And yet there was another side to the picture. While Zebulon and Naphtali were hazarding ‘their lives unto the death’ ‘on behalf of Yahveh,’ there were tribes and cities which forgot their duty to their God and their brethren, and ‘came not to the help of the Lord.’ Such was the case with the inhabitants of Meroz; such, too, was the conduct of Reuben and Gilead, of Dan and Asher. The description given by the compiler of the Book of Judges of the condition of the tribes after the death of Joshua cannot be far from the truth. They were planted in the midst of enemies whom they had found too strong to be destroyed or driven out. On all sides of them were ‘the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hittites that dwelt in Mount Lebanon from Mount Baal-Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath.’[279] ‘And the children of Israel,’ we are told, dwelt among them, and ‘took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Ashêrahs.’[280] Even more expressive are the words with which the Book of Judges ends: ‘In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes.’ It was an age of individual lawlessness; the bands of society were unloosed, and none was strong enough to lead and control. Outside the influence of the representatives of the Mosaic law there was neither curb nor order.