upon the people. But that a man, because he was called king, should
rule, and send the people hither and thither for his own ends, and
slaughter them, was horrible to me. I sought the Lord in prayer to
know how I should meet this request, and He counselled me to yield.

I assembled the people together, and rehearsed unto them all that had
been done for them without the help of a king. I foretold to them that
the king would be for himself, and not for them--that he would press
their sons and daughters into his service; but the people would not
listen to me. The Lord had said unto me that they had not rejected me,
but rejected Him that He should not reign over them, as they had ever
done since the day when they were brought up out of Egypt. I cared
not, however, for their rejection of me, but because it was He who was
rejected. I thought over it night and day, and it well nigh broke my
heart.

Those who had hitherto been placed over us had not been chosen because
they were the sons of the rich, or of those who were chosen before
them. Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Jephthah, were all of them select of the
Lord from the people. Nay, even a woman had been taken to judge
Israel--Deborah the prophetess, who dwelt under the palm-tree here
between Ramah and Bethel. It was Deborah who sent for Barak to lead
the host against Sisera, and Barak said to her that if she went he
would go, but if she went not he would not go, so mighty was her
presence. Sisera gathered together his army and all his chariots, nine
hundred chariots of iron; but Deborah spoke a word in the ears of
Barak, when he was afraid, and Sisera was discomfited with all his
chariots and his host. He fled, and it was a woman, Jael, the wife of
Heber, who slew him--for ever honoured be her name. In the days of
Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were