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 (5) 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.

3. So the Philistines, after this stroke, made no more