* Sam. iv. 12-18.

** This is not mentioned in the sacred books; but certain
reasons for believing this destruction to have taken place
are given by Stade.

*** The Philistine garrison at Geba (Gibeah) is mentioned in
1 Sam. xiii. 3, i.

The defeat of Eben-ezer completed, at least for a time, the overthrow of
the tribes of Central Canaan. The Philistines destroyed the sanctuary
of Shiloh, and placed a garrison at Gibeah to keep the Benjamites in
subjection, and to command the route of the Jordan;* it would even
appear that they pushed their advance-posts beyond Carmel in order to
keep in touch with the independent Canaanite cities such as Megiddo,
Taanach, and Bethshan, and to ensure a free use of the various routes
leading in the direction of Damascus, Tyre, and Coele-Syria.**

* After the victory at Gilboa, the Philistines exposed the
dead bodies of Saul and his sons upon the walls of Bethshan
(1 Sam. xxxi. 10, 12), which they would not have been able
to do had the inhabitants not been allies or vassals.
Friendly relations with Bethshan entailed almost as a matter
of course some similar understanding with the cities of the
plain of Jezreel.

** 1 Sam. vii. 16, 17. These verses represent, as a matter
of fact, all that we know of Samuel anterior to his
relations with Saul. This account seems to represent him as
exercising merely a restricted influence over the territory
of Benjamin and the south of Ephraim. It was not until the
prophetic period that, together with Eli, he was made to
figure as Judge of all Israel.

The Philistine power continued dominant for at least half a century. The
Hebrew chroniclers, scandalised at the prosperity of the heathen,
did their best to abridge the time of the Philistine dominion, and
interspersed it with Israelitish victories. Just at this time, however,
there lived a man who was able to inspire them with fresh hope. He was
a priest of Bamah, Samuel, the son of Elkanah, who had acquired the
reputation of being a just and wise judge in the towns of Bethel,
Gilgal, and Mizpah; "and he judged Israel in all those places, and his
return was to Bamah, for there was his house... and he built there an
altar unto the Lord." To this man the whole Israelite nation attributed
with pride the deliverance of their race. The sacred writings relate how
his mother, the pious Hannah, had obtained