(16) Our present copies of Josephus all omit Tola among the judges, though the other copies have him next after Abimelech, and allot twenty-three years to his administration, Judges 10:1, 2; yet do all Josephus's commentators conclude, that in Josephus's sum of the years of the judges, his twenty-three years are included; hence we are to confess, that somewhat has been here lost out of his copies.
(17) Josephus justly condemns Jephtha, as do the Apostolical Constitutions, B.VII.ch.37., for his rash vow, whether it were for sacrificing his daughter, as Josephus thought, or for dedicating her, who was his only child, to perpetual virginity, at the tabernacle or elsewhere, which I rather suppose.If he had vowed her for a sacrifice, she ought to have been redeemed, Leviticus 27:1-8; but of the sense of ver.28, 29, as relating not to things vowed to.God, but devoted to destruction, see the note on Antiq.B.V.ch.1.sect.8.
(18) I can discover no reason why Manoah and his wife came so constantly into these suburbs to pray for children, but because there was a synagogue or place of devotion in those suburbs.
(19) Here, by a prophet, Josephus seems only to mean one that was born by a particular providence, lived after the manner of a Nazarite devoted to God, and was to have an extraordinary commission and strength from God for the judging and avenging his people Israel, without any proper prophetic revelations at all.
(20) This fountain, called Lehi, or the Jaw-bone, is still in being, as travelers assure us, and was known by this very name in the days of Josephus, and has been known by the same name in all those past ages.See Antiq.B.VII.ch.12.sect.4.
(21) See this justly observed in the Apostolical Constitutions, B.VII.ch.37., that Samson's prayer was heard, but that it was before this his transgression.
(22) Although there had been a few occasional prophets before, yet was this Samuel the first of a constant succession of prophets in the Jewish nation, as is implied in St.Peter's words, Acts 3:24 "Yea, and all the prophets, from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of those days." See also Acts 13:20.The others were rather sometime called righteous men, Matthew 10:41; 13:17.
Book 6 Footnotes (1) Dagon, a famous maritime god or idol, is generally supposed to have been like a man above the navel, and like a fish beneath it.
(2) Spanheim informs us here, that upon the coins of Tenedos, and those of other cities, a field-mouse is engraven, together with Apollo Smintheus, or Apollo, the driver away of field-mice, on account of his being supposed to have freed certain tracts of ground from those mice; which coins show how great a judgment such mice have sometimes been, and how the deliverance from them was then esteemed the effect of a divine power; which observations are highly suitable to this history.
(3) This device of the Philistines, of having a yoke of kine to draw this cart, into which they put the ark of the Hebrews, is greatly illustrated by Sanchoniatho's account, under his ninth generation, that Agrouerus, or Agrotes, the husbandman, had a much-worshipped statue and temple, carried about by one or more yoke of oxen, or kine, in Phoenicia, in the neighborhood of these Philistines.See Cumberland's Sanchoniatho, p.27 and 247; and Essay on the Old Testament, Append.p.172.
(4) These seventy men, being not so much as Levites, touched the ark in a rash or profane manner, and were slain by the hand of God for such their rashness and profaneness, according to the Divine threatenings, Numbers 4:15, 20; but how other copies come to add such an incredible number as fifty thousand in this one town, or small city, I know not.See Dr.Wall's Critical Notes on 1 Samuel 6:19.
(5) This is the first place, so far as I remember, in these Antiquities, where Josephus begins to call his nation Jews, he having hitherto usually, if not constantly, called them either Hebrews or Israelites.The second place soon follows; see also ch.3.sect.5.
(6) Of this great mistake of Saul and his servant, as if true prophet of God would accept of a gift or present, for foretelling what was desired of him, see the note on B.IV.ch.6.sect.3.
(7) It seems to me not improbable that these seventy guests of Samuel, as here, with himself at the head of them, were a Jewish sanhedrim, and that hereby Samuel intimated to Saul that these seventy-one were to be his constant counselors, and that he was to act not like a sole monarch, but with the advice and direction of these seventy-one members of that Jewish sanhedrim upon all occasions, which yet we never read that he consulted afterward.
(8) An instance of this Divine fury we have after this in Saul, ch.5.sect.2, 3; 1 Samuel 11:6.See the like, Judges 3:10;6:34; 11:29; 13:25; and 14:6.
(9) Take here Theodoret's note, cited by Dr.Hudson: - "He that exposes his shield to the enemy with his left hand, thereby hides his left eye, and looks at the enemy with his right eye: he therefore that plucks out that eye, makes men useless in war."(10) Mr.Reland observes here, and proves elsewhere in his note on Antiq.B.III.ch.1.sect.6, that although thunder and lightning with us usually happen in summer, yet in Palestine and Syria they are chiefly confined to winter.Josephus takes notice of the same thing again, War, B.IV.ch.4.sect.5.