[ca. 1250-1200 B.C.] The partition of the lands conquered or still to be conquered is given in the concluding chapters of the Book of Joshua, which are not by the same hand as the narrative of the conquest. The region to the east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan, afterwards known as Peræa, had been occupied ever since the time of Moses by the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh. Judah took the southern part of the land of Canaan, west of the Dead Sea. The small tribes of Simeon, Dan, and Benjamin grouped themselves about Judah, the first-named on the west, the other two on the north. These four tribes afterwards constituted the kingdom of Judah. Many portions of the territory assigned to them in this partition long remained in the occupation of alien peoples. Thus the Jebusites were first subjugated by David, who seized upon their city, thereafter called Jerusalem; the Philistines, whom Joshua had not ventured to attack, kept the five cities which they occupied on the Mediterranean coast, and these served as a refuge for the Anakim. At the period when the monarchy was instituted in Israel the sway of the Philistines extended over almost all the territory of Judah.

The powerful tribe of Ephraim, to which Joshua belonged, established itself in the middle of the land of Canaan, between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. The Ark of the Covenant, first set up at Gilgal, was afterwards carried to Shiloh, which became the common sanctuary of all the Israelite tribes. The tribe of Issachar settled to the north of the territory of Ephraim, along the Jordan, and the half-tribe of Manasseh farther to the west. Lastly, the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali settled in the northern region, afterwards called Galilee; Asher spread abroad on the seacoast north of Carmel, but was not able to gain possession of the Phoenician cities within the border assigned to it; Zebulun encamped in the plain of Jezreel, northwest of Issachar, and Naphtali along the Upper Jordan, between the waters of Merom and the lake of Gennesaret. The tribe of Levi had no territory of its own, for, as the Bible frequently repeats, Jehovah was its inheritance. The Levites received forty-eight cities, scattered over the territory of the other tribes. Some of these cities were intended to serve as places of shelter for involuntary homicides; these were called cities of refuge.

The genealogies which take up so much space in the Bible show clearly the importance which the tribes of Israel attached to the descent from Abraham and Jacob. Nevertheless they were far from being a race of pure blood. Before their sojourn in Egypt they had allied themselves with the women of the country, as their own legends testify; of the sons of Jacob four are the issue of female slaves of whose descent we know nothing. Joseph weds the daughter of an Egyptian priest, Moses a Midianitess and an Ethiopian woman, and when his sister Miriam upbraids him for this mésalliance, Jehovah smites her with leprosy. On their departure from Egypt the Children of Israel are accompanied by "a mixed multitude," who must have been incorporated into the tribes, for there is no subsequent mention of them. During the half-century which lies between the going forth out of Egypt and the conquest of Canaan there must have been unions with Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites. At the time of the invasion, wandering hordes of Arabs, too weak to make their way into Palestine by themselves, may have taken advantage of this opportunity to join the Israelite tribes; such were the children of Keni, the father-in-law of Moses, who accompanied the Children of Judah as far as the city of palm trees (Jericho). These Kenites or Kenizzites settled among the men of Judah

[ca. 1250-1200 B.C.]

and were ultimately merged in them; it was impossible to hold aloof from allies who had contributed their share towards victory.

After the conquest, unions with the indigenous peoples became very numerous. "The Children of Israel," says the Book of Judges, "dwelt among the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods. And the Children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, and forgot Jehovah their God, and served the Baalim and the Ashtaroth." It was not the first time that they had been unfaithful to Jehovah; in the wilderness, for forty years, according to the prophet Amos, they had borne before them the image of Moloch and the star of their idols. The position of the Israelites settled in the midst of the Canaanites was not everywhere the same; in some districts the earlier inhabitants had been exterminated or reduced to slavery, but in others they had remained in possession of the land, and the new-comers had only been able to take up their abode there on payment of tribute. Oftenest of all, the old inhabitants and the new lived side by side on a footing of armed neutrality, frequently disturbed by feuds, each on the watch for an opportunity of subjugating or expelling the other. After the Israelites had settled in various parts of the country, the Canaanites, the Amorites, and the Philistines took their revenge, and made them pay by instalments for the outrages of the invasion. The stronger tribes did not succour the weaker, for the tie that bound them together was religious, not political, and was growing weaker and weaker; hence the Bible invariably attributes the defeats of the Israelites to their neglect of the national religion.g

"And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about. Whithersoever they went out, the hand of Jehovah was against them for evil, as Jehovah had sworn unto them; and they were sore distressed. And Jehovah raised up judges, which saved them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. And when Jehovah raised them up judges, then Jehovah was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge for it repented Jehovah because of their groaning by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them. But it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they turned back and dealt more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their doings, nor from their stubborn way."

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THE Bible gives the title of Judges (Sophetim) to those "deliverers whom Jehovah raised up from time to time; but they were not elective magistrates, like the Suffetes of Carthage, who bore the same name; they were valiant chieftains who placed themselves at the head of a band of patriots to free their own tribes. Some successful exploit would give them a kind of moral authority for the remainder of their lives, but they were not invested with regular powers recognised by the whole nation. Though the Bible is careful to state the duration of the government of each one, these figures cannot serve as the basis of a sound chronology, for it is probable that many of the judges were contemporary and belonged to different tribes. We are given details concerning three or four of them; others are merely named. The first of whom mention is made is Othniel, the nephew of Caleb, who delivers the tribes of the north from the dominion of the king of Mesopotamia. Then a king of Moab takes possession of Jericho and oppresses Israel for eighteen years; Ehud the Benjamite slays him by treachery and delivers the land. The Bible next names Shamgar, the son of Anath, who slew six hundred Philistines with an ox goad. The much longer narrative of the expedition of Barak and Deborah seems to be historical in character. It tells of the defeat of Sisera and his death at the hands of Jael (Judges iv.). On this occasion Deborah composed a savage and spirited canticle, the oldest piece of Hebrew poetry that has come down to us.

The invasion of Canaan by the Israelites was not an unexampled occurrence; in all ages the nomadic Bedouins of the desert had cast covetous glances at the fertile cultivated plains of Palestine. When the tribes of Israel had succeeded in establishing themselves there, they, in their turn, were forced to defend themselves against fresh hordes of invaders. "Because of Midian the Children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and in the caves, and the strongholds. And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the Children of the East; they came up against them and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance in Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass."

99

A peasant of the tribe of Manasseh placed himself at the head of a few resolute men and delivered Israel. His name was Jerubbaal, and he was

[ca. 1200-1020 B.C.]

surnamed Gideon, that is, the Sword, just as Judas, the Asmonæan was surnamed Maccabæus, that is, the Hammer. The little band, with torches and trumpets, made a night attack on the camp of the Midianites, who were seized with panic and slew one another. Gideon sent messengers to the men of Ephraim who hastened up to cut off the retreat of the fugitives at the ford of the Jordan.

The Children of Israel said to Gideon, "Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son, and thy son's son also: for thou hast saved us out of the hand of Midian." He answered, "I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you, Jehovah shall rule over you." After his death one of his seventy sons, Abimelech, had himself proclaimed king at Shechem, and had himself proclaimed king by the oak of Shechem. Civil war broke out. Shechem was destroyed and its ruins sown with salt. Abimelech set fire to the tower of the temple of Baal-berith, where the principal inhabitants of the city had taken refuge; a thousand souls perished in it. He next besieged the city of Thebez; the inhabitants shut themselves up in the citadel; and as he drew near to set it on fire, a woman cast a millstone on his head, and he commanded his armour bearer to kill him, that he might not die by the hand of a woman.

After repulsing the invasion of the Midianites, the tribe of Manasseh, whose territory lay on both banks of the Jordan, were desirous of enlarging their borders to the east, and completed the conquest of the land of Bashan. The Ammonites, however, laid claim to the country, which had formerly belonged to them. They gathered together and encamped at Gilead. "And it was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob; and they said unto Jephthah, Come and be our chief, that we may fight with the Children of Ammon. And Jephthah vowed a vow unto Jehovah, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver the children of Ammon into mine hand, then shall it be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be Jehovah's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. So Jephthah passed over unto the Children of Ammon to fight against them, and Jehovah delivered them into his hand. And Jephthah came to Mizpah unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and dances; and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto Jehovah, and I cannot go back. And she said unto him, My father, thou hast opened thy mouth unto Jehovah; do unto me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as Jehovah hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies. And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may depart and go down upon the mountains and bewail my virginity, I and my companions. And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months and she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she had not known man. And it was a custom in Israel, that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite."

:

There is so great a resemblance between this tradition and the Greek legend of the sacrifice of Iphigenia that we may well believe that one was

[ca. 1200-1020 B.C.] borrowed from the other. It may be that Phoenician mariners, or even Israelite prisoners sold into slavery on the coast of Asia Minor, recounted the tragic story of a general who gained the victory at the price of the sacrifice of his daughter. The very name of Iphigenia seems to be no more than a Greek translation of the words "daughter of Jephthah." The legend is unknown to Homer. Euripides borrowed it from a cyclic poem, the Cypria. According to this poem the sacrifice was not consummated; the goddess substituted a hind for the maiden. Some theologians have tried to extenuate the sacrifice of Jephthah in the same way, and have maintained that his daughter was vowed to perpetual celibacy. This explanation, however, has failed to win acceptance. "The text," says M. Munk, "leaves no room to doubt that Jephthah did actually offer up his daughter as a burnt offering, and Josephus expressly says so" (Antiq., V, 7, 10).

While the tribes of the north were striving with the Canaanites, and those of the east with the Midianites and Ammonites, the tribes of the south were not always successful in defending their independence against the Philistines. The isolated position of the Israelite tribes made it possible for the Philistines to subjugate those in their immediate neighbourhood. The resistance of Israel to this suppression is personified in Samson, the hero of the tribe of Dan, the Israelitish Hercules.

The

Samson cannot be considered an historical figure. He appears to bear a strong resemblance to Samdan, the Assyrian Hercules, and, generally speaking, to all solar divinities. Like Apollo, his hair has never been cut; like Hercules he subdues lions and is himself subdued by women. metamorphosis of an ancient divinity into a local hero is of common occurrence in all mythologies. The existence of a city of the sun, Beth-shemesh, within the borders of the tribe of Dan, leads us to suppose that the oldest inhabitants paid peculiar honours to the sun; it is natural that the Israelites, who held a different religion, should graft the legend of a hero on the fables current in the locality.

As a sequel to the legend of Samson, we find two narratives which form, as it were, an appendix to the Book of Judges. The first seems to refer to the actual period of the conquest, for the tribe of Dan had no territory as yet, and sought an inheritance to dwell in. Five men were sent out to explore the land. "And they came unto their brethren to Zorah and Eshtaol; and said unto them, Arise, and let us go up against them; for we have seen the land, and, behold, it is very good but keep ye silence, be not slothful to go and to enter in to possess the land."

As they pass through the hill country of Ephraim, their spies inform them that, in the house of a certain man named Micah, there is an ephod, teraphim, and a graven image, under the charge of a Levite. They represent to the Levite that it will be to his advantage to be the priest of a tribe rather than the chaplain of a private individual, and carry him off, taking the graven image, the ephod, and the teraphim with them. Micah pursues him and complains of the theft, they bid him hold his peace or they will set fire to his house. Then the Danites come to Laish: " They came unto a people quiet and secure, and smote them with the edge of the sword; and they burnt the city with fire. . . . And the children of Dan set up for themselves the graven image and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. So they set them up Micah's graven image which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh." If we attribute the Decalogue, with its prohibition of graven images, to Moses, we