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[150]
Upon this the people were greatly disturbed at what they saw,
and at what they heard, as never having had the experience of such
a thing before; so they gathered themselves to Shiloh, out of a prodigious
and a just anger, and assembling in a great congregation before the tabernacle,
they immediately resolved to take arms, and to treat the inhabitants of
Gibeah as enemies; but the senate restrained them from doing so, and persuaded
them, that they ought not so hastily to make war upon people of the same
nation with them, before they discoursed them by words concerning the accusation
laid against them; it being part of their law, that they should not bring
an army against foreigners themselves, when they appear to have been injurious,
without sending an ambassage first, and trying thereby whether they will
repent or not: and accordingly they exhorted them to do what they ought
to do in obedience to their laws, that is, to send to the inhabitants of
Gibeah, to know whether they would deliver up the offenders to them, and
if they deliver them up, to rest satisfied with the punishment of those
offenders; but if they despised the message that was sent them, to punish
them by taking, up arms against them. Accordingly they sent to the inhabitants
of Gibeah, and accused the young men of the crimes committed in the affair
of the Levite's wife, and required of them those that had done what was
contrary to the law, that they might be punished, as having justly deserved
to die for what they had done; but the inhabitants of Gibeah would not
deliver up the young men, and thought it too reproachful to them, out of
fear of war, to submit to other men's demands upon them; vaunting themselves
to be no way inferior to any in war, neither in their number nor in courage.
The rest of their tribe were also making great preparation for war, for
they were so insolently mad as also to resolve to repel force by force.
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