Then Debbora and Barac sang this canticle to the Lord :

THE SONG OF DEBBORA.

O you of Israel, that have willingly offered your lives to danger, bless the Lord.

Hear, O ye kings, give ear, ye princes: It is I, it is I, that will sing to the Lord, I will sing to the Lord the God of Israel.

The valiant men ceased and rested in Israel until I arose: until Debbora arose a mother in Israel.

The Lord chose new wars, and He Himself overthrew the gates of the enemies: a shield and spear was not seen among forty thousand of Israel.

My heart loveth the princes of Israel: O you that of your own good will offered yourselves to danger, bless the Lord.

Galaad rested beyond the Jordan, and Dan applied himself to ships; Asser dwelt on the sea shore, and abode in the havens.

But Zabulon and Nepthali offered their lives to death in the region of Merome.

The kings came and fought; the kings of Canaan fought in Tanach, by the waters of Mageddo, and yet they took no spoils.

War from heaven was made against them, the stars remaining in their order fought against Sisara.

because they came not to the help of the Lord, to help his most valiant men.

Blessed among women be Jahel the wife of Haber the Cinite, and blessed be she in her tent. He asked her water and she gave him milk, and offered him butter in a dish fit for princes.

She put her left hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer, and she struck Sisara, seeking in his head a place for the wound, and strongly piercing through his temples.

At her feet he fell: he fainted, and he died: he rolled before her feet, and he lay lifeless and wretched.

His mother looked out at a window, and howled and she spoke from the dining-room: Why is his chariot so long in coming back? Why are the feet of his horses so slow?

One that was wiser than the rest of his wives, returned this answer to her mother-inlaw:

Perhaps he is now dividing the spoils, and the fairest of the women is chosen out for him: garments of divers colours are given to Sisara for his prey, and furniture of different kinds is heaped together to adorn the necks.

So let all thy enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love thee shine, as the sun shineth in his rising.

§ 50. Gedeon.

The land had now rest for forty years; and as the memory of the victory died away, the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. And the Lord delivered them into the hands of their old enemies, the Madianites. When the fields were sown, Madian and Amalec, and other tribes from the east, came up and filled the whole country like locusts with the multitude of their camels and men, wasting whatever they touched, and leaving nothing at all in Israel for the sustenance of life. The people suffered grievously, and had to make themselves dens and caves in the

mountains, and strongholds to resist. Israel was thus humbled exceedingly in the sight of Madian, and they cried to the Lord for help against the Madianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to Gedeon as he

GEDEON DESTROYS THE ALTAR AND GROVE OF BAAL.

was thrashing wheat by his father's wine-press, and said: "The Lord is with thee, O most valiant of men." Gedeon answered: "If the Lord be with us, why have these evils fallen upon us? Where are His

miracles which our fathers have told us of, saying: 'The Lord brought us up out of Egypt'? but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of Madian." The same night the angel appeared to him, and commanded him to destroy the grove and altar of Baal. Gedeon, fearing to do this by day, did it all early in the morning.

When the men of the town saw the altar destroyed and the grove cut down, they said one to another: "Who hath done this?" and when they were told that it was Gedeon, the son of Joas, they came to Joas and said: "Bring out thy son that he may die, for he hath destroyed the altar of Baal, and hath cut down his grove. Joas answered: "Are you the avengers of Baal, that you fight for him? If he be a god, let him revenge himself on him that hath cast down his altar."

From this day the spirit of the Lord came upon Gedeon, and he sounded a trumpet, and sent messengers to the tribes of Aser, Zabulon, and Nepthali to follow him. Gedeon asked a sign, and said to God: "If Thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as Thou hast said, I will put this fleece of wool on the floor, and if there be dew upon the fleece only, and it be dry on all the ground beside, I shall know that by my hand, as Thou hast said, Thou wilt deliver Israel." It was so. And rising before day, he wrung the fleece and filled a vessel with the dew. On the following night Gedeon prayed that the fleece only might be dry and all the ground wet with dew; and it was so.

Gedeon on the strength of these signs proceeded

THE SIGN OF THE FLEECE.

225

to the fight. But God came to him and instructed him to reduce his followers to the number of three hundred. In the evening before the battle, Gedeon and his servant stole in disguise into the camp of

Madian, and there he heard a Madianite relate to his

EXPLANATION OF THE TYPE OF GEDEON.-The fleece of Gedeon is referred to as a type of the Blessed Virgin in the vespers of the Circumcision, "When Thou wast born in an unspeakable manner from a Virgin, the Scriptures were fulfilled. Thou camest down as the dew into the fleece; We praise Thee, O our God."

comrade, saying: "I dreamt a dream, and it seemed to me as if a hearth-cake of barley bread rolled and came down into the camp of Madian, and when it was come to a tent it struck it and beat it down flat to the ground." He to whom he spoke answered: "This is nothing else but the sword of Gedeon, the son of Joas, a man of Israel." When Gedeon heard this he adored, and returned to the camp of Israel, and said: "Arise, for the Lord hath delivered the camp of Madian into our hands."

Gedeon attacked the Madianite camp the same night. The Madianites were seized with a panic and fled, and their overthrow was complete.

§ 51. A Usurper punished.

Gedeon died in a good old age; and the children of Israel again did evil, and made a covenant with Baal that he should be their god. Abimelech, a younger son of Gedeon, related by his mother's side to the people of Sichem, came to Sichem and made interest with the inhabitants to be chosen their king. They were won by him, and gave him a sum of money from the treasury of their temple Baalberith, with which he hired a company of men who were needy and vagabonds to follow him. With these followers, he came down upon his father's house, and slew seventy men of his brethren the sons of Gedeon upon one stone; Joatham the younger brother alone escaping.

As the men of Sichem after this were assembled under the oak tree that stood in Sichem, engaged in