... It is easy to torment a man in his helplessness—easy to make a show of strength against the impotent. The persecution of the minority by the majority is a familiar pattern of behavior. The Ammonihahites would probably have killed their prisoners immediately, as they did the wives and children of their converts, but they wanted to make more sport of them. The reader will recall to mind that comparable episode related in the Book of Judges. “Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand. ... And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and he made them sport: and they set him between the pillars.” (25)