w enemy appeared in the
south. The Philistines, who had planted themselves on the sea-coast
shortly before the Israelites had invaded the inland, now turned their
arms against the new-comers, and contended with them for the possession
of the country. The descendants of Jacob were already exhausted by
struggle after struggle with the populations which surrounded them.
Moabites and Midianites, Ammonites and Bedawin, even the king of distant
Mesopotamia, had sacked their villages, had overrun their fields, and
exacted tribute from the Israelitish tribes. The tribes themselves had
lost coherence; they had ranged themselves under different "judges" or
"deliverers," had forgotten their common origin and common faith, and
had even plunged into interfraternal war. Joshua was scarcely dead
before the tribe of Benjamin was almost exterminated by its brethren;
and a few generations later, the warriors of Ephraim, the stalwart
champion of Israel, were massacred by the Israelites east of the Jordan.
In the south, a new tribe, Judah, had arisen out of various
elements--Hebrew, Kenite, and Edomite; and it was not long before there
was added to the cleavage between the tribes on the two banks of the
Jordan, the further and more lasting cleavage between Judah and the
tribes of the north. Israel was a house divided against itself, and
planted in the midst of foes.

It needed a head, a leader who should bring its discordant elements into
peace and order, and lead its united forces against the common enemy.
Monarchy alone could save it from destruction. The theocracy had failed,
the authority of the high-priests and of the Law they administered was
hardly felt beyond Shiloh; an age of war and anarchy required military
rather than religious control. The Israelites were passing through the
same experience as other kindred members of the Semitic race. In Assyria
the high-priests of Assur had been succeeded by kings; in southern
Arabia the high-priest had similarly been superseded by the king, and
the kings of Edom had but recently taken the place of _aluphim_ or
"dukes."

The first attempt to found a monarchy was made by the northern tribes.
Jerubbaal, the conqueror of the Midianites, established his power among
the mixed Hebrew and Canaanite inhabitants of Ophrah and Shechem, and
his son Abimelech by a Canaanitish wife received the title of king. But
the attempt was premature. The kingdom of Manasseh passed away with
Abimelech; the other t