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[23]
This their assembly did not escape the notice of the Philistines:
so when they had learned that so large a company had met together, they
fell upon the Hebrews with a great army and mighty forces, as hoping to
assault them when they did not expect it, nor were prepared for it. This
thing affrighted the Hebrews, and put them into disorder and terror; so
they came running to Samuel, and said that their souls were sunk by their
fears, and by the former defeat they had received, and "that thence
it was that we lay still, lest we should excite the power of our enemies
against us. Now while thou hast brought us hither to offer up our prayers
and sacrifices, and take oaths [to be obedient], our enemies are making
an expedition against us, while we are naked and unarmed; wherefore we
have no other hope of deliverance but that by thy means, and by the assistance
God shall afford us upon thy prayers to him, we shall obtain deliverance
from the Philistines." Hereupon Samuel bade them be of good cheer,
and promised them that God would assist them; and taking a sucking lamb,
he sacrificed it for the multitude, and besought God to hold his protecting
hand over them when they should fight with the Philistines, and not to
overlook them, nor suffer them to come under a second misfortune. Accordingly
God hearkened to his prayers, and accepting their sacrifice with a gracious
intention, and such as was disposed to assist them, he granted them victory
and power over their enemies. Now while the altar had the sacrifice of
God upon it, and had not yet consumed it wholly by its sacred fire, the
enemy's army marched out of their camp, and was put in order of battle,
and this in hope that they should be conquerors, since the Jews 1
were caught in distressed circumstances, as neither having their weapons
with them, nor being assembled there in order to fight. But things so fell
out, that they would hardly have been credited though they had been foretold
by anybody: for, in the first place, God disturbed their enemies with an
earthquake, and moved the ground under them to such a degree, that he caused
it to tremble, and made them to shake, insomuch that by its trembling,
he made some unable to keep their feet, and made them fall down, and by
opening its chasms, he caused that others should be hurried down into them;
after which he caused such a noise of thunder to come among them, and made
fiery lightning shine so terribly round about them, that it was ready to
burn their faces; and he so suddenly shook their weapons out of their hands,
that he made them fly and return home naked. So Samuel with the multitude
pursued them to Bethcar, a place so called; and there he set up a stone
as a boundary of their victory and their enemies' flight, and called it
the Stone of Power, as a signal of that power God had given them
against their enemies.
1 This is the first place, so far as I remember, in these Antiquities, where Josephus begins to call his nation Jews, he having hitherto usually, if not constantly, called them either Hebrews or Israelites. The second place soon follows; see also ch. 3. sect. 5.
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