Identifier: homeofgodspeople00gage (find matches)
Title: The home of God's people
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Gage, William Leonard, 1832-1889
Subjects: Bible Palestine -- Description and travel
Publisher: Hartford, Conn. : Dustin, Gilman & Co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ast side ofthe Jordan, even in our time ; and there is little room for be-lieving that the tribe of Gad was much more gentle than arethe Bedouins of the present day. Because they were He-brews, and had the rudiments of a true worship, we must notforget that in matters of feeling, and sentiment, and culture,they were not much above the level of savages. The first movement of Jephthah was his flight out of thetrue range of Gilead, on the east bank of the Jordan, intothe land of Tob, whose location we do not know, but which itis safe to infer, lay in the eastern part of the mountainouscountry. The territory of Ammon was in a general sensewhat lay north and north-east of the torrent stream, the Jab*bok; unlike Moab, which had regularly defined limits, Am-mon had none, but being the possession of a most warlike andnomadic i-ace, it faded away indefinitely on the side towardsthe desert. A most formidable race of savages were theseAmmonites, the descendants of Lot by his incest with one of I
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180 THE SCENE OF HIS FREEBOOTER LIFE. his daughters, and when they came into conflict with the Is-raelites, the event was one of couise which demanded a first-rate leader, and tried and valiant men. At just this juncture,Jephthah was raised up to meet the crisis. Sprung as he wasfrom an irregular connection, and having a harlot for hismother, his whole hfe was spent in the wild deeds of a free-booter. His own half-brothers diove him forth: and he ledhis marauding career in the eastern part of the Gilead range.It was in that district that he was living, when his clansmenneeded his vigorous and efficient services. The occasion ofthe war was the claim of the Ammonites to the territory eastof the Jordan, which the Israelites occupied by the right ofconquest. It was, of course, impossible to come to an under-standing, and both armies appealed respectively to the decisionof arms, and of the gods in which they respectively believed.Jephthah was put at the head of the Israelites on the single

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