The Cave of Treasures 55

²🔗 And then the children of Israel were in subjection to the Moabites for eighteen years. And Ahor (Ehud), the son of Gera, ruled the children of Israel for eighty years. AND IN THE TWENTY-Sixth year of his life the fourth thousand years came to an end. Nabhin (Jabin), who was dried up in body, ruled twenty years.

³🔗 Deborah and Barak [ruled them] forty years. The children of Israel were in subjection to the Midianites seven years, and God delivered them by the hands of Gideon, who ruled them forty years. Abimelech his son reigned after him three years. Tala’ (Tola), the son of Puah [ruled them] twenty-three years.

⁴🔗 Yair, the Gileadite, twenty-two years. And again the children of Israel were in subjection to the Ammonites eighteen years, and God delivered them by the hand of Naphtah (Jephthah), the man who offered up his daughter as a sacrifice, and he ruled them six years. Abhisan (Ibzan of Bethlehem), who is Nahshón (sic), ruled them seven years.

⁵🔗 Alón (Elon), who was from Zebulon, ruled them ten years. ‘Abhrón (Abdon, the son of Hillel, the Pirathonite) ruled them eight years. And the children of Israel were in subjection to the Philistines forty years, and God delivered them by the hand of Samson, and he ruled them twenty years. And the children of Israel lived without a governor for eighteen years, and then Eli the priest rose up and ruled them forty years.

⁶🔗 And Samuel rose up over them and ruled them twenty years. And in the days of Samuel the children of Israel provoked to wrath God, Who had delivered them from the servitude of the Egyptians, and they made Saul, the son of Kish, king, and he reigned over them forty years. And in the days of Saul lived Gülyàdh (Goliath), a giant of the Philistines.

⁷🔗 He came nigh and reviled Israel, and blasphemed against God, and David, the son of Jesse, killed him. And David was praised in songs by the daughters of Israel, and Saul persecuted him. And the Philistines slew Saul because he forsook the Lord, and took refuge with the devils. David reigned over the children of Israel forty years, and Solomon, his son, reigned forty years.

⁸🔗 Aud Solomon did great and wonderful things, and it was he who sent to Ophir and brought gold from the mountains of gold, and the ships sailed the sea for thirty-six months, and then came forth (i.e. returned). It was he who built Tadmor (Palmyra) in the wilderness, and he carried out there great and wonderful works.

⁹🔗 And when Solomon passed the borders of the mountain which is called Sa’ér, he found there the altar which Piórzákhár, and Piórzanai, and Neznádhór had built. These were they whom Nimrod, the giant, sent to Balaam, the priest of the Mountain of Sá’ér, because he heard that he was wont to consult the Signs of the Zodiac, and when they were passing the skirts of the mountain they built there an altar to the sun.

¹⁰🔗 And when Solomon saw it he built a city there and called its name “Niapdlis” (more correctly, Heliopolis), that is to say, “City of the Sun.” And Solomon also built Aradus (Arvad) in the midst of the sea, and he became so famous and renowned that the report of his wise acts went out into all the ends of the earth.

¹¹🔗 And the Queen of Sheba went to hold converse with him. And Solomon loved Hiram, king of Tyre, greatly. And Hiram reigned in Tyre five hundred years, from the days of the kingdom of David to the [days of] the kingdom of Zedekiah and of all the kings of the children of Israel. And at length he forgot that he was a man, and he blasphemed and said, “I am God, and I sit upon the throne of God in the middle of the sea.” And Nebuchadnezzar the king killed him.