do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee; deliver us only, we pray thee, this day." They cast away their strange gods. They returned to the worship of Jehovah, and in the strong language of Scripture, his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel. He once more had compassion on them, and deliverance was at hand.

Repenting sinner, hesitate not to return to God. Let not thy past transgressions, however enormous, deter thee. The blood of Christ can cleanse from all sin. God waits to be gracious Believe and be saved.

CHAPTER XVI.

Jephthah is raised up to deliver the Israelites. His remonstrance with their enemies.

The time of deliverance for the Israelites was the time of their greatest danger. The Ammonites, a powerful people dwelling east of their territory, had assembled an army in Gilead, and were preparing to wage a new war against them. They felt the necessity of making a vigorous re

sistance. Should they fail in the struggle, nothing but extermination, or the most abject submission was before them. Summoning together their forces, they encamped in Mizpeh, a city on the east side of the Jordan, within the half-tribe of Manasseh, there to adopt such measures as might be deemed expedient in such an emergency.

While in this situation, the people and princes of Gilead held a consultation, to ascertain what competent person would be willing to lead out the Israelites, and meet their enemies in battle "What man is he," they said, "that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? he shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead."

The commander whom they needed appeared. It was JEPHTHAH, the son of Gilead, and probably of the tribe of Manasseh beyond the Jordan. His mother, a woman of doubtful character, was not an Israelite, but belonged to some one of the heathen nations. Gilead's other sons, by his lawful wife, had a strong dislike to Jephthah; and when they grew up caused him to be thrust out of his father's house, reproaching him with his base descent, and protesting that he should never have any share of the inheritance. He fled from their persecution, and took refuge in the land of Tob in the vicinity of Gilead. Here he became the leader of a band of lawless men, with whom he made incursions into the neighboring coun

tries of a predatory kind, retaliating upon the enemies of the Israelites, and acquiring the reputation of a brave and enterprising chieftain.

Such was the individual to whom the people of Gilead sent their chief men, to invite him to be at the head of their forces in resisting the Ammonites. His reply contained a cutting reproof; and shows that, in some way, the elders of Gilead had been concerned with his brethren in the treatment he had received. "Did not ye hate me," said he, "and expel me out of my father's house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress ?"

On their acknowledging that they had done wrong, and declaring that, with very different feelings from those which they formerly entertained, they now turned to him as their only leader against their enemies, and the head of their people, Jephthah inquired whether they would indeed pledge themselves that he should hold this station if he proved victorious. "The Lord be witness between us," was their answer, "if we do not so according to thy words."

Jephthah yielded to their wishes, and went with them to the encampment at Mizpeh, where the whole assembly of the people made him their "head and captain;" the engagement entered into between him and the elders being ratified in a solemn and religious manner.

Before commencing hostilities, however, against the Ammonites, he sent messengers to their king to inquire why it was that they meditated war against the Israelites, seeming desirous, in this, to open the way for peace between the two nations, or if the former rejected the overture, to make it appear that they were wholly in the wrong, and thus inspire his army with confidence in their cause, and the strongest hopes of success.

The king of the Ammonites,-and, as it would appear, holding sway over the Moabites also at this time, told the messengers that the cause of the war was the despoiling of their lands by the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt; and he demanded that the territory which was then taken from them should immediately be restored. The charge was a groundless one. It related, too, to transactions which took place three hundred years before; showing what an expedient had to be adopted at that late period of time, to give, if possible, some pretence of right to the course that was pursued.

On receiving this communication, Jephthah sent another message to the king of Ammon, denying the charge which he brought against the Israelites, and showing how they had conducted on their march to the promised land. Being denied a passage in a peaceable manner, through

the territories of Edom and Moab, they had gone round these countries without any attack upon the inhabitants; but meeting not only with a similar refusal from Sihon the king of the Amorites, but with open hostility on his part, they had cut off him and his forces, and taken possession of his lands. These lands might, indeed, have once belonged to the Ammonites, or Moabites, and been wrested from them by the Amorites ; but this had all taken place before the people of Israel thus obtained them by conquest under the direction and with the aid of the Almighty, who himself made a special grant of them to his people. No title, therefore, could be clearer than theirs. For as the king of Ammon maintained that he held his territory by gift from his god Chemosh, "so," said Jephthah, "whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess." "And now art thou any thing better," continued he, "than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them, while Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that be along by the coasts of Arnon, three hundred years? Why, therefore, did ye not recover them within that time?" So that Jephthah had, indeed, as he thus stated, the most substantial reasons to offer against the claim made by the