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Now restore the boy you took from us, else will I give your flesh unto the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the field." The Midianites were greatly afraid of Simon, and, terrified and abashed, they spake to the sons of Jacob with little courage: "Said ye not that ye cast this lad into the pit because he was of a rebellious spirit? What, now, will ye do with an insubordinate slave?
Jerubbaal, the conqueror of the Midianites, established his power among the mixed Hebrew and Canaanite inhabitants of Ophrah and Shechem, and his son Abimelech by a Canaanitish wife received the title of king. But the attempt was premature.
He and Poutrincourt, with eight men, hearing the war-whoops and the cries for aid, sprang up from sleep, snatched their weapons, pulled ashore in their shirts, and charged the yelling multitude, who fled before their spectral assailants, and vanished in the woods. "Thus," observes Lescarbot, "did thirty-five thousand Midianites fly before Gideon and his three hundred."
And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude.
And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD because of the Midianites, That the LORD sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage;
Powerful tribes as Moabites, Midianites, Ammonites, Philistines were unsubdued. The land was desolated by constant war. Not unfrequently the people forgot Jehovah, and fell into idolatrous practices. In this period of degeneracy and confusion, men full of sacred enthusiasm and of heroic courage arose to smite the enemies of Israel, and to restore the observance of the law.
Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt. And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes. And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go?
Phinehas, as a descendant of Joseph, had, moreover, a special reason for wishing to take revenge upon the Midianites, as those had been Midianites who had sold Joseph as a slave in Egypt.
So when the Midianites had sent their daughters, as Balaam had exhorted them, the Hebrew men were allured by their beauty, and came with them, and besought them not to grudge them the enjoyment of their beauty, nor to deny them their conversation.
Several matters are worthy of study: The sending of an expedition to destroy the Midianites. The final numbering of the people preparatory to their entrance into Canaan. The appointing of Joshua as his successor. The settlement of the two and a half tribes on the east side of Jordan. The appointment of the cities of refuge. The delivery of a farewell address, or of farewell addresses.
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