We have been the more careful to collect these fragments of personal history, because it is chiefly from them that the few rays of light are reflected which illustrate the state of society at the era of the Hebrew commonwealth. That the times in which the judges ruled were barbarous and unsettled is rendered manifest, not less by the general tenor of events, than by the qualities which predominated in the public mind during the long period that elapsed between the death of Joshua and the reign of Solomon. These notices also convey to us some degree of information, in regard to the political relations which subsisted among the Syrian tribes prior to the commencement of the regal government at Jerusalem. The wars which were carried on at that remote epoch seem not to have been waged with any view to permanent conquest, or even to territorial aggrandizement, but merely to revenge an insult, to exact a ransom, or to abstract slaves and cattle. The history of the judges supplies no facts which would lead us to infer that during any of tie servitudes, which for their repeated transgressions were inflicted on the Hebrews, their lands were taken from them, or their cities destroyed by their conquerors. It was not till a later age that a more systematic plan of conquest was formed by the powerful princes who governed beyond the Euphrates and on the banks of the Nile, and who, not content with the uncertain submission of tributaries, resolved to reduce the Israelites for ever to the condition of subjects or of bondmen. The account which has been given of the political constitution of the ancient Jews would not be complete were we to omit all notice of the tribe of Levi, the duties and revenues of which were fixed by peculiar laws. It may, perhaps, be thought by some readers, that this institution rested on a basis altogether spiritual; but, upon suitable inquiry, it will be found that the Levitical offices comprehended a great variety of avocations, much more closely connected with secular life than with the ministry of the tabernacle, or with the services which were due to the priesthood. This sacred tribe, indeed, supplied to the whole nation of the Israelites their judges, lawyers, scribes, teachers, and physicians; for Moses, in imitation of the Egyptians, in whose wisdom he was early and deeply instructed, had thought proper to make the learned professions hereditary in the several families of Levi's descendants.