[400]. 1 Sam. vii. 13, 14. The area of independence, however, must have been very confined, since there was a garrison of the Philistines in ‘the hill of God’ at Gibeah (1 Sam. ix. 5), as well as one at Michmash (1 Sam. xiv. 1).
[401]. There is no reason for doubting the very explicit statement made in 1 Sam. vii. 14, which explains and limits the preceding verse. Its antiquity is vouched for by the concluding words: ‘And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.’ The term ‘Amorite’ instead of ‘Canaanite’ points to an early date, and the sentence reads like an extract from a contemporary chronicle. The peace was an enforced one, as both Israelites and Canaanites alike were under the yoke of the Philistines.
[402]. See 2 Kings xviii. 4.
[403]. 1 Chron. xvi. 39, xxi. 293; 2 Chron. i. 3, 5.
[404]. Is it an inference from 1 Kings iii. 4? That the Chronicler sometimes drew erroneous inferences from his materials, I have shown in The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments, p. 463. It is difficult to understand how ‘fixtures’ like the tabernacle and the altar escaped destruction when the temple at Shiloh was ruined.
[405]. Kirjath-jearim was a Gibeonite town (Josh. ix. 17).
[406]. 1 Sam. ix. 3.
[407]. 1 Sam. viii. 2. Joel is called Vashni in 1 Chron. vi. 28, where the Septuagint reads Sani.
[408]. As has been noticed above (p. [315], note 1), the title of the supreme god of Tyre is evidence that there, too, the state had been originally regarded as a theocracy.
[409]. The name of Saul corresponds with the Babylonian Savul, a title of the Sun-god, though it might also be explained as a Hebrew word meaning ‘asked for.’ But one of the Edomite kings was also named Saul, and he is stated to have come from ‘Rehoboth (Assyrian Rêbit) by the river’ Euphrates (Gen. xxxvi. 37). This points to a Babylonian origin of the name. Kish, Saul’s father, has also the same name as the Edomite god Qos (in Assyrian Qaus), of which the Canaanitish Kishon is a derivative. As Saul’s successors in Edom were Baal-hanan and Hadad, while Hadad was a contemporary of Solomon, and El-hanan is said in 2 Sam. xxi. 19 to have been the slayer of Goliath, I have proposed (The Modern Review, v. 17, 1884) to see in the Saul and Baal-hanan of Edom the Saul and David of Israel. Saul is said to have fought against Edom (1 Sam. xiv. 47), and Doeg the Edomite was his henchman. But the proposal is excluded by two facts. The kings of Edom recorded in Gen. xxxvi. 31-39 reigned ‘before there was any king over the children of Israel,’ and Saul the son of Kish did not come from the Euphrates.