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WALK- -WALLS.

renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint." (Isai. 40. 30,31.)

Walk is often used in Scripture for conduct in life, or a man's general demeanour and deportment. Thus we are told that Enoch and Noah "walked with God," that is, they maintained a course of action conformed to the will of their Creator, and acceptable in his sight; drawing near to him by public and private devotions, manifesting, by their piety, a constant sense of his presence, and by their purity of life, a reverence for the moral laws which he had established for the guidance of his creatures. In many parts both of the Old and New Testament, we find God promising to walk with his people; and his people, on the other hand, desiring the influence of God's Holy Spirit, that they may walk in his statutes. "To walk in darkness," (John 1. 6,7,) is to be involved in unbelief, and misled by error; 66 to walk in the light," is to be well informed, holy and happy; "to walk by faith," is to expect the things promised or threatened, and to maintain a course of conduct perfectly consistent with such a belief;, "to walk after the flesh," is to gratify the carnal desires,, to yield to the fleshly appetites,, and be obedient to the lusts of the flesh; "to walk after the Spirit," is to pursue spiritual objects, to cultivate spiritual affections,, to be spiritually-minded, which is life and peace..

Walking for the sake of exercise is rarely practised in the East; indeed the indolent Orientals are quite unable to comprehend the conduct of Europeans in walking for mere recreation, without any immediate purpose of business. They attribute this to a spirit of restlessness which they believe to be a kind of curse inflicted upon Christian nations, and in a dispute between Turks, it is not uncommon for one of the parties, as his worst execration, to wish that his opponent should be condemned "to walk like a Frank." Among the females, this dislike of locomotion is carried to a still greater extent, and there is scarcely any epithet which would be more offensive to a Turkish or Persian lady than to be called "a walker." This appears also to have been the case with the Egyptian ladies, for there are but few instances of their being represented on the monuments in walking attitudes. D.

WALLS. In the preceding article we have noticed the dangers to which the peaceful inhabitants of cities were exposed from the sudden incursions of predatory tribes, and shown that ancient Canaan suffered severely from marauders and liers in wait. On this account, the Canaanites took particular care in securing their cities by fortifications and walls, a circumstance which greatly alarmed the spies who were sent to explore the land by Moses, and on which they dwelt very emphatically in the disheartening report which they brought back: "We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it. Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled and very great." (Numb. 13. 27,28.) The earliest walls with which we are acquainted, are built in what is called the Cyclopic style of architecture, that is, they are composed of enormous masses of stone, built up in their rough state, having the interstices filled with smaller blocks, and a rude kind of cement. From the massive Egyptian ruins, and particularly from those of the Memnonium, which we have copied to illustrate this article, it seems probable, that the squaring and preparation of stones for building was practised at a very early age, and it may be reasonably conjectured, that the walls which excited such wonder and terror in the bosoms of the

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| spies must have exhibited some share of artistic skill as well as massive strength. An ancient tradition preserved in the Talmud declares, that the walls of the Canaanites were connected with their temples, so that sanctity might be united with security, and this would account for the elaborate care bestowed upon their construction, and the admiration with which they inspired persons already acquainted with the colossal edifices of Egypt. This view is confirmed by the Scriptural account of the escape of the spies sent to explore Jericho. They lodged, we are informed, in the house of Rahab; now in most idolatrous countries, women such as Rahab was, are engaged in the services of the temples, and the wages of their guilt form a regular and recognised portion of the revenue for the support of idolatry. By residing, then,, in one of the mural temples, Rahab was enabled to let down the spies safely from the walls, and rescue them from the strict search made by the king of Jericho.

The miracle by which the walls of Jericho were thrown down was not merely a signal instance of the Divine Power by which the Israelites were to be assisted in the conquest of Canaan; it was at least in an equal degree, a manifestation of the impotence of dead idols to withstand the wrath of the living God;, and this view of the case explains the reason why the ark of the covenant was commanded to be borne in triumphant circuit round the walls of the devoted city. We may also conclude that it was in consequence of its reliance on its tutelary idols that Joshua pronounced the dreadful cherem, on Jericho. (See art. Vow.)

From the triumphal song of Moses, in which, at the close of the wanderings in the Desert, he recited all the providential mercies which had been shown to the Israelites, we find that, in his time, there were several walled cities in the regions south of Palestine. "The Lord our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we smote him until none was left to him remaining. And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities, all in the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these cities. were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many. And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon, king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city." (Deut. 3. 3-6.)

On account of the importance of the walls, the first care of conquerors who captured a city was to lay them level with the ground, and this greatly aggravated the sufferings of the inhabitants, who not only became the prey of the immediate victors, but were left exposed to the insults of all other spoilers. Hence the sacred historian dwells strongly on this circumstance when describing the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. "In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came Nebuzar-adan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem: and he burnt the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man's house burnt he with fire. And all the army of the Chaldees, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down the walls of Jerusalem round about." (2Kings 25. 8-10.)

During the captivity, the Jews always regarded the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem as equivalent to the restoration of their name and nation, a circumstance which sufficiently explains the great importance attached to that enterprise when it was undertaken by Ezra and Nehemiah.

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Notwithstanding the greater durability of stone and brick, many of the Easterns prefer to build the walls of their houses with mud and brick. Frequent allusions are made to this circumstance both in the Old and New Testament, but the most important are thus enumerated in Dr. Jamieson's edition of PAXTON'S Illustrations of Scripture.

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"In the time of Job, and probably for a long succession of ages, the houses of all ranks in the land of Uz were built of mud; for he charges the adulterer with digging through the walls of his neighbour's house, with the view of gratifying his vile propensities:- In the dark,' said the sorrowful and indignant patriarch, they dig through houses which they had marked for themselves in the day time: they knew not the light.' (Job 24. 16.) These walls of dried clay, when moistened with copious showers, must have been liable to accidents of this kind; and as the walls of Eastern houses are made very thick, in order to shelter the inhabitants more effectually from the oppressive heats, the term digging, as applied to them, is peculiarly expressive.

"The attempt feloniously to enter houses by per'forating the walls, is not confined to the licentious characters alluded to in this passage of Job. It is the common way in which thieves and robbers commit their depredations on such houses as they have marked for their prey. Windows and doors not being easily accessible, midnight plunderers never think of wasting their energies in fruitless endeavours to break into a house, but as the soft and fragile walls of clay admit, with a little labour and perseverance, of a hole being dug in them large enough to introduce the human body, all their ingenuity and efforts are directed towards effecting a silent entrance through these, and thus often, when the inmates awake in the morning, the first intimation they receive of the burglary that has been perpetrated on their house is by a stream of light pouring in through the broken wall. Hence it was in allusion to such practices that Our Lord, when discouraging an inordinate pursuit of earthly things, pointed out the brief and uncertain tenure by which the

most opulent possessors held their treasures, in the following language, to which the experience or knowledge of his hearers must have given a propriety and force that we cannot feel: 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal.' (Matt. 6. 19,20.)

"To prevent these, as well as other accidents of no less frequent occurrence, and even more formidable character, the walls of houses which are composed of clay, or sun-dried bricks, are always built very thick. Great thickness is the more necessary, that owing to the longcontinued droughts of summer, large chinks are often formed, which, where the impetuous floods descend in the rainy season, would frequently occasion, but for this precaution in making them of extraordinary thickness, the complete destruction of the walls, or at least produce great damage. And, indeed, even with all the care that is taken to make their walls of the approved dimensions, nothing is more common in the East than to see walls bulging out in different parts, exhibiting the greatest deformity, and declining so much from the perpendicular, that it is wonderful they stand at all. The knowledge of this very familiar occurrence gives a beautiful propriety to those expressions of Scripture: 'As a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence.' (Psalm 62. 3.) This iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall.' (Isai. 30. 13.)

"The preceding accounts of the frailty of mud-walled houses, and their liability to be dissolved into a heap of rubbish by the descent of the impetuous floods of the East, will serve to explain another passage of Scripture, which, for want of attention to the peculiarities of the region which is the scene of the Book of Job, has been involved in much obscurity:- Behold he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly: how much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed

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before the moth? They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it.' (Job 4. 18-20.) These words form part of the appeal which the midnight apparition addressed to Eliphaz. They contain a very striking contrast between angels and men; and the design of the argument, into which they are introduced, evidently leads us to consider that contrast as extending to all the points of comparison that can be instituted between these two classes of created beings-the exalted nature, intelligence, and purity of the one; and the feebleness, ignorance, and numerous imperfections of the other. The object of the present remarks, which is simply an attempt to give the proper explanation of the passage, confines our view of this contrast exclusively to their comparative durability; and that this also is a point of comparison contemplated in the argument, is obvious from the 19th and 20th verses, in which the frail and transitory nature of man forms the leading idea.

“The ordinary way in which commentators explain these two latter verses is by considering them as clothed in the figurative garb of poetry; by supposing that 'houses of clay' is a term metaphorically put for the human body, and that 'to be crushed before the moth' is an elegant allusion, in the hyperbolical style of Eastern imagery, to the slight, insignificant, and sudden causes, by which that slender frame is frequently dissolved; and no doubt, when we consider that man is 'dust,' that 'unto dust he shall return,' and that his clayey tabernacle is liable to be crushed,' and to fall to pieces, before a thousand accidents of as trivial a kind as the touch of an insect's wing, this common interpretation sufficiently harmonizes with Scripture and experience, to prevent its being rejected without good and substantial reasons. Accordingly it has been supposed by an intelligent traveller to refer to the fatal effects which the moth, in its egg or worm state, is well known to produce in Arabia:—‘A disease,' says he, 'very common in that country, is the attack of the moth-worm, which is supposed to be occasioned by the use of the putrid waters which people are obliged to drink in several parts of Arabia; and for this reason, the natives always filter water, with the nature of which they are unacquainted, through a linen cloth, before drinking it. The disorder is not dangerous, if the person affected can extract the worm without breaking it. With this view, it is rolled on a small bit of wood as it comes out of the skin. It is slender as a thread, and two or three feet long. It gives no pain nor trouble, as it makes its way out of the body, unless what may be occasioned by the care which must be taken of it for some weeks. If unluckily it be broken, it then returns into the body, and the most disagreeable consequences ensue,-palsy, a gangrene, and death.' That the account of this eminent traveller and man of science, however, does not give the true meaning of the passage, appears from this circumstance, that it is totally inapplicable to the 20th verse, which is obviously a continuation of the sentiment of the preceding; for although it is true, that, in the ordinary course of nature, men are passing off the stage of life every hour and every minute of the day, it cannot, except by a very forced construction, be said that they are destroyed from morning to evening; and with as little propriety can it be said, in the great majority of cases, that they perish for ever, without any regarding it.' In order to preserve the harmony and consistency of these two verses, then, it is obviously necessary to resort to a different interpretation of their phraseology; and, admitting as we do, that the frail and short-lived existence of man is the burden of the passage, we think that great force and beauty is imparted to it, by taking the words not in a

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figurative, but a literal sense, and considering them as an allusion to the customs and peculiarities of the place, where the scene of the memorable conference between Job and his friends is laid."

In order to protect these mud-walls from the action of the weather, they were plastered over with a very fine and well-tempered mortar; but should any hole remain unnoticed and uncovered by the plaster, a powerful rain will penetrate it, and probably cause the destruction of the entire building. A similar calamity must be expected when the mortar of which the plaster is composed is badly mixed and tempered. To this the Prophet Ezekiel alludes, in a passage of superior sublimity: "Thus saith the Lord God; Because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the Lord God. And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord God. Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar: say unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it. Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it? Therefore thus saith the Lord God; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it. So will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and upon them that have daubed it with untempered mortar, and will say unto you, The wall is no more, neither they that daubed it; to wit, the prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace, saith the Lord God." (Ezek. 13. 8-16.) Here the Prophet clearly alludes to the weather-coating of plaster, with which the walls of clay were protected, and describes the calamitous consequences of its being so badly tempered as to be unfit to resist the action of storms and tempests.

A similar allusion occurs in the Prophet Amos: "The Lord God hath sworn by himself, saith the Lord the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein. And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die. And a man's uncle shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house, Is there yet any with thee? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord. For, behold, the Lord commandeth, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts." (Amos 6. 8-11.)

From this passage it appears that the palaces of the great, and the cottages of the poor, had their walls constructed of the same fragile materials; they were affected in the same manner by the storm and the tempest; and when the cup of iniquity was full, they were dissolved by the same shower. C.

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WAR. We may define war as an attempt to decide a contest between princes, states, or large bodies of people, by resorting to excessive acts of violence, and compelling claims to be conceded by force." It is probable that the first wars originated in nomade life, and were occasioned by the disputes which arose between wandering tribes for the exclusive possession of pasturage favourable to their flocks and herds. We find that a quarrel arose early between the two divisions of the Hebrews who settled in Canaan, under Abraham and Lot: "The land was not able to bear them that they might dwell together, for their substance was great, that they could not dwell together; and there was a strife between the herdmen of Abraham's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle." (Gen. 13. 7,8.) Hostilities, on this occasion, were averted by the prudence of Abraham; and he exhibited equal discretion when the servants of one of the petty princes of Canaan took possession of a well of water, which of right belonged to the patriarch and his servants. The whole transaction is worthy of notice, as it illustrates the petty causes which led to wars between'nomade tribes, and the small matters which, in the earlier stages of civilization, became the subject of solemn treaties: "Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away. Abimelech said, I wot not who hath done this thing: neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to-day. And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant. And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves? And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well. Wherefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they sware both of them." (Gen. 21. 25-34.)

Tribes which lived by hunting were naturally more warlike than those which led a pastoral life; and the latter, again, were more devoted to war than agricultural races. There was almost a natural source of hostility between these races; the hunters were enraged against the shepherds because they appropriated animals by domestication, and the shepherds equally hated the agriculturists because they appropriated land by tillage, and thus limited the range of pasturage. Hunting also indisposed those who lived by the chase to pursue more toilsome and less exciting occupations; those who thus supported themselves, sought to throw all the burden of manual labour on their wives, their children, and afterwards on persons whom they reduced to slavery. There is a universal tradition in Western Asia, that Nimrod, mentioned in Scripture as "a mighty hunter before the Lord," was the first who engaged in extensive wars for the purpose of obtaining slaves, and that he was also the first who introduced the practice of compelling conquered nations to rescue themselves by the payment of tribute, as a ransom. So early as the days of Abraham, we find that wars were undertaken for the express purpose of obtaining slaves and tribute: Chedorlaomer forced several neighbouring princes, including the king of Sodom, to pay him tribute for twelve years; and when they ceased to submit to this exaction, he invaded their territories for the purpose of reducing the inhabitants to slavery. He succeeded, and carried away a host of captives, amongst whom were Lot and his family; but the prisoners were rescued by Abraham. The twelve sons of Jacob were distinguished not less as warriors than as shepherds; Joseph obtained the land of Goshen for his brethren, from the reigning

Pharaoh of Egypt, on the ground that they were "men of activity," a phrase which, in Scripture, is always employed to designate soldiers; in fact, the Hebrews held their grant of land from the Egyptian Pharaoh by tenure of military service; and that they loyally performed their obligations, appears from an incidental passage in the Book of Chronicles, which states that the grandsons of Joseph not only defended the Egyptian frontiers from the marauding tribes of Syria and Arabia, but carried their own retaliating expeditions to the very gates of the city of Gath. The lost book, quoted by Moses, entitled "The Wars of the Lord," probably contained the history of these expeditions.

The Israelites, after their departure out of Egypt, had to fight almost every step of their way on the road to Canaan, and were engaged in hostilities with nearly every nation with which they came in contact during their forty years of wandering. They were thus well disciplined and trained for their more arduous undertaking, the conquest of Canaan, which God had promised to their father Abraham that he would bestow upon them as an inheritance. Though Joshua had superhuman aid in his arduous task, we find that he did not neglect the ordinary means which Providence had placed in his hands. The ambush by which he succeeded in his attack on Ai, (Josh. 8,) evinced military talent of no common order; and the discipline of the Hebrews must have been not less remarkable than the skill of their general, when they ventured on such a perilous manoeuvre as a pretended retreat in the face of an enemy already flushed by previous victory, without having either chariots or cavalry to conceal their movements. The narrative is so full of instruction that it deserves to be quoted: "Joshua rose up early in the morning, and numbered the people, and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. And all the people, even the people of war that were with him, went up, and drew nigh, and came before the city, and pitched on the north side of Ai: now there was a valley between them and Ai. And he took about five thousand men, and set them to lie in ambush between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of the city. And when they had set the people, even all the host that was on the north of the city, and their liers in wait on the west of the city, Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley. And it came to pass, when the king of Ai saw it, that they hasted and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at a time appointed, before the plain; but he wist not that there were liers in ambush against him behind the city. And Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness. And all the people that were in Ai were called together to pursue after them: and they pursued after Joshua, and were drawn away from the city. And there was not a man left in Ai or Beth-el, that went not out after Israel: and they left the city open, and pursued after Israel. And the Lord said unto Joshua, Stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward Ai; for I will give it into thine hand. And Joshua stretched out the spear that he had in his hand toward the city. And the ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand: and they entered into the city, and took it, and hasted and set the city on fire. And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and, behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to turn this way or that way: and the people that fled to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers. when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended,

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then they turned again, and slew the men of Ai. And the other issued out of the city against them; so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and they smote them, so that they let none of them remain or escape. And the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua. And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword. And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai. For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the Lord which he commanded Joshua. And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day. And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until eventide: and as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcase down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city, and raise thereon a great heap of stones, that remaineth unto this day." (Josh. 8. 10-29.) It is remarkable that in this narrative, which may be received as a fair specimen of all the battles fought by the Hebrews during the conquest of Canaan, we find no mention either of a corps of archers, or of a corps of chariots, though both, as we find from the monuments, were among the principal bodies in the Egyptian armies. Even Joshua himself fought on foot, and signalled commands to his soldiers with his hand or his spear. It was entirely a battle of infantry, fought hand to hand. In such a case, success, humanly speaking, must have mainly depended on individual courage and prowess; consequently the confusion into which the men of Ai were thrown when they saw the flames rising from their city unexpectedly behind them must have been fatal, for all tacticians declare, that it is quite impossible to rally broken infantry, without a line of cavalry or some other temporary defence which may ward off pursuit until the disorder of the ranks is remedied and the lines restored. The severity with which the king and people of Ai were treated must not be wholly attributed to the barbarous customs allowed in ancient warfare; it must be remembered that the Hebrews were commissioned to execute Divine vengeance on the guilty nations of Canaan, whose abominable practices were not merely insulting to the Deity, but perfectly shocking to humanity; their monarchs were merciless tyrants, and undoubtedly they would have treated the Hebrew chiefs with similar rigour had they been successful in the battle.

Under the Judges, the Hebrews fought not for conquest but for independence; their wars were undertaken to assert their liberty by shaking off the yoke of powerful tyrants, who, on account of their iniquities and idolatries, were permitted by Jehovah to hold them in subjection. During this period, the military discipline of the Hebrews became relaxed, and though their enemies, particularly Jabin and Sisera, had chariots of war made of iron, the Israelites do not appear to have organized such a species of force. The victory over Sisera was obtained by the infantry, a circumstance quite sufficient to justify the sacred historian in attributing it to the direct interposition of Omnipotence.

In the wars of Gideon and Jephthah, the sword seems to have been the weapon in the use of which the Hebrew soldiers most excelled; this was probably one of the reasons why they were so often conquered by the

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Philistines, who excelled both in archery and the use of the spear. Saul, the first king of Israel, diligently exerted himself to improve the military discipline of his people. The rapid march by which he delivered the city of Jabesh-Gilead from the Ammonites, was an achievement of great vigour and skill, especially as the policy of the Philistines had left the Israelites all but destitute of weapons of war. His wise policy in forming a kind of standing army (1Sam. 13. 2,) greatly contributed to restore the military art, while the exploits of his gallant son, Jonathan, revived the drooping courage of the people. In the battle on Mount Gilboa, where Jonathan fell bravely fighting, and Saul slew himself with his own sword; the victory of the Philistines is attributed in some degree to the excellence of their archers. "Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in Mount Gilboa. And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchi-shua, Saul's sons. And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers. Then said Saul unto his armour-bearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armour-bearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took his sword and fell upon it. And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him. So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armour-bearer, and all his men, that same day together." (1Sam. 21. 1-6.)

David was the great restorer of the military discipline of the Hebrews, and the monarch under whom they attained the greatest eminence in the art of war. Immediately after Saul's defeat and death, before he was yet recognised as king, he caused the children of Judah to be exercised in the use of the bow, having probably learned the value of that weapon during his exile among the Philistines. This service entitled him to a large share of public gratitude, and it was commemorated in the poetical records of the Hebrew nation preserved in the Book of Jasher. (2Sam. 1. 18.) His victory over the Syrians enabled him to form the nucleus of a corps of chariots, and on that occasion we for the first time read of garrisons being placed in the cities and fortresses of a conquered country. "David smote also Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his border at the river Euphrates. And David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen; and David houghed all the chariot horses, but reserved of them for an hundred chariots. And when the Syrians of Damascus came to succour Hadadezer, king of Zobah, David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men. Then David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus: and the Syrians became servants to David, and brought gifts. And the Lord preserved David whithersoever he went." (2Sam. 8. 3-6.)

Solomon's connexion with Egypt enabled him to procure both chariots and horses from that country; but it is very doubtful whether he ever organized a regular corps of cavalry. Most commentators, indeed, are agreed that the sacred historians generally intended charioteers when they mentioned horsemen. This is evidently the case in the account of the war between Ahab and Benhadad, where the king's escape on a horse is mentioned as a singular and extraordinary event; and where the subsequent mustering of the Syrian host clearly shows that war-horses were used for chariots only. (1 Kings 20. 20-25.) Horsemen, however, appear

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