teeth." The afflicted man had been in the hands of cruel enemies, but he had escaped without such mutilations, as miserable captives were often compelled to suffer. Adonibezek certainly discovered a very savage disposition in cutting" off the thumbs and great toes" of his captives; "but much severer is the cruelty displayed in this narration of Indian war : The inhabitants of the town of Lelith Pattan, were disposed to surrender themselves, from the fear of having their noses cut off like those of Cirtipur, and also their right hands, a barbarity the Gorchians had threatened them with, unless they would surrender within five days!" Another resemblance to the history of the men of Jabesh, who desired seven days of melancholy respite from their threatened affliction by Nahash.1 It seems to have been the practice of eastern kings, to command their captives taken in war, especially those that had, by the atrociousness of their crimes, or the stoutness of their resistance, greatly provoked their indignation, to lie down on the ground, and then put to death a certain part of them which they measured with a line, or determined by lot. This custom was not perhaps commonly practised by the people of God, in their wars with the nations around them; one instance, however, is recorded in the life of David, who inflicted this punishment on the Moabites: "And he smote Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive; and so the Moabites became David's servants and brought gifts." The same warlike prince inflicted a still more terrible * Job xix, 20. 'Taylor's Calmet, vol. iii. m 2 Sam. viii, 2. Burder's Orient. Cust, ob. 103. punishment on the inhabitants of Rabbah, the capital city of Ammon, whose ill-advised king had violated the law of nations, in offering one of the greatest possible indignities to his ambassadors: "He brought out the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick kiln; and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon.” n Some of them he sawed asunder; others he tore in pieces with harrows armed with great iron teeth; or lacerated their bodies with. sharp sickles or sharp stones; or rather, he dragged them through the place where bricks were made, and grated their flesh upon the ragged sherds. This dreadful punishment was meant to operate upon the fears of other princes, and prevent them from violating the right of nations in the persons of their ambassadors. These were usually persons of great worth or eminent station, who, by their quality and deportment, might command respect and attention from their very enemies. Ambassadors were accordingly held sacred among all people, even when at war; and what injuries and affronts soever had been committed, Heaven and earth were thought to be concerned to prosecute the injuries done to them, with the utmost vengeance. So deep is this impression engraved on the human mind, that the Lacedæmonians, who had inhumanly murdered the Persian ambassadors, firmly believed their gods would accept none of their oblations and sacrifices, which were all found polluted with direful omens, till two noblemen of Sparta were sent as an expiatory sacrifice to Xerxes, to atone for the death of his ambassadors by their own. That emperor indeed, gave them leave to return in safety, without any other n 2 Sam. xii, 31. ignominy than what they suffered by a severe reflection on the Spartan nation, whose barbarous cruelty he professed he would not imitate, though he had been so greatly provoked. The Divine vengeance, however, suffered them not to go unpunished, but inflicted what those men had assumed to themselves, on their sons, who being sent on an embassy into Asia, were betrayed into the hands of the Athenians, who put them to death: which Herodotus, who relates the story, considered as a just revenge from heaven, for the cruelty of the Lacedæmonians. The character of ambassadors has been invested with such inviolable sanctity, by the mutual hopes and fears of nations; for, if persons of that character might be treated injuriously, the friendly relations between different states could not be maintained; and all hopes of peace and reconciliation amongst enemies, must be banished for ever out of the world." But these considerations, although they might justify David in demanding satisfaction, and inflicting condign punishment on the king of Rabbah, cannot be reckoned a sufficient excuse for such severities. They may therefore be considered as a proof, that he was then in the state of his impenitence, in consequence of his illicit connection with Bathsheba, when the mild, and gentle, and humane spirit of the gospel in his bosom, had suffered a mournful decline, and he was become cruel and furious, as well as lustful and incontinent. The captives taken by Amaziah, in his war with Edom, were also treated with uncommon severity, for " he took ten thousand of them alive, and brought them to the top of a rock, and cast them down, so that they were all broken in pieces."r • Potter's Gr. Antiq. vol. ii, p. 66. Herodotus, lib. vii, cap. 134. But the most shocking punishment which the ingenious cruelty of a haughty and unfeeling conqueror ever inflicted on the miserable captive, is described by Virgil in the eighth book of the Æneid; and which, even a Roman inured to blood, could not mention without horror: "Quid memorem infandas cædes ? quid facta tyranni!" &c. L. 483. "Why should I mention his unutterable barbarities? Or, why the tyrant's horrid deeds? May the gods recompense them on his own head and on his race. Nay, he even bound to the living the bodies of the dead, joining together hands to hands, and face to face, a horrid kind of torture and them, pining away with gore and putrefaction in this loathed embrace, he thus destroyed with lingering death." : It is to this most deplorable condition that the apostle refers, in that pathetic exclamation: "Owretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death ?” Who shall rescue me, miserable captive as I am, from this continual burden of sin which I carry about with me; and which is cumbersome and odious, as a dead carcase bound to a living body, to be dragged along with it whereever it goes? The vanquished foe, in testimony of his submission, hung his sword from his neck, when he came into the presence of his conqueror. When Bagdat was taken by the Turks, in the year 1638, the governor's lieutenant and principal officer was sent to the grand vizier, with a scarf about his neck, and his sword wreathed in it, which is accounted by them a mark of deep humiliation and perfect submission, to beg for mercy in his own and his master's name. His request being granted, the governor came and was introduced to the grand signior, and obtained, ¶ Rom. vii, 24. not only a confirmation of the promise of life that had been made him, but also various presents of considerable value. These circumstances forcibly recal to our minds the message of Benhadad, after his signal defeat to the king of Israel; the passage runs in these terms: And his servants said unto him, "Behold, now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings; let us, I pray thee, put sackcloth on our loins, and ropes upon our heads, and go out to the king of Israel, peradventure he will save thy life. So they girded sackcloth on their loins, and put ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel, and said, Thy servant Benhadad saith, I pray thee, let me live. And he said, Is he yet alive? He is my brother."s The servants of Benhadad succeeded in obtaining a verbal assurance that his life should be spared; but a surer pledge of protection was to deliver a banner into the hand of the suppliant. In the year 1099, when Jerusalem was taken by the Crusaders, about three hundred Saracens got upon the roof of a very lofty building, and earnestly begged for quarter, but could not be induced by any promise of safety to come down, till they had received the banner of Tancred, one of the chiefs of the Croisaders, as a pledge of life. This they reckoned a more powerful protection than the most solemn promise; although in this instance their confidence was entirely misplaced; for the faithless zealots who pretended to fight for the cross, put every man of them to the sword. The Psalmist perhaps considered the banner which God had given his people to be displayed because of the truth, in the same light. He celebrates in the sixtieth Psalm, 1 Kings xx, 31. * Thevenot's Trav. part i, p. 289. |