This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[160]
When therefore they had divided the army into two parts, they laid
the one half of them in ambush about the city Gibeah by night, while the
other half attacked the Benjamites, who retiring upon the assault, the
Benjamites pursued them, while the Hebrews retired by slow degrees, as
very desirous to draw them entirely from the city; and the other followed
them as they retired, till both the old men and the young men that were
left in the city, as too weak to fight, came running out together with
them, as willing to bring their enemies under. However, when they were
a great way from the city the Hebrews ran away no longer, but turned back
to fight them, and lifted up the signal they had agreed on to those that
lay in ambush, who rose up, and with a great noise fell upon the enemy.
Now, as soon as ever they perceived themselves to be deceived, they knew
not what to do; and when they were driven into a certain hollow place which
was in a valley, they were shot at by those that encompassed them, till
they were all destroyed, excepting six hundred, which formed themselves
into a close body of men, and forced their passage through the midst of
their enemies, and fled to the neighboring mountains, and, seizing upon
them, remained there; but the rest of them, being about twenty-five thousand,
were slain. Then did the Israelites burn Gibeah, and slew the women, and
the males that were under age; and did the same also to the other cities
of the Benjamites; and, indeed, they were enraged to that degree, that
they sent twelve thousand men out of the army, and gave them orders to
destroy Jabesh Gilead, because it did not join with them in fighting against
the Benjamites. Accordingly, those that were sent slew the men of war,
with their children and wives, excepting four hundred virgins. To such
a degree had they proceeded in their anger, because they not only had the
suffering of the Levite's wife to avenge, but the slaughter of their own
soldiers.
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.