Here little children played and gray-haired
patriarchs worshiped their gods.

Akin to this picture is the one of the people of Israel at the time of
this story, and the alternating feelings of pleasure and sadness keep
constantly coming and going. The condition of the land beggared
description. Homes were there, but no children were about the doors;
there were fields, but no crops to be harvested; pastures, but no
cattle fed upon them; the hills were to be seen, but no flocks bleated
on their sides; people were there, but they were found in the caves and
hiding away on the mountain sides. When they had entered Canaan, these
chosen people of God, he had said unto them, "And it shall come to
pass, if thou shall hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy
God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee
this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations
of the earth; and all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake
thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.
Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the
field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy
ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the
flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.
Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be
when thou goest out. The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up
against thee to be smitten before thy face; they shall come out against
thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. The Lord shall command
the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest
thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy
God giveth thee. The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto
himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the
commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways. And all the
people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the
Lord; and they shall be afraid of thee."

We have here the Old Testament Beatitudes, and there is nothing like
them.

The story with which the text is associated really begins in the first
verse of the sixth chapter of Judges, "And the children of Israel did
evil in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord delivered them into the
hand of Midian seven years." But there must also be read in connection
with this the last verse of the fifth chapter