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Quest. How could the Israelites smite either the garrison of the Philistines, above, 1Sa_13:3, or the host of the Ammonites, 1Sa_11:11, without arms? And when they had conquered them, why did they not take away their arms, and reserve them to their own use?
Answ. 1. This want of swords and spears is not affirmed concerning all Israel, but is restrained unto those six hundred who were with Saul and Jonathan, whom God by his providence might suffer to be without those arms, that the glory of the following victory might be wholly ascribed to God; as for the very same reason God would have but three hundred men left with Gideon, and those armed only with trumpets, and pitchers, and lamps Jud 7. There were no doubt a considerable number of swords and spears among the Israelites, but they generally hid them, as now they did their persons, from the Philistines. And the Philistines had not yet attained to so great a power over them, as wholly to disarm them, but thought it sufficient to prevent the making of new arms, knowing that the old ones would shortly be decayed and useless.
2. There were other arms more common in those times and places than swords and spears, to wit, bows and arrows, and slings and stones; as appears from Jud_20:16 2Sa_1:18,22 2Ki_3:25 1Ch_12:1,2; besides clubs, and instruments of agriculture, which might easily be turned into weapons of war.
3. God so governed the affairs of the Israelites, that they had no great number of swords or spears, Jud_5:8, that so they might be kept in more dependence upon and subjection unto God, wherein their safety and happiness consisted. And therefore that famous victory obtained against the Philistines in Samuel’s days, was not got by the sword of men, but only by thunder from heaven, 1Sa_7:10.