the people made a covenant, on that day, to serve and obey the Lord their God. And Joshua took a great stone, and set it up for a witness, under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. "And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in the parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem :" and where Jacob had erected the altar to the Lord, which he called El-elohe-Israel. See Gen. xxxiii. 20. "And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died; being an hundred and ten years old; and they buried him in the border of his inheritance, in Timnath-serah, which is in Mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash." In leading the Israelites to the promised land, and subduing their enemies, Joshua-whose name signifies a Saviour-was a type of " the Captain of our salvation," who guides His people to the "rest prepared" for them in the heavenly Canaan. Now, after the death of Joshua, the tribe of Judah, at the command of God, fought against the Canaanites, and they took Jerusalem, and smote the city with the edge of the sword, and burned it.— And they slew also the Canaanites that dwelt in Kirjath-Arba, afterwards called Hebron, together with the inhabitants of the cities of the Philistines that were on the south-west coast of the country, Gaza, Askelon, Ekron, &c., and they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had commanded, and he expelled thence the three sons of Anak, who were giants. After the settlement of the Israelites in the promised land, they soon degenerated into idolatry and forgetfulness of God; yet He graciously watched over them. We read that "the Angel of Jehovah came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you into the land which I sware unto your fathers, and I said, I will never break my covenant with you, and ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of the land; ye shall throw down their altars; but ye have not obeyed my voice: Why have ye done this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. And it came to pass, when the Angel of Jehovah spake these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and wept." We clearly perceive the wondrous fact, that this Angel, who spake to the Israelites of the covenant which He had made with their fathers, and of the deliverance which He had wrought for them, Icould be no other than Jehovah Himself— On two subsequent occasions, during the government of the judges who ruled under God; did the same Almighty Being appear, as a human visitor, to chosen persons among the children of Israel: to Gideon, the Abi-ezrite, when, for their unfaithfulness, the people were grievously oppressed by the Midianites. Then the Angel of Jehovah commissioned Gideon to save Israel from the hand of their enemies. This, in a remarkable manner, Gideon was enabled to accomplish, through the miraculous interposition of Almighty aid. He also discomfited the Amalekites, who, from one time to another, came up against the Israelites and greatly distressed them, for Israel had not obeyed the dying injunction of Moses, "It shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it." It is mournful, indeed, to trace the history of the seed of Abraham-the children of promise and to contemplate their frequent degradation, the consequence of a departure from the worship and fear of the living GodYet, in His infinite compassion, He raised up Judges, who, in times of great extremity, delivered His oppressed people. Of these, one of the most remarkable was Deborah, a prophetess, to whom the children of Israel came for judgment, as she sat under the palm-tree in Mount Ephraim. At her command Barak, the son of Abinoam, went up against Jabin, King of Canaan, who had mightily oppressed Israel: and Barak discomfited him and all his host, and Sisera, the captain of his army, was slain by Jael, the wife of Heber, the Kenite, who was descended from Hobab, (or Jethro,) the father-in-law of Moses. CHAP. LVI. Notwithstanding the re - And peated manifestations of the mercy of their Almighty Sovereign, and of the dreadful consequences that inevitably resulted from forsaking His holy law, the Israelites continued to relapse into idolatry; and they were permitted to become a prey to all the surrounding nations. At one time the king of Mesopotamia kept them in servile bondage. At another the Moabites subdued them. Their constant enemies, the Amalekites, were confederates with the hostile nations. so great was the distress that Israel endured, that, in the language used in the sacred record-language employed to meet the finite conception and understanding of man-the Lord's "soul was grieved for the misery of Israel." "Then the children of Ammon were gathered together" against them, but, by the hand of Jephthah, the Gileadite, they were subdued before the people of Israel; who yet "did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years." It was at this period that once again, during the theocratic form of government which had hitherto distinguished the Hebrew nation, Jehovah con |