[280]. Judg. iii. 6, 7.
[281]. As Israel was theoretically considered to be divided into twelve tribes, there is no reason for doubting the cypher, even though there were not actually twelve tribes at the time in Canaan, and one of tribes, Benjamin, can hardly have had a piece sent to it. The text carefully avoids saying that the pieces were sent to each of the tribes. In chap. xx. 2, the word ‘all’ is used in that restricted sense to which western students of Oriental history have to accustom themselves, since one at least of the tribes, Benjamin, was absent.
[282]. The value of modern philological criticism of the Old Testament may be judged from the fact that Stade pronounces the narrative of the war against Benjamin to be unhistorical, because the first king of Israel was a Benjamite! (Geschichte des Volkes Israel, p. 161).
[283]. Judg. xviii. 12, 13, where it is said to be ‘behind’ or west of Kirjath-jearim. In xiii. 25 the Camp of Dan is placed between Zorah and Eshtaol, which were west of Kirjath-jearim. See G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. 220, 221.
[284]. We hear on other occasions of a regiment of six hundred men among the Israelites (Judg. xx. 47; 1 Sam. xiii. 15, xxiii. 13), and it would seem, therefore, that in the division of the troops a memory of the culture of Babylonia was preserved. Six hundred men represented the Babylonian ner.
[285]. Judg. xviii. 30. ‘The captivity of the land’ is of course that described in 2 Kings xv. 29, and shows that the compilation of the Book of Judges must be subsequent to the conquest of Northern and Eastern Israel by Tiglath-pileser.
[286]. Kennicott, Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum, i. p. 509. ‘Moses’ is also the reading of the Vulgate and a few Greek MSS.
[287]. See 1 Kings viii. 9. The addition of the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ix. 4) is due to a misunderstanding of Ex. xvi. 33, 34, and Numb. xvii. 10.
[288]. The identity of Mitanni and Nahrina is stated in one of the Tel el-Amarna letters (W. and A. 23) from Mitanni, a hieratic docket attached to it stating that it came from Nahrina. In one place, however (W. and A. 79. 13, 14), the Phœnician governor Rib-Hadad seems to distinguish between ‘the king of Mittani and the king of Nahrina,’ though the passage may also be translated, ‘the king of Mittani, that is, the king of Nahrina.’ Ilu-rabi-Khur of Gebal (W. and A. 91. 32) writes the name Narima, and says that the king of Narima in alliance with the king of the Hittites was destroying the Egyptian cities of Northern Syria.
[289]. W. and A. 104. 32-35. Comp. Numb. xxiv. 24, where Assyria and Eber take the place of Babylonia and Nahrima. The translation given above is from a corrected copy of the cuneiform text.