Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:
book:
whiston chapter:
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
Table of Contents:
book 1
book 2
book 3
book 6
book 7
book 8
book 10
book 12
book 13
book 14
book 15
book 16
book 18
[243]
Now there was one Zebul, a magistrate of the Shechemites, that had
entertained Abimelech. He sent messengers, and informed him how much Gaal
had irritated the people against him, and excited him to lay ambushes before
the city, for that he would persuade Gaal to go out against him, which
would leave it in his power to be revenged on him; and when that was once
done, he would bring him to be reconciled to the city. So Abimelech laid
ambushes, and himself lay with them. Now Gaal abode in the suburbs, taking
little care of himself; and Zebul was with him. Now as Gaal saw the armed
men coming on, he said to Zebul, That some armed men were coming; but the
other replied, They were only shadows of huge stones: and when they were
come nearer, Gaal perceived what was the reality, and said, They were not
shadows, but men lying in ambush. Then said Zebul, "Didst not thou
reproach Abimelech for cowardice? why dost thou not then show how very
courageous thou art thyself, and go and fight him?" So Gaal, being
in disorder, joined battle with Abimelech, and some of his men fell; whereupon
he fled into the city, and took his men with him. But Zebul managed his
matters so in the city, that he procured them to expel Gaal out of the
city, and this by accusing him of cowardice in this action with the soldiers
of Ahimelech. But Abimelech, when he had learned that the Shechemites were
again coming out to gather their grapes, placed ambushes before the city,
and when they were coming out, the third part of his army took possession
of the gates, to hinder the citizens from returning in again, while the
rest pursued those that were scattered abroad, and so there was slaughter
every where; and when he had overthrown the city to the very foundations,
for it was not able to bear a siege, and had sown its ruins with salt,
he proceeded on with his army till all the Shechemites were slain. As for
those that were scattered about the country, and so escaped the danger,
they were gathered together unto a certain strong rock, and settled themselves
upon it, and prepared to build a wall about it: and when Abimelech knew
their intentions, he prevented them, and came upon them with his forces,
and laid faggots of dry wood round the place, he himself bringing some
of them, and by his example encouraging the soldiers to do the same. And
when the rock was encompassed round about with these faggots, they set
them on fire, and threw in whatsoever by nature caught fire the most easily:
so a mighty flame was raised, and nobody could fly away from the rock,
but every man perished, with their wives and children, in all about fifteen
hundred men, and the rest were a great number also. And such was the calamity
which fell upon the Shechemites; and men's grief on their account had been
greater than it was, had they not brought so much mischief on a person
who had so well deserved of them, and had they not themselves esteemed
this as a punishment for the same.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.
show
Browse Bar
hide
Places (automatically extracted)
View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.
Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.
hide
Search
hideStable Identifiers
hide
Display Preferences