Armoury

There was naturally no store of arms nor place for keeping them in Israel before the establishment of tlie nucleus of a standing army under Saul. Saul found the nation, or at least the southern tribes, almost destitute of arms in the true sense (1 S 13") : no doubt he remedied the defect as far as possible (1 S 8"). A tower named after David, perhaps built by him, held IfWJ shields ( Ca 4'').

Solomon kept 2U0 golden sliields and 300 golden bucklers in the ' house of the forest of Lebanon' (1 K lO'"- "). This armoury wa-H doubtless in Jerusalem (Is 22' 'The armour in the house of the forest '), and lasted till at least Hezekiah's day. Shields and spears were kej)! even in the temple in the days of Jehoiada the priest (2 K ll'"). This store was attributed to king David. \V. E. Barnes. ARMY (Kj;( zabhd', 'service,' as we say in Eng. 'the.

Service'; S'ri hnnil, 'force, host'; en 'am, ' people,' a frequent designation ; njr,,'; mnhiTiirh, properly 'an army encam])ed' ; n;T;'5 mnHrukhi'ih, ' an army in array '). — The history of warfare among the Israelites may be divided into two periods. Puring the first of these, which was closed by the establishment of the kingdom, Israel had fighting men, but no army, i.e.

no permanent organised force ; during the second period, which lasted to the fall of the Southern kingdom, there always existed the nucleus at least of an army, both in the north and in the south, attached to the person of the sovereign. There was no doubt a partial revivalof military organisation at the revival of independence under the Hasmona^an princes. No standing army existed before the time of the kings.

But the beginnings of the formation of a tightin" caste ai>i)ear under Saul, consisting jf (1) picked 'regulars' to form the nucleus of an army ( 1 S 14°-), and (2) ' regular ' officers to com- mand the militia, who formed the bulk of the army in the held. How, then, in the earlier period was an army formed to meet an emergency ? Under the most rudimentary conditions four elements are required to make a lighting force, viz. (1) men, (2) officers, (3) arms, (4) commissariat. i. Men.

— It was difficult, before the kingdom was established, to collect a sufficient number of men even for small border wars. The sons of Israel were, indeed, numerous enough to cope in turn with such adversaries as Moab, Midian, Ammon, and PhUistia ; but Israel was a group of tribes rather than a nation, and the bond of union was so feeble that single tribes, or groups of two or three, were left to bear unaided the brunt of invasion or oppression.

The work of the Judges and of Saul, the earliest king, was to unite, as far as was possible, the tribes of Israel, and to brin<^ border wars to a speedy conclusion by the application of organised force. But authority had to be won before it could be exercised, and the leader had to assert his leadership by some striking deed or sign before his countrymen would rally round him. Ephraim rallied round Ehud the Benjamite after he had assassinated the king of Moab (Jg 3"). Gideon roused N. and E.

Israel by destroying the altar of Baal, and appearing as the champion of the worship of J' (Jg 6 •'■). In the civil war against Benjamin the warlike passion of all the remaining tribes was stirred by the sight of the remains of the murdered concubine (Jg 19^). Saul gathered his first host by the pictured threat to destroy the oxen of every man who failed to present himself.

Even remote Judah on this occasion, we are told, sent thirty ' thousands ' to the relief of Jabesh- gilead (1 S ll'-)- Against the Amalekites, Judah was not so keen (1 S 15), having perhaps family relations ^vith them ; in any case Judah sent only 10,000 (MT), 30,000 (LX.X). The difiiculty regarding the numbers of the Israelite armies must be mentioned here. These numbers are often surprisingly high.

Thus in 1 S 11' it is stated that Saul numbered over three hundred ' thousand ' men in Bezek for the relief of Jabesh-gilead. If we take ' thousand ' in its literal numerical sense, we get a number equal to more than one-tenth of the whole popula- ti<m of the land — a number improbably large. 'Thousand,' however, is used (Mic 5^) to designate the chief towns of Judah, perhai)s as each con- taining, together with its dependent hamlets, a pojjulation of about a thousand.

The men of such a town would probably be called a thousand (i^n) when they went forth to war, and their headman would be called the captain of a thousand. The actual number of this tactical unit would vary much according to the urgency of the danger. It would probably, however, never exceed 300 men, and might conceivably fall below 100. According to this reckoning, Saul's army of relief was not in any case more than 90,000 in number, and it may have been but 30,000.

Side by side, however, with this loose reckoning, the Israelites may have had a stricter system of counting. Thus the number of men of war can led into captivity with Jehoiachin, viz. seven thousand (2 K 24"), is quite probable in itself, and consist- ent with other indications of number.

Similarly ' thousand ' is no doubt to be understood in its ordi 156 ARNA AROM naiy nmnerical sense in 2 K 13', where it is said that the Israelite army was reduced by Syrian ravages to 50 horsemen, 10 chariots, and 10,000 infantry. The existence of two reckonings side by side, one based on the numerical Sense of 'thousand,' the other on its territorial sense, is not a serious difficulty.

To an Oriental, numbers are important only either when they are sacred numbers of mystic meaning, or when it is necessary to indicate generally the relative proportions of tilings. The example set by Saul of gathering picked warriors round him was followed by David, who on his accession already had a band of some GOO armed vassals.

At the time of Absalom's revolt David's guard must have grown in number, if we rightly read 2 S 15^' to mean that the Gittites belonging to it amounted by themselves to 600, without reckoning the numbers of the Cherethites and Pelethites. The strength of the whole guard may be guessed from the fact that Ahithophel thought it necessary to take 12,000 chosen men to ensure success in his proposed pur- suit of Da\'id (2 S 17')- ii. Officers.

— After the host was collected under its commander, some organisation had to be given to it. Captains of ' thousands ' and ' hundreds ' had to be appointed. The army ' was numbered,' or, according to the Heb., 'appointed officers over itself (nppnn Jg 20"'). Two results were gained.

Officers were appointed under the eye and influence of the commander over thousands and hundreds ; and, secondly, the com- mander learnt the number of these tactical units, ' thousands ' or ' hundreds,' under his com- mand. Besides these ' regimental ' officers, one or more officers bearing the title of ' scribe ' were attached to the army in the field to aid in its organi- sation, to serve as provost-marshals, and to make » list of the booty taken ( Jg 5" and 1 Mac 5"). iiL Arms.

— In the earliest days, no doubt, each man brought his own arms, for we hear of no store of arms till after the establishment of the kingdom (see ARMS). There is nothing to show that the Israelites had horses and chariots until after Saul's day. An Israelite army in the time of the Judges was probably a crowd of men carry- ing bows, slings, and rustic weapons, such as clubs and oxgoads (Jg 5», 1 S IS^^).

Though individu- ally equal in valour, they were probably far inferior in armament to a people like the Philistines, who were sufficiently advanced in the art of war to possess chariots, swords, and spears, and perhaps an organised corps of archers (1 S 3P). iv. Commissariat. — Commissariat is t^vice alluded to in the OT.

In Jg 20'" a tenth of the assembled Israelites are sent ' to fetch virtual ' (fidnk nyt, 'food taken in hunting') that the people may carry out their expedition against Gibeah. Again, in 1 K 20^ the children of Israel 'were mustered and were victualled' (RV) for a campaign against the Syrians. W. E. Barnes.