned he saw the
tombs of the priests of the golden calf, that
were on the hill, and took the bones out of
them and burned them on the altar. Then
he said, " Whose tombstone is that I see
232

yonder ? " The people of the place told him,
" It is the tomb of the man of God out of Judah
who foretold the things that are being done to
day." The king said, " Let him alone ; let no
one move his bones." So his bones, and the
bones of the old prophet who was buried beside
him, were left at peace in their tomb.
CHAPTER CLX
THE WATERS OF BABYLON
WHEN Cyaxares king of Media and Nabo-
polassar king of Babylon had besieged
Nineveh and taken it, they broke down the fifty
miles of wall and the fifteen hundred towers,
and burned all the city, leaving it a vast wilder
ness of ruins ; then the kingdom of Babylon
grew great and began to conquer all the other
kingdoms of the East. Pharaoh-Necho king of
Egypt marched with an army against the king
of Babylon, but was conquered in a great battle
at Carchemish on the Euphrates. After that
battle the kingdom of Judah became vassal to
Babylon ; and when it rebelled, Nebuchadnezzar
king of Babylon came with his army and took
Jerusalem by storm after a siege of eighteen
233

months. The king of Judah fled by night to
escape into the desert, but was pursued and
caught ; and Nebuchadnezzar put out his eyes
and bound him with fetters of brass and carried
him away to Babylon. The captain of the royal
guard remained behind at Jerusalem to break
down the city walls and burn the Temple and
the palace and all the great houses ; and when
this was done, he returned to Babylon, taking
the most part of the people with him into cap
tivity, and only leaving a few poor men as
husbandmen and vinedressers. A governor and
a small guard of Babylonian soldiers were left
in garrison ; but within a few months after
wards they were treacherously attacked and
killed by a band of fugitives from Jerusalem ;
whereupon all the remnant of the people, fearing
the anger of the king of Babylon when he came
to hear of it, rose and fled into Egypt ; and for
seventy years after the land lay desolate and
without inhabitants. But by the waters of
Babylon the captive people hung their harps
upon the willows, and wept as they remembered
Zion.

234

CHAPTER CLXI
THE VISION OF THE CHERUBIM
IN the land of Babylon by the river Chebar
the prophet saw a whirlwind come out of
the north, like a fire unfolding itself, and in the
middle of the fire was a brightness like amber,
and four living creatures sparkling like burnished
brass, each with four wings and four faces, and
their wings were full of eyes. They went each
one straight forward, not turning as they went,
and ran and returned like the appearance of a
flash of lightning. Then as he looked he saw
beside them four wheels of the colour of chryso
lite, all four in one likeness, so high that they
were dreadful, and full of eyes. Their appear
ance was as it were a wheel in the middle of a
wheel ; and they went by the living creatures,
going where they went and rising off the earth
where they rose ; for the soul of the living
creatures was in the wheels. Over their heads
was a canopy like the colour of the terrible
crystal, and when they went he heard the noise
of their wings which spoke ; when they stood at
rest they let down their wings, but still a voice
235

came from the canopy over them, and cried in
his hearing, " O WHEEL." Above the canopy
that was over their heads was the likeness of a
throne made of a sapphire, and upon the throne
was the likeness of a man above upon it, shining
like fire, with the brightness of a rainbow round
about him. Then the prophet knew that the
living creatures were the cherubim, and that
what he saw above them was the appearance of
the glory of God.
CHAPTER CLXII
THE VISION OF THE HORSES IN THE
VALLEY
BY night in a vision the prophet saw a man
riding on a red horse, who stood among
the myrtle trees in a valley, and behind him
were other horses, red, speckled, and white •
and he said to the angel beside him, " O my
lord, what are these ? " The angel answered,
" These are they whom the Lord has sent to
walk to and fro through the earth." Then the
horses spoke to the angel that stood among the
myrtle trees, saying, " We have walked to and
fro through the earth, and lo, the whole earth
236

sits still and is at rest ; " and the angel cried to
heaven, " O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou
not have mercy on Jerusalem, which has been
desolate for seventy years ? "
CHAPTER CLXIII
THE VISION OF THE GOLDEN LAMPS
THE angel came to the prophet and waked
him as a man that is wakened out of
sleep, and said, " What do you see ? " Then
he looked and saw a candlestick all of gold, with
a bowl upon the top and seven lamps, and seven
pipes from the bowl to the seven lamps, and two
olive trees, one on the right and the other on
the left, that kept pouring golden oil into the
bowl ; and he asked, " What are these, my
lord ? " The angel said, " These seven lamps
are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro
throughout the world ; and these two olive-trees
are the two Anointed Ones that stand by the
Lord of the whole earth."

S3 7

CHAPTER CLXIV
THE VISION OF THE FOUR CHARIOTS
THE prophet turned and lifted up his eyes
and looked, and lo, four chariots came
out from between two mountains of brass. The
horses in the first chariot were red, in the second
black, in the third white, and in the fourth bay.
The black horses went out into the north
country, and the white followed them ; the bay
horses went out into the south country ; and the
red horses sought to go to and fro across the
earth. Then he asked the angel who talked
with him, " What are these, my lord ? " and he
answered, "These are the four Spirits of the
Heavens, which go forth from standing before
the Lord of the whole world."
CHAPTER CLXV
THE COMPLAINT OF THE CAPTIVES IN
BABYLON
WHEN the people were captive in Babylon
and the holy city lay waste, they cried to
God and said thus : " O Lord that bearest rule,
238

of all the trees in every wood of the earth thou
hast chosen for thyself one vine : and of all lands
of the whole world thou hast chosen thee one
garden : and of all the flowers in it one lily :
and of all the depths of the sea thou hast filled
thee one river ; and of all builded cities thou
hast hallowed Zion unto thyself. And of all the
birds that are created thou hast named thee one
dove : and of all the cattle that are made thou
hast provided thee one lamb : and among all the
multitude of peoples thou hast got thee one
people : and unto this people whom thou lovedst
thou hast given thy law. Now, O Lord, why
hast thou given this thy one people over to the
heathen ? though thou didst hate them, yet
shouldst thou punish them with thine own
hands." But God answered : " In the beginning
when the earth was made, before the winds
blew, before the fair flowers were seen, before
the innumerable multitudes of angels were
gathered together, then I considered these
things ; through me and none other they were
done, and by me and none other shall they be
brought to an end."

239

CHAPTER CLXVI
THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES
THE hand of God carried out the prophet
and set him down in a valley in the desert,
that was full of men's bones, and made him pass
by them ; they lay thick over all the open valley,
bleached and dry. The Spirit of God said to
him, " Son of man, can these dry bones live ? "
He answered, " O Lord God, thou knowest."
Then God said, " Prophesy upon these bones
and bid them hear the word of the Lord." So
he cried to them, " O ye dry bones, hear the
word of the Lord ; " and there was a noise and
a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to
bone ; and even as he looked, the sinews and
the flesh came up upon them and the skin
covered them above ; but there was no breath
in them. Then God said, " Prophesy to the
wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the
wind, Come from the four winds, O breath, and
breathe upon these slain, that they may live."
So he prophesied ; and the breath came into
them, and they lived and stood up on their feet,
an exceeding great army.
240

CHAPTER CLXVII
THE MAGICIANS
NEBUCHADNEZZAR king of Babylon
dreamed a dream by night that troubled
him, so that he could not sleep ; therefore he
sent for all his magicians and astrologers and
sorcerers to give him counsel. They came
before him, and said, " O king, live for ever ;
tell us the dream and we will interpret it."
Nebuchadnezzar answered, " Do you tell me
what my dream was, and then I shall know
that you are able to interpret it. If you do
this, I will give you gifts and great honours ;
but if you do not, you shall be cut in
pieces, and your houses be made a dunghill."
The magicians were amazed, and said to him,
" There is not a man upon earth that can do
this, nor has any king ever asked such a thing
of any astrologer ; it is a rare thing that the
king requires ; except the gods whose dwelling
is not with men, there is no other who can do
it." . But the king was very furious, and ordered
the chief of the executioners to kill all the wise
men of Babylon. Q 241

CHAPTER CLXVIII
THE WISDOM OF DANIEL
NOW among the magicians were four child
ren, who had been chosen out of the
captives from Judah to be brought up in the
palace and taught wisdom and magic for three
years, that they might stand before the king ;
their names were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael
and Azariah ; and they had skill in all magic,
and in visions and dreams. When the decree
went forth to kill the wise men, Daniel went to
the chief of the executioners and prevailed on
him to delay it for a day, " and to-morrow," he
said, " I myself will tell the king his dream."
Then he and the other three children all prayed
to God, and God revealed the secret to Daniel
in a vision at night. In the morning he awoke
and gave thanks to God, and went to the chief
of the executioners, who was making ready to
kill the magicians ; and they went together to
the king. Then Daniel stood before the king
and said, "O king, as you lay in your bed you
thought of what things should come to be after
you ; then you saw, and lo, a great image, bright
242

and terrible, stood before you. The head of
the image was of fine gold, the breast and arms
of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, the legs
of iron, and the feet partly of iron and partly of
clay. You looked, and saw a stone cut out
without hands, which struck the image on its
feet of clay and iron, and broke them in pieces ;
then the clay, the iron, the brass, the silver and
the gold all crumbled together and the wind blew
them away, like chaff on a summer threshing-
floor ; but the stone became a great mountain,
and filled all the earth. This was your dream,
O king; and this is the interpretation of it:
You, who rule over all the children of men in
glory, are the head of gold. After you shall
arise another kingdom, inferior to you, as silver
is to gold; and after it a third kingdom of brass,
which shall bear rule over all the earth ; and
then a fourth kingdom of iron, which shall break
all things in pieces ; and that kingdom shall be
divided, and be partly strong and partly weak,
like iron mixed with clay; then after it God
shall set up a kingdom of his own which shall
never be destroyed, but shall break in pieces all
those other kingdoms, and shall stand for ever."
When King Nebuchadnezzar heard his dream
243

told him, he said to Daniel, " Truly your God is
a God of Gods and a Lord of kings and a
Revealer of secrets." So he spared the magi
cians, and made Daniel ruler over Babylon ; then
Daniel made request of the king, and he set the
other three children over the affairs of the pro
vince ; but Daniel sat in the gate of the king.
CHAPTER CLXIX
THE FIERY FURNACE
NEBUCHADNEZZAR the king made a
golden image a hundred feet high, and
set it up in the plain of Babylon. He sent for
all the princes, governors, captains, and coun
cillors of all the provinces of his kingdom to
come to the dedication of the image ; and a
herald cried aloud: "O peoples, nations, and
languages ! it is commanded that at what time
you hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp,
sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of
music, you shall fall down and worship the
golden image ; and whoever does not fall down
and worship shall the same hour be cast into
the middle of a burning fiery furnace." Then
the music sounded, and all the people fell down
244

and worshipped. But certain men of Babylon
came to the king and said to him : " O king,
live for ever ; the three children whom you have
set over the province of Babylon have not fallen
down and worshipped your golden image."
Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury com
manded the three children to be brought before
him and asked them, "What is this?" They
answered, " O king, our God whom we serve is
able to save us from the burning fiery furnace,
and will deliver us from your hand ; we will not
worship your golden image." Then the king
was full of fury ; he commanded that the furnace
should be heated seven times hotter than usual,
and that the strongest men in his army should
bind the three children and throw them in. So
the furnace was .heated with oil and pitch and
small wood till the flames streamed out high into
the air and no one could go near it for the heat ;
then the three children, in their coats and hats,
just as they stood, were seized and bound and
thrown into the furnace. The violent heat of
the furnace made the men who threw them in
fall down dead when they came near it ; but the
three children fell bound into the middle of the
fire. But God kept the heat of the furnace off
245

them, and it only burned the cords with which
they were bound ; and they stood up and
walked in the midst of the fire, praising God,
and singing, " O all ye works of the Lord, bless
ye the Lord ; praise Him, and magnify Him for
ever." Nebuchadnezzar rose up in haste from
his throne, and said to his court, " Did we not
cast three men bound into the furnace ? " They
answered, " Yes, O king." He said, " Lo, I
see four men loose, walking in the midst of the
fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the
fourth is like the Son of God." Then he went
as near as he might to the mouth of the furnace,
and called to them to come out. They came
out, and the king and all his court saw that
there was not a hair of their head singed, nor
were their coats discoloured, nor did they smell
of burning. Then Nebuchadnezzar worshipped
God, and promoted the three children in the
province of Babylon,

246

CHAPTER CLXX
THE PROUD KING
KING Nebuchadnezzar walked on the roof
of his palace, looking down from it upon
the city, that lay for miles along both sides of
the river with its temples and gardens and
palaces and towers, and said to himself, " Is not
this great Babylon, that I have built for the
home of my kingdom, by the might of my power
and for the honour of my majesty ? " But while
the words were in his mouth a voice fell from
heaven, and said, " O king Nebuchadnezzar, the
kingdom is taken from you, and they shall drive
you from among men, and you shall live with
the beasts of the field eating grass like oxen,
until you know that the Most High rules, and
gives the kingdom to whomsoever he will."
Then the king's reason left him : he was de
posed from his kingdom and driven from among
men, and ate grass like an ox for seven years in
the open field, until his hair grew like eagles'
feathers and his nails like birds' claws. At the
end of seven years his reason returned to him,
and he knew what had come upon him and wor-
247

shipped the Most High ; and his councillors and
lords came back to him and established him
again in his kingdom.
CHAPTER CLXXI
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
BELSHAZZAR the king made a great feast
to a thousand of his lords, and they drank
out of the gold and silver vessels which his
father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the
Temple in Jerusalem. While they sat drinking
wine and praising their gods of gold and silver,
the fingers of a man's hand came forth and wrote
words upon the plaster of the wall of the
banqueting-house, opposite the candles. The
king saw the part of the hand that wrote, and
his countenance was changed, and his knees
knocked against one another with fear. He
called for all the astrologers and magicians, and
said, " Whoever shall read this writing and in
terpret it shall be clothed with scarlet, and wear
a chain of gold about his neck, and be one of
the three rulers of the kingdom." But none of
them could read it or interpret it. The rumour
spread over all the palace ; and the king's mother
248

came into the banqueting-house, and said, "O
king, live for ever : there is a man in your king
dom called Daniel, in whom is the spirit of the
holy gods, and your father Nebuchadnezzar made
him his master of the magicians for his excellence
in interpreting dreams and dissolving doubts and
shewing hard sentences ; let him be called, and
he shall interpret it." Then the king sent for
Daniel ; and he came in and said ; " O king,
God gave your father a great kingdom, so that
all nations trembled before him ; but when his
heart was lifted up with pride, his glory was
taken away from him and he was made like a
wild beast, eating grass and wet with the dew of
heaven, until he knew that God rules in the
kingdoms of men. Yet you his son have not
humbled your heart, but have drunk wine in the
vessels of the house of the High Lord, praising
your idols of silver and gold, and not giving
glory to God in whose hand your breath is.
The writing that is written on the wall is
this, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN :
that is to say, NUMBERED, NUMBERED,
WEIGHED, AND DIVIDED. And the inter
pretation of it is this : God has numbered your
kingdom and finished it ; you are weighed in
249

the balances and found wanting ; and your king
dom is divided and given to the Medes and
Persians." Then king Belshazzar commanded
to clothe Daniel in scarlet, and put a chain of
gold about his neck, and proclaim him one of the
three rulers of the kingdom, But that same
night the Median and Persian army under
Darius king of Media broke into Babylon by the
dry bed of the river, and killed Belshazzar in
his palace and brought the Babylonian empire to
an end.
CHAPTER CLXXII
THE DEN OF LIONS
KING Darius set over his empire a hundred
and twenty princes, one over each pro
vince ; but he honoured Daniel above them all,
and meditated to set him over the whole king
dom. The princes were jealous, and plotted
against Daniel, but could find no occasion to
accuse him to the king. At last they came all
together to the king and said, " King Darius,
live for ever : all the presidents, governors,
princes, councillors and captains of your king
dom have consulted together, and advise you to
make a law, that whoever shall ask a petition
250

for the next thirty days of any god or man,
except of the king, shall be thrown the same day
into tbe den of lions." Then the king signed
the decree. But when Daniel knew that this
law was made, he went into his house, and
leaving his windows open towards Jerusalem, he
kneeled down and prayed to God as he always
did thrice a day. His enemies watched him,
and then went to the king, and said, " O king,
that man Daniel, who is one of the captives from
Judah, does not obey your decree, but prays to
his God three times a day." The king was very
angry with himself, and laboured all the rest of
the day to save him, but could find no way of
escape ; for it was the law of the Medes and
Persians that no decree of the king might be
changed. So at sunset Daniel was thrown into
the den of lions and a stone laid on the mouth
of the den, which the king and his lords sealed
with their own signets, that no man might move
it. The king went back to his palace in great
displeasure, and had no music played to him,
and did not eat or sleep all night. Very early
in the morning he rose and went in haste to the
den of lions, and cried with a lamentable voice
into the den, " O Daniel, has your God delivered
251

you from the lions ? " A voice came back out
of the den : " O king, live for ever : my God has
sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths, so
that they have not hurt me." The king was
very glad, and commanded his servants to take
Daniel up out of the den ; but the men who had
accused him were brought and thrown into the
den instead of him ; and the lions had the
mastery of them, and broke all their bones in
pieces before ever they reached the bottom of
the den.
CHAPTER CLXXIII
THE FEAST IN THE PALACE OF THE LILY
AHASUERUS king of Persia, who reigned
from India to Africa over a hundred and
twenty-seven provinces, made a feast in his
Palace of the Lily to all his people both great
and small, and they drank royal wine in abun
dance from cups of gold in the garden-court of
the palace, which was paved with marble and
alabaster and mother-of-pearl, and covered from
the sun with canopies of white, green, and blue.
On the seventh day of the feast, being merry
with wine" King Ahasuerus commanded his
252

seven chamberlains to bring out Vashti the
Queen in her royal robes, that the princes and
people might look on her ; for she was very
beautiful. But Vashti was so proud, that she
refused to come at his bidding; therefore the
king decreed that she should be removed from
her royal estate and that another queen should
be chosen instead of her. Officers were sent
through all the provinces of the kingdom to
choose the most beautiful women that could be
found and bring them to the palace, that a queen
might be taken from among them ; and one of
those who were chosen was a Jewess called
Esther, who was one of the captives in Babylon.
Her father and mother were dead, and her
cousin Mordecai, who sat in the gate of the
Palace of the Lily, had brought her up. She
was brought to the palace and given in charge to
the keeper of the women ; and he was pleased
with her, and gave her dresses and ornaments
and seven maids to wait on her; and when her
turn came to go before the king, she found favour
with him more than all the other women ; so he
set the royal crown on her head, and made her
queen instead of Vashti ; but she kept it secret
that she belonged to the people of the Jews. 253

CHAPTER CLXXIV
THE MALICE OF HAMAN
ABOUT this time two of the royal chamber
lains laid a plot to kill the king, which
came to the ears of Mordecai, as he sat in the
palace gate. He sent word of it to his cousin,
Queen Esther, and she told the king; then the
two chamberlains were tried and hanged, and
the account of the trial was written in the book
of the chronicles of the kingdom. Afterwards
the king promoted one of his servants called
Haman to great honour, and made him a prince ;
and all the king's servants in the palace bowed
to him, except Mordecai, who would not bow to
him because Haman was an enemy of the Jews.
Then Haman was full of anger, and thought it a
small thing to punish Mordecai alone, but deter
mined to take revenge on all the Jews through
out the kingdom. He went to the king and
said, " There is a certain people scattered and
dispersed in all the provinces of your kingdom,
who do not keep your laws ; and it is not for
your profit to endure them. If it please the
king, let them be destroyed ; the cost will be ten
254

thousand talents of silver, but I will pay for it."
The king consented, and taking the signet ring
from his finger, gave it to Haman that the thing
might be done. So the king's secretaries were
set to write copies of a letter in all the languages
of the kingdom, written in the king's name, and
sealed with his ring, and it was sent out by
posts to all the governors of the provinces,
ordering them to destroy and kill all Jews,
young and old, women and little children, upon
one day, namely, the thirteenth day of the
twelfth month. Then the king and Haman sat
down to drink; but the City of the Lily was
perplexed.
CHAPTER CLXXV
THE GOLDEN SCEPTRE
THERE was great terror among the Jews ;
and Mordecai sent a copy of the decree to
Queen Esther, and told her that she must go to
the king and make supplication for her people.
She sent him answer, " All men know that who
ever comes before the king into the inner court
of the palace without being called for is put to
death, unless the king holds out his golden
255

sceptre to him that he may live ; and for the
last thirty days I have not been called for to go
in to the king." He sent back word again,
" Do not think to escape yourself, when all
your people perish ; nay, if you fail us now,
deliverance shall come from elsewhere, and you
and your family be destroyed ; and who knows
but it was for this that you were chosen
queen ? " Then Esther returned answer, "Gather
all the Jews in the city, and fast and pray for
me for three days, night and day, and I will go
to the king ; and if I perish, I perish." At the
end of three days she put on her royal robes,
and went and stood in the gate of the inner
court opposite the king as he sat on his throne.
When the king saw her, she was pleasing in
his sight, and he held out the golden sceptre to
her and said, " What is your desire, Queen
Esther ? it shall be given you, even to the half
of the kingdom." She answered, " May it
please the king to come to-day with Haman to
a banquet that I have prepared for him." So
they came to the banquet ; and there the king
again bade her name her desire. She answered,
" If I have found favour in the king's sight, let
the king and Haman come again to my banquet
256

to-morrow, and then I will make my request.'-
Haman went home from the banquet joyfully,
and calling his wife and all his friends, told
them of his riches and glory and how the king
had promoted him above all the princes of the
kingdom ; " Yes, and to-day," he said, " when
the queen invited the king to a banquet, I was
the only other person invited, and to-morrow I
am to go again : yet all this avails me nothing,
so long as I see Mordecai the Jew, who refuses
to do me reverence, sitting in the palace gate."
His wife and his friends said to him, " Let a
gallows be built eighty feet high, and to-morrow
morning speak to the king that Mordecai may
be hanged on it ; then you can go merrily to the
queen's banquet." The advice pleased Haman,
and he had the gallows built.
CHAPTER CLXXVI
THE BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES OF
THE KINGDOM
THAT night the king could not sleep ; so
the book of the chronicles of the kingdom
was brought and read out to him. There it was
found written how Mordecai had discovered the
k 257

conspiracy of the two chamberlains ; and when
the king asked what reward had been given
him, it was found there had been none. By
this time it was morning; and Haman was in
the outer court of the palace waiting for an
audience, that he might speak to the king to
have Mordecai hanged. So when the king
asked, "Who is in waiting?" they said, "Haman
stands in the court." " Let him come in," said
the king. Haman came in, and the king at
once asked him, " What shall be done to the
man whom the king delights to honour ? " He
thought within himself, " Whom should the king
desire to honour but me ? " so he considered,
and then answered, " For the man whom the
king delights to honour, let him be dressed in
the royal robes and crown, and let one of the
princes lead him riding on the king's own horse
through the street of the city, proclaiming before
him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom
the king delights to honour." The king said to
him, " Make haste, and take my robes and my
horse, and do even as you have said to Mordecai
the Jew, who sits in my gate." So Haman took
Mordecai and arrayed him and brought him on
horseback through the city, and then hastened
258

home in grief, with his face covered, to tell his
wife and friends what had happened. They
said, " This promises badly for you ; " and while
they were still talking, and gave him but small
comfort, a messenger from the palace came to
say that the king waited for him to go to the
banquet in the queen's pavilion.
CHAPTER CLXXVII
THE BANQUET IN THE QUEEN'S
PAVILION
SO the king and Haman came to the queen's
banquet ; and there the king said again,
" What is your desire, Queen Esther ? it shall be
done, even to the half of the kingdom." Then
Esther rose, and fell at the king's feet, and
answered, " If it please the king, let my life be
given me; for I and my people are sold to be
slain and to perish." "Who and where is he,"
said the king, " who dares presume to do this ? "
She answered, " The enemy is , this wicked
Haman." The king rose up from the table in
a fury and went into the palace garden ; and
Haman fell down before Esther to plead with
her for his life. He was lying across the
259

queen's couch at her feet, when the king came
back out of the garden into the pavilion. "Will
he force the queen also in my house before my
eyes ? " cried the king ; and as the words went
out of the king's mouth, the attendants covered
Haman's face. Then one of the chamberlains
who waited on the king said, "See also, the
gallows eighty feet high that this man had built
for Mordecai, who saved the king's life, stands
in his house." " Hang him on it," said the
king ; and he was hurried away and hanged.
CHAPTER CLXXVIII
THE RIDING OF THE POSTS
THEN king Ahasuerus took his signet ring,
which he had taken away from Haman,
and gave it to Mordecai the Jew; and letters
were written from the Palace of the Lily in the
king's name and sealed with his ring, to the
governors of all the hundred and twenty-seven
provinces between India and Africa, in the
language of every people, and sent by royal
posts on swift horses and camels and drome
daries, granting leave to the Jews to gather to
gether and defend themselves against all men
260

who attempted to do them harm on the thirteenth
day of the twelfth month, which was the day
that Haman had appointed for their destruction.
So when the day came, no one dared to touch
them ; and on the fourteenth day of the month
they were glad together, and kept the day as a
festival. Then there was peace upon the people
of Israel throughout all the realm of the king.
CHAPTER CLXXIX
THE RETURN FROM BABYLON
WHEN the people of God had been captives
for seventy years in Babylon, Cyrus the
Persian, king of kings, decreed that the temple
of God at Jerusalem should be rebuilt, and that
all who wished might go back and live again in
the land of Judah, which had lain waste and
kept Sabbath since the king of Babylon had
taken the people away. Then many people re
turned, and lived in the old land of their fathers
under a prince of the house of David ; and as
soon as they were settled in the land, they
began to rebuild the temple. At the laying of
the foundation-stone the trumpets sounded and
the priests sang together, " Praise the Lord,
261

because he is good, for his mercy endureth for
ever," and the people shouted with a great
shout of joy. But many of the ancient men,
who had seen the first Temple in its glory, wept
aloud ; so that the noise of the shouting and
weeping was heard far off.
CHAPTER CLXXX
THE RUINS AT NIGHT
AFTER they had built the second Temple,
the walls and palaces of the city still lay
in ruins where they had been broken down and
burned. Word of this came to Nehemiah the
Jew, who was cupbearer to king Artaxerxes in
the Palace of the Lily ; then he was very sad,
so that the king asked what ailed him. "O
king," he said, " why should not my face be
sad, when the city of my fathers lies waste ?
please you send me there, that I may build it."
So the king made him governor of Jerusalem,
and sent him to rebuild the city. When he
came to Jerusalem, he said nothing at first of
what he had come to do ; but at night he rose
and mounted his horse quietly, and rode out by
the valley gate and the dragon well. He rode
262

outside the broken walls till he came to the
fountain gate, and there his horse could not pass
further among the rubbish heaps of the broken
wall ; so he climbed up the side of the valley in
the dim light and viewed the wall, and then
turning back, rode in again by the valley gate
before break of day,
CHAPTER CLXXXI
THE BUILDING OF THE WALL
WHEN day came, Nehemiah called the nobles
and rulers and told them his commission
from the king ; and all the people joyfully rose
up at once and began to build the wall Be
ginning at the sheep gate they built to the fish
gate ; and so by the broad wall and the tower of
the furnaces to the valley gate ; and from the
fountain gate they built the wall by the king's
garden and the stairs that go down from the
castle, as far as the tower lying out from the
king's high house by the court of the prison
and so from the water gate by the great tower
to the horse gate, and back to the sheep gate
where they had begun. Every man built with
his sword buckled on for fear of enemies, working
263

from daybreak till the stars appeared at night;
and the governor's guard patrolled the works
night and day. So they never ceased till they
had finished building the walls and gates, and
the city was safe against enemies ; and then
they began to restore the palaces of the city and
to renew it and make it fair as it had been in
the ancient days.
CHAPTER CLXXXII
THE HEATHEN HOST
THE king of the heathen called for Holo-
fernes the chief captain of his army, and
said to him, " Go forth from my presence into
the west with an army, and bid the nations of
the west give me earth and water, and become
my subjects ; and if they do not yield themselves,
put them to the slaughter and spare none." So
Holofernes and his army went over Euphrates
and destroyed all the high cities as far as the
sea, and pitched his camp near the town of
Bethulia, preparing to march into Judea. Then
the high priest in Jerusalem wrote to Chabris
and Charmis, the governors of Bethulia, to shut
the passes of the hill country and fortify their
264

town strongly against Holofernes, to keep him
from entering the land. When Holoferries saw
them preparing to resist him, he marched his army
into the valley below Bethulia and took the
fountains from which the town drew its water ;
but the townsmen kept him from coming further
by slinging stones from the top of the hill, and
kindled fires on the city towers and kept watch
all night. Then the captains of the heathen
army counselled Holofernes, "Do not assault the
town, but keep the fountains in the valley, from
which they get all their water, and wait until
they are forced by thirst to surrender ; for so
you will win the city without losing any of your
own men." This advice was taken ; and the
army besieged Bethulia for thirty days, till all the
cisterns in it were empty, and men and women
fainted and fell down in the streets for thirst,
and had no strength any longer ; and at last the
people cried to the governor to surrender before
they were all dead. He encouraged them to
endure for five days more ; and then, if no help
came, he promised to give up the town.

265

CHAPTER CLXXXIII
THE VALOUR OF JUDITH
THERE was a young widow called Judith in
Bethulia, whose husband had died three
years before of a sunstroke in the field at barley
harvest ; she was very beautiful, and her hus
band had left her great wealth, and no one gave
her an ill word. She sent for the governors of
the city, and said to them, " What is this that you
have done ? God has power to save us or
destroy us every day, and is not as a man who
threatens or who wavers, that we should bind
him down to five days ; let us wait for his sal
vation till it please him." They answered, " The
people compelled us to do this, and to take an
oath to it, which we may not break." Then she
said, " Hear me, and I will do a thing which
shall be told of throughout all ages. Let me go
forth to-night with my waiting-woman, and
within the five days God shall deliver us by my
hand." They answered, " Go, in God's name."
At the hour when the evening incense was burned
in the house of God at Jerusalem she prayed,
and put off her mourning that she had worn ever
266

since her husband died, and washed and anointed
herself, and braided her hair, and put on her
garments of gladness and her bracelets and
chains and rings and all her ornaments ; and
she and her maid went to the city gate, where
Chabris and Charmis, the ancients of the city,
stood on guard. When they saw her, they
wondered at her beauty, and opened the gates
for her ; and she and her maid went out, the
men of the city looking after her as she went
down the hill till the darkness hid her from
sight.
CHAPTER CLXXXIV
THE SUPPER IN THE TENT
JUDITH went straight on till she met the
sentinels of the enemy, and asked to be
taken before their general ; so they took her
through the camp to Holofernes' tent. He came
out of his tent with silver lamps going before
him, and when he saw Judith, he was amazed at
her beauty. She bowed down to the ground
before him, and said, " My lord, the people of
Bethulia fail of food and water, and have de
termined to consume things that the law of God
267

forbids them to eat. Now you cannot prevail
against them until they sin and provoke God ;
but when once they have sinned they will have
no more power to resist you. Knowing this, I
have fled from among them ; and I will watch
here in your camp and tell you as soon as
they have sinned, that you may fall on them and
destroy them." Holofernes was so charmed that
he believed all she said, and she stayed in the
camp three days ; and each night the sentinels
had orders to let her pass out between midnight
and morning that she might pray by a fountain
in the valley. On the evening of the fourth
day Holofernes made a banquet in his tent, and
sent for Judith. She put on all her ornaments,
and her maid laid soft cushions for her on the
ground in Holofernes' tent ; then they ate and
drank together, and Holofernes took great delight
in her company, and drank more wine than he
ever had drunk in his life before. When it
grew late, the servants withdrew and went to
bed ; for they were all weary, because the feast
had been long ; and Judith was left alone with
Holofernes, who by this time was heavy with
wine, and lay along on his bed under a canopy
woven with purple and gold and emeralds.
268

CHAPTER CLXXXV
THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES
THEN Judith rose and took down his sword
where it hung on the pillar of his bed,
and catching him by the hair with her left hand,
struck him twice on the neck with all her strength
and cut off his head from his body. She tumbled
his body from the bed and tore down the canopy
over it, and came out of the tent carrying his
head. Her maid, who was waiting for her out
side, put it in a bag, and they passed out of the
camp between midnight and morning as they had
done before. But when they reached the
fountain they went straight on, and took the
way up the hill to Bethulia ; and Judith called
from far off to the watchmen at the gates,
" Open, open ! God is with us." They ran to
gether and opened the gate by torchlight, and
Judith cried, " Praise, praise God, praise God, for
he hath not taken away his mercy from Israel ! "
Then she shewed them the head of Holofernes,
and they were astonished. But as soon as it
was morning, they hung out the head on the
highest place of the city wall, and sallied forth
269

against the enemy. The heathen captains came
to the tent of Holofernes to awake him, that he
might order the army for battle ; but when they
knocked and had no answer, one went in, and
found the headless body lying on the floor. A
cry and confusion rose throughout the camp, and
the whole army broke up and fled ; and the
people of Bethulia chased them with great
slaughter beyond Damascus. Judith lived many
years in great honour ; and many a man desired
her to be his wife, yet she never married again,
but grew old in her own house, and when she
died she was buried in her husband's grave in
Bethulia ; and no one made the children of Israel
afraid in her days, or for a long time after her
death.
CHAPTER CLXXXVI
THE ERRAND OF THE ARCHANGEL
AMONG the children of Israel who were
carried captive to Nineveh, was one Tobit
of Thisbe, with his wife Anna and their son
Tobias. He was a good man, who fed the
hungry and clothed the naked, and buried the
innocent people who had been killed by the
270

heathen and their bodies thrown out behind the
walls of Nineveh. But because he did these good
deeds, all that he had was taken away from him
by the king of Nineveh ; also he became blind ;
so that they were very poor, and had nothing to
live upon but what Anna earned by spinning. At
that same time there lived at Ecbatana in Media
one Raguel, who was Tobit's cousin ; he had a
daughter called Sara, a fair maid, who had been
betrothed to seven husbands one after the other,
but they all had been strangled by the evil spirit
Asmodeus before they married her ; so that her
father's maid-servants mocked her, and she was
ready to kill herself for grief and shame. Both
these unhappy families prayed to God to take
pity on them at the same time ; and at the same
time the prayer of both was heard, and God
sent Raphael the archangel from his presence to
help them in their trouble.

CHAPTER CLXXXVII
THE JOURNEY TO MEDIA
ANY years before this, Tobit had left ten
talents of silver with a merchant in the
city of Rages in Media, and now that he was
271

M

poor he remembered it, and told his son Tobias
that he must go to Rages and get it back. So
Tobias went out into the market-place to seek
a guide for the journey, and there he met the
archangel Raphael in the dress of a guide. He
said to him, " Can you go with me to Rages,
and do you know that country well ? " and
Raphael answered, " Yes." So Tobias took him
home to his father, who asked him his name.
He said, " My name is Help-of-God, and I am
one of your brethren." Then they agreed what
wages Help-of-God should have, and got every
thing ready for the journey. When all was
ready, Anna wept at parting with her son ; but
Tobit chid her, and said to Tobias, " Go now,
and may God who dwells in heaven prosper your
journey, and the angel of God keep you com
pany." Then they started on their journey, and
Tobias took his dog with him. At evening they
came to an inn by the river, where they lodged
for the night. Next morning, Tobias went down
to bathe in the river, when a fish leaped out of
the water at him. Raphael called from the bank
to him, " Take the fish ! " He caught it and
pulled it to land, and Raphael told him to open
it and take out the heart and liver and gall and
272

put them up safely; then they roasted the fish
and ate it, and went on their way, until they
came to the city of Ecbatana. As they went,
Tobias asked his companion, " Help-of-God, of
what use are the heart and liver and gall of
this fish ?" and he answered, "If any one is
troubled by a devil or an evil spirit, the smoke
of the heart and liver will drive it away; and the
gall rubbed on a blind man's eyes will make him

CHAPTER CLXXXVIII
THE FLIGHT OF THE EVIL SPIRIT
THEY went to Raguel's house in Ecbatana,
who gave them welcome, and wept when he
heard how his cousin Tobit was poor and blind.
Now the angel had told Tobias on their journey
of the fair maid Sara his cousin, and said, " I will
speak to her father that you may marry her."
" O brother Help-of-God," said Tobias, " I have
heard that my cousin has been betrothed to seven
men who all died in the marriage chamber, and
I am afraid to marry her." The angel answered,
" Have no fear, brother, for she was appointed
to you from the beginning." So as they sat
s 273

at supper, Tobias said, " Help-of-God, speak now
about what you talked of on the way." Then
Raphael opened the matter ; but Raguel said,
" It is fit that he should be her husband, for he
is next of kin ; but I will tell you the truth ;
seven men have died who wished to marry her."
" I will eat nothing," said Tobias, " till you con
sent." So Raguel called Sara and took her by
the hand and gave her to Tobias for his wife.
At night when they were alone in the marriage
chamber, Tobias took hot embers of spice, and
laid some of the heart and liver of the fish upon
them ; and as soon as the evil spirit smelled the
smoke, he fled away to prison in the furthest
part of Egypt. Then they slept in peace ; but
Raguel had gone out alone in the dark and was
digging a grave, that if Tobias were found dead
in the morning they might bury him and no one
know of it.

CHAPTER CLXXXIX
THE RETURN FROM ECBATANA
N the morning when Tobias came out of his
room alive and well, there was great joy
in the house, and they filled up the grave, and
274

I

held the wedding feast. Meanwhile Tobias sent
Raphael with a servant and two camels to the
city of Rages, where he received the bags of
silver sealed up as Tobit had left them, and
brought them back to Ecbatana. Then they set
out on their journey home ; and Raguel gave
Sara half his wealth for her dowry ; for she was
his only child. When they were near Nineveh,
the angel said to Tobias, " Let us hasten on
before your wife and prepare the house ; and
take the gall of the fish in your hand." So they
went on in front, and the dog ran after them.
Tobit was sitting in his house, and his wife Anna
sat by the door looking along the street for her
son, when she saw them coming, and cried to
Tobit, " Here he is, and the man who went with
him." Anna ran out and fell upon her son's
neck, and Tobit rose too, and was groping his
way to the door, when Tobias ran to him,
crying, " Be of good hope, my father ; " and he
rubbed the fish's gall on his father's eyes, and
his sight came back to him. Then Tobias told
him of all that had happened, and he went out
to meet his daughter-in-law at the city gate,
rejoicing and praising God.

«75

CHAPTER CXC
THE WAGES OF RAPHAEL
THEN Tobit said to his son, " My son, see
that the man who went with you have
his wages, and you must give him more than
was agreed." Tobias answered, " O my father,
he deserves the half of all I have ; for not only
did he bring me safe home, but he drove away
the evil spirit from my wife, and fetched me the
money from Rages, and gave you back your
sight." The old man said, " It is his due ; " and
he called the angel and said to him, " Take half of
all that you and my son have brought, and go in
peace." Then Raphael said to him, " It is good
to keep close the secret of a king, but it is
honourable to reveal the acts of God. When
you prayed, and when Sara your daughter-in-law
prayed in Media, I brought your prayers before
the Holy One, and God sent me to help you ;
I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels that
go in and out before the glory of the Holiest.
Now give God thanks, for I go up to him."
Then he vanished out of their sight, and they
worshipped God. Afterwards Tobit lived to a
good old age; and he and his wife Anna died
276

and were buried together ; then Tobias with his
wife and children went to live at Ecbatana with
Raguel, and there before he died he heard of the
destruction of Nineveh.
CHAPTER CXCI
THE ANGEL OF ACCUSING
THERE was a man in the land of Uz whose
name was Job ; he had seven thousand
sheep and three thousand camels and five
hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred she-
asses, and a very great household, so that he
was the greatest man in all the East ; and he
had seven sons and three daughters. On a day,
the angels all came to present themselves before
God, and the Accusing Angel came among them.
God said to him, " From whence come you ? "
and he answered, " From going to and fro in the
earth, and from walking up and down in it."
God said, " Have you considered my servant
Job, that there is none like him in the earth to
fear God and do no evil ? " The Accusing Angel
answered, and said, " Does Job fear God for
nothing ? hast thou not made a hedge about
him and about his house, and blessed the work
of his hands, and increased his substance ? but
277

put forth thine hand now and touch all that he
has, and he will curse thee to thy face." God
answered him, " Make trial ; all that he has is
in your power, but his own body." So the
Angel of Accusing went forth from the presence
of the Lord.
CHAPTER CXCII
THE FOUR MESSENGERS
ON a day, Job's sons and daughters were all
together eating and drinking in their
eldest brother's house, and Job sat alone at
home, when a messenger came to him and said,
" The oxen were ploughing and the asses feeding
beside them, when the Sabeans fell upon them
and took them away, and killed all the servants ;
I only have escaped to tell you." While he
was speaking, another messenger came, and
said, " Fire has fallen from heaven and burned
up the sheep, and the shepherds with them ; and
I only have escaped to tell you." While the
second messenger was speaking, yet another
messenger came, and said, " Three bands of
robbers fell upon the camels and have taken them
away, and slain the servants with swords ; and
I only have escaped alone to tell you." While
278

the third messenger was speaking, yet again
another messenger came, and said, " Your sons
and daughters were eating and drinking in their
eldest brother's house, when a great wind from
the wilderness came and smote the four corners
of the house, so that it fell upon them, and they
are dead ; and I only have escaped alone to tell
you." Then Job said, " The Lord gave and the
Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name of
the Lord."
CHAPTER CXCIII
THE PATIENCE OF JOB
THERE was a day again when the angels
came to present themselves before God,
and the Accusing Angel came among them ; and
God said to him, " From whence come you ? "
He answered, " From going to and fro in the
earth, and from walking up and down in it."
God said, " Have you considered my servant
Job, that there is none like him in the earth to
fear God and do no evil ? and still he holds fast
his goodness, though you have moved me to
swallow him up without cause." The Accusing
Angel answered and said, " All that a man has
he will give for his life ; but put forth thine
279

hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and
he will curse thee to thy face." God answered
him, " He is in your hand ; all except his life."
So the Angel of Accusing went out from the
presence of God, and smote Job with sore boils
from the sole of his foot to his crown. Then
Job's wife said to him, " Do you still keep to
your goodness ? curse God, and die." But he
said, " You speak as one of the foolish women
speaks. What, shall we receive good at the
hand of God, and shall we not receive evil ? "
CHAPTER CXCIV
JOB'S COMFORTERS
WHEN Job's three friends, Eliphaz of the
south, Bildad of the plain, and Zophar of
the pleasant land, heard of all this evil that was
come upon him, they made an appointment to go
and see him, and comfort him. But when they
came, he was so changed with his grief that
they did not know him ; and they lifted up their
voice and wept, and rent their clothes and
sprinkled dust upon their heads, and sat by him
on the ground for seven days and seven nights
without speaking to him. After this, Job
280

opened his mouth and said, " Let the day perish
whereon I was born. Wherefore is life given
to him that is in misery, who longs for death,
but it cometh not ? " Eliphaz answered Job,
and said, " Who ever perished, being innocent ?
Despise not the chastening of the Almighty.
We have searched this out, and so it is ; hear
it, and know it for your good." But Job
answered, "Teach me wherein I have erred,
and I will hold my tongue ; for my grief is
heavier than the sand of the sea." Then Bildad
said, " If you were pure and upright, surely you
would be prosperous ; God will not cast away
the righteous." But Job answered, " It is all
one ; he destroyeth the perfect and the wicked ;
and he is not a man as I am, that we should
come together in judgment." Then Zophar said,
" If iniquity be in your hand, put it away, and
you shall shine forth as the morning. Be sure
that God exacts of you less than you deserve."
But Job answered, " No doubt but you are the
people, and wisdom shall die with you ! Will
you flatter God, and speak deceitfully for him ?
Let me alone, and let come on me what will;
but though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,
and declare the truth before him." 281

CHAPTER CXCV
THE PROSPERITY OF JOB
AT last Job's comforters ceased to answer
him ; and the Lord himself answered Job
out of the whirlwind, saying, " Who is this that
darkens counsel by words without knowledge ?
Will you condemn me, that you may be
righteous ? " Job answered the Lord, and said,
" I know that thou canst do anything, and that
no thought of thine can be hindered. I have
uttered that which I understood not, and things
too wonderful for me." Then the Lord said to
Job's three friends, " My anger is kindled against
you, because you have not spoken the truth of
me, as my servant Job has ; therefore make
offerings to me and let my servant Job pray for
you, lest I deal with you after your folly." So
the Lord restored the prosperity of Job, and
made him better off at the end than at the
beginning ; for he had fourteen thousand sheep,
and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke
of oxen, and a thousand she-asses ; he also had
seven sons and three daughters, the fairest in all
the land ; and he saw his children's children,
and died full of days.
282

CHAPTER CXCVI
THE MAN IN GOLDEN ARMOUR
AFTER Alexander son of Philip the Mace
donian had reigned over all nations and
kings for twelve years, he died, and his king
doms were divided among his captains. At that
time the holy city dwelt in peace, and kings
honoured it and gave gifts to the temple. But
when king Seleucus of Syria heard that the
treasury at Jerusalem was full of infinite riches,
he ordered his treasurer Heliodorus to plunder
it, and bring him all the silver and gold that he
found there. Heliodorus came to Jerusalem,
and after being courteously received by the high
priest, he told him his errand. There was great
sorrow and commotion in the city ; however,
Heliodorus went into the temple to obey the
king's orders. But as he and his guards were
busy in the treasury, the apparition of a horse,
with a very beautiful housing and a rider upon
him in complete armour of gold, ran at him and
struck him down with its forefeet ; and he lay
speechless, as if he were dead, till his guards
carried him out on a litter. Then the high
priest, fearing that the kin? might think some
283

treachery had been done, prayed to God for
him ; and as he did so, two very beautiful young
men dressed in splendid clothing stood by
Heliodorus, and saying, " Give the high priest
great thanks, since for his sake God has granted
you your life/' they disappeared out of sight.
So Heliodorus returned to the king, and said to
him, " If you have an enemy, or a traitor, send
him on this business ; for God defends that
place with especial power, and destroys those
who come to hurt it."
CHAPTER CXCVII
THE KING'S ELEPHANTS
AFTER king Seleucus was dead, his brother
Antiochus reigned, and made war against
the people of God. He entered forcibly into the
temple, and took away the golden ornaments and
the treasures, and set up the Abomination of
Desolation upon the high altar. Then Matta-
thias the priest gathered an army and fought for
Israel in the wilderness, till the time came for
him to die, when he made his son Judas Macca
beus captain in his place. Judas fought against
the heathen and won great victories and renown ;
284

also he restored the desolate sanctuary, where
the gates were burned, and the cloisters pulled
down, and shrubs grew in the courts as in a
forest ; and he built up the castle of Zion with
high walls and towers round about. Then the
king sent a great army against him of a hundred
and twenty thousand men, and thirty-two ele
phants trained to battle. Each elephant had a
guard of five hundred horsemen, and carried on
his back a strong tower with golden shields hung
round it, and in the tower were thirty-two men
who fought, besides the Indian who sat on the
elephant's neck and guided him ; and when the
sun shone upon the golden shields they glittered
like lamps of fire. But Judas Maccabeus gave
them battle with three thousand men, and routed
their army and cut it to pieces.
CHAPTER CXCVIII
THE WISDOM OF THE ROMANS
JUDAS MACCABEUS heard of the fame and
valour of the Romans, and how they had
subdued the Gauls, and what they had done in
Spain to win the gold and silver mines ; and
how they had conquered by their policy and
28s

patience many lands that were very far off; and
how they had overthrown Antiochus the Great,
the king of Asia, when he fought against them
r with a great army and a hundred and twenty
elephants, and how all men that heard their name
were afraid of them ; and how for all this none
of them wore a crown or was clothed in purple,
but they had made themselves a senate-house, in
which three hundred and twenty men sat in
council daily, consulting always for the good of
the people. Therefore he sent ambassadors to
Rome, and made alliance with the Senate and
People of the Romans.
CHAPTER CXCIX
THE PEACE OF THE EMPIRE
SO Judas Maccabeus fought against the
heathen and won many great victories,
until at last he was killed in battle ; and all
Israel made great lamentation for him, and be
cause of his noble acts and his valour he was
counted among the Nine Worthies, with Joshua
who led the people out of the wilderness into
the promised land, and with David the King.
But after his days the Romans took the country
286

into their government ; and it was a province of
their empire when Octavianus Caesar Augustus
the Emperor brought their civil wars to an end,
and closed the gates of Janus in the City as a
sign that the Peace of Rome was established
over all the world. Then there was peace on
earth while it waited for the Lord Jesus Christ
to be born.
CHAPTER CC
THE VISION OF THE KINGDOM OF
THE SAINTS
THE prophet saw in his vision by night how
the four winds of heaven strove upon the
great sea, and four great beasts came up out of
the sea, diverse one from another. The first
beast was like a lion, and had eagle's wings ;
the second beast was like a bear, and had three
ribs in its mouth between its teeth, which said
to it, "Arise, devour much flesh." The third
beast was like a leopard, and had four wings on
its back. The fourth beast was terrible and
exceedingly strong, with great iron teeth ; it
devoured and broke in pieces and stamped with
its feet ; and it had ten horns. Then he saw
287

the Ancient of Days sit on his throne in a
garment as white as snow, like a flame of burning
fire. The judgment was set, and the books were
opened ; and there came before the Ancient of
Days one like a son of man, and dominion was
given him over all nations for ever. When the
prophet saw these visions he was troubled, and
asked one of the Holy Ones who stood by, what
was the meaning of these things. He said,
" These great beasts are four kingdoms ; and
after them the kingdom and dominion shall be
given to the saints of the Most High for ever."
Then two angels stood one on each side of the
river of Paradise, shining like fire and girdled
with fine gold ; and the one cried, " HOW
LONG SHALL IT BE?" and the other
answered, "BLESSED IS HE WHO HAS
PATIENCE UNTIL THE END."

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