I. No event recorded upon the page of history is more calculated to impress upon our minds the assertion of Solomon, than that to which we have just given our attention: "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong ... for man also knoweth not his time, as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so ere the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them." Nothing could have been more improbable, according to human calculations, than the result of this extraordinary battle. Who that had seen the far-stretching troops of the king of Canaan overspreading, like a vast inundation, the vicinity of Kishon and Harosheth, whose polished armour glittered along the valley to the rising sun, accustomed to victory, breathing revenge, and headed by the most distinguished general of the age--who that had viewed their prodigious forces, consisting of infantry and cavalry, in contrast with the diminutive strength and contemptible numbers of the Israelitish army, but must have considered the attack as the feeble effort of an unaccountable infatuation? But though HE who "sitteth upon the circle of the earth," could have interposed at once to crush the foe by the thunder of his power, ten thousand men of Israel were appointed to execute his purpose against the devoted Canaanites, to show that it is his will to work by human means;--he required the employment of _only_ ten thousand, to prove that all human skill and success is mere instrumentality, and that the honour of victory is to be attributed to the God of battles.