146 



Jepthah emancipated them, is not mentioned, yet the avenger 

 is panegyrized ! The text, recording the oppression of Am- 

 nion, informs us, they were assisted by the Philistines, (Jud. 

 10> V.7.) who were doubtless their most powerful auxiliaries, 

 and who, at least at the time Samuel was addressing the 

 elders of Israel, were the people most formidable and dan- 

 gerous to his countrymen, and consequently he would prin- 

 cipally dwell on a deliverance from them as from the more 

 pressing and immediate objects of their fears. If, therefore, 

 there had been any other deliverance atchieved by either Eli 

 or Samson, surely he would have recorded it, when he has ce- 

 lebrated the defeat of this people, when acting as only auxi- 

 liaries, as if they had been principals in the war.* But, again 

 I would demand, when the Prophet, (c. 2.37.) was denouncing 

 the approaching judgments of Heaven on Eli and his house, 

 would he not have recalled the great instance of the divine 

 favour, which had selected him as the deliverer of his people 

 and have contrasted with powerful and pathetic eloquence, 

 his present guilty weakness with his former fidelity and virtue? 

 Would be not have apjjealed to the strongest emotions of the 

 human heart against the vice most abhorrent to the feelings of 

 human nature — ingratitude. Would he not, like Nathan, have 

 addressed his judgment through his passions.? called upon him 



to 



*■ W'e may retnarkhere also, how inconsistent this is wiih MjrAham's principles, which 

 •leierniine, that the Ammonites onli/, were defeated by Jepthah, and that the Philistines 

 coiitiiiue.l thtir dominion in the We^t for 40 years, until the time of Samuel. 



