10 DANIEL WILSON ON THE RIGHT 
handed messenger, in this case, was, it may be presumed, that as he put forth his left 
hand to take the dagger from his right side, the motion would not excite suspicion. But 
also, as we learn from a later chapter, a body of seven hundred chosen marksmen, all 
left-handed, were selected from the same tribe for their preéminent skill. “Everyone 
could sling stones at a hair breadth and not miss.” Nevertheless the relative numbers 
are not such as to suggest that left-handedness was more common among the tribe of Ben- 
jamin than in others of the tribes. Of twenty-six thousand Benjamites that drew the 
sword, there were the seven hundred left-handed slingers ; or barely 2.7 per cent. ; which 
does not greatly differ from the proportion noted at the present time. In the song of 
triumph for the avenging of Israel over the Canaanites, in the same “ Book of Judges,” 
the deed of vengeance by which Sisera, the Captain of the host of Jabin, King of Canaan, 
perished by the hand of a woman, is thus celebrated :—‘She put her hand to the nail, and 
her right hand to the workman’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera.” 
Here, as we see, while their deliverer from the oppression of the Moabites is noted as a 
Benjamite, a left-handed man ; Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, is blessed above women, 
who with her right hand smote the enemy of God and her people. Along with those 
references may be noted one of a later date, recorded in the first “ Book of Chronicles.” 
When David was in hiding from Saul, at Ziklag, there came to him a company of Saul’s 
bretheren of Benjamin, mighty men, armed with bows, who could use both the right 
hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow. These latter, it 
will be observed, are noted not as left-handed, but ambidextrous ; but this is characteristic 
of all left-handed persons; though even amongst them the unwonted facility with both 
hands rarely, if ever, entirely supersedes the greater dexterity of the left hand. Possibly 
the patronymic of the tribe gave significance to such deviations from normal usage; but 
either for this, or some unnoted reason, the descendants of Benjamin, the Son of the Right 
Hand, appear to have obtained notoriety for exceptional aptitude in the use of either hand. 
So far it is manifest that the preferential use of one hand specially designated by a 
term that came to be associated with honour, dignity and trust, was common to many 
ancient people; and is perpetuated in the languages both of civilised and savage races. 
But this suggests another inquiry of important significance in the determination of the 
results. The application of the Latin dexter to “ right-handedness” specifically, as well as 
to general dexterity in its more comprehensive sense, points, like the record of the old 
Benjamites, to the habitual use of one hand in preference to the other; but does it neces- 
sarily imply that their “right hand” was the one on that side which we now concur in 
calling dexter or right? In the exigencies of war or the chase, and still more in many of 
the daily requirements of civilised life, it is necessary that there should be no hesitation 
as to which hand shall be used. Promptness and dexterity depend on this, and no hesi- 
tation is felt. But, still further, in many cases of combined action, it is needful that the 
hand so used shall be the same ; and wherever such a conformity of practice is recognised 
the hand so used, whichever it be, is that on which dexterity depends, and becomes practi- 
cally the right hand. The term yamin, “the right hand,” already noted as the root of the 
proper name, Benjamin, and of the tribe thus curiously distinguished for its left-handed 
warriors and skilled marksmen, is derived from the verb yaman, to be firm, to be faithful, 
as the right hand is given as a pledge of fidelity, e. g., “ The Lord hath sworn by his right 
hand” (Isaiah, Ixii. 8). So in the Arabic form, bimin Allah, by the right hand of Allah. 
