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 Bible Class primers. 
 
 EDITED BY PROFESSOR SALMOND, D.D., ABERDEEN 
 
 JOSHUA: 
 
 AND THE 
 
 CONQUEST. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 y 
 
 REV. PROFESSOR CROSKERY 
 
 MAGEE COLLEGE, LONDONDERRY. 
 
 dBMttbttrgh: 
 
 MACNIVEN & WALLACE. 
 
 1 8 8 2 . 
 

 
 
 ■ 
 
CONTE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter I.— Joshua,.7 
 
 1. His Parentage and Early Life.—2. His Early Achieve¬ 
 ments.—3. His Character and Fitness for his Work. 
 
 Chapter II.— The Land of Promise, ... 10 
 
 4. Its Central Situation.—5. Its Secluded Position.—6. 
 Its Extent. 
 
 Chapter III.— The Original Inhabitants of Palestine, 14 
 7. Their General Designation.—8. The Individual Tribes 
 or Nations of Canaan.—9. Religion of the old In¬ 
 habitants. 
 
 Chapter IV. —The Right of the Hebrews to Palestine, 18 
 10. Palestine a Divine Grant.—11. The Dispossession a 
 Divine Judgment on the Canaanites.—-12. The Instru¬ 
 ments of the Divine Judgment.—13. A Lesson of Warn¬ 
 ing to the Hebrews. 
 
 Chapter Y.—The Plan of the Campaign, . . 22 
 
 14. Its Leading Features.—15. The Execution of the 
 Plan. 
 
 Chapter VI.— First Stage of the Conquest, . . 24 
 
 16. The Spirit of the Hebrews at the Opening of the 
 Campaign.—17. Mission of the Spies to Jericho.—18. 
 The Conduct and Character of Rahab.—19. The River 
 Jordan at the Time of Crossing.—20, The Crossing of the 
 Jordan.—21. Memorials of the Crossing and the first 
 Encampment.—22. Renewal of Circumcision and Ob¬ 
 servance of the Passover.—23. The Capture of Jericho. 
 —24. Destruction of Jericho and its Inhabitants.—25. 
 The Curse on Jericho. —26. The First Military Check of 
 the Hebrews and its Cause. —27. Discovery and Punish¬ 
 ment of Achan.—28. Capture of Ai.—29.—The Pilgrim¬ 
 age to Shechem.—30. The Blessing and the Cursing. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter VII.— Second Stage of the Conquest, , 47 
 
 31. The Gibeonite Community.—32. The Stratagem of 
 the Gibeonites and its Success.—33. The Confederacy of 
 Southern Canaan.—34. The Battle of Beth-horon.—35. 
 The Lengthening of Daylight to the Victors.—36. The 
 Complete Conquest of Southern Palestine. 
 
 Chapter VIII.— Third Stage of the Conquest, . 57 
 
 37. The Northern Confederacy.—38. The Battle of 
 Merom. — 39. Extermination of the Anakims. — 40. 
 General Restropect of the Conquest. 
 
 Chapter IX.— Division of the Land, ... 65 
 
 41. Principles of the Division.—42. Settlement of Reuben, 
 Gad, and the Half-Tribe of Manasseh.—I. The Tribe of 
 Judah. 43. The Territory of this Tribe.—44. Fortunes 
 of the Tribe.—II. Tribe of Joseph. 45. The Territory 
 of Ephraim and Manasseh.—46. Subsequent History of 
 the Two Tribes.—47. Removal of the Tabernacle to 
 Shiloh.—III. Tribe of Benjamin. 48. Its Territory and 
 History.—IV. Tribe of Simeon. 49. Its Territory and 
 History.—V. Tribe of Zebulun. 50. Its Territory and 
 History.—VI. Tribe of Issachar. 51. Its Territory and 
 History.—VII. Tribe of Asher. 52. Its Territory and 
 History.—VIII. Tribe of Naphtali. 53. Its Territory 
 and History.—IX. Tribe of Dan. 54. Its Territory and 
 History. — X. The Inheritance of Joshua. 55. His 
 Modest Reward.—XI. Cities of Refuge. 56. Their 
 Situation, Privileges, and Immunities.—XII. The In¬ 
 heritance of Levi. 57. Provision for the Levites.—XIII. 
 Return of the Transjordanic Tribes. 58. Final Incident 
 of the Settlement.—XIV. Results of the Settlement. 59. 
 Socially, Politically, Religiously. 
 
 Chapter X.-— The Last Days of Joshua, . . . 90 
 
 60. His Last Work.—61. Death and Burial of Joshua. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 JOSHUA. 
 
 1. HIS PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE. The 
 
 leader of the Hebrews in the conquest of Palestine 
 was Joshua, a prince of the tribe of Ephraim (Num. 
 xiii. 2). His pedigree is preserved in a more perfect 
 form than that of any of his contemporaries (1 Chr. 
 vii. 20-27), and it reaches back through some ten 
 generations to Joseph. His father was Nun, of whom 
 only the name is known. His grandfather, Elishama, 
 marched through the wilderness of Sinai at the head 
 of his tribe (Num. x. 22), and probably had the 
 immediate charge of the embalmed body of Joseph, 
 which was carried up for interment at Shechem (Ex. 
 xiii. 19; Josh. xxiv. 32). Joshua was born in the 
 land of Goshen, the cradle of the Hebrew nation, in 
 the reign of that long-lived Rameses II., who figures 
 in history as the national hero of the Egyptians (the 
 Sesostris of the Greeks), and the oppressor of the 
 Hebrews. The favourite palace of the king was in 
 Goshen, at Rameses-Tanis, the Zoan of the Bible 
 (Num. xvi. 32), where there was also a vast idol- 
 temple which he restored at immense cost. Joshua 
 must therefore have been familiar from his youth 
 with the sight of palaces, temples, obelisks, sphinxes, 
 and other signs of the ancient civilization, and seen 
 how his countrymen had yielded to the spell of the 
 established idolatry during their long sojourn in th 
 
8 
 
 land of the Nile. One of his last appeals to the heads 
 of the people reminds them how “ their fathers wor¬ 
 shipped other gods in Egypt” (Josh. xxiv. 14), just as 
 from the age of the captivity a voice recalls how the 
 Hebrews “ defiled themselves with the idols of 
 Egypt,” and their maidens committed shameless sin 
 (Ezek. xxiii. 8; xx. 7, 8). The hard conditions of 
 his early life, spent in cruel bondage, not less than 
 his contact with a civilisation which fitted Israel for 
 an independent national existence, were a qualifica¬ 
 tion for the great task assigned him in the providence 
 of God. His name was originally Oshea or Hosea, 
 “ salvation,” but Moses added a syllable containing 
 the name of Jehovah, as if to imply that the son of 
 Nun was to be the instrument of God’s salvation to 
 the Hebrews (Num. xiii. 17). It was a singular 
 honour that he should be the first to bear the name 
 which is “ above every name ” (Phil. ii. 9). 
 
 2. HIS EARLY ACHIEVEMENTS. Joshua steps 
 forth suddenly out of obscurity. His name first 
 occurs in Scripture in connection with the defeat of 
 Amalek in the first days of the desert life (Exod. 
 xvii. 9). This fierce border tribe, occupying the 
 peninsula of Sinai and the wilderness intervening 
 between the southern hills of Palestine and the 
 border of Egypt, fell upon the rear of the Hebrew 
 host, which was encumbered with women, children, 
 and baggage (Deut. xxv. 18). Joshua had the task 
 of repelling the attack. He won a decisive victory 
 after an obstinate battle, which saved the Hebrews 
 from all further molestation in the peninsula. From 
 this day forward he takes the position of “ minister ” 
 or attendant of Moses (Exod. xxiv. 13). He ascends 
 the mountain range of Sinai along with his master 
 at the first giving of the law (Exod. xxxii. 17). 
 He is next heard of rebuking the prophesying of Eldad 
 and Medad (Num. xxxii. 17). When Moses resolves 
 to send twelve spies from Kadesh-Barnea to search 
 out the land of Canaan, Joshua is one of the twelve, 
 
9 
 
 standing, no doubt, at the head as the ir t dis¬ 
 tinguished (Num. xiii. 1-10). Joshua and Caleb 
 alone of all the spies brought a favourable report, 
 and encouraged the Hebrews “ to go up and possess 
 the land” (Num. xiv. 6-9). "We know nothing of 
 Joshua during the weary years of the wandering in 
 the Arabian desert. We can well suppose that none 
 of the lessons of that singular period would be lost 
 on the man whom Moses selected by God’s com¬ 
 mand as the military leader who was in less than 
 seven years to lay six nations and thirty-one kings 
 prostrate at his feet (Num. xxvii. 22, 23). 
 
 3. HIS CHARACTER AND FITNESS FOR HIS 
 WORK. Joshua stands before us simply as a godly 
 warrior, designated to his work by a Divine call. He 
 is “ the first soldier consecrated by the sacred his¬ 
 tory.” He was “strong and of a good courage ” (Josh, 
 i. 7). The key-note of his character was a remark¬ 
 able simplicity of faith joined to a severe simplicity 
 of life, an intense patriotism, a courage that feared 
 no danger, and a cheerful and unselfish devotion to 
 duty. He ruled the tribes constitutionally by con¬ 
 sulting their representatives in all matters of moment 
 (Josh. xxi. 1). Though they were divided by jeal¬ 
 ousies, he was able to win their confidence and to 
 secure their co-operation in carrying out the great 
 work of his life. We shall see that he was a splendid 
 strategist in war. There is nothing, however, more 
 remarkable in his life than his complete self-efface¬ 
 ment in presence of the tremendous events of the 
 conquest. Scripture is often reticent about its heroes. 
 It is a surprise, however, to find that Joshua’s name 
 occurs in no other part of the Old Testament but 
 that which bears his name, though the transactions 
 of the conquest are often referred to. Only twice in 
 the New Testament is he mentioned (Acts vii. 45; 
 Heb. iv. 8). Yet he was the greatest Hebrew 
 character between Moses and Samuel—a period of 
 four hundred years—and he alone, we are told, of 
 
10 
 
 all the heroes of Israel after the time of Moses, sur¬ 
 vives in the traditions of the Samaritans. There is 
 something like solitude in his position at the end of 
 his busy life—“a lonely man in the height of his 
 power, separate from those about him, the last sur¬ 
 vivor, save one, of a famous generation ”—and [the 
 silence of Scripture almost warrants the supposition 
 that he was without wife or child or heir. This was 
 the man so highly gifted by nature, by grace, and by 
 opportunity, whom God raised up to lead the Hebrew 
 tribes into Palestine. 
 
 Questions and Points for Inquiry. 
 
 1. Trace the genealogy of Joshua, and mark the rela¬ 
 tion of Ephraim to the other tribes, both in Egypt and 
 in Palestine. 
 
 2. Trace the history of the Amalekites. 
 
 3. Explain the meaning of the “prophesying ” of 
 Eldad and Medad. 
 
 4. Notice the exigencies that tested the firmness of 
 Joshua as the leader of the tribes. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE LAND OF PROMISE. 
 
 4. ITS CENTRAL SITUATION. The future 
 home of the Hebrews—called Canaan by themselves, 
 and Palestine by all the world since the time of the 
 Romans—was selected by Jehovah with an evident 
 regard to their future destiny. They were to be the 
 heart of the nations, out of which life should flow to 
 the ends of the earth. So it is said, “ This is Jeru- 
 salem : I have set it in the midst of the nations and 
 countries round about her” (Ezek. v. 5). Their 
 
11 
 
 bounds were fixed in relation to other nations: 
 “ When the Most High divided to the nations their 
 inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he 
 set the bounds of the people according to the number 
 of the children of Israel” (Deut. xxxn. 8). Palestine 
 lay right in the middle of the three great divisions 
 of the ancient world. The highways by land and 
 water, connecting Asia, Africa, and Europe, passed 
 through it. Syria was to the north, Egypt to the 
 south, Assyria to the east, and the Isles of the Gen¬ 
 tiles to the west. Though it is now in the very out¬ 
 skirts of civilization, it was then “ the vanguard of 
 the eastern, and therefore of the civilised world, 
 standing midway between the two great seats of an¬ 
 cient empire, Babylon and Egypt.” Thus set in the 
 midst of the world's highway, the sanctuary of Jehovah 
 was destined to become a centre from which religious 
 influences were to radiate to the ends of the earth. 
 The central situation of the land likewise exposed it, 
 in the days of its apostasy, to many chastisements 
 from the great powers of the world. 
 
 5. ITS SECLUDED POSITION. Israel was to 
 dwell apart from the nations. Balaam prophesied 
 that “ the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be 
 reckoned among the nations” (Num. xxiii. 9 ; Deut. 
 xxxiii. 28; Jer. xlix. 31). They were to be a well- 
 fenced vineyard (Isa. v. 1). Their country was almost 
 as isolated as if it had been an island. It had 
 Lebanon for a mountain barrier on the north, stretch¬ 
 ing from the sea to the eastern desert; it was girdled 
 by deserts on the east and south; and it had the 
 Mediterranean sea on the west, along which there 
 were few landing-places or inlets for ships. To the 
 enterprising race of J aphet, such a sea-board would 
 have formed a highway of communication with the 
 most distant parts of the world. But Oriental 
 nations, with the siDgle exception of the Phoenicians, 
 have never liked the sea. The Mediterranean, too, 
 had not at this time become the thoroughfare of the 
 
12 
 
 world. Palestine proper, that is, the territory west 
 of the Jordan, stood in still deeper seclusion, be¬ 
 tween the sea on the one side and the valley of the 
 Jordan on the other, with its northern and southern 
 boundaries closely guarded by Lebanon and the 
 wilderness. This position of the Hebrew race was 
 exactly of the sort to keep them apart from the rest 
 of the world in the early part of their career, when they 
 were to receive special training for their duties and 
 destinies as God’s peculiar people. The time was to 
 come when their dispersion might take place with 
 safety to themselves and advantage to the world. 
 When their country was incorporated into the Roman 
 Empire, paths were thrown open for the gospel to all 
 the nations of the world, and the Hebrews were 
 then to make their home in every land to which 
 they were driven. Palestine was henceforth to be 
 regarded as “the spiritual home of all nations.” 
 
 6. ITS EXTENT, This is plainly described in 
 God’s promise to Abraham—“ Unto thy seed have I 
 given this land from the river of Egypt unto the 
 great river, the river Euphrates ” (Gen. xv. 18), 
 that is, from the valley of the Euphrates, the largest 
 and most important of the rivers of Western Asia, to 
 the valley of the Nile. It is more minutely described 
 in the message to Joshua—“From the wilderness 
 and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river 
 Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites ”—that is, 
 of the Canaanites generally—“ and unto the great sea 
 to the going down of the sun, shall be your coast ” 
 (Josh. i. 4). These words define the extreme limits 
 of the kingdom as it stood in the days of Solomon, 
 when “ all the kings from the river (Euphrates) even 
 unto the land of the Philistines and to the border of 
 Egypt ” were tributary to Solomon (1 Kings iv. 
 21). But Palestine itself, the central spot in which 
 the Hebrews were reared as God’s peculiar people, 
 was a small and narrow country, about the size of 
 Wales, less than 140 miles in length, and with an 
 
13 
 
 average breadth of barely 40 miles. It is said that 
 from almost every high point its whole breadth is 
 visible from the long wall of the Moab hills in the 
 east to the Mediterranean sea in the west, while 
 Mount Hermon in the north can be seen from the 
 southern end of the Dead Sea. The whole territory, 
 including that of the Transjordanic tribes, has been 
 estimated at 13,000 square miles. Its smallness 
 imparted a far stronger cohesion to the tribes 
 settled in it than if they had been more widely dis¬ 
 persed, while “the theocratic constitution could be 
 more thoroughly worked under conditions of easy 
 access to the ecclesiastical centre of the country.” But 
 its smallness, like that of Greece, stands in remark¬ 
 able contrast with its historic greatness, while there 
 is something extremely touching in the contrast be¬ 
 tween its present nothingness as a land of physical 
 beauty and greatness, and the glory of the events to 
 which it gave birth. Changed as the land is now, 
 in the days of Joshua it was a glorious gift from the 
 Most High, not only for its situation but from its 
 fertility, as “a land flowing with milk and honey.” 
 
 Questions and Points for Inquiry. 
 
 1. Mark the fitness of Palestine as the destined home 
 of the seed of Abraham ? 
 
 2. Trace the connection between its geographical 
 structure and the history of its people ? 
 
 3. Trace the historic relation of the country to the 
 great empires of antiquity. 
 
 4. How do we account for the contrast between the 
 past fertility and the present barrenness of the Holy 
 Land ? 
 
14 
 
 CHAPTEB III. 
 
 THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF PALESTINE. 
 
 7. THEIR GENERAL DESIGNATION. The in¬ 
 habitants were generally known at the conquest by 
 the name of Canaanites, and Palestine was “ the 
 land of Canaan” (Gen. x. 18; xiii. 12).^ The 
 Canaanites, a powerful tribe of the race of Ham (Gen. 
 x. 15-18) were not the earliest dwellers in the land. 
 It is believed that the first inhabitants were descen¬ 
 dants of Shem, and that the Canaanites took their 
 place peacefully beside them, learning their language 
 and imitating their ways of life. Thus they spoke a 
 tongue quite intelligible to the Hebrews. We find 
 the whole people, at an earlier period, called “ Amo- 
 rites ” (Gen. xv. 19), and Palestine is called three 
 times “ the land of the Hittites” (Josh. i. 4). It 
 is startling to be reminded that Canaanite is but 
 another name for Phoenician, “ that the detested and 
 accursed race, as it appears in the Books of Joshua 
 and Judges, is the same as that to which from Greece 
 we look back as the parent of letters, of commerce, 
 and of civilization.” The Canaanites were Phoeni¬ 
 cians. Sidon, the great Phoenician city, was founded 
 by Sidon, the eldest son of Canaan, and the Syro- 
 Phcenician woman in the New Testament is called 
 “ a woman of Canaan ” (Mark vii. 26 ; Matt. xv. 22). 
 The Phoenicians, during the Hebrew sojourn in 
 Egypt, had reached the height of commercial great¬ 
 ness. They were the English of antiquity. But it 
 was not understood till lately that under the name of 
 Hittites the people of Canaan were known at an 
 early period of the world’s history, with a power for 
 war and for peace that placed them on an equality 
 with Babylon and Egypt. The Hittite empire at one 
 time extended from the Euphrates to the shores of the 
 Grecian archipelago, and “ was powerful enough to 
 
15 
 
 threaten Assyria on the one hand and Egypt on the 
 other, and to carry the arts and culture of the 
 Euphrates to the Euxine and .ZEgean seas.” We 
 have records of them in the Egyptian and Assyrian 
 inscriptions, where they are called Khita or Hittites. 
 
 “ Till within the last few years the Bible alone has 
 preserved the name of a people who must have had 
 almost as great "an influence on human history as 
 Assyria or Egypt.” Carchemish on the Euphrates, 
 and Kadesh on the Orontes, north of Palestine, were 
 the chief centres of the Hittite power. Palestine was 
 only part of these wide territories, and its con¬ 
 quest by Joshua, followed by an Egyptian invasion 
 of Syria, gave a blow to this empire from which it 
 
 npvpr vpf*ovf i T'pd 
 
 8. THE INDIVIDUAL TRIBES OR NATIONS 
 OF CANAAN. At the time of the conquest, Pales¬ 
 tine is represented as occupied by seven nations— 
 the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the 
 Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebu- 
 sites (Deut. vii. 1). It is interesting to observe that 
 most of the tribes bear the names of the sons of 
 Canaan in the famous table of nations (Gen. x. 15-18). 
 1. Hittites. These were perhaps at this time a com¬ 
 paratively feeble branch of the great Hittite stock. 
 They dwelt in and around Hebron in the time 
 of Abraham, who bought a field from “ Ephron 
 the Hittite” (Gen. xxiii. 19; xxv. 9). They ap¬ 
 pear to have inhabited Mount Ephraim and the 
 mountains of Judea, once appearing so far south as 
 Beersheba (Num. xiii. 29). Esau married Hittite 
 women. Two of David’s captains, Uriah and Ahime- 
 lech, were Hittites (1 Sam. xxv. 6; 2 Sam. xxiii. 39). 
 The name Hittite was that by which Palestine was 
 usually known to foreign countries. 2. Canaanites. 
 They occupied the sea-coast as far north as Dan, a 
 considerable part of the plain of Esdraelon and of 
 the valley of the Jordan. They were “ lowlanders,” 
 as the name signifies, possessing the less mountainous 
 
16 
 
 parts (Num. xiii. 29). 3. Amorites. These were the 
 “ mountaineers,” as their name signifies, and they are 
 usually found in the mountains. Before the con¬ 
 quest they occupied those parts which afterwards 
 fell to Judah and Simeon. In the time of Abraham 
 they were settled at Engedi, which lies about the 
 middle of the western shore of the Dead Sea, and 
 stretched westward to Hebron (Gen. xiv. 7). They 
 afterwards appear as stretching from Maaleh-acrab- 
 bim, their extreme southern border, to Ephraim 
 northwards (Judg. i. 34-36). They also spread across 
 the Jordan, and took all the country between the 
 Jabbok and the Arnon, displacing the Moabites and 
 Ammonites, as these had displaced the earlier Re- 
 phaim (Num. xxi. 13-26; Judg. xi. 13). Kings 
 Sihon and Og are both called Amorites. 4. Gir- 
 gashites. They were a tribe of minor importance, who 
 seem to have belonged to Western Palestine (Josh, 
 xxiv. 11), not to the country east of the Lake of Gen- 
 nesareth. 5. Perizzites. In Abraham’s day Pales¬ 
 tine was the country of “the Canaanite and the 
 Perizzite” (Gen. xiii. 7). The Perizzites seem to 
 have held the wooded hills of Central and Southern 
 Palestine. Along with the Rephaim, they occupied the 
 forest country on the western flanks of Mount Carmel 
 (Josh. xvii. 15). Their name possibly signifies the 
 dwellers in open unwalled villages who lived by agri¬ 
 culture. A remnant of them survived as tributaries 
 of Solomon (1 Kings ix. 20). 6. Hivites. We first 
 
 hear of them when Jacob returned to Canaan (Gen. 
 xxxiv. 2) as dwelling at Shechem. A colony of them 
 dwelt in the north under the Lebanon range (Josh, 
 xi. 3). The Gibeonites were Hivites. The people 
 were peaceful and commercial, living under a re¬ 
 publican government. 7. Jebusites , They were a 
 small but warlike tribe in possession of the central 
 highlands around Jebus or Jerusalem, their strong¬ 
 hold (Josh. xv. 8, 63). They held Jebus, or, more 
 properly, “ the upper city ” of Zion, till the time of 
 David, when Joab stormed it (1 Chron. xi. 4-8). 
 
17 
 
 9. RELIGION OF THE OLD INHABITANTS. 
 
 The Phoenician or Canaanite religion, which seems 
 to have been the parent of the religions of Greece 
 and Rome, has been justly described as “ a religion 
 of human sacrifices, licentious orgies, the worship of 
 a host of divinities.” It was a deification of the 
 forces of nature. The chief god of the Canaanites 
 was Baal, the Sun, who was worshipped as Moloch 
 by the Ammonites, and as Chemosh by the Moabites. 
 He represented the creative force in nature. His 
 worship was manifest everywhere in grove and altar 
 and image, and left its trace upon such names of 
 places as Baal-gad, Baal-Hermon, Baal-Perazim. 
 Terror was the first principle of this religion. It 
 authorised human sacrifices, an only child being 
 regarded as the most precious of sacrifices (2 Kings 
 iii. 26, 27). The Hebrews were in after ages cen¬ 
 sured for having adopted its cruel practices (Ps. 
 cvi. 37-39). The consort of Baal was the goddess 
 Astarte or Ashtoreth, whose worship was unspeak¬ 
 ably impure. Altars to these two deities were every¬ 
 where in Palestine, on hill-tops, on artificial mounds, 
 under green trees, in valleys, on house-tops, in the 
 market-places of towns. Their temples adorned every 
 considerable city. We may seejj the bright side of 
 polytheism in Greece ; we see its dark side in Pales¬ 
 tine. There was a stern contrast between the lofty 
 monotheism of the Hebrews and the cruel poly¬ 
 theism of the Canaanites, as well as between the 
 moral purity of the one and the licensed debasement 
 of the other. The time was surely come for God to 
 rise in judgment against a race in the last stage of 
 moral corruption. 
 
 Questions and Points for Inquiry, 
 
 1. Trace the origin of the Canaanites from the 
 genealogical table of Genesis x., as well as the course of 
 their future dispersion. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 2. How do we account for the Semitic language of a 
 Hamite race like the Canaanites ? 
 
 3. Name the aboriginal races which had disappeared 
 before the conquest. 
 
 4. How do we account for the fact that the country 
 shoidd be known at different periods as that of the 
 “ Canaanites ,” “ the Amoritesf and “ the Hittites” re - 
 pectively ? 
 
 5. Trace the relation of the Canaanite religion to 
 that of Asia as well as to those of Greece and Rome. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE RIGHT OF THE HEBREWS TO PALESTINE. 
 
 10. PALESTINE A DIVINE GRANT. Joshua 
 was commanded to provide a home for the Hebrews 
 in Canaan by exterminating its ancient inhabitants. 
 The command was express—“But of the cities of 
 these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee 
 for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that 
 breatheth; 55 “ Thou shalt smite them and utterly 
 destroy them ” (Deut. vii. 2 ; xx. 16). Those who 
 were not destroyed were driven out. The question 
 suggested by this Divine command involves two dis¬ 
 tinct points—the right of the Hebrews to the terri¬ 
 tory of Canaan, and the morality of the warfare by 
 which it was to be wrested from its old inhabitants. 
 The land was purely God’s gift. To Abraham the 
 Lord said, “ Unto thy seed will I give this land ” 
 (Gen. xii. 7). The right of the Hebrews to Palestine 
 has been defended on the ground of a prior occupancy 
 by the patriarchs, as though a claim had thus been 
 created which their descendants were now asserting 
 by force of arms. We must remember, however, that 
 the Canaanites were in the land before Abraham had 
 
19 
 
 entered it at all, that he dwelt there as “a stranger,” 
 and had even to purchase a burial-place, so that 
 Stephen might truly say that God gave Abraham 
 “ none inheritance in it, not so much as to set his foot 
 on ” (Acts vii. 5). Besides, if the Hebrews had a 
 right on this ground, had it not lapsed with time ? 
 The fact is expressly stated that the land was theirs 
 by the gift of Him who fixes for nations, as for indi¬ 
 viduals, the bounds of their habitation. He took it 
 from the Canaanites, who had forfeited it by their 
 sins, and gave it to the Hebrews, that it might be¬ 
 come the platform on which the kingdom of God 
 should be erected. 
 
 11. THE DISPOSSESSION A DIVINE JUDG¬ 
 MENT ON THE CANAANITES. The people were to 
 be destroyed or driven out on account of their wicked¬ 
 ness. This is the express statement of Scripture. 
 Their idolatry was of the most impure and degrad¬ 
 ing kind, admitting of crimes which, in the 
 ordinary course of Divine providence, would have in¬ 
 volved any nation in a lingering death. The fearful 
 abominations which we shudder to read in Leviticus 
 xviii.-xx. are expressly said to have been committed 
 by “ the men of the land ; ” and the Hebrews are 
 earnestly warned against them—“Defile not your¬ 
 selves in any of these things, for in all these the 
 nations are defiled which I cast out before you; and 
 the land is defiled ; therefore I do visit the iniquity 
 thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her 
 inhabitants ” (Lev. xviii. 24, 25). The most revolt¬ 
 ing cruelty was likewise practised as part of the 
 Canaanite religion. There is not a state, even at the 
 present day, that would not put down such crimes and 
 cruelties, just as suttee was put down by the English 
 in India. Even heathen satirists like Juvenal, fifteen 
 hundred years after Moses, lamented the spread of 
 this religion to Borne as a sure precursor of national 
 decay. The Canaanites, too, were incorrigible 
 offenders. They were so when Abraham entered 
 
20 
 
 their land four centuries before, but “ the iniquity of 
 the Amorites was not yet full”—language which 
 implies that the height of their wickedness would 
 fully justify their ultimate destruction. They had 
 learned nothing from the doom of Sodom and Go¬ 
 morrah, in the southern part of their land. They had 
 learned nothing from the example of such eminent 
 persons as Melchizedec and Abraham, who dwelt in 
 their midst. The judgment was not inflicted with¬ 
 out warning. The Canaanites heard of the plagues 
 of Egypt, of the miraculous passage of the Bed Sea, 
 of the conquest of the kings of Gilead and Bashan, 
 of the judgment on the Hebrews themselves for 
 their share in the abominations of Baal-peor. They 
 might have learned that the God who had brought 
 the Hebrews to the edge of their land was a God who 
 would sternly punish all impurity. But there were 
 no signs of repentance among them. The judgments 
 of God, therefore, overtook them. It has been main¬ 
 tained that the Hebrews were not commanded to 
 exterminate the Canaanites without exception, but 
 only such as refused their offers of peace (Deut. xx. 
 10, 15). This passage, however, refers not to 
 Canaanites but to foreigners, who might be allowed 
 to become vassals to Israel. The Canaanites were 
 not to be received either as vassals or as subjects. 
 The fact that the Gibeonites resorted to fraud to ob¬ 
 tain peace implies that they could not procure it in 
 any other way. It is an undoubted fact that the 
 Canaanites were to be destroyed or driven out of the 
 land. This alternative was allowed—“I will deliver 
 the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and thou 
 shalt drive them out before thee” (Ex. xxiii. 31; see 
 also Num. xxxiii. 51, 52. But the command was 
 equally positive to destroy all who remained in the 
 land. How are we to reconcile such a command 
 with the moral attributes of God? We answer, that 
 if we acknowledge a moral government at all, we 
 must acknowledge God’s right “to remove summarily 
 
21 
 
 from His dominions a mass of hopeless depravity, 
 which, like a carcase, taints the air and poisons the 
 atmosphere of the world.” Besides, if the Hebrews, 
 who were the trustees of the religion of the world, 
 had sunk to the level of the Canaanites, the world 
 would have been in danger of losing the knowledge 
 of God. It has been remarked that “the Israelites’ 
 sword, in its bloodiest executions, wrought a work of 
 mercy for all the countries of the earth to the very 
 end of the world.” The occasional lapses of the 
 Hebrews into idolatry, arising for the most part from 
 their imperfect obedience to the Divine command, 
 showed that severity was true mercy to man, and 
 suggest the thought that had the Canaanites been 
 wholly extirpated or driven out, and Hebrew ascend¬ 
 ancy established from Lebanon to the wilderness, 
 and from the Euphrates to the river of Egypt, “ the 
 principles of humanity now gaining ground among us 
 might have been ante-dated.” 
 
 12. THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE DIVINE 
 JUDGMENT. There is the farther question to be 
 considered, whether it was consistent with God’s 
 character to employ the Hebrews as the executioners of 
 His judgments. In this case hornets and tempests of 
 hail were among His instruments (cf. Ps. xliv. 3). 
 But here, as often elsewhere, He employed man to 
 punish man. Babylon was used to punish Judea, 
 Persia to humble the pride of Babylon, Greece to 
 scourge Persia, Rome to lower the pride of Greece, 
 and the northern barbarians to overwhelm Rome in 
 its turn. If sinful nations can be thus employed in 
 the providence of God, why may not a holy nation 
 be used as the conscious instrument of Divine ven¬ 
 geance 1 There is no door left open here for the 
 fanaticism that imagines a Divine commission to 
 kill men of a different faith. The Hebrews were 
 under special Divine guidance, for God fed them from 
 the skies, cut a passage for them through the Jordan, 
 threw down the wails of Jericho, and slew their 
 
 t 
 
enemies with hailstones. This war supplies no jus¬ 
 tification for either wars of religion or wars of con¬ 
 quest. Those who claim to follow the Hebrews’ 
 example must show the same proofs of a Divine com¬ 
 mission. 
 
 13. A LESSON OF-WARNING TO THE HE¬ 
 BREWS. God warns them that the judgments they 
 were to execute upon th§ Canaanites would be exe¬ 
 cuted as terribly upon themselves in case of their 
 apostasy (Deut. xxviii. 25). They were told that 
 their land was held by no other tenure than that 
 which the Canaanites were destroyed for infringing; 
 and nothing could have been better adapted for 
 qualifying the Hebrews to be the channels of bless¬ 
 ing to mankind than these dreadful proofs at the 
 beginning of their national history of God’s abhor¬ 
 rence of sin. The time came at last, after an interval 
 of fifteen hundred years, when the Hebrews them¬ 
 selves forfeited their possession of this very land, and 
 were scattered over the world for their sins. 
 
 Questions and Points for Inquiry. 
 
 1. Explain the tenure by which the Hebrews obtained , 
 and the Canaanites forfeited, the possession of Palestine. 
 
 2. What was there in the religion of the Canaanites 
 to justify the heaviest Divine judgments ? 
 
 3. Show how, in the course of human history, nations 
 are employed to punish nations for their transgressions. 
 
 4. Mark the bearing of these judgments upon the 
 future history of the Hebrew people. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE PLAN OF THE CAMPAIGN. 
 
 14. ITS LEADING FEATURES. Though Palestine 
 was thus a Divine gift to the Hebrews, and placed 
 
23 
 
 in their hands by an extraordinary exercise of Divine 
 power, it is plain that the invasion was a skilfully 
 prepared enterprise. There was the amplest room 
 for military strategy even inside the sphere of Divine 
 direction. The despatch of the spies to explore the 
 country around Jericho showed that human precau¬ 
 tion was necessary. The idea of the mass of the 
 Hebrew people was to attack Palestine from the 
 south as the most natural point from their position. 
 Porty years before, they had made an unsuccessful 
 attempt to force their way into the country across 
 the southern frontier (Num. xiv. 45). Under any 
 circumstances, it would have been a very formid¬ 
 able enterprise to invade the land from this point, 
 for the south, always threatened on the side of Egypt, 
 bristled with fortresses. Had Joshua tried to enter 
 it from the south, he would have been confronted 
 by a constantly increasing mass of enemies, who 
 would have been reinforced at every step backwards, 
 and protected by fresh lines of fortification in a 
 country singularly adapted for the purposes of de¬ 
 fence. His plan was to lead them round the southern 
 borders of the country, and to fling them upon its 
 poorly defended eastern flank near the Dead Sea. 
 In other words, he was resolved to turn the fortresses 
 of the south, and take them, if necessary, in reverse. 
 The Canaanites might imagine themselves secure on 
 the eastern side with the Jordan overflowing its 
 banks, but they could not possibly know of the mira¬ 
 culous interposition that was to lay open their land 
 to the free entrance of the invader. Joshua, by 
 choosing a weak point near the middle of the frontier, 
 executes the favourite manoeuvre of Napoleon by 
 breaking through the centre of the enemy’s line, and 
 then striking with his whole force right and left in 
 rapid succession. His plan showed undoubted mili¬ 
 tary skill. 
 
 15. THE EXECUTION OF THE PLAN. The 
 
 capture of Jericho, the first notable incident in the 
 
24 
 
 campaign, supplied Joshua with a secure basis of 
 operations. The fall of Ai, which immediately fol¬ 
 lowed, opened the passes into the interior ; and the 
 defection of the Gibeonites enabled him to drive 
 home a wedge between northern and southern Pales¬ 
 tine, so as to cut the country in two and defeat the 
 confederacy of the southern kings before the northern 
 confederacy had recovered from its panic. There 
 were thus three stages in the conquest: the first re¬ 
 presented by the capture of Jericho, and of the passes 
 into the^interior ; the second, by the defeat of the 
 southern confederacy; and the third, by the defeat 
 of the northern confederacy. Joshua crushed the 
 Canaanites in detail. The political constitution of 
 the country, cut up as it was into many petty king¬ 
 doms, made a combined defence under a single leader 
 impossible. The decisive battle-scenes of the con¬ 
 quest were therefore Jericho, Ai, Gibeon, Bethhorou, 
 and Merom. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FIRST STAGE OF THE CONQUEST. 
 
 16. THE SPIRIT OF THE HEBREWS AT THE 
 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN.— (Num. xxxiii. 
 49). They were now encamped, a nation of two 
 millions, in the plains of Moab, in the rich depres¬ 
 sion of the Jordan valley, stretching from Abel- 
 Shittim in the north to Bethjeshimoth in the south, 
 close to the Dead Sea. As the name Shittim sug¬ 
 gests, they were dwelling among the acacia trees that 
 are even now common to the whole district, and 
 were surrounded on every side by the richest vegeta¬ 
 tion. Here were assembled the future conquerors 
 of Palestine, not the old and wayward race that had 
 
25 
 
 come out of JEgypt, but a hardier generation that had 
 profited by the terrible discipline of the wilderness. 
 No two generations of men ever contrasted more 
 thoroughly than the fathers who crossed the Red Sea, 
 and the sons who were now to cross the Jordan. The 
 very shame and disaster of Baal-peor only intensified 
 the zeal of Joshua’s warriors to make an utter end of 
 every trace of Canaanite idolatry. At this supremely 
 critical moment, the tribes were happily animated 
 by one spirit. The alacrity with which the Reubenites, 
 the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, re¬ 
 sponded to the demand of Joshua, that they should 
 accompany their brethren to the conquest of Pales¬ 
 tine, though it was but the fulfilment of a solemn 
 engagement (Num. xxxii.), helped to cement the 
 brotherly relation between the tribes. Thus, the 
 vast host, rejoicing in the protecting care of Jehovah, 
 who guarded them “ as the apple of his eye ” (Deut. 
 xxxii. 8, 10), were ready to advance upon their new 
 
 1 Till pvi frni pp 
 
 17. MISSION OF THE SPIES TO JERICHO 
 
 (Josh. ii. 1-24). The first action taken by Joshua in 
 preparing for the conquest, was to send two spies 
 to examine Jericho and its neighbourhood. This 
 city, one of great importance and antiquity, being a 
 strongly-walled place, was about seven miles west of 
 the Jordan, lying on the very frontiers of Palestine. 
 It was the key of the country, because it commanded 
 the entrance of the main passes into the interior, 
 one of which branched off toward Jerusalem, the 
 other towards Michmash, defending the approach 
 
 a The order of events, as recorded in the opening chapters of Joshua, 
 seems to he this:—The spies were sent out on the 3rd Nisan (ii. 7), 
 and returned on the 6th, for they abode three days, or till the third 
 day in the mountain, after Rahab had dismissed them; on the 7tli 
 the camp is removed to the bank of Jordan (iii. 1), and the command 
 is issued on the same day to prepare victuals for the ciossing (i. 11), 
 and on the 10th the river is crossed (iv. 19.) The sacred writers here, 
 as often elsewhere, follow the order of thought rather than the order of 
 time. Joshua would not have given the order to cross the river till 
 after the spies had returned, as their information would naturally 
 determine the time and circumstances of his subsequent action. 
 
26 
 
 to Ai and Bethel. It was called the. city of 
 palm trees (Dent, xxxiv. 3), from a great grove 
 of palm trees which lay between it and the river. 
 On the western side it was encircled by a barren 
 range of mountains running north and south, and 
 enjoyed the benefit of one or two springs of water, 
 which account for the fertility of the Jordan valley. 
 Every trace of Jericho seems to have disappeared. a 
 The two spies were probably commanded to see in 
 what part the city could be most easily attacked, 
 and whether the citizens were prepared for a serious 
 resistance. They entered the city towards evening 
 (Josh. ii. 2), and instead of going to a public khan, 
 where they might have been quickly recognized, 
 they followed a harlot, named Rahab, to her home 
 on the wall (15 v.; cf. Heb. xi. 31; James ii. 25), 
 and there sought a lodging. This woman became 
 afterwards the wife of Salmon, the son of Naason, 
 by whom she became the mother of Boaz, the 
 grandfather of Jesse, the father of David (Matt, 
 i. 5 ; Ruth iv. 20. 21; 1 Chron. ii. 11, 54, 55). The 
 spies were hid among the stalks of flax laid out to 
 dry on the flat roof of her house. Even here, how¬ 
 ever, they were quickly noticed as strangers, and the 
 petty king of Jericho, alarmed by the success of the 
 Hebrews on the east of Jordan (v. 9) sent messengers 
 in search of them. Rahab baffled their inquiries, by 
 saying, “ I wist not whence they were,”—“ whither 
 the men went, I wot not”—and led them to turn their 
 steps downwards towards the fords of the Jordan. 
 She then urged the spies to depart at once to the 
 mountain which overhangs Jericho to the north. 
 But before sending them away, she professed her 
 faith in the power of the Lord to give the land to 
 the Hebrews, spoke of the hearts of the inhabitants as 
 melting'with fear, and besought protection for herself 
 
 a There is no reason to believe that the miserable little village of 
 Riha stands ?upon its rains. Riha is probably on the south side of the 
 ancient Jericho. 
 
27 
 
 and her father’s family at the sack of Jericho. The 
 spies promised her protection, on condition that 
 she should gather her relatives into her house, 
 and suspend a scarlet thread from the window, by 
 which the Hebrews would be able to recognize her 
 dwelling. She then let the spies down secretly from 
 a window of her house, which overlooked the city 
 wall. For three days (22 v.) they hid themselves 
 in the neighbourhood, and then escaped back in safety 
 to Shittim, probably by swimming the Jordan. They 
 gave Joshua such a favourable report concerning 
 Jericho and its people—the main point being the 
 alarm and despondency of the Canaanites at the 
 approach of the Hebrews—that he at once commanded 
 the vast host to move forward to the banks of the 
 river. 
 
 18. THE CONDUCT AND CHARACTER OF 
 RAHAB (Heb. xi. 31 ; James ii. 25). Much has 
 been said about the difficulty of reconciling what is re¬ 
 corded about her faith with her falsehoods and her 
 treachery to her countrymen. Her faith was both 
 sound and practical, and is commended accordingly 
 in the New Testament. She believed that Jehovah, 
 the God of Israel, was the God of heaven and earth, 
 and that it was His design to put the Hebrews in 
 possession of Palestine; and the ground of her faith was 
 the miraculous drying up of the Bed Sea, and the pres¬ 
 ence of more than human power in the Hebrew camp. 
 Her faith was manifest in works, by her peaceful 
 reception of the spies. She displayed a singular 
 courage ; for it was at the risk of her life that she 
 gave them shelter. Her anxiety to save her father’s 
 family shows that she had not lost the sense of natural 
 affection. Her confidence in the sanctity of an oath, 
 is also to be noticed (Josh. ii. 12). Her whole con¬ 
 duct had its root in faith. It may not have been a 
 strong faith, for she had had few advantages, and 
 could have known but little of Jehovah ; yet it was 
 there, and therefore she—the solitary believer in 
 
28 
 
 Jericlio—“perished not with them that. believed 
 not, when she had received the spies with peace.” 
 (Heb. xi. 31). But what are we to think of her 
 falsehoods? Scripture records them simply with¬ 
 out expressing any opinion upon her conduct. 
 They are not to be justified as lies told for a good 
 purpose, nor as lies which could hardly be regarded 
 as such under the law till the gospel had introduced 
 a purer morality. A lie is always a lie, and Rahab 
 is commended by the apostles, not for her falsehoods 
 but for her faith. The pressure of her circumstances 
 and her heathen training, may explain her conduct, 
 but cannot justify it. The course she adopted may 
 have been a sin of weakness, which was forgiven her 
 on account of her faith, or a sin of ignorance, but we 
 are sure, with Matthew Henry, that God discri¬ 
 minated between what was good in her conduct and 
 what was bad, “ rewarding the former and pardoning 
 the latter.” And as to her treachery to her country¬ 
 men, she had come to see that the cause of the 
 Hebrews was that of the true God, and that the 
 claims of God were supreme above all other claims. 
 When her heart was once purified by faith, she could 
 not but desire the overthrow of the system that had 
 polluted her own life and that of her nation. As a 
 matter of fact, however, her action in concealing the 
 spies may have had but little influence upon the 
 fate of Jericho, which was overturned by more than 
 natural means. 
 
 19. THE RIVER JORDAN AT THE TIME OF 
 CROSSING (J osh. iii. 15-17). This remarkable river, 
 which now rolled its swollen waters between the 
 Canaanites and their invaders,'springs from sources 
 in the spurs of Lebanon, at a great height above the 
 sea, expanding first into the Lake Merom, thence 
 afterwards into the Lake of Tiberias or Sea of 
 Galilee, and ending its rapid course in the Dead Sea. 
 It was now in the month Abib (part of our April and 
 part of May), when the barley and flax harvests are 
 
29 
 
 ripe. The hot weather would have thoroughly set in, 
 and the snows of Hermon would have been melting 
 fast, so that a perfect torrent would be rushing down¬ 
 ward into the Dead Sea. The river would then be 
 “ overflowing all his banks ” (or rather, “ full up to 
 all his banks”) “all the time of harvest.” Some 
 travellers have denied that the Jordan is swollen in 
 harvest. But they refer to the wheat harvest, which 
 occurs fifty days later than the barley harvest, which 
 is the period here referred to. The time of the barley 
 and flax harvests was identical. So we find, [as a 
 sort of undesigned coincidence, that, three'days before 
 the event here recorded, the undried 'stalks of 
 flax were lying exposed to the sun on the top of 
 Rahab’s house in Jericho.® The yellow and turbid 
 stream rushed along like a flood. Yet this was the 
 time selected for crossing the swollen river. The 
 Hebrews would thus recognise in the miracle they 
 were now to witness a sure sign that Palestine was 
 not to be their conquest, but God’s gift. There was 
 no human agency then known that could have safely 
 carried them across the river. When the Goths, in 
 the fourth century, nearly a million of people, crossed 
 the Danube to seek a home in the south of Europe, 
 they had a fleet of vessels at their command. The 
 crossing occupied several days, and many lives were 
 lost. How were two millions of Hebrews to cross 
 the Jordan without vessels of any kind ? The Lord 
 Himself with His own hand was to open the doors 
 of the land, and to conduct His people in. 
 
 20. THE CROSSING OF THE JORDAN (Josh, 
 iii. 15-17.)—This marvellous event took place on the 
 tenth day. of Abib or Nisan (as it was afterwards 
 called) exactly forty years after the Hebrews had 
 left Egypt. The people had previously prepared 
 three days’ provisions and had moved down to the 
 
 a It is not stated how high the waters were at the time of the 
 crossing, but Canon Tristram found a few years ago that the river 
 had been fourteen feet above the level at which he saw it, and yet it 
 was still many feet above its ordinary level. 
 
30 
 
 edge of the river from their camping place among 
 the acacia-groves. The pillar of clond had disap¬ 
 peared, probably with the death of Moses. But the 
 ark of the covenant, as the symbol of the Divine Pre¬ 
 sence, took its place, and was borne before the hosts 
 of Israel on the shoulders of the “ priests the Le- 
 vites”* (iii. 3). The order of advance to the river 
 was as follows : the priests bearing the ark went in 
 front and the people marched behind, keeping a dis¬ 
 tance of nearly a mile, not merely in token of rever¬ 
 ence for the sacred symbol, but that they might mark 
 the road by which they should cross, and be the 
 better able to observe the miracle wrought on their 
 behalf. Then in the van marched forty thousand 
 men of the Transjordanic tribes, contrary to their 
 usual position (Num. xxxii. 20) but in visible token 
 of their solemn vow (iv. 12) ; then, according to tra¬ 
 dition, the women and the children in the centre, and 
 the rest of the armed men in the rear. Now was 
 seen an amazing miracle. The priests had hardly 
 touched with their feet the broken edge of the swollen 
 waters, when the bed of the Jordan was dried up 
 before them. They marched on, their bare feet sink¬ 
 ing in the soft ooze as they advanced to the middle 
 of the channel (Josh. iv. 18), and there they stood, 
 hour after hour, till the whole host of two million 
 souls had marched across. It is probable that the 
 host crossed it at different points along a breadth of 
 a mile or two—they “ rushed across” (Josh iv. 10)— 
 probably in their anxiety to relieve the priests as 
 soon as possible from their wearisome position. It 
 is conjectured that the crossing might have been 
 done in half a day if the people formed a procession 
 of a mile or upwards in breadth. There was in point 
 of fact a space of twenty or thirty miles of the dried 
 bed of the Jordan which they might have crossed at 
 any point. Meanwhile the stream, checked in its 
 course, “ rose up, one heap, very far off at the city 
 
 * That is, the priests, who were of the tribe of Levi. 
 
31 
 
 Adam, that is beside Zaretan ”—(iii. 16), or Zarthan 
 (1 Kings iv. 12), the situation of which is unknown, 
 although it is believed to have been near Succoth, at 
 the mouth of the Jabbok (1 Kings vii. 46) thirty 
 miles north of the crossing place. It was probably 
 the same as Zereda, the birthplace of Jeremiah. 
 Adam is placed by some south of the Jabbok, where 
 the ford Damieh now exists, while others identify it 
 with Admah in the plain of Jordan (Gen. xiv. 2). 
 The first is the more probable view. Thus, the scene 
 of this miracle is not that of a broad stream parted 
 asunder, but of a stream “ driven backwards ” (Ps. 
 cxiv. 3) ; while at the same moment, the waters that 
 ran on downwards, toward “ the sea of the plain,” 
 the Dead Sea, “failed and were cut off” (Josh. iii. 
 16), and the dry river bed was exposed to view for 
 twenty or thirty miles of its course from north to 
 south. In this way the whole host crossed over 
 below, while the ark stood above ; and beyond it, 
 but far out of sight, was the heap of water held 
 back by God’s hand. After all had passed over, the 
 priests with the ark stepped ashore on the western 
 side, and immediately the waters rolled down as 
 before in their accustomed channel. Thus was ac¬ 
 complished an event more important than the found¬ 
 ing of Rome, the Saxon invasion, the Norman 
 Conquest, or the discovery of America. The narra¬ 
 tive is singularly consistent with itself. Had the 
 Hebrews entered Palestine in an ordinary manner, 
 the fords would have been unusually low, and the 
 Canaanites would have fiercely disputed the passage 
 of the invaders. But there is no account of a 
 battle at the Jordan, either in the Hebrew history 
 or in any other, while the lowness of the fords is 
 inconsistent with the time of the crossing. There is 
 no hint of means being used to carry the Hebrews 
 across, or of any attempt to break the force of the 
 current. The history records an act of supernatural 
 power put forth to provide a way for the Hebrews 
 
32 
 
 across the bare channel of a rapid and rushing 
 stream. “ What ailed thee, O thou sea, that 1 thou 
 fleddest ? Thou Jordan, that thou wast driven 
 b&ck ^ ^ 
 
 21. MEMORIALS OF THE CROSSING AND 
 THE FIRST ENCAMPMENT (Josh. iv. 1-24). The 
 vast host now wended its way up the banks of the 
 river to the wide plain which lies along its western 
 side. Twelve large stones, selected by the twelve 
 chiefs of the tribes from the bare channel of the Jor¬ 
 dan, were carried aloft before the priests, and placed 
 in the upper terrace of the valley in the centre of 
 their first encampment at Gilgal. This spot, five 
 miles from the river and two from the city of J ericho, 
 had a sacred interest for ages (Josh. ix. 6, x. 43). 
 It was the site of the Tabernacle during the continu¬ 
 ance of the wars, and became the familiar gathering- 
 place of the tribes for centuries. It was afterwards 
 one of Samuel’s three important assize towns (1 Sam. 
 vii. 16), and the site of a school of the prophetsdn the 
 days of Elisha (2 Kings ii. 5). a These twelve me¬ 
 morial stones came afterwards to be regarded with a 
 superstitious veneration (Judges iii. 19, 28 ; Hosea 
 iv. 13; ix. 15). There was a second memorial erected 
 in the Jordan itself on the spot where the priests’feet 
 rested during the passage of the people, probably near 
 the eastern bank (Josh. iii. 8, 17). This heap of 
 stones would be visible when the river fell, and was 
 visible at the writing of the history. It does not 
 matter whether this memorial afterwards disap¬ 
 peared, for it was specially designed for that genera¬ 
 tion, while other generations would be more deeply im¬ 
 pressed by the memorial at Gilgal. The Hebrews were 
 now in the enemy’s country. Joshua would naturally 
 fortify Gilgal for the safety of the multitude, who had 
 now learned that Jehovah was unlimited in his power, 
 
 a A mound about three miles from the supposed site of Jericho is 
 still known as Jilgilieh. Tristram identifies Riha with Gilgal, while 
 Bartlett places it a mile east of Riha. 
 
33 
 
 and. that their success depended upon their perfect 
 submission to his guidance. 
 
 22. RENEWAL OF CIRCUMCISION AND OB¬ 
 SERVANCE OF THE PASSOVER (Josh. v. 1-12). 
 The terror that had come upon the Amorites and the 
 Canaanites afforded a convenient opportunity for re¬ 
 newing the rite of circumcision which had fallen into 
 abeyance during the eight-and-thirty years’ wandering 
 in the Arabian desert. The faithless generation that 
 had come out of Egypt had been circumcised ; but 
 their children born in the desert had not. This was 
 not from want of opportunity. They had many in¬ 
 tervals of rest, notably one of eleven months at Sinai, 
 when the rite could have been conveniently per¬ 
 formed. The reason was that the nation was under judg¬ 
 ment since the event of Kadesli-Barnea (Num. xiv. 29). 
 The covenant was suspended, and its significant rite 
 was accordingly omitted. Circumcision was the con¬ 
 dition of God’s giving them the land (Gen. xvii. 5-14). 
 But the rejection was neither total nor final. Ac¬ 
 cordingly, now that the Hebrews were in the land of 
 promise, the time was come for the renewal of the 
 rite. The Lord says to Joshua, “Return to circum¬ 
 cise them the second time ”—not as implying that 
 they had been circumcised already, but as implying a 
 return to a former condition, namely, that of a cir¬ 
 cumcised nation. Accordingly about three quarters 
 of a million of people—that is, all above thirty-eight 
 years of age—were now circumcised with knives of 
 flint, which were afterwards preserved as sacred relics. 
 The whole nation having thus been taken anew into 
 covenant with the Lord, the next step was to keep 
 the Passover, which was doubtless suspended since 
 they left Sinai (Num. ix. 1). Now, again, after thirty- 
 eight years, in the fourteenth day of the month 
 Nisan—in the evening of which day forty years before 
 the Passover was instituted in the land of Egypt— 
 the 'paschal lamb was slain at Gilgal. The feast 
 would have all the charm of novelty to the vast 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 majority of the people, and would no doubt be kept 
 with a solemn joy. It is evident that the Passover 
 spoken of in v. 10, which occupied a full week, in¬ 
 cluded at least in part the feast of unleavened bread, 
 for the 11th verse says—“On the morrow after the 
 Passover they ate of the produce of the land ” (not 
 “ the old corn ” as in the Authorised Yersion, but 
 the stored grain, probably left by the Canaanites of 
 the Jordan valley who had fled into Jericho); and 
 according to the law, this could not be done till the 
 16th day of the month, after the first fruits had been 
 presented to the Lord in the second day of the Pass- 
 over (Lev. xxiii. 11). On “the self-same day,” not 
 only did the eating of the new corn of the land com¬ 
 mence, but thenceforward “ the children of Israel had 
 manna no more.” They no longer needed this 
 “ angels’ food,” but “ they did eat of the fruit of the 
 land of Canaan” (Ps. lxxviii. 23). It was most 
 natural therefore that the Hebrews should deposit in 
 the Ark a golden pot filled with manna as a perpetual 
 memorial of the grace of God in the wilderness 
 (Exod. xvi. 32). 
 
 23. THE CAPTURE OF JERICHO (Josh. v. 
 13-15 ; vi. 1-21). It was part of Joshua’s plan, as we 
 have seen, to capture this important city, which was 
 the capital of the valley of the Jordan and the key of 
 Western Palestine. The Hebrews could not advance 
 into the country at all till Jericho was taken; for their 
 rear would have been dangerously exposed. Perhaps 
 it was while Joshua was secretly reconnoitring 
 the city, sheltered from observation by the palm- 
 groves that bordered it, that a mysterious personage 
 appeared to him in the guise of a heavenly warrior, 
 with a drawn sword in his hand, calling himself “ the 
 Prince of the host of Jehovah,” that is, of the angelic 
 host. It is difficult to decide whether this was an 
 angel, or, as many of the best authorities believe, the 
 Son of God himself, thus visiting Joshua as He had 
 visited the Patriarchs, “ and temporarily assuming the 
 
35 
 
 appearance of that nature He was destined in tlie 
 fulness of time to wear.” The design of this mani¬ 
 festation was to assure Joshua that Jericho was to be 
 taken, not by military skill, but by Divine power. 
 Meanwhile, the people of the doomed city had shut 
 themselves in securely from all communication 
 with the invaders—“ none went out and none came 
 in.” They thought themselves safe behind their 
 strong walls, and were no doubt provisioned for a 
 siege. How was Jericho to be taken 1 The Hebrews 
 had no battering-rams, or engines of assault, such as 
 we see pictured on the monuments of Nineveh and 
 Egypt, and it would have taken months to reduce 
 the city by blockade. The prince of the Lord’s host 
 had given instructions that were well calculated to 
 test the faith of the Hebrews. Eor seven successive 
 days seven priests, bearing, not “ rams’ horns,” but 
 the curved trumpets of jubilee, and followed by 
 the ark of the covenant, were to march in solemn 
 procession round the city, one portion of the army 
 preceding, another following the priests. Mark the 
 sevens : seven priests, seven trumpets, seven days of 
 procession, seven compassings on the seventh day. 
 The whole action was deeply significant; for the 
 number suggested the divine seven, being the symbol 
 of perfection or completeness. The design of the 
 seven days’ march was evidently to try the faith of 
 the Hebrews in the Lord’s power and faithfulness, 
 even when there seemed as yet no visible result of 
 this strange ceremonial. Their natural impulse was 
 to attack the city; the power of faith was shown in 
 their submitting “to an unexplained, unintelligible, 
 severely trying edict of inactivity,” in consenting to 
 play what might seem a ridiculous part in the eyes 
 of their enemies. Yet it is quite possible that the 
 silent march of the Hebrews around the walls may 
 have seemed to the people of Jericho, already informed 
 about the miraculous crossing of two seas, to be the 
 prelude to some fresh and terrible manifestation of 
 
36 
 
 divine power. The decisive moment came at last. 
 The mighty shout of the Hebrew host went up to 
 heaven ; the fortress was shaken to its foundations, 
 “ the wall falling under itself,” without the hand of 
 man. The stronghold opened everywhere around to 
 the rapid advance of the invaders who went up, 
 each one straight forward over the walls into the 
 city. “The men of Jericho fought against them” 
 (Josh. xxiv. 11), but their strength was paralysed, 
 and their numbers were far inferior to those of the 
 invaders. There is not the least hint that the walls 
 fell by one of the earthquakes so common in that 
 region, and even were it so, the question would arise, 
 how came such a convulsion of nature to be so critically 
 timed ? Nor was there any secret undermining of the 
 walls, though such a circumstance has been imagined. 
 “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they 
 were compassed about seven days ” (Heb. xi. 30). 
 The Hebrews of after days knew that the conquest 
 was not man’s but God’s, that “ they got not the 
 land in possession by their own sword, neither did 
 their own arm save them : but thy right hand, and 
 thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because 
 thou hadst a favour unto them” (Ps. xliv. 1-3). 
 The victory,'therefore, was one into which no feeling 
 of self-exaltation could enter. 
 
 24. DESTRUCTION OF JERICHO AND ITS 
 INHABITANTS (Josh. vi. 21). “And they utterly 
 destroyed all that was in the city, both man and 
 woman, young and old, and ox and sheep and ass, 
 with the edge of the sword.” The city was set on 
 fire, and its contents wholly consumed, except the 
 gold, silver, and metallic vessels, which were con- 
 secratedTto the tabernacle service. In the case of 
 other Canaanite cities the inhabitants were destroyed, 
 while the cattle were preserved (Josh. viii. 26; 
 x. 28 ; Deut. ii. 34 ; iii. 6). But here everything 
 was destroyed. The subject of the extermination of 
 the Canaanites_has been already discussed (chap. vi). 
 
37 
 
 Suffice it to say here that there was a remarkable 
 provision of the Mosaic law that when persons or 
 property had been devoted by a solemn vow to God, 
 they could not be redeemed by a gift to the sanctuary. 
 They became Jcerem , “devoted” (‘‘accursed,” according 
 to the Authorised Version). “All the dreadful things 
 that can be possibly thought of are included in this 
 one word.” It was possible to “devote” an enemy’s 
 city, and thus Joshua pronounced Jericho to be 
 “devoted” (v. 17). But it is significant that there 
 is no command to put human beings under ban, 
 except for deliberate idolatry on the part of a Hebrew 
 or a Hebrew city (Deut. xiii. 12-17 ; vii. 2 ; Exod. 
 xxii. 20). The banning of Canaanite cities was here 
 also enjoined. Thus Jericho was devoted to destruc¬ 
 tion because it was a stronghold of the most 
 demoralising idolatry." But there was one family 
 excepted from destruction. The two spies whom 
 Rahab had protected were sent forward to identify 
 her house, which abutted on the wall. We may con¬ 
 clude that that portion was left standing, or, as 
 Eastern houses are often built in a quadrangular 
 form, that one side only may have fallen. Rahab 
 herself, and all her kindred (literally families), being 
 gathered into her house, were saved and “left,” or 
 rather “ made to rest outside the camp of Israel,” 
 because being Gentiles they were unclean, and had 
 therefore to remain a certain time without the camp 
 (Num. xxxi. 19). They were afterwards fully 
 identified with the people of Israel (v. 25.) 
 
 25. THE CURSE ON JERICHO (Josh. vi. 26, 27). 
 As the destruction of the city was to be for ever 
 memorable, Joshua pronounced a perpetual anathema 
 on the man who should attempt to rebuild it as a 
 fortified place, prophesying that the laying of the 
 foundations would be marked by the death of the 
 
 a It was the seat of the worship of Ashtoreth, the Canaanite Venus, 
 its very name signifying “ the city of the moon,” the symbol of that 
 goddess. 
 
38 
 
 builder’s eldest son, and its completion by the death 
 of his youngest. The words of the curse are given 
 in a sort of rhythmical form, as if for their better 
 preservation. The curse does not apply to any mere 
 builder of the city, but to the setter up of “gates and 
 walls,” to which Joshua, as a military leader, would 
 attach much importance; for we find that it was 
 afterwards included in the inheritance of the tribe of 
 Benjamin (Josh, xviii. 21), and is spoken of as an 
 inhabited place (Judges iii. 13). The prediction 
 had its fulfilment in the time of Ahab, five hundred 
 years after. When Hiel, the Bethelite, “built 
 Jericho, he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram 
 his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in liis 
 youngest son Segub, according to the word of the 
 Lord, which he spake by Joshua” (1 Kings xvi. 34). 
 The defiance of the curse has been well said to illus¬ 
 trate the unbelief that had fallen upon the northern 
 kingdom in the days of Ahab. 
 
 26. FIRST MILITARY CHECK OF THE HEB¬ 
 REWS AND ITS CAUSE (Josh. vii. 1-15). The 
 fall of Jericho was to open the way into the passes 
 leading into central Palestine. Accordingly, Joshua 
 “ sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth- 
 aven, on the east side of Bethel, and spake unto them, 
 saying, Go up and view the country.” It was part 
 of the wise strategy of Joshua to feel his way care¬ 
 fully as he advanced into unknown territory. Ai 
 was a fortress of some importance, about fifteen miles 
 from Jericho, situated at the head of the ravines 
 running up from the valley of the Jordan, and com¬ 
 manding the approaches into the heart of the country. 
 Its fall would involve the fall of Bethel. It was beside 
 Bethaven, a place not yet identified, though evidently 
 near to Bethel, and lying between Bethel and Mich- 
 mash (1 Sam. xiii. 5 ; xiv. 23). Both Ai and Bethel 
 are mentioned in connection with the history of 
 Abraham (Gen. xii. 8), and are spoken of as inhabited 
 cities in the time of the Captivity (Ezra ii. 28). The 
 
39 
 
 spies reported Ai as a fortified place of twelve thousand 
 inhabitants, and recommended that a force of two or 
 three thousand men should be employed in the attack 
 rather than inflict the toil of the ascent upon the 
 whole army. Joshua acted upon the recommendation 
 and despatched three thousand men. The result of 
 the enterprise was very unexpected. The garrison 
 of Ai sallied out, the Hebrews wavered and fled, 
 panic-stricken, down the steep descent toward the 
 Shebarim or stone-quarries, and thirty-six of them 
 were slain in the “ going-down,” probably at the spot 
 “ where the wadies, descending from Ai, take their 
 final plunge eastwards.” The smallness of the loss 
 implies that the battle had been brief and poorly 
 contested by the Hebrews. It was no wonder that 
 “ the hearts of the people melted and became as 
 water”—not from fear, but from a terrible misgiving 
 that the Divine protection had for some cause been 
 mysteriously withdrawn. Their gallant leader, at 
 least, would know how a defeat so simple at the 
 beginning of the campaign would restore the droop¬ 
 ing courage of the Canaanites, and make them feel 
 that the invaders were not invincible. Joshua rent 
 his clothes, flung himself on the ground, and 
 poured out his passionate appeal to the Lord, “ 0 
 Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their 
 backs before their enemies 1 ” The answer was 
 soon given. It was a time, not for weak lamenta¬ 
 tion, but for prompt action. Israel had sinned. 
 That which had been laid under solemn ban 
 was actually in the camp. “ The children of 
 Israel acted covertly in that which had been de¬ 
 voted ” (v. 1). It was but the act of one man, but 
 the nation was guilty. The nation is treated as a 
 divinely constituted organic whole. A man of the 
 tribe of Judah had taken some gold and silver and a 
 mantle of fine Mesopotamian manufacture—literally, 
 a mantle of Shinar—and had thus sinned against 
 God. There was a troubler in the camp, and there 
 
40 
 
 could Jbe no victory till the sin was punished. 
 “ Neither will I be with you any more except ye 
 destroy the accursed thing from among you” (v. 12). 
 There is no hint that the defeat was due to the 
 smallness of the force sent against Ai, or to any 
 misleading information of the spies. It was due to 
 an act of disobedience that involved a breach of the 
 Divine covenant. 
 
 26. DISCOVERY AND PUNISHMENT OF 
 
 AC HAN (Josh. vii. 16-22). A strict inquiry was to 
 be made for the secret transgressor by the method 
 of casting lots, though the lot is not expressly re¬ 
 ferred to. The lot was used in all sorts ot doubtful 
 or critical emergencies. It was in this case ap¬ 
 plied according to the fourfold organisation of the 
 people into tribes, families, households, and persons, 
 and at last fell on Achan or Achar, the son of Carmi. 
 Joshua tenderly appealed to him to make confession, 
 “ My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and 
 make confession unto him.” Achan confessed his 
 guilt. He had secreted certain valuable spoil in the 
 ground under his tent, from which it was now fetched 
 and “poured out” before the symbol of Jehovah’s 
 presence. The action would make a profound im¬ 
 pression upon the people. Punishment immediately 
 followed. Achan was led up, “ with all that he had,” 
 into a neighbouring valley above Gilgal, and “ all 
 Israel”—that is, by its representatives—“ stoned him 
 with stones, and burned them with fire after they 
 had stoned them with stones.” A heap of stones 
 was then raised over him and “all that he had,” 
 in token of his isolation and disgrace, in solemn 
 memory of a great crime and a great disaster. What 
 are we to understand by the words, “ with all that 
 he had!” Were Aclian’s wife and children destroyed 
 along with himself ? Some suppose that they were 
 brought to the valley merely as spectators, but not 
 destroyed with him, because it is said that “ all Israel 
 stoned him with stones,” and “ they raised over him 
 
41 
 
 a great heap of stones.” It is thought that the 
 expression “ they burned them with fire after they 
 had stoned them with stones,” refers not to the 
 children of Achan, but to his oxen and asses and 
 sheep. It seems, however, that the members of his 
 family perished with him. This is expressly implied 
 in Josh. xxii. 20—“ And that man perished not 
 alone in his iniquity.” Besides, his sons and his 
 daughters are included among the gold and silver 
 and cattle brought to the valley of Achor, and it is 
 more probable from the analogous case provided for in 
 Deut. xiii. 15, and the intimation that the ban would 
 rest on all who took of the devoted spoil. It is 
 difficult, indeed, to conceive how Achan’s family 
 could have been ignorant of his crime, for the spoil 
 could hardly have been concealed in his tent without 
 their knowledge. How terrible in any case this 
 tragic end of Achan ! The parent’s fault involves 
 his family in ruin. The sinner seldom suffers alone. 
 But the scene of this tragedy—the valley of Achor— 
 becomes henceforth “ the door of hope ” (Hosea ii. 15) 
 “for the Lord turned from the lierceness of his 
 anger,” and opened the way to new successes, and 
 new gifts of mercy. The valley must have lain 
 somewhere among the ridges which cross the plain 
 to the south of Jericho. Its exact site is uncertain. 
 
 28. THE CAPTURE OF Al (Josh. viii. 1-29). 
 The sin of Israel is now removed, and Joshua is 
 assured of Divine help in the further prosecution of 
 the campaign. A catastrophe like that of Ai occurs 
 only once to a leader with the skill and piety of 
 Joshua. A clever stratagem, followed up by a 
 crushing attack, places Ai in the hands of the 
 Hebrews. The whole district around the city is 
 seamed with hollows and ravines. Joshua was com¬ 
 manded by the Lord to take the whole army with 
 him from Gilgal or Jericho, and attack Ai by an 
 ambuscade. But who formed the ambuscade ? There 
 is some difficulty in. understanding the text. It would 
 
42 
 
 seem that Joshua sent away 30,000 men by night from 
 Jericho to Ai, to hide themselves behind the city in 
 one of the ravines between Bethel and Ai. Yet 5000 
 men are afterwards spoken of as planted in ambush 
 on the same western side of the city. Some suggest 
 a copyist’s error of 30,000 for 5000 in the third verse 
 —a suggestion which is no doubt favoured by the 
 undoubted difficulty of reconciling the figures in 
 Kings and in Chronicles. Others suggest that there 
 were two ambuscades, one of 30,000 nearer to Bethel 
 and the other nearer to Ai, but both on the same 
 side of Ai. Now, the fact that the men of Bethel, a 
 city two miles distant from Ai, but hid from it by 
 two intervening heights, took part in the pursuit of 
 the Hebrews in their feigned retreat toward the 
 wilderness (“ And there was not a man left in Ai or 
 Bethel that went not out after Israel”), seems to 
 suggest that Joshua provided against an attack on 
 the side of Bethel simultaneously with his deliver¬ 
 ing his direct attack upon Ai. It is a significant 
 fact that Bethel is represented, in Josh. xii. 16, as 
 captured and its king slain by Joshua, yet no mention 
 is anywhere made of the time or circumstances of the 
 capture. The two ambuscades were rendered neces¬ 
 sary by the fact that Joshua had to confront two 
 enemies instead of one ; for it is very improbable 
 that a fortified city like Bethel so close to Ai would 
 be left unreduced while Joshua pushed his way past 
 it into Central Palestine. The ambuscades being 
 now set, Joshua “mustered the people” (ver. 10), and 
 marched a strong force to the north side of Ai. 
 Then in the evening he descended from his vantage- 
 ground on the hill into the plain, where the King of 
 Ai prepared to attack him on the following morn¬ 
 ing with the whole of his forces. The Hebrews 
 offered no resistance, but fled as before in the 
 direction of the wilderness (probably the wil¬ 
 derness of Bethaven, Josh, xviii. 12), so as to 
 draw their pursuers farther away from the city. 
 
43 
 
 Thereupon Joshua gave a signal with his out¬ 
 stretched spear to the troops lying in ambush, and 
 -A i, stripped of its armed defenders, was immediately 
 occupied by the Hebrews, who set it on fire, as a 
 sign to both armies that it had changed masters. 
 Meanwhile the pursued Hebrews turned upon the 
 men of Ai, who were taken in front and in rear and 
 literally crushed, having “ no power to flee this way 
 or that way.” The inhabitants of Ai were then put 
 to the sword; their city became a blackened heaj3 
 of stones ; their king was slain, and his body hanged 
 on a tree till sunset, and then buried beneath a rude 
 pile of stones (Num. xxv. 4). Ai became aheap for ever. 
 
 29. THE PILGRIMAGE TO SHECHEM (Josh, 
 vii. 30-35). The interior of the country being now 
 open to his arms, Joshua took advantage of 
 the Canaanite panic to carry out a work of an 
 essentially religious character, without a parallel in 
 the history of any other nation. The Lord had com¬ 
 manded the tribes through Moses to assemble as soon 
 as practicable at Shechem, in the centre of the country, 
 to renew their allegiance to Him, and to hear the 
 conditions on which they were henceforth to hold the 
 land (Deut. xxvii. 4). Accordingly, all the people, 
 including women and children, as well as strangers 
 of other races, who had come with them out of 
 Egypt, marched from Gilgal to the memorable valley 
 between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim, a distance of 
 thirty miles. Some suppose that this pilgrimage, 
 which would occupy, at least, three days, took place 
 at a later period, after the land had been fully con¬ 
 quered, as it would have been a perilous enterprise 
 while the country still swarmed with enemies. But 
 there is no just reason for this supposition, as a 
 journey of thirty miles was not an impossible feat, 
 and the terror of the Canaanites made it safe and 
 practicable. a However hazardous it was, it was a 
 
 a It is contended that the passage recording this pilgrimage c’oes not 
 stand in its proper context. Most of the MSS. of the Septuagint 
 
44 
 
 pure act of faith on Joshua’s part, for he resolved to 
 anticipate the conquest that would yet place the 
 whole land in his possession, by marching to a central 
 point in the land, where the law would be formally 
 established as the future directory of the new pos¬ 
 sessors. Shechem was “ the most beautiful, perhaps 
 it might be said, the only very beautiful spot in 
 Central Palestine.” It was a sacred spot in Hebrew 
 history. Here Abraham rested on his journey from 
 Chaldea, and erected his first altar to the Lord 
 (Gen. xii. 6, 7). Here Jacob settled on his return 
 from the same Eastern country, digging a well which 
 was still before the eyes of the Hebrews, and buying 
 a field from the children of Hamor, the father of 
 Shechem, where they were soon to bury the body of 
 Joseph, according to his dying injunctions (Gen. 
 xxxiii. 19 j Josh. xxiv. 32). It was thenceforth to 
 become the first national burying-place of the He¬ 
 brews. It afterwards became the first capital of 
 Palestine, the seat of the great national assemblies ; 
 and even after Jerusalem became the capital, every 
 new reign was inaugurated at Shechem (1 Kings 
 xii. 1). The city lay in a valley between two moun¬ 
 tains. This valley running north and south, with a 
 width of from a quarter to half a mile, is hemmed in 
 between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim, the summits of 
 which are two miles apart; Ebal, desolate and 
 barren, on the north side, rising to a height of 2990 
 feet above the sea, and Gerizim, picturesque and 
 fruitful, on the south side, towering aloft to a height 
 of 2828 feet, and studded with caves at its foot. This 
 was the scene of one of the most remarkable incidents 
 in the history of Israel. 
 
 30. THE BLESSING AND THE CURSING 
 
 (Josh. viii. 30-35 ; Deut. xxvii., xxviii.). The account 
 
 place it after ix. 2, and there are many variations, not only in the text 
 of the Septuagint, but in the renderings of the Hebrew text. Some 
 would place the narrative at the end of chap, xi., and find in the scenes 
 of Ebal and Gerizim a suitable climax to the completed conquest of 
 Palestine. 
 
45 
 
 of the solemnity at Shechem is very brief, and pre¬ 
 supposes, as we have seen, an acquaintance with the 
 Mosaic instructions in Deuteronomy. It was to 
 consist of three parts. First, there was to be an altar 
 erected on Mount Ebal—an altar of unhewn stones, 
 “ as though to intimate that all should be natural 
 and spontaneous in the worship of God, and that as 
 little of human devising should be introduced as 
 possible ”—and sacrifices were to be offered symbolic 
 of the solemn dedication of the people to the Lord. 
 “ Joshua’s first building is an altar not a fortress.” 
 Secondly, stone pillars were set up covered with a 
 cement of lime, on the surface of which was to be 
 inscribed “ the copy of the law of Moses.” What is 
 to be understood by this writing 1 It was not the 
 decalogue, which is only a summary of the obliga¬ 
 tions contained in the law, nor the whole book of 
 Deuteronomy, which contains much more than 
 laws, nor the blessings and cursings recorded in the 
 text, which supply rather the motives than the rules 
 of obedience, but all the laws given by God to Moses 
 —that is, the strictly legislative part—which the 
 Jews estimate at six hundred and thirteen in num¬ 
 ber. It was both possible and customary to engrave 
 upon walls the most extensive pieces of writing. 
 The inscription would remain uneffaced for centuries 
 in the dry climate of the East, as we know by the 
 Sinaitic inscriptions, and by the inscriptions in 
 Egypt, which remain after several thousands of years 
 as distinct as when they were first written. Thirdly, 
 the priests with the ark occupied the valley between 
 Ebal and Gerizim, surrounded by the elders, officers, 
 and judges. The tribes that sprang from the wives 
 of Jacob at the same time took their stand no doubt 
 on Mount Gerizim, and those descended from the 
 handmaids of Leah and Rachel, together with 
 Reubenites, were posted on Mount Ebal (cf. 
 Deut. xxvii. 12, 13). The law, as given by 
 Moses was then read aloud to the vast multitude, 
 
46 
 
 the tribes doubtless responding with their Amens, 
 as had been ordained by Moses (Deut. xxvii, 26). 
 The words of the Levites would be distinctly heard 
 by the vast multitudes. The acoustic properties 
 of the valley have been tested in modern 
 times. A recent traveller says that two of his 
 party stationed themselves on opposite sides, and 
 recited the commandments antiphonally with perfect 
 ease. The whole scene was a symbolical setting 
 up of the law as the rule of life to the redeemed 
 Hebrews in Palestine. “ Such a scene transacted 
 twelve hundred years before the first Punic war, and 
 a thousand years before Socrates, is unique in the 
 history of the world ; for when did any nation pledge 
 itself to a high religious life as a recognised condition 
 of prosperity ? ” The Hebrew commonwealth was 
 essentially a theocracy, and its subjection to the 
 Divine will was to be the secret of its order and 
 greatness. 
 
 Questions and Points for Inquire. 
 
 1. Give a geographical account of the river Jordan , 
 and mark its influence upon the destinies of Israel. 
 
 2. How do we reconcile the conduct of Rahab with 
 the praise of her faith in the New Testament ? 
 
 3. Explain the meaning of the suspension of circum¬ 
 cision in the wilderness. 
 
 4. What is meant by the act of devoting a person or 
 a thing to God ? 
 
 5. Explain the principle of the Divine government 
 involved in the disaster at Ai. 
 
 6. Explain the circumstances and meaning of the 
 pilgrimage to Shechem. 
 
47 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SECOND STAGE OF THE CONQUEST. 
 
 31. THE GIBEONITE COMMUNITY (Josh. ix. 
 3-27). An incident took place shortly after the pil¬ 
 grimage to Shechem which gave Joshua a stronger 
 hold upon Central Palestine. There were four Hivite 
 cities, lying at a short distance from each other, west 
 of Ai, and apparently joined in a sort of republican 
 league governed by elders, for there is no mention 
 made of a king over them. They are said to be “ of 
 the remnant of the Amorites ” (2 Sam. xxi. 2), but 
 the name “ Amorites ” is here used as a designation 
 for the whole Canaanite people. Gibeon (now iden¬ 
 tified with El-jib), was the metropolis of this com¬ 
 munity, and was greater than Ai. It was equal, 
 indeed, in size and importance to the capitals of king¬ 
 doms, for it was as “ one of the royal cities ” (Josh, 
 x. 2). It lay, as its name imports, on the top of a 
 hill, in fact on the top of two of the rounded hills 
 in this neighbourhood, about five miles north-west of 
 Jerusalem. The three other cities of the league were 
 Beeroth, Chephirah, and Kirjathjearim. Beeroth 
 (“ wells/’) now El-biroh , was ten miles north of 
 Jerusalem, between Jerusalem and Bethel. It is 
 mentioned along with other Benjamite cities whose 
 inhabitants returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel 
 (Ezra ii. 25 ; Neh. vii. 29). Chephirah, now Kefir , 
 also known in the times after the captivity, was 
 eleven miles from Jerusalem and four from Kirjath¬ 
 jearim. It was a Benjamite city (Josh, xviii. 26). 
 Kirjath-jearim — “the city of woods” — deriving 
 its name from its plantations of olives and figs, as its 
 modern name Kirjath-enab does from its vineyards, 
 was somewhat farther to the west than the other 
 three towns. It was a frontier town of Judah-Ben- 
 jamin, and at a later period was the place where the 
 
48 
 
 ark of the covenant abode for twenty years. Thus 
 David afterwards found “ the ark in the fields of the 
 wood ” (Ps. cxxxii. 6). It still possesses thick woods. 
 The position of these four towns was important in a 
 strategic point of view. They held the summit of the 
 great pass of Beth-horon (immediately opposite the 
 opening of the pass'of Ai), which has always been the 
 great route to the coast and the south ; so that the 
 power which held the passes could easily cut off the 
 inhabitants of these places from all communication 
 with the north. In fact, if Joshua obtained a hold 
 upon the Gibeonite territory he drove still further 
 into Central Palestine the wedge that was destined 
 to separate the north from the south. The noise of 
 his remarkable exploits at Ai and Jericho happily 
 opened the way for him into these parts without the 
 alternative of a battle. 
 
 32. THE STRATAGEM OF THE GIBEONITES 
 AND ITS SUCCESS (Josh. ix. 3-27). The 
 Gibeonites were a brave people (Josh. x. 2), but they 
 understood the power of the Hebrews. At the very 
 time that the kings of the south, headed by the King 
 of Jerusalem, were preparing to resist the advance of 
 Joshua (Josh. ix. 1), the Gibeonites sought their own 
 safety by a clever stratagem. They sent an embassy 
 to Joshua, or “ they went and travelled as ambas¬ 
 sadors,” as if they had come from a far country. 
 They loaded their asses with old provision-bags and 
 mended water-skins, carried dried and mouldy bread, 
 and clothed themselves with old garments. Thus 
 disguised they approached the camp at Gilgal, and 
 declared to Joshua that they had come from a far 
 country, and having heard of the conquest of the 
 eastern side of Jordan, they desired to make a league 
 with a people who seemed to be so conspicuously 
 under Divine protection. They artfully omitted all 
 reference to the later conquests of Ai and Jericho. 
 The Hebrews seem at first to have suspected that 
 they were Canaanites, for they said, “ Peradventure 
 
49 
 
 ye dwell among us, and liow shall we make a league 
 with you 1 ” The Gibeonites persisted in their story, 
 and told falsehood upon falsehood to support its 
 plausibility. Joshua was without suspicion, and 
 never thought of asking counsel of God (ver. 14), but 
 “ the men took of their victuals ”—not, as some think, 
 to test the truth of the Gibeonite story, but to pledge 
 themselves after the Eastern manner to peace and 
 friendship. The princes of the congregation ratified 
 the engagement. The deception was quickly dis¬ 
 covered on the Hebrews marching upon the Hivite 
 cities. The question now was, Will the Hebrews 
 stand by their treaty ? The people murmured against 
 the action of the princes. They probably argued 
 that the princes were not bound to respect an engage¬ 
 ment obtained by fraud. But if the princes were 
 blameworthy for accepting the Gibeonite story with¬ 
 out asking counsel of God, they were not at liberty 
 to take advantage of their own carelessness and to re¬ 
 pudiate their obligation. If their oath had bound 
 them to a thing essentially wrong, they might have 
 used the fraud of the Gibeonites as an argument for 
 setting it aside. The princes, however, manifested 
 an honourable strength of moral principle. That 
 they were bound to observe their engagement appears 
 from the fact that there was a famine in David’s time 
 for three years because Saul had slain the Gibeonites 
 (2 Sam. xxi. 1-10). The duty of the princes, under 
 all the circumstances of the case, was to devise some 
 method of respecting at once their oath and God’s 
 purposes • and this was done by the decree that the 
 Gibeonites should serve the Hebrews in all after ages 
 in the more menial offices of the tabernacle. They 
 were condemned to be hewers of wood and drawers 
 of water, not to individual Hebrews, but to the con¬ 
 gregation of Israel. The oath was accordingly kept. 
 Weighty results followed. Gibeon became after¬ 
 wards an important ecclesiastical centre. It was one 
 of the Levitical cities, and there the tabernacle was 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 set up for many years during the reigns of David and 
 Solomon, the ark of the covenant being at Jerusalem 
 (1 Ohron. xvi. 39, 40; 2 Chron. i. 2, 4). This com¬ 
 pact with Gibeon determined the future resting of the 
 ark at Kirjath-jearim. This threw the centre of the 
 national life southward, and favoured the supremacy 
 of Judah, and the choice of Jerusalem as the capital. 
 It does not appear that the Gibeonites ever betrayed 
 their trust or seduced the Hebrews into idolatry. 
 
 33. THE CONFEDERACY OF SOUTHERN 
 CANAAN (Josh. ix. 1 ; x. 1-6). The kings of 
 Southern Palestine soon discovered that through the 
 surrender of the Gibeonites, the approaches to their 
 territory were already in the hands of the enemy. 
 The invaders had, in fact, advanced into the very 
 heart of the country. The kings therefore resolved 
 not only to punish the treachery of the Gibeonites, 
 but by retaking Gibeon to crush Joshua at a point 
 where a defeat would be fatal to his plans. Perhaps 
 they had somewhat recovered from their panic in 
 consequence of the Hebrew repulse before Ai. The 
 leader of the confederacy was Adoni-Zedek, King of 
 Jerusalem. This name was probably the official 
 title of the Jebusite kings, as Pharaoh was that of the 
 kings of Egypt. The change from Melchizedek to 
 Adoni-Zedek marks, perhaps, a change of dynasty. 
 Jerusalem was sometimes called after its original 
 inhabitants, Jebus (Judges xix. 10, 11), also, pro¬ 
 bably, Salem (Gen. xiv. 18), once “the city of 
 Judah” (1 Chron. xxv. 28), and finally Jerusalem. 
 It stands eighteen miles from the Jordan, and thirty- 
 two from the Mediterranean Sea. Its situation, 
 like its history, is very remarkable. It does not 
 stand, like so many other cities, on the summit of 
 one of the many hills of Judea, but at a height of 
 above 2400 feet above the sea-level, on the edge of 
 one of the highest table-lands of the country, the 
 ascent being gradual from every side but the south, 
 from which it appears “ a mountain city enthroned 
 
51 
 
 on a mountain fortress.” Then the city itself stands 
 separated by deep ravines from the rocky plateau on 
 which it stands, “ rising like the walls of a fortress 
 out of its ditches.” It was after the conquest in 
 possession of the Benjamites (Josh, xviii. 28), but 
 being on the frontier of Judah, the lower part of it 
 was early captured by this warlike tribe, the 
 upper town remaining in the hands of the Jebusites 
 till David drove them out, and probably gave it the 
 name of Jerusalem. It was natural, therefore, that 
 the king of a place, so central and so impregnable, 
 should be at the head of the chieftains of the south. 
 Another king was Hoham, King of Hebron. This 
 place, twenty miles south of Jerusalem, was one of 
 the most ancient cities of the world, founded seven 
 years before Zoan in Egypt (Num. xiii. 22). It 
 stands “ in the hill country of Judea,” about 3000 
 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, and 
 commands a splendid view of the Holy Land. It 
 first appears in the possession of Mamre the Amorite 
 (Gen. xiii. 18). It afterwards became the possession 
 of the Hittites (Gen. xxiii.),and finally the Canaanites 
 or lowlanders held it (Judges i. 10.) It was the 
 burying-place of Abraham and Sarah, and ultimately 
 became the inheritance of Caleb. Hebron was for¬ 
 midable from the gigantic stature of its inhabitants 
 (Num. xiii. 33), and from the number of its daughter 
 cities (Josh. x. 37). Its original name was Kirjath- 
 arba. Another king was Piram, King of Jarmuth. 
 This place (now called Yarmuk) was sixteen miles 
 south-west of Jerusalem. There are ancient walls 
 and cisterns still seen on the spot. Another king 
 was Japhia, King of Lachish. This place was fifteen 
 miles nearly south of Jarmuth. It was in the low¬ 
 lands of Judah, was well fortified, and endured a 
 siege by Sennacherib (Isa. xxxvi. 2.) The other king 
 was Debir, King of Eglon, which was ten miles east 
 of 'Lachish, on the Gaza road. It is so often men¬ 
 tioned with Lachish, that it must have been near it. 
 
52 
 
 All these five cities were within the tribe of Judah, 
 and as they were comparatively near to each other, 
 it was possible for Adoni-Zedek to communicate with 
 each of his allies in the course of a few hours. These 
 were the five kings who hurried up the hill country 
 with their armies, and laid siege to Gibeon. The 
 Gibeonites instantly sent word to Joshua at Gilgal, 
 saying, “Slack not thy hand to help us”—for the 
 crisis was sudden and imminent. 
 
 34. THE BATTLE OF BETH-HORON (Josh, 
 x. 7-15). Everything depended on the suddenness 
 of the blow that was to shatter the confederacy in 
 pieces. Joshua’s rapid movements showed his skil¬ 
 ful generalship. He marched through the night 
 with a powerful army from Gilgal, and when the sun 
 rose over Gibeon, he had his troops in array along 
 the open ground at the foot of the hill where the 
 kings were already encamped. The battle of Beth- 
 horon was the result. It was one of the decisive 
 battles of the world, “like the battle of the Milvian 
 Bridge, which involved the fall of Paganism, or the 
 battle of Poitiers, which sealed the fate of Arianism, 
 or like the battle of Lutzen, which determined the 
 balance of power between Bomanism and Protest¬ 
 antism in Germany.” This battle was, in a military 
 sense, the most important in which the Hebrews had 
 yet been engaged, for it was the first conflict in the 
 open field with enemies who had great skill and 
 resources in war. “ But the Lord discomfited them, 
 and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and 
 chased them along the way that goeth up to Beth- 
 horon, and smote them to Azekah and Makkedah.” 
 Ten miles from Gibeon was the higher Beth-horon— 
 “ the house of the cavern ”—which was separated 
 from the lower Beth-horon farther west by a pass 
 called the ascent and the descent of Beth-horon,leading 
 from the plain of Gibeon over to and down the plain 
 on the western side. The summit of the pass was 
 crowned by the village of Beth-horon, which com- 
 
53 
 
 P 
 
 manded a view of the valley of Ajalon, and of Jaffa 
 on the sea-coast. The road through this pass, at 
 once rocky and difficult, has a historic interest. By 
 it the Philistines were in Saul’s days to invade 
 Israel; by it Judas Maccabeus was to conquer the 
 Syrian general, Nicanor; by it Paul was to pass as a 
 prisoner by night on his way to Caesarea. This was 
 the pass toward which the Canaanites were now rush¬ 
 ing in headlong flight. The first stage in their flight 
 was up the steep ascent to the pass ; the second was 
 their descent from the pass into the plain ; the third 
 was their pursuit along the plain till they were 
 utterly routed. Joshua pursued them through 
 all the day. But just as they were rushing over 
 the pass, a fearful storm broke over them, for 
 “the Lord cast down great stones from heaven 
 upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they 
 were more which died with hailstones than they 
 which the children of Israel slew with the sword.” 
 The victory was therefore due more to God’s favour 
 than to Hebrew valour. Some think these stones 
 were meteoric, but the Hebrew text, the Septuagint, 
 and Josephus decide in favour of a hailstorm. His¬ 
 tory tells of hailstorms which have been most destruc¬ 
 tive to life. At the lower end of the pass were the 
 two villages of Azekah and Makkedah, where the 
 five kings found refuge in a cave. Azekah was 
 near Shochoh, and between the two places where the 
 Philistines were encamped on the famous day of 
 Goliath (1 Sam. xvii. 1). It was fortified by Beho- 
 boam, besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, and was in¬ 
 habited after the captivity. Makkedah was one of 
 the lowland cities of Judah (Josh. xv. 41). 
 
 35. THE LENGTHENING OF DAYLIGHT TO 
 THE VICTORS (Josh. x. 12-15). The crisis of the 
 battle was now at hand. The sun was still high— 
 “ in the midst of heaven ”—but the wild hailstorm 
 may have darkened the prospect toward the west, 
 whither the fugitive Canaanites were hastening for 
 
54 
 
 refuge to their fortified cities ; when Joshua, seeing 
 that the pursuit was likely to be a long one, prayed 
 that the sun and moon should stay “ until the people 
 had avenged themselves upon their enemies.” That 
 prayer of faith which he poured forth, as he stood on 
 the lofty eminence above Gibeon, has been copied 
 into the text from the Book of Jasher, which was 
 apparently a collection of odes in praise of the heroes 
 of Israel.® The quotation evidently begins with the 
 twelfth verse, and ends with the close of the fifteenth, 
 which says that “Joshua returned, and all Israel 
 with him, unto the camp at Gilgal,” Yet we know 
 that he did not return to Gilgal immediately after 
 the battle of Gibeon. The exact time of his return 
 is marked in the purely historical narrative at verse 
 43. The question is, what conception are we to form 
 of the marvellous transaction recorded in this part 
 of the Book of Joshua? b Some suppose that Joshua 
 merely prayed that the sun and moon might not set 
 till his work was done, j ust as Agamemnon prays that 
 the sun may not go down till he has sacked Troy. 
 The account of the early victory at Gibeon is said to be 
 interrupted at the eleventh verse (which speaks of 
 the miraculous fall of hailstones), in order to insert 
 (in verses 12-15) a highly figurative description of 
 the victory taken from the Book of Jasher. Accord¬ 
 ing to this view, Joshua merely prays that the day 
 may not be brought to a close till a complete victory 
 has been gained, and the words are held to be 
 poetical terms, like the statement of Deborah that 
 “ the stars in their courses fought against Sisera,” or 
 the apostrophe of Isaiah, “ O that thou wouldest 
 rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains 
 would flow down at thy presence !” Others hold 
 
 a The Book of Jasher is also referred to in 2 Sam. i. 18. 
 
 b The literal translation of the passage is, “ Sun, he silent upon 
 Gibeon, and moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun was still and 
 the moon stood, until a nation was avenged of its enemies. Is not 
 this written in the Book of Jasher ? And so the sun stood still in the 
 midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down as a perfect day.” 
 
55 
 
 that the sun and moon literally stood still in the 
 heavens for a whole day, in order that the victory 
 of Joshua might be completed. It is argued by the 
 supporters of this literal view that there was ample 
 reason for such a display of Divine power in con¬ 
 nection with a thing that was to have vast conse¬ 
 quences in the whole history of the world, and that 
 the Creator of the world “ could have arrested the 
 natural consequences of such a suspension of Nature’s 
 ordinary working as He could suspend that working 
 itself.” Others believe there was a miraculous 
 lengthening of the day, but confess their inability 
 to explain how it came to pass that the daylight 
 might be continued long enough to allow him to 
 complete his victory. If what Joshua prayed for 
 was that the light might be continued long enough 
 to allow him to complete his victory, his prayer might 
 have been answered by some extraordinary prolonga¬ 
 tion of the sun’s light or the sun’s visibility, ana¬ 
 logous to the visibility which is given by refraction 
 and reflection to the sun’s disc long after he has 
 sunk below the horizon. “ To the apprehension of 
 the Israelites, this would have all the effect of staying 
 the career of the sun, and to ours of arresting the 
 earth’s revolution on its axis ; and this is all that the 
 sacred text requires, all that Joshua required, and all 
 that we need require.” 
 
 36. THE COMPLETE CONQUEST OF 
 SOUTHERN PALESTINE (Josh. x. 28-43). The 
 pursuit of the fugitives was continued in the light 
 of the lengthened day. On his return to Makkedah, 
 Joshua brought forth the five kings out of the cave 
 to which they had fled for shelter, and slew them 
 with his own hand. Their bodies were then buried 
 in the cave. The victory of Beth-horon did not stand 
 alone. It was the beginning of a vigorous campaign, 
 lasting perhaps weeks or months, during which the 
 Hebrews overran and conquered the whole south of 
 Palestine. Many of the Canaanites, as we have 
 
56 
 
 seen, had found refuge in the fortified cities, and 
 might possibly rally for some future attack upon 
 their invaders. Accordingly, city after city was 
 stormed and the inhabitants slain. Six of these 
 cities are expressly named — Makkedah, Libnah, 
 Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, and Debir. Several of them 
 were afterwards given to the Levites. Libnah be¬ 
 longed to the maritime lowlands of Palestine. It 
 became a Levitical city. Lachish was not taken so 
 easily as the other cities. It was taken “ on the 
 second day.” We can therefore well understand 
 why Sennacherib had to raise the siege of Lachish 
 (2 Kings xix. 8), and why it successfully resisted 
 Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xxxiv. V). This is an inter¬ 
 esting coincidence. Joshua also smote Horam, King* 
 of Gezer, who came up to help Lachish, but it is 
 nowhere said that he took Gezer, because it lay too 
 far northward of his present line of operations. 
 Gezer was on the south border of the tribe of 
 Ej)hraim (Josh. xvi. 3). Its inhabitants were not 
 driven out (Josh. xvi. 10). It was a Levitical city 
 (Josh. xxi. 21), but the Canaanites seem to have 
 lived on with the Levites. It is now known by its 
 old name as Tell-el-Jezer. Eglon is now Ajlan, “a low 
 mound of building-stones one hour east of Lachish,” 
 on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. Joshua next 
 went up from the plain to Hebron, which stands in 
 the hill-country, and destroyed it with its inhabitants. 
 The King of Hebron here spoken of was evidently a 
 successor of the king hanged at Makkedah. There 
 is nothing in the history inconsistent with the 
 fact stated subsequently that “Joshua cut off the 
 Anakims from the mountains-, from Hebron, from 
 Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of 
 Judah ” (Josh. xi. 21). He extirpated the inhabi¬ 
 tants of all captured cities ; but those who may have 
 escaped, together with other natives, lurking for a 
 while in the mountain fastnesses, returned while 
 Joshua was absent in the north, and repossessed 
 
57 
 
 several of the conquered cities. He then turned 
 south to Debir, a place of some importance, for it 
 alone, along with Hebron, had cities dependent on 
 it. Joshua took this city, which was afterwards 
 assigned to the priests (Josh. xxi. 15). Thus ended 
 the southern campaign, of which we have a detailed 
 survey in Josh. x. 40-43. The Lord God of Israel 
 had indeed “ fought for Israel.” The strength of 
 Israel lay in faith and prayer, for the Lord is always 
 true to those who are true to their high calling. 
 
 Questions and Points for Inquiry. 
 
 1. What was the immediate cause of the great 
 southern confederacy against Joshua ? 
 
 2. Explain the military , political. and ecclesiastical 
 effects of the surrender of the Gibeonites. 
 
 3. Marie the three stages of the battle of Beth-horon. 
 
 4. Explain the different theories suggested to account 
 for the sun and moon standing still. 
 
 5. Ilow far did the pursuit of Joshua go beyond the 
 territories of the southern kings ? 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THIRD STAGE OF THE CONQUEST. 
 
 37. THE NORTHERN CONFEDERACY (Josh, 
 xi. 1-15). The scene of the conquest now changes to 
 the north. Joshua had hardly returned to the camp 
 at Gilgal, when he heard that a powerful confederacy 
 had been formed in the north under the direction of 
 Jabin, King of Hazor. This king seems to have 
 held in the north the influential position held by 
 Adoni-Zedek in the south. The name Jabin, which 
 means u wise,” was given to all the kings of Hazor, 
 
58 
 
 like Pliaraoh in Egypt, and Caesar in the Roman 
 Empire. Hazor — “ the fort ” — was a powerful 
 stronghold, situated in the mountains above the 
 waters of Merom. It was “ head of all the king¬ 
 doms ” in that part of Palestine (ver. 10), and was 
 afterwards assigned to the tribe of Naphtali (Josh, 
 xix. 36). From this northern fortress King Jabin 
 sent out invitations for a general rising, not only to 
 all the petty kings around him, but to all the broken 
 remnants of the defeated Canaanites over the whole 
 country. His first call was naturally to Jobab, King 
 of Madon, to the King of Shimron, and to the King 
 of Aclishaph, evidently places in the neighbourhood 
 of Hazor. The message also went to “ the kings on 
 the north of the mountains,” or, rather, to “ the kings 
 to the northward in the mountain district ”—not the 
 Lebanon mountains, but the mountains of Galilee 
 called “Mount Naphtali” (Josh. xx. 7.) It also 
 went to “ the plains south of Cinneroth ” (rather, the 
 Arabah, the northern portion of the Ghor or de¬ 
 pressed tract, which extends south of the town of 
 Cinneroth, in the tribe of Naphtali, giving its earliest 
 name to the lake of Galilee, or Sea of Tiberias, 
 Num. xxxiv. 11). It went also to “the valley,” 
 that is, the level plain, or Shephelah , extending 
 along the sea from Carmel southwards, and “to the 
 borders of Dor on the west” (rather, “the highlands 
 of Dor ”), on the sea-coast south of Carmel, and 
 seven milesmorth of Caesarea. This Dor was one of 
 the Phoenician commercial cities, with a fine harbour 
 and an abundant supply on its shores of the shell-fish 
 which made the famous Tyrian purple. Thus the 
 confederacy was the most extensive and the most 
 formidable that Joshua had yet to encounter. It 
 was a grand effort to crush the invaders. “ It was 
 a final and supreme effort like that of our forefathers 
 in Northumberland after the defeat of Senlac.” 
 
 38. THE BATTLE OF MEROM (Josh. xi. 6-8). 
 The rendezvous of the vast host was on the plain 
 
59 
 
 south-west of Lake Merom (the modern El-huleh), the 
 highest of the inland lakes of Palestine, five miles in 
 breadth, and fifteen in length. Here the confederates 
 were encamped on the table-land “ above the waters 
 of Merom.” The battle-field was an ancient one. It 
 was here that Abraham routed the forces of Chedor- 
 laomer and his allies. It was now to be the scene of a 
 more terrible conflict. Joshua was nerved for it by the 
 encouraging assurance of the Lord—‘ ‘ Be not afraid of 
 them.” The enemy was provided with the best appli¬ 
 ances of war known to that age. Horses and chariots 
 now for the first time appear in Canaanite warfare— 
 the horse, indeed, for the first time in Jewish history 
 —and probably Jabin selected the field of battle along 
 the shores of Merom because it would allow full play 
 to his chariots and cavalry. “ To-morrow about this 
 time will I deliver them up slain a before Israel.” 
 Several days would be occupied by the march from 
 Gilgal, and it must have been when he was within 
 a day’s march of the enemy that he received this 
 encouraging assurance. He received at the same 
 time an express injunction to burn the chariots and 
 hough the horses of the Canaanites, that they might 
 not henceforth be employed in war either by friend 
 or enemy. Joshua exercised his usual strategy in 
 this battle. As before at Gibeon, he takes the enemy 
 by surprise, suddenly emerging from one or more of 
 the mountain passes of Upper Galilee. He drops 
 upon them like a thunderbolt (so the Hebrew has 
 it), “ on the mountain slopes ” (as the Greek version 
 adds), where the chariots and horses would have no 
 place for manoeuvring, and, following up the attack 
 upon the astonished and unwieldy host, he drove 
 them before him in helpless disorder. No details of 
 the battle are given. It was a most decided victory 
 for the Hebrews, and gave a final death-blow to the 
 hopes of the ancient races of Palestine. “ The Lord 
 delivered them into the hand of Israel, who smote 
 
 a Or, “ wounded.” (Septuagint and Vulgate.) 
 
60 
 
 them and chased them. 53 The Canaanites fled from 
 the battlefield in three different directions, probably 
 according to the places from which they came. One 
 party sought refuge along the north-western road 
 over the mountains till they reached “ Great Sidon, 53 
 the metropolis of Phoenicia, thirty miles distant, 
 on the Mediterranean Sea. Sidon would pro¬ 
 bably be friendly in its reception. Another party 
 of fugitives took the road west and south-west 
 to Misrephoth-maim, not far from Sidon, and 
 probably connected with it (Josh. xiii. 6). The 
 word signifies “ burnings of waters, 33 and has been 
 variously interpreted to refer to hot springs, to salt- 
 pits, or to glass-houses, of which there were several 
 in the neighbourhood of Sidon. Some think the place 
 is identical with “Zarephath that belongeth to Sidon 33 
 (1 Kings xvii. 9), the Sarepta of the New Testament. 
 A third party fled eastward unto “the valley of 
 Mispeh,” at the foot of Hermon. “ And they smote 
 them until they left them none remaining. 33 Joshua 
 returned from the pursuit to burn Hazor to the 
 ground, partly because of its great importance as a 
 stronghold, partly because he may have heard of the 
 recapture of the fortified cities of the south by the 
 Anakims (verses 13, 21). He did not think it 
 necessary to burn the smaller cities, which were left 
 “ standing each on its own hill, 33 the hill being the 
 ordinary site for cities in Palestine. Hazor was after¬ 
 wards rebuilt by the Canaanites (Judges iv. 2), but not 
 in the days of Joshua. Jabin, the king, was put to 
 death by the sword. 
 
 39. EXTERMINATION OF THE ANAKIMS 
 
 (Josh. xi. 21, 22). During the closing days of the 
 conquest;—the exact time not being specified—Joshua 
 destroyed the remarkable race of giants who dwelt in 
 the hill country of Judah. It was appropriate that 
 Joshua and Caleb, the two faithful spies who were 
 not intimidated by the giants of other days, should 
 be employed in this arduous service. The Anakims 
 
61 
 
 were no doubt a hill tribe of the Amorites. Their 
 progenitor was Arba, “the father of Anak” (Josh, 
 xv. 13), from whom the city of Hebron took its name 
 of Kirjath-arba. Ahiman, Shesliai, and Talmai were 
 children of Anak, though some think these names 
 indicate not individual warriors, but chiefs of tribes. 
 Og, King of Bashan, was of “the remnant of the 
 giants” (Deut. iii. 11). Some suppose that these 
 giants were “ a tribe of Cushite wanderers from Babel, 
 and of the same race as the Philistines, the Phoenicians, 
 and the Egyptian shepherd-kings, representing one or 
 more families of Amorite descent, distinguished for 
 their lofty stature and physical powers.” We know 
 that the Anakims had their chief settlements in the 
 mountains about Hebron. Anab was one of their 
 cities south of Hebron, and still retains its ancient 
 name. It may have been a daughter-city of Debir. 
 “Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities.” A 
 remnant, however, found refuge in the Philistine 
 cities of Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod, where they were 
 still to be found in the days of David (1 Sam. xvii. 
 4; 2 Sam. xxi. 18-22). 
 
 40. GENERAL RETROSPECT OF THE CON¬ 
 QUEST. The duration of Joshua’s wars is loosely 
 represented as “ many days ” (Josh. xi. 18). The series 
 of decisive battles may not have occupied a long time, 
 but years may have been spent in the capture of in¬ 
 dividual cities. It is possible to ascertain the full period 
 with some degree of definiteness. Caleb tells us that he 
 was forty years old when he was sent from Kadesh- 
 Barnea as one of the spies, and he was eighty-five 
 years old when he claimed Hebron from Joshua 
 (Josh. xiv. 7, 10). The conquest was then finished. 
 It would follow from these two facts that, as the 
 mission of the spies took place in the second year 
 after the exodus (Num. xiii. 20), and the wanderings 
 occupied forty years, that Caleb was thirty-eight years 
 of age when he left Egypt, and seventy-eight when 
 he crossed the Jordan. Thus there is a period of 
 
62 
 
 \ 
 
 seven years left for the campaigns of Joshua, and we 
 cannot be far astray in assigning the best part of this 
 space to the conquest. “ And the land rested from 
 war ” (xi. 23). This means that the Hebrews ceased 
 to make war unitedly upon the Canaanites, whose 
 resistance was for the time completely broken down. 
 But as there was yet much land to be possessed, it 
 was left to the individual tribes, as soon as they 
 received their allotted inheritances, to clear it of its 
 ancient possessors. It was no part of the commission 
 of Joshua to exterminate the Canaanites at once 
 (Deut. vii. 22; Exod. xxiii. 29, 30); for this would 
 have been to throw the land out of cultivation, and 
 to expose the Hebrews to the ravages of wild beasts. 
 They were to be extirpated by degrees through the 
 valour of the individual tribes. The Book of Joshua 
 gives us a brief summary of the conquests on the two 
 sides of the Jordan, prefacing its account by the 
 remark that “ it was of the Lord to harden the hearts 
 of the Canaanites that they should come against 
 Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, 
 and that they might have no favour but that he 
 might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.” 
 Where such hardening is anywhere spoken of in 
 Scripture, it is represented as a judgment on those 
 who oppose the Divine will. It does not go before 
 sin ; but it follows after it, as one of its dreadful con¬ 
 sequences. “God never hardens a man’s heart except 
 through his own abuse of providential actions and 
 spiritual influences, which are kindly and wholesome 
 in themselves, and prove themselves so to those who 
 use them aright” (Matt. xiii. 11-15). This was 
 true of Pharaoh (Exod. xiv. 4), and it was eminently 
 true of the Canaanites, whose debasing vices had a 
 special tendency to make them insensible to all moral 
 checks. The history gives us first an account of the 
 conquests of Moses on the east of the Jordan; then 
 it describes the kings and the country conquered by 
 Joshua on the west of the river. It is remarkable 
 
that a small country of the size of Wales should con¬ 
 tain so many kings, and that its divisions should not 
 have exposed it to the risk of falling under the sway 
 of Og or Sihon, who possessed so much larger 
 dominions across the river. But it was this conscious 
 weakness in their political position that led them to 
 form leagues for their protection, under Hazor in the 
 north, and Adoni-Zedek in the south; while the 
 Philistines formed their five cities into a league of 
 common defence. It is also noticeable that many 
 more kings are mentioned than occur in the history 
 of the conquest; the reason probably being that some 
 of them may have been under-kings, subject to the 
 more important kings in their own neighbourhood. 
 Several of the cities had daughter-cities dependent upon 
 them. Though Joshua “ took the whole land,” that is, 
 broke down all resistance and established a complete 
 military ascendancy over Palestine, there were many 
 districts neither totally nor finally subdued. “ There 
 was much land yet to be possessed.” The Canaanites 
 still held strong fortresses in Gezer, Jerusalem, and 
 Bethshean. The history is careful to describe the 
 limits of the unconquered territory, first in the south 
 and then in the north. The powerful league of the 
 Philistines is first noticed. Here, indeed, they first 
 become prominent in history. They had changed in 
 four hundred years from a pastoral to a settled 
 nation, and established themselves firmly in the 
 south-west of the country, to which they succeeded 
 eventually in giving their name. The Philistines do 
 not appear in the list of the nations to be extirpated 
 by the Hebrews, but their territories were neverthe¬ 
 less assigned to the tribe of Judah (Josh. xii. 12). 
 The Avims or Avites belonged to the early Pales¬ 
 tine tribes who dwelt in the south of the western 
 lowland, and were conquered by the Philistines, who 
 drove them northward, and occupied their territory. 
 The words “ from the south ” should be “ in the 
 south,” and ought to be read^ with the verse pre- 
 
64 
 
 ceding as indicating the southern limit of the still 
 unsubdued territory of Palestine. The northern 
 part is next described as “all the land of the 
 Canaanites,” that is, the Phoenicians on the coast, 
 and “ Meara that is beside the Sidonians” (rather, 
 “ in the direction of the Sidonians ”). The next limit 
 is “ unto Aphek ”—a city in the extreme north of 
 Asher. The next is “ to the borders of the Amorites,” 
 as far as the extreme northern borders of the former 
 kingdom of Og, near Mount Hermon; and “ the 
 land of the Giblites ” (“ the land of the people of 
 Gebal,” referred to in Ps. lxxxiii. 7), a maritime 
 town of Phoenicia. Then the next limit is “ all 
 Lebanon toward the sun-rising,” that is, unto Leb¬ 
 anon, “ from Baalgad under Mount Hermon unto 
 the entering into Hamath,” which would be the ex¬ 
 treme northern boundary-point of Palestine visited 
 by the spies (Num. xiii. 21), and to which the 
 kingdom of David and Solomon once extended (2 
 Sam. viii. 3-12; 1 Chron. xiii. 5 ; xviii. 3 ; 2 Chron. 
 viii. 3, 4). In addition to the territory already 
 described as still unconquered, there remained for 
 subjugation “ all the inhabitants of the hill-country 
 from Lebanon to Mizrephoth-maim ” (Zarephath 
 or Sarepta), “ and all the Sidonians.” A portion 
 of the Sidonian territory was taken, but Sidon main¬ 
 tained its independence (Judg. i. 31, 32). Thus, then, 
 there still remained a considerable portion of terri¬ 
 tory to be subdued by the Hebrews. 
 
 Questions and Points for Inquiry. 
 
 1. Describe the nature and extent of the northern 
 confederacy . 
 
 2. What military resources made it jormidable to 
 the Hebrews ? 
 
 3. What was the nature of Joshua’s strategy at the 
 battle of Merom ? 
 
 4. What ivas the duration of Joshua’s wars? 
 
65 
 
 5. How are ice to understand the phrase , u Joshua 
 took the whole land,” consistently with the fact that there 
 was much unconquered territory? 
 
 6. Describe the cities that were most intimately con¬ 
 nected with Baal-ioorship. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DIVISION OF THE LAND. 
 
 41. PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVISION. It has 
 
 been remarked that there have always been two 
 principles adopted by conquerors in the division of 
 new territory. One is exemplified in the Norman 
 conquest of England, and in the conquests of modern 
 times, by which territory is appropriated according 
 to the power or will of the conqueror. The other is 
 exemplified in the conquests of Greece and Rome, 
 where the state undertook to assign the different 
 portions of the conquered territory. Both of these 
 principles were adopted in the conquest of Palestine. 
 The first is seen in the conquests of Jair and Nobah 
 on the east of Jordan, in the Danite capture of the 
 Phoenician Laish, and in the attack of Caleb upon 
 Hebron ; the second, in the assignment by lot of the 
 territory of the seven tribes and a half after the two 
 great tribes of Judah and Joseph had been provided 
 for. The method of distribution by lot, which was 
 not unknown to the Gentiles, was well designed to 
 prevent complaint or misunderstanding among the 
 tribes. It represented the Divine disposal (Prov. 
 xvi. 33), and not “ the opinion, caprice, or authority 
 of man.” It is significant to find no trace of conflicts 
 among the different tribes respecting the division of 
 the land, or of attempts made to disturb the arrange¬ 
 ments. The lot, however, only determined the posi- 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 tion of the tribes, not the extent of their territory, 
 which was proportioned to the size of the tribe, and 
 was increased or diminished after the division as 
 circumstances demanded (Josh. xvii. 4 ; xix. 9 ; Num. 
 xxxiii. 54). We are not told how the lots were 
 taken. Probably there were two urns, one containing 
 the names of the tribes, and the other those of the 
 divisions of the land, and a name was taken out at 
 the same time from each of the urns. The casting 
 of the lots did not take place simultaneously. After 
 the Transjordanic tribes had been settled in their 
 wide inheritance in accordance with the disposition 
 made by Moses, the great tribes of Judah and Joseph 
 were first provided for in the land of Canaan. The 
 camp was then moved from Gilgal to Shiloh, and 
 lots were afterwards cast for the other seven tribes. 
 The record of the distribution of territory is con¬ 
 tained in the latter half of the Book of Joshua, 
 which has accordingly been well described as the 
 geographical manual of the Holy Land, the Domesday 
 Book of the conquest of Palestine. 
 
 42. SETTLEMENT OF REUBEN, GAD, AND 
 THE HALF TRIBE OF MANASSEH (Josh. xiii. 
 7-14). Moses had already assigned the territory of 
 these tribes, but Joshua had to fix the exact limits of 
 each of the portions, and /to put the tribes in posses¬ 
 sion. It was a valuable and charming inheritance, 
 larger, too, than the entire domain bestowed upon 
 the seven tribes and a half on the west of Jordan. 
 It was sometimes called “ the land of Gilead,” but 
 oftener the country “on the other side Jordan.” It 
 was the frontier-land, and therefore it was the first con¬ 
 quered, and the first lost by the Hebrews, in their 
 eventful history. Reuben’s lot was the smallest and 
 most southerly of the three, stretching from the 
 Arnon, on the south, to a point northward almost on 
 a line with the north end of the Dead Sea, which 
 formed its western boundary. Gad’s lot lay about 
 the centre of the Transjordanic district commencing 
 
67 
 
 near Heshbon, on the south, and stretching north¬ 
 ward to the ancient sanctuary of Mahanaim, so 
 famous in the history of Jacob’s return from Padan- 
 aram, and of David’s flight from Absalom. The half- 
 tribe of Manasseh occupied the largest extent of the 
 land east of Jordan. Its southern boundary was 
 Mahanaim, and its northern the foot of Lebanon. 
 Moses had assigned to it the district it had already 
 subdued (Num. xxxii. 39-42), so that as the western 
 Manasseh was appointed to defend the passes of 
 Esdraelon, the eastern Manasseh was placed to keep 
 the passes of the Hauran. The impregnable Argob, 
 with its sixty cities—“ an ocean of basaltic rocks 
 and boulders tossed about in the wildest confusion ” 
 —lay within the borders of this tribe. The deep 
 rent of the Jordan valley, separating the eastern from 
 the western tribes, had its effect upon the historic 
 destinies of both, but most of all on the eastern 
 tribes, who gradually gave way to the idolatries that 
 surrounded them. Reuben’s power gradually de¬ 
 clined and shrunk into smaller dimensions in fulfil¬ 
 ment of Jacob’s prophecy (Gen. xlix.). He took no 
 part in the great struggles of the nation, and pro¬ 
 duced no judge or prophet or hero in all his history. 
 Gad’s more brave and enterprising character is 
 manifest in the warlike career of Jephthah, in the 
 noble spirit of Barzillai, and in the profoundly 
 interesting career of Elijah, the Tishbite. Manasseh’s 
 character was likewise bold and enterprising. The 
 time came, however, when all three tribes fell into 
 the wandering shepherd life, and ceased to have in¬ 
 fluence upon the fortunes of Israel. Their religious 
 apostacy was complete. The retribution came at last 
 when “ the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul 
 king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tiglath-Pilezer 
 king of Assyria,” to carry them away into captivity 
 (1 Chron. v. 25). Their country has been significantly 
 described as the land of exile ; for there David fled 
 from Absalom j there Jesus, the son of David,- found 
 
68 
 
 refuge and retirement; and there, in the little town 
 of Pella, somewhere on the slopes of Gilead, the 
 Christians found refuge when the Roman armies 
 under Titus were laying Jerusalem in the dust. 
 
 I. The Tribe of Judali. 
 
 43. THE TERRITORY OF THIS TRIBE (Josh.xv.). 
 The first assignment of territory on the west of the 
 Jordan, was made by Joshua to Caleb, the only other 
 survivor of the spies of five and forty years before 
 (Josh. xiv. 6-15). The district which this ancient 
 worthy, who holds such an honoured place, sought 
 for his inheritance, was Hebron, now in the posses¬ 
 sion of the Anakims, but henceforth to be the capital 
 of the southern tribes, till the capture of J ebus in the 
 time of David. His faithfulness, his courage, his 
 independence, all rooted in entire devotion to the 
 Lord, had now received their just reward. The 
 property now assigned to him can be traced in the 
 possession of his descendants down to the time of 
 David (1 Sam. xxx. 14). The great tribe of Judah 
 occupied nearly one-third of Western Palestine. 
 It commanded the entrances from the desert on the 
 south, as Ephraim and Benjamin guarded the en¬ 
 trances from the fc east and west, and it afterwards 
 included Jerusalem, the future capital of the whole 
 country. “ The lion of Judah here entrenched himself 
 to guard the southern frontier, with Simeon, Dan, 
 and Benjamin nestled around him.” The southern 
 boundary of Judah commenced from the farthest 
 coast of the Dead Sea eastward, then passed to the 
 south side of the heights of Akrabbim—“ the pass of 
 scorpions,” where scorpions still lie under almost 
 every stone—then proceeded in the direction of Zin, 
 or that part of the wilderness of Paran in which 
 Kadesh-Barnea was situated; and south of this point 
 it turned westward, coming out finally at the 
 •A Torrent of Egypt,” and at the Mediterranean Sea. 
 
60 
 
 Its western boundary was the Mediterranean Sea; 
 but the coast-country was afterwards assigned to the 
 tribes of Simeon and Dan. Its eastern boundary was 
 the length of the Dead Sea as far north as Jericho, 
 which belonged to Benjamin, or “unto the end of 
 Jordan,” that is, to the point where it enters the Dead 
 Sea. Its northern boundary passed from the Dead 
 Sea where the Jordan entered it—“at the bay of the 
 sea,” that is, the embouchure of the Jordan—up to 
 Bethhoglah—a point between Judah and Benjamin 
 (Josh, xviii. 19), two miles west of Jordan—and 
 thence to Betharabah, in the deep valley of the 
 Jordan and the Dead Sea (Josh. xv. 61), lying be¬ 
 tween Bethhoglah and the high lands on the west of 
 Jordan. Then the boundary went up through the 
 valley of Achor, which was southward of Jericho 
 (Josh. vii. 26), northwards towards Gilgal, the place 
 of the Hebrew encampment (Josh. iv. 19), which is 
 thus described as “ before the going up to Adummin, 
 which is on the south side of the river ”—that is, 
 the road passing up from Jericho to Jerusalem, the 
 scene of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Then 
 the boundary passed to Enshemesh, supposed to be 
 near Bethany, on the pilgrims’ route to the Jordan, 
 thence to Enrogel, below the junction of the valleys 
 of Kedron and Hinnom, south-east of Jerusalem. 
 Thence the borders “ went up by the valley of 
 the son of Hinnom, unto the south side of the 
 Jebusite: the same is Jerusalem”—that is, the 
 valley was on the south side of Jerusalem. Hinnom 
 was probably some ancient hero who encamped or 
 dwelt here. The valley or ravine, sometimes called 
 Tophet, sometimes Gehenna, was the scene of 
 abominable idol worship. Here Solomon erected an 
 altar to Moloch (1 Kings xi. V). Here children 
 were offered in sacrifice (2 Kings xvi. 3; 2 
 
 Chron. xxviii. 3; Jer. vii. 31). It became a place 
 of horror and detestation, and our Lord applies the 
 name given to the valley to the^place of future tor- 
 
70 
 
 ment (Matt. v. 22). Thence the border passed to 
 Kirjath-jearim, one of the Gibeonite cities, from 
 which it described a course westward to Mount Seir 
 —not the Edomite Seir, but a range running south¬ 
 west—thence to Bethshemesh, once dedicated to the 
 old Phoenician worship of the Sun, about two 
 miles from the Philistine plain. Then passing 
 Timnath, so memorable for the exploits of Samson, 
 it tended towards a point near Ekron, from which 
 it passed westward to the Mediterranean Sea. The 
 number of the cities of Judah—118 in all—implies a 
 large territory. The tribe occupied 3000 square 
 miles, the average length being 45 miles, and the 
 average breadth 50 miles. The cities are grouped in 
 four divisions, named respectively “ the south ” or 
 Negeb, which was pasture-land; “ the valley,” or rather 
 the Shephelah, the garden and the granary of the 
 tribe, lying between the Mediterranean Sea and the 
 hill-country ; “the mountains ” or “the hill country,” 
 the central possession of the tribe, containing the 
 fenced cities, stretching between the Shephelah and 
 the Dead Sea ; and “ the wilderness,” which was the 
 sunken district bordering on the Dead Sea—“ a 
 wilderness, but no desert.” a 
 44. FORTUNES OF THE TRIBE. These corres¬ 
 ponded with the extent and importance of its territory. 
 It had no great beginnings. In the reign of the 
 Judges it seemed to have no influence ; it is not 
 even named in the ode, of Deborah; it had no part 
 in the struggles of the nation, probably because the 
 Jebusites were firmly planted between the moun¬ 
 tains of Ephraim and the mountains of Judah, 
 separating the tribe from their northern brethren. 
 
 a There is an apparent discrepancy between the numbers of the 
 cities in the detailed lists and in the sum total as given in the Book of 
 Joshua. Some of the names appear as two towns, though they were 
 really one; two names may sometimes have belonged to the same city; 
 some of the places were mere hamlets, and therefore not counted with 
 the rest. Names may have come to be dropped out or inserted through 
 the inadvertence of transcribers, for we cannot suppose that the in¬ 
 spired writer did not know how to count. 
 
71 
 
 Caleb and Othniel alone in the early period 
 threw lustre upon it, as at a later period Ben¬ 
 jamin gave the first king to the entire country. 
 But the sceptre ultimately passed to Judah in the 
 hands of David, and remained in the hands of his 
 successors with some interruptions that did not, how¬ 
 ever, break the tribal succession, till the Shiloh came. 
 It reached its highest glory in the reigns of David and 
 Solomon, its power in peace equalling its greatness in 
 war ; and even after the separation of the ten tribes, it 
 prospered in spite of its enemies, through its wide 
 commercial communications by the Bed Sea. As it 
 had little commercial intercourse with the Phenicians, 
 the Baal worship hardly ever found a footing in the 
 tribe. It survived for a century the expatriation of 
 the ten tribes, till at last its own idolatry sent it to 
 Babylon. Through all the centuries that followed, 
 Judah held the tribal authority till the destruction of 
 Jerusalem. It is further memorable as the tribe that 
 gave birth to the Saviour of the world, and gave name 
 to the race of Jews, the most interesting and remark¬ 
 able in all history. 
 
 II. Tribe of Joseph. 
 
 45. THE TERRITORY OF EPHRAIM AND 
 MANASSEH (Josh. xvi.). The lot of Ephraim and the 
 half-tribe of Manasseh was in the very centre of Pales¬ 
 tine. The two tribes drew one lot because it was in¬ 
 tended that their inheritances should be adjacent. 
 They had the best part of the country—the central 
 hills, which were pre-eminently fruitful on account of 
 the springs of water that abounded on every side, 
 Ephraim taking possession of the rich district north 
 and south of Shechem, which from ancient associa¬ 
 tions and from its central position became the capital 
 of the whole country, Manasseh holding the district 
 immediately north of Ephraim, but cramped in its 
 boundaries by the Canaanite fortresses which com- 
 
manded the rich plain of Esdraelon. The blessing of 
 Moses implied the great value of Joseph’s lot (Deut. 
 xxxiii. 13-17). “The wild bull or buffalo of the house of 
 Joseph (Deut. xxxiii. 17) was to guard the north as 
 the lion of Judah was to guard the south (Josh, xviii. 
 5). One half of the tribe of Manasseh had that post 
 in the east of Jordan ; the other half, with Ephraim, 
 had the same in the west.” The southern boundary 
 of the two tribes, which coincided for part of its 
 length with the northern boundary of Benjamin, was 
 the same. It extended from the spring near Jericho, 
 whose waters Elisha healed, upward into the hilly 
 country around Bethel or Luz—these two places being 
 on virtually the same foundation, like old and new 
 Carthage—passing westward down Lower Beth- 
 horon and on to Gezer, which probably lay be¬ 
 tween Beth-horon and Lydda, coming out on 
 the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The whole 
 territory may be freely estimated at 55 miles 
 from east to west, and at 70 from north to south. 
 It was necessary to add to the inheritance of 
 Ephraim “ separate cities,” or rather “ single cities,” 
 within the borders of Manasseh, named in 1 Chr. vii. 
 29, the Manassites being afterwards recompensed at 
 the expense of Asher and Issachar (Josh. xvii. 11). 
 This mixing of the boundaries of three or four tribes 
 around Ephraim may account, in part, for the 
 cohesion of the ten tribes in opposition to Judah. 
 Though Ephraim took precedence of Manasseh 
 according to the prediction of Joseph (Gen. xlviii. 20), 
 Manasseh received “ the double portion,” which was 
 the privilege of the first-born. The territory of 
 Manasseh was a block of hilly country north of 
 Ephraim. The children of J oseph were not satisfied 
 with the large territory assigned to them by Joshua, 
 as they deemed themselves “a great people,” and 
 therefore entitled to more than one “ lot and one por¬ 
 tion.” Perhaps they presumed upon the tribal rela¬ 
 tionship of Joshua as likely to incline him favourably 
 
73 
 
 to their pretensions. Their claim was hardly war¬ 
 ranted by facts. For the two tribes were hardly 
 more numerous than the single tribe of Judah (Num. 
 xxvi.), and as half of Manasseh was already provided 
 for in the east side of Jordan, the remaining sections 
 of the Josepliite tribes could hardly be stronger than 
 the tribes of Dan and Issachar. The reply of Joshua 
 showed that he was superior to mere tribal partiality ; 
 for, in a tone of subdued irony, he told them that, as 
 they were a great people, they could cut their own 
 way into the Canaanite country, and enlarge their 
 borders by their own valour. We observe in the 
 discontent of the two tribes the same temper of arro¬ 
 gance which was afterwards manifested to Gideon, to 
 Jephthah, and to David (Judges viii. 1-3 ; xii. 1-7 ; 
 2 Sam. xx. 1-5). “National disintegration, tribal 
 jealousies, coupled with boastfulness and unwilling¬ 
 ness to execute the work given-them of God, were 
 only too surely foreboded in the conduct of the child¬ 
 ren of Joseph.” Yet in spite of Joshua’s strong in¬ 
 centives to courageous action, they did not drive out 
 the Canaanites (Josh. xvi. 11-13). 
 
 46. SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF THE TWO 
 TRIBES. Deborah, the prophetess, probably a 
 woman of Ephraim (at least she “ dwelt between 
 Bamah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim”) summoned 
 forth the tribes like another Joan of Arc to resist the 
 invasion of Jabin, King of Canaan. Tola, of Issachar, 
 judged Israel in Shamir in Mount Ephraim. Gideon, 
 a man of Manasseh, hurled back the Midianite in¬ 
 vasion. At a later period, the Ephraimites, angry 
 with Jephthah, the Gileadite, for not calling them to 
 war against the Ammonites, made war upon the men 
 of Gilead, and were defeated with a terrible loss. 
 Samuel, the greatest and purest of all the judges, was 
 of “ Bamathaim-Zophim of Mount Ephraim.” The 
 greatness of the house of Joseph was long anterior 
 to that of the house of Judah. “ For more than five 
 hundred years—a period equal to that which elapsed 
 
74 
 
 between the Norman conquest and the wars of the 
 Roses—Ephraim, with its two dependent tribes of 
 Manasseh and Benjamin, exercised undisputed pre¬ 
 eminence. Joshua, the first conqueror, Gideon, the 
 greatest of the judges, and Saul, the first king, belong 
 to one or other of the three tribes. It was not till the 
 close of the first period of Jewish history that God 
 refused the tabernacle of Joseph and chose not the 
 tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, even 
 the Mount Zion which he loved ” (Ps. lxxviii. 67, 68). 
 The power of Ephraim was humbled by the removal 
 of the ark from Shiloh to Zion. Soon after the revolt 
 of the ten tribes, the city of Samaria was erected by 
 Omri, and selected as the capital instead of Shechem, 
 as being more in the heart of the new kingdom, and 
 almost on the edge of the great maritime plain. The 
 two tribes held a conspicuous place in the apostasy 
 which led eventually to the Babylonish captivity. 
 
 47. REMOVAL OF THE TABERNACLE TO 
 SHILOH (Josh, xviii. 1-10). It was not possible 
 to set up the sacred tent till the tribe, in the midst of 
 which the Lord had intended it to stand, had received 
 its inheritance. The two great tribes of Judah and 
 Joseph having been settled in their wide allotments, 
 the camp at Gilgal was broken up, and “the whole 
 congregation of the children of Israel” removed to 
 Shiloh, a place within the border of Ephraim, a 
 little east of the great central route through the hill- 
 country from north to south. Its position has been 
 exactly described, It is “ on the north side of Bethel, 
 on the east side of the highway that goeth up from 
 Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah ” 
 (Judg. xxi. 19). Shiloh was one of the earliest of the 
 Hebrew sanctuaries, and was selected now partly from 
 its central situation, for it was equally distant from 
 north and south, and in the heart of that hill-country 
 which was least exposed to foreign invasions during 
 the whole of Hebrew history. It was also easy of 
 access to the tribes east of Jordan. It was here that 
 
75 
 
 lots were cast for the assignment of the territory 
 of the remaining seven tribes, after a commission 
 of twenty-one members, three for each tribe, had 
 been appointed to survey the land that remained 
 for allotment (Josh, xviii. 4-10) Yet Shiloh never 
 became the political capital of the country. The 
 rulers took up their abode at Shechem, twelve miles 
 north of Shiloh, where they held their national as¬ 
 semblies, and where, even after Jerusalem became 
 the capital, the kings were crowned (1 Kings xii. 1), 
 just as for ages the kings of France were crowned 
 at Rheims, its old capital. 
 
 III. Tribe of Benjamin. 
 
 48. TERRITORY AND HISTORY OF THE 
 TRIBE (Josh, xviii. 11-28). This small but warlike 
 tribe held the important strip of land between Judah 
 and Ephraim. It had marched beside Ephraim and 
 Manasseh in the wilderness, and it was now settled 
 beside them in Palestine. “Thus a group was 
 formed in the centre of Palestine, firmly compacted, 
 of the descendants of Eachel, cut off on the north by 
 the broad plain of Esdraelon, and on the south by the 
 precipitous ravines of Hinnom.” It was a narrow but 
 fruitful district on the south of its great patron tribe. 
 Its general level was very high, being 2000 feet above 
 the Mediterranean on one side, and 3000 feet above 
 the Jordan valley on the other, while its ravines 
 formed the only modes of access from the Philistine 
 country on the one side, and the sunken valley of the 
 Jordan on the other. It thus perfectly commanded 
 the approaches from the east and from the west. Its 
 territory was about twenty-six miles in length, by 
 twelve in breadth. Two groups of cities, twenty-six 
 in all, are found within its limits. One of these cities 
 was Jerusalem, the future capital of Palestine. 
 “ Little Benjamin ” was famous for his warlike enter¬ 
 prise, which was in striking contrast with the small- 
 
ness of his numbers and territory (2 Sam. i. 22). 
 “ After thee, 0 Benjamin, was the favourite war-cry ” 
 (Judg. v. 14). Ephraim owed to him much of his 
 military strength. Benjamin never forgot that he 
 gave the first king to Israel, and Christians have a 
 significant remembrance of a still greater Saul, in the 
 apostle of the Gentiles. The religious history of the tribe 
 was somewhat remarkable, for it alternatively followed 
 the fortunes of Ephraim and Judah. The bitterest 
 enemies of David’s house—Saul, Shimei, and Sheba 
 —were Benjamites. The tribe was identified with 
 the house of Joseph at the beginning of the national 
 disruption, as well as during its continuance (2 Sam. 
 ii. 9), but a remnant followed the fortunes of Beho- 
 boam (1 Kings xii. 21), and Judah and Benjamin are 
 seen standing firmly together after the Babylonish 
 captivity (Ezra i. 5; iv. 1 ; x. 9). 
 
 IV. Tribe of Simeon. 
 
 49. ITS TERRITORY AND HISTORY (Josh, 
 xix. 1-9). It fell within the inheritance of Judah, 
 which proved larger than the numbers of that tribe 
 required. It supplied a sort of protection to Judalr 
 on the south and west against the attacks of Philis¬ 
 tines and Arabs. Its fortunes were blended with 
 Judah, into which it was ultimately absorbed, so as, 
 to bring about the literal fulfilment of the curse pro¬ 
 nounced upon Simeon and Levi. “ I will disperse 
 them in Judah and scatter them in Israel ” (Gen. 
 xlix. 5-7). It shared in the honours of conquest with 
 Judah in Philistine territory (Judg. i. 17), but it soon 
 lost its acquisitions, and henceforth seems to have 
 been content to live under the protection of its 
 powerful neighbour. In the days of Hezekiah the 
 Simeonites were still extant, and made conquests 
 among certain Hamite tribes at Mount Seir, on the 
 south borders of Palestine (1 Chron. iv. 24). 
 
77 
 
 Y. Tribe of Zebulun. 
 
 50. ITS TERRITORY AND HISTORY (Josh, 
 xix. 10-16). It extended from the Kishon to the 
 Jordan, including the country round Nazareth and 
 the hills on the north side of the plain of Esdraelon. 
 It lay between Naphtali and Issachar, having Asher 
 on the west, and its border seems to have approached 
 very near the sea coast. It is difficult to trace its 
 boundary, as the sites have not been identified, nor 
 is there any mention of Nazareth, where our Lord 
 ■spent his childhood and youth, six miles west-north¬ 
 west of Mount Tabor, hid in a narrow valley. 
 Zebulun possessed one of the fairest portions of Pales¬ 
 tine. It enjoyed the fisheries of the Sea of Galilee and 
 the agricultural wealth of the rich mountain valleys, 
 while it had “ the goings out ” of the plain of Akka 
 (Deut. xxxiii. 18), where it could “ dwell at the 
 shore ” and “ suck of the abundance of the seas ” 
 (Gen. xlix. 13). “Zebulun/’ said Jacob, “shall dwell 
 at the haven of the sea, and he shall be for a* haven 
 of ships, and his border shall be unto Sidon.” His 
 territory extended near to the Mediterranean, and 
 tradition says his people traded on the sea in purple 
 dyes, and perhaps employed themselves in the 
 manufacture of glass, while it extended on the east 
 to a considerable portion of the shores of Galilee. 
 Though this tribe was numerous, it occupied a 
 very subordinate place in the great historical 
 movements of the Hebrew nation. Yet twice its 
 people bore themselves nobly in the battle of in¬ 
 dependence : once, when side by side with Naphtali 
 “ they jeoparded their lives unto death in the high 
 places of the field” (Judges v. 18) in the battle with 
 Sisera; and again, in David’s time, when 50,000 
 “ expert in war,” with “ all instruments of war,” who 
 “ could keep rank ” came up to the coronation of 
 David at Hebron (1 Chr. xii. 33). The princes of 
 Zebulun were present at the removal of the ark to 
 
78 
 
 Mount Zion (Ps. lxviii.). The only judge of the 
 tribe was Elon, who judged Israel ten years, and 
 the only prophet was Jonah, sent to Nineveh. The 
 reason of its obscure position in the subsequent history 
 of the nation was probably its proximity to Phoenicia, 
 a great heathen power, with vast commercial rela¬ 
 tions on its borders. The temperature of religious 
 life could not but suffer from such contiguity. But 
 if Zebulun was obscure in the ancient history of the 
 nation it rose into great glory in New Testament 
 times, on account of its connection with the first 
 beginnings of Christianity (Isa. ix. 12; Matt. iv. 
 15, 16). 
 
 VI. Tribe of Issachar. 
 
 51. ITS TERRITORY AND HISTORY (Josh, 
 xix. 17-23). Its boundary was determined by the 
 territory already allotted to Zebulun and Manasseh, 
 except on the east side, where Tabor and the Jordan 
 bounded it. Its border reached beyond and included 
 Jezreel. Its inheritance was in the richest land of 
 Palestine. The plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon ex¬ 
 tended from Mount Carmel on the west to the Jordan 
 on the east, and was twelve miles in width. On 
 the west it narrowed into a pass, which expanded 
 again into the bay of Acre. It was in one respect a 
 dangerous inheritance, for the strong Canaanite city 
 of Acre commanded it on the west, and that of Beth- 
 shan on the east, while it was dominated by the 
 fortresses of Harosheth and Taanach on the spurs of 
 the southern hills. The plain was ‘ the perennial 
 battlefield of Palestine from that time till the present.’ 
 “Here were fought the battles of Gilboa and Megiddo, 
 in which Saul and his son met their deaths; twice 
 did the Egyptians invade Syria by this plain ; 
 Gideon and Barak fought their battles here ; and 
 it was the scene of Maccabaean battles.” Well may 
 it be fertile, for it has drunk the blood of the 
 
79 
 
 Midianite, the Philistine, the Jew, the Roman, the 
 Babylonian, the Egyptian, the Frenchman, the 
 Englishman, the Saracen, the Turk. The tribe of 
 Issachar chose to dwell in tents, and took but a 
 subordinate part in the great struggles of the 
 nation. “But he saw that rest was good, and the 
 land pleasant, and he bowed his neck to bear, and 
 became a slave to tribute” (Gen. xlix. 14, 15). 
 The blessing of Jacob rightly described him as 
 “a strong-boned he-ass couching down between 
 two cattle-pens or sheepfolds.” Accordingly, the 
 Issacharites paid tribute to the surrounding nations, 
 while they surrendered to the Manassites on their 
 border the cities of Bethshan, Taanach, and Megiddo, 
 which they could not wrest from the Canaanites. 
 They produced one judge, Tola, who dwelt in Shamir, 
 in Mount Ephraim. At a later period, among those 
 who went up to David’s coronation at Hebron were 
 “ men of Issachar, who had understanding of the 
 times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chr. 
 xii. 32), probably because they felt that they would 
 be more secure from attack under the strong govern¬ 
 ment of a king. Baasha, one of the bad kings of 
 Israel, was of this tribe. It was more to its honour 
 that many of the tribe kept the feast of unleavened 
 bread at Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah. 
 
 VII. Tribe of Asher. 
 
 52. ITS TERRITORY AND HISTORY (Josh, 
 xix. 24-31). It possessed the fertile strip of maritime 
 territory south of Sidon, and reaching beyond the 
 range of Carmel. It had the rich plain of Acre: “so 
 insignificant was the tribe to which was assigned the 
 fortress which Napoleon called the key of Palestine.” 
 The city of Acre is celebrated for its many sieges in 
 ancient and modern times. “ It is the only city of 
 Palestine which has acquired distinct relations with 
 the western world of modern history.” Though Asher 
 
80 
 
 rejoiced in part of the richest land of Palestine, yield¬ 
 ing the “ oil ” in which he was to “ dip his feet,” the 
 bread which was to be “ fat,” and “ the royal dainties ” 
 in which he was to “ delight ” (Gen. xlix. 20), while 
 “ under his shoes ” were the iron ore of the southern 
 slopes of Lebanon, and “ the brass ” of the Phoenician 
 territory (Deut. xxxiii. 25), it had not spirit or 
 courage to conquer its full inheritance, but was con¬ 
 tent to live among the Phoenicians in peace. “ The 
 Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites” (Judges i. 
 32). In fact, they settled down side by side with the 
 Phoenicians under statutes mutually agreed to. In 
 the struggle against Sisera, Asher selfishly sought his 
 own interests, “ continuing on the sea-shore, and 
 abiding in his creeks” (Judges v. 17). It gave no 
 judge nor ruler to Israel, but “Anna the prophetess,” 
 in New Testament times, “ of the tribe of Aser ” 
 (Luke ii. 36), alone shines out of the obscurity of the 
 tribe. 
 
 VIII. Tribe of Naphtali. 
 
 53. ITS TERRITORY AND HISTORY (Josh. xix. 
 32-39). This was the most northern of all the 
 tribes. It extended from Asher on the west, to the 
 Sea of Gennesaret and the Jordan on the east; it 
 was bounded on the south by Zebulun and Issacliar; 
 and on the north it reached far into Cselo - Syria, 
 which is the valley be ween the two ranges of Leb¬ 
 anon. Traces of several of the fenced cities of 
 Naphtali remain. The number of such cities is 
 remarkable, but they were designed to protect the 
 northern frontier of Palestine with a line of fortresses, 
 as the south was protected by “ the fenced cities of 
 Judah.” The waters of the Lake of Chinnereth “ seem 
 to have answered a purpose like that served Jay the 
 Lake Lucerne between Italy and Germany.” Thus 
 we can understand the value to Naphtali of the “ sea 
 of the south ” (Deut. xxxiii. 23) to compensate for 
 
81 
 
 the sea of the west enjoyed by the other adjacent 
 tribes. This district was the scene of a great part of 
 our Lord’s ministry. The people here, mingled with 
 the Gentile races of Lebanon, were not distinguished 
 by the strong prejudices which in the south raised 
 such a barrier against Christianity. In the blessing 
 of Jacob, Naphtali is compared to a “ towering 
 terebinth” of the uplands of Lebanon—(not to “a 
 hind let loose ”) — “ he putteth out good boughs ” 
 (Gen. xlix. 21), he is to be “ satisfied with favours and 
 full with the blessing of the Lord ” (Deut. xxxiii. 23). 
 But his grand opportunities were not turned to pro¬ 
 fitable account. It produced only one hero, Barak, 
 of Kedesh-Naphtali, son of Abinoam, who dwelt in 
 in the mountain district (Judg. iv. 6). Naphtali, 
 like Asher, afterwards “ learned the works of the 
 heathen ” (Ps. cvi. 35). As our Lord travelled as 
 far as “ the coasts of Caesarea Philippi,” in the ex¬ 
 treme north of Palestine, he must have preached in 
 the cities of Naphtali. It is in New Testament 
 times that these northern tribes emerge into the 
 most interesting notice, for it is then we read of 
 “ the land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali, by the 
 way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the 
 Gentiles,” to which the long-promised light had come 
 (Matt. iv. 15, 16). 
 
 IX. Tribe of Ban. 
 
 54. ITS TERRITORY AND HISTORY (Josh. xix. 
 40-48). It was a small territory compressed into 
 the narrow space between the north-western hills of 
 Judah and the sea, and surrounded by the three 
 powerful tribes of Ephraim, Judah, and Benjamin. 
 It was one of the most fertile spots in Palestine, 
 distinguished by its splendid corn-fields. Its cities 
 are specially associated with the exploits of Samson. 
 Japho, or Joppa, was the great harbour of Pales¬ 
 tine, an ancient city, forming the northern boundary 
 of Dan, and was thirty-six miles from Jerusalem. 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 Being bold and enterprising, the Danites, after 
 Samson’s death, “ sought them an habitation to dwell 
 in,” on the extreme north of Palestine, where detached 
 Canaanite communities offered an easy prey. Six 
 hundred Danites, with their wives and children, 
 marched to the foot of Mount Hermon, to Leshem 
 or Laish, and found it occupied by a colony of 
 Sidonians, separated by the Lebanon from the 
 mother-city, and dwelling “ quiet and secure.” They 
 burst upon the city, scaled its walls, burnt its houses, 
 and killed its inhabitants (Judg. xviii. 7). “ There 
 
 was no deliverance,” because “ they were far from 
 Sidon.” The Danites then changed the name of the 
 town from Laish to Dan. Jacob said, “ Dan shall 
 judge the people,” which was fulfilled in the twenty 
 years’ rule of Samson ; and “ Dan shall be a serpent 
 by the way, an adder in the path that biteth the 
 horse’s heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.” 
 Moses said, “ Dan is a lion’s whelp : he shall leap 
 from Bashan.” Dan was to lie in wait for the invader 
 from the north or from the south, either for the 
 Philistines, as in Samson’s day, or for the armies of 
 Damascus and Nineveh, upon which he sprung from 
 the heights of Bashan. In the fight against Sisera, 
 Dan “ remained in ships ; ” from which it would 
 appear that the tribe dwelling on the shores of the 
 Mediterranean had already to some extent entered on 
 a sea-faring life. On taking Laish, the Danites, far 
 from the religious centre of the nation, set up a 
 graven image which they took from Micah in Mount 
 Ephraim, who had a Levite for his priest, and 
 “ Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, 
 he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until 
 the day of the captivity of the land ” (Judg. xviii. 
 30, 31 ; Josh. xix. 47). Thus the Danites, in their 
 isolation from the religious places of the south, set 
 up a miniature Shiloh of their own. They sunk into 
 incurable idolatry, and are thus omitted from the 
 list of sealed tribes of the Apocalypse (Bev. vii.). 
 
83 
 
 X. The Inheritance of Joshua, 
 
 55. HIS MODEST REWARD (Josh. xix. 49-51). 
 When Joshua had settled all the tribes, he obtained 
 for himself a modest inheritance among the hills of 
 his native tribe of Ephraim. It was a rugged spot in 
 his native district at Timnath-serah—“the portion 
 that remains ”—the name being probably then applied 
 to the spot as it was the last allotment. It is called 
 Timnath-heres in Judg. ii. 9, probably from a trans¬ 
 position of the letters, and is here said to be “ in the 
 mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill 
 Gaash.” The site has been identified by some 
 with the modern Tibneh, about seven hours north 
 of Jerusalem, among the mountains of Ephraim. 
 It was once a considerable town, for its site is still 
 covered with extensive ruins. It is suggestive of the 
 unselfishness and simplicity of Joshua’s character that 
 he should have selected a home for himself among the 
 deep valleys and rugged hills of Timnath-serah. 
 “ First in service, last in reward.” He had done a 
 great work, yet received no exceptional recompense. 
 
 XI. Cities of Refuge. 
 
 56. THEIR SITUATION, PRIVILEGES, AND 
 IMMUNITIES (Josh. xx. 7-9). Six cities were ap¬ 
 pointed—literally “ sanctified ”—for the protection of 
 the innocent or accidental manslayer (Num. xxxv. ; 
 Deut. xix.). In ancient times, justice was executed by 
 private hands, the duty of avenging blood devolving 
 on the nearest kinsman of the murdered man. This 
 system, which is still in force among the Arab tribes, 
 and among the natives of Corsica in Europe, was a 
 rude and imperfect method of dispensing justice ; for 
 it made no distinction between murder and man¬ 
 slaughter and accidental homicide, while it gave the 
 person charged no trial and perpetuated bloodshed, as 
 it exposed the avenger of blood to the risk of death at 
 the hands of the kinsman of the man he had slain. 
 
84 
 
 The institution of cities of refuge was designed to 
 mitigate these evils, while providing for the punish¬ 
 ment of crime. It was an arrangement illustrative of 
 the beneficent spirit of the Mosaic legislation. The 
 six cities, which belonged to the Levites, had within 
 them courts of assize, in which the manslayer, whether 
 Hebrew or stranger, could have his case fully inves¬ 
 tigated “by the congregation in judgment,” with the 
 learned Levites sitting as assessors or judges, and the 
 decision of the courts was altogether free from local 
 bias or passion. If the offender stood free from the 
 crime of murder, he remained secure from private 
 vengeance within the walls of the city till the death 
 of the High Priest. This was because the High 
 Priest was the head of the theocracy, the representative 
 of the covenant, his death holding a peculiar relation 
 to the whole life of Israel, the covenant being renewed, 
 as it were, with the appointment of the new High 
 Priest. The decision of the courts in these cases pre¬ 
 vented the evils of promiscuous protection which grew 
 up around the asylums of Greece and Rome, and the 
 sanctuaries of mediaeval Europe. The six cities were 
 almost equally remote from each other, and easy of 
 access from all parts of the land, three of them being 
 on one side of Jordan, and three on the other. Those 
 in the west were Kedes in Naphtali, the most 
 northern, Shechem in the middle, and Hebron in the 
 south. Those in the east were Golan in Bashan, the 
 most northern, which gave its name to the province 
 of Gaulonitis, though its own site is unknown; 
 Ramoth-Gilead in Gad, one of the strong fortresses 
 commanding the region of Argob, where Jehu 
 commanded the support of the priestly party in his 
 rebellion (2 Kings ix. 14); and Bezer, nearly opposite 
 Jericho, but its site is still undiscovered. 
 
 XII. The Inheritance of Levi. 
 
 57. PROVISION FOR THE LEVITES (Josh. xxi.). 
 Now that all the tribes had received their inheritance, 
 
85 
 
 it was possible to apportion the lot of the Levites 
 among them. As the representatives of the Hebrew 
 faith, and the ministers of its worship, it was neces¬ 
 sary that they should be distributed among the whole 
 people. Yet, as too complete a dispersion might have 
 neutralized their religious influence, they were col¬ 
 lected into forty-eight cities scattered over the whole 
 extent of the land. These cities, four in each tribe, 
 with a circle of meadow-land called “ suburbs,’’ equal 
 to about three hundred English acres, for the pastur¬ 
 age of their flocks, were assigned to their possession, 
 in addition to the tithes, one-tenth of which, however, 
 they paid to the priests “ in acknowledgment of their 
 higher consecration.” Yet it would seem as if the 
 cities actually belonged to the tribes in whose territory 
 they lay, and that the Levites had merely a right to 
 the houses they occupied. The purchaser of a house 
 from the Levites was said to “ redeem it ” (Lev. xxv. 
 33), and the Levites were politically identified with 
 the tribes to which their cities belonged (1 Sam. i. 1; 
 Judg. xvii. 7). We have a list of these cities in 1 
 Chron. vi. 34-81, in which forty-two of the forty- 
 eight cities are named, with some changes of names, 
 which may be accounted for by the lapse of time or 
 by the exchange of one city for another. There were 
 three great families of Levites, the Kohathites, the 
 Gershonites, and the Merarites, who were descended 
 from the three sons of Levi. The priests, who were 
 descended from the Aaronite branch of the Kohathite 
 family, were first provided for, and the lot gave them 
 thirteen cities out of the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and 
 Benjamin. As Jerusalem was to be the future 
 religious centre of the nation, there seems a prophetic 
 significance in the arrangement that kept the priests 
 within a short distance of the ecclesiastical capital. It 
 is also a suggestive fact that the other branches of the 
 Kohathite family were provided for with ten cities in 
 the territories of Ephraim, Dan, and Manasseh which 
 immediately adjoined. The lot was next taken for 
 
86 
 
 the Gershonites, who received thirteen cities out of 
 the tribes of Manasseh East, Issachar, Asher, Naph- 
 tali; and the Merarites received twelve cities out of 
 the tribes of Zebulun, Reuben, and Gad. Thus were 
 the Levites scattered in Israel according to the 
 prophecy of Jacob, but the curse was turned into a 
 blessing for themselves, and for all the tribes. The 
 national disruption under Jeroboam caused a marked 
 concentration in their geographical position, for the 
 Levites left all the cities assigned to them and 
 gathered around Jerusalem (2 Chr. xi. 13, 14), thus 
 hastening the corruption of the northern tribes, and 
 imparting a more earnest life to Judah. They were 
 henceforth politically as well as ecclesiastically power¬ 
 ful, and contributed greatly to maintain the spirit of 
 religion even amidst the apostasies of individual 
 kings. But the Levitical order itself degenerated, and 
 would have sunk still more rapidly but for the 
 powerful check supplied by the living voice of the 
 prophets. 
 
 XIII. Return of the Transjordanic Tribes. 
 
 58. FINAL INCIDENTOFTHE SETTLEMENT 
 
 (Josh. xxii. 1-34). The two tribes and a half had 
 probably remained at Shiloh till the work of survey 
 and allotment had been completed. It was now “ a 
 great many days” indeed since they had left their wives 
 and families in the fortified cities across the Jordan. 
 Joshua warmly commends them for their heroic 
 service, and counsels them not to let their isolation 
 make them forget their allegiance to the God of Israel. 
 The tribes thus solemnly dismissed took their way 
 homeward in the direction of the J ordan. Accord¬ 
 ing to the custom of those days, they resolved to 
 erect an altar of stones in some conspicuous spot on 
 the edge of the river, to be at once a tangible me¬ 
 morial of their oneness in religious belief with their 
 western brethren, and 'of their claim to an equal 
 
87 
 
 participation in all the ordinances of the Hebrew 
 worship. The monument was accordingly erected on 
 the western side of the river, not only as a sign of 
 their rightful interest in the sanctuary which rested 
 on that side, but “ to forestall any assertion that the 
 Jordan itself was a natural barrier of exclusion 
 between them and the sanctuary.” The altar was 
 built on a lofty peak, projecting as it still does like a 
 white bastion towards the river, some twenty miles 
 north of Jericho, and close to the line of march from 
 Shiloh to Gilead. It was an altar, “ great to 
 behold,” that is, so high and large as to be seen afar. 
 Its site has been lately discovered. It is an almost 
 inaccessible mountain except from the north, visible 
 from a very great distance. This innocent act was 
 gravely misunderstood by the western tribes as an 
 attempt, contrary to the Mosaic law, to build a second 
 altar of sacrifice (Lev. xvii. 8). A bloody war 
 might have ensued. But a deputation, consisting of 
 Phinehas, the high priest, and ten princes of the 
 tribes, quickly crossed the Jordan, and ascertained 
 from their eastern brethren that they had no inten¬ 
 tion of erecting a sacrificial altar, but merely a 
 permanent monument of their connection with the 
 tribes across the river. The explanation was promptly 
 accepted ; a happy reconciliation ensued; and the 
 altar itself became a perpetual witness of the event. 
 
 XIY. Results of the Settlement. 
 
 59. SOCIALLY, POLITICALLY, RELIGIOUSLY. 
 
 It was the creation of a new society under circum¬ 
 stances without parallel in the history of the world. 
 The Lord was the absolute owner of the land, for 
 He said, “ The land is mine ” (Lev. xxv. 23). No 
 Israelite had therefore any but a life interest in it; 
 and agriculture became the basis of the theocratic 
 community. The land was divided among the whole 
 people, according to an arrangement which prevented 
 
88 
 
 its being gathered up into the hands of a few 
 to the impoverishment of the many. It could 
 only be sold for a limited period, for it reverted 
 every fifty years without purchase to the original 
 owner. It might even be redeemed before that 
 period at a value fixed in relation to the number 
 of unexpired years. This law of Jubilee, giving- 
 each family a stake in the country, secured the 
 political equality and independence of the nation, 
 nourished a hardy patriotism, and guarded against the 
 two evils of excessive wealth and excessive poverty. 
 Thus Palestine became the home of an independent 
 yeomanry residing on their hereditary farms, with 
 boundaries that could not be touched by the hands of 
 man. All the people lived on the produce of the flock 
 or the field. There was no commerce, for the country 
 was able to provide for its own wants; there was 
 therefore little intercourse with foreign nations ; and 
 there was no room for the growth of a working class 
 in a country without manufactures or foreign trade. 
 Thus the two great causes of Oriental decay—luxury 
 and slavery—were conspicuously absent. The twelve 
 tribes originally existed as twelve separate republics 
 under the government of their elders and priests. 
 The kingly rule, though it imparted greater cohesion 
 and vigour to the community, never destroyed the 
 old tribal organisation, which was so pre-eminently 
 favourable to the development of popular liberty. 
 The Lord was still the absolute owner of the land, and 
 the people were a great “ kingdom of priests.” It was 
 within the narrow boundaries of this small country so 
 jealously secluded from the world that the most cos¬ 
 mopolitan of modern races was trained for its strange 
 destiny. It is forty centuries since Abraham left 
 Chaldea to found a great nation. That nation still 
 survives, resisting every tendency to mingle with 
 other races of men, and still numbering six or seven 
 millions as in the days of the monarchy. It has been 
 in contact with every people of ancient or modern 
 
89 
 
 times which holds a leading place in human history, 
 and it has felt the influence of them all, yet without 
 losing anything of its marvellous distinctiveness. 
 The strangest fact of all is that this race of men 
 exists among us not “ as hewers of wood and drawers 
 of water ” to other nations, but w T ith an intellectual 
 and moral vigour which places them in the front rank 
 of men, as statesmen, financiers, philosophers, scholars, 
 and musical composers. Their existence is a moral 
 miracle. They are the living monuments of prophecy. 
 They are the perpetual witnesses of Divine retri¬ 
 bution. It is with the history of this most interest¬ 
 ing race that the rise of the two dispensations of 
 Judaism and Christianity is directly identified. We 
 have already seen that the Hebrews required for their 
 religious training and development an almost com¬ 
 plete isolation from the rest of the world. Judaism 
 was a great stage in the Divine revelation. It con¬ 
 fessed the unity of God against the false gods of 
 heathenism, and presented God as a living God in 
 immediate relation with His people as Creator, Ke- 
 deemer, and Guide. “ Its basis is special revelation, 
 its character monotheistic, its form theocratic, its 
 public worship typico-symbolic, its tendency purely 
 moral, its standpoint one of external authority, and 
 at the same time one of conscious preparation for a 
 higher development.” The longing expectation of 
 Judaism was satisfied in Christianity with its revela¬ 
 tion of Jesus Christ as the Incarnate God and Re¬ 
 deemer of mankind. This one fact stamps the 
 Hebrew nation with undying interest. His death 
 and resurrection laid the foundations of the Christian 
 Church, and the prophecy received its momentous ful¬ 
 filment — 1u Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and 
 the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” Thus the 
 land where Joshua seated the tribes three-and-thirty 
 centuries ago connects itself with the whole history 
 and destinies of man. 
 
90 
 
 Questions and Points for Inquiry. 
 
 1. What difevent principles were adopted in the 
 assignment of the inheritances of the tribes ? 
 
 2. Show how the situation of each tribe afected its 
 future fortunes. 
 
 3. What influence had the Jordan river upon the 
 fortunes of the Eastern tribes ? 
 
 4. Explain the historic interest of the Plain of 
 Esdraelon. 
 
 5. How do we account for the omission of Simeon’s 
 name in the blessing of Moses , and of Dan’s name in 
 the list of the sealed tribes of the Apocalypse ? 
 
 6. Describe the religious, judicial, and literary his¬ 
 tory of the Levites. 
 
 7. How were the Levites afected by the secession of 
 the ten tribes ? 
 
 8. Trace the social, political, and religious effects of 
 the settlement of Palestine. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF JOSHUA. 
 
 60. HIS LAST WORK (Josh xxiii., xxiv.). After 
 the conquest and division of the land, Joshua retired 
 to his modest inheritance at Timnath-serah, among 
 the hills of Ephraim, appointing no successor to his 
 dignities, and spending the closing years of his long 
 and eventful life in simple hut honoured privacy. 
 He claimed no higher authority over the tribes than 
 to call them together after the lapse of some eighteen 
 years—“ a long time after that the Lord had given 
 rest to Israel from their enemies round about”— 
 when he gave two parting addresses, one to the rulers, 
 probably at Shiloh, the other to the assembled tribes 
 
91 
 
 atShechem. They were both memorable meetings. 
 He was, perhaps, the last link to connect the genera¬ 
 tion of the conquest with the generation of the exodus. 
 He reminds the Israelites of the Lord’s past goodness, 
 exhorts them to courage and constancy, and warns 
 them grave] y against the dangers of intercourse with 
 the heathen. His affectionate appeal was immediately 
 answered by a solemn engagement on the part of the 
 tribes to serve the Lord; and, as a visible memorial 
 of the covenant, a large stone was set up “ under an 
 oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord ”—the 
 place consecrated ages before by Abraham as he 
 passed through the land. This was the last public 
 act of Joshua. His work both of war and of peace 
 was done. Nothing remained for him but to die. 
 
 61. DEATH AND BURIAL OF JOSHUA (Josh, 
 xxiv. 29, 30). We have no account of the circum¬ 
 stances of his death; merely this brief record— 
 “Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, 
 died, being a hundred and ten years old,” just the 
 age of his great ancestor Joseph. Five-and-twenty 
 years after he had crossed the Jordan, he died at his 
 own inheritance, full of years and honours. Like 
 many another great warrior, he ended his days in 
 peace. Then “ they buried him in the border of his 
 inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in Mount 
 Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash.” This 
 hill is mentioned again (2 Sam. xxiii. 30 ; 1 Chron. 
 xi. 32), but its site has never been discovered. It is 
 supposed by some that the tomb of Joshua is still to 
 be seen at Tibneh. But later investigation is more 
 doubtful about this identification, and favours the 
 Jewish tradition, which fixes the site at the modern 
 Kefr Haris, seven miles north of Shiloh. The soil of 
 Palestine, already so rich with the dust of the good 
 and great, would be henceforth dear to all who would 
 venerate the name of J oshua. But death did not end 
 his usefulness, as we infer from the suggestive sen¬ 
 tence—“ And Israel served the Lord all the days of 
 
92 
 
 Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived 
 Joshua.” His last act was to bind the people firmly 
 to God’s service, and long after his death his earnest 
 piety and zeal survived in the recollection of a people 
 who were thus kept faithful to their obligations. The 
 influence of his character is not yet exhausted. “ He 
 
 being dead yet speaketh.” Christian thought now 
 looks back with admiration upon a character without 
 a parallel in the history of conquest. He must ever 
 hold a foremost place among those Hebrew worthies 
 who “ through faith subdued kingdoms,” and remain 
 an example to all ages of that pre-eminent power of 
 looking upward which strengthens all right means in 
 carrying out God’s work. 
 
 TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH 
 
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 EDITED BY PROFESSOR SALMOND, D.D. 
 
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 ABRAHAM AND THE PATRIARCHAL AGE— 
 
 By the Rev. Professor A. B. Bruce, D.D., Glasgow. 
 LIFE AND TIMES OF JOSEPH— 
 
 By the Rev. James Dodds, D.D., Edinburgh. 
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES— 
 
 By the Rev. Professor Paterson, M.A., Edinburgh. 
 THE EXILE AND THE RETURN— 
 
 By the Rev. Professor A. B. Davidson, D.D., Edinburgh 
 THE PROPHETS OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY— 
 
 By the Rev. W. Robertson Smith, LL.D. 
 
 THE TABERNACLE AND THE TEMPLE— 
 
 By James Burgess, LL.D., F.R.G.S. 
 
 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND— 
 By the Rev. S. R. Macphail, M.A., Liverpool. 
 HISTORICAL CONNECTION BETWEEN THE OLD 
 AND NEW TESTAMENTS— 
 
 By the Rev. Professor J. Gibb, M.A., London. 
 
 THE GOSPEL PARABLES— 
 
 By the Rev, David Somerville, M.A., Rothesay. 
 OUTLINES OF EARLY CHURCH HISTORY— 
 
 By the Rev. H. Wallis Smith, D.D., Kirknewton. 
 SCOTTISH CHURCH HISTORY— 
 
 By the Rev. G. Johnstone, B.D., Liverpool. 
 
 The following Subjects will also be embraced in 
 
 the Series :— 
 
 THE GOSPEL MIRACLES. 
 
 THE TWELVE. 
 
 THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD AND NEW TESTA¬ 
 MENTS. 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 THE PLANTING OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF MISSIONS. 
 
 MACNIVEN & WALLACE, 
 
 132 PRINCES STREET, EDINBURGH.