Los filisteos

A curious passage here follows in the papyrus. It contains one of the oldest recorded jokes—if not actually the oldest—in the world. When Zakar-Baal came down to the shore to give the timber over to Wen-Amon, he was accompanied by an Egyptian butler, by name Pen-Amon. The shadow of Zakar-Baal's parasol happened to fall on the envoy, whereupon the butler exclaimed, 'Lo, the shadow of Pharaoh thy lord falleth on thee!' The point of the witticism is obscure, but evidently even Zakar-Baal found it rather too extreme, for he sharply rebuked the jester. But he proceeded himself to display a delicate humour. 'Now,' said he, 'I have done for thee what my fathers did, though thou hast not done for me what thy fathers did. Here is the timber lying ready and complete. Do what thou wilt with it. But do not be contemplating the terror of the sea' (there cannot be the slightest doubt that Wen-Amon was at this moment glancing over the waters and estimating his chances of a smooth crossing). 'Contemplate for a moment the terror of Me! Ramessu IX sent some messengers to me and'—here he turned to the butler—' Go thou, and show him their graves!'

'Oh, let me not see them!' was the agonized exclamation of Wen-Amon, anxious now above all things to be off without further delay. Those were people who had no god with them! Wherefore dost thou not instead erect a tablet to record to all time "that Amon-Ra

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sent to me and I sent timber to Egypt, to beseech ten thousand years of life, and so it came to pass"?'

'Truly that would be a great testimony!' said the sarcastic prince, and departed.

Wen-Amon now set about loading his timber. But presently there sailed eleven ships of the Zakkala into the harbour—possibly those on whom he had made a rash attempt at piracy to recoup himself for his losses at Dor. The merchants in them demanded his arrest. The poor Egyptian sat down on the shore and wept. 'They have come to take me again!' he cried out—it would appear that he had been detained by the Zakkala before, but the record of this part of his troubles is lost in one of the lacunae of the MS. We despair of him altogether when he actually goes on to tell us that when news of this new trouble reached Zakar-Baal, that magnate wept also. However, we need not question the charming detail that he sent to Wen-Amon an Egyptian singing-girl, to console him with her songs. But otherwise he washed his hands of the whole affair. He told the Zakkala that he felt a delicacy about arresting the messenger of Amon on his own land, but he gave them permission to follow and arrest him themselves, if they should see fit. So away Wen-Amon sailed, apparently without his timber, and presumably with the Zakkala in pursuit. But he managed to evade them. A wind drove him to Cyprus. The Cypriotes came out, as he supposed, to kill him and his crew; but they brought them before Hatiba, their queen. He called out 'Does any one here understand Egyptian?' One man stepped forward. He dictated a petition to be translated to the queen—

And here the curtain falls abruptly, for the papyrus breaks off; and the rest of this curious tragi-comedy of three thousand years ago is lost to us.

We see from it that the dwellers on the Syrian coast had completely thrown off the terror inspired by the victories of Ramessu III. An Egyptian on a sacred errand from the greatest men in the country, bearing the image of an Egyptian god, could be robbed, bullied, mocked, threatened, thwarted in every possible way. Granted that he was evidently not the kind of man to command respect, yet the total lack of reverence for the royalties who had sent him, and the sneers at Egypt and the Egyptian rulers, are very remarkable.

We see also that the domain of the 'People of the Sea' was more extensive than the scanty strip of territory usually allowed them on Bible maps. Further evidence of this will meet us presently,

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but meanwhile it may be noted that the name 'Palestine' is much less of an extension of the name 'Philistia' than the current maps would have us suppose. In other words, the two expressions are more nearly synonymous than they are generally taken to be. We find Dor, south of Carmel, to be a Zakkala town; and Zakkala ships are busy in the ports further north.

Indeed, one is half inclined to see Zakkala dominant at Byblos itself. Wen-Amon was a person of slender education—even of his own language he was not a master—and he was not likely to render foreign names correctly. Probably he could speak nothing but Egyptian: he was certainly ignorant of the language of Cyprus, whatever that may have been: and possibly linguistic troubles are indicated by his rendering of the name of the lord of Byblos. Can it be that this was not a name at all, but a title (or rather the Semitic translation of a title, given by a Zakkala dragoman): that Zakar is not ‏זכר‎ 'remember', but the name of the Zakkala: and that Baal here, as frequently elsewhere, means 'lord' in a human and not a divine sense? If so, the name would mean 'the lord of the Zakkala', a phrase that recalls 'the lords of the Philistines' in the Hebrew Scriptures. The syntax assumed is of course quite un-Semitic: but it is often the case in dragomans’ translations that the syntax of the original language is preserved. Something like this idea has been anticipated by M. A. J. Reinach. 1

Zakar-baal was no mere pirate chieftain, however. He was a substantial, civilized, and self-reliant prince, and contrasts most favourably with the weak, half-blustering, half-lacrimose Egyptian. He understood the Egyptian language; for he could rebuke the jest of his Egyptian butler, who would presumably speak his native tongue in 'chaffing' his compatriot; and no doubt the interview in the upper room was carried on in Egyptian. He was well acquainted with the use of letters, for he knew where to put his finger on the relevant parts of the accounts of his two predecessors. These accounts were probably not in cuneiform characters on clay tablets, as he is seen to import large quantities of papyrus from Egypt. He is true to his old maritime traditions: he builds his house where he can watch the great waves of the Mediterranean beat on the shore, and he is well informed about the ships in his own and the neighbouring harbours, and their crews.

There is a dim recollection of a Philistine occupation of Phoenicia

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recorded for us in an oft-quoted passage of Justin (xviii. 3. 5), 1 in which he mentions a raid by the king of Ashkelon, just before the fall of Troy, on the Phoenician town of Sidon (so called from an alleged Phoenician word 'Sidon', meaning 'fish'). 'This is of course merely a saga-like tradition, and as we do not know from what authority Justin drew his information we can hardly put a very heavy strain upon it. And yet it seems to hang together with the other evidence, that in the Mycenaean period, when Troy was taken, there actually was a Philistine settlement on the Phoenician coast. As to the specific mention of Ashkelon, a suggestion, perhaps a little venturesome, may be hazarded. The original writer of the history of this vaguely-chronicled event, whoever he may have been, possibly recorded correctly that it was the Zakkala who raided Sidon. Some later author or copyist was puzzled by this forgotten name, and 'emended' a rege Sacaloniorum to a rege Ascaloniorum. Stranger things have happened in the course of manuscript transmission. 2

The Papyrus gives us some chronological indications of importance. The expedition of Wen-Amon took place in the fifth year of Ramessu XII, that is to say, about 1110 B.C. Zakar-Baal had already been governor of Byblos for a considerable time, for he had received envoys from Ramessu IX (1144–1129). Suppose these envoys to have come about 1130, that gives him already twenty years. The envoys of Ramessu IX were detained seventeen years; but in the first place this may have been an exaggeration, and in the second place we need not suppose that many of those seventeen years necessarily fell within the reign of the sender of these messengers. Further, Zakar-Baal's father and grandfather had preceded him in office. We do not know how long they reigned, but giving twenty-five years to each, which is probably a high estimate, we reach the date 1180, which is sufficiently long after the victory of Ramessu III for the people to begin to recover from the blow which that event inflicted on them.

2. THEIR STRUGGLE WITH THE HEBREWS

[figure]

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2. THEIR STRUGGLE WITH THE HEBREWS

We now turn to the various historical references to the Philistines in the Hebrew Scriptures.

It happens that the Zakkala, with whom the Golénischeff Papyrus is concerned, are not mentioned by name in the received text of the Old Testament. The southern Philistines were more conspicuous in the history of the Hebrews, and this name is in consequence used indifferently for all the tribal subdivisions of the hated enemy. The first appearance of the Philistines on the coast of Southern Palestine is not recorded in the Old Testament, but it may possibly be inferred indirectly. In the oldest monument of Hebrew speech, the Song of Deborah, the tribe of Dan is referred to as a maritime people who 'remained in ships' while their brethren bore the brunt of the invasion of Sisera. Towards the end of the Book of Judges, we find that certain of the tribe of Dan are compelled to seek a home elsewhere, and choose the fertile, well-watered, but hot and fever-haunted Laish, a place remote from everywhere, and where the people were 'quiet'—as they well might be in that malaria-stricken furnace. Why did the Danites leave for this unsatisfactory territory their healthy and rich land by the sea-coast? Probably because they were driven by pressure from without. The migration of the Danites can best be explained by the settlement of the Philistines. And it is suggestive that the first great champion to stand for Israel against the intruders, Samson, belonged to Zorah, whence went forth the Danite spies (Judg. xviii. 2).

The first allusion to the Philistines which we meet with in the Old Testament, that in the genealogical table of the nations in Genesis x, we have already discussed. Next we find a cycle of stories, told with but little variation both of Abraham and of Isaac (Gen. xx, xxi, xxvi), in which those heroes of old are brought into contact with a certain 'Abimelech, king of the Philistines'. In both cases the patriarch, to save himself, conceals his true relationship to his wife, which is revealed to the deceived monarch: in both, the latter displays a singular dignity and righteousness in the delicate position in which his guest's duplicity places him: and in both there is a subsequent dispute about the possession of wells. The stories are in short doublets of one another, and both echo a similar tale told of Abraham in Egypt, at an earlier stage of his career (Gen. xii). Whoever added the inept title to Psalm xxxiv evidently had these stories in his mind when he inadvertently wrote 'a Psalm of David when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech' instead of Achish: an unconscious

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reminiscence of the tale might possibly have been suggested by vv. 12, 13 of the Psalm in question.

The use of the word 'Philistine' in these stories has long been recognized as an anachronism. Perhaps with less harshness and equal accuracy we might characterize it as a rather free use of modern names and circumstances in telling an ancient tale. Even now we might find, for example, a popular writer on history saying that this event or that of the Early British period took place 'in Norfolk', although it is obvious that the territory of the North Folk must have received its Saxon name in later times. The tales of Abraham and Isaac were written when the land where their scenes were laid was in truth the Land of the Philistines; and the story-teller was not troubled with the question as to how far back that occupation lasted. Indeed when Abimelech first appears on the scene he is not a Philistine, but the Semitic king of the town of Gerar. The two passages in Gen. xxi, which might be understood 'they returned into [what we call] Philistia' . . . 'Abraham sojourned in [what is now] Philistia', have misled the writer (or copyist) of Gen. xxvi into supposing that Abimelech was actually king of the Philistines. In fact the Greek Version of xxvi. 8 seems to preserve an indication of older readings in which he was simply called, as in the other story, king of Gerar.

Noordtzij (Filist. p. 59) attempts to demonstrate a pre-Ramessu occupation of S. Palestine by the Philistines, principally on the ground that the time between Ramessu III and Samson or Saul is too short for the 'semitizing' process to have taken place. This seems hardly a cogent argument to me: the 'semitization' was by no means complete: the special Semitic rite of circumcision was not adopted: there is no reason to suppose that the language of the Philistines had been abandoned for a Semitic language. And we need have no difficulty in supposing such changes to take place with great rapidity. Thanks to the undermining influence of returned American emigrants, the Irish peasant has shown a change of attitude towards traditional beliefs in fairies and similar beings within the past twenty years as profound as any change that might have taken place between Ramessu III and Saul under the influence of the surrounding Semitic populations.

A similar anachronism meets us in Exodus xiii. 17, enshrining an ancient tradition that the ordinary caravan-route from Egypt by way of the coast was avoided in preference to the long and wearisome march through the desert, in order to keep clear of the Philistines and their military prowess. Likewise in the song preserved in Exodus xv, we find (v. 14) despondency attributed to the dwellers

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in Philistia at the news of the crossing of the Red Sea. This song, however, is probably not very ancient.

On the other hand, the writers who have contributed to the Pentateuch in its final form do not all share the indifference to chronological detail shown by the Yahwist story-teller. Often as are the tribes of Canaan enumerated in passages anticipatory of the conquest of the Promised Land, the Philistines are never mentioned: they have no share in the territory of the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the Jebusite. In view of the prominence of the Philistines in the later history, this is a very significant fact. The solitary exception is so vague that it might almost be said to prove the rule—a reference to the Mediterranean sea by the name of 'the Sea of the Philistines' in Exodus xxxiii. 31. In Joshua xiii. 2, the 'districts' or 'circles' of the Philistines are enumerated among the places not conquered by the leader of the Hebrew immigration—the following verse, to which we shall return later, enumerates the 'districts'. But there is no reference to the Philistines in the parallel account contained in Judges i. There, in verse 19, the 'dwellers in the valley', i.e. in the low coast-land on which the Judahite territory bordered, are depicted as successfully resisting the aggression of the Hebrew tribe with the help of their iron chariots: the previous verse, which contradicts this, and which unhistorically claims that Judah captured the cities Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ekron, must necessarily be an interpolation. 1 In Judges iii. 3 we find an agreement with the passage just cited from Joshua—the five lords of the Philistines, as well as the 'Canaanites' (whatever may be exactly meant by the name in this connexion), the Phoenicians, and the Hi[tt]ites are enumerated as being left unconquered. The curious reason assigned, that this was to practise the Hebrews in war, is at any rate concordant with the old tradition that the terror of the warlike Philistines prevented the Hebrews following the direct route into the Promised Land.

The passages examined so far have rather been concerned with the settlement of the protagonists in the great struggle for the possession of Palestine than with the course of the struggle itself. We are to picture the Hebrew tribes crossing the Jordan from the East, and some little time afterwards the Philistines (and Zakkala) establishing themselves on the rich coast-lands: this much we can see with the aid of the Egyptian records cited in the preceding pages. We now follow the history of the conflict.

At the outset we are confronted by a puzzling group of passages. In the very ancient Song of Deborah, picturing the distracted state

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of the country under foreign oppressors, the writer describes how travellers and caravans, from fear, abandoned the main thoroughfares and journeyed along the by-paths, of which the winding valleys of Palestine offer an endless choice. This was in the days of a certain Shamgar son of Anath 1 (Judges v. 6). The name has a foreign appearance 2: a Hittite analogy (Sangar) has been sought for it. We cannot, however, conclude that he was necessarily a foreigner, even though his progenitor is said to be Anath, which happens to be a well-known goddess-name. There is not another case of a Hebrew bearing so frankly idolatrous a name in the Old Testament. But in the Aswân papyri we have a glimpse of what Jewish life was, independent of priestly influences; and these show an extraordinary tolerance of heathen names and practices. We find Hosea son of Peti-Khnum. Names like ‘Athar-ili, Nebonathan, Ben-Tirash occur in the community: the daughter of one Mahseiah swears in a law-court by the goddess Sati. Shamgar son of Anath would have been quite at home in this company.

The antecedent for this reference in Deborah's Song appears to lie in a verse at the end of chapter iii (v. 31), which says that Shamgar son of Anath killed six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad, and saved Israel. It is, however, obvious that this verse is out of place. It interrupts the flow of the narrative: there is no word of Philistine oppression in the context, and the text proceeds 'When Ehud was dead . . .' certain things happened, following on the story of Ehud which the Shamgar passage interrupts. The later development of the history contains no recognition of the labours of Shamgar. There are indeed few passages in literature which are so clearly no part of the original document: and we can hardly doubt that it has been inserted from some other source, or from another part of the book, in order to provide an explanation for the allusion in Deborah's Song.

It is curious that the chief Greek MSS. read Δίναχ instead of 'Anath' here, but not in Deborah's Song. 3 A number of Greek MSS. repeat the verse relating to Shamgar after xvi. 31—i.e. immediately after the story of Samson. This seems a better place for it. 4

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The Shamgar story, in short, looks like one of the floating traditions that have more particularly crystallized round Samson and the mighty men of David. A remarkable parallel to the exploit of Shamgar has been found in the deed of 'Shammah the Hararite'—a not dissimilar name—one of David's followers, who in some such rough and ready way defended a field of crops—barley or lentils—from Philistine marauders. 1

But can the story be so summarily dismissed? Grant all the difficulties—that Shamgar's name has a foreign aspect, that the prose account of him is an interpolation, that the Philistines seem to appear too early on the scene; yet the scanty allusion to this obscure champion may after all record a tradition of the beginnings of the great struggle.

For besides Shamgar, Deborah's Song mentions another arresting personality. The very grandeur of the paean throws a romantic halo round the person of the unfortunate Sisera, victim of a crime against the desert law of hospitality difficult to parallel even in the wild annals of Bedawin life. The heartless glee with which the poet triumphs over the chieftain's anxious, watching mother makes the latter for us one of the most pathetic figures in the whole crowded gallery of the Old Testament. Time has brought its revenge for both mother and son.

In the prose version of the combat, Sisera is represented as the general of Jabin, king of Hazor, and the latter is the head of the attack on Israel. But Jabin has an altogether secondary place in the narrative, and Sisera is the central figure. Jabin, indeed, is probably imported into the story from the source that lies at the back of Joshua xi, where there is no mention of Sisera. In Psalm lxxxiii. 9 Sisera is mentioned before Jabin. He has a town of his own, 'Harosheth of the Gentiles,' more than a day's journey from the city of Jabin; and the vignette of his mother surrounded by her court ladies gives us a picture of a more important establishment than that of a mere captain of a host. Sisera in short is an independent king, and the story as we have it is either an account of a single campaign in which two kings were in league, or, more probably, a combination of the narratives of two campaigns wholly independent.

Harosheth is generally identified with the modern Harathiyeh, in the bottle-neck which forms the mouth of the plain of Esdraelon—a region entirely in Philistine hands, at least at the end of Saul's wars. This identification seems fairly trustworthy. Not far off from Harosheth was a village with the name Beth-dagon: and Harosheth itself is distinguished

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by the appellation 'of the gōyīm' or foreigners. In Joshua xii. 23 'the king of the gōyīm in Gilgal' is mentioned in noteworthy juxtaposition with Dor, which figures so conspicuously in the report of Wen-Amon; but this passage has been suspected and various emendations suggested, chief of which is to read ‏לגליל‎ for ‏לגלגל‎ and to translate 'king of nations belonging to Galilee'. This is of course reminiscent of the famous 'Galilee of the Gentiles' 1; but on the other hand we may compare ‏גלילות פלשת‎ 'the Galilees of Philistia' in Joshua xiii. 2 and Joel iii. 4 (= Hebrew iv. 4), which in the latter passage is mentioned immediately after the Philistine territory. The word gōyīm is of no more specific meaning than our word 'nations': though usually applied to foreigners, it may even on occasion be applied to the nation of Israel: so it cannot be said to be very conclusive. But one wonders whether in such passages and phrases as these it might not bear the special meaning of the foreigners par excellence, the most outlandish people with whom the Hebrews came into contact—that is to say the Philistines and their cognate tribes, for whom the Greek translators reserve the name ἀλλόφυλοι. In the present case they would more especially be the Zakkala, of whom Wen-Amon tells us, but who are not mentioned by name in the Hebrew writings.

Sisera's enormous host of iron chariots, a possession which, as we saw, also enabled the coast-dwellers of the South to hold their own, is emphasized in the prose account of the battle, as in the speech put by Deborah's Song into his mother's mouth: and it is interesting to notice that we hear again of these iron chariots as being on the plain of Esdraelon (Joshua xvii. 16).

The name of the prince also is suggestive. It is not Semitic: and the numerous Hittite names ending in sira—Khetasira and the like—have been quoted to indicate its possible origin. But we should not forget Badyra, the Zakkala prince of the neighbouring town of Dor. And may it not be asked whether Sisera, ‏סיסרא‎, could be a reduplicated form derived from the root of ‏סרן‎ seren (the latter being possibly a participle), the one word of the Philistine language which we certainly know—the technical term for the 'lords of the Philistine state? This guess presupposes that the language of the Philistines was Indo-European—an assumption which it has not yet been possible either to prove or disprove. Some possible evidence of reduplication is afforded by such combinations as REREIET and perhaps KRKOKLES in the Praesos inscriptions. It is interesting to note that the name

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[paragraph continues] Beneṣasira occurs in the list of Keftian names on the Egyptian tablet described on a previous page.

If Sisera was a Philistine or at least one of cognate race, we have some use for Shamgar and his ox-goad. Otherwise, the latter must be expunged from the list of Judges, if he be not actually numbered among the oppressors, as Moore in his Commentary is inclined to do. The combination ANAIT, which ends one of the Praesos inscriptions just mentioned, has been compared to the name of Shamgar's parent Anath; but there is no probability that such a coincidence between a short inscription on the one hand, and a few proper names on the other, is of any importance.

In Judges x. 6, 7, 11 there is mention of Philistine oppression, in strange and scarcely intelligible connexion with the Amorites. This passage does not help us nearer to the solution of problems. It is in the narrative of Samson that the Philistines first come conspicuously on the scene. It is unnecessary to summarize the familiar incidents: indeed for our purpose these chapters, though of the deepest interest, are disappointing. The narrator is content to tell his tale, without troubling himself about the attendant circumstances which we would so gladly know.

In discussing this remarkable series of episodes it is unnecessary to raise the question of their historicity. 1 Still more irrelevant would be a discussion of the pseudo-scientific hypothesis that Samson (like Achilles, Heracles, Max Müller, Gladstone, and other demonstrated characters of mythology) was a solar myth. It is sufficient for the purpose of our present discussion that the tale gives us an early tradition of the condition of affairs at the time indicated; and as I have said elsewhere, 2 it is probably to be regarded as a prose epic concentrating into the person of a single ideal hero the various incidents of a guerrilla border-warfare.

This being postulated, one or two points of importance strike us in reading the story. The first is, that the Philistine domination was complete, and was passively accepted by the Hebrews. 'The Philistines are rulers over us' say the men of Judah, who propose to betray the champion to his enemies. As is so often the case with a nation of separate clans, even the pressure of a formidable common enemy cannot always heal their mutual jealousies. Ireland, in the face of the Vikings in the ninth century, and of the English in the twelfth, offers

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an instructive parallel. Only a chapter or two before the appearance of Samson, we have the distracting episode of Abimelech: a chapter or two later comes the story of the massacre of the Benjamites by the other tribes: and whatever may be the true chronological relationship of these narratives to the historical setting of the Samson epic, they at least indicate that there was a long period of inter-tribal disunion that would make it easy for a well-organized military nation to gain complete domination over the country.

But it was no mere military domination. The Philistines were accompanied by their wives and daughters, and the attractiveness of the latter in the eyes of Samson is a leading motive of his story. On this side of the narrative, however, there is one point to be noticed. There is no reason for branding the Philistines with the stigma of having produced the mercenary traitress Delilah: indeed, whatever indications there may be in her story point in an exactly opposite direction. Had tradition called her a Philistine, like Samson's first wife, the author of Judges would hardly have failed to make it clear. She is described as a woman in the Valley of Sorek; which, if it be the modern Wady es-Surâr, as is generally agreed, was partly in Israelite territory. Moreover, it would scarcely have been necessary for the Philistine lords to have offered the gigantic bribe of 1,100 pieces of silver each, to a woman of their own nation, that she might betray to them the arch-enemy of her race: it would be much more likely that they would use the persuasive argument of threatening her with the fate of her unlucky predecessor. The name appears again as that of a member of the tribe of Judah, in a genealogical fragment in 1 Chronicles iv. 19, preserved by the Greek Version, but lost from the Hebrew textus receptus. It is not too much to say that if the Delilah episode be read carefully, the various steps become more natural and intelligible when we picture the central figure as a tribeswoman of the men of Judah, who in the previous chapter had attempted to anticipate her act of betrayal.

It is noteworthy that nowhere in the Samson story is there any hint that there was a barrier of language between Hebrew and Philistine. Samson and his Philistine friends at Timnah exchange their rough jests without any difficulty; Delilah, whatever her race, converses with equal ease with the Philistine lords and with her Hebrew husband. The same point is to be noticed throughout the subsequent history, with the curious and significant exception of the very last reference to the Philistines in the historical books. Indeed, it has often been observed that the services of an interpreter are but rarely called for in the Old Testament: although it is possible

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that such an intermediary was sometimes used without the fact being specifically stated. 1 But probably in ancient as in modern Palestine everybody who had any position at all to maintain could speak several languages. The officers of Hezekiah and Sennacherib, for instance, could understand each the other's tongue, and could pass from one to the other with the enviable ease of a modern Levantine polyglot.

The incident of Samson's hair has often been compared to the purple hair of Nisus, plucked out by Scylla at the instigation of Minos; and to the story of Pterelaos of Taphos and his golden hair given him by Poseidon, which rendered him immortal. Both stories are to be found in that endless mine, the Bibliotheca of Apollodorus. The connexion of Minos with the former story is noteworthy. It has, I believe, been suggested (but I have no note of the reference) that the story of-the virtue inherent in Samson's locks may have been actually received by the Hebrews from Philistine sources. It may be merely a coincidence that the name of Samson's father, Manoah, resembles the name Minos.

Lastly, we notice in the Samson epic that as seen through Hebrew eyes the Philistines had already the three characteristics that marked them out from the other nations round about. The adjective 'uncircumcised', obviously the current term of abuse in all generations, already makes its appearance. Their peculiar government by 'lords' also meets us, but as it happens no particular 'lord' is named, nor does the Samson story give us any idea of their number. Thirdly, in the final scene, we are introduced to the mysterious Dagon, the chief deity of the Philistine pantheon.

For how long the Philistine domination lasted we have no means of knowing. There is no indication of the length of time supposed to elapse between the death of Samson and the appearance on the scene of Samuel. Eli, the priest of the High Place at Shiloh, may or may not have been contemporary with Samson: he appears suddenly on the scene as a man in extreme old age 'who had judged Israel forty years', and vanishes almost immediately.

The next stage of the history shows us the disunited and mutually hostile tribes of Israel gradually welding together under the pressure of their formidable enemy, and slowly but surely, though with more than one serious set-back, reversing the situation.

We begin with the unlucky battle in which for a time the Ark was lost (1 Sam. iv). The topography of the battle is uncertain: the Philistines pitched at a place quite unknown, Aphek, the Israelites

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at a spot of equally obscure topography, Eben-ezer, where Samuel afterwards set up a memorial pillar (vii. 12). The Philistines were the victors, and the Israelites attempted to turn the battle by fetching their national palladium from its resting-place in Shiloh. The Philistines were at first stricken with a superstitious fear; but recovering themselves they made a complete slaughter of the Israelites, and captured the Ark itself. Their rallying-cry 'Be strong and be men, that ye be not slaves to the Hebrews as they have been to you' corroborates, from the Philistine side, the evidence that the Philistines were the masters of the Hebrews at the time.

Now begins that strange story of the wanderings of the Ark. It would be natural to lay up the symbol of the deity of a vanquished people in the temple of the chief god of the conquerors: as Mesha laid up his religious trophies before Chemosh, so the Ark was deposited in the temple of Dagon at Ashdod—a temple of which we hear down to the time of the Maccabees (1 Mace. x. 84). But Dagon twice falls prostrate before the Ark, the second time being broken by the fall. At the same time a plague of mice or rats spread over the Philistine plain. There was a very similar plague over the same district in 1904, and enormous damage was done to the growing crops. Indeed, the peasants, whose fields were robbed almost as though by the prophet Joel's locusts, were reduced to tracking out the rat-holes and collecting the grain that the animals had brought down and stored: it was a curious sight to watch the women patiently engaged in this weary work, and gradually filling bags with the precious seed thus recovered. But in the Philistine experience the plague of rats had a yet more serious consequence. Not only did they 'mar the land', but as we now know to be the natural course of events, the parasites of the mice communicated to the people the disease of bubonic plague. 1

The disease broke out first in Ashdod, and was naturally explained as due to the presence of the Ark. They therefore dispatched it to Gath, and of course the bearers carried the plague bacilli with them: again it was sent to Ekron, and again the plague was carried thither;

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and as the Philistines, even before they had secured their costly prize, had associated it with outbreaks of pestilence in Egypt (1 Sam. iv. 8), they easily connected it with their own troubles. How they returned it to Beth-Shemesh, and how the bacilli (carried probably by parasites on the kine, or perhaps on the coverings of the Ark) proved to be still virulent to the cost of the villagers who too rashly approached, are tales too well known to need repetition.

It is interesting that the Philistines sent back with the Ark votive models of their twofold plague, which yet was one, as their ancestors had been wont to do when, in search of healing from the ills of human flesh, they visited the Dictaean Cave in the ancient homeland.

The following chapter (vii) apparently represents a different strand of tradition. According to this the Ark was suffered to remain in Kiriath-Jearim no less than twenty years, until, probably, it was brought up to Jerusalem at the beginning of the reign of David. 1 Samuel held a reconciliation service, as it might be called, in which Israel renounced the various strange gods they had adopted. The Philistines came up to plunder this peaceful assembly, but were driven back by an appalling thunderstorm. The people gave chase, and smote the invaders to the unknown place called Beth-Car, to which reference has been made in the previous chapter; and a great memorial stone was set up at or near the spot where the Ark had been captured. We are then told that the Philistines restored certain cities, including Ekron and Gath (or according to the Greek text, Ashkelon and 'Azob', i.e. Gaza or Ashdod), to the Israelites, and that they never again came up to invade Israel.

It is noticeable that the narrator, with all his desire to glorify Samuel, avoids making a purely military leader of him, while emphasizing his religious functions. The victory is ascribed more to the thunderstorm, which is an answer to the 'whole burnt offering' offered by Samuel, than to military skill on the part of the Israelites or of any leader. The writer's patriotic enthusiasm (and perhaps some such record as Judges i. 18) have betrayed him into exaggeration with regard to the 'restoration' of cities that in fact had never been Israelite. But with regard to his conclusion 'that the Philistines never again invaded Israel', it is quite possible to judge him too harshly. If the Philistines were confined to the narrow strip of territory from Joppa southward, the statement would be absurd: but we have now seen that, at the time, the suzerainty of the Philistines

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over the whole of Palestine was complete, and that in all probability they actually occupied the Northern coast, the plain of Esdraelon as far as the Jordan, and even penetrated up the fertile valleys that wind through the Judaean mountains. This being so it may well be that the incident here recorded was actually the last case of aggression; but that in all the other cases in which the Philistines 'came up to war' the purpose was defensive, to meet Israelite encroachments on their territory. The passage therefore is not necessarily so 'extravagant' as some critics have made out.

However, there can be little doubt that the desire of the Hebrew people for a king, which now began to express itself, was the natural outcome of the growing sense of unity which under the pressure of the Philistine domination was rapidly developing. A leader was urgently needed who should be free from the specifically religious duties to which Samuel was entirely devoted; it was hoped that one who could thus give his whole attention to military matters might ultimately rid the people of the yoke that daily became more and more intolerable. Authorities differ as to how Samuel was affected by the popular demand. In one version he indignantly condemned it as a revolt against the theocracy of which he himself was at once Emperor and Pope. In another version he raised no objection to the new departure, definitely recognized it as a step towards delivery from the Philistines (1 Sam. ix. 16), chose the king and received him courteously, and declared to him the signs that testified to his election. From this programme we learn incidentally that the Philistines had a sort of mudir or governor at a place called Gibeah of God (probably to be identified with the modern village of Ram Allah about twelve miles north of Jerusalem). 1 This fact underlines, so to speak, what has already been said about the absence of Philistine aggressions after the battle of Beth-Car. With an outpost so far east as the spot indicated, the actual territory of the Philistines included all the places where fighting took place.

Saul assumed the kingdom, and immediately the first Israelite aggression took place: Jonathan slew the Philistine governor of Geba, where, as at Gibeah, there seems to have been a Philistine mudir.

The Philistines, rightly considering this a sign of revolt, came up to quell the insurrection. The Israelites were gathered together with Saul in Michmash, 2 but when they saw the overpowering might of the

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[paragraph continues] Philistines swooping down upon then) they hid themselves in the caves with which the country abounds. Saul waited anxiously for Samuel, and at last ventured himself to offer the necessary sacrifices: the denunciation, with which the stern old prophet expressed his resentment at this usurpation of his priestly functions, was apparently the first shock that disturbed Saul's delicately poised mental equilibrium, and paved the way for the insanity by which he was afterwards afflicted.