The History of Antiquity Volume I Part 28

The Israelites had risen from a tribe into a nation, which stood in need of organisation when it was no longer under Egyptian dominion. This arrangement must be founded upon the connection of families and races, on respect for the tie of blood, and reverence for age. No other political division was known but community of family and descent.

Affinities and races were in existence which carried back their origin to one patriarch, they followed the head of the oldest family, from whom the rest were derived, or thought that they were derived, and usually obeyed his decision. Some of these races carried their pedigree back to Jacob and his sons. After the pattern of these connections, and by adopting and adding to them, the whole nation was brought into ties of relationship. Strangers and families without a name must have here been in part allotted to the affinities already in existence, and partly formed into new corporations, and new affinities, so that in the total there were some seventy groups of families. Those derived from the old stocks, who carried their origin back to the same son of Jacob, formed together a large community, or tribe, and were accustomed to obey the nearest descendant of the patriarch, the son of his oldest son, from first-born to first-born, and thus the head of the oldest family in the whole community, as their tribal prince and leader by birth. In the same manner, also, the new groups of families became amalgamated into tribes, and older families were put at their head as chiefs of the tribe, in such a manner that from three to ten groups of families formed a tribe.[665] Thus twelve tribes were formed. Even the nations most closely allied to the Hebrews, the Nahorites, and Ishmaelites, were divided into twelve tribes; the Edomites were apparently divided into sixteen. The tribes already in existence were derived from definite progenitors, the sons of Jacob; and also for the new tribes one of the sons of Jacob, the number of whom has thus been fixed, was allotted as a patriarch. Reuben, Simeon, and Judah, were Jacob's eldest sons, borne by Leah his first wife in lawful marriage. From these three the oldest groups were derived. With the tribes of Issachar and Zebulon families were connected, whose antiquity did not go so far back, and thus Issachar and Zebulon were held to be younger sons of Jacob by the same wife. The tribes of Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher, were not considered equally pure; perhaps because additional families had been incorporated in them: hence, as we saw, their progenitors are said to be the sons of Jacob by his handmaids. The tribes of Ephraim, Mana.s.seh, and Benjamin, are marked as of later origin by the fact that they are carried back to Jacob and Rachel; and if Joseph begot his sons Ephraim and Mana.s.seh with the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis, this leads to the conclusion that the families incorporated into the tribes of Ephraim and Mana.s.seh had grown up in Egypt, and had Egyptian blood in their veins. But Ephraim was at the same time the strongest tribe, which in numbers and bravery outstripped the rest, and the later origin is compensated by the importance of Rachel and Joseph. The Egyptian element which Ephraim and Mana.s.seh introduced among the Hebrews cannot have been of any importance, for neither the language nor the ideas of the Hebrews incorporated elements from Egypt. Only a few external touches in the dress of the priests can be carried back with certainty to Egyptian influence. Of the two sons of Joseph, Mana.s.seh is the elder, Ephraim the younger. Hence the groups of families incorporated into the first, must have been considered the older, or the tribe of Mana.s.seh must at one time have had precedence of Ephraim, which may have been the case about the time of Gideon.

If in the place of Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob, two grandsons are adopted into the number of the patriarchs, room is made by excluding Levi, a son of Jacob's first marriage, from the series of the tribes.

Tradition places him among the oldest sons, between Simeon and Judah.

But the tribes deduced from this ancestor won no territory like the rest: they were scattered among the other tribes. We may a.s.sume that the priestly families, who from antiquity had discharged the sacred duty at the main seats of worship, the race of Kohath (to which belonged the sons of Aaron), with the priestly families of the other altars (the races of Gershom and Merari), and the families of the temple-servants connected with them, were not combined into a tribe till a late period.

The name "Levi" may mean "bound," _i.e._ bound to a shrine, and hence a temple-servant. The separation of this tribe from the rest, and its dedication to the sacred service, is brought forward with great emphasis in the first text, which was composed from the point of view of the priests. Jehovah takes the Levites in the place of the first-born of Israel, and this same text allots to the Levites forty-eight cities of Canaan which they never possessed, and never inhabited either exclusively or in preponderant numbers.[666] But while in this text the adoption of the Levites by Jehovah, and their "possession of the sacrifice" in the place of a territory, is regarded and extolled as a privilege of this tribe, we found above (p. 439) that an old poem spoke of the "division of the Levites in Jacob and their scattering in Israel"

as the punishment of the sin which their progenitor had once committed.

Hence we must a.s.sume that the groups of races, to which the foremost families of the priests belonged, once formed a connected tribe like the rest, and the breaking up of this tribe was brought about after the settlement in Canaan by causes unknown to us.

FOOTNOTES:

[650] Numb. xxiv. 13, c. x.x.xi.

[651] Numb. x.x.xii. 4; Noldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 90.

[652] De Wette-Schrader, "Einleitung," s. 292; Noldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 86.

[653] 2 Kings xviii. 4.

[654] Numb. xx. 1-13, 22-29; Deut. x.x.xii. 48-52.

[655] Lepsius, "Briefe," s. 245.

[656] Isaiah xv. 8.

[657] On the mutual interpolations of the narratives, both in regard to the rebels and the mode of their destruction, see Noldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 79, 131.

[658] Lepsius, "Briefe," s. 341.

[659] Numb. x.x.xiii. 40 (the first text); Numb. xxi. 1-3, and xiv. 44, 45, belong to the second text; De Wette-Schrader, "Einleitung," s. 291; Deut. i. 44; Joshua xii. 14; Judges i. 17. Cf. Noldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 85, on the tenacity with which unsuccessful battles are remembered in these districts.

[660] Noldeke explains Exod. xx. 23-26 and xxi. 1-xxiii. 19, as in substance and in part a composition of great antiquity, "Untersuchungen," s. 51.

[661] Noldeke ("Untersuchungen," s. 62 ff.) proves that Levit. i.-xxvi.

2, and xxvii., with the exception of a few additions, especially cc.

xviii.-xx. belong to the first text; and De Wette-Schrader ("Einleitung," s. 286 ff.) proves the same for nearly the whole book.

Moreover, he shows at length, pp. 265, 266, that many of the ceremonial ordinances and the faith of the land in general goes back to Moses, or the Mosaic times.

[662] The Mosaic origin of the decalogue (Exod. xx. 1-17; Deut. v. 6-21) is proved in De Wette-Schrader, "Einleitung," s. 284. The original form of it, it is true, is no longer in existence.

[663] So the old codex, Exod. xxi. 1-6. The priestly law on the other hand puts off the liberation till the year of Jubilee, Levit. xxv. 39 ff.

[664] On Exod. xxi.-xxiii. 19, cf. De Wette-Schrader, "Einleitung," s.

285, 286, and Noldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 51, 63 ff.

[665] Gen. xlvi. 8-27 Numb. ii 3-31; 1 Chron. ii 10.

[666] Noldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 103, 109, 128.

CHAPTER XI.

THE HEBREW INVASION OF CANAAN.

When the Israelites had delivered themselves from the dominion of Egypt, they pastured their flocks on the peninsula of Sinai. Afterwards they wandered further to the north-east into the Syrian desert, and at length, as the oases in this district were few, and the wells insufficient, they threw themselves upon the rich uplands on the east of the Jordan. From the table-land, which they had conquered, they saw before them the happy valley of the Jordan, the fig-trees and pomegranates, the vines and green glades in the valleys beyond it. The sight roused the greater portion of the Israelites to descend into the valley, and invade the land beyond the river, in order to win settled abodes where milk and honey were said to flow.

We have already examined the circ.u.mstances of Canaan. The Amorites had destroyed the power of the Hitt.i.tes; and in conjunction with the remnants of the Hitt.i.tes and Hivites, they possessed the land. They lived separately in the various mountain cantons, under small princes from thirty to forty in number. But their cities were old and well fortified; the nature of the land was in favour of defence, and on the coasts lay the strong cities of the Phenicians and the Philistines. It was no light undertaking. The Israelites had left Egypt a nation of peaceful shepherds, but the sixty or seventy years which they subsequently pa.s.sed in the desert, and on the uplands beyond the Jordan, had hardened them and made them into warriors. The successes which they gained against the Amalekites, the Amorites of Heshbon, and Bashan must have roused their courage. If they combined in an attack on the isolated cantons of Canaan, they might hope to become masters even of the fortified walls, and perhaps they even found a.s.sistance among the Hitt.i.tes and Hivites, who lived under the oppressive rule of the Amorites. About the middle of the thirteenth century B.C., the greater part of the Israelites marched towards the Jordan. Joshua, the prince of the tribe of Ephraim, led the army. The tribes of Reuben and Gad, and a part of the tribe of Mana.s.seh, remained behind on the other side of the Jordan.[667]

The book of Joshua gives the following account of the conquest of Canaan by the Hebrews: It came to pa.s.s after the death of Moses, that Jehovah spoke to Joshua the son of Nun: Up, cross over Jordan, thou and all the people, into a land which I will give thee. Then Joshua commanded the leaders of the people: Go through the camp and say, Make ready your provisions; in three days ye shall cross the Jordan. When the people set out from their tents at s.h.i.ttim, and reached the Jordan with the priests carrying the ark before them, and the feet of the priests, who carried the ark, touched the water of Jordan, the water which flowed from above stood up, and the water which flowed downwards to the Dead Sea parted from the upper water, till the ark of Jehovah and the people of Israel had pa.s.sed over on dry land. And the people encamped at Gilgal, on the tenth day of the first month, and Joshua made sharp knives and circ.u.mcised the children of Israel, the whole nation that was born in the desert, and kept the pa.s.sover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plain of Jericho. And Jehovah said to Joshua: See, I have given Jericho and her king into thy hand. Go round the city for six days, and let seven priests carry seven trumpets before the ark, and on the seventh day ye shall go round the city seven times, and the priests shall blow upon the trumpets. And when ye hear the sound of the trumpets, all the people shall make a great cry, and the walls of the city will fall down, and the people shall pa.s.s over them, every man straight before him. Joshua fulfilled the command of Jehovah, and when the people marched round the walls of Jericho for the seventh time on the seventh day, Joshua said: Cry aloud, for Jehovah has given the city to you, and it shall be sacred, it and all that is in it, to Jehovah, and all the silver and gold, and all the vessels of copper and iron shall belong to Jehovah, and shall go into his treasury. When the people heard the sound of the trumpets, they made a great cry, and the walls fell down, and the people went up into the city and took it. And they set apart all that was in the city from the man to the woman, from the boy to the old man, from the oxen to the sheep, and slew them with the edge of the sword.

Then Joshua sent spies to Ai. When they returned they said to Joshua: Let not the whole people go up; two or three thousand men can smite Ai, for they are few. Joshua sent three thousand, but the men of Ai overcame them, and pursued them as far as Shebarim, and smote them on the slope of the mountain. Then Joshua rent his garments and fell upon his face.

But Jehovah said to him: Israel has taken of the forbidden spoil; the children of Israel cannot stand before their enemies, if that which is forbidden is not destroyed from their midst. They must come forth according to their tribes, races, and houses, and the house, which Jehovah shall choose, shall come forward man by man. And whoever shall be found with that which is forbidden, shall be burnt with fire and all that belongs to him. Joshua caused Israel to come forward, according to their tribes, and the lot fell on the tribe of Judah, and race of Serah; and in the race of Serah the lot fell upon the house of Sabdi, and of the men of the house of Sabdi the lot fell upon Achan, the son of Charmi. Then Achan confessed that he had taken a beautiful mantle of Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, and had hidden them in his tent. And Achan the son of Charmi was led out "with his sons and daughters, his oxen and a.s.ses, his tent and all that he had, and all Israel stoned them, and they burnt them with fire, and covered them with stones, and then erected there a great heap of stones." But Joshua set out towards Ai, with all the people, and chose 5,000 men of war, and sent them out in the night, and said to them: Go ye and lie in ambush at the back of the city, between Ai and Bethel. I and all the people that is with me will draw near towards the city, and if they come out to meet us, we will fly before them. Then be ye ready and rise up out of your ambush and set fire to the city. When Israel went forth towards Ai, the king of Ai came to meet them for battle; but Joshua turned with his people and fled, and all the people of Ai pursued them, and left the city open. Then the men in ambush rose, and set fire to the town; and when the men of Ai looked behind them, the smoke of their houses rose to heaven; and Israel turned upon their pursuers and slew the men of Ai, who were between the Israelites on this side, and the Israelites on that side, so that none remained beside the king whom they took alive. Afterwards the women and children in Ai were put to the sword, and of the slain on this day there were 12,000. And Joshua hanged the king of Ai on a tree till evening. Then they took the corpse down from the tree, and cast it at the entrance of the gate, and erected over it a great heap of stones till this day: but the city remained a heap of desolation.

When the men of Gibeon--a great city like one of the king's cities, it was greater than Ai, and all the inhabitants were men of war--and the men of Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim, heard what Joshua had done, they sent to him, and the messengers put old shoes and clouted on their feet, and old clothes on their bodies, and took old sacks on their a.s.ses, and patched wine skins, and the bread of their provisions was old and mouldy. Thus they came into the camp of Israel at Gilgal, and said to Joshua: We are come from a far country to make a covenant with thee; behold, the wine skins are torn which we filled new, our bread is dry and mouldy, our clothes and our shoes are old by reason of the length of the way. And Joshua made a covenant with them to let them live, and the princes of the people made an oath with them. But when the children of Israel set forth from Gilgal, they came on the third day to their cities. Then Joshua called them and said: Why have ye deceived us and said, we are far from you. Be ye now accursed, and may ye never cease to be servants, and drawers of water, and hewers of wood for the house of my G.o.d. Thus he did to them, and saved them from the hand of the children of Israel that they slew them not.

Adoni-zedec, king of Jerusalem, heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and her king, and to Ai and her king, and that Gibeon had made peace with Joshua. He sent to Hoham, king of Hebron; and to Piram, king of Jarmuth; and to j.a.phia, king of Lachish; and to Debir, king of Eglon, and they gathered themselves and went forth, five kings of the Amorites, and encamped against Gibeon. Then Joshua set forth from Gilgal, and all the men of war with him. And Jehovah caused the Amorites to flee before the children of Israel, and Joshua cried: Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon waned not, till the people took vengeance on their enemies, and before this was no day like it, nor after it. And the five kings fled and hid themselves in the cave at Makkedah; and when it was told to Joshua, that the kings were hidden there, he said: Roll great stones before the cave, and set men there to watch it. But do ye halt not, but pursue your enemies, and smite the rear guard, and let them not come into the cities. And Israel accomplished the slaughter, and turned back to the camp at Makkedah. And Joshua caused the five kings to come forth out of the cave, and called to the leaders of his warriors and said: Come forward and set your feet on the necks of these kings. And when this had been done, Joshua smote the kings, and hanged them on five trees, and they hung on the trees till evening. Then Joshua commanded to take them down, and they cast them into the cave, and laid great stones on the mouth of the cave till this day.

Then Joshua took Makkedah, and Libnah, and Lachish, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and let no fugitive escape in Makkedah, Libnah, and Lachish; and did to the kings of Makkedah and Libnah as he had done to the king of Jericho. Horam, king of Gezer, went out to help Lachish, but Joshua defeated him and went from Lachish against Eglon, and from Hebron against Debir; and he set apart Eglon, and Hebron, and Debir, all the souls that were therein, and smote the kings of Hebron and Debir with the edge of the sword, and returned to the camp at Gilgal.

But Jabin, king of Hazor, gathered together the kings of Madon, Shimron, and Achshaph, and the kings of the north, who dwell towards the midnight, on the mountain and in the plain, and they encamped a great nation as the sands on the sh.o.r.e of the sea in mult.i.tude, with chariots and horses on Lake Merom. Then Joshua with all his men of war fell upon them suddenly, and smote them, and pursued them as far as Sidon, and to the valley of Mizpeh, and lamed their horses, and burned their chariots with fire. Then he took Hazor, the chief city of all these kingdoms, and smote their king with the sword, and all the souls that were therein; and all the booty of these cities, and all the cattle, the Israelites took for spoil. For a long time Joshua made war with all these kings, and he expelled the Anakites from the mountains of Hebron, from Debir and Anab, from the mountain of Judah and the mountain of Israel; with their cities he destroyed them. And there was no city which surrendered peacefully to the Hebrews except that of the Hivites of Gibeon.

Joshua was old and stricken in years, and Jehovah said to him: Divide this land among the nine tribes and the half-tribe of Mana.s.seh. And Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun, and the chiefs of the tribes of the children of Israel divided the land by lot. And the lot of the children of Judah was in the south, as far as the wilderness of Sin and the brook of Egypt, and in the east as far as the Dead Sea and to the end of Jordan, and in the north the border was Gilgal and the valley of Ben Hinnom, and Beth Shemesh, and the western border was the Great Sea. And the lot came forth for the children of Joseph, and their borders on the south ran from the water of Jericho over toward Bethhoron, and from Bethhoron toward the sea. The land toward the south fell to Ephraim, and the land toward the north to Mana.s.seh. And the whole community of the children of Israel were gathered together at Shiloh, and there they set up the holy tent, and Joshua spake to the seven tribes, whose possessions were not yet allotted: Choose three men out of each tribe to write down the land, for I will cast lots for you here at Shiloh before Jehovah. And so the men went and wrote down the land according to the cities, in seven parts, and Joshua cast lots at Shiloh, and divided the land to the children of Israel according to their divisions. But Jehovah commanded Joshua that he should speak to the children of Israel, and tell them to fix the cities of refuge, to which the homicide was to fly who slew a man in misadventure, in order that the elders of the city might receive him, and if the avenger pursued him, they were not to deliver him into his hand till he had been brought before the people. And they consecrated Kadesh, and Shechem, and Hebron, and Bezer, and Ramoth in Gilead, and Golan. And the chiefs of the tribe of the Levites went to Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun, and asked for cities to dwell in, and land for their cattle; and the Israelites gave them forty-eight cities and their land for their possession. And Joshua gathered the elders of Israel, and his leaders and judges, and gave law and justice at Shechem; and he died one hundred and ten years old, and they buried him in the land of his possession at Timnath-serah, on the mountain of Israel; and the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem, on the piece of the field which Jacob bought (pp. 411, 418), and the children of Joseph kept the place for a possession. And Eleazar, the son of Aaron, died, and they buried him in Gibeah, the city of Phinehas, his son, which was given to him on the mountain of Ephraim.

The conception of the covenant between Jehovah and Israel, and of the arrangement of law, as it existed in complete perfection in later times, dominates the two texts of the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua, no less than the prophetic revision of these texts (p. 386), and could not but exercise an influence on the narrative of the conquest of Canaan, _i.e._, the fulfilment of the prophecies. Even in the first text it is the direct command of Jehovah which leads Joshua to set out towards the Jordan; and it is the priestly ideas of this text which come out strongly in the feast of the pa.s.sover and the circ.u.mcision before the conquest of Jericho. The miraculous pa.s.sage of the Jordan is a repet.i.tion of the pa.s.sage through the reed-sea. This narrative belongs, as it seems, to the second text, and is further amplified by the reviser.[668] The overthrow of the walls of Jericho, when the priests had blown their trumpets and the people raised the war-cry, is briefly narrated in the first text; here also the details are the work of the reviser. If the walls of Jericho were mounted at the first onset, tradition might well recount the story that they were broken down before the war-cry of Israel; and from this the farther account could be framed. The law of the priests ordained: "All that is devoted (_cherem_), what every man dedicates to Jehovah from all that is his, from men, or cattle, or the field of his possession, that cannot be bought or redeemed. All that is devoted is holy to Jehovah."[669] Joshua had devoted Jericho and all that was in the city to Jehovah. But one of the nation had taken something for himself from this devoted spoil. The punishment comes upon the whole people, and the first attempt on Ai is a failure. The more complete is the victory when that transgressor and his house is stoned to death. By this narrative the observance of the command was deeply impressed on all. When it was found long after the settlement in Canaan what pernicious results for life, morals, and religious worship followed from the fact that portions of the old population were allowed to remain among them, it appeared to the priestly mind that the due regulation and purity of the Hebrew nature required the extinction of the earlier inhabitants, and even before they took possession of Canaan, Jehovah must have given the command to make neither covenant nor marriage with the Canaanites, to destroy their altars and images, and to extirpate the nation.[670] Without doubt, at the time of the conquest a considerable number of the old population were not only driven out, but were put to death; and it is certain that when cities were taken by storm their inhabitants "from man to woman, from child to old man," were slain with the edge of the sword; but a systematic extirpation did not take place. Of the four cities of the Hivites--Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim--Gibeon, two good hours north-west of Jebus, was the most important. These four cities joined the Hebrews against the ruling Amorites,[671] and combined with them. The craft of the Gibeonites, by which they succeeded in deceiving Joshua about their Canaanitic descent, is intended to explain the sparing of such an important part of the old population in opposition to the pre-dated command of extirpation. And if to this is added the fact that Joshua, when he had once sworn to grant their lives, made them hewers of wood and drawers of water for the whole community, this, no doubt, rests on the fact that at a later time king Saul, "in his zeal for Israel," intended to extirpate all the Gibeonites, and did extirpate part, "though Israel had sworn to them;" that David favoured them, but Solomon made "all that was left of the Amorites, Jebusites, Hitt.i.tes, Perizzites, and Hivites bond-servants to this day."[672] The king Adoni-zedek of Jerusalem, who, startled by the fall of Jericho and Ai, and "the peace which Gibeon had made with Joshua," brings about the league of the Amorite princes in the south against the invasion of the Hebrews, belongs to the prophetic revision; in the first text the Jerusalem of later times is still the city of the Jebusites. The description of the great battle and of the miracle at Gibeon against the Amorites belongs to the second text. The miracle is founded merely on the poetical expression in the Israelite song of victory, "the sun stood still and the moon stayed till the people had punished their enemies,"

which meant no more than that the day had been long enough, and the moon had shone long enough, to allow them to achieve a great defeat of the Amorites, and to pursue them a considerable distance. After this day Joshua is said to have taken Hebron, Debir, Libnah, and Lachish, to have conquered the kings of Northern Canaan in a great battle, and to have gained their cities, including Hazor. This narrative with its particulars, according to which the conquest of Canaan took place in consequence of the battle of Gibeon and a second great victory of the Israelites at Lake Merom, belongs to the revision,[673] and is open to serious difficulties. In the first place we are told that Joshua, for a long time, had fought against all the kings; but Hazor, the abode of Jabin, which Joshua had attacked, we find shortly after as again the abode of Jabin. A large number of places which Joshua is said to have taken are subsequently not in the hands of Israel, and both in the Book of Joshua and the Book of Judges mention is made of separate battles of the tribes among which the battle about Hebron, which the tribe of Judah obtained, is the most conspicuous.[674]

It was the view of both texts that the whole land was promised and plighted to the Hebrews. They did not dwell on particulars in order to bring out more definitely and clearly the community of the tribes, the divinely-arranged and righteous division of the land among them. After the war, in the traditional account, had continued about five years, and Joshua was eighty-five years old, he and Eleazar, the son of Aaron, divide by lot the territory gained on this side of the Jordan. The first text here defines the portion of the tribe of Judah with special minuteness, the second dwells upon the importance of the tribe of Ephraim. Last of all, the forty-eight cities, on an average four in each tribe, were set apart for the Levites. Of these forty-eight thirteen are mentioned as allotted to the families of the priests of the tribe of Levi. These lie entirely in the territory of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin, while the ark of the covenant evidently was placed at Shiloh in the territory of Ephraim. In the neighbourhood of this sanctuary, therefore, the priests must have had their dwellings. On the other hand, n.o.b, which in Saul's time was called a city of the priests,[675] was not among these thirteen cities. And among the thirty-five cities which are said to have been given to the Levite ministers, several are found which were not conquered by the Israelites, such as Taanach, Gezer, Jibleam, and Nahalal. Of the thirteen towns of the priests and the six cities of refuge, which were partly cities of the priests and partly of the temple-servants, Hebron, the first-mentioned, was, as has been already remarked, conquered later on, and not by Joshua. These arrangements have arisen out of ideals; there never were Levite cities in Israel, and the right of asylum in the cities of refuge was not recognised till a later time. Even if we set aside the sacerdotal scheme for the distribution of the land, we cannot repose complete confidence in an apparently ancient enumeration of the conquered kings and cities given in the Book of Joshua. Allowing that it belonged to one of the two original texts, it has been altered and interpolated.[676] Cities are mentioned as conquered which are not mentioned in the preceding narrative; others are quoted as subjugated which evidently remained long after in the hand of the Canaanites, like Taanach and Megiddo.[677]

Adopting, therefore, as our princ.i.p.al basis the accounts which are in existence about the battles of the various tribes, we shall have to a.s.sume that the course of affairs was somewhat of this kind. The two tribes of Reuben and Gad and the greater part of the tribe of Mana.s.seh preferred to remain on the east of the Jordan. The fertile depression round Jericho naturally formed the first object of attack. Jericho was taken. But the destruction of the city can hardly have been completely carried out; for not very long after we find it again inhabited.[678]

That the Hebrews after taking Jericho established themselves at Gilgal, and from this place undertook flying campaigns against the cities of the Amorites, are statements which, as to the fact, need not excite any doubts. The covenant with the neighbouring four cities of the Hivites, which was appealed to even in the time of the kings, proves evidently that these cities united with the Israelites and fought on their side against the Amorites. In order to defend Gibeon against the Amorites, who wished to punish their defection, the great battle against the Amorites took place near this city, which is proved to be a fact by the old song of victory. By this overthrow the power of the Amorites seems to have been broken. Their defence henceforth is confined to each of the cities maintaining itself. But the attacking party also lost their unity. The various tribes of the Israelites attempted to conquer the districts which pleased them; and the campaign of conquest broke up into local conflicts. The tribe of Ephraim, accompanied by the greater part of the remaining tribes, turned northwards to the green heights and shady valleys of Shiloh and Shechem. Here, on "the mountain of Ephraim,"

the Ephraimites settled; the sacred ark was placed at Shiloh, and here at Timnath-Serah, "which he had sought from the people and had obtained," Joshua took up his abode, and built the city and dwelt therein. Round the fortress of the prince the best part of the tribe must have settled. On the same mountains lay the portion of land which belonged to the priest of the sacred ark, Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron.[679] Near a sanctuary at Shechem, under the oak, the priests and elders of the tribe a.s.sembled for the administration of law and justice.

The Ephraimitic text represents the sons of Joseph as saying to Joshua that they were a numerous people, and that Mount Ephraim was too narrow for them. Joshua replied, Go up to the forest, and hew out for yourselves there in the land of the Perizzites and Rephaims, if Mount Ephraim is too narrow for you. They answered: The mountain will not be gained by us; there are iron chariots among all the Canaanites who dwell in the land of the valley at Beth-shean, and in the valley of Jezreel. But Joshua said: The mountain shall belong to thee. It is forest, hew it down, and the outgoings shall belong to thee. Thou shalt drive out the Canaanites.[680]

The tribes of Judah and Simeon turned to the south after the battle of Gibeon, and settled in the mountain land of Hebron; here they succeeded in acquiring a considerable territory. But it was only by slow degrees, through long and severe battles, that the two tribes advanced. The tribe of Judah first overcame the king of Bezek, and took him prisoner. From the king as from the rest of the prisoners the thumbs and the great toes were cut off. Then the king of Bezek said: Three score and ten kings having their thumbs and their great toes cut off gathered what fell from my table; now I have been requited.[681] Of more importance was it that Caleb the son of Jephunneh established himself in Hebron, the old metropolis of the land of the south (p. 346), and independently subjugated the surrounding territory.[682] To the man who should conquer Debir he promised his daughter Achsah to wife, and Othniel his brother's son gained the city and the woman. From Debir the tribe of Judah pressed on to the south, and conquered Zephath and Hormah. "And Jehovah"--so we find it in the Book of Judges--"was with Judah, and he took the mountain and possessed it, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the low ground because they had chariots of iron."[683] The inhabitants of the low ground are the Philistines on the coast, whose power was undoubtedly superior to that of the tribes of Judah and Simeon. The Simeonites, a tribe by no means numerous, settled themselves under the tribe of Judah, and had to be content with the least fertile districts on the southern border.

The tribe of Mana.s.seh, so nearly related to Ephraim, had in part remained beyond the Jordan; the other part settled under the Ephraimites, on their northern border in the region from Hadad Rimmon to the mouth of the Kishon, but they were unable to gain the mastery over the greater number of the cities of the Canaanites situated in this district. The little tribe of Benjamin had settled round Gibeon, perhaps immediately after the battle, between Bethhoron and Jericho, on the southern border of Ephraim. The tribes of Issachar and Zebulon, Asher and Naphtali were the last to acquire settled abodes. Issachar conquered the heights of Tirzah and Gilboa, as far as Tabor; Zebulon planted himself between the right bank of the Kishon and the lake of Kinneroth, in the region of Jokneam and Beth Arbel. Westward of the lakes of Kinneroth and Merom lay the tribes of Naphtali and Asher; the first was nearest to the lake of Merom, in the district of the northern Kadesh; Asher was further to the west, on the borders of the land of Tyre. The tribe of Dan attempted to gain the spurs of the mountain westward of Benjamin towards the sea. For a long time it encamped against the Amorites and the northern cities of the Philistines, Ekron and Gath, but though occasionally supported by Ephraim and Judah, it never gained territory enough for its numbers. When the others had long been fixed in settled abodes, a part of the Danites, finding it impossible to advance to the coast, set out to the north, and took the city of Laish, northward of Kadesh and the land of Naphtali, which belonged to the Sidonians,[684] gave it the name of Dan, and here, as they had become more warlike than the rest, owing to their prolonged battles, maintained the northernmost point of the land of Israel.

The conquest was completed. In the middle of the thirteenth century B.C.

the Israelites had broken the power of the Amorites in Canaan, and gained a considerable territory (about 10,000 square miles), of which one-half lay on the nearer and the other on the farther side of the Jordan. But this land, divided by the Jordan, was neither a whole united from within, nor protected by natural boundaries from without. As the Israelites immediately after their first successes became again disunited, and the attack became less powerful at every step in advance, the Canaanites maintained themselves in independence, in separate valleys or heights difficult of approach, and in strong fortresses.

Remnants of the Canaanites remained everywhere among and between the Israelites. Beside the Benjamites the Jebusites (a tribe of the Amorites) maintained themselves, and at Gibeon, Kirjath-jearim, Chephirah, and Beeroth were the Hivites, who had made peace with the Israelites. In the land of Ephraim the Canaanites held their ground at Gezer and Bethel, until the latter--it was an important city--was stormed by the Ephraimites.[685] Among the tribe of Mana.s.seh the Canaanites were settled at Beth Shean, Dan, Taanach, Jibleam, Megiddo and their districts,[686] and in the northern tribes the Canaanites were still more numerous. It was not till long after the immigration of the Hebrews that they were made in part tributary.[687] The land of the Israelites beyond the Jordan, where the tribe of Mana.s.seh possessed the north, Gad the centre, and Reuben the south as far as the Arnon, was exposed to the attacks of the Ammonites and Moabites, and the migratory tribes of the Syrian desert, and must have had the greater attraction for them, as better pastures were to be found in the heights of Gilead, and the valleys there were more fruitful. To the west only the tribe of Ephraim reached the sea, and became master of a harbourless strip of coast. The remaining part of the coast and all the harbours remained in the hands of the powerful cities of the Philistines and the Phenicians.

No attempt was made to conquer these, although border-conflicts took place between the tribes of Judah, Dan, and Asher, and Philistines and Sidonians. Such an attempt could only have been made if the Israelites had remained united, and even then the powers of the Israelites would hardly have sufficed to overthrow the walls of Gaza, Ascalon, and Ashdod, of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus. Yet the invasion of the Israelites was not without results for the cities of the coast: it forced a large part of the population to a.s.semble in them, and we shall see below how rapid and powerful is the growth of the strength and importance of Tyre in the time immediately following the incursion of the Israelites, _i.e._ immediately after the middle of the thirteenth century. As the population and in consequence the power of the cities on the coast increased, owing to the collection of the ancient population on the sh.o.r.e of the sea, those cities became all the more dangerous neighbours for the Israelites.

It was a misfortune for the new territory which the Israelites had won by the sword that it was without the protection of natural boundaries on the north and east, that the cities of the Philistines and Phenicians barred it towards the sea, and in the interior remnants of the Canaanites still maintained their place. Yet it was a far more serious danger for the immigrants that they were without unity, connection, or guidance, for they had already given up these before the conflict was ended. Undoubtedly a vigorous leadership in the war of conquest against the Canaanites might have established a military monarchy which would have provided better for the maintenance of the borders and the security of the land than was done in its absence. But the isolated defence made by the Canaanites permitted the attacking party also to isolate themselves. The new masters of the land lived, like the Canaanites before and among them, in separate cantons; the mountain land which they possessed was much broken up, and without any natural centre, and though there were dangerous neighbours, there was no single concentrated aggressive power in the neighbourhood, now that Egypt remained in her borders. The cities of the Philistines formed a federation merely, though a federation far more strongly organised than the tribes of the Israelites. Under these circ.u.mstances political unity was not an immediately pressing question among the Israelites; but owing to the dispersion in which they lived, and the open borders of their new kingdom, the question seriously arose whether they could enjoy in peace the land they had won. Whatever the weight with which the want of internal concentration and external repulsion might be felt, whatever the difficulties arising from the remnant of Canaanites left in the land, and however unsatisfactory the maintenance of the borders of the land, these political drawbacks were only so many advantages for the development of the religious and moral life of the Israelites.

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