[715] "Fanfaronnade, qui veut dire; je réduirai cette bicoque en poussière; j'ai avee moi plus de monde qu'il ne faudra pour l'emporter tout entière" (Reuss). Comp. Herod., viii. 226, where Dieneces answers the braggart vaunt of the Medes.
[716] Reuss renders it, "Ceignant n'est pas encore gaignant." The proverb resembles in different aspects the precept of Solon, τέρμα ὁρᾶν βιότοιο, and "Praise a fair day at night"; and the Italian, "Capo ha cosa fatta"; and the Latin, "Ne triumphum canas ante victoriam"; and the French, "Il ne faut pas vendre le peau de l'ours avant de l'avoir tué."
[717] A.V., "pavilions"; but the word (sukkoth) implies that they were temporary booths rather than tents. They resembled the birchwood pavilions made for the Turkish pachas in campaigns (Keil).
[718] A.V., "Set yourselves in array." LXX., οἰκοδομήσατε χάρακα; Vulg., circumdate civitatem.
[719] Now in the British Museum.
[720] 1 Kings xx. 14 (נַעָרִים).
[721] Jarchi—more Rabbinico—says that these were the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal.
[722] 1 Kings xx. 20, LXX., καὶ ἐδευτέρωσεν ἒκαστος τὸν παῤ αὐτοῦ.
[723] Or, "pell-mell." The Hebrew in 1 Kings xx. 20 is, עַל־סוּס וּפָרָשִׁים, "on a horse with (some) horsemen." Klostermann would supply הוּא. Jonathan takes וּפָרָשִׁים as a dual—"and two riders with him"; LXX., ἐφ' ἵππων ἱππέων; Vulg., in equo cum equitibus suis; Luther, "sammt Rossen und Reitern."
[724] See 2 Sam. xi. 1. The custom of all countries in the ancient world was to devote the summer months only to campaigns. There were few or no standing armies, and the citizen-conscripts had to look after their farms, or the nation would have starved. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians introduced a gradual revolution in these respects.