Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/158

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
146
BURIED CITES AND BIBLE COUNTRIES.

of trumpets and flashing of lights spread consternation among the Midianites; they fought suicidally, every man's hand was against his brother, and they fled down the Valley of Jezreel. It was some 10 miles or more to the fords of the Jordan. At the fords they divided, Zeba and Zalmunna, the sheikhs, passing over, while Oreb and Zeeb, the lesser chiefs, continued their journey on the western side. Presumably they were hoping to get across at the great ford opposite Jericho; but Gideon sent word to the men of Ephraim to intercept them, and they did so. Gideon himself crossed at the northern fords, pursuing Zeba and Zalmunna, as far as Karkor, and when he had captured them he brought them back to Penuel. "Then said he to them, 'What manner of men were they whom ye slew at Tabor?' And they answered, 'As thou art, so were they; each one resembled the children of a king.' And he said, 'They were my brethren, the sons of my mother: as the Lord liveth, if ye had saved them alive, I would not slay you.'"

The men of Ephraim "slew Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb." These two names signify the Raven and the Wolf—not unnatural names for the chiefs of Nomad tribes—and Conder has discovered these names in the Jordan valley, a little north of Jericho. There is a curious conical chalk hill called 'Osh el Ghurab, the "Raven's Peak," and near to it a lesser hill with a valley, know as Tuweil edh Dhiab, the "Wolf's Den." The executions, if they took place on these elevations, would be in sight of all the people in the plain; and afterwards the heads were carried across to Gideon, who was now beyond Jordan.

But victory was not always given to the Israelites in the Plain of Esdraelon. In the days of King Saul the Philistines, having been twice beaten in the hills, determined to