7.
And the next day it was told us that the cities 1 of the two kings with a great host were coming against us. I therefore and Dan feigned ourselves to be Amorites, and went as allies into their city. And in the depth of night our brethren came, and we opened to them the gates; and we destroyed all the men and their substance, and we took for a prey all that was theirs, and their three walls we cast down. And we drew near to Thamna, 2 where was all the refuge of the hostile kings. Then having received hurt I was wroth, and charged upon them to the brow of the hill; and they slang at me with stones and darts; and had not Dan my brother aided me, they would have been able to slay me. We came upon them therefore with wrath, and they all fled; and passing by another way, they besought my father, and he made peace with them, and we did to them no hurt, but made a truce with them, and restored to them all the captives. And I built Thamna, and my father built Rhambael. 3 I was twenty years old when this war befell, and the Canaanites feared me and my brethren.
-
Cd. Oxon. reads Gaas polis basileon. Cf. Josh. xxiv. 30; Judg. ii. 9; 2 Sam. xxiii. 30. Cf. also "Gaiz," Jubilees, l.c. ↩
-
The Timnah of the Old Testament, which name is, however, borne by several places. Most probably it is the Timnah near Bethshemesh, on the north frontier of Judah, in the neighbourhood, that is, of many of the other localities mentioned in the Testaments. This may be the same as the Timnathah on the Danite frontier (Josh. xix. 43), and with the Timnathah where Samson's wife dwelt (Judg. xiv. 1 sqq ). The geographical position of Timnath-serah is against the allusion being to it here. Cf., however, Jubilees, c. 34, where Thamnathares is one of the hostile towns. ↩
-
Cf. Robel, Jubilees, l.c. ↩
