the end of it three forty-year terms for Eli, I Sam. 4:18, Saul, Acts 13:21, and David, I Kings 2:11, then we have left eight forty-year terms for the Judges. Eight times forty is three hundred and twenty. Those three hundred and twenty years would then correspond with the three hundred years mentioned by Jephthah in Judg. 11:26 as dividing Moses' days from his own. Under these circumstances we are wise to wait for further light from archæology before fixing the precise date of any one of these interesting persons.
There are three additions or appendices to the Book of Judges. The first of them, including chs. 17, 18, tells how the Danites came to live in the extreme north, and the origin of the idolatrous sanctuary at that city of Dan which was reckoned as the northern limit of Canaan — "from Dan to Beer-sheba." The second occupies the three remaining chapters of Judges, and records the civil war between Benjamin and the other tribes on account of "the sin of Gibeah," Hos. 10:9. And the third appendix is the story of Ruth the Moabitess which now makes a separate book in the Bible. Besides its inherent charm the story claims special notice because of the light it throws on that Bethlehem family which was soon to furnish the nation its great king, David.
QUESTIONS ON LESSON VI
- What influences made for the loss of Hebrew unity as soon as Joshua's generation was dead?
- What forces remained to bind the tribes together? Why did not these forces suffice?
- How were the persons selected who ruled Israel in this period? Were they "judges" in the same sense as our judges to-day? What besides?
- What three groups of tribes tended to draw together under common leaders? Tell the exploits of one distinguished judge belonging to each of these groups.
- With what reserve should we use the figures in this book to construct a chronology of the period?
- Point out the relation of the book of Ruth to the closing portion of the Book of Judges. What lends Ruth peculiar historical interest?
