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to the iurisdiction of Ehud, who had delivered Israel Irom 

 the dominion of Eglon, and to whom Marsham allots the 

 Eastern tribes. Gilead is also to the East; while Dan is di-. 

 rectly on the Philistine frontier, and should consequently have 

 been under the authority of Shamgar, to whom the Western 

 tribes are supposed to have been obedient; yet those are the 

 tribes who refused assistance to their oppressed countrymen. 

 Is it to be supposed, this could have happened under the 

 authority, or during the lives of the chiefs who had been 

 raised by the signal providence of God, to deliver and to de- 

 fend them ? Or, is it not rather a full, forcible, and decisive 

 argument in favour of the principles of interpretation we 

 have adopted. The servitudes were undoubtedly partial, as 

 the apostacy of the tribes must have been : the Moabites, 

 for example, oppressed, as we have proved, only the Eastern 

 tribes ; the Philistines, usually, only the Western ; and the 

 king of Hazor's dominion more particularly aft'ected the 

 Northern states. But the avengers were successive, and the 

 fruits of their success was beneficial to the whole confederacy, 

 in preserving their liberty and prosperity, and in manifesting 

 the more particular protection of Heaven, in the triumphs of 

 their leaders. It is also clear, that the power of the first 

 Judges was merely personal, although their illustrious ex- 

 ploits afl'orded an epoch for the national annals to synchronize 

 or refer to, as we find the act of Jael, in killing Sisera, cele- 

 brated in the hymn of Deborah, with the triumph or the 

 jurisdiction of Shamgar. 



In 



