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overthrow of Og, but left to the Ammonites; whereupon at length it became the regal seat of the Ammonites, but of old it was the possession of the Zamzummims; which is as much to say, as men for all manner of craft and wickedness infamous. The same were also called Raphaim, of whom was Og, which recovered much of that which the Ammonites had got from his ancestors; who having been first beaten by the Assyrians, and their assistants, (as the Emims in Moab, and the Horims in Seir had been,) were afterward the easier conquered by the Ammonites, as the Emims were by Moab, and the Horims by the Idumeans. Yet did the races of Emoreus, of whom these giants were descended, contend with the conquerors for their ancient inheritance; and as Sehon of Hesbon had dispossessed Moab, so had Og of Basan the Ammonites, and between them recovered the best part of all the valley between the mountains and Jordan. For this Og was also master of Rabba, or Philadelphia; and in the possession of the one or the other of these two Moses and Israel found all those cities and countries which were given to Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. So that though it were 450 years since that the Zamzummims or Raphaims were expelled, yet they did not forget their ancient inheritance; but having these two kings of one kindred, and both valiant and undertaking men, to wit, Og and Sehon, both Amorites, they recovered again much of their lost possessions, and thrust the sons of Lot over the mountains, and into the deserts. And as the kings or captains of Persia and Assyria (remembered Genesis xiv.) made way for Ammon, Moab, and Edom; so by that great conquest which Moses had over those two Amorites, Og and Sehon, did the Moabites and Ammonites take opportunity to look back again into those plains, and when the Reubenites, Gadites, and Manassites forsook the worship of the living God, and became slothful and licentious, they taking the advantage invaded them, and cast them out of their possessions, and were sometime their masters, sometime their tributaries, as they pleased or dis

pleased God; and according to the wisdom and virtue of their commanders.

In this city of Rabba was the iron bed of Og found, nine cubits of length, and four of breadth, Deut. iii. The city was taken in David's time, and the inhabitants slain with great severity, and by divers torments. At the first assault thereof Uriah was shot to death, having been by direction from David appointed to be employed in the leading of an assault, where he could not escape; wherein also many of the best of the army perished, and wherein David so displeased God, as his affairs had ill success afterward, even to his dying day. From hence had David the weighty and rich crown of gold, which the kings of Ammon wore; or which, as some expound it, was used to be set on the head of their idol, weighing a talent, which is sixty pound weight after the common talent. In the time of Christians it had a metropolitan bishop, and under him twelve others.

The mountains which are described within this tribe and that of Manasseh, with a part of Reuben, are those which Ptolomy calleth the hills of Hippus, a city of Colesyria; and Strabo, Trachones; the same which continue from near Damascus unto the deserts of Moab, and receive divers names, as commonly mountains do which neighbour and bound divers countries: for from the south part, as far northward as Asteroth, the chief city of Og, they are called Galaad, or Gilead; from thence northward they are known by the name of Hermon, for so Moses calleth them; the Sidonians name them Shirion; but the Amorites Shenir, others Seir; of which name all those hills also were called, which part Judæa and Idumæa; and lastly, they are called Libanus; for so the prophet, Jer. xxii. makes them all one, calling the high mountains of Galaad the head of Libanus. These mountains are very fruitful, and full of good pastures, and have many trees which yield u balsamum, and

$ 2 Sam. xii. Will. Tyr. Bell. Sac. 13. cap. 12.

Strabo 1. 16. Taxa is locus asper et salebrosus: whence it ap

pears, that Trachonitis regio in these
parts was properly the hill country,
u Hier. 8. et 9.

many other medicinable drugs. The rivers of this tribe are the waters of Nimrah and Dibon, and the river Jaboc; others do also fancy another river, which, rising out of the rocks of Arnon, falleth into Jordan.

SECT. VI.

Of the Ammonites, part of whose territories the Gadites won from Og the king of Basan.

THIS tribe of Gad possessed half the country of the Ammonites, who together with the Moabites held that part of Arabia Petræa called Nabathea, as well within as without the mountains of Gilead; though at this time, when the Gadites won it, it was in the possession of Sehon and Og, Amorites and therefore Moses did not expel the Ammonites, but the Amorites, who had thrust the issues of Lot over the mountains Trachones, or Gilead, as before. After the death of Othoniel, the first judge of Israel, the Ammonites joined with the Moabites against the Hebrews, and so continued long. Jephtha, judge of Israel, had a great conquest over one of the kings of Ammon, but his name is omitted. In the time of Samuel they were at peace with them again.

X

Afterward we find that cruel king of the Ammonites, called Nahas; who besieging y Jabes Gilead, gave them no other conditions but the pulling out of their right eyes. The reason why he tendered so hard a composition was, (besides this desire to bring shame upon Israel,) because those Gileadites using to carry a target on their left arms, which could not but shadow their left eyes, should by losing their right be utterly disabled to defend themselves; but Saul came to their rescue, and delivered them from that danger. This Nahas, as it may seem, became the confederate of David, having friended him in Saul's time, though Josephus thinks that this Nahas was slain in the battle, when Saul raised the siege of Jabes, who affirmeth that there were three kings of the Moabites of that name.

X

Judg. x. y 1 Sam. xi.

Z

4. 18,

Joseph. Ant. 1. 6. c. 5. &c. 2 Sam. x,

Hanon succeeded Nahas; to whom when David sent to congratulate his establishment, and to confirm the former friendship which he had with his father, he most contemptuously and proudly cut off the ambassadors' garments to the knees, and shaved the half of their beards. But afterwards, notwithstanding the aids received from the Aramites subject to Adadezer, and from the reguli of Rehob and Maacah, and from bIstob, yet all those Arabians, together with the Ammonites, were overturned; their chief city of Rabba, after Philadelphia, was taken, the crown, which weighed a talent of gold, was set on David's head; all such as were prisoners David executed with strange severity; for with saws and harrows he tare them in pieces, and cast the rest into limekilns.

Jehoshaphat governing Juda, they assisted the Moabites their neighbours against him, and perished together. Osias made them tributaries, and they were again by Jotham enforced to continue that tribute, and to increase it, to wit, one hundred talents of silver, ten thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand of barley; which the Ammonites continued two years.

The fifth king of the Ammonites, of whose name we read, was Baalis, the confederate of Zedekiah; after whose taking by Nabuchodonosor, Baalis sent Ismael, of the blood of the kings of Juda, to slay Gedaliah, who served Nabuchodonosor.

SECT. VII.

Of the other half of Manasseh.

THE rest of the land of Gilead, and of the kingdom of Og in Basan, with the land of Hus and Argob, or Trachonitis, (wherein also were part of the small territories of c Ba

b Istob, that is, the men of Thob: Thob is a small territory under Arnon hills. Rehob is another between Hazor and Sidon, in the north bound of Canaan, Num. xiii. 22. of which see in the tribe of Asher, Jer. xl. and xli. 2 Chron. xx. xxxvi. xxvi. xxvii.

Another territory adjoining to Manasseh, whose limits were confounded with some of these, was that Thishbitis, the country of Elias, as it is 1 Kings xvi. 1. and of Tobias, Tob. i. 2. it lay on the east to the tribe of Nephthali, on the right hand of it, as in Tob. i. 2. and was possessed

tanea, Gaulonitis, Gessuri, Machati, and Auranitis,) was given to the half tribe of Manasseh over Jordan, of which those three latter provinces defended themselves against them for many ages. But Batanea Ptolomy setteth further off, and to the north-east, as a skirt of Arabia the Desert: and all these other provinces before named with Peræa and Ituræa, he nameth but as part of Coelesyria, as far south as Rabba or Philadelphia; likewise all the rest which belonged to Gad and Reuben, saving the land near the Dead sea, he makes a part of Arabia Petræa; for many of these small kingdoms take not much more ground than the county of Kent.

Basan, or, after the Septuagint, Basanitis, stretcheth itself from the river of Jaboc to the d Machati and Gessuri; and from the mountains to Jordan, a region exceeding fertile; by reason whereof it abounded in all sorts of cattle. It had also the goodliest woods of all that part of the world; especially of oaks, which bear mast, (of which the prophet Zacharias, Howl, O ye oaks of Bashan,) and by reason hereof they bred so many swine, as 2000 in one herd were carried headlong into the sea by the unclean spirits which Christ had cast out of one of the Gaderens. It had in it threescore cities, walled and defenced; all which, after Og and his sons were slain, Jair, descended of Manasseh, conquered, and called the country after his own name, Avoth Jair, or the cities of Jair.

e

The principal cities of this half tribe (for I will omit the rest) are these; Pella, sometimes fButis, otherwise Berenice: by Seleucus, king of Syria, it is said to have been called Pella, after the name of that Pella in Macedon, in which

by colonies of the Israelites in the time of Saul, after his victory over the Amalekites and Ismaelites in those parts, as it is gathered out of 1 Chron. V. Io. whence it appears that it was part of Ituræa, of which, chap. 7. sect. 4. §. 5 and 6.

So they call them of Mahacath, of which Malacath somewhat hath

been spoken towards the end of the fifth paragraph of this chapter. See I Mac. v. 36. and Deut. iii. 14. and Josh. xii. 5.

e Mark v. 13.

f Anciently, as it seems, it was called Tophel. See above in the bounds of the plains of Moab, in this chapter, sect. 4. §. 2.

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