2618. The descendants of Jacob were such that they exercised cruelty on the nations and derived their highest enjoyment from that, so they were extremely cruel, and for no other purpose than to take revenge, as they claimed, under the pretext of holiness, when yet this purpose was never in them, but only that passion-which shows plainly from the things told about them when they became worse idolaters. Then when it only entered their mind that a people was their enemy for some reason or other, they at once thought it permissible to exercise every cruelty against them, their women, wives, children, as was clearly the case with David against Nabal [1 Sam. 25], who was nevertheless from among his brothers. So in other cases, they had besides this no other reaction than to make raids, pillaging everything, killing all that was living among the people.