ded the
villages, and pushed, sometimes, their skirmishing parties over hill and
dale as far as Gaza.**

* Manasseh was said to have been established beyond the
Jordan at the time that Gad and Reuben were in possession of
the land of Gilead (Numb, xxxii. 33, 39-42, xxxiv. 14, 15;
Dent. iii. 13-15; Josh. xiii. 8, 29-32, xxii.). Earlier
traditions placed this event in the period which followed
the conquest of Canaan by Joshua. It is not certain that all
the families which constituted the half-tribe of Manasseh
took their origin from Manasseh: one of them, for example,
that of Jair, was regarded as having originated partly from
Judah (1 Chron. ii. 21-24).

** Judges vi. 2-6. The inference that they dare not beat
wheat in the open follows from ver. 11, where it is said
that "Gideon was beating out wheat in his winepress to hide
it from the Midianites."

A perpetual terror reigned wherever they were accustomed to pass*: no
one dared beat out wheat or barley in the open air, or lead his herds to
pasture far from his home, except under dire necessity; and even on such
occasions the inhabitants would, on the slightest alarm, abandon their
possessions to take refuge in caves or in strongholds on the mountains.1
During one of these incursions two of their sheikhs encountered some
men of noble mien in the vicinity of Tabor, and massacred them without
compunction.** The latter were people of Ophrah,*** brethren of a
certain Jerubbaal (Gideon) who was head of the powerful family of
Abiezer.****

* The history of the Midianite oppression (Judges vi.-viii.)
seems to be from two different sources; the second (Judges
viii. 4-21), which is also the shortest, is considered by
some to represent the more ancient tradition. The double
name of the hero, Gideon-Jerubbaal, has led some to assign
its elements respectively to Gideon, judge of the western
portion of Manasseh, and Jerubbaal, judge of the eastern
Manasseh, and to the consequent fusion of the two men in
one.

** This is an assumption which follows reasonably from
Judges viii. 18, 19.

*** The site of the Ophrah of Abiezer is not known for
certain, but it would seem from the narrative that it was in
the neighbourhood of Shechem.

**** The position of Gideon-Jerubbaal as head of the house
of Abiezer follows clearly from the na