the national God, but there was little that was ethical in the
religion of the period. Jephthah offers his child in sacrifice. Jael
is praised for a murder which was a breach of the common Semitic law
of hospitality. By revealing, however, so candidly the meagre
beginnings of Israel's religion, the book of Judges only increases
our sense of the miracle which brought that religion to its
incomparable consummation in the fulness of the times.
[Footnote 1: The song is not necessarily and not probably composed
by Deborah. In v. 12 she is addressed in the 2nd person, and
_v_. 7 may be similarly read, "Till _thou_, Deborah, didst
arise."]




SAMUEL


Alike from the literary and the historical point of view, the
book[1] of Samuel stands midway between the book of Judges and the
book of Kings. As we have already seen, the Deuteronomic book of
Judges in all probability ran into Samuel and ended in ch. xii.;
while the story of David, begun in Samuel, embraces the first two
chapters of the first book of Kings. The book of Samuel is not very
happily named, as much of it is devoted to Saul and the greater part
to David; yet it is not altogether inappropriate, as Samuel had much
to do with the founding of the monarchy. The Jewish tradition that
Samuel was the author of the book is, of course, a palpable fiction,
as the story is carried beyond his death.
[Footnote 1: Two books in the Greek translation, as in modern