After Joshua and Othniel the history of most of the Judges is connected with that of Ephraim. Ehud is a Benjamite—the Ephraimitic ‘Southerner’; Shamgar is referred to in the Song of Deborah;[369] Deborah herself dwelt near ‘Beth-el in Mount Ephraim’; between Ephraim and Jerubbaal, who reigned on the Ephraimitic frontier, there was smothered hostility, which burst into open war in the case of Jephthah; Tola was buried in ‘Shamir in Mount Ephraim’; Abdon was an Ephraimite; while Ibzan and Elon came from adjoining tribes. Jair the Manassite, and Samson from ‘the camp of Dan,’ are the sole exceptions to the rule. What else can this mean except that such annals as survived the stormy age of the Judges were preserved amid the fastnesses of Mount Ephraim? The scribes of early Israel were not confined to Zebulon, and as in Babylonia or Egypt, so also in Palestine, the temple was the seat of the library. In the sanctuary at Shiloh the written records of the country would have found a safe harbourage along with the tables of the Law and the other monuments of the Mosaic age.[370] The lifetime of Samuel separated the age of the Judges from that of the Kings. It marked the transition from a period of anarchy and disunion to one of order and organised unity under a single head. But never had the fortunes of Israel seemed so desperate. Disunited, with its former leader, Ephraim, disabled and half-exterminated through civil war, it had become the prey of a foreign enemy. The Philistines were no longer content with raiding expeditions. They now occupied the districts they overran, and built forts to secure the passes that led into the very heart of the Israelitish territory.[371] Their supremacy extended from one end of Palestine to another, and so gave a name to the country which it never afterwards lost. The tribes were reduced to a condition of serfdom; they ceased to be free men who could go forth with arms in their hands to fight their foes; and were compelled, as in the subsequent days of Chaldæan domination, to confine themselves to tilling the soil. The wandering smiths, the Kenite gypsies, were driven from the land; the Israelite was deprived of all warlike weapons, and was forced to go to the nearest Philistine post if he wished merely to sharpen his implements of agriculture. The sons of Jacob had almost ceased to be a nation.