LVIII. (1) Josippon says that the incident of Micah and the concubine of Gibeah occurred between the time of the death of Joshua and Othniel, between the times to which the following verses refer, viz.: 'And Judah captured Azah and its boundary, and Ekron and Askalon'; and the other, And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and He delivered them into the hands of the Canaanites. Then the children of Dan built Laish and the mountain.' For the purpose of enabling us to calculate
the days of the judges, this portion was placed at the end of the Book of Judges.
(2) After Othniel came Ehud. At that time, in the days of Ehud, the city Cinnereth in Lybia (###) was built, and many ships were built by Tritolymus (###), for carrying wheat, for merchandise. Dionysius built the city of Niza, in Media; Troy (###) was built about the same time in Dardania. There a dog killed Piritius (###), and attempted to slay Tisius, and Heraclones saved him. In the sixty-ninth year of Ehud the city Ṣirine (###) in Libia was built. (3) Shamgar succeeded him, and was followed by Deborah and Barak, who fought with Sisera. And the Lord confounded Sisera and all his charioteers and his whole camp with a fierce tempest; and He overwhelmed them all with hail, and blinding rain and lightnings and thunders, so that they could no longer stand, but fell by the sword.
(4) Sisera then fled on foot to the tent of Jael, who went out to meet him and embraced him. Then, covering him well, he fell into a deep sleep. And Jael prayed to God, saying, 'I pray Thee, O Lord, strengthen Thy handmaid against Thy enemy, and by this I shall know that Thou wilt deliver him into my hand, viz., if I bring him down from his bed on to the ground, and he does not awake.' She did accordingly. Then, taking a nail of the tent and a hammer, she knocked the nail into his temple, according to Deborah's prophecy. And Barak captured Ḥaṣor and slew its king, and all its inhabitants.
(5) Now, when Sisera went out to fight against Israel his mother, Tamar, with her maidens and princesses, by means of their enchantments prophesied, saying that Sisera would bring as spoil one or more of the women of Israel with their coloured garments, for she saw in her charms that he would lie upon the bed of Jael, the wife of Heber, and be covered with a coloured garment of needlework. Therefore she said, 'A damsel, two damsels to every man.'
(6) At that time the kings of Argos, who had reigned for
(11) At that time Theseus captured Helena, but Castor and Pollox, the brothers of Theseus, and his mother, were captured. The city of Carthage (Qar Laini, ###) was then built. Nizpa (###) invented the Latin alphabet.