er 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 fiel