2. But the affairs of the Canaanites were at this time in a flourishing
condition, and they expected the Israelites with a great army at the
city Bezek, having put the government into the hands of Adonibezek,
which name denotes the Lord of Bezek, for Adoni in the Hebrew tongue
signifies Lord. Now they hoped to have been too hard for the Israelites,
because Joshua was dead; but when the Israelites had joined battle with
them, I mean the two tribes before mentioned, they fought gloriously,
and slew above ten thousand of them, and put the rest to flight; and in
the pursuit they took Adonibezek, who, when his fingers and toes were
cut off by them, said, "Nay, indeed, I was not always to lie concealed
from God, as I find by what I now endure, while I have not been ashamed
to do the same to seventy-two kings." 11 So they carried him alive as
far as Jerusalem; and when he was dead, they buried him in the earth,
and went on still in taking the cities: and when they had taken the
greatest part of them, they besieged Jerusalem; and when they had taken
the lower city, which was not under a considerable time, they slew all
the inhabitants; but the upper city was not to be taken without great
difficulty, through the strength of its walls, and the nature of the
place.
3. For which reason they removed their camp to Hebron; and when they had
taken it, they slew all the inhabitants. There were till then left the
race of giants, who had bodies so large, and countenances so entirely
different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight, and
terrible to the hearing. The bones of these men are still shown to this
very day, unlike to any credible relations of other men. Now they gave
this city to the Levites as an extraordinary reward, with the suburbs of
two thousand cities; but the land thereto belonging they gave as a free
gift to Caleb, according to the injunctions of Moses. This Caleb was one
of the spies which Moses sent into the land of Canaan. They also gave
land for habitation to the posterity of Jethro, the Midianite, who was
the father-in-law to Moses; for they had left their own country, and
followed them, and accompanied them in the wilderness.
4. Now the tribes of Judah and Simeon took the cities which were in the
mountainous part of Canaan, as also Askelon and Ashdod, of those that
lay near the sea; but Gaza and Ekron escaped them, for they, lying in a
flat country, and having a great number of chariots, sorely galled those
that attacked them. So these tribes, when they were grown very rich by
this war, retired to their own cities, and laid aside their weapons of
war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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