3. The spear and javelin (as the words רמח and חנית are variously rendered in Num. xxv, 7; 1 Sam. xiii, 19, and Jer. xlvi, 4) were of different kinds, according to their length or make. Some of them might be thrown or darted, 1 Sam. xviii, 11; others were a kind of long swords, Num. xxv, 8; and it appears from 2 Sam. ii, 23, that some of them were pointed at both ends. When armies were encamped, the spear of the general or commander-in-chief was stuck into the ground at his head. 4. Slings are enumerated among the military stores collected by Uzziah, 2 Chron. xxvi, 14. In the use of the sling David eminently excelled, and he slew Goliath with a stone from one. The Benjaminites were celebrated in battle because they had attained to great skill and accuracy in handling this weapon; “they could sling stones to a hair’s breadth, and not miss,” Judges xx, 16; and where it is said that they were left-handed, it should rather be rendered _ambidexters_; for we are told they could use “both the right hand and the left,” 1 Chron. xii, 2; that is, they did not constantly use the right hand as others did, when they shot arrows or slung stones; but they were so expert in their military exercises, that they could perform them with their left hand as well as with their right. 5. Bows and arrows are of great antiquity; indeed, no weapon is mentioned so early. Thus Isaac said to Esau, “Take thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow,” Gen. xxvii, 3; though, it is true, these are not spoken of as used in war, but in hunting; and so they are supposed and implied before this, where it is said of Ishmael, that he became an archer, he used bows and arrows in shooting of wild beasts, Gen. xxi, 20. This afterward became so useful a weapon, that care was taken to train up the Hebrew youth to it betimes. When David had, in a solemn manner, lamented the death of King Saul, he gave orders for teaching the young men the use of the bow, 1 Sam. i, 18, that they might be as expert as the Philistines, by whose bows and arrows Saul and his army were slain. These were part of the military ammunition; for in those times bows were used instead of guns, and arrows supplied the place of powder and ball. From the book of Job, xx, 24, it may be collected, that the military bow was made of steel, and consequently was very stiff and hard to bend, on which account they used their foot in bending their bows; and therefore when the prophets speak of _treading the bow_ and of _bows trodden_, they are to be understood of _bows bent_, as our translators rightly render it, Jer. 1, 14; Isa. v, 28; xxi, 15; but the Hebrew word which is used in these places, signifies _to tread upon_. This weapon was thought so necessary in war, that it is there called, “the bow of war,” or the “battle-bow,” Zech. ix, 10; x, 14. ARNON, a river or brook, mentioned Num. xxi, 24, and elsewhere. Its spring head is in the mountains of Gilead, or of the Moabites, and it discharges itself into the Dead Sea.