TER XII

EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT

After Sisera was conquered, the Hebrew tribes which had combined
against him immediately fell apart, relapsing into the same state of
disunion and disorganization as before. And very soon other enemies
took advantage of it to plunder and kill.

=The Midianites.=--Among the most harassing of these enemies for a
time were the Midianites, who lived as nomads, roaming over the
deserts just as the Hebrews themselves had done except that they made
their living chiefly by robbery. Every spring just after the wheat and
barley had begun to sprout, covering all the fields with a carpet of
the brightest green, bands of these nomads would drive their flocks
across the Jordan and turn them loose on the young grain while the men
stood guard in armed bands. In the summer and fall after what was left
of the grain had been harvested and beaten out on the threshing floors
they would come again and steal the threshed grain, taking it away in
bags on the backs of camels.

Sometimes the Hebrews would keep the wheat and barley unthreshed with
the sheaves piled up in grain ricks and would thresh it out, a little
at a time, in the low, half-concealed wine presses, which were dug in
the rock. No one's life was safe where these marauders were in the
habit of coming, and no family could be sure of food to carry them
over the winter months.

GIDEON, THE ABIEZRITE

In the tribe of Manasseh there was a little clan called Abiezer. One
night a band of Midianites came on camels and raided the villages of
this clan, killing some of the people, and carrying away whatever they
found of value. They then fled back across the Jordan River to the
desert before enough Hebrew men could get together to resist them.

=The counter-raid.=--In the heart of one young man, the brother of
some who were killed, God planted a sudden determination to put a stop
to these murders and robberies. He called for volunteers to pursue
this band across the river, and when some three hundred had responded
they set out in hot haste, down the hillsides into the plain of the
Jordan, up the slopes on the eastern side, and out onto the plains
where the Midianites supposed they were safe. It was hard to track
them over these solitary wastes; and they had their swift camels. But
Gideon trailed them; stealing up at night, he surprised them. They
fled in terror leaving much spoil, and for many years the Hebrews were
not molested by this parti