[350]. Judg. vi. 24, viii. 27.
[351]. See Judg. ix. 1, 28.
[352]. 2 Sam. xx. 14. The reading of the latter passage, however, is not certain.
[353]. See Judg. ix. 41. Verse 31 should be translated, Zebul ‘sent messengers unto Abimelech to Arumah.’
[354]. The name of Jobaal, ‘Yahveh is Baal,’ has been preserved in the Septuagint. Its signification has caused it to be omitted in the Massoretic text where we have only ben-’ebed, ‘the son of a slave,’ corresponding to the expression ‘son of a nobody,’ which we meet with in the Assyrian inscriptions.
[355]. It is here called the Migdal Shechem or ‘Tower of Shechem,’ but seems to have been the same as the Millo of v. 6. The fort would have stood in the same relation to Shechem that the ‘stronghold of Zion’ taken by David stood to Jerusalem. It was probably built just outside the walls of the town. We may compare also the ‘Millo’ constructed by Solomon to defend his palace and the temple (1 Kings ix. 15).
[356]. See 2 Sam. xi. 21.
[357]. See Judg. x. 11, 12. All records of the wars with the Zidonians and the Maonites have perished. Perhaps Professor Hommel is right in identifying the Maonites with the people of Ma’ân in Southern Arabia, whose power waned before the rise of that of Sheba, and extended to the frontiers of Palestine (Aufsätze und Abhandlungen sur Kunde der Sprachen, Literaturen und der Geschichte des vorderen Orients, pp. 2, 47).
[358]. Numb. xxvi. 23, 26.
[359]. Had the southern Beth-lehem been meant, it would have been called, as elsewhere in the book of Judges, Beth-lehem-Judah.