1. Now it came to pass after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, that the LORD spake unto 2 Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the 3 children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given 4 it, as I spake unto Moses. From the wilderness, and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down 5 of the sun, shall be your border. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake 6 thee. Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt cause this people to inherit the land 7 which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, to observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee : turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest have good success whithersoever thou goest. 8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein : for then 9 thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage ; be not affrighted, neither be thou dismayed : for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. At the outset, it is earnestly recommended that every reader of these volumes, before giving attention to the comment, will very carefully read the text, so as accurately to note and clearly to apprehend the several details of thought or fact. In that way alone can the worth and helpfulness of the comment be fully realized, as in that way alone, every section of this entire work has been prepared. B. Here begins the second division of the Hebrew Bible,—the earlier Prophets, comprising the Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. The Book of Joshua has fine characteristics as a history, and is, moreover, very rich in Christian suggestion. Like the Books of Moses, it is free from any hero-worship, or glorying in man ; but Joshua, whether the author of the book or no, is throughout the chief figure—the narrative opening with his installation to office, and closing with his death. This Joshua was a prince of the tribe of Ephraim, born in Egypt, and selected by Moses as his attendant or adjutant-general in the host of Israel. Like the great leader he had been most carefully trained and proved for his lofty enterprise, and entered on his command apparently about the same age as his predecessor,—at or about eighty years. He filled his post for nearly thirty years, and died at the ripe age of one hundred and ten. He exhibited throughout the very mind of Moses,—the same loyalty to God, love to Israel, and personal disinterestedness, taking nothing for himself, his private enrichment, or family promotion, but seeking the good of all Israel, and finding his own joy in their obedience and prosperity. D. F. The Book of Joshua describes the history of the theocracy under the presidency of Joshua, the son of Nun. Joshua had previously been the servant of Moses, and was appointed by the Lord to be his successor, and to bring his work to completion by leading the people of Israel into Canaan, the land promised to their fathers. The book commences, therefore, with the issue of a divine command to Joshua after the death of Moses, to enter upon the office, to which he had already been appointed. The design of the writer was to furnish historical evidence that Joshua by the help of God faithfully performed the work to which the Lord had called him ; and by the side of that to show how in fulfilment of the promises which He gave to the patriarchs God drove out the Canaanites before Israel, and gave their land to the twelve tribes of Jacob for a permanent inheritance. Hence notwithstanding the close connection between this book and the Pentateuch, it is in itself a complete and independent work, being the historical record of the conquest and distribution of the land, which the Lord gave to his chosen people as their possession, that they might dwell therein, serving their God and Lord in truth and love. Keil. The name of Joshua is given to this book because without doubt the greater part of it was written by him. The division of the land of Canaan among the tribes of Israel occupies a large portion of the book ; and an accurate and authentic description of the territory of each was requisite for the prevention of disputes. No one could be better qualified to furnish these than Joshua himself. C. G. B. The Book of Joshua has been divided into three sections : the conquest of Canaan (chs. 1-12) ; the division of the land (chs. 13-22) ; while chs. 23, 24, are devoted to a statement concerning the closing days of the soldier Joshua. The main action of the book comprises a period of twenty-five years. J. P. (See p. 25.) The history of Israel as a nation may be said to commence with their entrance into their own land. All previous to this—from the Paschal night on which Israel was born as a people to the overthrow of Sihon and of Og, the last who would have barred Israel's way to their home—had been only preparatory. But now, when the Lion of Judah couched by the banks of Jordan, Israel was face to face with its grand mission, and the grand task of its national life commenced : to dispossess heathenism, and to plant in its stead the kingdom of God, which was destined to strike root and to grow, till in the fulness of time it would extend to all nations of the world. The history records, first, certain events which had to take place immediately before entering the Land of Promise ; next, the conquest, and then the apportionment of the land among the tribes of Israel; and, lastly, in the time of the Judges, side by side, the unfolding of Israel's religious and national condition, and the assertion of those fundamental principles which underlay its very existence as a God-called people. These principles are:—The special relationship of Israel as the people of God toward Jehovah, and Jehovah's special dealings toward them as their King. The history of the wilderness period had, indeed, been shaped by this twofold relationship, but its consequences appeared more clearly under Joshua, and most fully in the time of the Judges. When not only Moses, but Joshua, and even the elders who had been his contemporaries had passed away, the people, now settled in the land, were left free to develop those tendencies which had all along existed. Then ensued that alternation of national apostasy and judgment, and of penitent return to God and deliverance, which constitutes the framework on which the Book of Judges is constructed. The Books of Joshua and the Judges give, not a chronicle of the nation, but a history of the Kingdom of God in Israel. This explains certain peculiarities of form and style. There are evidently large blanks left in the history of the times; while some events or reigns of considerable duration are only cursorily mentioned, very detailed and circumstantial narratives are given of persons and occurrences which only occupied the scene for a comparatively short period. But as the writers of these books must have had at command ample material for a full history, we conclude that the selection, Divinely guided, was made in accordance with the "Spirit of Prophecy," to mark the progress of the Kingdom of God in connection with Israel. The more fully these narratives are studied, the more luminous will they become; the more will their Divine meaning appear; and the more will they carry to the mind conviction of their truthfulness, and to the heart lessons of their spiritual import. A. E. 1. Now it came to pass after the death of Moses. The opening word is literally "and;" though a new section of the history here begins, it is a direct continuation of what preceded. The situation is precisely that with which the Book of Deuteronomy ended. Israel is encamped in the plains of Moab, in near proximity to the Jordan. Their great leader has just died, and the thirty days of mourning for him are ended. They were not allowed to spend their time further in grief and inaction. A task lay before them demanding their full energy and activity, if they were really to possess themselves of that land to the borders of which Moses had brought them. W. H. G. The faithful Covenant-God was with Joshua, as he waited expectantly, in that mourning camp of Abel-Shittim, for a fresh message from God. Though he had been previously designated by God and set apart to the leadership, it was well he should so wait, not only for his own sake, but also "that the people might afterward not hesitate gladly to follow his leadership who had not moved a foot without the leading of God." And in due time the longed for direction came: not in doubtful language, but renewing alike the commission of Joshua and the promises to Israel. A. E. Moses the servant of the Lord. A high and honorable title, applied with reference to the peculiar nature of the service in which Moses was employed, viz., that of a minister, mediator, deputy, or vicegerent of God, the honored organ through whom he communicated his will to his chosen people and managed all their varied interests. It is in this character that he stands so highly commended in the sacred volume, having received the divine testimony to his being "found faithful in all God's house as a servant," and being expressly distinguished by this title, not only here, where God himself is pleased so to denominate him (verse 2), but also in Rev. 15:3, where it is said of the company standing upon the sea of glass, that they "sing the song of Moses the servant of God." Bush. The Lord spake. Jehovah alone was king. Moses claimed no rank or title, demanded no observance, assumed no authority as for himself, but always appears only as the mouthpiece through whom the God of their fathers spake to the people. The whole scheme of government, the ordinances and laws and the selection of the men by whom these were to be administered, emanated directly from Jehovah speaking through the mouth of Moses. In this way, too, the succession to the leadership of the people, after the death of him who was, humanly speaking, their great deliverer, guide, legislator, and judge, was to be provided for;—not through election by the people; not by hereditary descent, so as to pass to the children of Moses; but by the favor of the Lord attending all the enterprises, and crowning with success all the undertakings, of the valiant and righteous man, who, inspired by Jehovah, should step forward to assume the vacant place. F. Bowen. Joshua the son of Nun. His original name was Hoshea or Oshea, which Moses changed into Jehoshua (Nu. 13:16), and by contraction, Joshua or Jeshua, or Jesus (according to the Greek pronunciation), (Acts 7 : 45 ; Heb. 4 : 8), signifying "Saviour." He therefore was a type of Christ both in his name and in his actions, as well as Moses. The first notice of him is on the occasion of the Amalekite war (Ex. 17 : 9), where he was appointed captain of a chosen party to repel their attack, at which time he was about forty-four years of age and was called a young man (Ex. 33 : 11). Even then he was pre-ordained by the Lord to put the Israelites in possession of the promised land, as appears from the injunction to Moses to record in a book the aggression of the Amalekites and the decree of their extermination, and to rehearse it in the ears of Joshua as a memorial to him and the future judges (Ex. 17 : 14). The Lord appointed him to succeed Moses at Nu. 27 : 18. Joshua was about the age of eighty-four, when after Moses' death he was commanded to pass over Jordan and take possession of the promised land. Hales. He had grown up to mature age in the state of Egyptian bondage; he had shared the experience and trials of the wilderness, as the chosen servant of Moses; he had proved his military capacity at Rephidim and in the conquest of the land east of Jordan; and his steadfast obedience at Kadesh, when he stood alone with Caleb, "faithful among the faithless," and he lived for about twenty-five years more to finish his allotted work. These three periods of his life thus embrace the whole history of the moulding of the nation from its state of hopeless bondage, when Moses fled to Midian, till God "brought them in and planted them in the mountain of his inheritance." His character was in accordance with his career: a devout warrior, blameless and fearless, who has been taught by serving as a youth how to command as a man; who earns by manly vigor a quiet, honored old age; who combines strength with gentleness, ever looking up for and obeying the Divine impulse with the simplicity of a child, while he wields great power, and directs it calmly and without swerving, to the accomplishment of a high unselfish purpose. He is one of the very few worthies of the Old Testament on whose character there is no stain, though his history is recorded with unusual fulness. P. S. The character of Joshua is, confessedly, one of the grandest and most spotless in the whole Bible. The greatness of the man is indeed to some extent overshadowed by the greatness of the events through which he moved: we know him more as a conqueror than as a man. He is one of the very few personages of Holy Writ of whom no evil is recorded. Free from all desire of self-aggrandizement or lust of gain, no taint of selfishness mars the simple nobility of Joshua's character. In whatever circumstances we find him placed his one desire is to know what the will of God is, and his one resolve to do it at all costs. Of him, as of his true heart-brother Caleb, the unerring verdict of the Word of Truth is, "He wholly followed the Lord" (Nu. 32 : 12). Who, then, was more worthy to be the first bearer of that "Name which is above every name," which in fulness of time was to be the human designation of Him who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," Jesus, the Captain of His people's salvation in their conflict for the heavenly Canaan? It is as a warrior that Joshua is first presented to us, and this is the character he chiefly maintains throughout the Scripture record. His gifts and virtues are those of the warrior. Dauntless courage, indomitable perseverance, cheerful confidence in the face of difficulties, promptitude of action, high honor, unselfish disregard of his own interests, unswerving rectitude, care for the interests of those committed to him—all built upon and based in faith in the Living God. E. V. 2. Now therefore arise.** Though Moses is dead the work must go on, therefore arise and go about it. When God has work to do, he will either find or make instruments fit to carry it on. Moses the servant is dead, but God the Master is not, he lives forever. H. Moses dies, but God lives. The same plan must go forward, but by other hands. The same methods are used. God speaks to Joshua as to Moses, renews the promise, defines the limits of Canaan, and lays down the imperious necessity of exactest obedience. Warren.—The rod may drop from the hand of Moses; but God keeps firm hold of Joshua, and, whoever fails Israel, its God will not. That is the true lesson which we are all meant to learn from the inroads of death on church and home. The perishing of the perishable is to teach the abiding of the immortal. Dying men reveal a living God. A. M. The host of Israel was still on the eastern side of Jordan. The first step in the fulfilment of Joshua's commission was to carry the people over that river: "Arise," is God's first word to him, "go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them." The command does not seem to have been accompanied with any intimation of the manner in which the river, then at its full, was to be crossed. But Joshua had long since learned that whatever God enjoins he renders possible to those who in simple faith seek to obey. If He bade Israel go over the river, the way to do so would be opened when they set themselves to do his bidding. E. V. The grant of the land of Canaan to the children of Israel is here repeated (verse 2), I do give it them. To the patriarchs it was promised, I will give it, but now that the fourth generation was expired the iniquity of the Amorites was full, and the time was come for the performance of the promise, it is actually conveyed, and they are put in possession of that which they had long been in expectation of, "I do give it, enter upon it, it is all your own, nay (verse 3), I have given it; though it be yet unconquered, it is as sure to you as if it were in your hands." H. The possession of Canaan by the Israelites is constantly set forth as a free gift of the Divine favor, by which all ideas of human right are completely excluded. But while the donation of this land was an act of the Lord's free favor to the Israelites, the taking it away from the Canaanites was no less an act of his retributive justice—of such justice as it behooved the moral governor of the world to administer against a people laden with iniquity. Gen. 15 : 13-16 proves this clearly. When the time was fully come, the Canaanites became a doomed people—doomed to expulsion or extermination by the Israelites, to whom was committed the sword of judgment, and who were the destined inheritors of the land of which the Canaanites had proved themselves unworthy. So, too, the Israelites, favored as they were for their father's sake, were warned that even they held the land by no other tenure than that which the Canaanites were to be destroyed for infringing. Over and over again were they warned that if they fell into the same dreadful transgressions for which the Canaanites had been cast out, they would subject themselves to the same doom—be like them destroyed—like them cast out of the good land which they had defiled. We are not left altogether in the dark as to the nature of the abominations which pervaded the land, and which cried to God to show himself as abhorring iniquity and to prove that the world was not left fatherless of his care. Kit. 3. As I said unto Moses. The words here used are a literal repetition of the promise made (De. 11 : 24). Indeed, nearly every sentence in this address to Joshua occurs somewhere in the course of the foregoing history, especially in the Book of Deuteronomy. 4. From the wilderness, etc. God here proceeds, in very brief terms, to mark out and define the boundaries of the land of promise. Its utmost limits should be from the wilderness of Sin, or the desert of Arabia Petraea on the South, to Lebanon on the North; and from the Euphrates on the East, to the great sea, or the Mediterranean, on the West. The Israelites did not indeed possess the full extent of this grant till the time of David, but their failure to do so was owing entirely to their own remissness, unbelief, and disobedience, as was every reverse with which they met during the whole period of their history. They were not straitened in God, but in themselves; and the same remark holds good with regard to his people in all ages. This Lebanon. Particularized in this manner, because it could doubtless be seen from the spot where Joshua now stood, rearing its lofty summits toward the clouds in the northern extremity of Canaan. The name "Lebanon" comes from the Heb. root Laban, while, from its summits being covered with snow. Bush. 5. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. The presence of God should never be withdrawn from him. Moses had assured him of this (De. 31 : 8), that though he must now leave him God never would; and here God himself confirms that word of his servant Moses, and engages never to leave Joshua. This we may be sure of, that the Lord is with us while we are with him. This promise here made to Joshua is applied to all believers, and improved as an argument against covetousness (Heb. 13 : 5). H. That gracious promise in the Epistle to the Hebrews—"It is written—I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee," originally appears in the Bible as a promise to Joshua alone, in his peculiar and special circumstances as leader of the Lord's people; yet we find it applied by the Apostle in a wide sense to the whole body of believers. Applications of Scripture of this kind, when regulated by strict regard to the proportion of faith, are exceedingly effective and consolatory, opening up to the mind a sudden view of the infinite power and depth of meaning of the Word of God. Cameron. What God promises to any one of the Old Testament saints he promises to every believer, with such modification as suits his particular case. For all these promises are different leaves of the same tree of life, different expressions of the same covenant of grace. In this sense, whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through scriptural patience and comfort might have hope. It is in this way that thousands of believers have drunk at the same fountain; and what God said to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has been the refreshment of many souls in all generations. In the Greek these few words contain no less than five negatives; to give the full force of which we should have to read it thus: "I will never, never leave thee, I will never, never, never forsake thee." The precious truth therefore which I commend to you for all coming years, is this: God engages in covenant, to be with the believer, for all needful good, now, henceforth, and forever. J. W. A. 6. Be strong. The word is a command. It implies that the choice between strength and weakness, and therefore the responsibility for the choice, is ours. The servant of God is in duty bound to strive to make his life on the earth the largest possible success; he must, therefore, lose no righteous opportunity to be strong. He has no right to any selfish indulgence that weakens any physical or mental power. Moreover, he must study all the sources and elements of strength. "Knowledge is power," and "in union is strength." Organization, discipline, self-command, skill, all these are strength; and the command is "be strong." Cable.—And of a good courage.** There is animal courage and there is moral courage. And although the strength and courage which men share with the lower animals are not to be despised, but sought after in their degree, yet it is to the nobler qualities the text chiefly refers when it says, "Be strong and of a good courage." God gave this word of good cheer to Joshua, and repeated it thrice over, so that he might never forget it. Joshua and his men needed it, or God would not have said it to him thrice so earnestly. Stalker. To be "strong" is to take up a certain position in practical obedience and say clearly, "I am here: I stand by this." To be "of good courage" is to maintain that position against the force of temptation and opposition of every kind. Strength and courage are needed at home and with ourselves before we meet the world at all. The critical part of the struggle is within. Strength and courage are needed when we go more fully out into the world. We need courage to live honestly, courage to live simply, courage to speak frankly and boldly in condemnation of the speech or the action of others. We have in the context direction how we may attain this temper and habit of Christian courage. It is fed by truth, by the law or the revealed truth of God. When the soul has found the flowing fountains of strength, and drinks of the same day by day, her courage will be day by day renewed. Raleigh. All the land of the Hittites. The Biblical narrative indicates that while other Canaanitish tribes were of small power and importance, and were soon exterminated or absorbed into the Hebrew nationality, the Hittites stood on altogether another footing. The Hittites are the first and the last of these tribes to appear on the scene. As early as the time of Abraham we find them lords of the soil at Hebron; and in the time of Solomon, and even of Elisha, they are a mighty people, inhabiting a region to the north of Palestine, and distinguished by the possession of numerous war chariots, then the chief sign of military power. Though we are now able to perceive that this is the true signification of the references to them in the Old Testament, yet it was from the newly recovered monuments of Egypt and Assyria that the facts were actually gleaned. I. T.—Since the decipherment of the Egyptian and the Assyrian monuments it has become clear that the Bible is right and the too sceptical scholars were wrong. Seventeen centuries before Christ, Egypt knew the might of the great Hittite people. Nineteen centuries before Christ, Assyria had to do battle against the power of the Hittites. The records of Egypt and Assyria, read together, show the Hittites a strong and warlike power, occupying the very region laid down for it, incidentally, in the Bible narrative. And now, during the last twelve years, the monuments of these Hittites are being found, dotted here and there over the vast stretch between the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and the river Euphrates. S. S. T. The gift had its limitations, but it had also its conditions. It must not only be conquered, but occupied. The offending nations then in possession must be driven out, and the land be held by constancy and courage. The conditions were never wholly accepted by the beneficiaries. The possible boundaries were never reached in actual dominion, and the "soles of their feet" (from sloth and faint-heartedness and long-continued disobedience) failed to tread upon the whole of the promised possession. Herein is suggested a plain rule for our every-day life. All the bounties of nature, all the wealth of production possible to industry and cunning invention, all that can fill the hands or enrich the mind, is offered to man on similar terms. It is not his by ancestral bequest, nor by the law of might, but it is given from the hands of a bountiful Benefactor. Like the gift to the Israelites it has its limitations. The snow-clad Lebanon and the wilderness, the great river and the shores of the sea, restrict all human acquisitions, mental or material. Every man has his sphere which he may not exceed, but within which all may be claimed as his own. And all the gifts have the same condition. The wisdom of the ages, the secrets of nature, the problems whose solution is the rich garniture of the soul, although freely offered from the Divine hand, and thus in every sense a Divine gift, must be conquered and occupied to become available. Here are the treasures of learning freely tendered, but the sluggard receives no mental impression from them. The gift cannot be received except on the one condition. The unwearied diligence is the cup into which it is poured; the assiduous application builds up the storehouse in which it may be garnered. Conquest and occupation are essential to every man's possession. And it is the same with material things. God gives the harvest, but the earth is dumb to man's plea for bread until he turns the furrow, and sows the seed, and thrusts in the sickle, and thrashes out the golden grain, and winnows it from the chaff, and grinds it into flour, and bakes it to his taste. The man who stands invoking the blessing with gaping mouth will waste his eloquence if he refuses to bend his back and blister his hands. Even in Paradise the first pair of the race had to dress and keep the garden that gave them its fruits, and though their offspring have been sustained by the Divine bounty ever since, they have enjoyed it only in the sweat of their face. The great mistake of the world, that which brings to grief and want so many of the children of men, is that they hold out their hands for the prize they covet, with little thought of the condition on which depends their enjoyment of the gift. This is one reason why genius so often fails where a dull intellect succeeds. The former holds his head aloft and looks for the gift of wisdom to come by intuition. The latter masters the alphabet and never dreams of a royal road to learning. How many a young man is waiting for an inheritance of wisdom or wealth to come to him, as the gifts do in a fairy story, from some unknown source. His hands are stretched out with upturned fingers as if the heavens were a full storehouse ready to drop blessings into every itching palm. And even where the promised possession is obtained the sluggard who will not exterminate the evils he dreads, and tread under the soles of his feet his besetting sins, will come far short of the possible boundary of noble living. Behrends. 7. 8. Joshua must not only govern by law and take care that the people observe the law, but he must observe it himself, and so by his own example maintain the honor and power of it. He must do what was written; do according to what was written, exactly observing the law as his copy, and doing, not only that which was there required, but in all circumstances according to the appointment. He must do according to all that was written, without exception or reserve. And to encourage him in his obedience, God assures him that then he shall do wisely (as it is in the margin), and make his way prosperous. They that make the Word of God their rule and conscientiously walk by that rule, shall both do well and speed well; it will furnish them with the best maxims by which to order their conversation (Ps. 111 : 10). And it will entitle them to the best blessings; God shall give them the desire of their heart. H. In nothing is there more scope for the display of the highest moral heroism than in daring, in all circumstances, to cleave steadfastly to the Word of God as the rule of our conduct. As the soldier of an earthly leader is to act in all things according to certain rules, laid down in a code drawn up for the purpose, so the Christian soldier has his code drawn up for him by God himself, and revealed to him in the oracles of truth. This code he is to study with all diligence, and meditate on it day and night, that he may conform himself to it in every particular, and never turn aside to the right hand or the left. However difficult or self-denying its injunctions, he must obey it, and so sacred must it be in his eyes, that he will rather die than depart from it. Bush. This word, "all the law," has a warning value on one hand to the easy conscience that would satisfy itself with obedience to mere statute laws and religious forms; and on the other to the morbid conscience that cannot consent to any legislation in Church or State which does not fulfil the Ten Commandments at a bound. Not "all the law which Moses commanded" did so. But "all the law" did this: It set the moral ideal up in perpetual view, and made all lower legislation, all laws and ordinances of imperfect State or Church, point faithfully and lead strongly and very courageously always toward that ideal. Under God's hand Moses did not legislate down on the plane of the people's caprice, though his brother once did; but he did legislate down on the plane of their capabilities, yet always up toward the Ten Commandments. Cable. It is profitable for instruction (or teaching in the things of God), for conviction (or reproof), for correction, for discipline in righteousness; that is, for such a moral training as will lead those who submit to it to live in righteousness. All this, be it observed, is affirmed of the Old Testament Scriptures, even after the fuller light of the Gospel had come. They have such uses still to fulfil to the church of Christ. P. F. A sufficient rule of guidance for life Joshua had; we have. There was a law of God then by the keeping of which he and all his people might approve themselves to the Lord, and be strong men and heroes. There is a law of God now, fuller, richer, more spiritual, more complete, in the keeping of which we may approve ourselves to the Master, Christ. Raleigh. Propose me anything out of this book, and require whether I believe it or no, and seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this, God hath said so, therefore it is true. I am fully assured that God does not and therefore that men ought not to require any more of any man than this, to believe the Scripture to be God's Word, to endeavour to finde the true sense of it, and to live according to it. Chillingworth. This is a Book, whose instructions are true, whose precepts are all good, and whose promises are happie; for 'tis the Word of God, who is the truth, goodness and happiness it selfe. This is a glasse, in which I see myself in a three-fold estate of innocence, corruption and regeneration. This is againe a glasse, in which I see both my selfe and all things in three different times, past, present and future. The first concerns me not, the second is but a moment, the last is perpetual. Yet time past gives me instructions, to order the present; this works for the future, and this future shall be happie or unhappie, as the present makes it. Herbert. 8. Shall not depart out of thy mouth. Thou shalt constantly read and ponder it, it shall incessantly employ thy lips, thou shalt have thy heart so imbued with its letter and spirit, that thy mouth shall, as it were, overflow with its rich contents, as "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." The same phrase occurs but once elsewhere in the Scriptures (Is. 59 : 21), where it is implied that the covenant promise should be deemed so precious, that it should be a perpetual theme of meditation and discourse. Thou shalt meditate therein day and night. This is the character of the good man as described by the Psalmist (Ps. 1 : 2), in words which are almost an exact transcript of those here employed. The Heb. term for "meditate" implies that kind of mental rumination which is apt to vent itself in an audible sound of the voice. Bush. The meditation which is enjoined is the study of God's Word for a purely practical purpose, to find out what sort of men we ought to be and what are the great laws for conduct and conflict. That sort of meditation is very unlike the half-asleep sentimental brooding which has usurped the name. It is essential to all vigorous Christian life; but it is wofully unfashionable nowadays, when people have so many newspapers and magazines to read that the Bible gets scant attention. If there is one thing more than another which should invigorate the feeble Christianity so common to-day, it is the earnest, systematic study of Scripture as the all-sufficient guide of morals for men and nations, both in the conflicts of the individual soul and in the great warfare against iniquity, to which Christ summons all his servants. A. M.—A man will never grow into the knowledge of God's Word by idly waiting for some new gift of discernment, but by diligently using that which God has already bestowed upon him, and using at the same time all other helps that lie within his reach. Above all, let us give our whole mind in patient, loving study to the book itself; and where we fail, at any essential part, God will either send his evangelist Philip to our aid (Acts 8) or instruct us himself. But it is only to patient, loving meditation that help is given. God could have poured all knowledge into us by easy inspiration; but it is by earnest search alone that it can become the treasure of the soul. Ker. We cleave to Christ by habitual contemplation. There can be no real continuous closeness of intercourse with Him, except by thought ever recurring to Him amidst all the tumult of our busy days. There is a mood of mind in which to approach our Lord—a mood sadly unfamiliar in these days, when poor Mary has hardly a chance of a reputation for "usefulness" by the side of busy, bustling Martha—that still contemplation of the truth, with the view of bringing our own souls more completely under its influence, and saturating our being with its fragrance. We are all so occupied arguing and deducing and elaborating, that we have no time for retired still contemplation, and, therefore, lose the finest aroma of the truth we profess to believe. There are few things more needed by our modern Religion than the old exhortation, "Come, my people, enter into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee." And when the great truths embodied in Him stand clear before us, then let us remember that we have not done with them when we have seen them. Next must come into exercise the moral side of faith, the voluntary act of trust, the casting ourselves on Him whom we behold, the making our own of the blessings which He holds out to us. A. M. Store your mind with God's own truth. This supplies the vital sap of the soul. Let every fibre of your spirit drink it in, and you shall grow in grace and knowledge at once. "There is but one book," said the dying novelist, when he was asked what he would hear read. There is but one book that is full of God, or which can fill us with all His fulness. Read it. Ponder it Not Plato or Bacon, or Addison, but He that spake as never man spake—speaks there. Go up with Him to the mount, and hear His sermon. Sit with Him at the table and listen to His words. Walk with Him in the fields and read His paragraphs syllable in flowers, and tares and fig-trees. Take David's harp and sweep its strings to the music, "The Lord is my shepherd." Sit at Isaiah's feet and bow and adore, while he unveils the glorious greatness of Him "who weigheth the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance." . . . God's utterance through the pens of all the inspired writers is like the breath of spring to winter's blasted herbage. The soul freshens and blooms under it, and he that bears the best and noblest fruit of a devoted Christian life is he that is most devoutly conversant with the Divine word. Gillett. The Book of God, when it is the one book, makes strong characters. Read it, study it, ponder over it; be not content to go over so much daily as a task, or to snatch a passage in the hurry of an odd moment; but lay yourself out to accomplish a thorough investigation of its contents, to acquaint yourself with its order, structure, and harmony, to grapple with its difficulties, to systematize its truths, and to enrich your memory with its golden sentences. Men, men, who can stand fast in the faith, who can stand alone, who have vertebral columns, who can bear, who can forbear, who can advance, who on due summons can strike, men armed with the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left—that is, with sword and shield, are, bred in great study of God's Word, and great familiarity with those high evangelic truths which are the motive powers of the spiritual universe. The most intense heat, and consequently the most powerful action, proceed from deep inward conviction of religious truth, derived from laborious study of the Scripture. J. W. A. 6-9. The threefold admonition to "be strong and of a good courage" is supported by three different assurances on the part of God. In verse 6 it is supported by the assurance that God would fulfil his promise to the fathers,—in other words, of God's covenant faithfulness; in verses 7 and 8 it is more clearly defined as within the lines of obedience to the law to which assuredly the promise was attached; while in verse 9 the fact that God had commanded is emphasized, and the promise of individual and personal help to Joshua attached to courageous and hearty action which God had enjoined. We mark the successive order of the grounds on which God's assurance of help rests: first, his faithfulness to his covenant; secondly, our duty, and the promise which God has certainly attached to the discharge of duty; thirdly, individual faith and obedience which has a personal and individual promise of help. This, then, is the order in our grounds of confidence: God's covenant, God's promise, and God's presence. Life, specially opening life, should be viewed in the light of this history. To each of us comes the divine direction. Work—all work—is to take possession in his name of what he assigns to us. What each of us most needs, what in these verses is thrice repeated, is to be of good courage, by which we understand a courage which is the outcome of faith. It comprises three elements. First, we are to go whither God directs us: we are not to be swayed by worldly and selfish motives, not to be inclined hither or thither by every passing wind, whether of passion, inclination, pleasure, or seeming advantage. In short, ours is to be a straightforward, simple, firm, initial resolution to occupy in our lives God's portion. The second element is that in the shaping of our lives we are to be guided by the word and will of God. There must be a holy determination in that respect, and a holy perseverance in carrying it out. It needs courage to do the will of God in this world: courage not to swerve from it to the right or the left,—good courage in our open profession of adherence to the will of God; a hearty courage which springs from loving meditation upon his word and will. Such a way will surely be "prosperous" in the highest and only true sense of prosperity. The third element in such courage is a constant looking up to God, a daily walk as seeing him who is invisible. Thus we have holy resolution, or consecration at the outset; holy determination, or a careful observance of the will of God; and holy fellowship, or joyous communion with God. To the first of those attaches the covenant-promise of the Father; to the second, the promise of Christ to them that take up his cross and follow him; and to the third, the promise of the Holy Ghost, whereby we cry "Abba, Father!" A. E. 9. Have I not commanded thee?** Every command of God carries with it the prophecy and assurance of ability to fulfil it, if heart and will are obediently responsive. Here, as most frequently, the promise of the Divine presence and help immediately follows the command. The Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest! B. All the after life of Joshua is the carrying out with a remarkable simplicity of unquestioning faith this first charge of his God. His obedience is immediate. The days of waiting are passed. There is no more sign of doubt or of misgiving. At once he assumes in all its breadth the office so committed to his hands, and as God's vice-gerent "commands the officers of the people" (Josh. 1 : 10). Wilberforce. § 10, 11 THEN Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, Pass through the midst of the camp, and command the people saying, Prepare you victuals; for within three days ye are to pass over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land, which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it. 12. And to the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh, spake Joshua, 13 saying, Remember the word which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, The 14 LORD your God giveth you rest, and will give you this land. Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle, shall abide in the land which Moses gave you beyond Jordan; but ye shall pass 15 over before your brethren armed, all the mighty men of valor, and shall help them; until the LORD have given your brethren rest, as he hath given you, and they also have possessed the land which the LORD your God giveth them: then ye shall return unto the land of your pos- session, and possess it, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave you beyond Jordan toward 16 the sunrising. And they answered Joshua, saying, All that thou hast commanded us we will 17 do, and whithersoever thou sendest us we will go. According as we hearkened unto Moses in all things, so will we hearken unto thee: only the LORD thy God be with thee, as he was with 18 Moses. Whosoever he be that shall rebel against thy commandment, and shall not hearken unto thy words in all that thou commandest him, he shall be put to death: only be strong and of a good courage. 3 1 And Joshua rose up early in the morning, and they removed from Shittim, and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel; and they lodged there before they passed over. 2 And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the midst of the camp; 3 and they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go 4 after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go; for ye have not passed 5 this way heretofore. And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves: for to-morrow the LORD will do wonders among you. The mission and the man were both under God's hand. Gifted and chosen for great office, Joshua was trained by successive promotion,— minister, confidential aid, lieutenant-general, absolute leader. To this end he was instructed in the presence of Moses, and within the verge of his great experiences; holding highest con- verse and highest trust; going with him farther than any man into the awful splendors that veiled the glory of the Given Law. When the supreme commission came, it found Joshua a man tried and true; a man of faith—undoubt- ing belief in the word and person with whom he stood in covenant; conviction of the justice of his cause, and uncompromising loyalty to both; force of personality, but of that high order which seeks to give out rather than take in, of good. Of his home life the picture is denied to us; possibly also denied to him. His great work might well absorb all thought and love into the one resolute will. The task laid on him was a great one. It was the consummation of a mighty movement—the migration of a People, the founding of a Nation. It was also the con- quest of a most difficult country and of powerful peoples. It was, hardest of all, to take a motley host, two millions of people, with all their en- cumbrances; their very numbers a source of weakness; lately escaped from bondage and with difficulty brought thus far by long and toilsome paths; through wildernesses and lands of luxury; through the buffetings of fierce foes and the seductions of their own undisciplined hearts; ever murmuring, ever prone to succumb, to falter go back, and march them on to mastery: to make good those years of toil and trial of battle, betrayal, and despair, with firm hand to make sure the stroke without which all that had been done were worse than in vain. J. L. Chamberlain. 10,11. The first command was one which showed his great faith, and tested strongly the obedience of the people. The river Jordan lay between the camp and the land of their prom- ised inheritance, and it must be passed over by them at the very outset of their march. But how could this be accomplished? Even if it were possible with difficulty and risk to trans- port over it a chosen handful of warriors, how could he possibly carry over the mixed multi- tude—the women and the children, and the flocks and the herds? Even over the fords of Jordan, under the most favorable circumstances of the river, this would have been almost im- possible; and at this season of the year, when from the melting of the snow upon the high- lands Jordan was greatly flooded (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of har- vest), it was more than ever impossible. Yet down to these threatening floods, on the hope- less errand of passing over them, all the people are ordered to march. Surely it must have been a sore strain upon the faith of the com- mander to issue such an order. But his faith was strong, and he commanded and was obeyed. Wilberforce. Within three days. They crossed on the tenth day of Nisan (ch. 4: 19). Hence this order is given on the seventh of the month. As the spies returned to the camp before the people crossed (ch. 2 : 23), and as these spies had been three days (i e., parts of three days) in the mountain west of Jordan (ch. 2 : 22), they must have been sent out by Joshua on the sixth of the month, although the story of their expedition is not given until after this account of the command issued on the seventh. Crosby. 12-17. Joshua has a special word for the warriors of the two-and-a-half tribes already located in their national home on the east of Jordan. It was in the bond that their men of war, leaving their families in their eastern homes, should go over before their brethren, unincumbered, harnessed for battle. The record sets forth their prompt response to this call. We are ready! We wait for marching orders. "Only the Lord thy God be with thee as he was with Moses. Be strong and of a good courage." In these words we have the temper, the morale, of this army of conquest. The faith of God strong in their souls; their hearts on obedience to God; their eye on victory! H. C. 13. It is remarkable that Joshua does not plead the authority of the message which God had imparted to himself directly and personally, but bids them remember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded them—thus acting as Moses' minister even after his death. T. C. 3 : 1. The morrow after the return of the spies, the camp at Shittim was broken up, and the host of Israel moved forward. It consisted of all those tribes who were to have their possessions west of the Jordan, along with forty thousand chosen warriors from Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. A reference to Nu. 26 : 7, 18, 34, shows that 70 580 of the men of war in the tribes Reuben and Gad and half Manasseh must have been left behind for the protection of the territory east of the Jordan. A. E.—Came to Jordan and lodged there. The first stage of Joshua's Conquest was the occupation of the vast trench, so to speak, which parted them from the mass of the Promised Land. Between it and them lay the deep valley of the Jordan with its mysterious river. "To pass over the Jordan and go in and possess the land," was a crisis in their fate, such as they had not experienced since the crossing of the Red Sea. A. P. S. The enormous host, amounting to more than two millions—601,730 was the number of adult males returned at the census in the plains of Moab—descends from Shittim, the acacia groves which line the upper terraces of the valley on either side of the river, to the bank of the surging stream. Arrived there, a delay of three days intervenes—an interval none too long for the completion of the necessary preparations, now that they were about to quit the comparative security of the wilderness, and enter on a hostile territory. E. V.—The people were already in point of numbers a great nation. The distinction into tribes already existed, and had been recognized even in Egypt. They had a standing army, consisting of all Israelites above twenty years of age; an army regularly organized; and an army which was inured to hardships and in some measure to war, as well as brought under discipline in the prolonged and trying march through the wilderness. The forms of worship and ceremonial observances had been already instituted. Their civil no less than their moral and ecclesiastical code was, as to all its leading provisions, already fixed. They had courts of justice and officers for the administration of the laws. In short, before they crossed the Jordan, they were already a nation, which only wanted a territory to take at once its place among the nations of the earth. Lee. 3. Go after it. Under the conduct of Moses, the ark was stationed in the centre while the host was encamped, and borne in the middle of the immense procession when it set forward. But they then had the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night to precede them. Now the cloud is removed, and the ark is transferred to the vanguard of the army, to go before. Bush.—The ark of the covenant must be their guide. During the reign of Moses, the cloud was their guide, but now, in Joshua's reign, the ark; both were visible signs of God's presence and presidency; but divine grace under the Mosaic dispensation was wrapped up as in a cloud and covered with a veil, while by Christ, our Joshua, it is revealed in the ark of the covenant unveiled. H. 4. There shall be a space—about two thousand cubits. Two thousand cubits amounted to about one thousand yards, or three quarters of a mile, and this space was to intervene between them and the ark, in order that they might be impressed with a becoming awe and reverence of the symbol of the divine presence. Bush.—That ark which before was as the heart is now as the head; it was in the midst of Israel, while they encamped in the desert; now when the cloud is removed, it is in the front of the army; that as before they depended upon it for life, so now they should for direction. It must go before them on the shoulders of the sons of Levi; they must follow it, but within sight, not within breathing. The Levites may not touch the ark, but only the bars: the Israelites may not approach nearer than a thousand paces to it. What awful respects doth God require to be given unto the testimonies of his presence! Bp. II. That ye may know the way; for ye have not passed this way before. In the untried and untravelled path, they are still to follow the leading of the same Jehovah, B.—“Ye have not passed this way heretofore.” The vista of the bygone years was never so long as it is to-day. Time never carried such a burden of events on his shoulders. Changes have taken place in society and in ourselves, and these changes are sure to go on. We should watch for occasions, that we may seize them; for opportunities, that we may improve them; for God in His manifold revelations and comings to us, that we may receive Him as our God. Courage will often be needed to do what the hand finds to do. The possession and cultivation of moral courage therefore is a very necessary preparation for this way that we have not passed heretofore. Gentleness is a good word to put under the shelter of courage, and a good thing to put among the preparations for the untried way. And filial confidence in God will easily, when occasion comes, pass into resignation. Finally, whatever comes, there will always be not only need and occasion but ground and reason for serene, invincible hopefulness. “Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.” Raleigh. 5. And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves.** Rather, “had said,” for as he speaks of “to-morrow,” the charge was probably given on the day previous to the one now current, on which they were passing over Jordan. The command now given was undoubtedly of the same import with that given by Moses, on the eve of the delivery of the law upon Mount Sinai (Ex. 19: 10-14). Bush.—An order of deep significance was to be first obeyed: “Sanctify yourselves, for to-morrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” The entrance of God’s peculiar people into the Land of Promise must be prepared for by ceremonial purification. All outward pollution must be put away. How forcibly does this recall warnings relating to that “better country, even a heavenly one,” of which the earthly Canaan was but the type. How does the external purity enjoined by Joshua, before the children of Israel could be permitted to enter their earthly inheritance, remind us that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord;” and that into the heavenly city “there shall in no wise enter anything that defileth.” E. V. God’s purpose was ripe, and the hour of conquest was on the stroke; all that remained for them to do was to prepare themselves for its fulfilment. “Sanctify yourselves.” The words set before us the condition and the cause of the Church’s success. The condition of success in the work of God to which the Church is called, is holiness, or personal consecration. The cause of the Church’s success is the Divine power. When God says “Sanctify yourselves,” it is the height of presumption and unbelief for us to sit down and say we cannot do it. Is it true that the light is waiting for the light-bearers; that the power to be put forth is waiting for the condition on which it has pleased God to suspend it? Yes, the power is there. We dare not doubt that the Lord is able and willing to put it forth. Therefore “Sanctify yourselves, and the Lord will do wonders among you.” E. R. Conder. 1. AND Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men as spies secretly, saying, Go view the land, and Jericho. And they went, and came into the house of an harlot whose name was 2 Rahab, and lay there. And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, Behold, there came men 3 in hither to-night of the children of Israel to search out the land. And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying, Bring forth the men that are come to thee, which are entered into 4 thine house : for they be come to search out all the land. And the woman took the two men, and hid them ; and she said, Yes, the men came unto me, but I wist not whence they were : 5 and it came to pass about the time of the shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out : whither the men went I wot not : pursue after them quickly ; for ye shall overtake 6 them. But she had brought them up to the roof, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which 7 she had laid in order upon the roof. And the men pursued after them the way to Jordan unto the fords : and as soon as they which pursued after them were gone out, they shut the gate. 8 And before they were laid down, she came up unto them upon the roof ; and she said unto 9 the men, I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that the fear of you is fallen 10 upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you, when ye came out of Egypt ; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were beyond Jordan, unto Sihon and to 11 Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard it, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more spirit in any man, because of you : for the LORD your God, 12 he is God in heaven above, and on earth beneath. Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the LORD, since I have dealt kindly with you, that ye also will deal kindly with my father's 13 house, and give me a true token : and that ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and will deliver our lives from death. 14 And the men said unto her, Our life for yours, if ye utter not this our business ; and it shall 15 be, when the LORD giveth us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee. Then she let them down by a cord through the window : for her house was upon the town wall, and she 16 dwelt upon the wall. And she said unto them, Get you to the mountain, lest the pursuers light upon you ; and hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers be returned : and 17 afterward may ye go your way. And the men said unto her, We will be guiltless of this thine 18 oath which thou hast made us to swear. Behold, when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by : and thou shalt gather unto thee into the house thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy 19 father's household. And it shall be, that whosoever shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, his blood shall be upon his head, and we will be guiltless : and whosoever shall 20 be with thee in the house, his blood shall be on our head, if any hand be upon him. But if thou utter this our business, then we will be guiltless of thine oath which thou hast made us 21 to swear. And she said, According unto your words, so be it. And she sent them away, and 22 they departed : and she bound the scarlet line in the window. And they went, and came unto the mountain, and abode there three days, until the pursuers were returned : and the pursuers 23 sought them throughout all the way, but found them not. Then the two men returned, and descended from the mountain, and passed over, and came to Joshua the son of Nun ; and they 24 told him all that had befallen them. And they said unto Joshua, Truly the LORD hath deliv- ered into our hands all the land ; and moreover all the inhabitants of the land do melt away before us. The command to cross the Jordan involved a direction to make all necessary preparations for that event. Accordingly, instead of enjoining Israel instantly to strike their tents, Joshua turns his attention to providing needful supplies and obtaining the requisite information. The immediate presence of God with them, and the miraculous aid promised them and actually afforded in the crossing of the Jordan, did not lead him to neglect such measures as a wise and prudent leader would take under ordinary circumstances. God lends his succor as it is needed, and to the extent that it is needed. W. H. G. There was something to be done before Joshua took Israel over the river. The crossing of Jordan was the end of their forty years' wandering in the wilderness, but it was the beginning of the conflict which was to put them in possession of Canaan ; and this conflict was likely to be a severe one. The Lord had promised to fight for them ; but they would none the less have to fight. The fulfilment of God's promise was conditional on their own performances. Jericho, the key of Western Palestine, would oppose the first obstacle to the onward march of Israel. Future success or failure would mainly depend on the result of their operations there. As a wise, far-sighted general, therefore, does Joshua, as a first step, send two spies to reconnoitre the strength of this city. E. V. Joshua himself was full of God's Spirit and had the oracle of God ready for his direction ; yet now he goes not to the propitiatory for consultation but to the spies. Except where ordinary means fail us, we may not appeal to the immediate help of God. It was promised Joshua that he should lead Israel into the promised land ; yet he knew that the condition of his provident care was included in that assurance of success. Heaven is promised to us, but not to our carelessness. He that hath set this blessed inheritance before us presupposes our wisdom, faith, holiness. Bp. II. Jericho was the most important town in the Jordan valley. Not only was it conspicuous among the other Canaanitish towns for its walls and gates, and its rich temple filled with gold, silver, iron, brass, and even Mesopotamian drapery, but its situation was such as must always have rendered its occupation necessary to any invader from that quarter. It was the key of Western Palestine, as standing at the entrance of the two main passes into the central mountains. From the issues of the torrent of the Kelt on the south to the copious spring, afterward called "the fountain of Elisha," on the north, the ancient city ran along the base of the mountains, and thus commanded the oasis of the desert valley, the garden or park of verdure, which clustering round these waters has, through the various stages of its long existence, secured its prosperity and grandeur. Behind the city rose the jagged range of the white limestone mountains of Judæa, here presenting one of the few varied and beautiful outlines that can be seen among the southern hills of Palestine. This range is "the mountain" to which the spies fled while their pursuers vainly sought them on the way to the Jordan. A. P. S. 2. It is to be remembered that Rahab lived in the midst of a people, corrupt, abandoned, and profligate to the last degree. Vices of the most enormous and debasing character were practised without reserve, and received the sanction of every class of people. As these sins pervaded all ranks they would cease to be regarded as infamous, and the term applied to Rahab does not indicate a character below the ordinary standard. Bush. An attempt has been made to soften the word by which this woman is designated into that of hostess or innkeeper. But there is no authority either in Hebrew or Greek for such an usage. Enough for us to know, however disreputable her life may have been in former times, she came afterward to occupy an honored place among the saints of God. Twice is she referred to in the New Testament for the excellency of her faith. Once by the Apostle Paul, and again by the Apostle James. Sin is no bar to the mercy of God, or to the favors of Providence, if it be repented of, with "fruits meet for repentance." W. Adams. 4. Hid them. This is justly celebrated by the apostle as an instance of high and heroic faith (Heb. 11 : 31). So strong was her persuasion of the truth of what had been announced to her, so fully was she convinced from what she had heard of the wonders wrought for Israel that their God was the only true God, and consequently that his declared purpose in regard to Canaan would surely come to pass, that she ventures her life upon her faith. She knew that harboring them was exposing herself to the death of a traitor to her country, and yet she runs the risk. Bush.—She contemns her life for the present, that she may save it for the future; neglected her own king and country, for strangers which she never saw; and more feared the destruction of that city before it knew that it had an enemy, than the displeasure and mortal revenge of her king. Bp. H. 5. And now her tongue hides them no less than her hand: her charity was good, her excuse was not good. Evil may not be done that good may come of it: we may do anything but sin for promoting a good cause; and if not in main occasions, how shall God take it that we are not dainty of falsehoods in trifles? Bp. H.—To the teaching of Christianity, we owe the feeling—prevalent among all Christian nations—that a falsehood is a disgrace and a sin; and that a man is bound no less, religiously and morally, by his word than by his oath. All this was unknown to Rahab; who had probably never heard that there was the least harm in lying—much less when an apparently good end was to be answered by it. These considerations may be fairly urged in extenuation of Rahab's falsehood. God himself claims from us according to what we have, and not according to what we have not. In us who have opportunities of better knowledge, untruthfulness must be judged by a different standard here and hereafter. Kit. From the uniform testimony of travellers and missionaries, it is evident that among all heathen nations, particularly those of the East, lying ever has been and still is a practice of universal prevalence, and of the criminality of which they have scarcely any sense. So weak is the feeling of obligation as to the observance of strict veracity, that even apparently sincere converts have the greatest difficulty in freeing themselves from the habit of equivocation, and need to be perpetually admonished on that score. Apart from the above-mentioned consideration, it was a difficult problem to be solved, how she should under the circumstances act according to her faith. She fully believed that what the spies had told her was true. She says not, "I fear," or "I believe," but "I know, that the Lord hath given you the land." Was there then any other conceivable mode by which she could act according to her faith than by practising an imposition upon the king's officers? By the very fact of exercising a firm faith in the divine testimony, she did virtually throw herself upon the side of Israel and unite her interests with theirs. Henceforth their enemies were hers. If the Canaanites had no right to demand the truth of Israel, they had no right to demand it of her. If it would have been right for the Israelites to have recourse to a stratagem to mislead an enemy in arms, we see not why it was not equally right for her. But that the Israelites often did resort to such expedients in carrying on their wars is beyond question, nor do the Scriptures absolutely condemn them. They are certainly as lawful as war itself is. But whether we justify or condemn her conduct, it can afford no precedent to us. Before we can plead her example in justification of treachery or falsehood, we must be circumstanced as she was. But this it is impossible we ever should be. Bush. However it was in this case, we are sure it is our duty to speak every man the truth to his neighbor, to dread and detest lying, and never to do that evil that good may come of it, but God accepts what is sincerely and honestly intended though there be a mixture of frailty and folly in it, and is not extreme to mark what we do amiss. H. 6. "She brought them up to the roof of her house, and hid them with the stalks of flax"—the stalks of flax no doubt just cut down, which she had spread upon the roof of her house to steep and to season. How very minute is this incident and how casually does it present itself to our notice! How unimportant a matter it seems under what the spies were hidden! Enough that it answered the purpose and saved their lives. Could the historian have contemplated for one moment the effect which a trifle about a flax-stalk might have in corroboration of his account of the passage of the Jordan? Is it possible for the most jealous examiner of human testimony to imagine that these flax-stalks were fixed upon above all things in the world for the covering of the spies, because they were known to be ripe with the barley, and the barley was known to be ripe at the Passover, and the Passover was known to be the season when the Israelites set foot in Canaan? Rather would he not fairly and candidly confess that in one particular, at least, of this adventure (the only one which we have an opportunity of checking), a religious attention to truth is manifested. Blunt. He is God in heaven above and in earth beneath. As much as to say, "The Lord your God is both omnipotent and omnipresent;" a remarkable confession considering the previous ignorance and darkness of her mind. It was at once an acknowledgment of the true God, and a condemnation of the false gods and idolatrous worship of her countrymen, and showed a supernatural influence of God upon her soul. Bush. The faith of Rahab was a religious faith: it had God for its object. The terror of the Lord had fallen upon her in common with all the people; and she knew that He had given to Israel their land. She believed the report of those great things which had been done for the invaders now upon the borders of their territory; and this belief was ripened with her into a faith that the God of Israel was God in heaven and on earth. Accordingly she perished not: she was rescued from the destruction brought on the families of Jericho—a salvation extended to her kinsfolk; and we have reason to believe that she was made the heir and partaker of a higher salvation in virtue of her faith. T. C. In that she received the messengers, and sent them out another way, she did it by faith, such a faith as set her above the fear of man, even of the wrath of the king. She believed, upon the report she had heard of the wonders wrought for Israel, that their God was the only true God, and that therefore their declared design upon Canaan would undoubtedly take effect, and in this faith she sided with them, protected them, and courted their favor. Had she said, "I believe God is yours and Canaan yours, but I dare not show you any kindness," her faith had been dead and inactive, and would not have justified her. But by this it appeared to be alive that she exposed herself to the utmost peril, even of life, in obedience to her faith. Those only are true believers that can find in their hearts to venture for God; and those that by faith take the Lord for their God, take his people for their people and cast in their lot among them. H. Remembering who, and what, and among whom she had been all her life-time, her emphatic confession, that Jehovah, the God of Israel, "He is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath;" her unwavering faith in the truth of His promises, which moved her to self-denying action at such danger and sacrifice, and supported her in it; her separation from her countrymen; her conduct toward the spies at the risk of her life—all show her to have had that faith which "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen;" not a "dead faith," "without works," but one which "wrought with her works, and by works was made perfect." And He who "giveth more grace" to them who wisely use what they have, marvellously owned and blessed this "first-truits" from among the Gentiles. Her history, which, in all its circumstances, bears a remarkable analogy to that of the woman of Samaria, is recorded for the instruction of the Church. And, as in the case of the Hebrew midwives who had preserved Israel, God also "made her a house." She became the wife of Salmon, a prince of the tribe of Judah, and from her sprang in direct line both David (Ruth 4: 21) and David's Lord (Matt. 1: 4). A. E. 12. Swear unto me by the Lord. This proposal still further displays the sincerity and the strength of her faith. While the people of Israel, with the miracles of the divine power constantly before their eyes, were incessantly prone to stagger at the promises and give way to unbelief, she, upon the mere hearsay report of these wonders, is so firmly persuaded of their truth that she desires to enter covenant with the spies for her own preservation and that of her family. Though they were now in perilous circumstances, shut up within the walls of Jericho and surrounded by enemies, yet she treats with them as if they had already stormed the city and had the power of life and death in their hands. Bush. 16. She directs them to leave the high road and abscond in the mountains till the pursuers were returned, for till then they could not safely venture over Jordan. Those that are in the way of God and their duty may expect that Providence will protect them, but that will not excuse them from taking all prudent methods for their own safety. God will keep us, but we must not wilfully expose ourselves. Providence must be trusted but not tempted. H. 18. That scarlet cord was to be put to another use. After they had been lowered down outside of the city wall, the spies called out to Rahab, "Behold when we come into the land thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by"—and this was to be a sign of security for her and for all her house in the coming days of carnage. That which she had used for the preservation of the spies, was to be the instrument of her own preservation afterward. The good which she did to others, by a scarlet cord from her window, was to be abundantly compensated by the self-same and not another scarlet thread pendent from the very same window. The world is full of wonderful compensations. Many inequalities, many things incomplete, remind us of the necessity of a future judgment and a future redress; but there are manifold rewards this side of the final Assize. These are sometimes so striking that they have come to be called "poetic justice." There is something like romance in the manner in which good and evil meet with retribution by the reaction of their own instruments. Haman is hung on the same gallows he had erected for Mordecai. The bread cast upon the waters is found again after many days. Favors conferred upon others are returned in blessings upon ourselves. That which we do in the way of honoring God and serving our fellow-men, is made in time and in turn a blessing and comfort and honor to ourselves. Ebed-melech the Ethiopian was kind to Jeremiah when he was shut up in prison, and so Jeremiah was bidden to say to Ebed-melech, in prospect of the city's destruction, "I will surely deliver thee and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee, because thou hast put thy trust in Me, saith the Lord." W. Adams. Behold, this is the saving color: the destroying angel sees the door-cheeks of the Israelites sprinkled with red and passes them over: the warriors of Israel see the window of Rahab dyed with red, and save her family from the common destruction. If our souls have this tincture of the precious blood of our Saviour, upon our doors or windows, we are safe. But if any one of the brethren of Rahab shall fly from this red flag, and rove about the city, and not contain himself under that roof which hid the spies, it is in vain for him to tell the avengers that he is Rahab's brother: that title will not save him in the street; within doors it will. If we will wander out of the limits that God hath set us, we cast ourselves out of his protection; we cannot challenge the benefit of his gracious preservation and our most precious redemption, when we fly out into the by-ways of our own hearts, not for innocence, but for safety and harbor. The Church is that house of Rahab, which is saved when all Jericho shall perish. While we keep us in the lists thereof we cannot miscarry, through misopinion; but when once we run out of it, let us look for judgment from God, and error in our own judgment. Bp. H. 22. Abode there three days. Not three entire days, but one whole day and part of two others. They were sent out on the sixth day of the month Nisan, and escaped from Jericho the same night. The seventh day they spent in the mountains. On the eighth they returned to the camp. These three days are reckoned in the same manner as the three days of our Lord's burial. Bush.—23, 24.** After they had been concealed for three days in the mountains, they returned and related to Joshua what they had found, and said, "The Lord hath delivered into our hands all the land; for even all the inhabitants of the land do faint because of us." As this had been prophesied in Ex. 15: 15; 23: 27; De. 11: 25, and was now fulfilled, the faith of Rahab so much encouraged the men that they understood still better the power of their God, and put a filial confidence in his firm purpose to give them the land, and thereby strengthened the faith both of their leader and of his people. C. G. B.—These two spies act, as Caleb and Joshua had done thirty-eight years before. They took no note of Jericho's great walls, and of her vigilant king, but of the Lord's preparation for Israel's victory. Crosby. PREPARATION FOR MOVEMENT. CONTINGENT FROM REUBEN, GAD, AND HALF-MANASSEH. ADVANCE TO THE JORDAN. 3 6 And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people. 7 And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, 8 that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. And thou shalt command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye are come to the brink of the waters of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan. 9. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the LORD 10 your God. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Hivite, 11 and the Perizzite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Jebusite. Behold, the ark of 12 the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. Now therefore 13 take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, for every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass, when the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off, even the 14 waters that come down from above; and they shall stand in one heap. And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents, to pass over Jordan, the priests that bare the ark of 15 the covenant being before the people; and when they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (for 16 Jordan overfloweth all its banks all the time of harvest), that the waters which came down from above stood, and rose up in one heap, a great way off, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan: and those that went down toward the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, were 17 wholly cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho. And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all 18 Israel passed over on dry ground, until all the nation were passed clean over Jordan. For the priests which bare the ark stood in the midst of Jordan, until everything was finished that the LORD commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hastened and passed over. And the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, passed over armed before the children of Israel, as Moses spake unto them: about forty thousand ready armed for war passed over before the LORD unto battle, to the plains of Jericho. 4 1 And it came to pass, when all the nation were clean passed over Jordan, that the LORD 2 spake unto Joshua, saying, Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man, 3 and command ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm, twelve stones, and carry them over with you, and lay them 4 down in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night. Then Joshua called the twelve 5 men, whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man: and Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the 6 tribes of the children of Israel: that this may be a sign among you, that when your children 7 ask in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? then ye shall say unto them, Because the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial 8 unto the children of Israel for ever. And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the LORD spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel; and they carried them over with them 9 unto the place where they lodged, and laid them down there. And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood: and they are there, unto this day. 15 And the LORD spake unto Joshua, saying, Command the priests that bare the ark of the 16 testimony, that they come up out of Jordan. Joshua therefore commanded the priests, saying, 17 come ye up out of Jordan. And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over, that the ark of the LORD passed over, and the priests, in the presence of the people. 18 And it came to pass, when the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD were come up out of the midst of Jordan, and the soles of the priests' feet were lifted up unto the dry ground, that the waters of Jordan returned unto their place, and went over all its banks, as 19 aforetime. And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and 20 encamped in Gilgal, on the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones, which they took 21 out of Jordan, did Joshua set up in Gilgal. And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, 22 When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? 23 then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For the LORD your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were 24 passed over: that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the LORD, that it is 14 mighty; that they may fear the LORD your God forever. On that day the LORD magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they feared Moses, all the days of his life. Order of Events in Connection with the Passage of the Jordan: (1) At Joshua's bidding, the priests take up the Ark, and go before the people unto the brink of Jordan. (2) Jehovah assures Joshua that He will magnify him in the sight of all Israel. (3) Joshua announces the purpose of the coming miracle, and definitely states the exact form in which it will occur. (4) The event itself is narrated, as taking place in the form indicated by Joshua. (5) The priests bear the Ark and set it down in the midst of Jordan. (6) The entire host of Israel pass over the dried bed of the river. (7) Twelve previously designated men take twelve stones from the midst of Jordan, and lay them down at their lodging place on the farther side. (8) Twelve witnessing stones are also set up in the midst of Jordan, where the Ark rested. (9) Then, by special command of Jehovah, the priests bear the Ark to the farther shore. (10) Instantly, the waters of Jordan returned to their place. (11) The twelve stones are set up in Gilgal as a monumental witness of the miraculous passage of the river Jordan. (12) Joshua bids the people to instruct their children in the meaning and design of this monument. (A transposition of verses 10-14 of ch. 4 is made in the interest of orderly statement, and a more intelligent apprehension.) B. Between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, a distance of 66 miles, the Jordan valley, or, as it is here called, the "Ghor," is from one to twelve miles wide; the valley is in some places exceedingly fertile, in others perfectly barren; it is bounded on the west by the mountain system of Palestine, and toward the sunrising by the edge of the great eastern plateau. The river descends with innumerable windings through a lower valley of its own, from 40 to 100 feet below the level of the Ghor, and along its margin there is a belt of tropical jungle, which is frequently alluded to in the Bible as the "excellency" or "pride" of Jordan. So tortuous is the course of the river, that though the two seas are only 66 miles apart, its actual length is about 200, and in this distance there is a fall of 666 feet. The Dead Sea, which receives the waters of the Jordan, is 1292 feet below the Mediterranean, and is about 46 miles long, its greatest width being ten and a half miles. On the east and west the lake is shut in by the barren hills which rise abruptly from its shores, but at its southern end there is a level plain—and then the ground rises to the ridge 787 feet above the sea—which separates the waters of the Dead Sea from those of the Red Sea. (See N. T., Vol. I., p. 656.) 3:15. We are told that Jordan "overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest," April and May; and in 1 Chron. 12:15, that Jordan had "overflown all his banks" in the first month—that is, in the month Nisan, which commenced with the new moon of March or April. The water in the Jordan is at its highest level in March, April, and May, after the cessation of the rainy season, but the physical features of the country are such that no sudden rise of the river would be likely to cause a large inundation, the Sea of Galilee acting as a regulator to the flow of water, and the terraced banks of Jordan preventing the spread of its waters over any large portion of the valley. A more correct rendering of the original would be that Jordan "is full up to all his banks" or runs with full banks, and this is true at the present day, the river rising to the level of its banks after the rains, and only overflowing them to a short distance in exceptional places. The great depressed valley of the Jordan formed a natural division of the country, dividing it sharply into two regions, and this separation was the more strongly marked by the difficulty of crossing the river at certain seasons of the year, and also of obtaining access to it, the only roads to the valley being rough paths down a few steep watercourses. Wilson. Back of the proper channel of the river is a first terrace, two hundred yards, or in places much more, in width. This is liable to be overflowed, and is enriched by the deposit of the river. Back of this is a second shelf of land, from fifty to one hundred and fifty feet above the first. This is covered with a gray, salty soil, much cut up by the rain-flow, and is studded with clumps of bushy shrubbery. Back of this plain the land rises to a third terrace stretching to the foot of the mountains, which here are seven miles away on the west. On the east side of the river a similar plain stretches to the foot of the Moab hills. This plain is "The Plain of Jericho" or "The Plain of Jordan." It is fourteen miles east and west by eight miles north and south. The Ghor is narrower farther to the north, in some places forming a plain not more than three miles in width. Though now for the most part a wilderness, irrigation would restore to it its ancient productiveness. The waters of the upper Jordan, now flowing into the Dead Sea, could be made to convert the Ghor into a garden. Dulles. The river overflows during harvest. On the 1st of April, I found barley harvest about Jericho already ended, the river full to the brim; and saw evidence in abundance that it had overflowed its banks very recently. Harvest in the vale of the Lower Jordan comes on about the middle of March. This seems early, but the reason is obvious. The valley at Jericho is thirteen hundred feet below the level of the ocean, is sheltered from cold winds on all sides by mountains of great height, and is open to the warm southern breezes from the deeper basin of the Dead Sea. It has therefore the climate of the tropics, though in the latitude of Jerusalem. W. M. Thompson. 3 : 10. From what God was now about to do for them, he infers an assurance of what he would yet further do. This he mentions first, so much was his heart upon it, and so great a satisfaction did it give him. "Hereby ye shall know that the living God (the true God and God of power) is among you in this great undertaking; and therefore you shall, nay, he himself will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites." So that the dividing of Jordan was intended to be to them a sure token of God's presence with them, and a sure pledge of the conquest of Canaan. H. 12. This command of Joshua to the tribes was given in anticipation of the Divine direction (4 : 2), concerning the monumental stones to be taken from the midst of the river and set up on the farther side. It was a simple order to choose and appoint the representative men, that they might be in place and readiness for the work assigned. B. 16, 17. "Then the waters which came down from above stood, and rose up upon an heap very far and wide, near the town of Adama that is beside Zaretan: but those that came down toward the sea into the plain failed and were cut off. So the people crossed over, and the priests stood in the middle in the open place appointed them by God, upon dry ground (until all the people, passing them, had gone through Jordan)." The time chosen by God for the miracle was most suitable on account of the harvest; for the place where they were now to encamp gave them an early foretaste of the fruitfulness of the land. Broad fields, interspersed toward Jericho with groves of palm-trees, characterized the country. The Israelites had not seen such a fruitful land since they left Egypt. And thus at their very arrival crops stood ready for them on their stems. C. G. B. The same power that divided the Red Sea before Moses, divides Jordan before Joshua; that they might see the hand of God as present with Joshua to bring them into Canaan, as it was with Moses to bring them out of Egypt. Bp. H. —As at the Red Sea, so at the river, the simple duty of Israel was to "go forward;" and the Lord, who had taken their fathers through the sea, took the children through the stream of Jordan. Wonders were now done by the sacred ark; and, as the feet of the priests, bearing that symbol of God's throne, touched the river at its brink, the waters of Jordan were held back on the upper side, and those below running down to the Dead Sea, a broad passage was opened to the mighty host. All passed over dry-shod, while the priests, with the ark, stood still to the last moment in the bed of the river. D. F. 4 : 10. And the people hastened and passed over. They made the best use of the opportunity afforded them, and hastened across the river while thus laid bare for them. But there was no time for presumptuous delays. W. H. G. —They were indeed "Hebrews"—men from the other side—now, and would set themselves to the dangerous task before them with courage. Well begun is half done; and God would not divide the river for them to thrust them into a tiger's den, where they would be torn to pieces. Retreat was impossible now. A new page in their history was turned. The desert was as unreachable as Egypt. The passage of the Jordan rounded off the epoch which the passage of the Red Sea introduced, and began a new era. A. M. 4 : 8. Took twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan. It appears that the Jordan continued perfectly dry for some time after the Israelites had passed over; that is, till the priests removed from the place where they stood. They took twelve stones—great stones, as the Hebrew word imports, and carried them to their lodging place, to Gilgal where they lodged that night. Bp. Patrick. 11. Through all the stir the ark was still. Over all the march it watched. So long as one Israelite was in the channel it remained, a silent presence, to ensure his safety. It let their rate of speed determine the length of its standing there. It waited for the slowest foot and the weariest laggard. God makes his very present help of the same length as our necessities, and lets us beat the time to which he conforms. Not till the last loiterer has struggled to the farther shore does he cease by his presence to keep us safe on the strange road which by his presence he has opened for us. A. M. 18. Then, when the whole multitude had passed over, the ark, which had hitherto stood motionless on the eastern bank, on the Levites' shoulders, descends into the bed and mounts the other side of the ravine. As soon as it has reached a place of perfect security, and "the soles of the priests' feet were lifted up unto the dry land"—the miracle ceasing the instant the necessity for it ceased—the imprisoned waters set free from the restraining Hand, "returned unto their place." E. V. The waters of the river flowed down according to their usual course, and soon filled the channel again. This makes it yet more evident that the stop which had now been given to the river was not from any secret natural cause, but purely from the power of God's presence and for the sake of his Israel; for when Israel's turn was served and the token of his presence was removed, immediately the water went forward again. So that if it be asked, What ailed thee, O Jordan, that thou wast driven back? it must be answered, It was purely in obedience to the God of Israel and in kindness to the Israel of God: there is therefore none like unto the God of Jeshurun; happy also art thou, O Israel! who is like unto thee, O people? H.—The intervention of Omnipotence lasted until its purpose was completely accomplished. No tribe, no individual, was left behind. The waters were not released one moment too soon. And God's providential care is equally minute and thoughtful, and so is the bestowment of his grace. W. H. G. 20. At the passage of the Jordan, one group of twelve stones was formed in the bed of the river (4 : 9), to serve as a landmark of the station of the priests who bore the ark while the members of all the tribes crossed over, and as an affidavit of the miraculous suspension of the river; while another group of twelve stones was formed on the Jordan plain, to serve as an everlasting remembrancer of the river-transit at flood-time by divine aid. Paine.—These stones were planted on the upper terrace of the plain of the Jordan, and became the centre of the first sanctuary of the Holy Land,—the first place pronounced "holy," the "sacred place" of the Jordan valley, where the tabernacle remained till it was fixed at Shiloh. Gilgal long retained reminiscences of its ancient sanctity. Stanley. Gilgal stood "in the east border of Jericho." Its position can be laid down accurately, though but faint ruins mark its site. Its interest centres in its having been the first camping-ground of the hosts of Israel after crossing the Jordan. Here were set up the twelve stones taken from the bed of the river as a witness. Here the younger Israelites were circumcised, and here the first Passover was kept in the land. The site, a mile and a half from Er Riha, the modern Jericho, is marked by a number of artificial mounds called Tellayla't Jiljuleh. Tristram. —There was another Gilgal six miles north of Bethel, connected with the lives of Elijah and Elisha (2 K. 2 : 2). There were several other towns of the name of Gilgal, some of which are mentioned in De. 11 : 30, and in Josh. 12 : 23; 15 : 7. Crosby. 21. This memorial pile stood for ages to suggest to the youth of Canaan the inquiry, What mean these stones? and to afford to Hebrew fathers the opportunity of repeating and so perpetuating the ancient story. So let all the great works of God be held forever in the hearts of his people. It is wholesome to fathers to repeat the story, wholesome to children to hear it and place it deep in their memories, till they in their turn become fathers and tell it to their children. H. C.—24. The twofold lesson of this memorial was, "that all nations of the earth might know the hand of Jehovah that it is strong," and "that they [Israel] might fear Jehovah your God always." In regard to the first of these lessons, we mark the larger missionary hope set before Israel. The heathen nations were to learn the knowledge of Jehovah's hand. This carries us far beyond the statement that the terror of Israel should fall upon them (Josh. 2 : 9). Thus at the very entrance of Israel into Canaan, and by that divine interposition which made it possible, was the future universal kingdom to be advanced, the foundation of which lies in the fact that Jehovah is "Lord of all the earth." A. E.—The stones at Gilgal, though long ago scattered, emphasize, through the record of them, that initial truth which God would ever have us make the great foundation of religion; a truth which lights up a train of inquiry and revelation that shines more and more unto the perfect day of Christ,—that, however invisible God's hand may commonly be, it is ever present, operating for the protection and reward of them that covenant to keep his law. Cable. These gray stones preached at once the duty of remembering and the danger of forgetting the past mercies of God. The stones were set up because Israel remembered, but also lest Israel should forget. We often think of the Jews as monsters of ingratitude; but we should more truly learn the lesson of their history, if we regarded them as fair, average men, and asked ourselves whether our recollection of God's goodness to us is much more vivid than theirs. Unless we make distinct and frequent efforts to recall, we shall certainly forget God's goodness. The cultivation of thankful remembrance is a very large part of practical religion; and it is not by accident that the Psalmist puts it in the middle, between hope and obedience, when he says "that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments" (Ps. 78 : 7). The memorial stones further proclaimed the duty of parental instruction in God's mercies. Notwithstanding all differences in means of obtaining knowledge, the old law remains in full force, that the parent is the natural and most powerful instructor in the ways of God. The Jewish father was not to send his child to some Levite or other to get his question answered, but was to answer it himself. The same principle which led to the erection of this simple monument reaches its highest and sacredest instance in the institution of the Lord's Supper, in which Jesus condescends to avail himself of material symbols in order to secure a firmer place in treacherous memories. He might well have expected that such stupendous love could never be forgotten; but he knoweth our frame, and trusts some share in keeping his death vividly in the hearts of his people to the humble ministry of bread and wine. Strange that we should need to be reminded of the death which it is life to remember! Blessed that, needing it, we have the need so tenderly met, and that he does not disdain to accept loving memories which slumber till stirred by such poor reminders of his unspeakable love. A. M. 14. On that day Jehovah magnified Joshua.** As he had declared (Josh. 3 : 7) that he would do. The greatness resulting to Joshua from the event of that day was due to the evidence afforded that God was present with him in a conspicuous manner, and that he made him an instrument through whom to exert and to display his power. No higher honor can be put upon any man than to have it appear that God is with him and works through him and for him. W. H. G.—The miraculous passage of the Red Sea was God's autographic signature to the commission of Moses. In the same way the miraculous passage of the Jordan was God's autographic signature to the commission of Joshua. C. H. P. The tenth day of the first month was the eventful one—four days before their feast of the Passover, and among the first days of the barley harvest. When nightfall came over Israel they were in the long-promised land. They had crossed the Jordan. They were not only in Canaan, but were there with one more fresh testimony that their God was with them. Eventful days were before them; scenes of war and blood were in prospect; but the men of faith throughout all the camp of Israel sang their evening song with glad heart and rested on their arms feeling that it was enough for them that their God was there; had brought them into his own land of promise, and would carry the work of its conquest through in his own time and way. H. C.—The importance of this miracle can hardly be overestimated. The people were now about to enter on a fresh stage of their national existence, and that under a new leader. The assurance of the continued presence and protection of Jehovah, afforded by the drying up of Jordan, was exactly what was needed to encourage their fainting hearts, and secure for Joshua, accredited by so mighty a sign, the loyal allegiance of the people. This is the light in which this miracle is set before us in the words of God to Joshua. Another purpose to be answered by this exercise of the Divine power in behalf of Israel, was to deepen the feeling of discouragement already, as we have seen, existing in the minds of the Canaanites, and thus prepare for their easier and complete overthrow. That this was the effect of this miracle is next plainly stated by the sacred historian. E. V. # The Miraculous Character of the Crossing. The passage of this rapid, though not wide, river at the most unfavorable season, was more manifestly miraculous, if possible, than that of the "Red Sea." It seems, therefore, to have been providentially designed to silence cavils respecting the former; and it was done in the noonday, in the face of the sun, and in the presence of the neighboring inhabitants; and struck terror into the kings of the Amorites and Canaanites, westward of the river, whose "heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel." Hales.—It requires no argument to prove that this fact was miraculous: it was not accidental or it could not have been foreseen (verses 5, 10, 13); it was not natural, for the river was at its height (verse 15), and the waters that had been descending stood on an heap (verse 16); it was not the effect of art, for any artificial alteration of the channel the people must have known; and besides, the effect could not have been instantaneous. Graves. This seems to us even a more signal miracle than the passage of the Red Sea; and it appears as if expressly framed not only to effect its own objects but to relieve the other from all naturalistic interpretations. In the course of the Red Sea passage we hear travellers and scholars talk learnedly about east winds and tides and shallows, so that the fact, as a demonstration of Divine power, is explained away or attenuated. But nothing of this is possible in the case of the passage of the Jordan. It was a miracle or it was nothing. There has not been and there cannot be any explanation of it on natural grounds. And if men are obliged to admit this—unless they would deny the authority of the narrative altogether—it becomes scarcely worth their while to tamper with the Red Sea miracle. Kit.—Given the importance of Israel as the depositaries of revelation, there is nothing unreasonable in a miracle which so powerfully contributed to their conquest of Canaan, and we have yet to learn that there is anything unreasonable in the belief that they were the depositaries of revelation. The fundamental postulate of the Old Testament is a supernatural revelation, and that opens the door for any miracle needful for its accomplishment. We should be very slow to pronounce on what is worthy of God; but any man who believes in a divine revelation given to the world through Israel, may well believe in such a miracle as this at such a moment of their history. A. M. The Egypt-history, the wilderness-history, the Jordan-history, never become obsolete. The Books of Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, are almost as valid histories of our individual lives as of the life of the Hebrews at large. These chapters, and this third of Joshua, are like some of the Psalms of David in this respect, that though so old they still carry with easy grace the sentiments and experience of to-day with which the men of to-day lade them. It is one of the marvellous characteristics of these old Bible-narratives that they still furnish us better figures and phrases than any new ones we can invent for describing events and transitions in our own experience. C. H. P. What will it avail us to have passed a wilderness, if the waves of Jordan should swallow us up? But the same hand that hath made the way hard hath made it sure: he that made the wilderness comfortable will make Jordan dry; he will master all difficulties for us; and those things which we most feared, will he make most sovereign and beneficial to us. O God, as we have trusted thee with the beginning, so will we with the finishing of our glory. Faithful art thou that hast promised, which wilt also do it. Bp. H. THE COVENANT RENEWED, WITH CIRCUMCISION AND THE PASSOVER. THE ANGEL-JEHOVAH APPEARS TO JOSHUA. 3 6 And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people. 7 And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, 8 that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. And thou shalt command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye are come to the brink of the waters of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan. 9. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the LORD 10 your God. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Hivite, 11 and the Perizzite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Jebusite. Behold, the ark of 12 the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. Now therefore 13 take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, for every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass, when the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off, even the 14 waters that come down from above; and they shall stand in one heap. And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents, to pass over Jordan, the priests that bare the ark of 15 the covenant being before the people; and when they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (for 16 Jordan overfloweth all its banks all the time of harvest), that the waters which came down from above stood, and rose up in one heap, a great way off, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan: and those that went down toward the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, were 17 wholly cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho. And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all 18 Israel passed over on dry ground, until all the nation were passed clean over Jordan. For the priests which bare the ark stood in the midst of Jordan, until everything was finished that the LORD commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hastened and passed over. And the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, passed over armed before the children of Israel, as Moses spake unto them: about forty thousand ready armed for war passed over before the LORD unto battle, to the plains of Jericho. 4 1 And it came to pass, when all the nation were clean passed over Jordan, that the LORD 2 spake unto Joshua, saying, Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man, 3 and command ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm, twelve stones, and carry them over with you, and lay them 4 down in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night. Then Joshua called the twelve 5 men, whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man: and Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the 6 tribes of the children of Israel: that this may be a sign among you, that when your children 7 ask in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? then ye shall say unto them, Because the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial 8 unto the children of Israel for ever. And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the LORD spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel; and they carried them over with them 9 unto the place where they lodged, and laid them down there. And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood: and they are there, unto this day. 15 And the LORD spake unto Joshua, saying, Command the priests that bare the ark of the 16 testimony, that they come up out of Jordan. Joshua therefore commanded the priests, saying, 17 come ye up out of Jordan. And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over, that the ark of the LORD passed over, and the priests, in the presence of the people. 18 And it came to pass, when the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD were come up out of the midst of Jordan, and the soles of the priests' feet were lifted up unto the dry ground, that the waters of Jordan returned unto their place, and went over all its banks, as 19 aforetime. And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and 20 encamped in Gilgal, on the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones, which they took 21 out of Jordan, did Joshua set up in Gilgal. And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, 22 When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? 23 then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For the LORD your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were 24 passed over: that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the LORD, that it is 14 mighty; that they may fear the LORD your God forever. On that day the LORD magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they feared Moses, all the days of his life. Order of Events in Connection with the Passage of the Jordan: (1) At Joshua's bidding, the priests take up the Ark, and go before the people unto the brink of Jordan. (2) Jehovah assures Joshua that He will magnify him in the sight of all Israel. (3) Joshua announces the purpose of the coming miracle, and definitely states the exact form in which it will occur. (4) The event itself is narrated, as taking place in the form indicated by Joshua. (5) The priests bear the Ark and set it down in the midst of Jordan. (6) The entire host of Israel pass over the dried bed of the river. (7) Twelve previously designated men take twelve stones from the midst of Jordan, and lay them down at their lodging place on the farther side. (8) Twelve witnessing stones are also set up in the midst of Jordan, where the Ark rested. (9) Then, by special command of Jehovah, the priests bear the Ark to the farther shore. (10) Instantly, the waters of Jordan returned to their place. (11) The twelve stones are set up in Gilgal as a monumental witness of the miraculous passage of the river Jordan. (12) Joshua bids the people to instruct their children in the meaning and design of this monument. (A transposition of verses 10-14 of ch. 4 is made in the interest of orderly statement, and a more intelligent apprehension.) B. Between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, a distance of 66 miles, the Jordan valley, or, as it is here called, the "Ghor," is from one to twelve miles wide; the valley is in some places exceedingly fertile, in others perfectly barren; it is bounded on the west by the mountain system of Palestine, and toward the sunrising by the edge of the great eastern plateau. The river descends with innumerable windings through a lower valley of its own, from 40 to 100 feet below the level of the Ghor, and along its margin there is a belt of tropical jungle, which is frequently alluded to in the Bible as the "excellency" or "pride" of Jordan. So tortuous is the course of the river, that though the two seas are only 66 miles apart, its actual length is about 200, and in this distance there is a fall of 666 feet. The Dead Sea, which receives the waters of the Jordan, is 1292 feet below the Mediterranean, and is about 46 miles long, its greatest width being ten and a half miles. On the east and west the lake is shut in by the barren hills which rise abruptly from its shores, but at its southern end there is a level plain—and then the ground rises to the ridge 787 feet above the sea—which separates the waters of the Dead Sea from those of the Red Sea. (See N. T., Vol. I., p. 656.) 3:15. We are told that Jordan "overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest," April and May; and in 1 Chron. 12:15, that Jordan had "overflown all his banks" in the first month—that is, in the month Nisan, which commenced with the new moon of March or April. The water in the Jordan is at its highest level in March, April, and May, after the cessation of the rainy season, but the physical features of the country are such that no sudden rise of the river would be likely to cause a large inundation, the Sea of Galilee acting as a regulator to the flow of water, and the terraced banks of Jordan preventing the spread of its waters over any large portion of the valley. A more correct rendering of the original would be that Jordan "is full up to all his banks" or runs with full banks, and this is true at the present day, the river rising to the level of its banks after the rains, and only overflowing them to a short distance in exceptional places. The great depressed valley of the Jordan formed a natural division of the country, dividing it sharply into two regions, and this separation was the more strongly marked by the difficulty of crossing the river at certain seasons of the year, and also of obtaining access to it, the only roads to the valley being rough paths down a few steep watercourses. Wilson. Back of the proper channel of the river is a first terrace, two hundred yards, or in places much more, in width. This is liable to be overflowed, and is enriched by the deposit of the river. Back of this is a second shelf of land, from fifty to one hundred and fifty feet above the first. This is covered with a gray, salty soil, much cut up by the rain-flow, and is studded with clumps of bushy shrubbery. Back of this plain the land rises to a third terrace stretching to the foot of the mountains, which here are seven miles away on the west. On the east side of the river a similar plain stretches to the foot of the Moab hills. This plain is "The Plain of Jericho" or "The Plain of Jordan." It is fourteen miles east and west by eight miles north and south. The Ghor is narrower farther to the north, in some places forming a plain not more than three miles in width. Though now for the most part a wilderness, irrigation would restore to it its ancient productiveness. The waters of the upper Jordan, now flowing into the Dead Sea, could be made to convert the Ghor into a garden. Dulles. The river overflows during harvest. On the 1st of April, I found barley harvest about Jericho already ended, the river full to the brim; and saw evidence in abundance that it had overflowed its banks very recently. Harvest in the vale of the Lower Jordan comes on about the middle of March. This seems early, but the reason is obvious. The valley at Jericho is thirteen hundred feet below the level of the ocean, is sheltered from cold winds on all sides by mountains of great height, and is open to the warm southern breezes from the deeper basin of the Dead Sea. It has therefore the climate of the tropics, though in the latitude of Jerusalem. W. M. Thompson. 3 : 10. From what God was now about to do for them, he infers an assurance of what he would yet further do. This he mentions first, so much was his heart upon it, and so great a satisfaction did it give him. "Hereby ye shall know that the living God (the true God and God of power) is among you in this great undertaking; and therefore you shall, nay, he himself will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites." So that the dividing of Jordan was intended to be to them a sure token of God's presence with them, and a sure pledge of the conquest of Canaan. H. 12. This command of Joshua to the tribes was given in anticipation of the Divine direction (4 : 2), concerning the monumental stones to be taken from the midst of the river and set up on the farther side. It was a simple order to choose and appoint the representative men, that they might be in place and readiness for the work assigned. B. 16, 17. "Then the waters which came down from above stood, and rose up upon an heap very far and wide, near the town of Adama that is beside Zaretan: but those that came down toward the sea into the plain failed and were cut off. So the people crossed over, and the priests stood in the middle in the open place appointed them by God, upon dry ground (until all the people, passing them, had gone through Jordan)." The time chosen by God for the miracle was most suitable on account of the harvest; for the place where they were now to encamp gave them an early foretaste of the fruitfulness of the land. Broad fields, interspersed toward Jericho with groves of palm-trees, characterized the country. The Israelites had not seen such a fruitful land since they left Egypt. And thus at their very arrival crops stood ready for them on their stems. C. G. B. The same power that divided the Red Sea before Moses, divides Jordan before Joshua; that they might see the hand of God as present with Joshua to bring them into Canaan, as it was with Moses to bring them out of Egypt. Bp. H. —As at the Red Sea, so at the river, the simple duty of Israel was to "go forward;" and the Lord, who had taken their fathers through the sea, took the children through the stream of Jordan. Wonders were now done by the sacred ark; and, as the feet of the priests, bearing that symbol of God's throne, touched the river at its brink, the waters of Jordan were held back on the upper side, and those below running down to the Dead Sea, a broad passage was opened to the mighty host. All passed over dry-shod, while the priests, with the ark, stood still to the last moment in the bed of the river. D. F. 4 : 10. And the people hastened and passed over. They made the best use of the opportunity afforded them, and hastened across the river while thus laid bare for them. But there was no time for presumptuous delays. W. H. G. —They were indeed "Hebrews"—men from the other side—now, and would set themselves to the dangerous task before them with courage. Well begun is half done; and God would not divide the river for them to thrust them into a tiger's den, where they would be torn to pieces. Retreat was impossible now. A new page in their history was turned. The desert was as unreachable as Egypt. The passage of the Jordan rounded off the epoch which the passage of the Red Sea introduced, and began a new era. A. M. 4 : 8. Took twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan. It appears that the Jordan continued perfectly dry for some time after the Israelites had passed over; that is, till the priests removed from the place where they stood. They took twelve stones—great stones, as the Hebrew word imports, and carried them to their lodging place, to Gilgal where they lodged that night. Bp. Patrick. 11. Through all the stir the ark was still. Over all the march it watched. So long as one Israelite was in the channel it remained, a silent presence, to ensure his safety. It let their rate of speed determine the length of its standing there. It waited for the slowest foot and the weariest laggard. God makes his very present help of the same length as our necessities, and lets us beat the time to which he conforms. Not till the last loiterer has struggled to the farther shore does he cease by his presence to keep us safe on the strange road which by his presence he has opened for us. A. M. 18. Then, when the whole multitude had passed over, the ark, which had hitherto stood motionless on the eastern bank, on the Levites' shoulders, descends into the bed and mounts the other side of the ravine. As soon as it has reached a place of perfect security, and "the soles of the priests' feet were lifted up unto the dry land"—the miracle ceasing the instant the necessity for it ceased—the imprisoned waters set free from the restraining Hand, "returned unto their place." E. V. The waters of the river flowed down according to their usual course, and soon filled the channel again. This makes it yet more evident that the stop which had now been given to the river was not from any secret natural cause, but purely from the power of God's presence and for the sake of his Israel; for when Israel's turn was served and the token of his presence was removed, immediately the water went forward again. So that if it be asked, What ailed thee, O Jordan, that thou wast driven back? it must be answered, It was purely in obedience to the God of Israel and in kindness to the Israel of God: there is therefore none like unto the God of Jeshurun; happy also art thou, O Israel! who is like unto thee, O people? H.—The intervention of Omnipotence lasted until its purpose was completely accomplished. No tribe, no individual, was left behind. The waters were not released one moment too soon. And God's providential care is equally minute and thoughtful, and so is the bestowment of his grace. W. H. G. 20. At the passage of the Jordan, one group of twelve stones was formed in the bed of the river (4 : 9), to serve as a landmark of the station of the priests who bore the ark while the members of all the tribes crossed over, and as an affidavit of the miraculous suspension of the river; while another group of twelve stones was formed on the Jordan plain, to serve as an everlasting remembrancer of the river-transit at flood-time by divine aid. Paine.—These stones were planted on the upper terrace of the plain of the Jordan, and became the centre of the first sanctuary of the Holy Land,—the first place pronounced "holy," the "sacred place" of the Jordan valley, where the tabernacle remained till it was fixed at Shiloh. Gilgal long retained reminiscences of its ancient sanctity. Stanley. Gilgal stood "in the east border of Jericho." Its position can be laid down accurately, though but faint ruins mark its site. Its interest centres in its having been the first camping-ground of the hosts of Israel after crossing the Jordan. Here were set up the twelve stones taken from the bed of the river as a witness. Here the younger Israelites were circumcised, and here the first Passover was kept in the land. The site, a mile and a half from Er Riha, the modern Jericho, is marked by a number of artificial mounds called Tellayla't Jiljuleh. Tristram. —There was another Gilgal six miles north of Bethel, connected with the lives of Elijah and Elisha (2 K. 2 : 2). There were several other towns of the name of Gilgal, some of which are mentioned in De. 11 : 30, and in Josh. 12 : 23; 15 : 7. Crosby. 21. This memorial pile stood for ages to suggest to the youth of Canaan the inquiry, What mean these stones? and to afford to Hebrew fathers the opportunity of repeating and so perpetuating the ancient story. So let all the great works of God be held forever in the hearts of his people. It is wholesome to fathers to repeat the story, wholesome to children to hear it and place it deep in their memories, till they in their turn become fathers and tell it to their children. H. C.—24. The twofold lesson of this memorial was, "that all nations of the earth might know the hand of Jehovah that it is strong," and "that they [Israel] might fear Jehovah your God always." In regard to the first of these lessons, we mark the larger missionary hope set before Israel. The heathen nations were to learn the knowledge of Jehovah's hand. This carries us far beyond the statement that the terror of Israel should fall upon them (Josh. 2 : 9). Thus at the very entrance of Israel into Canaan, and by that divine interposition which made it possible, was the future universal kingdom to be advanced, the foundation of which lies in the fact that Jehovah is "Lord of all the earth." A. E.—The stones at Gilgal, though long ago scattered, emphasize, through the record of them, that initial truth which God would ever have us make the great foundation of religion; a truth which lights up a train of inquiry and revelation that shines more and more unto the perfect day of Christ,—that, however invisible God's hand may commonly be, it is ever present, operating for the protection and reward of them that covenant to keep his law. Cable. These gray stones preached at once the duty of remembering and the danger of forgetting the past mercies of God. The stones were set up because Israel remembered, but also lest Israel should forget. We often think of the Jews as monsters of ingratitude; but we should more truly learn the lesson of their history, if we regarded them as fair, average men, and asked ourselves whether our recollection of God's goodness to us is much more vivid than theirs. Unless we make distinct and frequent efforts to recall, we shall certainly forget God's goodness. The cultivation of thankful remembrance is a very large part of practical religion; and it is not by accident that the Psalmist puts it in the middle, between hope and obedience, when he says "that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments" (Ps. 78 : 7). The memorial stones further proclaimed the duty of parental instruction in God's mercies. Notwithstanding all differences in means of obtaining knowledge, the old law remains in full force, that the parent is the natural and most powerful instructor in the ways of God. The Jewish father was not to send his child to some Levite or other to get his question answered, but was to answer it himself. The same principle which led to the erection of this simple monument reaches its highest and sacredest instance in the institution of the Lord's Supper, in which Jesus condescends to avail himself of material symbols in order to secure a firmer place in treacherous memories. He might well have expected that such stupendous love could never be forgotten; but he knoweth our frame, and trusts some share in keeping his death vividly in the hearts of his people to the humble ministry of bread and wine. Strange that we should need to be reminded of the death which it is life to remember! Blessed that, needing it, we have the need so tenderly met, and that he does not disdain to accept loving memories which slumber till stirred by such poor reminders of his unspeakable love. A. M. 14. On that day Jehovah magnified Joshua.** As he had declared (Josh. 3 : 7) that he would do. The greatness resulting to Joshua from the event of that day was due to the evidence afforded that God was present with him in a conspicuous manner, and that he made him an instrument through whom to exert and to display his power. No higher honor can be put upon any man than to have it appear that God is with him and works through him and for him. W. H. G.—The miraculous passage of the Red Sea was God's autographic signature to the commission of Moses. In the same way the miraculous passage of the Jordan was God's autographic signature to the commission of Joshua. C. H. P. The tenth day of the first month was the eventful one—four days before their feast of the Passover, and among the first days of the barley harvest. When nightfall came over Israel they were in the long-promised land. They had crossed the Jordan. They were not only in Canaan, but were there with one more fresh testimony that their God was with them. Eventful days were before them; scenes of war and blood were in prospect; but the men of faith throughout all the camp of Israel sang their evening song with glad heart and rested on their arms feeling that it was enough for them that their God was there; had brought them into his own land of promise, and would carry the work of its conquest through in his own time and way. H. C.—The importance of this miracle can hardly be overestimated. The people were now about to enter on a fresh stage of their national existence, and that under a new leader. The assurance of the continued presence and protection of Jehovah, afforded by the drying up of Jordan, was exactly what was needed to encourage their fainting hearts, and secure for Joshua, accredited by so mighty a sign, the loyal allegiance of the people. This is the light in which this miracle is set before us in the words of God to Joshua. Another purpose to be answered by this exercise of the Divine power in behalf of Israel, was to deepen the feeling of discouragement already, as we have seen, existing in the minds of the Canaanites, and thus prepare for their easier and complete overthrow. That this was the effect of this miracle is next plainly stated by the sacred historian. E. V. # The Miraculous Character of the Crossing. The passage of this rapid, though not wide, river at the most unfavorable season, was more manifestly miraculous, if possible, than that of the "Red Sea." It seems, therefore, to have been providentially designed to silence cavils respecting the former; and it was done in the noonday, in the face of the sun, and in the presence of the neighboring inhabitants; and struck terror into the kings of the Amorites and Canaanites, westward of the river, whose "heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel." Hales.—It requires no argument to prove that this fact was miraculous: it was not accidental or it could not have been foreseen (verses 5, 10, 13); it was not natural, for the river was at its height (verse 15), and the waters that had been descending stood on an heap (verse 16); it was not the effect of art, for any artificial alteration of the channel the people must have known; and besides, the effect could not have been instantaneous. Graves. This seems to us even a more signal miracle than the passage of the Red Sea; and it appears as if expressly framed not only to effect its own objects but to relieve the other from all naturalistic interpretations. In the course of the Red Sea passage we hear travellers and scholars talk learnedly about east winds and tides and shallows, so that the fact, as a demonstration of Divine power, is explained away or attenuated. But nothing of this is possible in the case of the passage of the Jordan. It was a miracle or it was nothing. There has not been and there cannot be any explanation of it on natural grounds. And if men are obliged to admit this—unless they would deny the authority of the narrative altogether—it becomes scarcely worth their while to tamper with the Red Sea miracle. Kit.—Given the importance of Israel as the depositaries of revelation, there is nothing unreasonable in a miracle which so powerfully contributed to their conquest of Canaan, and we have yet to learn that there is anything unreasonable in the belief that they were the depositaries of revelation. The fundamental postulate of the Old Testament is a supernatural revelation, and that opens the door for any miracle needful for its accomplishment. We should be very slow to pronounce on what is worthy of God; but any man who believes in a divine revelation given to the world through Israel, may well believe in such a miracle as this at such a moment of their history. A. M. The Egypt-history, the wilderness-history, the Jordan-history, never become obsolete. The Books of Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, are almost as valid histories of our individual lives as of the life of the Hebrews at large. These chapters, and this third of Joshua, are like some of the Psalms of David in this respect, that though so old they still carry with easy grace the sentiments and experience of to-day with which the men of to-day lade them. It is one of the marvellous characteristics of these old Bible-narratives that they still furnish us better figures and phrases than any new ones we can invent for describing events and transitions in our own experience. C. H. P. What will it avail us to have passed a wilderness, if the waves of Jordan should swallow us up? But the same hand that hath made the way hard hath made it sure: he that made the wilderness comfortable will make Jordan dry; he will master all difficulties for us; and those things which we most feared, will he make most sovereign and beneficial to us. O God, as we have trusted thee with the beginning, so will we with the finishing of our glory. Faithful art thou that hast promised, which wilt also do it. Bp. H. THE COVENANT RENEWED, WITH CIRCUMCISION AND THE PASSOVER. THE ANGEL-JEHOVAH APPEARS TO JOSHUA. 5 1 And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were beyond Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard how that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel. 2. At that time the LORD said unto Joshua, Make thee knives of flint, and circumcise again the 3 children of Israel the second time. And Joshua made him knives of flint, and circumcised the 4 children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: all the people that came forth out of Egypt, that were males, even all the men of war, 5 died in the wilderness by the way, after they came forth out of Egypt. For all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the 6 way as they came forth out of Egypt, they had not circumcised. For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the nation, even the men of war which came forth out of Egypt, were consumed, because they hearkened not unto the voice of the LORD: unto whom the LORD swore that he would not let them see the land which the LORD swore unto 7 their fathers that he would give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. And their children, whom he raised up in their stead, them did Joshua circumcise: for they were uncircumcised, 8 because they had not circumcised them by the way. And it came to pass, when they had done circumcising all the nation, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole. 9 And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of that place was called Gilgal, unto this day. 10 And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal; and they kept the passover on the four- 11 teenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho. And they did eat of the old corn [produce] of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes and parched corn, 12 in the selfsame day. And the manna ceased on the morrow, after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. 13 And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and 14 Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? 15 And the captain of the LORD's host said unto Joshua, Put off thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so. 5:1. Amorites, Canaanites. Under the Am- orites and Canaanites are here included the sev- eral other nations of Canaan, as the Hittites, Hivites, etc., these two being the most power- ful nations. The Amorites, on the side of Jordan "westward," are distinguished from the Amorites eastward of Jordan, whom the Israel- ites had subdued already. The Canaanites "by the sea," that is, by the Mediterranean Sea, are the nation more properly called by this name, of which, however, there were colonies in other parts. Patrick.—Seven nations were dwell- ing in Canaan when the Israelites approached it. These had their fortified towns, their mountain-fastnesses, and in the plains, their horses and their chariots of iron. The invading Israelites possessed small experience of war, and were utterly destitute of war horses and chariots, and of engines needed for the reduc- tion of walled cities and fortresses. N. C. B. 1-10. The historian records two facts. First, that the tidings of this wonderful passage over the dry bed of the Jordan flashed over the hills and valleys of Canaan, bearing terror and dismay to all hearts. Alas, said they, who can stand before this mighty God of Israel! "Their hearts melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel." The second fact is that Joshua proceeded to the most unmilitary act of circumcising all his men of war—indeed all the children of Israel. With apparently not the least fear lest the Canaanites should muster their forces and fall suddenly upon them—with a deep feeling obviously that his first concern was to be right before God, and to have all his soldiers and people right in heart and true to every precept of their God, he sus- pended all military movements; gave his ene- mies time to recover from their panic; halted his army not only for some days of circumcision but for the feast of the Passover seven days—all as if religion was indefinitely more than military strategy—as it truly was! H. C.—That was no idle or gratuitous display of power, which afforded to the Canaanites, to Israel, and to Joshua himself, such unmistakable evidence that "the living God, the Lord of all the earth," —no dead idol, or mere local deity—was among them, "and that he would not fail nor forsake them." E. V. 2-12. The passage of the Jordan was com- pleted on the tenth day of the first month (Nisan = April). This was the day appointed for the selection of the Paschal Lamb, and on the evening of the fourteenth the people kept the Passover for the first time on the sacred soil of their inheritance, exactly forty years after their fathers had first kept it before leaving Egypt. But first, God commanded Joshua to circumcise the people; for the circumcised gen- eration, who had left Egypt, had died in the wilderness, and none of the present generation had been circumcised. This may be regarded as a renewal of the covenant with Abraham in the very land the promise of which had been sealed with the same sign. P. S.—3. There is a general circumcision now of the people, as there had been at their coming out of Egypt; and as God then closed the Egyptians in three days' darkness that they could not stir, so now he striketh the Canaanites with terror that they dare not stir to hurt the people while they were sore. Circumcision sealed the lease of the land of Canaan; and therefore as soon as they set foot on it they must be circumcised. Lightfoot. 9. Entered on the Land of Promise, God once more regarded them as his own covenant people, and therefore the sign of the covenant was renewed. At the frontier fortress of Gilgal, entrenched by Joshua on the rising ground overlooking Jericho, Israel "cast off the slough of their wandering life," and "rolled away the reproach of Egypt," by submitting once more, at the Divine command, to the distinguishing ordinance of circumcision. Knives of flint, reserved in other countries for this and other religious rites, were used for the ceremony by which Joshua, "the type of Him who alone gives the new circumcision"—the circumcision of the heart "made without hands" (Col. 2 : 11), readmitted Abraham's descendants to the covenant made with their great ancestor. E. V.—The best view assumes that Egypt had reproached Israel with their failure to reach Canaan during the long wanderings of forty years in the wilderness, and that God was then to roll off this reproach by visibly taking the people again into covenant relation with himself, indicated by this circumcision, and so would give them Canaan. That circumcision had been omitted in the wilderness, especially after the unbelief in the matter of the spies, implied that God's covenant with his people was temporarily inoperative because of that unbelief. At Gilgal the Lord was returning to them in his great mercy. H. C.—The reviving of circumcision was designed to revive the observation of other institutions, the omission of which had been connived at in the wilderness. This command to circumcise them was to remind them of that which Moses had told them (De. 12 : 8), that when they were come over Jordan they must not do as they had done in the wilderness, but must come under a stricter discipline. It was said concerning many of the laws God had given them, that they must observe them in the land to which they were going. H. 10. And kept the Passover.** The third from its institution. The first was observed in Egypt on the eve of their departure, the second at Sinai on the following year (Nu. 9 : 1, 2), while during the long interval down to the present time it had been wholly suspended. Bush.—Three days after this national reconciliation of Israel, on the 14th of Nisan, the passover was celebrated. Never since its first institution had its import been more powerfully shown. They were delivered from Egypt in order that they might hold possession of Ca- Canaan; and now at last Canaan was reached. The memorial of what Jehovah had done for their fathers would quicken their faith, and fill them with confidence as to the issue of the conflict that lay before them. For though reached, Canaan was not conquered; from the lodging-place at Gilgal, the walls and towers of Jericho, "great and fenced up to heaven," would be a stern but salutary reminder of the nature of the struggle on which they were about to enter, and of the need of a strength not their own to secure a successful issue. E. V. This Passover, far beyond any other yet, was suggestive of the scenes of the original institution of it forty years before—on that most eventful night of doom to Egypt, but of joyful redemption to Israel. The redemption begun there in Egypt was consummated, in a measure, here in Canaan. This crossing of the Jordan must have suggested the crossing of the Red Sea by their fathers, three days after the first Passover night. That earlier crossing put the Red Sea between them and Egyptian bondage: this latter crossing put the Jordan between them and their wilderness life. The most precious thought of all would be that God was equally in both—his uplifted right arm was made glorious for their redemption, both there and here. It must have been inspiring to all devout souls to celebrate the majesty and loving-kindness of their fathers' God. 11,12. Among the new experiences of their Canaan life was a supply of bread from the corn (not as in our English "the old corn," but the corn) of the land. The manna ceased as suddenly as it began. Forty years (less one and a half months) it had been the nation's bread, fresh each morning (save the Sabbath) from God's lower heavens. The period of its fall measured their wilderness life. This being past the manna ceased. H. C. 11. And they did eat of the old corn of the land. Of the old grain of whatever kind it were. The original phrase, however, may be rendered simply, "They did eat of the product or yielding of the earth," in contradistinction from the manna which came from heaven. And parched corn.** That is, the new corn of the present year, which they found standing in the fields. The new or green corn was parched to enable them more easily to grind it for food. This would not be necessary in respect to old corn. Bush. 12. The manna ceased.** Now that Israel is brought to the brim of Canaan, the cloud is vanished which led them all the way; and as soon as they have crossed Jordan, the manna ceaseth which nourished them all the way. The cloud and manna were for their passage, not for their rest; for the wilderness, not for Canaan. Bp. II.—The manna which had been given to them (Ex. 16) now ceased, since they no longer required any miraculous means of subsistence. By its thus ceasing, it was more distinctly marked as a precious miraculous boon. C. G. B. The manna ceasing when the Israelites ate of the corn of Canaan teaches us the lesson that God's help is given, not to supersede our self-help, but to enable us to help ourselves. He gave manna where the Israelites could not provide their own food, and continued it only till they were able to supply themselves. The difference between manna and corn is most suggestive. Manna was a supernatural product provided directly by Divine power. It came to the Israelites in the wilderness without any toil or trouble of their own, and therefore it was but little esteemed by them. But corn implies and involves great and continuous labor. At every step and stage of its growth and preparation for food it demands the sweat of the face and requires that man should be a fellow-worker with God. And is there not the same wide difference in spiritual things between manna and corn, between what is given to us without any toil or trouble of our own, and what is wrought out for us and in us, as the result of our own toil, and, it may be, our own sad experience? No doubt we should prefer manna to corn; we should like to get heavenly blessings straight out of God's hands. But the rule of the Divine kingdom is, "No cross, no crown." II. Macmillan. This discontinuance of the supply by which the people had been so long sustained, no less marks the signal providence of God, than the original grant of it, and its long continuance. It came not one day before it was needed; and it was continued not one day longer than was really required by the wants of the people. This strikingly showed the Lord's care, and evinced the miraculous nature of the supply. Such indications as this of the Lord's presence and power, were little less than visible manifestations of Deity. The life of the Christian believer does not lack similar experiences. In tracing his life back through its varied scenes, how plainly can he see that—however his heart may at times have failed him—his Lord has under all circumstances cared for him, even in the matters which belong to his daily bread. What tranquillity of mind, what blessedness of rest, may be realized, what harassing anxieties avoided, if we will only let such experience have its perfect work, by inducing us to cast all our care upon Him who careth for us, leaving him to determine what we shall lose or what retain, in the firm conviction that he will decide better for us than we, who can never determine with certainty what may be eventually good for us, could decide for ourselves. Kit. 13-15. The Prince of the army of Jehovah appears to Joshua. This is told as if he were different from Jehovah. But in verse 15 he identifies Himself manifestly with the Malakh that appeared to Moses, and in 6:2 he again appears as Jehovah himself, who gives Jericho into Joshua's hands. O.—The real import of this passage has been obscured by the unfortunate division of chs. 5, 6. These chapters should have been run on without a break, the first verse of ch. 6 being merely parenthetical, and the words, "And the Lord said unto Joshua," etc. (6:2), following in sense "and Joshua did so," at the end of ch. 6. E. V.—Besides his assuming the title of the "captain of the host of the Lord," he is called directly Jehovah at verse 2 of the next chapter; and Joshua's falling down and worshipping him, not only without being reproved for doing him too much honor but, on the contrary, with a command to do him more by loosing his shoe from his foot (which was the highest acknowledgment of a divine presence customary among Eastern nations), is a circumstance which affords the surest evidence of the divinity of his person. Stackhouse.—That he who thus appeared as a warrior, and called himself captain of the Lord's host, was no other than "the Word," was plainly the sense of the ancient Jewish church. Allix.—It is the established opinion of both ancient and modern expositors that this was no other than the Son of God, the Eternal Word, appearing in that form which he was afterward to assume for the redemption of men. Bush. From many passages in the Old and New Testaments (notably Is. 68:8, 9; John 8:56) we are led to believe: that Christ exercised great concern in the affairs of the Old Testament Church; that He did at certain periods discover Himself in the garb which He was afterward to assume, and which when assumed He went on to wear forever; that He was the superior angel whom we find speaking under that manifestation, and to whom, always, Divine honors were paid. Vaughan. (See O. T., Vol. 1, p. 337.) The person who appeared called himself Captain or Prince of the Lord's host, and commanded Joshua to take off his shoes, as happened at Ex. 3:5. In that passage he is called the Angel of the Lord, and this person calls himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In both places, then, it is the same being—He who, as the Angel of the Covenant, went before the people in the pillar of cloud and fire, and who now reveals himself, for the encouragement of Joshua and the people, as the unseen Leader, with the sword which nothing could withstand. C. G. B.—So then the mission of Joshua was substantially the continuation and completion of that of Moses. As at the commencement of the latter, the Angel of the Covenant had appeared and spoken out of the burning bush, so He now also appeared to Joshua, while the symbolical act of “loosing the shoe off his foot,” in reverent acknowledgment of the Holy One of Israel, recalled the vision of Moses, and at the same time connected it with that of his successor. A. E. 13. He here appeared as a soldier, with his sword drawn in his hand. To Abraham in his tent he appeared as a traveller; to Joshua in the field as a man of war: Christ will be to his people what their faith expects and desires. Christ had his sword drawn, which served to justify the war Joshua was engaging in, and to show him that it was of God, who gave him commission to kill and slay. H.—It was a much-needed assurance, vouchsafed in such visible form as should make it decisive and effectual, that the same invisible Divine Leader who had brought their fathers safely through the wilderness would be also with this generation in their task of reducing the war like races of Canaan and their strongly-fenced cities. It was, further, a most expressive token that the fearful work of extermination before the Israelites was indeed a divine judicial visitation on the Seven Nations, whose iniquity was now full; and that their execution of it was a duty warranted, as it could alone be warranted, by a most undoubted special divine command. The drawn sword in the hand of the Son of God we can now clearly perceive to indicate who was the real, though invisible, Agent in that act of doom. M'dd. What the sight of the Burning Bush had been to Moses at Horeb, that the vision of the Captain of the hosts of the Lord was to Joshua at Gilgal. In each case the specific character of the vision was in sympathy with the circumstances of the time. The furnace of the Egyptian bondage and the war-like preparations for the approaching campaign are reflected in the forms of the respective apparitions. This is to be explained by the consideration that God speaks to His creatures in all ages, through sights and sympathies which they most readily understand. H. P. L. God appears in the form best suited to His servant's need. He contended as an athlete with Jacob that by wrestling the patriarch's faith and knowledge might be increased. To Moses, needing to be reminded of the indestructibility of the Church of God, there was shown a burning bush unconsumed. And now, to inspirit Joshua for the campaign, God reveals Himself as a warrior armed and as the “Prince of the Lord's host,” Captain of the visible and invisible armies, the Israelites and the angels. Analogous to these varied appearances are the titles of God, framed to assure His people that He can “supply all their need.” W. F. A.—God gave these miraculous manifestations to the leading men of those times, that we might know Him to be always near in the fulness of his love and power. In the heightened spirituality and richer grace of our Christian times we have the substance which those mystic visions did but shadow forth. In place of startling signs and symbols we have Divine words of promise, appeals to faith, awakening the intelligence and kindling the heart; words of assurance to every believer. Waie. And Joshua went unto him. Displaying herein a remarkable courage and intrepidity. Instead of turning away from the formidable personage before him, and seeking hastily to regain the camp, he walks boldly up, and demands of him whether he be a friend or a foe. This undaunted bearing was the fruit of his strong confidence in God. No face of clay will intimidate him who looks upon God as his friend and protector, and who is found in the way of duty. The good man is ever the true hero. Bush. 14. Here were now, as of old (Gen. 32:2), Mahanaim, two hosts, a host of Israelites ready to engage the Canaanites, and a host of angels to protect them therein, and he, as Captain of both, conducts the host of Israel, and commands the host of angels to their assistance. Perhaps, in allusion to this, Christ is called the Captain of our salvation (Heb. 2:10), and a Leader and Commander to the people (Is. 55:4). He now came as Captain to give the necessary orders for the besieging of Jericho. H. 15. Soldier-like, the captain-general had demanded of him, “Art thou for us or for our adversaries?” The challenge woke at once the voice of Majesty. “Nay, not as thou deemest am I: prepare thy soul for God's unlooked-for visitation: as Captain of the Host of the Lord am I come. Not as mingling with these earthly hosts, but as thy fellow in a higher order; as the Mighty One in heavenly places of whom thou art here, and now on earth the type and shadow: as Him whom all angels worship, as the uncreated Angel of the Covenant, as the Captain of the heavenly host of God have I come to thee." The soul of Joshua owned at once the presence of his God; "he fell on his face to the earth and did worship," and cried, "What saith my Lord unto his servant?" And then came the answer which the Minister of Moses would read so readily in all the wide extent of its mysterious significance, the "Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place where thou standest is holy." That burning bush of which his great master had so often told him in their solemn communings, must have risen before his eyes; and there was renewed unto him, with all the added awe of such a personal appearance, the earlier promise, "As I was with Moses so also I will be with Thee." Wilberforce. And most signally did he fight for Israel: in the miraculous downfall of the walls of Jericho (6: 20); in destroying the confederated southern nations with hailstones in their flight (18: 11); in prolonging the day of battle to an unusual length, at Joshua's petition, by making the sun and moon stand still about a whole day (10: 12-27); by driving out some of the northern nations by the hornet or gud-fly (24: 12), as foretold by Moses (Ex. 23: 28; De. 7: 20). Hales. Between Moses and Joshua the difference was marked as strongly as possible. Joshua was the soldier,—the first soldier, consecrated by the Sacred history. He was not a teacher, not a Prophet. He was a simple, straightforward, undaunted soldier. What is required of him, and described in him, is that he was "very courageous." "He was strong and of a good courage." "He was not afraid nor dismayed." He turned neither to the right hand nor to the left; but at the head of the hosts of Israel he went right forward from Jordan to Jericho, from Jericho to Ai, from Ai to Gibeon, to Beth-horon, to Merom. He wavered not for a moment; he was here, he was there, he was everywhere, as the emergency called for him. He had no words of wisdom, except those which shrewd common sense and public spirit dictated. To him the Divine Revelation was made not in the burning bush nor in the still small voice, but as "the Captain of the Lord's host, with a drawn sword in his hand;" and that drawn and glittering sword was the vision which went before him through the land, till all the kings of Canaan were subdued beneath his feet. Slight as may be the connection between the first and last to whom this name of Joshua or Jesus was given with any religious significance, it demands our consideration for the sake of two points which are often overlooked, and which may in this relation catch the attention of those who might else overlook them altogether. One is the prominence into which it brings the true meaning of the sacred Name, as a deliverance from enemies as real as the Canaanitish host. The first Joshua was to save his people from their actual foes. The Second was to "save his people from their sins." Again, the career of Joshua gives a note of preparation for the singularly martial, soldier-like aspect—also often forgotten—under which his Namesake is at times set forth. The courage, the cheerfulness, the sense of victory and success, which runs both through the actual history of the Gospels, and through the idealization of it in "the Conqueror" of the writings of John, finds its best illustration from the older church in the character and career of Joshua. Stanley. Extermination of the Idolatrous Cities of Canaan. Its Justification from Various Points of View. 1 (Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in.) And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor. And ye shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city 5 seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. And it shall be, that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the 6 people shall go up every man straight before him. And Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said unto them, Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven 7 trumpets of rams' horns before the ark of the LORD. And they said unto the people, Pass on, 8 and compass the city, and let the armed men pass on before the ark of the LORD. And it was so, that when Joshua had spoken unto the people, the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams' horns before the LORD passed on, and blew with the trumpets: and the ark of the 9 covenant of the LORD followed them. And the armed men went before the priests that blew the trumpets, and the rearward went after the ark; the priests blowing with the trumpets as 10 they went. And Joshua commanded the people, saying, Ye shall not shout, nor let your voice be heard, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I bid you 11 shout; then shall ye shout. So he caused the ark of the LORD to compass the city, going about it once: and they came into the camp, and lodged in the camp. 12 And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD. 13 And the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark of the LORD went on continually, and blew with the trumpets: and the armed men went before them; and the rearward came after the ark of the LORD, the priests blowing with the trumpets as they went. 14 And the second day they compassed the city once, and returned into the camp: so they did 15 six days. And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early at the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on that day they com- 16 passed the city seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city. 17 And the city shall be devoted, even it and all that is therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers 18 that we sent. And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the devoted thing, lest when ye have devoted it, ye take of the devoted thing; so should ye make the camp of Israel accursed, and 19 trouble it. But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are holy unto the 20 LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD. So the people shouted, and the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, that the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went 21 up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, both young and old, and ox, and sheep, 22 and ass, with the edge of the sword. And Joshua said unto the two men that had spied out the land, Go into the harlot's house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she hath, 23 as ye sware unto her. And the young men the spies went in, and brought out Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her brethren, and all that she had, all her kindred also they 24 brought out; and they set them without the camp of Israel. And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of 25 iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD. But Rahab the harlot, and her father's household, and all that she had, did Joshua save alive; and she dwelt in the midst of Israel, unto this day; because she hid the messengers, which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. 26 And Joshua charged them with an oath at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the LORD, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: with the loss of his firstborn shall he lay the foundation thereof, and with the loss of his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it. 27 So the LORD was with Joshua; and his fame was in all the land. 1. This verse, as noted by E. V. in previous section, is a parenthesis. And the second verse has a close connection with the last verse of the preceding chapter. It simply continues the colloquy between the Angel Jehovah and Joshua. The interview closes with the instructions of Jehovah to his servant, extending through the fifth verse. B. Jericho was situated in the deep depression of the Jordan Valley, six miles north of the Dead Sea, and about eight miles west of the river Jordan. It lay upon the western limit of the Valley, which is here bordered by a steep and lofty range of mountains, presenting a barrier to the interior country seemingly impenetrable. The plain of Jericho is well watered from copious springs which burst from the mountains' base; and the region of the old city, even at the present time, shows a luxuriance of vegetable growths. N. C. B. Jericho, "the city of palm-trees," was beautifully situated at the foot of a lofty limestone range, close by a number of prolific fountains, that still spread beauty and fertility as far as the eye can reach. In the days of Joshua, a glorious palm forest—now, like the balsam-trees, utterly gone—stretched along the vale about eight miles in length and three in breadth, Jericho being situated on the west side and Gilgal (it is believed) on the east of this forest. As the Israelites came up toward Gilgal, emerging from the forest of palms, they would see the lofty battlements of Jericho rising proudly to heaven; and behind, the steep mountain cliffs where the two men who were sent to spy the city had lain concealed. It was a sight to appall any heart where faith did not triumph; and it is a proof of the extraordinary courage with which they were now inspired, that they advanced calmly and confidently to an enterprise seemingly so desperate. W. G. B. 2. See, I have given into thine hand Jericho.** Not, "I will do it, but, I have done it; it is all thine own, as sure as if it were already in thy possession." It was designed that this city, being the first-fruits of Canaan, should be entirely devoted to God, and that neither Joshua nor Israel should ever be one mite the richer for it, and yet it is here said to be given into their hand, for we must reckon that most our own, which we have an opportunity of honoring God with and employing in his service. H. 3. Jehovah appointed this method of besieging the city, (1) To show both to the Canaanites and to Israel that Omnipotence alone had achieved the work, that he was infinitely above the need of the ordinary means of obtaining a victory, and to render those of his enemies inexcusable who should withstand his resistless arm. (2) To try the faith and obedience of Joshua and his people, by prescribing a course of conduct that seemed to human wisdom the height of folly and absurdity. (3) To put honor upon the ark as the appointed token of his presence, and to confirm still more fully that veneration and awe with which they had always been taught to regard it. Bush. 4. It is the pleasure of God to hold us both in work and in expectation, and though he require our continual endeavors for the subduing of our corruptions, during the six days of our life, yet we shall never find it perfectly effected till the very evening of our last day. 12-14. There was never so strange a siege as this of Jericho: here was no mount raised, no sword drawn, no engine planted, no pioneers undermining; here were trumpets sounded, but no enemy seen; here were armed men, but no stroke given: they must walk and not fight; seven several days must they pace about the walls, which they may not once look over to see what was within. Ep. II. Here also, as in the crossing of the Jordan, the ark of the covenant appears in the foreground. Seven priests surround it with rams' horns. Its place is assigned between the battalions that precede and those that follow and bring up the rear. The whole armed host of Israel is put in motion—one half to precede and the other to follow the sacred ark and its attendant priests. The first day they march around the city once, the priests blowing their rams' horns, but every human tongue silent; and return to their camp for the night. Five more days they encompass the city daily in the same marching order—all silent save the horn-blowing. H. C. The sacred writer continues to emphasize the precision with which the divine directions were followed day after day throughout each of the six days, and finally on the seventh. All this time elapsed without any apparent result. The walls of Jericho stood as firm at the end of the sixth day as at the beginning of the first, and so until the last circuit had been completed on the seventh day. It might have seemed to the incredulous among the people that all this wearisome marching to and fro was a useless expenditure of time and strength. And yet the Lord of set purpose postponed to the seventh day what he might with equal ease have accomplished on the first. And he required the people to make these numerous circuits about the city, when he might as easily have thrown down the walls of the city without their having compassed it at all. It was intended to test their faith and patience. Only by continuing steadfast to the end they obtained the blessing. It is further observable that the task assigned to each day was promptly performed, without postponement or procrastination. W. H. G. Only the blare of the trumpets was heard. The host tramped on in grim silence, watched by wondering crowds on the walls, round whose hearts terror would begin to steal at the very strangeness of the thing. The apparent aimlessness, the restraint which confined itself to the one circuit as round a doomed thing daily, the dead silence of the ranks, the blare of the shrill trumpets, would all help to strike awe and kindle expectation of something terrible to follow these silent, slow, inexplicable parades. The morning sun of the seventh day (probably the Sabbath) had barely risen over the eastern hills, when the procession set out once more from the camp; for a long day's work was before them. Six times the silent march was wound round the doomed city,—a task of many hours; and expectation would be beginning to flag, both among the watchers from the walls and the wearied Israelites, when suddenly, in the seventh circuit, Joshua's voice, vibrating with excitement, rung out above the trumpets, "Shout; for the Lord hath given you the city!" From all the host one fierce triumphant shout made amends for a week of silence, and summoned the vultures to "cat the flesh of kings and captains." Surely, never did faith speak in such strange tones as in that hoarse roar; but it did speak, and therefore the walls, which unbelief had reported as reaching well-nigh "up to heaven," fell "in their place;" that is, in solid masses, so that each man of the encircling host had but to turn a quarter round and march straight on. A. M. All suddenly the entire wall of the city is flat upon the ground. Wheeling toward the city from every point, armed men rush over the fallen walls; with sword and fire they lay the city utterly desolate. All its silver and gold, all its vessels of brass and of iron, are consecrated to the Lord and come into his treasury; all else was doomed to destruction. Jericho is no more! Its fall gave new impulse to the panic which shook the stoutest hearts among the men of Canaan. They could not but see that a new power was among them and that their city walls were of no particular account before this strange people. We may imagine how anxiously they are saying, Who can stand before this unknown enemy and their more wonderful and wonder-working God? H. C.—Vain worldlings think their ramparts and barricades can keep out the vengeance of God; their blindness suffers them to look no farther than the means: the supreme hand of the Almighty comes not within the compass of their fears. Every carnal heart is a Jericho shut up; God sits down before it, and displays mercy and judgment in sight of the walls thereof; it hardens itself in a wilful security, and saith, "I shall never be moved." Bp. H. Not till the seventh day, and not till they have compassed the city seven times on the seventh day, these walls come down. Here then is not only obedience rewarded and faith encouraged, here is patience honored, here is perseverance crowned. The God of heaven speaks to us from above that prostrate city, and tells us that not through faith only, but through faith and patience, we must inherit the promises. C. B.—It is not "ours to reason why," but to obey. If we trust God, we shall do as he bids us, though little seems to come of it. The blood-cemented walls of many a robber city, which has long afflicted humanity, have to be compassed many weary times, and generations have to pass, before God says, "Now shout!" It is a slow task to leaven society with the principles of the Gospel, which will destroy deeply-rooted and long-continued abuses. But we have to "keep pegging away," to use Abraham Lincoln's homespun heroic phrase. If we can do no more, we can at least blow the trumpet which proclaims that God is here and summons Jericho to surrender. If we have to die before the seventh day comes, no matter. We shall have our share in the triumph all the same, and, wherever we are, shall hear the great shout which tells the fall of the bloody city, "to be found no more at all." A. M. "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down." Faith, then, is a power. She plants her foot upon a sure foundation; she grapples with her difficulties, and, in the end, she conquers. The man who believes can trust: his faith sees God, and that sight creates confidence. The man who trusts can ignore or resist present and visible danger, through his clear perceptions of an Unseen Protector; and his trust is, of itself, a force, whether for purposes of action or purposes of resistance. Upon any supposition, the agency of faith on this occasion was limited to its determined reliance and hold upon the unseen agency of God, who, whether through some natural law or independently, effected the downfall of the walls. The power of faith is the same; if it does not itself act, it accepts the conditions of action which are prescribed by the real Agent; it thereby, we may dare to say it, puts His arm in motion; it acts—but through Him. H. P. L. The one victorious power is that of absolute confidence in God's help. Men in whom that burns go flaming through antagonism and consuming wickedness. There is nothing which silences opposition and kindles like confidence so surely as a soul all possessed by it. Eloquence, learning, strategy, organizing power, machinery, and wise methods, are all very good; but an ounce of faith is worth a ton of them when the question is how the walls of Jericho are to be got down. It will beget these qualities, they will never produce it. Mark how faith conquers. It does so by bringing the might of God into the field. Faith is not the battering-ram which beats down the walls, but only the hand which swings the ram. God's power is, if we may say so, set loose to work through our faith; and that faith is mighty, because it opens the door for the entrance of his omnipotence. The slow marches round and round the doomed city, and the war-cry, at last did not effect the capture; but they were the tokens of the faith which brought into play the power which did. A. M. Faith in our days must be based on the Word of God. Then we may follow its guidance without fear. It will never lead us astray. But there is much that is called faith that has no better foundation than mere human opinion, or even folly. Spiritualism is of this type. Much of the "faith healing" of the day belongs to this category, and many of the singular faiths of the day are nothing more or less than credulity. That faith is always sure that has a "thus saith the Lord" before it goes ahead, but when it has this, it moves on without consulting with flesh and blood; in fact, it has to do this, for flesh and blood cannot see by the eye of faith. It is perfectly possible for us to have sometimes to act in a way that seems absurd to the natural man—as when we make great sacrifices for the cause of the Master. In matters of this kind, we are to study the Word carefully, to pray earnestly, and then to risk all boldly. Then our Jerichos will begin to come down on every hand. Until then they will stand as securely as when we first crossed the river into the land of promise. Schaeffler. The two features, so vividly brought out here, of the protracted preparations and of the sudden final catastrophe, mark all God's temporal and national judgments. The materials for the explosion are slowly gathered, grain by grain, and centuries may pass before the pile is complete; at every moment of which his pleading voice might be heard, and repentance and reformation might disperse the dangerous accumulation. But when the match is applied, the flash and clap and ruin are crowded into a moment. The slow minute-hand creeps round the dial for a long silent hour; but when it reaches the sixtieth of the seconds, in each of which it might have been stopped, the bell rings out, and all is over. God waits, that men may turn; but if they do not turn, God strikes, and the stroke is mortal. Now, all this is as true under the Gospel as it was in the days of Joshua. The message of love does not contradict the divine justice, from destructive contact with which Christ delivers by his death. Nor does the Gospel only confirm the teaching of judgment, but it intensifies it, revealing a "much sorer punishment" as impeding over us than that which overwhelmed the men of Jericho. The imagery under which Paul prophesies the day of final judgment sounds like an intentional allusion to this narrative when he says that the Lord himself shall come "with a shout . . . and with the trump of God." But, however that may be, the truth concerning God, which the fall of the little city among its palm-trees taught so long ago, is a truth to-day, confirmed and heightened by the perfect revelation in Christ, . . . The sweep of the revelation then given discloses a side of the divine nature of which this generation is impatient; namely, his punitive destructive energy. The men of Jericho, like all the inhabitants of the land, were corrupt beyond recovery. Their "iniquity was full," and the hour of retribution had struck. Therefore God's hand let loose this fiery torrent on them, as truly as he did the lava and bitumen on Sodom. It is a sad and solemn sight, but it is part of the long history by which God makes himself known to us; and its teaching is of a permanent, not of a transient nor antiquated, phase of his activity. Many a time since, though not in the same directly miraculous way, he has done similar things. The long agony of the Gothic invasion, the triumphant rush of Mohammedanism in a century from Delhi in the east to Cordova in the west, and later catastrophes, preach the same message, that "the history of the world is the judgment of the world." If God makes himself known by his doings as men do, the dream of a God whose love is so flaccid that he cannot punish is baseless. A. M. What is the historical manifestation of Christianity but one long procession around the walls of Jericho, in which the means employed seem to be altogether unequal to achieving that which nevertheless they do in a measure achieve? What is it but a prolonged contrast between the ideal and the actual, between the anticipated and the real? That traceable order and proportion of cause and effect, that array of powerful influences and of commanding personages who achieve striking and magnificent results in the field of secular history, seems constantly to be wanting in the history of the Church, which thus presents us with a continual paradox, that we may look for its explanation beyond the realm of sense. Yes; now, as at the first, "God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are" mighty. H. P. L. 17. The city must be burned, and all the lives in it sacrificed without mercy to the justice of God. All this they knew was included in the words (verse 17). The city shall be a cherem, a devoted thing, it and all therein, to the Lord; no life in it might be ransomed upon any terms, they must all be surely put to death (Lev. 27 : 29). So He appoints, from whom as creatures they had received their lives, and to whom as sinners they had forfeited them; and who may dispute his sentence? There was more of God seen in the taking of Jericho, than of any other of the cities of Canaan, and therefore that must be more than any other devoted to him. And the severe usage of this city would strike a terror upon all the rest, and melt their hearts yet more before Israel. H.—This city was the first fruits of Canaan, and as such wholly devoted to the Lord. The spoil of other cities, subsequently taken, was allowed to be divided among the captors, but this was to be an exception to the general rule. 18. And trouble it. Bring distress upon it by provoking the divine displeasure. This is spoken as if in foresight of the sin of Achan, to whom Joshua afterward said (ch. 7 : 25), “Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this day.” From hence he is called Achar, trouble (1 Chron. 2 : 7). Bush.—We must learn of God that there is a punishing mercy. Cursed be that mercy that opposes the God of mercy. 22,23. Yet was not Joshua so intent upon the slaughter, as not to be mindful of God’s part, and Rahab’s: first, he gives charge (under a curse) of reserving all the treasure for God; then, of preserving the family of Rahab. Those two spies that received life from her, now return it to her and hers: they call at the window with the red cord; and send up news of life to her the same way which they received theirs: her house is no part of Jericho; neither may fire be set to any building of that city till Rahab and her family be set safe without the host. The actions of our faith and charity will be sure to pay us; if late, yet surely. Now Rahab finds what it is to believe God; while, out of an impure idolatrous city, she is transplanted into the Church of God and made a mother of a royal and holy posterity. Bp. H.—Joshua is a type of Christ in an act of grace which he exercised, and that to his enemy Rahab. Why have we at once a sinful woman spared and admitted into covenant on her faith, nay privileged in the event to become the ancestress of our Lord, except that in Joshua the reign of the Saviour is typified, and that the pardon of a sinner is its most appropriate attendant? Newman. Dwelleth in Israel. As a communicant and partaker of all the distinguishing privileges of the chosen seed. Unto this day. A strong proof that the book was written in or near the time to which it refers, and in all probability by Joshua himself. Bush.—The blessing which followed Rahab for her conduct is recorded as the greatest example of faith and of the works which spring from faith, in the old heathen world. Her mind and heart received in simple faith the proofs of Jehovah’s power and purposes; she served his people with courage, ingenuity, and devotion; and so she “entered into the kingdom of God.” She was rewarded by a most distinguished place among the families of Israel. She married Salmon (perhaps one of the spies), and became the mother of Boaz, the great-grandfather of David. Hers is thus one of the four female names, all of them foreigners, recorded in the genealogy of Christ; and it is one of the profoundest moral, as well as spiritual, lessons of His Gospel, that He did not disdain such an ancestry. 26. Joshua imprecated a solemn curse on the man who should rebuild Jericho. The curse was literally fulfilled in the fate of Hiel, the Bethelite, who rebuilt Jericho in the reign of Ahab: his first-born son, Abiram, died as he was laying the foundation, and his youngest son, Segub, while he was setting up the gates (1 K. 16 : 34). P. S.—He would have it to remain in its ruins a standing monument of his wrath against the Canaanites, when the measure of their iniquity was full; and of his mercy to his people, when the time was come for their settlement in Canaan. H.—This curse was pronounced on the builder of Jericho, not on those who might inhabit it after it was built: for in aftertimes it was inhabited without scruple. Indeed this place was afterward famous on many accounts. Here the prophet sweetened the waters of the spring that supplied it and the neighboring countries; here Herod built a sumptuous palace; this was the dwelling-place of Zacchaeus, and was honored with the presence of Christ, who vouchsafed to work some miracles here. Bp. Patrick, Stackhouse. Joshua could not have preserved that simplicity and gentleness which, side by side with a soldier’s bold daring, make up his character, unless all mere earthly feelings had been wholly overpowered by the sense that, as directly as the earthquake or the pestilence, he was God’s simple instrument in sweeping from the earth a long-tried, long-endured, but incurably abominable race. This was the lesson Joshua had from the first to learn. This great truth, as a talisman for his own safety, sunk into his spirit as he gazed on those heaped-up streams of Jordan and stood unshaken amid the dust and din and terror of the falling walls of Jericho. He moved amid these scenes of blood as an avenging angel might hover over them—the doer of the Will of the Holy One, untainted by human passion, and full even in his unswerving zeal for God of a terrible gentleness. We read all that in his fatherly sympathy with the offending Achan, even while he condemned to be burned with fire the great transgressor, who had brought himself and his under the ban of God. Only in the spirit in which Joshua wrought them can we read aright his mighty deeds: and so read, they are rich in instruction which we most deeply need. We who live in these later days can see that the whole history of man hung upon the issue of those battles in the plain of Jericho and on the hills of Beth Horon. What other conflicts have ever decided so much for humanity? Joshua stood on those fields of blood, the very world-hero, bearing with him all its destinies. Wilberforce. The fall of Jericho was an example of the power of simple obedience to plans of action prescribed by God, and an earnest of the conquests to be achieved by the same principle. And this is true also of the destruction of the city. Not only as the first which the Israelites took, but as perhaps the most conspicuous city of Canaan for the advantages of its position, its commerce, wealth, and luxury, and unquestionably also for the abominable vices that had now “filled up the iniquity of the Canaanites,” its doom was the pattern of that denounced on the cities of the land. P. S. The ark of the covenant strongly symbolized the Gospel. There was the recognition of the personality and presence of God; there was his perfect law; there, too, was sinful and sinning man’s covenant to keep it; there the seat of mercy and pardon, approached only with ceremonies and offerings indicative of the principle of the cross in its subjective operations. And this ark is the focal point of interest in the siege of Jericho. The city yielded not to soldiers, but to priests; to priests, moreover, in the capacity of heralds blowing “trumpets of jubilee;” or, rather, to the ark of the covenant which they heralded; or, more strictly still, to the Gospel,—the covenant of grace proclaimed,—which the ark could only symbolize. Thus we see that the salvation of God’s truth to us is no mere natural evolution, but that even at Jericho, in the first aggressive step in the conconquest of Canaan, God through symbolic events testifies that this bloody conquest is but the prophetic shadow of a holy war whose consummation awaited only the growing spiritual possibilities of man, and that the Gospel plan was planned from the beginning? Cable. The grand miracles of the dividing of the Jordan and the fall of Jericho’s walls formed part of the same series of miracles which began with the plagues of Egypt, and was continued in the dividing of the Red Sea, the guidance of the cloud, and the daily furnishing of the manna. It was the period of founding a great church by the God of Salvation, and he surrounded its founding with glorious evidences, as afterward he surrounded the founding of the Christian Church, its development, with like miraculous evidences for the conviction of mankind. We should look just to such epochs as those in which marvels from God’s hand should be dealt out to the world. Crosby.—This story is a story of national progress. It is also one of supernatural progress. For us the supernatural is, in the highest and truest sense of the word, natural, for it is the revelation of the nature of God. We accept the possibility of the supernatural and miraculous, but all the more for that do we hold that if God interferes in the affairs of men miraculously, He will not do it capriciously, unnecessarily, wantonly. Upon the whole story of these Jewish miracles there is stamped a character which marks distinctly the reason for which they were wrought; that reason was the religious education of the world. By these miracles the Jew was taught that for nations and men there is a God, an eternal and a personal Will above us and around us, that works for righteousness. This great fact was taught him by illustrated lessons, by pictures illuminated with the Divine light and so filled with the Divine color that they stand and last for all time. Bp. Magee. It lies on the surface of the Scriptural narrative that “a notable miracle,” unparalleled in history, had in this case been “wrought” by Jehovah for Israel. As a German writer puts it: It would have been impossible to show it more clearly, that Jehovah had given the city to Israel. First, the river was made to recede, to allow them entrance into the land; and now the walls of the city were made to fall, to give them admission to its first and strongest city. Now such proofs of the presence and help of Jehovah, so soon after Moses’ death, must have convinced the most carnal among Israel that the same God who had cleft the Red Sea before their fathers was still on their side. And in this light must the event also have been viewed by the people of Canaan. But, besides, a deeper symbolical meaning attached to all that had happened. The first and strongest fortress in the land Jehovah God bestowed upon His people, so to speak, as a free gift, without their having to make any effort, or to run any risk in taking it. A precious pledge this of the ease with which all His gracious promises were to be fulfilled. Similarly, the manner in which Israel obtained possession of Jericho was deeply significant. Evidently, the walls of Jericho fell, not before Israel, but before the Ark of Jehovah, or rather, as it is expressly said in verse 8, before Jehovah Himself, whose presence among His people was connected with the Ark of the Covenant. And the blast of those jubilee-horns all around the doomed city made proclamation of Jehovah, and was, so to speak, the summons of His kingdom, proclaiming that the labor and sorrow of His people were at an end, and they about to enter upon their inheritance. This was the symbolical cal and typical import of the blasts of the jubilee-horns, whenever they were blown. Hence also alike in the visions of the prophets and in the New Testament the final advent of the kingdom of God is heralded by the trumpet-sound of His angelic messengers (comp. 1 Cor. 15 : 52 ; 1 Thess. 4 : 16 ; Rev. 20 and 21). But, on the other hand, the advent of the kingdom of God always implies destruction to His enemies. Accordingly, the walls of Jericho must fall, and all the city be destroyed. Lastly, it was fitting that Jericho should have been entirely devoted unto the Lord ; not only that Israel might gain no immediate spoil by what the Lord had done, but also because the city, as the firstfruits of the conquest of the land, belonged unto Jehovah, just as all the first, both in His people and in all that was theirs, was His—in token that the whole was really God's property, who gave everything to His people, and at whose hands they held their possessions. A. E. CENTURIES before, Divine wisdom had made choice of this favored region as the abode of his people, among whom his name and worship should be perpetuated. In calling Abraham to this land, and giving it to him and his posterity, God claimed and exercised his right so to give it. That he might certify the gift to all, and himself as the giver, he recorded his name upon it. For Abraham, on his entrance into the land under Divine direction, and at his first halting-place, nearly in the geographical centre of the country, erected an altar to Jehovah (Gen. 12 : 7). Wherever he halted for a time in his subsequent journeyings, and fixed his temporary abode, he "built there an altar to Jehovah, and called on the name of Jehovah" (ch. 12 : 8. See chs. 13 : 4, 18 ; 21 : 33.) A like record is given of Isaac (26 : 25), and of Jacob (33 : 20). Centuries had now passed, and all was changed. The germs of idolatry had reached their complete development. They had effaced every vestige of Jehovah's name and worship, and in place of them were the worst abominations of heathenism. Thus this favored land, chosen of God to perpetuate his name and worship, and hallowed by his altars, was now wrested from its purpose, and his altars everywhere supplanted by those of false gods. Idolatry, with its polluting and de-humanizing rites, had taken such hold of the popular mind, infusing its poison into all the relations and conditions of life, from infancy to age, that nothing short of extirpation would uproot and totally destroy the deadly evil. This was expressly commanded in Nu. 33 : 51-53, and De. 20 : 16-18. It is enough that God commanded it, and had the right to command it. But it was no arbitrary mandate. Its justice is clearly manifest from what has already been said. Its wisdom is no less evident, as the necessary means of the highest good, both to that age and to all succeeding ones. Conant. The Old Testament knows no other ground for the assignment of the land to Israel than the free grace of Jehovah, to whom it belonged ; and no other ground for the blotting out of the Canaanite tribes than the divine justice, which, after these tribes have filled up the measure of their sins in unnatural abominations, breaks in at last in vengeance, after long waiting. But Israel is threatened with exactly the same judgment if it become guilty of the sins of the tribes on whom it executes the divine judgment with the sword. O. In reading the Old Testament account of the Jewish wars and conquests in Canaan, and the terrible destruction brought upon the inhabitants, we are constantly to bear in mind that we are reading the execution of a dreadful but just sentence, pronounced by God against the intolerable and incorrigible crimes of these nations—that they were intended to be made an example to the whole world of God's avenging wrath against sins of this magnitude and this kind; sins which, if they had been suffered to continue, might have polluted the whole ancient world, and which could only be checked by the signal and public overthrow of nations notoriously addicted to them, so addicted as to have incorporated them even into their religion and their public institutions; that the miseries inflicted upon the nations by the invasion of the Jews were expressly declared to be inflicted on account of their abominable sins—that God had borne with them long: that God did not proceed to execute his judgments till their wickedness was full: that the Israelites were mere instruments in the hands of a righteous providence for the extermination of a people whom it was necessary to make a public example to the rest of mankind: that this extermination, which might have been accomplished by a pestilence, by fire, by earthquakes, was appointed to be done by the hands of the Israelites as being the clearest and most intelligible method of displaying the power and righteousness of the God of Israel; his power over the pretended gods of other nations and his righteous hatred of the crimes into which they were fallen. Paley. The character of the nations to be extirpated furnishes the reason of the Divine procedure toward them; and that the total extirpation of a pre-eminently wicked race is in no respect more opposed to Divine justice than was the destruction of the world by a deluge, and of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire from heaven, will hardly be questioned. Other instances of the destruction of tribes and nations, however different the agency by which it has been effected from that in the present case, and the others adverted to, are of frequent occurrence in the world's history. Further, and more particularly, experience abundantly confirms the testimony of Scripture, that God employs men, as well as inferior agencies, for the accomplishment of his purposes, whether of good or evil. Individuals have a mission, and so also have nations, and God employs them often, unconsciously to themselves, and even contrary to their intentions, as the instruments of his wrath, and when they have fulfilled their destiny, arms in turn other powers against them. This is the voice of universal history, and of Scripture history in particular, which discovers the most hidden springs of actions, and the will which directs all affairs. In these matters God not merely permits—for this were to take a low view of the Divine government, one utterly inadequate to explain the various phenomena of Providence—He arranges all events, and regulates all their issues. If, then, God does employ men as the unconscious ministers of His will, can He not also legitimate a people as righteous instruments of punishment? If God can and does employ an instrumentality of destruction acting from its own will, and for the accomplishment of its own ends, without any respect to the Divine will, and which on that account is guilty, can He not also employ an instrumentality which, acting under his sole and supreme authority, shall be guiltless of wrong? This is the precise point to which the present question is reduced; and it is with this rather than with the assumed injurious consequences to the conscious instruments so employed, that the objector has to deal. D. M. Far greater empires have been given to destruction than that of the Canaanites. In most cases they fell by their own vices as the prime cause. All historians are so agreed and have pointed the moral for succeeding nations. Instead of denouncing the arrangement by which nations die of profligacy as individual sinners do, they have noted the warning lesson and recognized its value. The Old Testament historian does precisely the same. He tells us the Canaanites were so dreadfully depraved they had to be destroyed. W. E. Knox. God suffered the Canaanites to remain there until they had forfeited their title not to Canaan alone, but to life itself and to any further national existence. This point is too vital to be passed without careful attention. In Lev. 18 we meet with a series of crimes against moral purity—violations of the seventh commandment—culminating in sodomy and bestiality; and classed with these is the burning of children in the worship of Moloch (verse 21). Then God says—“Defile not yourselves 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 do I visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.” The same sentiments are repeated (verses 26–30). Unnatural lusts had sunk both men and women not only down to a level with beasts, but even below them. Idolatry had so far quenched the sweet humanities from the parental heart that fathers and mothers could burn their own sons and daughters to Moloch. These horrible, unnatural crimes were not only an outrage against the heart of God the Great Father; but, as he forcibly puts it, they defiled the very land itself. What could a holy and righteous God do with such a people but wipe them out of existence and wash the land they had defiled clean of such pollutions? Lev. 20 reiterates substantially the same list of abominations against which God warns his people. Perfectly definite and explicit is the repetition of the same point in De. 12 : 30, 31, and 18 : 9-14. A people so given up to devil-worship as to burn their own offspring at his supposed behest, must be too debased and corrupt to live! The earth itself cries out against them, demanding their utter extirpation! Such a war as that of Israel against the Canaanites, waged in obedience to God, waged for the destruction of such sinners and to cleanse the earth from such unutterable abominations and pollutions, is not demoralizing—is not so either necessarily or even naturally; but if done in honest obedience to God and with a due sense of the grounds on which God commanded it, must have been the very opposite of demoralizing; must have educated the nation of Israel to a juster sense of the abominations of idolatry and of the righteous moral government of God over the wicked in the present world. It cannot be doubted that these were the ends which God sought to secure in putting this service upon Israel. A lower object to be reached was to vacate the land of Canaan for Israel to occupy; but the far higher object was to wash the land of its moral pollutions; to break down and blot out nations too corrupt to live. The Lord devolved this extirpation upon Israel that they might thereby get a deeper sense of his abhorrence of such sin—not to say also, a juster view of the intrinsic abominations which God commissioned them to punish. H. C. "Defile not ye in any of these things," God had said, "that the land spew not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spewed out the nations that were before you; I am the Lord your God!" How much more striking would this warning become for them from the fact that they had been the instruments of a judgment similar to that with which they themselves had been threatened! Did not each blow they dealt in this war with the Canaanites speak their own death sentence if they ever should morally assimilate themselves with the guilty nations? Godel. That God is as severe in his dealings with sin in his own people as in his enemies is a point which is surely of great moment. If severe in punishing these wicked nations, God is not less sparing of Israel when it follows in their ways and does what is wrong. We think here of the destruction of thousands of their number for the sin of the golden calf, and for the sin of Baal-peor; of the plagues, fiery serpents, etc., which chastised them for disobedience; and of their defeat at Ai. There is with God no respect of persons; and if one can believe in his love to Israel notwithstanding these inflictions, he may believe in his love and justice notwithstanding the punishments inflicted on the sinful nations around. Orr. This wholesale execution was not merely just as regards the irretrievably corrupted tribes which were the objects of it; it was equally indispensable on account of the state of moral weakness of the Hebrew nation that was called to take their place. On the one hand, inclined toward idolatry, like all the other nations; on the other, charged with the grand mission of maintaining and propagating monotheism, how could Israel have accomplished its task had it been forced to incorporate with itself all the Canaanites of the Holy Land? The work of God would thereby have become wholly impossible. Either the plan of God for the salvation of mankind was to fail, or those who were ripe for judgment were to perish. Godel.—The alternative was either an unrelenting hostility, or a compromise and a mingling of the Hebrews and idolaters, which must have resulted in the extinguishment of the light of truth, dim as it was, of which the former were possessed. Had the world been different from what it was, had the Hebrews been different—more firm in their faith, more enlightened—the alternative would not have existed. But it did exist; and the preservation of true religion in its germs, our Christian civilization to-day, are dependent upon the course that was actually taken, revolting as it would be to humane feeling, if repeated at a later day and under altered circumstances. Had the Canaanites been spared, the historic stream, narrow and turbid as it then was, would have been choked up or turned out of its channel, instead of flowing on in a broader and clearer current, until, at a point far remote from its source, it issued in a pure Christian theism, the life of our civilization. All this is clear to the historical student, whatever may be his creed, who values the Christian religion, and discerns the genetic connection of events. We must conclude that the extirpation of the Canaanites, the only means by which the contagion of their idolatry and sensuality could be avoided—“terrible surgery” though it was, to borrow language of Carlyle in speaking of another matter—was yet a part of the wise and beneficent order of Providence. We must conclude, also, that it was the fruit of the highest religious impulses of the people who were charged with the seed of what is most precious in modern religion and civilization. Were this the whole case, we should have to say that the excesses springing from the untamed religious zeal of an uncivilized people were overruled by Providence, educating good out of partial evil, in subservience to a far-sighted plan for the salvation of the human race. But if we bring in, as an additional element, the manifested will of God, as the warrant for their proceeding, they are raised to the level of executioners, not merely of a permissive, providential appointment, but of a direct commandment. It becomes an instance where human agency is employed for the infliction of divine judgment, the agent consciously acting as the instrument of divine justice. How can such a commandment, enjoining indiscriminate massacre, be consistent with the divine attributes? As far as the consequences are concerned, the destruction of life, there is no greater difficulty than exists in the case of a hurricane or a plague, which sweeps away myriads of both sexes and of all ages. As far as the effect upon the actors is concerned there is no offence done to the moral sense; there is no such departure from the common ideas, the accepted laws of war and conquest in that age, as would produce a moral deterioration in the Israelites themselves. Rather is it true, that feeling themselves to be deputies of the Supreme Power for the execution of penalties and for the carrying out of a plan not their own, they would perform their stern work with a kind of sacred enthusiasm, unlike the base feeling of malice and revenge, as for a private injury, and impressed at every step with their own exposure to a like retribution in case they trod in the path of those whom they were commanded to destroy. If they were used as a flail and a scourge, the victims of their hostility suffered no heavier calamity than has been visited by the will of Providence upon many a corrupt and enervated nation, which has been crushed under the foot of the invader; while for the Israelites themselves a wall was built up around them against the pollutions of heathenism, and a sense of the guilt and peril of apostasy was gained, which their whole subsequent history proves that they could not afford to spare. Fisher. Seen historically—estimated in the light of the facts of the case, this method was morally impressive, instructive, elevating, wholesome. That man reads the history of the heroic age of Israel very imperfectly who does not see in it ample demonstration that staunch obedience to God in this matter of war against the idolatrous, corrupt Canaanites, fostered piety, developed Christian heroism and toned up the standard of morality. When they compromised, accepted tribute, and tried their own policy of living side by side with such idolaters instead of God’s policy of vigorous extermination, then came disaster, religious decline, and most perilous moral corruption. The great conflict of those early ages between God and Satan was fought on the point of idolatry—the real question being whether God or the devil should have the worship of men; whether the supremacy and the moral right to rule the world are with God or with Satan. This being the great conflict of the ages, it should not surprise us that God should let Israel’s land of promise be in a sort the battle-ground, and should bring into play the physical force of arms and let his covenant people come into the fight hand to hand against the hosts of his foes. H. C. Let us but think what might have been our fate, and the fate of every other nation under heaven at this hour, had the sword of the Israelites done its work more sparingly. Even as it was, the small portions of the Canaanites who were left, and the nations around them, so tempted the Israelites by their idolatrous practices, that we read continually of the whole people of God turning away from his service. But had the heathen lived in the land in equal numbers, and, still more, had they intermarried largely with the Israelites, how was it possible, humanly speaking, that any sparks of the light of God’s truth should have survived to the coming of Christ? Would not the Israelites have lost all their peculiar character? and if they had retained the name of Jehovah as of their God, would they not have formed as unworthy notions of his attributes, and worshipped him with a worship as abominable, as that which the Moabites paid to Chemosh, or the Philistines to Dagon? But this was not to be, and therefore the nations of Canaan were to be cut off utterly. 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. They seem of very small importance to us now, those perpetual contests with the Canaanites, and the Midianites, and the Ammonites, and the Philistines, with which the Books of Joshua, and Judges, and Samuel, are almost filled. But in these contests, on the fate of one of these nations of Palestine, the happiness of the human race depended. The Israelites fought, not for themselves only, but for us. They did God's work; they preserved, unhurt, the seed of eternal life, and were the ministers of blessing to all other nations, even though they themselves failed to enjoy it. Arnold. Popular critics of the morality of the Old Testament apply the coarsest possible arguments to this subject. They think it enough to point to a rude penal law, to a barbarous custom, to an extirpating warfare, and it at once follows that this is the morality of the Bible; but this is to judge the sculptor from the broken fragment of stone. It was not the morality of the Bible unless it was the morality of the Bible as a whole, and the whole is tested by the end and not by the beginning. Scripture was progressive: it went from lower stage to higher, and as it rose from one stage to another it blotted out the commands of an inferior standard and substituted the commands of a higher standard. This was the nature of the dispensation as being progressive; it was the essential operation of the Divine government as it acted in that period of the world. The dispensation, then, as a whole, did not command the extermination of the Canaanites, but a subordinate step did; and this step passed from use and sight as a higher was attained. The fact, though instructive as past history, became obsolete, and was left behind as a present lesson; and the dispensation in its own nature was represented by its end. The very lower steps led to the end, and were for the sake of leading to it. The critic adheres to a class of commands which existed for the moment, as facts of the day; but the turning point is the issue, and the whole can only be interpreted by the event. The morality of Scripture is the morality of the end of Scripture; it is the last standard reached, and what everything else led up to. Mozley. Principles involved identical with those of the New Testament. We affirm that, if contemplated in the broad and comprehensive light in which Scripture itself presents them to our view, there is not an essential element belonging to these statements which does not equally enter into the principles of the Gospel dispensation; and that any difference which may here present itself between the Old and the New is, as in all other cases, a difference merely in form, but founded upon an essential agreement. This will appear whether it is viewed in respect to the Canaanites, to the Israelites, or to the times of the Gospel dispensation. Viewed, first of all, in respect to the Canaanites as the execution of deserved judgment on their sins (in which light Scripture uniformly represents it, so far as they are concerned), there is nothing in it to offend the feelings of any well-constituted Christian mind. From the beginning to the end of the Bible, God appears as the righteous Judge and avenger of sin, and does so not unfrequently by the infliction of fearful things in righteousness. If we can contemplate Him bringing on the cities of the plain the vengeance of eternal fire, because their sins had waxed great and were come up to heaven; or, at a later period, even in Gospel times, can reflect how the wrath was made to fall on the Jewish nation to the uttermost;—if we can contemplate such things entering into the administration of God, without any disturbance to our convictions that the Judge of all the earth does only what is right, it were surely unreasonable to complain of the severities exercised on the foul inhabitants of Canaan. Their abominations were of a kind that might be said emphatically to cry to Heaven—such idolatrous rites as tended to defile their very consciences, and the habitual practice of pollutions which were a disgrace to humanity. The land is represented as incapable of bearing any longer the mass of defilements which overspread it, as even “vomiting out its inhabitants;” and “therefore,” it is added, “the Lord visited their iniquity upon them.” Nor was this vengeance taken on them summarily: the time of judgment was preceded by a long season of forbearance, during which they were plied with many calls to repentance. But as all proved in vain, mercy at length gave place to judgment, according to the principle common alike to all dispensations: “He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall be suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy.” In plain terms, whenever iniquity has reached its last stage, the judgment of Heaven is at hand. This principle was as strikingly exemplified in the case of the Jews after our Lord's appearing as in the case of these Canaanites before. In the parables of the barren fig-tree and the wicked husbandmen in the vineyard, the same place is assigned it in the Christian dispensation which it formerly held in the Jewish. And in the experience of all who, despite of merciful invitations and solemn threatenings, perish from the way of life, it must find an attestation so much more appalling than the one now referred to, as a lost eternity exceeds in evil the direst calamities of time. In fine, the very same may be said of the objections brought against the destruction of the Canaanites, which was said by Richard Baxter of many of the controversies started in his day: "The true root of all the difference is, whether there be a God and a life to come." Grant only a moral government and a time of retribution, and such cases as those under consideration become not only just, but necessary. Again, let the judgment executed upon the Canaanites be viewed in respect to the instruments employed in enforcing it—the Israelites—and in this aspect also nothing will be found in it at variance with the great principles of truth and righteousness. The commission given to the Israelites was limited to the one task of sweeping the land of Canaan of its original occupants. But this manifestly conferred on them no right to deal out the same measure of severity to others; and so far from creating a thirst for human blood, in cases where they had no authority to shed it, they even fainted in fulfilling their commission to extirpate the people of Canaan. This, however, is only the negative side of the question; and viewed in another and more positive aspect, the employment of the Israelites to execute this work of judgment was eminently calculated to produce a salutary impression upon their minds, and to promote the ends for which the judgment was appointed. For what could be conceived so thoroughly fitted to implant in their hearts an abiding conviction of the evil of idolatry and its foul abominations—to convert their abhorrence of these into a national, permanent characteristic—as their being obliged to enter on their settled inheritance by a terrible infliction of judgment upon its former occupants for polluting it with such enormities? Thus the very foundations of their national existence raised a solemn warning against defection from the pure worship of God; and the visitation of divine wrath against the ungodliness of men accomplished by their own hands, and interwoven with the records of their history at its most eventful period, stood as a perpetual witness against them, if they should ever turn aside to folly. Happy had it been for them, if they had been as careful to remember the lesson as God was to have it suitably impressed upon their minds. But the propriety and even moral necessity of the course pursued become manifest, when we view the proceeding in its typical bearing—the respect it had to Gospel times. There were reasons, as we have seen, connected with the Canaanites themselves and the surrounding nations, sufficient to justify the whole that was done; but we cannot see the entire design of it, or even perceive its leading object, without looking further, and connecting it with the higher purposes of God respecting His kingdom among men. What He sought in Canaan was an inheritance,—a place of rest and blessing for His people, but still only a temporary inheritance, and as such a type and pledge of that final rest which remains for the people of God. All, therefore, had to be arranged concerning the one, so as fitly to represent and image the higher and more important things which belong to the other; that the past and the temporary might serve as a mirror in which to foreshadow the future and abiding; and that the principles of God's dealing toward His Church might be seen to be essentially the same, whether displayed on the theatre of present or of eternal realities. Since the place chosen for the inheritance of Israel had become in a peculiar sense the region of pollution, this region required to be sanctified by an act of divine judgment upon its corrupt possessors, and thereby fitted for becoming the home and heritage of saints. In this way alone could the things done concerning it shadow forth and prepare for the final possession of a glorified world,—an inheritance which also needs to be redeemed from the powers of darkness that meanwhile overspread it with their corruptions, and which must be sanctified by terrible acts of judgment upon their ungodliness, before it can become the meet abode of saints in glory. The spirit of antichrist must be judged and cast out; woes of judgment and executions of vengeance must precede the Church's occupation of her purchased inheritance, similar in kind to those which put Israel in possession of the land of Canaan. What, indeed, are the scenes presented to our view in the concluding chapters of Revelation, but an expansion to the affairs of a world, and the destinies of a coming eternity, of those which we find depicted in the wars of Joshua? In these awful scenes we behold, on the one hand, the Captain of Salvation, of whom Joshua was but an imperfect type, going forth to victory with the company of a redeemed and elect Church, supported by the Word of God, and the resistless artillery of heaven; while, on the other hand, we see the doomed enemies of God and the Church long borne with, but now at last delivered to judgment— the wrath falling on them to the uttermost,— and, when the world has been finally relieved of their abominations, the new heavens and the new earth rising into view, where righteousness, pure and undefiled, is to have its perennial hab- itation. Fairbairn. ACHAN'S SACRILEGIOUS THEFT. ISRAEL'S PUNISHMENT BY DEFEAT AT AI, ACHAN'S DETECTION AND PUNISHMENT. TAKING AND DESTRUCTION OF AI. 7 1 But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the devoted thing : for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the devoted thing : and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel. 2 And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth-aven, on the east side of Beth-el, and spake unto them, saying, Go up and spy out the land. And the men went up 3 and spied out Ai. And they returned to Joshua, and said unto him, Let not all the people go up ; but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai ; make not all the people to 4 toil thither ; for they are but few. So there went up thither of the people about three thou- 5 sand men : and they fled before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men : and they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebariu, and smote 6 them at the going down : and the hearts of the people melted, and became as water. And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the LORD until the 7 evening, he and the elders of Israel ; and they put dust upon their heads. And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to cause us to perish ? would that we had been content and dwelt 8 beyond Jordan ! Oh Lord, what shall I say, after that Israel hath turned their backs before 9 their enemies ! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall compass us round, and cut off our name from the earth : and what wilt thou do for thy 10 great name ? And the LORD said unto Joshua, Get thee up ; wherefore art thou thus fallen 11 upon thy face ? Israel hath sinned : yea, they have even transgressed my covenant which I commanded them : yea, they have even taken of the devoted thing ; and have also stolen, and 12 dissembled also, and they have even put it among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel cannot stand before their enemies, they turn their backs before their enemies, because they are become accursed : I will not be with you any more, except ye destroy the devoted 13 thing from among you. Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to- morrow : for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, There is a devoted thing in the midst of thee, O Israel : thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the devoted thing 14 from among you. In the morning therefore ye shall be brought near by your tribes : and it shall be, that the tribe which the LORD taketh shall come near by families ; and the family which the LORD shall take shall come near by households ; and the household which the LORD 15 shall take shall come near man by man. And it shall be, that he that is taken with the de- voted thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he hath : because he hath transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he hath wrought folly in Israel. 16 So Joshua rose up early in the morning, and brought Israel near by their tribes ; and the 17 tribe of Judah was taken : and he brought near the family of Judah ; and he took the family of the Zerahites : and he brought near the family of the Zerahites man by man ; and Zabdi 18 was taken : and he brought near his household man by man ; and Achan, the son of Carmi, 19 the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken. And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and make confession 20 unto him ; and tell me now what thou hast done ; hide it not from me. And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Of a truth I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel, and thus and 21 thus have I done : when I saw among the spoil a goodly Babylonish mantle, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it. 22. So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran unto the tent; and, behold, it was hid in his tent, 23 and the silver under it. And they took them from the midst of the tent, and brought them unto Joshua, and unto all the children of Israel; and they laid them down before the LORD. 24. And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the mantle, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them up unto the valley of 25. Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire, and stoned them with 26 stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones, unto this day; and the LORD turned from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor, unto this day. S 1 And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of 2. Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land: and thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take 3 for a prey unto yourselves: set thee an ambush for the city behind it. So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up to Ai: and Joshua chose out thirty thousand men, the mighty 4 men of valor, and sent them forth by night. And he commanded them, saying, Behold, ye shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city: go not very far from the city, but be ye 5 all ready: and I, and all the people that are with me, will approach unto the city: and it shall come to pass, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them; 6 and they will come out after us, till we have drawn them away from the city; for they will 7 say, They flee before us, as at the first; so we will flee before them: and ye shall rise up from the ambush, and take possession of the city: for the LORD your God will deliver it into your 8 hand. And it shall be, when ye have seized upon the city, that ye shall set the city on fire; 9 according to the word of the LORD shall ye do: see, I have commanded you. And Joshua sent them forth: and they went to the ambushment, and abode between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of Ai: but Joshua lodged that night among the people. 10. And Joshua rose up early in the morning, and mustered the people, and went up, he and 11 the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. And all the people, even the men of war that were with him, went up, and drew nigh, and came before the city, and pitched on the north side of 12. Ai: now there was a valley between him and Ai. And he took about five thousand men, and 13 set them in ambush between Beth-el and Ai, on the west side of the city. So they set the people, even all the host that was on the north of the city, and their liers in wait that were on 14 the west of the city; and Joshua went that night into the midst of the vale. And it came to pass, when the king of Ai saw it, that they hastened and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at the time appointed, before the 15. Arabah; but he wist not that there was an ambush against him behind the city. And Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness. 16. And all the people that were in the city were called together to pursue after them: and they 17 pursued after Joshua, and were drawn away from the city. And there was not a man left in Ai or Beth-el, that went not out after Israel: and they left the city open, and pursued after 18. Israel. And the LORD said unto Joshua, Stretch out the javelin that is in thy hand toward Ai; for I will give it into thine hand. And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his 19 hand toward the city. And the ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand, and entered into the city, and took it, and they hastened and 20 set the city on fire. And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and, behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that 21 way: and the people that fled to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers. And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city 22 ascended, then they turned again, and slew the men of Ai. And tho other came forth out of the city against them; so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that 23 side: and they smote them, so that they let none of them remain or escape. And the king of 24. Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua. And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they pursued them, and they were all fallen by the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all Israel returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword. And all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai. For Joshua drew not back his hand, wherewith he stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the LORD which he commanded Joshua. So Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation, unto this day. And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until the eventide: and at the going down of the sun Joshua commanded, and they took his carcase down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city, and raised thereon a great heap of stones, unto this day. Thus far-Israel had not gained aught by military prowess. Miraculous intervention had secured the crossing of the Jordan and the capture of Jericho. But now the conquest by their own arm (under God) was to begin. They had been vividly taught by the events of the preceding month to be trusful before God, and this necessary lesson having been given, they were now to go forward and conquer the land for the Lord who sent them. But it very soon appeared that a new teaching of God's severity against disobedience was necessary. They were to learn that their trust in God against their enemies was to be proportioned to their own obedience to God. Crosby. The story of this chapter begins with a but. Joshua did right, and observed his orders in everything. But the children of Israel committed a trespass, and so set God against them; and then even Joshua's name and fame, his wisdom and courage, could do them no service. The sin is here said to be taking of the accursed thing, in disobedience to the command, and in defiance of the threatening (ch. 6: 18). In the sacking of Jericho orders were given that they should neither spare any lives nor take any treasure to themselves; we read not of the breach of the former prohibition (there were none to whom they showed any mercy), but of the latter. Compassion was put off and yielded to the law, but covetousness was indulged. Yet the history of Achan is a plain intimation that he of all the thousands of Israel was the only delinquent in this matter. Had there been more in like manner guilty, no doubt we should have heard of it; and it is strange there were no more. H. 1. But the children of Israel committed a trespass.** This is here attributed to the whole people, which was really the act of but one man or one family. Nevertheless, Israel was one people, and it is here dealt with as one corporate body. There was criminality in the midst of them. And it was necessary that it should be disavowed and punished, in order that the people might be freed from all complicity and connection with it. W. H. G. —The crime of this one man is imputed to all Israel on the principle of the organic unity of the nation. As the body is diseased or wounded, though only in one of its members, so his trespass destroyed the moral integrity of the whole people. Waive. Trespass in the devoted thing. The words signify "the thing that was consecrated to God," as was all the silver and gold (ch. 6: 19). When God relates to Joshua the sin of Israel as the reason of their flying before their enemies, he represents Achan's crime as sacrilege combined with theft and dissembling. Jos. Mede.—It was SACRILEGE, it was invading God's rights, alienating his property, and converting to a private use that which was devoted to his glory, and appropriated to the service of his sanctuary—this was the crime to be thus severely punished, for warning to all people in all ages to take heed how they rob God. H. Achan, the son of Carmi. This Achan is elsewhere called Achar, trouble or the troubler, undoubtedly in allusion to the effect of his conduct on this occasion. Nothing is more common in the Scriptures than for the names of persons and places to be changed in consequence of, and in allusion to, certain remarkable events by which they may have been distinguished. Bush. 2. Ai—cast of Bethel.** From the neighborhood of Jericho three roads or passes strike up toward the interior of Palestine; one leads to the southern district, by the way of Jerusalem; another, which leads to the central, ascends by Geba and Michmash; and another, and more northerly, by Ai and Bethel. Joshua deemed it best, in the first instance, to take possession of the central district; and for this purpose it was essential that he should hold the road by Ai. W. G. B.—The site of Ai has been identified by Dr. Robinson, twelve miles northwest from Jericho; ten miles northeast from Jerusalem; three miles southeast from Bethel. The valley of Achor was a short distance south of ancient Jericho. Coleman. Nine miles south of Shiloh is the modern village of Beitin, the site of Bethel. Here there is nothing but a heap of ruins, but on the hill adjoining and east of Bethel are the remains of a fortified Christian church, which was probably built by the early Christians to consecrate the spot where Abraham built his second altar after entering the Promised Land, and where he separated from Lot. The site of Ai may be confidently assigned to a ruined hill-top east of the church, called by the Arabs Et Tell, "the heap." This corresponds exactly to the description, when we know the site of Bethel and the site of Abraham's encampment where he built an altar; for we read that he pitched his camp having Bethel on the west and Hai on the east. There is a valley behind the ruined heap where Joshua placed his ambush. There is a spot opposite, across the intervening valley, where Joshua stood to give the preconcerted signal; and there is a plain or ridge down which the men of Ai hurried in pursuit of the retreating Israelites, so that the men in ambush rose and captured the city. Test Work. Ai was a comparatively smaller city than Jericho, numbering only 12,000 inhabitants (ch. 8 : 25). Yet its position was exceedingly important. Southward it opened the road to Jerusalem, which is only a few hours distant; northward it commanded access to the heart of the country, so that as we find in the sequel a victorious army could march thence unopposed into the fertile district of Samaria. Moreover, the fate of Ai virtually decided also that of Bethel. A. E. 4,5. There was no serious fighting, or the slaughter would have been more than thirty-six. "There went up, . . . and"—what then? Fought? No. "They fled before the men of Ai," rushing in wild terror down the steep pass which they had so confidently breasted in the morning, till the pursuers caught them up at some "quarries," where, perhaps, the ground was difficult, and there slew the few who fell, while the remainder got away by swiftness of foot, and brought back their terror and their shame to the camp. A. M.—In this second battle the Israelites are beaten: it was not the fewness of the assailants that overthrew them, but the sin that lay lurking at home. The wedge of Achan did more fight against them than all the swords of the Canaanites. The victories of God go not by strength but by innocence. 6-9. But good Joshua, that succeeded Moses no less in the care of God's glory than in his government, is much dejected with this event. He rends his clothes, falls on his face, casts dust upon his head, and as if he had learned of his master how to expostulate with God, says, "What will thou do to thy mighty name?" Bp. H.—This he looks upon and laments as the great aggravation of the calamity, he feared it would reflect on God, his wisdom and power, his goodness and faithfulness; what would the Egyptians say? Nothing is more grievous to a gracious soul than dishonor done to God's name. H.—He viewed the hand of God rather than of man in this disaster; and this led to his deep humiliation before God. But his tender regard for the honor of the divine name was that which eminently distinguished him on this occasion. This was the plea which Moses had often used, and to which God had paid especial regard; and the man that feels it in his soul and urges it in sincerity and truth can never be ultimately foiled. Bush. It had been Israel's first defeat. The immediate danger likely to accrue was a combination of all their enemies round about, and the utter destruction of a host which had become dispirited. But there was even a more serious aspect than this. Had God's pledged promises now failed? or, if this could not even for a moment be entertained, had the Lord given up His gracious purpose, His covenant with Israel, and the manifestation of His "Name" among all nations, connected therewith? Feelings like these found expression in Joshua's appeal to God, when, with rent clothes and ashes upon their heads, he and the elders of Israel lay the livelong day, in humiliation and prayer, before the Lord, while in the camp "the hearts of the people" had "melted and became as water." We require to keep in view this contrast between the terror of the people and the praying attitude of their leaders, to realize the circumstances of the case; the perplexity, the anxiety, and the difficulties of Joshua, before we judge of the language which he used. It fell indeed far short of the calm confidence of a Moses; yet, in its inquiry into the reason of God's dealings, which were acknowledged, faith wrestled with doubt, while rising fear was confronted by trust in God's promises (verse 9). Best of all, the inward contest found expression in prayer. It was therefore, after all, a contest of faith, and faith is "the victory over the world." A. E. 10. All his expostulations are answered in one word; "Get thee up, Israel hath sinned." Joshua now knows that Israel, which before prevailed for their faith, is beaten for their sin. Bp. H.—11. The cause of the disaster is with Israel, not with God, and therefore the remedy is not in prayer, but in active steps to cast out the unclean thing. The prayer had asked two things,—the disclosure of the cause of God's having left them, and his return. The answer lays bare the cause, and therein shows the conditions of his return. Note the indignant accumulation of verbs in verse 11, describing the sin in all its aspects. The first three of the six point out its heinousness in reference to God, as sin, as a breach of covenant, and as an appropriation of what was especially his. The second three describe it in terms of ordinary morality, as theft, lying, and concealment; so many black sides has one sin when God's eye scrutinizes it. Note, too, the attribution of the sin to the whole people, the emphatic reduplication of the shameful picture of their defeat, the singular transference to them of the properties of the devoted thing which Achan has taken, and the plain, stringent conditions of God's return. Joshua's prayer is answered. He knows now why little Ai has beaten them back. He asked, "What shall I say?" He has got something of grave import to say. A. M. The rebuke of the Lord meant that this was not a time for prayer, but for self-examination, on the part of Israel; not for complaint, but for repentance. It was not that God had forsaken Israel, as Joshua seemed to imagine, but that Israel had forsaken God. It was this that needed inquiry. And is the lesson thus conveyed not also that which comes home alike to the church and to individual Christians in days of sorrow and defeat? "Get thee up . . . Israel hath sinned." That alone is success which cometh from his presence and blessing. And that is not real or, at least, lasting defeat, which brings us to our knees, and leads to self-examination and the cleansing from all sin. A. E. A principal reason why they were forbidden to appropriate any spoil of this wealthy city was to impress upon them the fact that the conquest of the city was not in any respect due to the power of their arms, and that, therefore, they had no right to any portion of the spoil. Nothing was so well calculated as this privation to remind them to whom alone this important conquest was due. It was also a prudential measure, as it tried the obedience of the people. Kit. 13. On the morrow would be the search for the offenders. That very evening they would make their solemn ritual preparation for the investigation. The fearful nature of sin is shown most forcibly in this memorable scene. Crosby. 14. Though God revealed the fact, he did not name the person that had committed it, but left that to be discovered in a way more impressive to the nation, and more merciful to the offender, inasmuch as it gave him time for repentance and voluntary acknowledgment. Bush. 15. The burning with fire was the most striking token of the consuming wrath of a holy God. (See Heb. 12 : 29, and 10 : 27.) Crosby.—All that he hath. That one guilty of sin does involve in its consequences those connected with him, is simply a fact, admitting no discussion, and is equally witnessed when God's law in nature and when His moral law are set at defiance. The deepest reason of it lies in this, that the God of nature and of grace is also the founder of society; for the family and society are not of man's devising but of God's institution, and form part of His general plan. Accordingly, God deals with us not merely as individuals, but also as families and as nations. To question the rightness of this would be to question alike the administration, the fundamental principles, and the plan of God's universe. But there is reason for devout thankfulness that we can and do recognize the presence of God in both nature and in history. The highest instance of the application of this law is that which has rendered our salvation possible. For just as we had sinned and destroyed ourselves through our connection with the first Adam, so are we saved through the second Adam—the Lord from heaven, who has become our substitute, that in him we might receive the adoption of children. A. E.—Bishop Butler states a fact of daily experience when, in his irrefutable reply to objections against the mediation of Christ, he reminds us that nearly the whole of what we enjoy or suffer comes to us through our relation to other men. Every thinking man can see for himself that the conduct of parents shapes the destiny of their children. The more obvious operations of the law are visible to our feeble eyes. How much farther it extends is known only to God or as he reveals it to us. Boggs. Had the Israelites turned this judicial mission into a war of conquest and plunder, they would have become corrupted in turn: hence all captured treasure was held to be sacred and no private looting was allowed. In stealing and secreting plunder Achan had violated an express prohibition, and endangered a necessary policy. The exigencies of military discipline and the sanctity and authority of the religious leadership of the people, required his exemplary though terrible punishment. Alas! in what calamities may one involve a family, a community, a nation, by his sins! and how sure it is that our sins will find us out! J. P. T. Subdivisions of the Tribes (7 : 14, 16-18). The tribes were divided into clans. The clans were divided into families or houses. The next in order were the individual men, with their wives and children. This fourfold division, exhibited in Josh. 7 manifestly existed in the Mosaic time and before. At the head of the tribes, and sections of the tribes, there were princes and heads, who represented the unity of the tribe, or of the section, and in that capacity had undoubtedly corresponding magisterial rights and duties. The common name for these chiefs of every grade was heads of fathers' houses. Those of them who stood at the head of a whole tribe were called princes. The elders are mentioned in connection with the heads of the tribes, and are much more frequently referred to than the latter. Kurtz.—The principles of the Mosaic law of families are the following:—Each family forms a self-contained whole, which as far as possible is to be preserved in its integrity. Each Israelite is a citizen of the theocracy only by being a member of a certain clan of the covenant people; hence the value of genealogical trees. The representation of the family descends in the male line, and therefore marriages between the various tribes and families are of course allowed. On the contrary, if the male line has died out, the female line receives independent recognition for the preservation of the family, in order that no family in Israel may perish. The separation of family possessions is based on the separation of the families themselves. O. 16-18. To make the strongest possible impression upon all minds, both of the enormity of this sin, of the purity of their own holy Lord God, and of his all-searching eye before which no sin, however concealed from men, can be hidden, the whole people are brought up standing before him, and by the sacred lot, first, from all the tribes Judah is taken; then onward by families, by households, and lastly man by man, until at length the guilty offender stood out before the assembled hosts of Israel—Achan, by name; the sinner who had brought this great trouble upon Israel. H. C. 19. My son, give, I pray thee. What needed any other evidence, when God had accused Achan? Yet Joshua will have the sin out of his mouth, in whose heart it was hatched, "My son, I beseech thee, give glory to God." Whom God had convinced as a malefactor, Joshua beseeches as a son. Bp. H.—Give glory to God.** That is "confess" is the only torture read of in the Old Testament, applied by a judge to a criminal. It was the most sacred appeal which could be addressed to a wrong-doer's conscience. Sime.—How gentle are these words! There is no harshness, no severity, but a true paternal pity for the man who has placed himself in so fearful and perilous a position. "By this example," observes Calvin, "judges are taught that, while they punish crimes, they ought so to temper their severity as not to lay aside the feelings of humanity, and, on the other hand, that they ought to be merciful without being reckless and remiss; that, in short, they ought to be as parents to those they condemn, without substituting undue mildness for the sternness of justice." T. Smith. In confessing sin, as we take shame to ourselves so we give glory to God, as a righteous God, owning him justly displeased with us, and as a good God, who will not improve our confessions as evidences against us, but is faithful and just to forgive when we are brought to own that he would be faithful and just if he should punish. By sin we have injured God in his honor, Christ by his death has made satisfaction for the injury; but it is required that we by repentance show our good will to his honor, and as far as in us lies give glory to him. Bishop Patrick quotes the Samaritan Chronicle, making Joshua to say here to Achan, Lift up thine eyes to the King of heaven and earth, and acknowledge that nothing can be hid from him who knoweth the greatest secrets. H. 20,21. Achan's confession, though late, yet was it free and full; for he doth not only acknowledge the act, but the ground of his sin, "I saw, and coveted, and took." The eye betrayed the heart; and that, the hand; and now all conspire in the offence. Evil is uniform, and beginning at the senses, takes the inmost fort of the soul, and then arms our own outward forces against us. The over-prizing and over-desiring of these earthly things carries us into all mischief, and hides from us the sight of God's judgments. Bp. H.—"I saw—I coveted—I took," strikingly express the rise, progress, and consummation of crime. The inward corruption of the heart is first drawn forth by some enticing object. The desire of gratification is then formed, and the determination to attain it fixed. Then comes the act itself, followed by its bitter consequences. In this instance the temptation entered by the eye; he saw those fine things as Eve saw the forbidden fruit; and he allowed his eyes to gaze and feast upon the interdicted objects. The sight inflamed his desire; and he coveted them. The next step was to carry out the feeling into act; the desire prompted him to take them, as he did and thus accomplished the fearful deed. So naturally does lust when it hath conceived bring forth sin, and sin when finished bringeth forth death. Bush.—See what comes of suffering the heart to walk after the eyes, and what need we have to make this covenant with our eyes, that if they wander they shall be sure to weep for it. Look not thou upon the wine that is red, upon the woman that is fair; close the eye that thus offends thee, to prevent the necessity of plucking it out and casting it from thee (Matt. 5 : 28, 29). He owns, I coveted them. Had Achan looked upon these things with an eye of faith he would have seen them accursed things and would have dreaded them, but looking upon them with an eye of sense only he saw them goodly things and coveted them. 23. When the stolen goods were brought, they were laid out before the Lord, that all Israel might see how plain the evidence was against Achan, and might adore the strictness of God's judgments in punishing so severely the stealing of such small things, and yet the justice of his judgments in maintaining his right to devoted things, and might be afraid of ever offending in the like kind. In laying them before the Lord, they acknowledged his title to them, and waited to receive his directions concerning them. Those that think to put a cheat upon God do but deceive themselves; what is taken from him he will recover (Hos. 2 : 9), and he will be a loser by no man at last. H. 24. While they learned from his mercies how greatly he was to be loved, they needed also to learn from his judgments how greatly he was to be feared. This lesson would be effectually taught them by the present act of severity, and the death of a single individual might, by its admonitory influence, be the means of afterward preventing the death of many thousands. Bush.—God's first revenges are so much the more fearful, because they must be exemplary. Bp. H. 25. Joshua passes sentence upon him, Why hast thou troubled us? He refers to what was said when the warning was given not to meddle with the accursed thing (ch. 6 : 18), lest ye make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. He that is greedy of gain, as Achan was, troubles his own house (Prov. 15 : 27), and all the communities he belongs to. H.—That which is ill-gotten must be restored. Put it out of thy house, out of thy family; it will be a fire to burn, a moth to consume, a canker to fret all thy comforts. That which is ill-gotten will poison that which is well-gotten. Caryl. All Israel stoned him. According to the sentence of Jehovah, the whole congregation was to be regarded as participating in the crime of the individual, because every one was a living member of the whole. For this reason the punishment was committed to the whole congregation. By this punishment the congregation was to give back to the criminal its share of the guilt, and having led him out of the camp and put him to death, to wipe off the sin from Israel. That this was the light in which the punishment was viewed is especially apparent from the fact that the witnesses who heard the blasphemy, and therefore were more immediately concerned than the rest of the congregation, were required to lay their hands upon the head of the sinner, and thus by their own act and deed to cast off the guilt which they had involuntarily contracted, and transfer it to the head of the sinner. In this way the outward punishment became a moral act, performed by the whole congregation, and entered into such an inward relation to the crime that it could really be regarded as an extermination of the sin. Baum. Most commentators read verses 24, 25, as implying that the sons and daughters of Achan were stoned with him, supposing that his family could not have been ignorant of their father's sin. Of the latter there is, however, no indication in the text. It will also be noticed that in verse 25 the singular number is used: "All Israel stoned him;" "and they raised over him a great heap of stones." In that case, the plural number which follows ("and burned them," etc.) would refer only to the oxen, asses and sheep, and to all that Achan possessed. A. E. When indignation strikes at criminals, it strikes not for the advantage of society only, but as well for righteousness and for God. In such indignation there is no hatred. It is clear from malign breath as the steel sword of justice. It is at its core charitable, for it springs from the love of the good; and against the bad it bears no ill-will, but a most tender and pure pity. Dykes.—Many have ventured life and limb and many a better thing to gain the things of this world, and yet, after all, they have got nothing at all. Achan's golden wedge proved a wedge to cleave him; and his garment a garment to shroud him. Thomas Brooks. A new name was given to the place; it was called, the Valley of Achor, or Trouble. This was a perpetual brand of infamy upon Achan's name, and a perpetual warning to all people not to invade God's property. By this severity against Achan, the honor of Joshua's government, now in the infancy of it, was maintained, and Israel, at their entrance upon the promised Canaan, were minded to observe, at their peril, the provisoes and limitations of the grant by which they held it. The Valley of Achor is said to be given for a door of hope, because when we put away the accursed thing, then there begins to be hope in Israel (Hos. 2 : 15 ; Ezra 10 : 2). H. There are striking points of analogy between this case of Achan at the opening of the Canaan dispensation, and the case of Ananias and Sapphira at the opening of the Christian age. Covetousness, the love of money, was the root-sin in each case. The demand for fearful judgment and vigorous retribution in the outset to head off a great temptation and to protect the people of God in scenes of fearful peril, constitute yet other points of obvious analogy. There are times and seasons when justice of the sternest type toward individual offenders is the only real mercy to the masses. In regard to the case of Achan, it is within our limited vision to see that the Hebrew people were just entering upon a scene of great and searching temptation. The people and cities of Canaan were rich; the Israelites were poor. Canaan had the resources of a somewhat high civilization; gold, silver, vessels of brass and of iron; goodly Babylonish garments—all dazzling before the eyes of a people forty years in a barren wilderness, and antecedently four hundred years afflicted in Egypt. With a free license to plunder, and appropriate all they could lay hands on, this movement for the conquest of Canaan would have become a marauding expedition, not a whit above the demoralizing wars of all barbarous tribes upon nations largely in advance of themselves in wealth and luxury. Could the God of Israel become a party to such a war of plunder? Would such avarice, and theft, and selfishness have improved the morals and the piety of the children of Israel? Would such license to his people have inured to the honor of Israel's God? And yet further; these fascinating spoils—these glittering prizes of gold and silver and these ornaments of the cultured Canaanites—were linked in on every hand with idolatry. Art and wealth, in Canaan as in every other heathen nation, lent their power to augment the attractions toward idol-worship. If God would shut this flood-gate of idolatrous influence sharply down, he could not have done less than he did in the case of Achan—make the first offender a fearful example of severe and terrible, but just and righteous, punishment. But these considerations, though in point and of great force to show the aggravation of Achan's sin, yet fall far short of the whole truth. The strongest points of the case appear in the special features as given in the history. God lent his miraculous power for the destruction of Jericho on the special stipulation ("covenant" he calls it in 7 : 11) that the city should be devoted—it and all therein to the Lord; the sense of this devotement being that whatever was appropriate should go into the treasury of the Lord, and all else be given up to absolute destruction. The Hebrew word (cherem), translated either "devoted" or "accursed," is used continually in this record (6 : 17, 18, and 7 : 1, 11). Moreover it was most explicitly stipulated that all the silver and gold and vessels of brass and iron were consecrated wholly unto the Lord (6 : 19); "they shall come into the treasury of the Lord." Joshua and the people so understood it, and acted accordingly, for the history is definite. "They burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein; only the silver and the gold and the vessels of brass and of iron they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord" (6 : 24). Yet further; the utmost pains were taken to have this matter well understood beforehand. The preliminary precautions ran—"And ye in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing lest ye make yourselves accursed when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it" (6 : 18). The sin of Achan had, therefore, these points of highest criminality: It was a "presumptuous sin," against known and most explicit prohibition, and in contemptuous defiance of God's authority. It was sacrilege—stealing from God; taking property that was devoted to God by special stipulation. By all right-thinking men in every age, this sin has been accounted as of the highest enormity. To this it may be added that all the wealth of Jericho and the city itself fell into the hand of Israel by special miracle, wrought of God under these express stipulations. God being their Supreme King, the sin of Achan had the crowning element of being high treason. H. C. 1. Fear not.** The Lord repeats the words which gave courage to Joshua at the beginning of his administration. He needed the comforting exhortation after the bitter experiences he had just passed through. Crosby. 2. Only the spoil thereof—shall ye take to yourselves.** This was the grand point of difference in the prescribed manner of treating the two cities. In the one case, the spoil was granted to the people; in the other not. There was, therefore, no danger of their committing the same trespass here that they had there. Bush.—Observe how Achan, who caught at forbidden spoil, lost that, and life, and all, but the rest of the people, who had conscientiously refrained from the accursed thing were quickly recompensed for their obedience with the spoil of Ai. The way to have the comfort of what God allows, is, to forbear what he forbids us. No man shall lose by his self-denial. H. 12. Between Et Tell and Bethel there is a fine irregular plain, affording room for the military evolutions described in Josh. 8. Between this and Bethel, in the ravine of the Wady Harith, Joshua placed his ambush. H. B. T.—Toward the east the ground falls at first abruptly, and then passes off in a long, gentle slope to the edge of the steep descent to the Jordan valley, a feature which answers to the “Arabah” or plain (8 : 14) over which the men of Ai followed the feigned flight of the Israelites. On the west side of Et Tell, and entirely concealed from it by rising ground, is a small valley, well suited for an ambush, which falls into the deep ravine that protects the northern face of the old town; into this latter valley the Israelites descended the night before the capture of Ai, and it was probably on the heights above, where the camp was pitched, that Joshua took his stand during the battle; in this position he would be able to control the movements of the main body of the Israelites, and at the proper moment give the signal for the ambush to rise up quickly and seize the city. Wilson 17. Or Bethel. This city, situated at three miles distance from Ai, was confederate with it and aiding it with forces on the present occasion. 18. Stretch out the spear that is in thine hand. That is, hold extended or stretched out, continue it in that position. This was probably agreed upon as the signal to be given by Joshua to the men in ambush, to notify them of the precise moment when to issue forth from their retreat and rush into the city. Conjoined with this there might have been another object in thus elevating the spear on this occasion; viz. that it should serve like the lifting up of Moses’ hands in the battle with Amalek, as a token of the divine presence and assistance, a pledge of the secret efficacy of the almighty arm in securing them the victory. This seems highly probable from verse 26. Bush. 28. Between these two forces the men of Ai were literally crushed. Not one of them escaped from that bloody plain and slope. The slaughter extended to the district around. But of what had been Ai “they made a Tell (or heap) forever.” Never was Scripture saying more literally fulfilled than this. For a long time did modern explorers in vain seek for the site of Ai, where they knew it must have stood. “The inhabitants of the neighboring villages,” writes Canon Williams, to whom the merit of the identification belongs, “declared repeatedly and emphatically that this was Tell, and nothing else. I was satisfied that it should be so when, on subsequent reference to the original text of Josh. 8 : 28, I found it written, that ‘Joshua burned Ai, and made it a Tell forever, even a desolation unto this day!’ There are many Tells in modern Palestine, each Tell with some other name attached to it to mark the former site. But the site of Ai has no other name ‘unto this day.’ It is simply Et Tell—the heap, ‘par excellence.’” A. E.—The modern name of the knoll on which Ai stood is a most remarkable incidental confirmation of sacred history. It is to be noted that the word Tell only occurs three or four times in the Hebrew Bible, while it is one of the most universal and familiar words in the Arabic, every place on a rising ground having this prefix, as Tell Arad, Tell Hum, Tell Kadi. But nowhere else do we ever find it standing alone. Et Tell—the heap, the one made and cursed by the leader of Israel. H. B. T. # Lessons of Achan’s Story. God’s soldiers must be pure. The conditions of God’s help are the same to-day as when that panic-stricken crowd ignominiously fled down the rocky pass, foiled before an insignificant fortress, because sin clave to them, and God was gone from them. It is true to-day, and will always be true, that the victories of the church are won by its holiness far more than by any gifts or powers of mind, culture, wealth, eloquence, or the like. Its conquests are the conquests of an indwelling God, and he cannot share his temples with idols. When God is with us, Jericho is not too strong to be captured; when he is driven from us by our own sin, Ai is not too weak to defeat us. If Christian effort seems ever fruitless, the first thing to do is to look for the Babylonish garment and the glittering shekels hidden in our tents. Nine times out of ten we shall find the cause in our own spiritual deficiencies. Our success depends on God’s presence, and God’s presence depends on our keeping his dwelling-place holy. When the church is “fair as the moon,” reflecting in silvery whiteness the ardors of the sun which gives her all her light, and without such spots as dim the moon's brightness, she will be "terrible as an army with banners." This page of Old Testament history has a living application to the many efforts and few victories of the churches of to-day, which seem scarce able to hold their own amid the natural increase of population in so-called Christian lands, and are so often apparently repulsed when they go up to attack the outlying heathenism. "His strength was as the strength of ten, because his heart was pure," is true of the Christian soldier. We learn the power of one man to infect a whole community, and to inflict disaster on it. The effects of the individual's sin are not confined to the doer. Achan was the sinner, all Israel suffered. We are knit together by a mystical but real bond, so that no man, be he good or bad, liveth to himself, and no man's sin terminates in himself. We see the working of that unity in families, communities, churches, nations. Men are not merely aggregated together like a pile of cannon-balls, but are knit together like the myriad lives in a coral rock. Put a drop of poison anywhere, and it runs by a thousand branching veins through the mass, and tints and taints it all. No man can tell how far the blight of his secret sins may reach, nor how wide the blessing of his modest goodness may extend. We should seek to cultivate the sense of being members of a great whole, and to ponder our individual responsibility for the moral and religious health of the church, the city, the nation. We are not without danger from an exaggerated individualism, and we need to realize more constantly and strongly that we are but threads in a great network, endowed with mysterious vitality and power of transmitting electric impulses, both of good and evil. We have one more illustration in this story of the well-worn lesson,—never too threadbare to be repeated, until it is habitually realized,—that God's eye sees the hidden sins. Nobody saw Achan carry the spoil to his tent, or dig the hole to hide it. No doubt he held his place in his tribe as an honorable man, and his conscience traced no connection between that recently disturbed patch on the floor and the helter-skelter flight from Ai; but when the lot began to be cast he would have his own thought, and when the tribe of Judah was taken some creeping fear would begin to coil round his heart, which tightened its folds and hissed more loudly as each step in the lot brought discovery nearer home; and when at last his own name fell from the vase, how terribly the thought would glare in on him.—"And God knew it all the while, and I fancied I had covered it all up so safely." God's judgments may be long of being put on our tracks, but, once loose, they are sure of scent and cannot be baffled. It is an old, old thought, "Thou God seest me;" but kept well in mind, it would save from many a sin, and make a sunshine in many a shady place. We have in Achan a lesson which the professing Christians of great commercial nations, like America and England, need sorely. Covetousness was the sin of Achan and Ananias and Sapphira. It is the sin of the church to day. The whole atmosphere in which some of us live is charged with the subtle poison of it. Men are estimated by their wealth. The great aim of life is to get money or to keep it, or to gain influence and observation by spending it. Did anybody ever hear of church discipline being exercised on men who committed Achan's sin? He was stoned to death, but we set our Achans in high places in the church. Perhaps if we went and fell on our faces before the ark, when we are beaten, we should be directed to some tent where a very "influential member" of Israel lived, and should find that to put an end to his ecclesiastical life had a wonderful effect in bringing back courage to the army, and leading to more unmingled dependence on God. Covetousness was stoned to death in Israel, and struck with sudden destruction in the apostolic church. It has been reserved for the modern church to tolerate and almost to canonize it; and we wonder how it comes that we are so often foiled before some little Ai, and so seldom see any walls falling by our assault. Let us listen to that stern sentence, "I will not be with you any more, except ye destroy the devoted thing from among you." A. M. There is so much in the New Testament respecting love, liberty, and the abolition of old ordinances, that we allow ourselves sometimes to be betrayed into supposing that the old dispensation was the dispensation of man's submission to God, and that the new dispensation is the dispensation of God's submission to man; that the Gospel is a kind of giving up on God's part, a sort of confession that He is not disposed to be particular about little things any more, and that it hardly avails Him to attempt to be particular about little things. Now, this conception of the Gospel as an economy of divine "relaxation," divine "letting down," divine "giving up," is one that yields bitter fruit; it makes the Gospel contemptible by making it irresolute. And nowhere in the Scriptures do I find such evidence of God's determination that He will be obeyed, as I do on Calvary. C. H. P. 30. THEN Joshua built an altar unto the LORD, the God of Israel, in mount Ebal, as Moses the 31 servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of unhewn stones, upon which no man had lift up any iron : and they offered 32 thereon burnt offerings unto the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings. And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote, in the presence of the children of 33 Israel. And all Israel, and their elders and officers, and their judges, stood on this side the ark and on that side before the priests the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, as well the stranger as the homeborn ; half of them in front of mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of mount Ebal ; as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded, that they 34 should bless the people of Israel first of all. And afterward he read all the words of the law, 35 the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them. NOTE.—For a clearer apprehension of this signal incident read pages 678-682, Vol. II. ; also N. T., Vol. I., pages 96-100. B. From Ai the victorious army marched north- ward to the Vale of Shechem, in the very heart of Palestine. Here the people, divided into two sections, were ranged along the slopes of Ebal and Gerizim, which face one another, at about a third of a mile apart, the whole length of the valley. Here, in the clear, resonant air, the whole law of Moses was read, and its blessings and curses were invoked, by these answering choirs, according as the people should obey or disobey its precepts. With the exception of the giving of the law at Sinai forty years before, which only a part of that assembly had wit- nessed, this was the most majestic spectacle in the history of Israel. All the tribes as one na- tion here entered into a solemn covenant of al- legiance to the same constitution. In this vale, Abraham built the first altar to the true God that was erected in Canaan ; here Jacob pur- chased a field which contained a valuable well ; here the bones of Joseph were buried ; and here Jesus, sitting by Jacob's well, proclaimed the superiority of the truth to the place and time in which it was uttered, and the spirituality of worship, above all names and forms, all places and people. J. P. T. (See map, p. 86.) A glance at the map will enable us to realize the route. From Ai and Bethel the direct route northward leads by Shiloh to Shechem (Jn. 21 : 19). Not a foe molested Israel on their march right up the middle of the land, partly from the division of the land under so many petty chieftains, but chiefly because God had a favor unto them and to the work to which they had set their hands. The vale of Shechem is a pass which intersects the mountain-chain, that runs through Palestine from south to north. To the south it is bounded by the range of Gerizim, to the north by that of Ebal. A. E.—Mount Ebal is 3029 feet above the sea ; Gerizim, 2898. The contrast between Ebal and Gerizim is less real than is often supposed. The dip of the strats sinks to the north across the valley, and this causes a want of springs on the south side of Ebal, but its north side is almost as rich in them as the northern slope of Gerizim. Pal. Fund Report. This spot, the site of the ancient Shechem, the City of Refuge, is unrivalled in Palestine for beauty and luxuriance. There are two moun- tains parallel to each other, almost meeting at their bases, but one mile and a half apart at their summits. They enclose a beautiful little valley between them, not more than one hun- dred yards wide at the narrowest part, and wid- ening out in both directions. The town of Nablús is situated at the narrowest part of the vale. The mountain on the north is Ebal, that on the south Gerizim, and the vale lies east and west. The summit of Mount Ebal is twelve hundred feet above the vale. The summit is rocky and bare, and there are no ruins on the mountain-top, except a curious square enclosure, with very thick rude walls. Just below the summit there is a break in the regular slope of the hill, and a small but steep valley comes up from the vale below almost to the summit, forming a vast natural amphitheatre, in height equal to that of the mountain. Immediately opposite to this the steep slope of Mount Gerizim is similarly broken by a valley forming a second natural amphitheatre of equal beauty and grandeur. In these two lateral valleys were assembled the twelve tribes of Israel under Joshua, six tribes on Gerizim, and six on Ebal. The Levites and the ark were in the strip of the vale, and the blessings and cursings were read before the whole congregation. Nothing is wanting in the natural beauty of the site to add to the solemnity and impressiveness of such a scene. Text Work. There is a remarkable topographical feature, a recess on either side of the valley, forming a grand natural amphitheatre which was in all probability the scene of the ratification of the Law. In accordance with the command of Moses, the Israelites were, after their entrance into the Promised Land, to "put" the curse on Mount Ebal and the blessing on Mount Gerizim; this was to be accomplished by a ceremonial in which half the tribes stood on the one mount and half on the other; those on Gerizim responding to and affirming blessings, those on Ebal curses, as pronounced by the Levites, who remained with the ark in the centre of the interval. It is hardly too much to say of this natural amphitheatre that there is no other place in Palestine so suitable for the assembly of a large body of men within the limits to which the human voice could reach, and where at the same time each individual would be able to see what was going on. The recesses in the two mountains that form the amphitheatre are exactly opposite to each other, and the limestone strata running up to the very summits in a succession of ledges present the appearance of regular benches. A grander sight can scarcely be imagined than that which the reading of the Law must have presented: the ark borne by the Levites, on the gentle elevation that separates the waters that flow westward from those flowing toward the Jordan, and "all Israel and their elders, and officers, and their judges," on this side and on that, "half of them over against Mount Gerizim and half of them over against Mount Ebal," covering the bare hill-sides from head to foot. Few places afford such conveniences for the assembly of a large number of persons, or give, within the same area, so much standing ground; and the air of Palestine is so clear that the voice can be heard at distances which would seem impossible in England, and it is not unusual for men passing along the valley to keep up a conversation with others on the heights. Wilson. But we were able to test the matter by experiment, as other travellers had done before us. Stationing two of our number in the centre of the valley and in the middle of a field of corn, one of our brethren ascended some distance up the sides of Ebal, while we clambered up among the rocks of Gerizim; it having been agreed that the one should repeat a few of the curses, and the other a few of the blessings, without mentioning which of them he would select. And though a drizzling rain was falling, and the wind blowing so hard that we could scarcely keep our Bibles open, we were not only heard distinctly by the brethren in the valley, but by each other from the respective mountains; so that, as we remember, we were able to name the first of the curses that our friend had spoken from Ebal, as if he had intended a sly reference to some of those Rationalists whose assertions we were now reducing to experiment—"Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark." How many other of the historical objections of unbelief would shrivel into ashes were they similarly put to the proof! A. Thompson. Our party determined to make the experiment for ourselves, only reversing the order—letting the people stand in the valley; and two of us, representing the priests who recited the blessings and the curses, ascended, one Mount Gerizim, the other Mount Ebal, and from the mountains on either side we recited, one the blessings, and the other the curses to the audience below. To our great surprise, not only did the response come up, "Amen!" from the audience midway between us, but we heard each other across from mountain to mountain just as distinctly as if speaking to each other from the pulpit to the vestibule of a large church, and that without speaking in a much louder voice than is needful in large churches. One thing is certain, that the spot selected by Moses, who had never been in the country, for the performance of this ritual by a congregation of two or three millions, has a most singular adaptation to such a purpose. And on the theory of rationalism, that Moses wrote only as a wise man, it must be difficult to account for his ability to select, without ever having seen the country, such a spot for such a service. S. R. 32. Wrote there upon the stones.** From De. 27: 2-7, it appears that in addition to the altar they were required also to erect stone  pillars, and that the writing was to be done upon the pillars, for which purpose they were previously to be plastered over. Bush.—In this hot climate, where there is no frost to dissolve the cement, it will continue hard and unbroken for thousands of years, which is certainly long enough. The cement on Solomon's pools remains in admirable preservation, though exposed to all the vicissitudes of the climate, and with no protection. The cement in the tombs about Sidon is still perfect, and the writing on them entire, though acted upon by the moist, damp air always found in caverns, for perhaps two thousand years. What Joshua did, therefore, when he erected these great stones at Mount Ebal, was merely to write in the soft cement with a stile, or more likely on the polished surface when dry, with red paint, as in ancient tombs. If properly sheltered, and not broken away by violence, they would have remained to this day. But everything that could be destroyed has been long since, and again and again overthrown, in the countless convulsions of this most rebellious neighborhood. Nor need we mourn over the loss. The printing press preserves this same law to us far more securely than could any monument of bronze or solid adamant. W. M. Thompson.—Here, if anywhere, it is a true saying, that against many assumptions of the recent criticism the very stones cry out. Nowhere in classical literature is there such an example of recklessness as that which relegates the whole history of the transaction at Gerizim and Ebal without more ado to the sphere of myths. The Egyptian monuments show that it was an ancient Egyptian custom first to plaster the stone walls of buildings, and also monumental stones that were to be painted with figures and hieroglyphics, with a plaster of lime and gypsum, into which the figures were then worked; thus it was possible in Egypt to engrave on the walls the most extended inscriptions. In this manner De. 27:4-8 must be understood, and in this manner it was accomplished by Joshua. O. 35. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded. Such was the solemn promulgation of the Mosaic Law at the very commencement of the settlement of the Jews in the land of their inheritance; and in every subsequent transaction of Joshua we find he acted according to the same law. "The book of the Law of God," or "of Moses," several times spoken of, is undoubtedly the same of which it is said that "when Moses had made an end of writing the words of the law in a book, until they were finished, he commanded the Levites, saying, Take this book of the Law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be a witness against you" (De. 31:24); that book which he commanded to be "read before all Israel at the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release in the feast of tabernacles." This surely was the same with that which the Jews have received from the present hour back to the Babylonish captivity; which must have preceded that event, because it is also received by the hostile Samaritans who were planted in Judea at the commencement of the captivity; which must have preceded the division of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, because it was acknowledged in both; which must have preceded the establishment of the kings, because it supposes no such form of government but rather condemns it: in a word, that "book of the Law" which every writer and every sect among the Jews have quoted and acknowledged, in every possible form of quotation and acknowledgment, from the present period back to the immediate successor of Moses himself, who solemnly attests its authenticity and divine original. Graves. The erection of the altar, the offering thereon burnt offerings and peace offerings, the publication of the law in writing, form altogether a solemn renewal of the covenant on the entrance of the people into the promised land, and recall the ceremonies observed on the original grant of the covenant at Sinai. And Ebal, the mount of cursing, was the fitting spot on which to celebrate them. For the curses were the penalties under which the children of Israel bound themselves to keep the law. Suitably also was the same place selected as that in which were to be set up both the monumental stones containing the law, and the altar at which the covenant was to be renewed. Espin. Recurring to the transaction itself, we have a grand theme for the imagination to paint. Think of six hundred thousand adult men, besides women and children, marshalled in equal divisions on two opposing mountains; the ark surrounded by the priests and Levites in the intermediate valley; the solemn rehearsal of the blessings and cursings in tones loud and clear, in the hearing of the gathered thousands; and then the thundering "Amen," resounding from both mountain summits. What could have been more impressive! How must this scene have fixed the attention, especially of the young, and solemnly deepened the conviction, This law is our law: these blessings are to be our reward, and these curses our doom, according as we obey or disobey this law of our own holy Lord God! Whatever power of impression upon the human mind is possible through the senses—the eye, the ear, and the personal utterance of awe-inspiring words—is all present here in its intensest form. Truly here are scenes for every eye to see; sounds for every ear to hear; scope for the fullest utterance of every human voice. Here is everything to bring out a volume of common sympathy, rolling deep and strong, sustained throughout the entire transaction—the whole to be remembered through all future years as the great religious meeting of their lives. Cowles. Never did human imagination conceive a scene so imposing, so solemn, so likely to impress the whole people with deep and enduring awe, as the final ratification of their polity as commanded by the dying lawgiver. In the territory, afterward assigned to the tribe of Ephraim, a central region, stand two remarkable mountains, separated by a deep and narrow ravine, in which the ancient Shechem stands. Here all Israel was assembled, six tribes on one height, six on the other. In the open day and in a theatre, as it were, created by the God of nature for the express purpose, after a sacrifice offered on an altar of stones, the people of Israel testified their free and deliberate acceptance of that constitution which their God had enacted. They accepted it with its inseparable conditions, maledictions the most awful, which they imprecated on their own heads in case they should apostatize from its statutes—blessings equally ample and perpetual, if they should adhere to its holy and salutary provisions. On Mount Ebal—as the Levites read the heads of the prohibitory statutes, and denounced the curse against the idolater, the oppressor, the adulterer, the unnatural son, the incestuous, the murderer—the tribes of Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali, with one voice, which was echoed back from the opposite height, responded Amen, so be it. On Gerizim stood the tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin; as the blessings of the law were recited, to give the same unreserved assent. Milman. View from Mount Gerizim. The prospect from Nebo surpasses it in extent, that from Gilead in grandeur of effect, but for distinctness and variety of detail Gerizim has no superior. Hermon rose before us in spotless purity far beyond and above Tabor, Gilboa, and the lesser hills of Galilee. On our right we could trace the trans-Jordanic range from the Sea of Galilee, Baasan, Ajlun, Gilead, down to Moab. On the left, the Mediterranean formed the horizon from Carmel perhaps to Gaza; while Joppa and Cæsarea could be distinctly recognized. The southern view was more limited, being shut in by the hills of Benjamin. At our feet to the right was spread the long plain of Mokhna, into which the vale of Shechem debouches, where Jacob pastured his flocks, and where there was ample space for the tents of Israel when gathered thither by Joshua. All Central Palestine could be taken in at a glance, and the lesson of geography could not be easily forgotten. Tristram. 9 1 And it came to pass, when all the kings which were beyond Jordan, in the hill country, and in the lowland, and on all the shore of the great sea in front of Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard thereof; that they gathered themselves together, to fight with Joshua and with Israel, with one accord. 3 But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai, 4 they also did work willy, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old 5 sacks upon their asses, and wine-skins, old and rent and bound up; and old shoes and 6 clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them; and all the bread of their provision was 7 dry and was become mouldy. And they went to Joshua unto the camp at Gilgal, and said 8 unto him, and to the men of Israel, We are come from a far country: now therefore make ye 9 a covenant with us. And the men of Israel said unto the Hivites, Peradventure ye dwell 8 among us; and how shall we make a covenant with you? And they said unto Joshua, We are 9 thy servants. And Joshua said unto them, Who are ye? and from whence come ye? And they said unto him, From a very far country thy servants are come because of the name of the 10 LORD thy God : for we have heard the fame of him, and all that he did in Egypt, and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites, that were beyond Jordan, to Sihon king of Heshbon, 15 and to Og king of Bashan. And Joshua made peace with them, and made a covenant with 16 them, to let them live : and the princes of the congregation sware unto them. And it came to pass at the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, that they heard 18 that they were their neighbors, and that they dwelt among them. And the children of Israel smote them not, because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by the LORD, the 19 God of Israel. And all the congregation murmured against the princes. But all the princes said unto all the congregation, We have sworn unto them by the LORD, the God of Israel : now 20 therefore we may not touch them. This we will do to them, and let them live : lest wrath be 21 upon us, because of the oath which we sware unto them. And the princes said, Let them live : 27 so they became hewers of wood and drawers of water unto all the congregation. And Joshua made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the LORD, unto this day, in the place which he should choose. NOTE.—Joshua had now returned from the Covenant-Service at Shechem to the camp at Gilgal, south of Shiloh. B. 1. The population was broadly distinguished into Canaanites, the inhabitants of the Canaan, or "lowlands," and Amorites, or "Highlanders." Canaan was originally the name of the coast on which the great trading cities of the Phœnicians stood; but long before the time of the Israelitish invasion, the name had been extended to denote the dwellers in the plain, wherever they might be. Indeed, passages like Ju. 1 : 9 show that it had been extended even farther, and had come to signify tribes which were properly Amorites. Sayce.—The Canaanites, or "Lowlanders," properly so called, occupied the sea-coast as far south as Dor, a considerable portion of the plain of Esdraelon, and some spots in the valley of the Jordan. The Amorites, or mountaineers, occupied the central and southern hills with the Hittites and Hivites. Of these intruders, the Amorites seem to have been the most ancient and the most warlike, perhaps allied to the old gigantic race with which from time to time they appear in connection. The Hittites belong to the more peaceful occupants. The Hivites, like the Phœnicians of the north, inclined to a more regular form of political organization. Of the lesser subdivisions, the Jebusites are attached to the Amorites, the Perizzites to the Hittites, and the Girgashites to the Hivites. A. P. S. 2. A great league was now formed by all the kings west of Jordan, in the hills, the valleys, and the sea-coasts, as far north as Lebanon, against the Israelites. The people of Gibeon alone sought for peace by a curious stratagem. Gibeon (now el-Jib), "a royal city, greater than Ai," was the chief of the four cities of the Hivites, lying immediately opposite the pass of Ai, and at the head of the pass of Beth-horon. It would therefore have been the next object of the attack of the Israelites. P. S.—Retaining its ancient name almost intact, the modern village of el-Jib stands on the top of a low, round, rocky hill, just at the place where the road to the sea parts into two branches, the one by the lower level of the Wady Suleiman, the other by the heights of the Beth-horons, to Gimzo, Lydda, and Joppa. Dic. B. This Gibeon, only six or seven miles from Bethel, though represented by its crafty people as "a very far country," plays a conspicuous part in the coming history. Lying about six and a half miles north-northwest from Jerusalem, it covers the sides and summit of a sugar-loaf hill, which rises out of a saucer like depression in the elevated plateau. The terraces surrounding the hill are like so many gigantic steps from bottom to top. The neighboring fields and groves indicate more fertility than is usually seen in this part of the country. N. C. B. Gibeon is afraid to enter into the confederacy. It was the head city of a Hivite tetrapolis, to wit, Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim (verse 17), forming a republic or oligarchy in the midst of the monarchies of Palestine. On this account it was easier and more natural for Gibeon to act independently of the other principalities. Crosby. The historical peculiarities of this transaction explain themselves. The situation and character of Gibeon at once placed it in an exceptional position. Planted at the head of the pass of Beth-horon and immediately opposite the opening of the pass of Ai, it would have been the next prey on which the Israelite host would have sprung. On the other hand, its organization, being apparently federal,—itself at the head of  N.W. VIEW OF El-Jib AND Neby Samuël.—FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY GRAHAM.—(AYRE) El-Jib (Gibcon) is conspicuous on the hill in front: Neby Samuël (the traditional Ramah of Samuel or Ramsthain-zophim) is marked by the ruined mosque on the hill at the extreme right. a small band of kindred cities,—separated it from the interests of the royal fortresses of the rest of Palestine. Their device is full of the quaint humor which marks its antiquity. It is observable that they represent themselves as not having yet heard of the aggression on Western Palestine, only of the by-gone conquest of the Amorite kings beyond the Jordan. Stanley. 6. The camp at Gilgal. This could not be the Gilgal down by Jordan, so far away from the centre to which Joshua had penetrated; but the Gilgal of 2 K. 2 : 1, which was higher than Bethel (2 K. 2 : 2). It is this second Gilgal which, we think, became so famous in Samuel's day, and which became a centre of idolatry. (See 1 S. 7 : 16 ; 10 : 8 ; 11 : 14 ; 13 : 7, 8 ; 15 : 33.) It was the great headquarters of Israel, until the tabernacle was pitched at Shiloh, which was not far off. This second Gilgal bears still the old name (Jiljilich), and is situated on a commanding height fifteen miles due north of Jerusalem, three miles west of the high northern road, and about seven miles north and west of Ai. It is also about fourteen miles south of Mount Gerizim. "It is near the western brow of the high mountain tract, and affords an ex tensive view over the great lower plain and the sea, while at the same time the mountains of Gilead are seen in the east." (Robinson.) It also has distant Hermon in sight. No more suitable spot could have been selected for Israel's central post during the process of the conquest. Crosby. Gilgal, though regarded by the great body of commentators and geographers as the same place as that in which the Israelites first encamped (ch. 4 : 19), is a different place altogether. It was no other than the Gilgal we frequently meet with in Judges and the First Book of Samuel, situated on the mountains in the vicinity of Bethel. We dare not attribute to Joshua the folly of going back after he had penetrated to the very heart of the country, and again taking up his position on the extreme eastern border of the land, thus leaving the Canaanites at perfect liberty to move unfettered amid the very cities and places that he had already conquered. It is true that we are not told that he removed the camp to Gilgal after the capture of Ai. But we find no account of his proceeding from Ai to the mountains Ebal and Gerizim. In fact the book does not give a consecutive ac count of all the marches and tactics of Joshua, but merely a cursory description of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites under Joshua. It was, no doubt, the favorable opportunities which Gilgal afforded to Joshua for the execution of his plans both in the North and South of the land, that induced him to select it as his headquarters. It was in the centre of the country, situated upon a steep hill with good table-land upon the top, and commanded a most extensive prospect of the large plain in the West, and also toward the North and East. Keil. At Gilgal they seem to have formed a permanent camp. The mention of this place in De. 11 : 30, where it is described as "beside the oaks of Moreh," that is, near the spot of Abram's first altar (Gen. 12 : 7), implies a locality well known at the time, and, as we might almost conjecture from its after-history, a sort of traditional sanctuary. This alone would suffice to distinguish this Gilgal from the first encampment of Israel east of Jericho, which only obtained its name from the event which there occurred. It is impossible to suppose that Joshua marched back from Shechem to the banks of Jordan; and again, that he did so a second time after the battles in Galilee to make apportionment of the land among the people by the banks of Jordan. Further, the locating of Gilgal near the banks of Jordan would be entirely incompatible with what we know of the after-history of that place. Gilgal was one of the three cities where Samuel judged the people; here, also, he offered sacrifices, when the Ark was no longer in the tabernacle at Shiloh; and there, as in a central sanctuary, did all Israel gather to renew their allegiance to Saul. Later on, Gilgal was the great scene of Elisha's ministry, and still later it became a centre of idolatrous worship (Hos. 4 : 15 ; 9 : 15 ; 12 : 11 ; Amos 4 : 4 ; 5 : 5). All these considerations lead to the conclusion, that the Gilgal which formed the site of Joshua's encampment is the modern Jiljilich, a few miles from Shiloh, and about the same distance from Bethel—nearly equi-distant from Shechem and from Jerusalem. In this camp at Gilgal a strange deputation had arrived (verses 3-6). Professedly and apparently the travellers had come a long distance. For their garments were worn, their sandals clouted, their provisions dry and mouldy, and the skins in which their wine had been were rent and "bound up" (like purses), as in the East wine-bottles of goat's skin are temporarily repaired on a long journey. According to their own account, they lived far beyond the boundaries of Palestine, where their fellow-townsmen had heard what the Lord had done in Egypt, and again to Sihon and to Og, wisely omitting from the catalogue the miraculous passage of Jordan and the fall of Jericho, as of too recent date for their theory. Attracted by the name of Jehovah, Israel's God, who had done such wonders, they had been sent to make "a league" with Israel. It must have been felt that the story did not sound probable—at least, to any who had learned to realize the essential enmity of heathenism against the kingdom of God, and who understood that so great a change as the report of these men implied could not be brought about by "the hearing of the ear." Besides, what they proposed was not to make submission to, but a league with, Israel; by which not merely life, but their land and liberty, would be secured to them. But against any league with the inhabitants of Canaan, Israel had been specially warned (Ex. 23 : 32 ; Nu. 33 : 55 ; De. 7 : 2). What if, after all, they were neighbors? The suspicion seems to have crossed the minds of Joshua and of the elders, and even to have been expressed by them, only to be set aside by the protestations of the pretended ambassadors. It was certainly a mark of religious superficiality and self-confidence on the part of the elders of Israel to have consented on such grounds to "a league." The sacred text significantly puts it: "And the men (the elders of Israel) took of their victuals (according to the common Eastern fashion of eating bread and salt with a guest who is received as a friend), but they asked not counsel at the mouth of Jehovah." Their mistake soon became apparent. Three days later, and Israel found that the pretended foreigners were in reality neighbors! A. E. I commend their wisdom in seeking peace; I do not commend their falsehood in the manner of seeking it. But as the faith of Rahab is so rewarded that her lie is not punished, so the fraud of these Gibeonites is not an equal match of their belief, since the name of the Lord God of Israel brought them to this suit of peace. Ep. II. 4. Wine-skins.** Passing a bottle-making establishment, we were entertained by the sight of a lot of goat-skins in process of curing. All the apertures of the skins, neck and legs, having been closed, and the bodies filled with water, they stood in rows upon a platform—a headless, legless, swollen army of hairy goats. When thoroughly cured these skins become the leather bottles of Bible days and of the present day alike. In the Psalmist's expression: "I am become like a bottle in the smoke," it is to the leather bottle that he likens himself—dry, shrivelled and useless. Such were the "wine-bottles, old and rent," of the Gibeonites. Dulles. 14. God's Israel have often been deceived and imposed upon with a show of antiquity. But "errors are never the older for being patched," and so seeming old; but they that will be caught with this Gibeonitish stratagem prove they have not consulted with God. H.—Asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord. In this consisted the fault of the Israelites on this occasion, that they depended on their own judgment and did not consult the Divine oracle, which was at hand. It is no wonder that God should suffer them to be deluded by the Gibeonites when they had an infallible Director so near to them, and yet, in a matter of such moment as that of entering on a national treaty, never once thought of consulting him. Sta-khouse.—It is by no means certain, if they had sought the divine direction, that they would have been commanded to reject the suit of the Gibeonites and show them no mercy. The probability is that upon any of the devoted nations voluntarily coming forward, professing repentance, renouncing idolatry, and embracing the true religion, the Israelites would have been authorized by God to spare their lives. But the circumstance is mentioned here as a severe reflection upon the princes of Israel for neglect of duty, for rashness, credulity, and impolicy. They rushed precipitately into an alliance which they had no right to form without the express sanction of Jehovah, and their "lips became a snare to their souls." Bush. 18-23. The main reason of the destruction of the Canaanites was their essential hostility to the kingdom of God. The danger to Israel, accruing from this, could be avoided in a solitary instance. With a view to this, the Gibeonites were indeed spared, but attached as "bondmen" to the sanctuary, where they and their descendants performed all menial services (Josh. 9: 23). Nor, as the event proved, did they ever betray their trust, or lead Israel into idolatry. Still the rashness of Israel's princes, and the conduct of the Gibeonites, convey to the church at all times solemn warning against the devices and the deceit of the world, which, when outward advantage offers, seeks a friendly alliance with, or even reception into, the visible kingdom of God. A. E. If any Israelite had but pulled down one stone from their walls, or shed one drop of Gibeonitish blood, he had no less plagued all Israel for perjury, than Achan had before plagued them for sacrilege. The sequel shows how God would have taken it: for when three hundred years after Saul slew some of these Gibeonites, all Israel smarted for the fact with a three years' famine, and that in David's reign who received this oracle from God, "It is for Saul and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites." Neither could this wrong be expiated, but by the blood of Saul's seven sons, hanged up at the very court-gates of their father. Joshua and the princes had promised them life; they promised them not liberty: no covenant was past against their servitude. Bp. H. 10 1 Now it came to pass, when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it; as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, 2 and were among them; that they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the 3 royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were mighty. Wherefore Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem sent unto Hoham king of Hebron, and unto Piram king of 4 Jarmuth, and unto Japhia king of Lachish, and unto Debir king of Eglon, saying, Come up unto me, and help me, and let us smite Gibeon: for it hath made peace with Joshua and with 5 the children of Israel. Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped against Gibeon, and made 6 war against it. And the men of Gibeon sent unto Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, saying, Slack not thy hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us: for all the 7 kings of the Amorites that dwell in the hill country are gathered together against us. So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he, and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of 8 valor. (And the LORD [had] said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into 9 thine hands; there shall not a man of them stand before thee.) Joshua therefore came upon 10 them suddenly; for he went up from Gilgal all the night. And the LORD discomfited them before Israel, and he slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them by the way 11 of the ascent of Beth-horon, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, while they were in the going down of Beth-horon, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with the hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. 12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; And thou, Moon, in the valley of Aijalon. 13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, Until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and 14 hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel 15 And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal. 16 And these five kings fled, and hid themselves in the cave at Makkedah. And it was told 17 Joshua, saying, The five kings are found, hidden in the cave at Makkedah. And Joshua said, 18 Roll great stones unto the mouth of the cave, and set men by it for to keep them: but stay not 19 ye; pursue after your enemies, and smite the hindmost of them; suffer them not to enter 20 into their cities: for the LORD your God hath delivered them into your hand. And it came to pass, when Joshua and the children of Israel had made an end of slaying them with a very great slaughter, till they were consumed, and the remnant which remained of them had entered into 21 the fenced cities, that all the people returned to the camp to Joshua at Makkedah in peace: 22 none moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel. Then said Joshua, Open the 23 mouth of the cave, and bring forth those five kings unto me out of the cave. And they did so, and brought forth those five kings unto him out of the cave, the king of Jerusalem, the king of 24 Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon. And it came to pass, when they brought forth those kings unto Joshua, that Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said unto the chiefs of the men of war which went with him, Come near, put your feet upon the necks of these kings. And they came near, and put their feet upon the necks of them. 25 And Joshua said unto them, Fear not, nor be dismayed; be strong and of good courage: for 26 thus shall the LORD do to all your enemies against whom ye fight. And afterward Joshua smote them and put them to death, and hanged them on five trees: and they were hanging 27 upon the trees until the evening. And it came to pass at the time of the going down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the trees, and cast them into the cave wherein they had hidden themselves, and laid great stones on the mouth of the cave, unto this very day. Verses 28-39. Conquest and destruction of Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Gezer, Eglon, Hebron, and Debir. 40 So Joshua smote all the land, the hill country, and the South, and the lowland, and the slopes, and all their kings; he left none remaining: but he utterly destroyed all that breathed, 41 as the LORD, the God of Israel, commanded. And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea 42 even unto Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon. And all these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because the LORD, the God of Israel, fought for Israel. 43 And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal. 1. The name Jerusalem here occurs for the first time in the Scriptures. The original designation of the city seems to have been Salem (Gen. 14: 18; Ps. 76: 2), as it was called in the time of Melchizedek. Bush. 3. The places here named were probably the most important cities of southern Canaan, and hence the king of Jerusalem, the nearest royal city to Joshua's host, sends to them for a union of forces. He was cut off from all the northern kings by Joshua's army. Crosby. 7. The noble disposition of Joshua, besides his engagement, will not let him forsake his new vassals. Their confidence in him is argument enough to draw him into the field. The greatest obligation to a good mind is another's trust. How much less shall our true Joshua fail the confidence of our faith! We may be wanting in our trust; our trust can never want success. Bp. H.—But why needed Joshua to put himself and his men so much to the stretch? Had not God promised him that without fail he would deliver the enemies into his hand? It is true he had; but God's promises are intended, not to slacken and supersede, but to quicken and encourage our endeavors. He that believeth doth not make haste to anticipate providence, but doth make haste to attend it with a diligent, not a distrustful speed. H. 8. And the Lord said unto Joshua.** More correctly "for the Lord had said;" as we cannot suppose that Joshua undertook this expedition before he had sought counsel of God, and received the encouragement contained in the ensuing words. Without some such encouragement as this, Joshua might have thought that this formidable host was sent against him and his new allies as a judgment upon him for negotiating an unlawful treaty. The verse properly falls into a parenthesis. I have delivered them into thy hand. The usual form of speech to express the absolute certainty of a future event. Bush. 9. All night.** They could easily reach Gibeon (twelve miles from Gilgal) in one night. Crosby.—Joshua marches all night, and fights all day for the Gibeonites. If his very Israelites had been in danger, he could have done no more: God and his Joshua make no difference, betwixt Gibeonites Israelited and his own natural people. All are Israelites whom he hath taken to league. Bp. H. Came upon them suddenly. When the moment came Joshua struck; and struck swift and hard. The plain old story in its civil style cared not to paint the picture for us, but contents itself with the simple word "suddenly." The five kings that thought to make but a short siege of Gibeon, waited only for the morn; but Joshua, with his men of war, "went up all night from Gilgal and fell upon them suddenly." Such slaughter was dealt that the very elements joined in as if in contagious sympathy, and hailstones hurled from the mountain-tops smote the routed foe; and such a day's work was done that the very sun and moon were fain to linger that they might see it through! Then too, again, we see him when all those kings from the north and south and east and west came and pitched together against him by the waters of Merom, thinking now they would crush him with overpowering force; Joshua goes up suddenly against them, after his fashion and armies and horses and chariots and cities roll down as before an avenging flame. J. L. Chamberlain. 10,11. In the early morning, before the besiegers could have heard of his having left his camp by the Jordan, Joshua and his soldiers, strong in the assurance given by God that "not a man of them should stand before him," burst on the unsuspecting enemy and discomfit them utterly. The huge host—the largest Joshua had yet encountered—is driven before him up the rocky ascent to the mountain village of Beth-horon the Upper. In headlong flight they rush down the slippery rocks of the precipitous descent that leads to the lower village of the same name—Beth-horon the Nether. There a fierce tempest, partial as the sudden storms of mountain regions usually are, for the pursuers were unharmed by it, accompanied with hailstones of prodigious size, bursts on the fugitives, and completes their discomfiture. As afterward against Sisera, "the stars in their courses fought against them," and, stricken down by the hand of God, "they were more which died with hailstones than were slain by the sword. E. V. Between the two Beth-horons is a steep pass, still very rocky and rough, though the rock has been cut away in many places, and the path formed into steps. The main road from Jerusalem and the Jordan valley to the sea-coast lay through the pass of Beth-horon, and accordingly both the Beth-horons were secured by Solomon with strong fortifications (2 Chron. 8:5). It was in this pass that Judas Maccabeus fell suddenly on the Syrians and routed them. Here, too, the Roman army, under Cestius Gallus, after being driven from its position before Gibeon by an impetuous attack of the Jews from Jerusalem, sustained severe losses in men and baggage from the insurgents. Espin. The pass of Beth-horon was the western access, as that of Jericho was the eastern, to the hill country and the fastnesses of Central Palestine. At the head of the pass stood the cities of Mizpeh and Gibeon. From the slaughter by Joshua, near Gibeon, the Canaanites fled "along the way that goeth up to Beth-horon." From thence they crossed the ridge and descended toward the west. "And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down of Beth-horon, that the Lord cast great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah" (verses 12, 14). Down the same pass, too, David drove the Philistines (2 S. 5:25). It was the scene of the last success of the insurgent Jews over the Romans just before the siege of Jerusalem by Titus. Up the same pass the Crusading armies advanced under Richard Cœur-de-Lion. Belh-horon the Upper and Belh-horon the Nether have survived all the vicissitudes of four thousand years, and the same names still remain in Beit'ur el-foka and Beit'ur et-tahta: the upper village perched on the crest and steep side of the hill, the lower (et-tahta) on a low hill, farther down on the other side of the pass; and the road from Gibeon and Michmash to the Philistine Plain still passes by them. 12. Standing on the summit of the pass, with Gibeon behind him, Joshua looked down the broad green vale of Ajalon, as it unfolded in the distance into the open Plain of Sharon and the wide expanse of the Mediterranean beyond. The sun "was in the midst of heaven," for it was noon-day, the moon was visible above the hailstorm which came driving up from the west, when Joshua spake, "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon." H. B. T.—The Amorites were evidently making for their cities, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon, far away on the plain to the south; and though a great part of the day still remained, yet night might come on ere the Israelites could overtake them, and thus favor their escape—hence Joshua's remarkable prayer and command. J. L. P. While the vanquished Amorites were rushing in wild confusion down the mountain pass, eager to reach their strongholds or to find refuge in the rocky fastnesses with which the district abounds, Joshua, gazing down on them from the summit of the pass, and apprehensive lest the day should prove too short for the accomplishment of his work, uttered that bold apostrophe, that magnificent venture of faith, in which the servant of the true God called on the heavenly bodies, as His ministers, to stand still and aid the overthrow of their idolatrous worshippers. E. V. 12-15. Joshua's impassioned prayer of faith is quoted in the sacred text from the "Book of Jasher," apparently, as we infer from 2 S. 1:18, a collection of poetical pieces, connected with the sublimest scenes in the history of the heroes of the kingdom of God. In this instance the quotation begins, as we take it, at verse 12, and ends with verse 15. This is proved by the insertion in verse 15 of a notice, which in the historical narrative occurs only in verse 43. For it is evident that Joshua did not return to Gilgal immediately after the battle of Gibeon (verse 21), but pursued the war, as described in the rest of ch. 10, till the whole south of Palestine was reduced. Thus verses 12-15 are a quotation from "the Book of the Pious," inserted within the Book of Joshua, the narrative of which is resumed in verse 16. A. E. The geographical localities named concur with the facts stated to show that it was during the morning hours of the day, and not toward the evening hours, that the sun and moon were arrested in their course by this miracle. The direction of this flight and pursuit was westward. Joshua had passed the highlands on which Gibeon stood, so that Gibeon lay eastward from his point; while the valley of Ajalon was still some distance in the west. The sun had risen above Gibeon, perhaps nearly half way to his meridian, so that it stood still "in the midst of heaven, i.e. coming near the middle of its diurnal circuit in the heavens; while the moon, somewhat past the full, hung over the valley of Ajalon." H. C.—It is well known now, that the sun and moon are so closely associated that the staying of the one implies the staying of the other; but not till after long ages was their connection revealed by astronomy. While in other books called "sacred," the strangest mistakes are made as to the sun and the moon, their exact relation is in this early narrative distinctly acknowledged. The sun, it is true, is related to other planets in our system; but in this incident the earth is the standpoint, and therefore appropriately are the moon and the earth conjoined. The sun visibly arrested in the heavens, was all that was essential for the leader of the Israelites; yet the collateral fact is announced—the moon staying in the valley of Ajalon. Fraser. It should be remembered that, as in those early ages men had not the slightest notion of the modern discoveries in astronomy, it was unavoidably necessary that the event should be described according to the knowledge which then obtained. When God directed Joshua to record this miracle, he did not direct him to record it in a manner more agreeable to true astronomy; because if he had done so, unless he inspired the world at the same time with a true knowledge of astronomy, the account would rather have tended to raise among those who read it and heard of it, disputes and "oppositions of science falsely so called," than have promoted the great ends of religion intended by it. Shackford.—It had been unreasonable at that time to think of astronomy, or of the errors of sight; for if any one had told him that the sun could not really move in the valley of Ajalon, but only in relation to sense, would not Joshua have answered that his one desire was that the day might be prolonged, so it were by any means whatever? Kepler. Observers of the scene of the battle are struck with the admirable precision of the Scripture narrative in its topographical details. The language marks the first stage of the flight of the Amorites—from before Gibeon toward Beth-horon—as upward. This, doubtless, was the stage between Gibeon and the summit-ridge, a mile or two westward of the town. Having passed this ridge their way would be downward, and from Beth-horon when they reached it would be rapidly downward, over frightful steeps past lower Beth-horon till the plain below was reached. This second stage of the flight is also clearly marked in the narrative. The language is: “And it came to pass, as they fled and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died. In this second stage of the flight, the Amorites distanced their pursuers, already wearied with the previous long march and hot fighting. Yet this, through a special providence, resulted in the Israelites’ advantage. For the clouds of a sudden storm were now seen darkening the plain below, and rolling inward from the sea toward the mountains. The fugitives rushed into the bosom of this storm, with its descending and destructive hail, while the tardy Israelites avoided it. The victory of God’s people, had it ended just here, would have been what we call a brilliant one. But how many brilliant victories are indecisive of the cause for which war is waged! Must not Joshua have agonized in spirit as he beheld the quickening pace of the fugitive Amorites and the slackening pace of his own troops, lest the decisive results of victory were about to elude his grasp? How many a victorious general has longed for only an hour or two more of daylight, that he might reap the fruits of victory! How many a beaten general has longed for the coming of night, to save him from utter rout and destruction! On the afternoon of Waterloo, the Prussian forces not having yet come upon the ground, and the lines of the British having become thin and wavering from the repeated and fiery onsets of the French, Wellington, wiping the bead-drops of agony from his brow, sighed for “Night—night, or Blücher!” Nay, two years before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus—as we read in Josephus—the Roman army, under Cestius Gallus, having been repulsed from the sacred city by the Jews and fleeing with frightful loss past Gibeon down this identical pass of Beth-horon, was saved from complete destruction only by the coming of night. How wholly natural, then, for Joshua intensely to desire that the coming of night should be deferred, giving time for his army to overtake and make an end of their adversaries! How every way urgent was the occasion for that sublime prayer—nay, for that awful command of Joshua, uttered as in God’s name—that the sun should pause in the heavens until the victory of God’s people should be completed! N. C. B. The sun, moon, and lights of heaven were the deities at that time worshipped by the inhabitants of Canaan; but the Israelites were the servants of the true God, by whose command and under whose protection they were to war against these nations and their gods; and what greater demonstration could be given of the power of their God to support them, and of the inability of the false deities of the Canaanites to assist their worshippers, than to see that the God of Israel could cause these to contribute to, instead of preventing the ruin that was coming on those who served them. We cannot imagine that Joshua should, without a special intimation from heaven, have addressed to God the prayer concerning the sun and moon; for of how great extravagance would he have been proved guilty, if no effect had followed from his prayer? Unquestionably the same Lord who spake unto him before the battle, who bade him not fear the armies of the Canaanites, who assured him that they should not be able to stand before him, directed him to ask for this wonderful miracle; and in granting what he had asked for gave a full testimony, both to the Israelites and their enemies, that the gods of the heathen were but idols; and that it is the Lord that made and that raleth in the heaven. Shuckford. It was not Joshua but his faith that did this; not by way of precept, but of prayer; if I may not say, that the request of a faithful man commands. God’s glory was that which Joshua aimed at: he knew that all the world must needs be witnesses of that, which the eye of the world stood still to see. What is there that God cannot do? And what is there which God can do, that faith cannot do? Bp. II. 13. On the expression in our English Bible, “And hasted not to go down about a whole day.” Professor Bush, who forty years ago was considered the finest Hebrew scholar in America, writes: “This should be ‘hasted not to go down as at the perfect day’—i.e., as it naturally does when the day is finished, when the ordinary space of a day has elapsed. This we conceive to be the true force of the original. One who is acquainted with the Hebrew, upon turning to the original of Ex. 31: 18; De. 16: 6; 24: 13; Ps. 73: 19, will find ample proof of the correctness of this interpretation. The meaning, as we understand it, is not that the day was miraculously lengthened out to the extent of twelve hours, or another whole day, but simply that when the ordinary duration of a day was completed, the sun still delayed his setting, but for how long a time we are not informed; long enough, we may presume, for fully accomplishing the object for which the miracle was granted." Thus much toward a correct rendering of the Bible record. Let us next translate this record into the language of science. Within the present century scientists have learned that the revolution of the earth upon its axis is not the only means by which a body like the sun may be, in appearance, raised above the horizon. What is termed mirage, caused by the coming in of a dense stratum of air at some distance above the earth's surface, will produce this same effect. "The particular form of mirage known as looming consists in an excessive apparent elevation of the object. A most remarkable case of this sort occurred on the 26th of July, 1798, at Hastings. From this place the French coast is fifty miles distant; yet from the seaside the whole coast of France from Calais to near Dieppe was distinctly visible, and continued so for three hours." (Chambers's Ency.) In the summer of 1856 the writer witnessed a mirage on Lake Michigan, by which the Manitou Islands, some twenty miles distant from his point of observation, were raised, in appearance, thirty degrees or two hours above the horizon. Knowing these facts, were I to attempt to translate the record of Joshua's miracle into the language of science, I would not write, So the earth stopped in its revolution upon its axis, but so the Lord caused a mirage by which the sun and moon were made to remain for a season, in appearance, above the horizon; and thus lengthened out the day, for the Lord fought for Israel. This interpretation does not in any way affect the truly miraculous character of the event recorded; but it does explain a particular recorded, otherwise inexplicable—viz.: that the moon as well as the sun remained above the horizon; and it effectually answers the cavils (1) that this remarkable day is not mentioned by the Chaldean or Egyptian astronomers, inasmuch as a lengthening of the day produced in this way would not extend many miles from its centre at Gibeon; and (2) the stupendous character of the event disappears, and the miracle takes its place naturally in the class of miracles recorded in the Old Testament Scriptures. Armstrong. It answers all the conditions of the question—while it remains a most stupendous exhibition of the power of the Almighty in that day when "he hearkened to the voice of a man," to suppose that the light was supernaturally prolonged, through the operation of the same laws of refraction and reflection, by which the sun's disc is ordinarily seen above the horizon some time after he has really sunk below it. He who created the heavenly luminaries, and established the laws which transmit their light, could at this time so have altered the medium through which the sun's rays passed as to render it visible above the horizon long after it would, under ordinary circumstances, have disappeared. This, to the apprehension of the Israelites, would have had all the visible effects of staying the career of the sun; and to ours, that of arresting the earth's revolution on its axis; and this is all that the sacred text requires—all that Joshua required—all that we need require. The Israelites acted upon the distinct commission which they received, and which was attested by the miracles which attended their career. The passage through the Red Sea and through the Jordan—the miraculous overthrow of the walls of Jericho—the hailstones at Gibeon, which, without touching the Israelites, slew more of their enemies than the sword—and the remarkable phenomenon in the heavens, likened to the standing still of the sun and the moon—were all so many proofs of their commission, and of the authority by which they acted. That authority and commission was attested by the belief of the very enemies against whom they warred, and who were very far from thinking that they had mistaken a fancy of their own for a Divine commission. They found it all too real. Kit. To the friends of the Bible the appearance of miracles in this portion of the history should be particularly welcome. For it is only on the understanding that the Israelites, in conquering the land of Canaan and exterminating its people, were the instruments of divine vengeance, and were but acting clearly on a divine commission—just as the magistrate acts who inflicts capital punishment for high crime—that we can justify the extreme severity of their procedure. But thus acting, we can see how their procedure was justifiable. Thus the miracles attending this portion of the history are evidences to us, as they were to the Israelites themselves, of their divine commission. And was there not a moral reason existing of sufficient importance for the grandest and farthest-reaching miracle on that day when Joshua bade the sun and moon pause in their flight? The Israelites, insignificant in themselves, were the people chosen of God for the accomplishment of His great purpose of human redemption. They had now come to occupy the land covenanted to them of God hundreds of years before, in which they should receive and preserve the oracles of God, in which they should maintain God's prescribed worship until Shiloh should come—until the Son of God should be born among them, the world's Redeemer. And now the hour critical in all these high relations had struck. On the full success of that blow under which the enemies of God and of His church were reeling from before Gibeon, God's honor and man's salvation were in a high sense suspended, and it seemed only fit that sun, moon, and stars, mute creatures of God, should lend their mightiest aid for its attainment. For the sake of His church—for the fulfilment of His counsels of mercy for man's salvation—God is ready to put forth His mightiest power. For the sake of His church, the Son of God exiled Himself from heaven and was clothed in the garments of human flesh. By means of His church, God will make known to a wondering universe—"to principalities and powers in heavenly places"—His own "manifold wisdom." Our little globe—a dim speck amid the glowing worlds of night—is yet, as we can hardly doubt, the "Thermopylæ of the universe," where Good and Evil fight out their last long battle. And it seems strictly in keeping with the mighty magnitude and grand proportion of things, that in the day of Israel's agony and at the very outset of their great struggle, Joshua should have prayed as he did, and that his prayer was answered and the sun refused to go down until he had witnessed the victory for God complete. N. C. B. God hearkened to the voice of Joshua. Once more the sun burst forth, and the daylight was miraculously protracted till Israel was avenged of its enemies. Onward rolled the tide of fugitives, hotly pursued by Israel, through the pass of Nether Beth horon to Azekah, and thence to Makkedah. Here tidings were brought to Joshua, that the five kings had hid themselves in one of the caves with which that district abounds. But Joshua would not be diverted from his object. He ordered large stones to be rolled to the mouth of the cave, and its entrance to be guarded by armed men, while the rest of the army followed the enemy and smote their "rear guard." Only broken remnants of the fugitives found shelter in the "fenced cities." A. E. 14. Before the prolonged day closed in, and the shadows of evening fell on "the Valley of Gazelles," God's promise had been fulfilled to the letter. Not a man of the enemies had stood before Joshua; all had been delivered into his hand. Long and deservedly did the marvels of that day—a day which, at one sudden blow, secured the possession of the Land of Promise to Israel—remain engraven on the memory of the nation. "There was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel." E. V. 17,21. The identification by Professor Palmer of the village of El Mughâr (i.e., the Cave) with Makkedah is most important, and shows how much may still be done in Biblical topography. It stands on a hill on the west of the road from Ashdod to Ekron, which passes through a little valley; and on the east side stands Ghuderah. Sir G. Grove had already pointed out, from the history of Joshua, that in this district Makkedah must be looked for. The caves, from which it takes its modern name, have not yet been explored. The Cave of Makkedah is forever linked with the memories of the first great victory of Joshua—the battle of Beth-horon, before referred to—which gave Israel the whole Amorite district of the south. The cave must have been a well-known one, and outside the city. To it the five kings fled after their utter rout. Tristram. Makkedah was in the eastern edge of the plain of Philistia, far to the south of the opening of the valley of Ajalon. It was over thirty miles distant from the ridge west of Gibeon, by the route taken. N. C. B.—It is impossible not to be struck by the constant agreement between the recorded history and the natural geography both of the Old and New Testament. To find a marked correspondence between the scenes of the Sinaitic mountains and the events of the Israelite wanderings is not much, perhaps, but it is certainly something toward a proof of the truth of the whole narrative. The detailed harmony between the life of Joshua and the various scenes of his battles is a slight but true indication that we are dealing not with shadows, but with realities of flesh and blood. Such coincidences are not usually found in fables, least of all in fables of Eastern origin. Stanley.—The geography of Palestine, as we find it to-day, is the strongest testimony of the truth of that history which purports to emanate thence. The natural scenery of Palestine speaks in but one voice in favor of the Bible; every word of the sacred narrative receives its best interpretation by being studied in connection with the place where it was recorded. No one can trace without joy and wonder the verification which geography pays to the history of the Holy Land. Ritter. 21. The original is very express that not one single Israelite was harmed either by word or weapon. So complete, so superhuman, so glorious was the victory. Bush. 27. Israel saw these monarchs, whose names had inspired such dread, grovelling in the dust before the conqueror. The chief warriors were bidden to approach, and, as a token of complete overthrow, plant their feet on the necks of the prostrate kings. "As these captive kings lay powerless before them, trodden beneath their feet, so would all their enemies who should make war upon them be laid prostrate by the Lord." They were then put to death, and their bodies hung, each on its own tree, till the evening, when they were taken down and "cast into the cave wherein they had been hid," the door of which was once more closed by the same huge stones. The kings' prison-house became their sepulchre. E. V. The battle of Beth-horon or Gibeon is one of the most important in the history of the world. It is one of the few military engagements which belong equally to Ecclesiastical and to Civil History—which have decided equally the fortunes of the world and of the Church. The roll will be complete if to this we add two or three more which we shall encounter in the Jewish History; and, in later times, the battle of the Milvian Bridge, which involved the fall of Paganism; the battle of Poitiers, which sealed the fall of Arianism; the battle of Bedr, which secured the rise of Mahometanism in Asia; the battle of Tours, which checked the spread of Mahometanism in Western Europe; the battle of Lepanto, which checked it in Eastern Europe; the battle of Lutzen, which determined the balance of power between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism in Germany. Stanley. 28. Flushed with triumph, the warriors stormed the city of Makkedah itself and put its inhabitants to the sword. Makkedah was thus the first city captured after the fall of Jericho; nor does the place again occur in history. H. B. T.—Joshua contented himself with taking, demolishing, and burning those cities, but did not garrison any of them for fear of weakening his army. The scattered Canaanites in several instances no doubt took advantage of this, returned, repeopled, and put in a state of defence the cities from which they had been expelled. Hence the Israelites were obliged to conquer them a second time. 42. At one time. Heb. "at one turn, or stroke;" i.e. in one uninterrupted course of vigorous action; as we should say, in one campaign. The leading idea is that from the time Joshua entered upon this career of victories till it was closed there was no intermission, no cessation. Because the Lord fought for Israel. This clause is introduced in order to give credibility to the foregoing narrative. Viewed in any other light than as the result of omnipotence, such a tide of victories would naturally stagger all belief. Bush. With characteristic promptitude Joshua pursued his success. City after city fell, tribe after tribe was exterminated in rapid succession. Of Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir, the brief and stern record is the same: "He left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded. All these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because the Lord God fought for Israel." Southern Palestine was now conquered, the work immediately before Joshua was completed, and once more Joshua and all Israel returned to the camp at Gilgal. E. V. The Land of Canaan: Topography and Characteristics. Adaptation. Ancient Peoples. Typical Aspect. 11 1 And it came to pass, when Jabin king of Hazor heard thereof, that he sent to Jobab 2 king of Madon, and to the king of Shimron, and to the king of Achshaph, and to the kings that were on the north, in the hill country, and in the Arabah south of Chinneroth, and in the low- 3 land, and in the heights of Dor on the west, to the Canaanite on the east and on the west, and the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite in the hill country, and the 4. Hivite under Hermon in the land of Mizpeh. And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the sea-shore in multitude, with horses and 5 chariots very many. And all these kings met together; and they came and pitched together at 6 the waters of Merom, to fight with Israel. And the LORD said unto Joshua, Be not afraid because of them: for to-morrow at this time will I deliver them up all slain before Israel: thou 7 shalt hough their horses, and burn their chariots with fire. So Joshua came, and all the peo- 8 ple of war with him, against them by the waters of Merom suddenly, and fell upon them. And the LORD delivered them into the hand of Israel, and they smote them, and chased them unto great Zidon, and unto Misrephoth-maim, and unto the valley of Mizpeh eastward; and they 9 smote them, until they left them none remaining. And Joshua did unto them as the LORD bade him: he houghed their horses, and burnt their chariots with fire. 10. And Joshua turned back at that time, and took Hazor, and smote the king thereof with the 11 sword: for Hazor beforetime was the head of all those kingdoms. And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them: there was none 12 left that breathed: and he burnt Hazor with fire. And all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did Joshua take, and he smote them with the edge of the sword, and utterly 13 destroyed them; as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded. But as for the cities that stood on their mounds, Israel burned none of them, save Hazor only; that did Joshua burn. 14. And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed 15 them, neither left they any that breathed. As the LORD commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua: and so did Joshua; he left nothing undone of all that the LORD commanded Moses. 16. So Joshua took all that land, the hill country, and all the South, and all the land of Goshen, and the lowland, and the Arabah, and the hill country of Israel, and the lowland of the same; 17 from mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir, even unto Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon under 18 mount Hermon: and all their kings he took, and smote them, and put them to death. Joshua 19 made war a long time with all those kings. There was not a city that made peace with the 20 children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: they took all in battle. For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, to come against Israel in battle, that he might utterly destroy them, that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the LORD commanded Moses. 21. And Joshua came at that time, and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country 22 of Israel: Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities. There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, did some re- 23 main. So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD spake unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. And the land had rest from war. 12 1 Now these are the kings of the land, whom the children of Israel smote, and possessed their land beyond Jordan toward the sunrising, from the valley of Arnon unto mount Hermon, 2 and all the Arabah eastward: Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and ruled from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of Arnon, and the city that is in the middle of the 3 valley, and half Gilead, even unto the river Jabbok, the border of the children of Ammon; and the Arabah unto the sea of Chinneroth, eastward, and unto the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt 4. Sea, eastward, the way to Beth-jeshimoth; and on the south, under the slopes of Pisgah: and the border of Og king of Bashan, of the remnant of the Rephaim, who dwelt at Ashtaroth and 5 at Edrei, and ruled in mount Hermon, and in Salecah, and in all Bashan, unto the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and half Gilead, the border of Sihon king of Heshbon. 6. Moses the servant of the LORD and the children of Israel smote them; and Moses the servant of the LORD gave it for a possession unto the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh. 7. And these are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the children of Israel smote beyond Jordan westward, from Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon even unto mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir; and Joshua gave it unto the tribes of Israel for a possession according to their di- 8 visions; in the hill country, and in the lowland, and in the Arabah, and in the slopes, and in the wilderness, and in the South; the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Canaanite, the Perizzite, 9 the Hivite, and the Jebusite: the king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, which is beside Beth el, 10, 11 one; the king of Jerusalem, one; the king of Hebron, one; the king of Jarmuth, one; the 12, 13 king of Lachish, one; the king of Egon, one; the king of Gezer, one; the king of Debir, 14, 15 one; the king of Geder, one; the king of Hormah, one; the king of Arad, one; the king of 16 Libnah, one; the king of Adullam, one; the king of Makkedah, one; the king of Beth el, 17, 18 one; the king of Tappuah, one; the king of Hepher, one; the king of Aphek, one; the 19, 20 king of Lassharon, one; the king of Madon, one; the king of Hazor, one; the king of Shim- 21 ron-meron, one; the king of Achshaph, one; the king of Taanach, one; the king of Megiddo, 22, 23 one; the king of Kedesh, one; the king of Jokneam in Carmel, one; the king of Dor in the 24 height of Dor, one; the king of Golim in Gilgal, one; the king of Tirzah, one: all the kings thirty and one. Canaan was virtually subdued before the arms of Joshua in two great decisive battles; the first against five confederate kings of Southern Palestine (ch. 10); the second, against a similar but larger confederation of the petty kingdoms of Northern Palestine (ch. 11). H. C. — A powerful confederacy was formed, embracing all the tribes that had not yet fallen before Joshua, E. V. — King Jabin, of Hazor—far to the north—headed this new confederacy. He issued a call to various kings and peoples—to those on the north, even beyond the Lebanon Mountains—to those on the south, “in the Arabah south of Chinneroth, and in the lowland, and in the heights of Dor on the west;” that is, of the plains of Jezreel and Megiddo, the Arabah south of the Sea of Galilee, across to the Mediterranean Sea below Carmel—also to those on the east, “the Hivite under Hermon, in the land of Mizpeh”—and to those directly west, down on the plain of Phoenicia. In answer to this call, the fighting-men of the whole region flocked together into a set place. The kings “went out, they and all their hosts with them came and pitched together at the waters of Merom, to fight against Israel.” Lake Merom—the modern Huleh—a dozen miles north of the Sea of Galilee, is a considerable body of water, the deeper central part being about four miles long by three and a half wide. Around it are extensive marshes and plains. Probably the level country in the neighborhood led to its being selected by the confederates for an engagement, since here they would have opportunity for manoeuvring their horses and chariots, on which they appear to have chiefly relied. Horses and chariots do not seem to have been encountered by the Israelites in the previous campaign. These could not be effectively used in the mountain regions of Judea. Doubtless the Israelites had a special dread of them, and hence God’s promise of success against the new confederacy, given to Joshua on the eve of battle, included a distinct reference to them. The language is: “Be not afraid of them”—of the hosts of the new combination—“for to-morrow, about this time, will I deliver them up all slain before Israel: thou shalt hough their horses, and burn their chariots with fire.” No details concerning this victory are recorded. Joshua and his forces fell suddenly upon their enemies, and “the Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel.” To the east—into the fastnesses of Mount Hermon, and to the west—down upon the plain of Phoenicia, and across to the great and strong maritime city of Sidon, the beaten allies fled. It is specially declared that Joshua hamstrung the captured war-horses and burnt the chariots, according to the divine command. N. C. B. 3. These nations were thus distributed: “The Hittites,” or sons of Heth, “the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwelt in the mountains;” “the Canaanites” dwelt in the midland, “by the sea,” westward, and “by the coast of Jordan,” eastward; and “the Hivites” in Mount Lebanon, under Hermon, in the land of Gilead, northward. Hules. 5-7. The highland plateau west of the Waters of Merom has always been fertile and well peopled, and was the centre of the Canaanitish power in the north before and after the conquest by Joshua. From the head of the Lake of Galilee to the Waters of Merom, a distance in a straight line of ten miles, the course of the Jordan is through a rich but deserted plain, shut in, as elsewhere in its course, by the enclosing ranges. There are many mounds in this plain, marking the site of perished villages, but not one inhabited, though here and there the wattled huts of the stationary Arabs or the black tents of the wandering tribes may be seen. But the lofty plateau which faces the little Lake of Huleh, the Waters of Merom, on the west side, is full of ruins, many of which recall Scripture names. The hills descend precipitously, and the ruins are crowded near their brow. Merom is only mentioned in the Bible as the scene of the great battle in which Joshua utterly broke the power of Jabin, King of Hazor, and the confederate Canaanites of the north. This battle was for the north what that of Beth-horon was for the south. It was the last combined struggle against the conqueror. All were gathered for it from Philistia to Hermon. "They went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the seashore in multitude, with horses and chariots diers burst upon them. Taken thus by surprise, their immense numbers only increased the confusion of the Canaanites, which the horses and chariots would render more inextricable. The rout was complete. The Canaanites were chased westward to Zidon and eastward to the valley of Mizpeh. The conqueror returned to finish the action by the capture of Hazor. This city, like Ai and Jericho, was burned. The rest of the cities taken in this campaign were simply pillaged, and left standing "each on its own  very many." It must have been in the low plain, west of the Lake, that the army of Israel fell suddenly upon them, routed them utterly, and chased them westward over the hills to Great Zidon and north-eastward up the Jordan valley to the plain of Mizpeh or Coelo-Syria. H. B. T. 7. Suddenly.** As before on so many occasions, Joshua's prompt decisiveness secured him the victory. Almost before the kings could have learned that he had left Gilgal, he and his solhill" (5 : 13). E. V.—The actual features of the land are seen to be entwined with the Scripture history, in a way most strongly to uphold it as veritable and to exhibit it as vividly real. The natural features of Palestine—its fountains, its lakes, its rivers, its mountains, its plains, its peculiarities of climate and soil and productions—are mute yet eloquent witnesses for the truth of the Scriptures, and expounders of the Bible as the Book of God. N. C. B. 8. Unto great Zidon.** A well-known city of ancient Phœnicia, situated on the east coast of the Mediterranean, about twenty-five miles north of Tyre, fifty south of Berytus (Beyroot), and sixty-six west of Damascus. Its modern name is Said. The epithet great, here affixed to it, is expressive of number rather than of size, and implies not only its populousness, but the extent and variety of its resources of every kind. Bush.—Sidon is mentioned in Gen. 10 : 19, as marking one of the limits of the Canaanite, and it appears to have acquired importance at a very early period; for we find Joshua here alluding to it as “great Sidon,” and Homer makes special mention of the skill of the Sidonian workmen; the embroidered robes of Andromache, and the bowl given as a prize by Achilles at the games in honor of Patroclus, were of Sidonian workmanship. Wilson. To live carelessly after the manner of the Sidonians (Ju. 18 : 17), became the proverbial synonym of perfect prosperity. Her merchant ships sailed over every sea. She built strong cities along the shore—Beirût, and Gebal, and Arvad, and Accho, and Dor, and many more. She planted colonies in Cyprus and the Grecian Isles, in Libya and in Spain, while by her side she nourished her fair daughter Tyre until she overgrew and quite eclipsed the mother. Then began her long and sad decline. The streams of her prosperity were dried up or diverted. The proud Pharaohs from the Nile—the stern Assyrian from distant Nineveh—the cruel Chaldean and Persian from Babylon—the rough he-goat from Grecia, and the king of fierce countenance from the Tiber, all helped to lay poor Sidon in the dust. And, long after, those locusts which came out of the bottomless pit, with Apollyon at their head, completed the work during those dismal days when men sought death but could not find it. And yet Sidon still exists, and has always clung to life with a strange tenacity. Her history runs parallel with the march of time, down the ceaseless current of human generations. Not so Tyre. Long ages have rolled away since continental Tyre sunk beneath the “burden” of prophecy, and the very site where she stood was lost. Thompson. 10,11. The destruction of Hazor is particularly recorded, because in it and by the king thereof, this daring design against Israel was laid. The king of Hazor escaped with his life out of the battle, and got back into his own city. There he was slain, and his city, for his sake, burned. Yet we find that the remains of it being not well looked after by Israel, the Canaanites rebuilt it and settled there under another king of the same name (Ju. 4 : 2). H. 13. The cities that stood. It appears that the Israelites forbore to destroy those cities which were seated on an eminence, and of greater strength, reserving them for their own occupation. Wells. 15. The frequent repetition of God’s order is to be carefully noted, as showing that Israel’s action was exceptional and performed solely at God’s command. 16. Joshua captured : (1) the mountain country; (2) the Negeb (south of the mountain country); (3) Goshen (the southern slopes of the mountains); (4) the Shephelah (Philistine country); (5) the Arabah (Jordan and Dead Sea valley); (6) the mountain of Israel (the northern mountains); (7) the northern Shephelah (the upper part of the Shephelah). Compare ch. 12 : 8. Crosby. All the South or the Negeb. The mountain plateau in the northeast of the desert is full of interest, both to the geographer and to the Biblical student. This plateau is called Jebel el Magrah, and is about seventy miles in length, and from forty to fifty broad, commencing at Jebel ‘Araif, and extending northward by a series of steps or terraces to within a short distance of Beersheba, from which it is separated by Wády or Raknuth from the mountains of the same name. It projects into the Tih (the desert) much in the same way as the Tih projects into Sinai, and, like it also, terminates in steep escarpments toward the south, falling away to a lower level on the south-eastern side. This mountain plateau is the “South” or South Country. Palmer. (See Vol. II., Map, title-page.) 17. From Mount Halak unto Baal-gad. “From Dan to Beersheba” (2 S. 3 : 10 ; 24 : 2) was in David’s day the popular expression for the whole country. Two other landmarks are mentioned here and 12 : 7 by the sacred historian : “from the Mount Halak that goeth up to Seir even unto Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon.” Mount Halak was in the parallel of Beersheba, and Baal-gad is identical with Banias, four miles east of Dan. These were the limits of what we may call “the land in possession.” The “land of promise” was much larger. Porter.—As the result of this third campaign, Israel was master of the whole land from Mount Halak (the smooth mountain), at the ascent to Mount Seir, on the south, to Baal-gad, under Mount Hermon, on the north. But a much longer time was required for the subjugation of the numerous kings, who held each his own fortified city. P. S.—Altogether the war in the south and north must have occupied at least seven years. From Josh. 14 : 10 we learn that forty-five years had elapsed since the spies returned to Kadesh. But as thirty-eight of these were spent in the wanderings in the wilderness, it follows that the wars for the occupation of Canaan must have lasted seven years. A. E. 20. The meaning here is simply that having sinned for a long tract of ages against the light of conscience and providence, God was now pleased to leave them to a judicial hardness of heart, to give them up to vain confidence, pride, stubbornness, and malignity, that they might bring upon themselves his righteous vengeance and be utterly destroyed. This result is said to be "of or from the Lord," because he did not interpose to prevent it. Bush. The Old Testament (like the New) always speaks of hardening only in connection with a divine testimony in revelation—in reference to a divine revelation offered to the sinner but rejected by him. This is applicable to Pharaoh, who sees the miracles of Moses, which forced even the Egyptian Magi to feel (Ex. 8 : 19), "this is God's finger;" "but," it is continued, "Pharaoh's heart was hardened." The same thing is applicable to Israel in view of the divine guidance in the wilderness; and according to this also, that which is said of the Canaanitish tribes (Josh. 11 : 20) is to be explained: "For it was of Jehovah to harden their heart to strive with Israel, that He might destroy them, and they might find no grace." The Canaanitish tribes merited punishment on account of their idolatrous abominations; and now that this judgment was executed upon them in the form of extermination, it was effected by themselves through their hardening themselves to do battle with Israel, for whom God manifestly fought. In such passages the point is not a dark and hidden decree of reprobation, but a divine decree of judgment, well-grounded and perfectly manifest. The course of this hardening is described in Is. 6 : 10; incapability to hear the divine word and to see God's ways connects itself with dulness of heart, and this again reacts on the heart so that its insusceptibility becomes incurable. O. 21. The mountains of Judah and Israel were the habitations of those mountains of men; but neither their height, nor the strength of their caves, nor the difficulty of the passes to them, could secure these mighty men from the sword of Joshua. The cutting off of the sons of Anak is particularly mentioned because these had been such a terror to the spies forty years before, and their bulk and strength had been thought an insuperable difficulty in the way of the reducing of Canaan. H.—Though these Anakims were now for the most part reduced, yet numbers of them escaped and took refuge in the country of the Philistines, and settled there, from whom Goliath and other giants descended. After a time some of them returned with followers and rebuilt the cities from which they had been expelled; and Caleb and Othniel, to whom that region was assigned, vanquished and destroyed them after the division of the land (ch. 14 : 6-15; 15 : 13-17). 23. So Joshua took the whole land.** Not absolutely the whole, for in ch. 13 : 1 the Lord is represented as saying to Joshua, "There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed," but all the country described here and in the preceding chapter; the greatest and best part of it. Bush. 12. We have in this chapter a recapitulation of all the victories thus far achieved. As the writer is about to enter upon a particular account of the distribution of the land among the tribes, he here pauses to give a general view of the territory to be divided, including the tracts on both sides the Jordan. This he does by specifying the kings, rather than the countries over which they reigned; for the power of a state is concentrated in the person of its sovereign, and such an enumeration presents the subject more vividly to the mind of the reader. The first six verses contain a list of the kings on the east side of Jordan, conquered by Moses, with their territories, and the remainder of the chapter is occupied with a catalogue of those that were reduced by Joshua. Bush. The Book of Joshua transports the reader across the Jordan to Jericho, takes him from the camp at Gilgal to the high hills of the Amorite princes and the other Canaanite kings; and, after the victory is won, spreads out before the eye a bright and living picture of the land as it lay divided among the twelve tribes of Israel. From the wilderness of Arabia, from Kadesh-Barnea and Beersheba in the south, to the sources of the Jordan near Dan, and to the heights of Hermon and Lebanon, the Promised Land comes out in the narrative of Joshua in all its unity, and with all its characteristic features in the best possible manner to aid us in our study of its geography. Ritter. 12 : 3. The Galilean Lake is rarely mentioned in the Old Testament, where it is known as "the Sea of Chinnereth (Nu. 34 : 11), and is given as on the eastern border of the western tribes; and again in Josh. 11 : 2 and here, where it is called "Chinnereth," and ch. 13 : 27, "the edge of the sea of Chinnereth." It never recurs till we meet it, as the chief scene of our Lord's ministry. H. B. T. 12:24. All the kings, thirty and one. From the number of these kings, we learn how numerous and yet how small were the petty principalities into which the land of Canaan was divided. The extent of this country from north to south was not more than one hundred and fifty miles, and not more than fifty from east to west. In like manner were nearly all the different nations of the world divided. The consequence was that civil wars and border feuds continually prevailed, making them an easy prey to foreign invaders. Thus history informs us that when Cæsar invaded Britain there were no less than four kings in the single county of Kent. Bush. The results of the whole conquest, besides the previous victories over Sihon and Og, are summed up in the subjugation of thirty-one kings of cities on the west of the Jordan, belonging to the seven nations, which had been mentioned in the first promise to Abraham, the Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, Hittites, Hivites, Jebusites, and Perizzites. Special notice is taken of the extermination of the giant Anakim, who had struck such terror into the spies, and who were only left in the Philistine cities of Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod, though they had before occupied the whole of the central highlands, with Hebron and other cities. The defeat of these thirty-one kings did not involve, in every case, the capture of their cities. Jerusalem, for example, was not taken till after the death of Joshua, and its citadel remained in the hands of the Jebusites till the time of David. Many other cities held out for a long time. But besides such isolated posts there were whole tracts of country—"very much land"—yet to be subdued, within the limits which God had originally named, and which He now once more promised. These were, speaking generally, the plains along the Mediterranean, the coast of Phœnicia, and the ranges of Lebanon. P. S. The conquest of the land of Canaan under Joshua is distinguished from all others by the four following features, which, at the same time, mark it as subservient to the kingdom of God:—(1) That the conquering nation was the people of God, to whom of old the Lord had appointed this land for an inheritance (De. 32: 8, 9): (2) That the destruction of the inhabitants was a judgment from God, which had long ago been announced (Gen. 15), and was then carried out; (3) That God himself took an extraordinary part in this conquest by his aid and co-operation; (4) That it represents, typically, the way of obtaining the heavenly Canaan. Thus no one need wonder that the Book of Joshua too, with all its histories of war, is found in the Bible; and likewise the distribution of the land, which occupies a great part of the book, has its significance for the history of the kingdom of God. C. G. B. The period of the Conquest, properly speaking, began from the passage of the brook Zered under Moses: it was not finally closed till the capture of Jerusalem by David. But, in a more limited sense, it may be confined to the period during which the territory, afterward known by the name of Palestine, was definitively occupied as their own by the Israelites. The Israelite conquest of Palestine, although it stands above all other like events from its intrinsic grandeur, yet is in itself but one among a succession of waves which have swept over the country, and each of which may be used as an illustration of those that have gone before and after. The Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabians, Turks, Crusaders, French, English, have followed in their wake; the Philistines, the Canaanites, the aboriginal inhabitants, accompanied or preceded them. A. P. S. As the Hebrew records are silent with respect to Egypt and Assyria during the entire period from Joshua to Samuel, so the Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions are silent with respect to the Hebrews. If there is not a positive, there is a negative accord between them. From the Hebrews' account of themselves we gather that during their long period of struggle with the Canaanitish nations, they were unmolested by either Egypt or Assyria. From the accounts given by the Egyptians and Assyrians of the same period, we learn that they led no expeditions into the country occupied by the Hebrews during these centuries. G. R. The Bible history is in thorough agreement with that which the monuments of Egypt and Assyria have been found to furnish. No serious historical discrepancy has been pointed out between the contents of these monumental records and the facts of Bible history. On the other hand, the testimony, at a hundred points, to the accuracy of Scripture is very remarkable. One of the most interesting of these testimonies is that borne by the Egyptian records to the condition of Palestine as parcelled out among a large number of independent chiefs or kings at a very early time. Another fact which we gather from these records is, that the conquest of Canaan under Joshua must have been a very serious and difficult undertaking. Though the separate chiefs may have been but feeble, they were accustomed to act in concert, and their combinations, such as Joshua encountered, were very formidable. The Khita or Hittite race, which prevailed in Western Syria, was indeed a very formidable one, able on some occasions, as the records show, to give no little trouble to the power of Egypt. W. G. B. The narrative of Joshua represents to us the nation of the Hittites as being at the time of the conquest of Canaan the principal power in Upper Syria, or the country between Palestine and the Euphrates. This fact is abundantly confirmed by the Egyptian remains, which show us the Hittites (Sheta) as the chief opponent of Egypt, in the valley of the Orontes, during a period which must certainly include within it the judgeship of Joshua. And as the Hittites appear in Joshua to be the dominant race to the north of Galilee, so does the whole narrative from Exodus to Samuel represent the Philistines as the dominant people of the tract between Judea and Egypt. Here, once more, the Egyptian records agree, since they assign to the Philistines the same sort of lead among the enemies of Egypt in the south which belongs to the Hittites in the regions of the north. G. R. THE LAND OF CANAAN: TOPOGRAPHY AND CHARACTERISTICS. ADAPTATION TO ITS PURPOSE AND WITNESS TO ITS DESIGN. ITS ANCIENT PEOPLES. ITS TYPICAL ASPECT. Name. The Hebrew word which in our English version of the Bible is translated "Palestine" in Joel 3 : 4, and "Palestina" in Ex. 15 : 14, and Is. 14 : 29, 31, is only found elsewhere in the Psalms, and is there rendered by "Philistia." In the Bible the name is used for the country of the Philistines alone, but it afterward came to signify the whole land occupied by the Jews, and in this sense we find it employed by Josephus, Philo, and some of the writers in the Talmud. The country is alluded to in the Bible under several other names; it is the "land of Canaan" of the patriarchs and Joshua; "the land" of Ruth, Jeremiah, and St. Luke; the "holy land" of Zechariah; the "glorious land" of Daniel and Amos; the "land of Jehovah" of Hosea, the "land of promise" of the Epistle to the Hebrews; the "land of Israel" of the Monarchy; and the "land of Judea" of the New Testament. It is now most commonly known under its name of Palestine, or the Holy Land. Position. No one can help being struck by the peculiar position of Palestine in regard to the powerful nations immediately surrounding it, as well as by its remarkable geographical position, almost in the centre of the ancient world; and it is hardly too much to say that in no other country could that striking combination of moral and physical conditions have been found which rendered Palestine the most fitting theatre for those momentous events which have had such a great and lasting influence on the history of the world. Separated from the great nations of the East by the arid plains which lie beyond the Jordan, and from Egypt by the southern desert, Palestine was from the very first a country set apart from the rest of the world, and this isolation was increased by the religion of the Jews, which forbade their forming any alliance with the surrounding nations. No great highway led through the country; the hosts of Egypt on their way to Assyria, those of Assyria, of Babylon, and of Persia on their way to Egypt, swept by it along the low maritime plain which fringed the coast; their object was the conquest of the rival empire, and the hill country of Palestine hardly possessed sufficient attractions to induce them to turn aside from the most direct road to the end they had in view. Napoleon, when he was asked, during his Syrian campaign, to visit Jerusalem, replied that it did not lie in the line of his operations, and it was probably to a similar feeling on the part of the leaders of the hostile armies that the Jewish nation for so many years owed its independence; it was only after the lapse of centuries that the country became involved in disaster by neglecting the Divine commands and forming alliances with one or other of the contending powers. Later, Alexander passed over the country on his way to Oriental conquest, and when, on his death, the empire which he had formed fell to pieces, it became the battle-field of the Seleucidæ and the Ptolemies; later still, under Roman dominion, Palestine became one of the thoroughfares between the East and the West, and it was during these troubled times that a stream of Western civilization flowed into the country, exercising a powerful influence on the arts, the mode of thought, and the history of the Jews during the last three centuries of their existence as a nation. Isolated as Palestine was from all other countries, its geographical position with reference to the three great continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as to the Mediterranean and Red Seas, was such that, when the fulness of time came, the knowledge of the Gospel could be spread to the remotest corners of the earth, and it is not unworthy of notice that the principal means by which the glad tidings were conveyed was that sea which had once seemed an almost impassable barrier. The physical character of Palestine is no less remarkable than its geographical position; there is no other country which, within the same narrow limits, contains so many striking contrasts, or exhibits features at once so varied and comprehensive that, as has been justly observed, there is no land or nation in the world which does not find something of itself reflected there. In the north are the lofty peaks of Lebanon and Mount Hermon, rarely free from snow, with their cedars, their alpine flora, and their wild thunder-storms, to which allusion would seem to be made in the 29th Psalm; in the south is the deep depression of the Dead Sea, with its tropical climate, and a flora and fauna similar in many respects to those of the lake regions of Equatorial Africa. On the west the rich corn-growing plains of Philistia are in close proximity to the sandy, unprofitable desert of the south; in the centre the terraced hills, with their Italian climate so suitable for the cultivation of the vine, olive, and fig, pass almost imperceptibly into the barren wilderness of Judea; and on the east the downs of Moab and Gilead, with their abundant pasturage, are bordered by the dry and thirsty land of the great eastern desert. Lastly, there is the "great sea" which is so frequently alluded to in the Psalms, in familiar passages which come home with especial force to the hearts and minds of the people of a great maritime nation such as England. From the Phœnician traders who did their "business in great waters," the Psalmist would hear of "the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep," and how, after one of the wild westerly gales which visit the coast of Palestine, the ships in which they sailed would "mount up to heaven" and "go down again to the depths," reeling "to and fro" and staggering "like a drunken man." Ezien'. Every writer has noticed the narrow limits of the Holy Land. From Dan to Beersheba is no more than 140 miles, and from the Mediterranean to Jordan the average breadth is only 40 miles, containing less than 6000 square miles. Physical Features. Perhaps the most striking feature in the general aspect of Palestine is its natural division into four parallel strips of territory—the coast plain, the hill country, the Jordan valley, and the eastern plateau. The Coast Plain extends without a break from the desert south of Gaza to the long ridge of Mount Carmel on the north; beyond Carmel lies the plain of Acre, stretching northward to the headland of Ras el-Nakura (Ladder of Tyre), which separates it from the long narrow plain of Phœnicia. The two latter sections of the coast plain are not mentioned in the Bible; the first contains within its limits the plain of Sharon reaching from Carmel to Jaffa, and the plains of Philistia extending southward to the margin of the desert. The greater portion of the plain is flat, but north of Jaffa there are some low hills, through which at a remote period tunnels were cut to drain the marsh land lying behind them; the soil is rich and of marvellous fertility, producing year after year magnificent crops, though the ground is tilled in the rudest manner, without manure and without irrigation. The broad expanse of the Philistine plain, covered as it is at harvest time with a waving mass of golden grain, unbroken by a single hedge, is one of the most beautiful sights in Palestine. Under the burning sun of Syria the stubble becomes so dry that a single spark might kindle a flame that would run before the wind like the fires which sweep over the American prairies, and strict precautions are taken by the Bedawi to prevent the occurrence of such a calamity. We cannot, therefore, wonder that the Philistines were stirred to fierce wrath when Samson turned his three hundred foxes with their firebrands "into the standing corn," "in the time of wheat harvest;" fanned by the steady land breeze, which at that season of the year blows every morning for three or four hours, the flames would spread with fiery speed, licking up corn, olives, and vines, until they were checked by the sea; and in those days, when the intercourse between country and country was so slight, the loss of their harvest must have been felt almost as a national calamity by the Philistines. Wilson. The plain of Philistia is thirty-two miles long, from Ekron to Gaza, with a breadth of from nine to sixteen miles, and a height above the sea of from 50 to 300 feet. In the hill country (behind the plain of Philistia), the spurs, not more than one mile or so apart, are often separated by narrow ravines 1500 to 2000 feet deep, at the bottom of which, in the rainy season, rapid torrents roll. Warren. The Hill country commences about fifty miles south of Jerusalem, and runs northward through the land to the plain of Esdraelon, beyond which it rises again and is connected with the Lebanon by the hills of Galilee. This highland district varies but slightly in altitude, and its general appearance as seen from the sea is that of a long wall without any prominent peak to break the monotony of its outline. Its average height may be gathered from the following altitudes:—Hebron, 2840 feet; Mount of Olives, 2665 feet; Neby Samwil, 2900 feet; Mount Ebal, 3029 feet; Neby Ismail, 1790 feet; and Jebel Jermuk, 4000 feet. The hills are broad-backed, and present none of the grander features of mountain scenery, but every here and there rounded summits rise above the general level of the range, and afford striking panoramas of the surrounding country; such are the views from Neby Samwil, Mount Ebal, Little Hermon, Neby Ismail, near Nazareth, and the hill on which Safed stands, each embracing no inconsiderable portion of the Holy Land. The effect of the views is increased by the transparency of the atmosphere, which diminishes apparent distances in a manner unknown in moister climes, and by the rich and varying tints that light up the steep slopes of the Jordan valley. Through the centre of the hill country runs the main road from Jerusalem, through Samaria, to Galilee, following nearly the line of the watershed, and passing close to many of the chief cities of Judah and Israel; it is the route now usually followed by travellers, and was probably always one of the most important thoroughfares in the country. East of this road the hills descend abruptly to the Jordan valley; west of it, they fall more gradually to the coast plain. The wonderful ramifications of the valleys which cut up the hill country on either side of the watershed form one of the peculiar features of Palestine topography; rising frequently in small upland plains of great richness, such as El Mukhna, near Nablus; the valleys at first fall very rapidly, and then, after a tortuous course, reach the plain on the one side and the Jordan valley on the other. The effect of this is to split up the country into a series of knife-like ridges, generally preserving an east and west direction, and effectually preventing any movement over the country from south to north, except along the central highway; the valley of the Kishon, which spreads out into the broad plain of Esdraelon, and the valley of Jezreel, are the only two which are more than mere torrent-beds. The soil of the hill country, except in the wilderness of Judea, southeast of Jerusalem, and some portions of the eastern slopes of the hills, is extremely rich, and where cultivated very productive. Everywhere traces are found of that “terrace-culture” for which the hill-sides were so peculiarly adapted, and which the Jews brought to such great perfection. Professor Palmer found the walls of old vineyards far south of Beersheba, on the very verge of the desert, and there is hardly a hill in Palestine on which ruined walls and the cisterns in which the scanty rainfall was husbanded are not found. It would appear from several indications in the Psalms that the land was highly cultivated when the Israelites came into possession. There is evidence, too, of the existence of large forests in certain districts, especially in Galilee. The Jordan Valley runs nearly parallel to the coast from the base of Mount Hermon to the Dead Sea, and contains the one great river of the country, the Jordan, a purely inland river, like no other on the face of the earth, “having no embouchure on the sea, and closing its course in the very deepest part of the Old World.” After the junction of the three streams which rise respectively at Hasbeiya, Tell el-Kady, and Banias, the Jordan spreads out into the Lake el-Hulch, and descends rapidly to the Sea of Galilee, whence it follows a tortuous course wholly below the level of the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea. On either side of the river is a strip of plain of varying width, with a rich soil, formerly irrigated by the numerous springs and by the streams that descend from the hills, which rise abruptly on the east and west. The Eastern Plateau has a general altitude of 2000 feet, and is tolerably uniform in its character. Wilson.—Though the trans-Jordanic range is quite as high as the hills of Western Palestine, it is not so broken up. Only four streams of any size furrow it: the Yarmuk, the Jabbok, the Callirhoe, and the Arnon. There is a beauty in Gilead, a richness in Moab, and a grandeur in Bashan, which makes it hard to believe that only the narrow cleft of the Jordan valley separates them from the gray hills and naked rocks of Western Palestine. Tristram.   Palestine proper may be very briefly described as a mountainous central district, running north and south, flanked on each side by a broad plain. The plain on the west, or that of the sea-coast, has an average width of twelve or fourteen miles. Its southern portion, from Gaza northward nearly to Jaffa, was the ancient Philistia, which included five great cities. Its middle portion, from Jaffa northward to Mount Carmel, which juts into the sea, was the plain of Sharon. North of Carmel on the coast is the plain of Acre, and north of that the narrow strip of ancient Phœnicia. The plain on the east flank of Palestine is the valley of the Jordan, lying between the Dead Sea on the south and the Sea of Galilee on the north. This is narrower than the plain of the coast, reaching a breadth of only eight or ten miles in its widest part, at Jericho. Between these two plains—of the west and the east—of the Mediterranean and the Jordan—lay the principal bulk of Palestine—a mountain district—extending from below Hebron on the south to the plain of Esdraelon on the north, eighty miles long by thirty wide. This was the country held most securely by the Israelites after their conquest of the land. Here dwelt the great historic and rival tribes—Judah on the south and Ephraim on the north—with little Benjamin compressed between them. Here were the cities of greatest fame—here the chief capitals of government, and the chief sanctuaries of religion. This district—especially its southern half, the Judea of the New Testament—is indescribably rough and rocky. It is corrugated with ridges, or embossed with hill tops. The northern half—the Samaria of the New Testament—shows more continuous mountain chains and broader valleys. The general height of this district varies from twenty-eight hundred feet—that of Hebron, to seventeen hundred—that of Shechem. Perhaps the average is nearly twenty-two hundred—that of Jerusalem. To complete this outline view, we should mark the broad Plain of Esdraelon, sweeping across the country east and west, along the northern end of the central region just described; and then the hill country of Galilee rising steeply out of this plain, and extending northward up the high slopes of Lebanon and Hermon. N. C. B. The southern slope of the highlands of Galilee and the northern elevation of Mount Ephraim are intersected by three plains, which are connected among themselves, and run across the highlands west of Jordan, from the sea-shore to the banks of the Jordan. These are—the plain of Acco by the sea, the plain of Jezreel, and that of Bethshean, which stretches toward Jordan. The plain of Jezreel, or of Esdraelon (Josh. 17: 16), is exceedingly fruitful. It is the most extensive valley of Palestine. Its connection with the two others makes it the most open plain in the country. Hence it always formed the central point of military evolutions. According to the barometrical measurements of Schubert, it rises 439 feet above the level of the sea. A narrow rocky valley to the northeast, which runs between the base of Carmel and the projecting ledges of the mountains of Zebulun, connects it with the plain of Acco. The Kishon, which rises at the foot of Tabor, flows through the whole extent of these two plains into the sea. At the northeastern termination of the plain of Jezreel rise Mount Tabor in majestic beauty, and south of it, running from east to west for about two German miles, the chain of hills called Little Hermon; still farther south, and stretching to the northwest, Mount Gilboa. A rocky elevation forms the watershed, and connects the western terminations of these two mountains, embracing at the same time the plain of Bethshean, which extends to the banks of Jordan. From the plain of Acco, the northeastern side of Mount Carmel (Jebel Mār Elyās) rises abruptly to a height of 1500 feet, forming a fruitful field, the hills of which are watered by many rills, and covered successively by meadows, with their rich bloom, by pleasant valleys, by fruitful vineyards, olive groves, and corn-fields. It runs for three German miles (from southeast to northwest) to the Mediterranean. There it terminates in a promontory—bearing the same name (1200 feet high)—in which nature has formed thousands of caverns, which have served for the dwelling, first of Troglodites, and then of monks. The southwestern side of the mountain slopes into the plain of Sharon. As Carmel to the northwest, so Mount Gilboa to the northeast, forms a kind of advanced post of MOUNT EPHRAIM. The latter rises abruptly from the plain of Jezreel, and attains its highest elevation in the neighborhood of Shechem. Kurtz. As we rode slowly onward we were able to take in, almost at a glance, the whole of the magnificent plain of Esdraelon. From the shores of the Mediterranean, where it is guarded on one side by the noble promontory of Carmel, and on the other by the less lofty headland of Akka, it extends over a space of more than twenty miles to the banks of the Jordan, being separated into minor valleys by mountains as it approaches toward the river. Its average width is between ten and twelve miles, the richly-wooded range of Carmel, and the less bold mountains of Samaria, bounding it on the south, while on the north it is hemmed in by the green hills of Galilee. It possesses an extraordinary natural fertility, and is so level that every inch of it is as capable of culture as the plains of Lombardy. Men competent to judge have declared that, if this single plain were brought under the hand of skilled agriculture, it would yield grain enough to support the entire population within the limits of the Holy Land. A. Thomson. # Noteworthy Points of Detail. With the exception of some volcanic rocks near the Lake of Galilee, limestone is the sole formation in the country. Blocks of rock, ravines, and caves are found everywhere, being the characteristic features of a limestone district. The whole history of the country accords with this fact. W. G. B.—Perhaps no one aspect of Palestine, along its central line of hills, strikes the stranger more with surprise than the amount and roughness of its rock surface. At the first glance the thought of the superficial observer is that of disappointment. He sees it almost treeless, rocky and rough and neglected, and thinks that it is, after all, a much overrated and overpraised country. But when he looks more closely, he perceives that all this rock, being limestone, and not sandstone nor granite, when it pulverizes, carries with it, not barrenness but fertility. He observes how the noble olive grows in successive tiers up the sides of seemingly hopeless hills, what sunny exposures are everywhere offered to the vine, and how green are the wheat-fields even when wedged in among the cliffs—and how all these hills appear once to have been diligently and laboriously laid out in terraces almost to their tops—and he changes his mind. He travels through a multitude of fertile valleys, and crosses plains like that of Esdraelon, as rich of soil as a western prairie, almost abandoned now. He passes from the deep tropical valley of the Jordan by the Dead Sea to the high mountains of Galilee, and the still higher range of Lebanon, and sees how this little country, not larger than Wales, is fitted to produce almost every species of fruit or grain of whatever climate upon the globe. And as he watches the brooks and springs of water, and the singular variety of surface, orchards, glens, bold mountains, fertile flowery plains, picturesque sites such as those of Jerusalem, Hebron, Samaria, and a multitude of other places, he cannot but perceive how, in its palmy days, when the heights were crowned with foliage, the hill-sides with cattle, and the fields with grain, Palestine must have been indeed a goodly land, presenting to its children home attractions and inextinguishable recollections beyond even those of Scotland, Switzerland, or New England. Bartlett. Beneath the apparent monotony, there is a variety in the Holy Land really remarkable. There is the variety due to the difference of level between the different parts of the country. There is the variety of climate and of natural appearances, partly from the proximity of the snow-capped Hermon and Lebanon on the north and of the torrid desert on the south. There is also the variety inevitably produced by the presence of the sea—“the eternal freshness and liveliness of ocean.” Each of these is continually reflected in the Hebrew literature. The contrast between the highlands and lowlands appears in “going up” to Judah, Jerusalem, Hebron; “going down” to Jericho, Capernaum, Lydda, Cesarea, Gaza, and Egypt. The differences in climate are no less often mentioned. The Psalmists, Prophets, and historical Books, are full of allusions to the fierce heat of the mid-day sun and the dryness of summer; no less than to the various accompaniments of winter—the rain, snow, frost, ice, and fogs of Jerusalem and the upper country. Even the sharp alternations between the heat of the days and the coldness of the nights, which strike every traveller in Palestine, are mentioned. Dic. B. The purpose which the Israelites were designed to subserve required that they should be kept in a state of isolation until they attained a power which should operate as a leavening principle on the mass of mankind. The boundaries and natural defences of Palestine are in this respect particularly noticeable. These cut it off in a manner from all the earth, and rendered it a grand and unassailable fortress in the midst of the surrounding nations. Between the Israelitish community and the great empires of the East two obstacles were interposed: the desert, which protected the outposts of the little Hebrew state, while a second line of defence was provided in the vast Jordanie fissure. On the south, as a barrier between them and Egypt, stretched the “great and terrible wilderness.” The west was only accessible by sea, and at the time of the Israelites’ first settlement in Palestine, the Mediterranean or great sea was not yet the thoroughfare; it was rather the limit of the eastern nations, and on the north rose the mighty ranges of Lebanon. Further, the limited area of the land, taken in connection with its great fertility and its central situation, greatly contributed to the object for which it had been selected. D. M. In itself and in its relation to other countries, the country which the Lord had chosen as a nursery for his kingdom was, from its soil and position, better adapted for this purpose than any other on the face of the globe. The covenant-people was in the organism of mankind to be the heart of the nations. The land of Israel must have been suitable for the purposes which that nation was to serve. If Israel was to unite in itself the two requisites of greatest seclusion from all other nations and yet of occupying the most central position among them, the country in which these purposes were to be realized must have corresponded to them. And in point of fact Palestine united in itself, in an unparalleled and wonderful manner, the apparently opposed characteristics of being secluded from, and yet central to, all other countries. In truth, whether viewed geographically, politically, or commercially, Palestine is the “umbilicus terrarum” of the ancient world. Lying right in the middle of the three then known parts of the world, it may in some respects be regarded as belonging to all the three. From this central position Palestine became also the central point of all political movements and of the commerce of the world. All the routes, both by water and by land, which connected the three parts of the ancient world, passed through Palestine. On the other hand, it will readily be perceived that the Holy Land was also almost as secluded as an island. South and east inhospitable deserts, to the west the sea, shut it off from other lands, while Lebanon on the north bounds it by an almost insurmountable wall, stretching from the sea to the eastern desert. This characteristic of seclusion appears even more distinctly and prominently when we bear in mind that (as is abundantly evident) the highlands west of Jordan were the central portion of the country, assigned to the covenant-people, where it was intended that all the principal events in its history should, and where they actually did, take place. The district in question rises like a mighty, lofty, and impregnable rocky fortress, from the wilderness of the south, from the sea-shore in the west, and from the deep valley in the east. These high mountains, with their steep rocky sides, their chasars, caverns, and defiles; these high plains, with their numberless hills, and deep valleys, could not but impede equally the destructive progress of conquering armies and the corrupting influence of foreign spiritual elements. On the other hand—despite the numerous population which inhabited these valleys, and the continual intercourse and interchange all around—the peculiarities of the country would also offer special advantages for the quiet, undisturbed, organic development of all the powers and faculties inherent in, or bestowed upon, the peculiar and independent culture of its inhabitants, both in its social, moral, and religious aspects. Like the people, the land of Israel may be compared to a vineyard well fenced in, watched over, and planted (Is. 5 : 1), where everything had been done that could be done. Kurtz. The separation from other peoples commanded in the law (see specially Lev. 20 : 24, 26) was made easier by the secluded position of the land, which was enclosed on the south and west by great wildernesses, on the north by the high mountains of Lebanon, and which even on the west was unfavorably situated for maritime intercourse, since the coast has few landing-places or inlets. On the other hand, by the situation of the land in the midst of the cultivated nations which figure in ancient history (comp. Ezek. 5 : 5 ; 38 : 12), as well as by means of the great highways of the old world which led past its borders, the future theocratic calling of the people was made possible. O.—This union of the greatest contrasts in respect to local position, viz., the utmost isolation and retirement, combined with everything to favor wide connections on all sides with the chief civilized regions of the old world by commercial intercourse and language, by sea as well as by land, with the Arabians, Indians, Egyptians, Syrians, Armenians, and with the Greek and Roman world of culture, in their common centre, local and historical, is a characteristic peculiarity of this promised land which was destined from the beginning to be the home of the chosen people. Ritter.—A first consequence of the position of Israel in the midst of the nations was, that it courted the powers of the world and was chastised by all, so that all became instruments of judgment on Israel. But on the other side, it was this central position which made this land fit for the starting-point of the religion of the world. O. The land of Canaan occupied a place in the ancient world that entirely corresponded with the calling of such a people. In its immediate vicinity lay both the most densely peopled countries and the greater and more influential states of antiquity,—on the south, Egypt, and on the north and east, Assyria and Babylon, the Medes and the Persians. Still closer were the maritime states of Tyre and Sidon, whose vessels frequented every harbor then known to navigation, and whose colonies were planted in each of the three continents of the old world. And the great routes of inland commerce between the civilized nations of Asia and Africa lay either through a portion of the territory itself, or within a short distance of its borders. Yet, bounded as it was on the west by the Mediterranean, on the south by the desert, on the east by the valley of the Jordan with its two seas of Tiberias and Sodom, and on the north by the towering heights of Lebanon, the people who inhabited it might justly be said to dwell alone, while they had on every side points of contact with the most influential and distant nations. Then the land itself, in its rich soil and plentiful resources, its varieties of hill and dale, of river and mountain, its connection with the sea on one side and with the desert on another, rendered it a kind of epitome of the natural world, and fitted it peculiarly for being the home of those who were to be a pattern people to the nations of the earth. Altogether, it were impossible to conceive a region more wisely selected and in itself more thoroughly adapted for the purposes on account of which the family of Abraham were to be set apart. If they were faithful to their covenant engagements, they might there have exhibited, as on an elevated platform, before the world the bright exemplar of a people possessing the characteristics and enjoying the advantages of a seed of blessing. And the finest opportunities were at the same time placed within their reach of proving in the highest sense benefactors to mankind, and extending far and wide the interest of truth and righteousness. Possessing the elements of the world's blessing, they were placed where these elements might tell most readily and powerfully on the world's inhabitants; and the present possession of such a region was at once an earnest of the whole inheritance, and, as the world then stood, an effectual step toward its realization. Fairbairn. Palestine was from the beginning an isolated country, and was intended so to be just as Israel was ordained to be a peculiar people; and thus it happened that, for thousands of years, both remained unintelligible as well as inaccessible to other lands and nations. The position which Palestine held with reference to the world at large became apparent, in its historical individuality, at an early period. Though surrounded on all sides by the capitals of the most flourishing and civilized nations, yet the country with its temple-city was little affected by the active operations of its neighbors; deserts and seas rendering it of difficult access in those times, and the rocks, ravines, and hills that guarded its frontiers, proving a competent barrier against such small temptations as a district but moderately adorned by nature, and poor withal, could hold out to foreigners. Thus, by perseveringly cultivating its poor soil, which, however, amply remunerated the labor bestowed on it, and by always falling back on its own patriarchal centre, there being no navigable rivers leading to the sea, nor other channels encouraging external commerce, the people of Israel were enabled to complete their internal development independently, and thus to arrive at a high degree of compactness. This it was competent to perform through what nature had portioned out to it—an insulated position on the globe; this it was destined to perform, by reason of its having kept itself undefiled by the heathen rites and idolatry of its immediate neighbors (of those tribes that were severally less powerful than the people of Israel, and that had not yet been incorporated with the great monarchies), from the time of Abraham, during fifteen hundred years at the least, until Palestine had gone through the part it had to act as the home of one people, until it had fulfilled its prescribed mission exactly on that spot of our planet that was now to take its rank as the spiritual home of all the nations on earth. Ritter. In the conformation of the Jewish hills, the secret of the immense vitality of the Jewish nationality is probably to be found. Had the capital of Judea been placed at Cæsarea, on the high road from Greece to Egypt—had it even been permanently fixed at Shechem, accessible through the open valley of Samaria, it cannot be doubted that Greek or Egyptian influence would have affected far more the manners and religion of the Jews. Remote and inaccessible in its rugged mountains, Jerusalem was removed from the highway by which the hosts of the Pharaohs advanced on Assyria. It was only accessible by one of three difficult passes, unless the whole country of Samaria were in the hands of the enemy. Hence, in the mountains of Judea, the national faith had a secure home. The Philistines overran the plains, and even came up into the Shephelah; Egyptian and Assyrian monarchs conquered Samaria and Galilee; but a small band of undisciplined peasants was able, under the Maccabees, to hold at bay the armies of the Seleucidæ, and it required the fullest efforts of Roman energy and discipline to compass the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus or under Hadrian. The history again repeats itself in Crusading times. The Judean hills resisted long after all other parts of the country had been lost, and Saladin held Jerusalem undisturbed while Richard overran the plains. Conder. #### Witness of the Land to the Sacred History. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ The Land of Canaan: Topography and Characteristics. Adaptation. Ancient Peoples. Typical Aspect. 11 1 And it came to pass, when Jabin king of Hazor heard thereof, that he sent to Jobab 2 king of Madon, and to the king of Shimron, and to the king of Achshaph, and to the kings that were on the north, in the hill country, and in the Arabah south of Chinneroth, and in the low- 3 land, and in the heights of Dor on the west, to the Canaanite on the east and on the west, and the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite in the hill country, and the 4. Hivite under Hermon in the land of Mizpeh. And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the sea-shore in multitude, with horses and 5 chariots very many. And all these kings met together; and they came and pitched together at 6 the waters of Merom, to fight with Israel. And the LORD said unto Joshua, Be not afraid because of them: for to-morrow at this time will I deliver them up all slain before Israel: thou 7 shalt hough their horses, and burn their chariots with fire. So Joshua came, and all the peo- 8 ple of war with him, against them by the waters of Merom suddenly, and fell upon them. And the LORD delivered them into the hand of Israel, and they smote them, and chased them unto great Zidon, and unto Misrephoth-maim, and unto the valley of Mizpeh eastward; and they 9 smote them, until they left them none remaining. And Joshua did unto them as the LORD bade him: he houghed their horses, and burnt their chariots with fire. 10. And Joshua turned back at that time, and took Hazor, and smote the king thereof with the 11 sword: for Hazor beforetime was the head of all those kingdoms. And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them: there was none 12 left that breathed: and he burnt Hazor with fire. And all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did Joshua take, and he smote them with the edge of the sword, and utterly 13 destroyed them; as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded. But as for the cities that stood on their mounds, Israel burned none of them, save Hazor only; that did Joshua burn. 14. And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed 15 them, neither left they any that breathed. As the LORD commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua: and so did Joshua; he left nothing undone of all that the LORD commanded Moses. 16. So Joshua took all that land, the hill country, and all the South, and all the land of Goshen, and the lowland, and the Arabah, and the hill country of Israel, and the lowland of the same; 17 from mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir, even unto Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon under 18 mount Hermon: and all their kings he took, and smote them, and put them to death. Joshua 19 made war a long time with all those kings. There was not a city that made peace with the 20 children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: they took all in battle. For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, to come against Israel in battle, that he might utterly destroy them, that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the LORD commanded Moses. 21. And Joshua came at that time, and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country 22 of Israel: Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities. There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, did some re- 23 main. So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD spake unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. And the land had rest from war. 12 1 Now these are the kings of the land, whom the children of Israel smote, and possessed their land beyond Jordan toward the sunrising, from the valley of Arnon unto mount Hermon, 2 and all the Arabah eastward: Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and ruled from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of Arnon, and the city that is in the middle of the 3 valley, and half Gilead, even unto the river Jabbok, the border of the children of Ammon; and the Arabah unto the sea of Chinneroth, eastward, and unto the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt 4. Sea, eastward, the way to Beth-jeshimoth; and on the south, under the slopes of Pisgah: and the border of Og king of Bashan, of the remnant of the Rephaim, who dwelt at Ashtaroth and 5 at Edrei, and ruled in mount Hermon, and in Salecah, and in all Bashan, unto the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and half Gilead, the border of Sihon king of Heshbon. 6. Moses the servant of the LORD and the children of Israel smote them; and Moses the servant of the LORD gave it for a possession unto the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh. 7. And these are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the children of Israel smote beyond Jordan westward, from Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon even unto mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir; and Joshua gave it unto the tribes of Israel for a possession according to their di- 8 visions; in the hill country, and in the lowland, and in the Arabah, and in the slopes, and in the wilderness, and in the South; the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Canaanite, the Perizzite, 9 the Hivite, and the Jebusite: the king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, which is beside Beth el, 10, 11 one; the king of Jerusalem, one; the king of Hebron, one; the king of Jarmuth, one; the 12, 13 king of Lachish, one; the king of Egon, one; the king of Gezer, one; the king of Debir, 14, 15 one; the king of Geder, one; the king of Hormah, one; the king of Arad, one; the king of 16 Libnah, one; the king of Adullam, one; the king of Makkedah, one; the king of Beth el, 17, 18 one; the king of Tappuah, one; the king of Hepher, one; the king of Aphek, one; the 19, 20 king of Lassharon, one; the king of Madon, one; the king of Hazor, one; the king of Shim- 21 ron-meron, one; the king of Achshaph, one; the king of Taanach, one; the king of Megiddo, 22, 23 one; the king of Kedesh, one; the king of Jokneam in Carmel, one; the king of Dor in the 24 height of Dor, one; the king of Golim in Gilgal, one; the king of Tirzah, one: all the kings thirty and one. Canaan was virtually subdued before the arms of Joshua in two great decisive battles; the first against five confederate kings of Southern Palestine (ch. 10); the second, against a similar but larger confederation of the petty kingdoms of Northern Palestine (ch. 11). H. C. — A powerful confederacy was formed, embracing all the tribes that had not yet fallen before Joshua, E. V. — King Jabin, of Hazor—far to the north—headed this new confederacy. He issued a call to various kings and peoples—to those on the north, even beyond the Lebanon Mountains—to those on the south, “in the Arabah south of Chinneroth, and in the lowland, and in the heights of Dor on the west;” that is, of the plains of Jezreel and Megiddo, the Arabah south of the Sea of Galilee, across to the Mediterranean Sea below Carmel—also to those on the east, “the Hivite under Hermon, in the land of Mizpeh”—and to those directly west, down on the plain of Phoenicia. In answer to this call, the fighting-men of the whole region flocked together into a set place. The kings “went out, they and all their hosts with them came and pitched together at the waters of Merom, to fight against Israel.” Lake Merom—the modern Huleh—a dozen miles north of the Sea of Galilee, is a considerable body of water, the deeper central part being about four miles long by three and a half wide. Around it are extensive marshes and plains. Probably the level country in the neighborhood led to its being selected by the confederates for an engagement, since here they would have opportunity for manoeuvring their horses and chariots, on which they appear to have chiefly relied. Horses and chariots do not seem to have been encountered by the Israelites in the previous campaign. These could not be effectively used in the mountain regions of Judea. Doubtless the Israelites had a special dread of them, and hence God’s promise of success against the new confederacy, given to Joshua on the eve of battle, included a distinct reference to them. The language is: “Be not afraid of them”—of the hosts of the new combination—“for to-morrow, about this time, will I deliver them up all slain before Israel: thou shalt hough their horses, and burn their chariots with fire.” No details concerning this victory are recorded. Joshua and his forces fell suddenly upon their enemies, and “the Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel.” To the east—into the fastnesses of Mount Hermon, and to the west—down upon the plain of Phoenicia, and across to the great and strong maritime city of Sidon, the beaten allies fled. It is specially declared that Joshua hamstrung the captured war-horses and burnt the chariots, according to the divine command. N. C. B. 3. These nations were thus distributed: “The Hittites,” or sons of Heth, “the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwelt in the mountains;” “the Canaanites” dwelt in the midland, “by the sea,” westward, and “by the coast of Jordan,” eastward; and “the Hivites” in Mount Lebanon, under Hermon, in the land of Gilead, northward. Hules. 5-7. The highland plateau west of the Waters of Merom has always been fertile and well peopled, and was the centre of the Canaanitish power in the north before and after the conquest by Joshua. From the head of the Lake of Galilee to the Waters of Merom, a distance in a straight line of ten miles, the course of the Jordan is through a rich but deserted plain, shut in, as elsewhere in its course, by the enclosing ranges. There are many mounds in this plain, marking the site of perished villages, but not one inhabited, though here and there the wattled huts of the stationary Arabs or the black tents of the wandering tribes may be seen. But the lofty plateau which faces the little Lake of Huleh, the Waters of Merom, on the west side, is full of ruins, many of which recall Scripture names. The hills descend precipitously, and the ruins are crowded near their brow. Merom is only mentioned in the Bible as the scene of the great battle in which Joshua utterly broke the power of Jabin, King of Hazor, and the confederate Canaanites of the north. This battle was for the north what that of Beth-horon was for the south. It was the last combined struggle against the conqueror. All were gathered for it from Philistia to Hermon. "They went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the seashore in multitude, with horses and chariots diers burst upon them. Taken thus by surprise, their immense numbers only increased the confusion of the Canaanites, which the horses and chariots would render more inextricable. The rout was complete. The Canaanites were chased westward to Zidon and eastward to the valley of Mizpeh. The conqueror returned to finish the action by the capture of Hazor. This city, like Ai and Jericho, was burned. The rest of the cities taken in this campaign were simply pillaged, and left standing "each on its own  very many." It must have been in the low plain, west of the Lake, that the army of Israel fell suddenly upon them, routed them utterly, and chased them westward over the hills to Great Zidon and north-eastward up the Jordan valley to the plain of Mizpeh or Coelo-Syria. H. B. T. 7. Suddenly.** As before on so many occasions, Joshua's prompt decisiveness secured him the victory. Almost before the kings could have learned that he had left Gilgal, he and his solhill" (5 : 13). E. V.—The actual features of the land are seen to be entwined with the Scripture history, in a way most strongly to uphold it as veritable and to exhibit it as vividly real. The natural features of Palestine—its fountains, its lakes, its rivers, its mountains, its plains, its peculiarities of climate and soil and productions—are mute yet eloquent witnesses for the truth of the Scriptures, and expounders of the Bible as the Book of God. N. C. B. 8. Unto great Zidon.** A well-known city of ancient Phœnicia, situated on the east coast of the Mediterranean, about twenty-five miles north of Tyre, fifty south of Berytus (Beyroot), and sixty-six west of Damascus. Its modern name is Said. The epithet great, here affixed to it, is expressive of number rather than of size, and implies not only its populousness, but the extent and variety of its resources of every kind. Bush.—Sidon is mentioned in Gen. 10 : 19, as marking one of the limits of the Canaanite, and it appears to have acquired importance at a very early period; for we find Joshua here alluding to it as “great Sidon,” and Homer makes special mention of the skill of the Sidonian workmen; the embroidered robes of Andromache, and the bowl given as a prize by Achilles at the games in honor of Patroclus, were of Sidonian workmanship. Wilson. To live carelessly after the manner of the Sidonians (Ju. 18 : 17), became the proverbial synonym of perfect prosperity. Her merchant ships sailed over every sea. She built strong cities along the shore—Beirût, and Gebal, and Arvad, and Accho, and Dor, and many more. She planted colonies in Cyprus and the Grecian Isles, in Libya and in Spain, while by her side she nourished her fair daughter Tyre until she overgrew and quite eclipsed the mother. Then began her long and sad decline. The streams of her prosperity were dried up or diverted. The proud Pharaohs from the Nile—the stern Assyrian from distant Nineveh—the cruel Chaldean and Persian from Babylon—the rough he-goat from Grecia, and the king of fierce countenance from the Tiber, all helped to lay poor Sidon in the dust. And, long after, those locusts which came out of the bottomless pit, with Apollyon at their head, completed the work during those dismal days when men sought death but could not find it. And yet Sidon still exists, and has always clung to life with a strange tenacity. Her history runs parallel with the march of time, down the ceaseless current of human generations. Not so Tyre. Long ages have rolled away since continental Tyre sunk beneath the “burden” of prophecy, and the very site where she stood was lost. Thompson. 10,11. The destruction of Hazor is particularly recorded, because in it and by the king thereof, this daring design against Israel was laid. The king of Hazor escaped with his life out of the battle, and got back into his own city. There he was slain, and his city, for his sake, burned. Yet we find that the remains of it being not well looked after by Israel, the Canaanites rebuilt it and settled there under another king of the same name (Ju. 4 : 2). H. 13. The cities that stood. It appears that the Israelites forbore to destroy those cities which were seated on an eminence, and of greater strength, reserving them for their own occupation. Wells. 15. The frequent repetition of God’s order is to be carefully noted, as showing that Israel’s action was exceptional and performed solely at God’s command. 16. Joshua captured : (1) the mountain country; (2) the Negeb (south of the mountain country); (3) Goshen (the southern slopes of the mountains); (4) the Shephelah (Philistine country); (5) the Arabah (Jordan and Dead Sea valley); (6) the mountain of Israel (the northern mountains); (7) the northern Shephelah (the upper part of the Shephelah). Compare ch. 12 : 8. Crosby. All the South or the Negeb. The mountain plateau in the northeast of the desert is full of interest, both to the geographer and to the Biblical student. This plateau is called Jebel el Magrah, and is about seventy miles in length, and from forty to fifty broad, commencing at Jebel ‘Araif, and extending northward by a series of steps or terraces to within a short distance of Beersheba, from which it is separated by Wády or Raknuth from the mountains of the same name. It projects into the Tih (the desert) much in the same way as the Tih projects into Sinai, and, like it also, terminates in steep escarpments toward the south, falling away to a lower level on the south-eastern side. This mountain plateau is the “South” or South Country. Palmer. (See Vol. II., Map, title-page.) 17. From Mount Halak unto Baal-gad. “From Dan to Beersheba” (2 S. 3 : 10 ; 24 : 2) was in David’s day the popular expression for the whole country. Two other landmarks are mentioned here and 12 : 7 by the sacred historian : “from the Mount Halak that goeth up to Seir even unto Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon.” Mount Halak was in the parallel of Beersheba, and Baal-gad is identical with Banias, four miles east of Dan. These were the limits of what we may call “the land in possession.” The “land of promise” was much larger. Porter.—As the result of this third campaign, Israel was master of the whole land from Mount Halak (the smooth mountain), at the ascent to Mount Seir, on the south, to Baal-gad, under Mount Hermon, on the north. But a much longer time was required for the subjugation of the numerous kings, who held each his own fortified city. P. S.—Altogether the war in the south and north must have occupied at least seven years. From Josh. 14 : 10 we learn that forty-five years had elapsed since the spies returned to Kadesh. But as thirty-eight of these were spent in the wanderings in the wilderness, it follows that the wars for the occupation of Canaan must have lasted seven years. A. E. 20. The meaning here is simply that having sinned for a long tract of ages against the light of conscience and providence, God was now pleased to leave them to a judicial hardness of heart, to give them up to vain confidence, pride, stubbornness, and malignity, that they might bring upon themselves his righteous vengeance and be utterly destroyed. This result is said to be "of or from the Lord," because he did not interpose to prevent it. Bush. The Old Testament (like the New) always speaks of hardening only in connection with a divine testimony in revelation—in reference to a divine revelation offered to the sinner but rejected by him. This is applicable to Pharaoh, who sees the miracles of Moses, which forced even the Egyptian Magi to feel (Ex. 8 : 19), "this is God's finger;" "but," it is continued, "Pharaoh's heart was hardened." The same thing is applicable to Israel in view of the divine guidance in the wilderness; and according to this also, that which is said of the Canaanitish tribes (Josh. 11 : 20) is to be explained: "For it was of Jehovah to harden their heart to strive with Israel, that He might destroy them, and they might find no grace." The Canaanitish tribes merited punishment on account of their idolatrous abominations; and now that this judgment was executed upon them in the form of extermination, it was effected by themselves through their hardening themselves to do battle with Israel, for whom God manifestly fought. In such passages the point is not a dark and hidden decree of reprobation, but a divine decree of judgment, well-grounded and perfectly manifest. The course of this hardening is described in Is. 6 : 10; incapability to hear the divine word and to see God's ways connects itself with dulness of heart, and this again reacts on the heart so that its insusceptibility becomes incurable. O. 21. The mountains of Judah and Israel were the habitations of those mountains of men; but neither their height, nor the strength of their caves, nor the difficulty of the passes to them, could secure these mighty men from the sword of Joshua. The cutting off of the sons of Anak is particularly mentioned because these had been such a terror to the spies forty years before, and their bulk and strength had been thought an insuperable difficulty in the way of the reducing of Canaan. H.—Though these Anakims were now for the most part reduced, yet numbers of them escaped and took refuge in the country of the Philistines, and settled there, from whom Goliath and other giants descended. After a time some of them returned with followers and rebuilt the cities from which they had been expelled; and Caleb and Othniel, to whom that region was assigned, vanquished and destroyed them after the division of the land (ch. 14 : 6-15; 15 : 13-17). 23. So Joshua took the whole land.** Not absolutely the whole, for in ch. 13 : 1 the Lord is represented as saying to Joshua, "There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed," but all the country described here and in the preceding chapter; the greatest and best part of it. Bush. 12. We have in this chapter a recapitulation of all the victories thus far achieved. As the writer is about to enter upon a particular account of the distribution of the land among the tribes, he here pauses to give a general view of the territory to be divided, including the tracts on both sides the Jordan. This he does by specifying the kings, rather than the countries over which they reigned; for the power of a state is concentrated in the person of its sovereign, and such an enumeration presents the subject more vividly to the mind of the reader. The first six verses contain a list of the kings on the east side of Jordan, conquered by Moses, with their territories, and the remainder of the chapter is occupied with a catalogue of those that were reduced by Joshua. Bush. The Book of Joshua transports the reader across the Jordan to Jericho, takes him from the camp at Gilgal to the high hills of the Amorite princes and the other Canaanite kings; and, after the victory is won, spreads out before the eye a bright and living picture of the land as it lay divided among the twelve tribes of Israel. From the wilderness of Arabia, from Kadesh-Barnea and Beersheba in the south, to the sources of the Jordan near Dan, and to the heights of Hermon and Lebanon, the Promised Land comes out in the narrative of Joshua in all its unity, and with all its characteristic features in the best possible manner to aid us in our study of its geography. Ritter. 12 : 3. The Galilean Lake is rarely mentioned in the Old Testament, where it is known as "the Sea of Chinnereth (Nu. 34 : 11), and is given as on the eastern border of the western tribes; and again in Josh. 11 : 2 and here, where it is called "Chinnereth," and ch. 13 : 27, "the edge of the sea of Chinnereth." It never recurs till we meet it, as the chief scene of our Lord's ministry. H. B. T. 12:24. All the kings, thirty and one. From the number of these kings, we learn how numerous and yet how small were the petty principalities into which the land of Canaan was divided. The extent of this country from north to south was not more than one hundred and fifty miles, and not more than fifty from east to west. In like manner were nearly all the different nations of the world divided. The consequence was that civil wars and border feuds continually prevailed, making them an easy prey to foreign invaders. Thus history informs us that when Cæsar invaded Britain there were no less than four kings in the single county of Kent. Bush. The results of the whole conquest, besides the previous victories over Sihon and Og, are summed up in the subjugation of thirty-one kings of cities on the west of the Jordan, belonging to the seven nations, which had been mentioned in the first promise to Abraham, the Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, Hittites, Hivites, Jebusites, and Perizzites. Special notice is taken of the extermination of the giant Anakim, who had struck such terror into the spies, and who were only left in the Philistine cities of Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod, though they had before occupied the whole of the central highlands, with Hebron and other cities. The defeat of these thirty-one kings did not involve, in every case, the capture of their cities. Jerusalem, for example, was not taken till after the death of Joshua, and its citadel remained in the hands of the Jebusites till the time of David. Many other cities held out for a long time. But besides such isolated posts there were whole tracts of country—"very much land"—yet to be subdued, within the limits which God had originally named, and which He now once more promised. These were, speaking generally, the plains along the Mediterranean, the coast of Phœnicia, and the ranges of Lebanon. P. S. The conquest of the land of Canaan under Joshua is distinguished from all others by the four following features, which, at the same time, mark it as subservient to the kingdom of God:—(1) That the conquering nation was the people of God, to whom of old the Lord had appointed this land for an inheritance (De. 32: 8, 9): (2) That the destruction of the inhabitants was a judgment from God, which had long ago been announced (Gen. 15), and was then carried out; (3) That God himself took an extraordinary part in this conquest by his aid and co-operation; (4) That it represents, typically, the way of obtaining the heavenly Canaan. Thus no one need wonder that the Book of Joshua too, with all its histories of war, is found in the Bible; and likewise the distribution of the land, which occupies a great part of the book, has its significance for the history of the kingdom of God. C. G. B. The period of the Conquest, properly speaking, began from the passage of the brook Zered under Moses: it was not finally closed till the capture of Jerusalem by David. But, in a more limited sense, it may be confined to the period during which the territory, afterward known by the name of Palestine, was definitively occupied as their own by the Israelites. The Israelite conquest of Palestine, although it stands above all other like events from its intrinsic grandeur, yet is in itself but one among a succession of waves which have swept over the country, and each of which may be used as an illustration of those that have gone before and after. The Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabians, Turks, Crusaders, French, English, have followed in their wake; the Philistines, the Canaanites, the aboriginal inhabitants, accompanied or preceded them. A. P. S. As the Hebrew records are silent with respect to Egypt and Assyria during the entire period from Joshua to Samuel, so the Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions are silent with respect to the Hebrews. If there is not a positive, there is a negative accord between them. From the Hebrews' account of themselves we gather that during their long period of struggle with the Canaanitish nations, they were unmolested by either Egypt or Assyria. From the accounts given by the Egyptians and Assyrians of the same period, we learn that they led no expeditions into the country occupied by the Hebrews during these centuries. G. R. The Bible history is in thorough agreement with that which the monuments of Egypt and Assyria have been found to furnish. No serious historical discrepancy has been pointed out between the contents of these monumental records and the facts of Bible history. On the other hand, the testimony, at a hundred points, to the accuracy of Scripture is very remarkable. One of the most interesting of these testimonies is that borne by the Egyptian records to the condition of Palestine as parcelled out among a large number of independent chiefs or kings at a very early time. Another fact which we gather from these records is, that the conquest of Canaan under Joshua must have been a very serious and difficult undertaking. Though the separate chiefs may have been but feeble, they were accustomed to act in concert, and their combinations, such as Joshua encountered, were very formidable. The Khita or Hittite race, which prevailed in Western Syria, was indeed a very formidable one, able on some occasions, as the records show, to give no little trouble to the power of Egypt. W. G. B. The narrative of Joshua represents to us the nation of the Hittites as being at the time of the conquest of Canaan the principal power in Upper Syria, or the country between Palestine and the Euphrates. This fact is abundantly confirmed by the Egyptian remains, which show us the Hittites (Sheta) as the chief opponent of Egypt, in the valley of the Orontes, during a period which must certainly include within it the judgeship of Joshua. And as the Hittites appear in Joshua to be the dominant race to the north of Galilee, so does the whole narrative from Exodus to Samuel represent the Philistines as the dominant people of the tract between Judea and Egypt. Here, once more, the Egyptian records agree, since they assign to the Philistines the same sort of lead among the enemies of Egypt in the south which belongs to the Hittites in the regions of the north. G. R. THE LAND OF CANAAN: TOPOGRAPHY AND CHARACTERISTICS. ADAPTATION TO ITS PURPOSE AND WITNESS TO ITS DESIGN. ITS ANCIENT PEOPLES. ITS TYPICAL ASPECT. Name. The Hebrew word which in our English version of the Bible is translated "Palestine" in Joel 3 : 4, and "Palestina" in Ex. 15 : 14, and Is. 14 : 29, 31, is only found elsewhere in the Psalms, and is there rendered by "Philistia." In the Bible the name is used for the country of the Philistines alone, but it afterward came to signify the whole land occupied by the Jews, and in this sense we find it employed by Josephus, Philo, and some of the writers in the Talmud. The country is alluded to in the Bible under several other names; it is the "land of Canaan" of the patriarchs and Joshua; "the land" of Ruth, Jeremiah, and St. Luke; the "holy land" of Zechariah; the "glorious land" of Daniel and Amos; the "land of Jehovah" of Hosea, the "land of promise" of the Epistle to the Hebrews; the "land of Israel" of the Monarchy; and the "land of Judea" of the New Testament. It is now most commonly known under its name of Palestine, or the Holy Land. Position. No one can help being struck by the peculiar position of Palestine in regard to the powerful nations immediately surrounding it, as well as by its remarkable geographical position, almost in the centre of the ancient world; and it is hardly too much to say that in no other country could that striking combination of moral and physical conditions have been found which rendered Palestine the most fitting theatre for those momentous events which have had such a great and lasting influence on the history of the world. Separated from the great nations of the East by the arid plains which lie beyond the Jordan, and from Egypt by the southern desert, Palestine was from the very first a country set apart from the rest of the world, and this isolation was increased by the religion of the Jews, which forbade their forming any alliance with the surrounding nations. No great highway led through the country; the hosts of Egypt on their way to Assyria, those of Assyria, of Babylon, and of Persia on their way to Egypt, swept by it along the low maritime plain which fringed the coast; their object was the conquest of the rival empire, and the hill country of Palestine hardly possessed sufficient attractions to induce them to turn aside from the most direct road to the end they had in view. Napoleon, when he was asked, during his Syrian campaign, to visit Jerusalem, replied that it did not lie in the line of his operations, and it was probably to a similar feeling on the part of the leaders of the hostile armies that the Jewish nation for so many years owed its independence; it was only after the lapse of centuries that the country became involved in disaster by neglecting the Divine commands and forming alliances with one or other of the contending powers. Later, Alexander passed over the country on his way to Oriental conquest, and when, on his death, the empire which he had formed fell to pieces, it became the battle-field of the Seleucidæ and the Ptolemies; later still, under Roman dominion, Palestine became one of the thoroughfares between the East and the West, and it was during these troubled times that a stream of Western civilization flowed into the country, exercising a powerful influence on the arts, the mode of thought, and the history of the Jews during the last three centuries of their existence as a nation. Isolated as Palestine was from all other countries, its geographical position with reference to the three great continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as to the Mediterranean and Red Seas, was such that, when the fulness of time came, the knowledge of the Gospel could be spread to the remotest corners of the earth, and it is not unworthy of notice that the principal means by which the glad tidings were conveyed was that sea which had once seemed an almost impassable barrier. The physical character of Palestine is no less remarkable than its geographical position; there is no other country which, within the same narrow limits, contains so many striking contrasts, or exhibits features at once so varied and comprehensive that, as has been justly observed, there is no land or nation in the world which does not find something of itself reflected there. In the north are the lofty peaks of Lebanon and Mount Hermon, rarely free from snow, with their cedars, their alpine flora, and their wild thunder-storms, to which allusion would seem to be made in the 29th Psalm; in the south is the deep depression of the Dead Sea, with its tropical climate, and a flora and fauna similar in many respects to those of the lake regions of Equatorial Africa. On the west the rich corn-growing plains of Philistia are in close proximity to the sandy, unprofitable desert of the south; in the centre the terraced hills, with their Italian climate so suitable for the cultivation of the vine, olive, and fig, pass almost imperceptibly into the barren wilderness of Judea; and on the east the downs of Moab and Gilead, with their abundant pasturage, are bordered by the dry and thirsty land of the great eastern desert. Lastly, there is the "great sea" which is so frequently alluded to in the Psalms, in familiar passages which come home with especial force to the hearts and minds of the people of a great maritime nation such as England. From the Phœnician traders who did their "business in great waters," the Psalmist would hear of "the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep," and how, after one of the wild westerly gales which visit the coast of Palestine, the ships in which they sailed would "mount up to heaven" and "go down again to the depths," reeling "to and fro" and staggering "like a drunken man." Ezien'. Every writer has noticed the narrow limits of the Holy Land. From Dan to Beersheba is no more than 140 miles, and from the Mediterranean to Jordan the average breadth is only 40 miles, containing less than 6000 square miles. Physical Features. Perhaps the most striking feature in the general aspect of Palestine is its natural division into four parallel strips of territory—the coast plain, the hill country, the Jordan valley, and the eastern plateau. The Coast Plain extends without a break from the desert south of Gaza to the long ridge of Mount Carmel on the north; beyond Carmel lies the plain of Acre, stretching northward to the headland of Ras el-Nakura (Ladder of Tyre), which separates it from the long narrow plain of Phœnicia. The two latter sections of the coast plain are not mentioned in the Bible; the first contains within its limits the plain of Sharon reaching from Carmel to Jaffa, and the plains of Philistia extending southward to the margin of the desert. The greater portion of the plain is flat, but north of Jaffa there are some low hills, through which at a remote period tunnels were cut to drain the marsh land lying behind them; the soil is rich and of marvellous fertility, producing year after year magnificent crops, though the ground is tilled in the rudest manner, without manure and without irrigation. The broad expanse of the Philistine plain, covered as it is at harvest time with a waving mass of golden grain, unbroken by a single hedge, is one of the most beautiful sights in Palestine. Under the burning sun of Syria the stubble becomes so dry that a single spark might kindle a flame that would run before the wind like the fires which sweep over the American prairies, and strict precautions are taken by the Bedawi to prevent the occurrence of such a calamity. We cannot, therefore, wonder that the Philistines were stirred to fierce wrath when Samson turned his three hundred foxes with their firebrands "into the standing corn," "in the time of wheat harvest;" fanned by the steady land breeze, which at that season of the year blows every morning for three or four hours, the flames would spread with fiery speed, licking up corn, olives, and vines, until they were checked by the sea; and in those days, when the intercourse between country and country was so slight, the loss of their harvest must have been felt almost as a national calamity by the Philistines. Wilson. The plain of Philistia is thirty-two miles long, from Ekron to Gaza, with a breadth of from nine to sixteen miles, and a height above the sea of from 50 to 300 feet. In the hill country (behind the plain of Philistia), the spurs, not more than one mile or so apart, are often separated by narrow ravines 1500 to 2000 feet deep, at the bottom of which, in the rainy season, rapid torrents roll. Warren. The Hill country commences about fifty miles south of Jerusalem, and runs northward through the land to the plain of Esdraelon, beyond which it rises again and is connected with the Lebanon by the hills of Galilee. This highland district varies but slightly in altitude, and its general appearance as seen from the sea is that of a long wall without any prominent peak to break the monotony of its outline. Its average height may be gathered from the following altitudes:—Hebron, 2840 feet; Mount of Olives, 2665 feet; Neby Samwil, 2900 feet; Mount Ebal, 3029 feet; Neby Ismail, 1790 feet; and Jebel Jermuk, 4000 feet. The hills are broad-backed, and present none of the grander features of mountain scenery, but every here and there rounded summits rise above the general level of the range, and afford striking panoramas of the surrounding country; such are the views from Neby Samwil, Mount Ebal, Little Hermon, Neby Ismail, near Nazareth, and the hill on which Safed stands, each embracing no inconsiderable portion of the Holy Land. The effect of the views is increased by the transparency of the atmosphere, which diminishes apparent distances in a manner unknown in moister climes, and by the rich and varying tints that light up the steep slopes of the Jordan valley. Through the centre of the hill country runs the main road from Jerusalem, through Samaria, to Galilee, following nearly the line of the watershed, and passing close to many of the chief cities of Judah and Israel; it is the route now usually followed by travellers, and was probably always one of the most important thoroughfares in the country. East of this road the hills descend abruptly to the Jordan valley; west of it, they fall more gradually to the coast plain. The wonderful ramifications of the valleys which cut up the hill country on either side of the watershed form one of the peculiar features of Palestine topography; rising frequently in small upland plains of great richness, such as El Mukhna, near Nablus; the valleys at first fall very rapidly, and then, after a tortuous course, reach the plain on the one side and the Jordan valley on the other. The effect of this is to split up the country into a series of knife-like ridges, generally preserving an east and west direction, and effectually preventing any movement over the country from south to north, except along the central highway; the valley of the Kishon, which spreads out into the broad plain of Esdraelon, and the valley of Jezreel, are the only two which are more than mere torrent-beds. The soil of the hill country, except in the wilderness of Judea, southeast of Jerusalem, and some portions of the eastern slopes of the hills, is extremely rich, and where cultivated very productive. Everywhere traces are found of that “terrace-culture” for which the hill-sides were so peculiarly adapted, and which the Jews brought to such great perfection. Professor Palmer found the walls of old vineyards far south of Beersheba, on the very verge of the desert, and there is hardly a hill in Palestine on which ruined walls and the cisterns in which the scanty rainfall was husbanded are not found. It would appear from several indications in the Psalms that the land was highly cultivated when the Israelites came into possession. There is evidence, too, of the existence of large forests in certain districts, especially in Galilee. The Jordan Valley runs nearly parallel to the coast from the base of Mount Hermon to the Dead Sea, and contains the one great river of the country, the Jordan, a purely inland river, like no other on the face of the earth, “having no embouchure on the sea, and closing its course in the very deepest part of the Old World.” After the junction of the three streams which rise respectively at Hasbeiya, Tell el-Kady, and Banias, the Jordan spreads out into the Lake el-Hulch, and descends rapidly to the Sea of Galilee, whence it follows a tortuous course wholly below the level of the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea. On either side of the river is a strip of plain of varying width, with a rich soil, formerly irrigated by the numerous springs and by the streams that descend from the hills, which rise abruptly on the east and west. The Eastern Plateau has a general altitude of 2000 feet, and is tolerably uniform in its character. Wilson.—Though the trans-Jordanic range is quite as high as the hills of Western Palestine, it is not so broken up. Only four streams of any size furrow it: the Yarmuk, the Jabbok, the Callirhoe, and the Arnon. There is a beauty in Gilead, a richness in Moab, and a grandeur in Bashan, which makes it hard to believe that only the narrow cleft of the Jordan valley separates them from the gray hills and naked rocks of Western Palestine. Tristram.   Palestine proper may be very briefly described as a mountainous central district, running north and south, flanked on each side by a broad plain. The plain on the west, or that of the sea-coast, has an average width of twelve or fourteen miles. Its southern portion, from Gaza northward nearly to Jaffa, was the ancient Philistia, which included five great cities. Its middle portion, from Jaffa northward to Mount Carmel, which juts into the sea, was the plain of Sharon. North of Carmel on the coast is the plain of Acre, and north of that the narrow strip of ancient Phœnicia. The plain on the east flank of Palestine is the valley of the Jordan, lying between the Dead Sea on the south and the Sea of Galilee on the north. This is narrower than the plain of the coast, reaching a breadth of only eight or ten miles in its widest part, at Jericho. Between these two plains—of the west and the east—of the Mediterranean and the Jordan—lay the principal bulk of Palestine—a mountain district—extending from below Hebron on the south to the plain of Esdraelon on the north, eighty miles long by thirty wide. This was the country held most securely by the Israelites after their conquest of the land. Here dwelt the great historic and rival tribes—Judah on the south and Ephraim on the north—with little Benjamin compressed between them. Here were the cities of greatest fame—here the chief capitals of government, and the chief sanctuaries of religion. This district—especially its southern half, the Judea of the New Testament—is indescribably rough and rocky. It is corrugated with ridges, or embossed with hill tops. The northern half—the Samaria of the New Testament—shows more continuous mountain chains and broader valleys. The general height of this district varies from twenty-eight hundred feet—that of Hebron, to seventeen hundred—that of Shechem. Perhaps the average is nearly twenty-two hundred—that of Jerusalem. To complete this outline view, we should mark the broad Plain of Esdraelon, sweeping across the country east and west, along the northern end of the central region just described; and then the hill country of Galilee rising steeply out of this plain, and extending northward up the high slopes of Lebanon and Hermon. N. C. B. The southern slope of the highlands of Galilee and the northern elevation of Mount Ephraim are intersected by three plains, which are connected among themselves, and run across the highlands west of Jordan, from the sea-shore to the banks of the Jordan. These are—the plain of Acco by the sea, the plain of Jezreel, and that of Bethshean, which stretches toward Jordan. The plain of Jezreel, or of Esdraelon (Josh. 17: 16), is exceedingly fruitful. It is the most extensive valley of Palestine. Its connection with the two others makes it the most open plain in the country. Hence it always formed the central point of military evolutions. According to the barometrical measurements of Schubert, it rises 439 feet above the level of the sea. A narrow rocky valley to the northeast, which runs between the base of Carmel and the projecting ledges of the mountains of Zebulun, connects it with the plain of Acco. The Kishon, which rises at the foot of Tabor, flows through the whole extent of these two plains into the sea. At the northeastern termination of the plain of Jezreel rise Mount Tabor in majestic beauty, and south of it, running from east to west for about two German miles, the chain of hills called Little Hermon; still farther south, and stretching to the northwest, Mount Gilboa. A rocky elevation forms the watershed, and connects the western terminations of these two mountains, embracing at the same time the plain of Bethshean, which extends to the banks of Jordan. From the plain of Acco, the northeastern side of Mount Carmel (Jebel Mār Elyās) rises abruptly to a height of 1500 feet, forming a fruitful field, the hills of which are watered by many rills, and covered successively by meadows, with their rich bloom, by pleasant valleys, by fruitful vineyards, olive groves, and corn-fields. It runs for three German miles (from southeast to northwest) to the Mediterranean. There it terminates in a promontory—bearing the same name (1200 feet high)—in which nature has formed thousands of caverns, which have served for the dwelling, first of Troglodites, and then of monks. The southwestern side of the mountain slopes into the plain of Sharon. As Carmel to the northwest, so Mount Gilboa to the northeast, forms a kind of advanced post of MOUNT EPHRAIM. The latter rises abruptly from the plain of Jezreel, and attains its highest elevation in the neighborhood of Shechem. Kurtz. As we rode slowly onward we were able to take in, almost at a glance, the whole of the magnificent plain of Esdraelon. From the shores of the Mediterranean, where it is guarded on one side by the noble promontory of Carmel, and on the other by the less lofty headland of Akka, it extends over a space of more than twenty miles to the banks of the Jordan, being separated into minor valleys by mountains as it approaches toward the river. Its average width is between ten and twelve miles, the richly-wooded range of Carmel, and the less bold mountains of Samaria, bounding it on the south, while on the north it is hemmed in by the green hills of Galilee. It possesses an extraordinary natural fertility, and is so level that every inch of it is as capable of culture as the plains of Lombardy. Men competent to judge have declared that, if this single plain were brought under the hand of skilled agriculture, it would yield grain enough to support the entire population within the limits of the Holy Land. A. Thomson. # Noteworthy Points of Detail. With the exception of some volcanic rocks near the Lake of Galilee, limestone is the sole formation in the country. Blocks of rock, ravines, and caves are found everywhere, being the characteristic features of a limestone district. The whole history of the country accords with this fact. W. G. B.—Perhaps no one aspect of Palestine, along its central line of hills, strikes the stranger more with surprise than the amount and roughness of its rock surface. At the first glance the thought of the superficial observer is that of disappointment. He sees it almost treeless, rocky and rough and neglected, and thinks that it is, after all, a much overrated and overpraised country. But when he looks more closely, he perceives that all this rock, being limestone, and not sandstone nor granite, when it pulverizes, carries with it, not barrenness but fertility. He observes how the noble olive grows in successive tiers up the sides of seemingly hopeless hills, what sunny exposures are everywhere offered to the vine, and how green are the wheat-fields even when wedged in among the cliffs—and how all these hills appear once to have been diligently and laboriously laid out in terraces almost to their tops—and he changes his mind. He travels through a multitude of fertile valleys, and crosses plains like that of Esdraelon, as rich of soil as a western prairie, almost abandoned now. He passes from the deep tropical valley of the Jordan by the Dead Sea to the high mountains of Galilee, and the still higher range of Lebanon, and sees how this little country, not larger than Wales, is fitted to produce almost every species of fruit or grain of whatever climate upon the globe. And as he watches the brooks and springs of water, and the singular variety of surface, orchards, glens, bold mountains, fertile flowery plains, picturesque sites such as those of Jerusalem, Hebron, Samaria, and a multitude of other places, he cannot but perceive how, in its palmy days, when the heights were crowned with foliage, the hill-sides with cattle, and the fields with grain, Palestine must have been indeed a goodly land, presenting to its children home attractions and inextinguishable recollections beyond even those of Scotland, Switzerland, or New England. Bartlett. Beneath the apparent monotony, there is a variety in the Holy Land really remarkable. There is the variety due to the difference of level between the different parts of the country. There is the variety of climate and of natural appearances, partly from the proximity of the snow-capped Hermon and Lebanon on the north and of the torrid desert on the south. There is also the variety inevitably produced by the presence of the sea—“the eternal freshness and liveliness of ocean.” Each of these is continually reflected in the Hebrew literature. The contrast between the highlands and lowlands appears in “going up” to Judah, Jerusalem, Hebron; “going down” to Jericho, Capernaum, Lydda, Cesarea, Gaza, and Egypt. The differences in climate are no less often mentioned. The Psalmists, Prophets, and historical Books, are full of allusions to the fierce heat of the mid-day sun and the dryness of summer; no less than to the various accompaniments of winter—the rain, snow, frost, ice, and fogs of Jerusalem and the upper country. Even the sharp alternations between the heat of the days and the coldness of the nights, which strike every traveller in Palestine, are mentioned. Dic. B. The purpose which the Israelites were designed to subserve required that they should be kept in a state of isolation until they attained a power which should operate as a leavening principle on the mass of mankind. The boundaries and natural defences of Palestine are in this respect particularly noticeable. These cut it off in a manner from all the earth, and rendered it a grand and unassailable fortress in the midst of the surrounding nations. Between the Israelitish community and the great empires of the East two obstacles were interposed: the desert, which protected the outposts of the little Hebrew state, while a second line of defence was provided in the vast Jordanie fissure. On the south, as a barrier between them and Egypt, stretched the “great and terrible wilderness.” The west was only accessible by sea, and at the time of the Israelites’ first settlement in Palestine, the Mediterranean or great sea was not yet the thoroughfare; it was rather the limit of the eastern nations, and on the north rose the mighty ranges of Lebanon. Further, the limited area of the land, taken in connection with its great fertility and its central situation, greatly contributed to the object for which it had been selected. D. M. In itself and in its relation to other countries, the country which the Lord had chosen as a nursery for his kingdom was, from its soil and position, better adapted for this purpose than any other on the face of the globe. The covenant-people was in the organism of mankind to be the heart of the nations. The land of Israel must have been suitable for the purposes which that nation was to serve. If Israel was to unite in itself the two requisites of greatest seclusion from all other nations and yet of occupying the most central position among them, the country in which these purposes were to be realized must have corresponded to them. And in point of fact Palestine united in itself, in an unparalleled and wonderful manner, the apparently opposed characteristics of being secluded from, and yet central to, all other countries. In truth, whether viewed geographically, politically, or commercially, Palestine is the “umbilicus terrarum” of the ancient world. Lying right in the middle of the three then known parts of the world, it may in some respects be regarded as belonging to all the three. From this central position Palestine became also the central point of all political movements and of the commerce of the world. All the routes, both by water and by land, which connected the three parts of the ancient world, passed through Palestine. On the other hand, it will readily be perceived that the Holy Land was also almost as secluded as an island. South and east inhospitable deserts, to the west the sea, shut it off from other lands, while Lebanon on the north bounds it by an almost insurmountable wall, stretching from the sea to the eastern desert. This characteristic of seclusion appears even more distinctly and prominently when we bear in mind that (as is abundantly evident) the highlands west of Jordan were the central portion of the country, assigned to the covenant-people, where it was intended that all the principal events in its history should, and where they actually did, take place. The district in question rises like a mighty, lofty, and impregnable rocky fortress, from the wilderness of the south, from the sea-shore in the west, and from the deep valley in the east. These high mountains, with their steep rocky sides, their chasars, caverns, and defiles; these high plains, with their numberless hills, and deep valleys, could not but impede equally the destructive progress of conquering armies and the corrupting influence of foreign spiritual elements. On the other hand—despite the numerous population which inhabited these valleys, and the continual intercourse and interchange all around—the peculiarities of the country would also offer special advantages for the quiet, undisturbed, organic development of all the powers and faculties inherent in, or bestowed upon, the peculiar and independent culture of its inhabitants, both in its social, moral, and religious aspects. Like the people, the land of Israel may be compared to a vineyard well fenced in, watched over, and planted (Is. 5 : 1), where everything had been done that could be done. Kurtz. The separation from other peoples commanded in the law (see specially Lev. 20 : 24, 26) was made easier by the secluded position of the land, which was enclosed on the south and west by great wildernesses, on the north by the high mountains of Lebanon, and which even on the west was unfavorably situated for maritime intercourse, since the coast has few landing-places or inlets. On the other hand, by the situation of the land in the midst of the cultivated nations which figure in ancient history (comp. Ezek. 5 : 5 ; 38 : 12), as well as by means of the great highways of the old world which led past its borders, the future theocratic calling of the people was made possible. O.—This union of the greatest contrasts in respect to local position, viz., the utmost isolation and retirement, combined with everything to favor wide connections on all sides with the chief civilized regions of the old world by commercial intercourse and language, by sea as well as by land, with the Arabians, Indians, Egyptians, Syrians, Armenians, and with the Greek and Roman world of culture, in their common centre, local and historical, is a characteristic peculiarity of this promised land which was destined from the beginning to be the home of the chosen people. Ritter.—A first consequence of the position of Israel in the midst of the nations was, that it courted the powers of the world and was chastised by all, so that all became instruments of judgment on Israel. But on the other side, it was this central position which made this land fit for the starting-point of the religion of the world. O. The land of Canaan occupied a place in the ancient world that entirely corresponded with the calling of such a people. In its immediate vicinity lay both the most densely peopled countries and the greater and more influential states of antiquity,—on the south, Egypt, and on the north and east, Assyria and Babylon, the Medes and the Persians. Still closer were the maritime states of Tyre and Sidon, whose vessels frequented every harbor then known to navigation, and whose colonies were planted in each of the three continents of the old world. And the great routes of inland commerce between the civilized nations of Asia and Africa lay either through a portion of the territory itself, or within a short distance of its borders. Yet, bounded as it was on the west by the Mediterranean, on the south by the desert, on the east by the valley of the Jordan with its two seas of Tiberias and Sodom, and on the north by the towering heights of Lebanon, the people who inhabited it might justly be said to dwell alone, while they had on every side points of contact with the most influential and distant nations. Then the land itself, in its rich soil and plentiful resources, its varieties of hill and dale, of river and mountain, its connection with the sea on one side and with the desert on another, rendered it a kind of epitome of the natural world, and fitted it peculiarly for being the home of those who were to be a pattern people to the nations of the earth. Altogether, it were impossible to conceive a region more wisely selected and in itself more thoroughly adapted for the purposes on account of which the family of Abraham were to be set apart. If they were faithful to their covenant engagements, they might there have exhibited, as on an elevated platform, before the world the bright exemplar of a people possessing the characteristics and enjoying the advantages of a seed of blessing. And the finest opportunities were at the same time placed within their reach of proving in the highest sense benefactors to mankind, and extending far and wide the interest of truth and righteousness. Possessing the elements of the world's blessing, they were placed where these elements might tell most readily and powerfully on the world's inhabitants; and the present possession of such a region was at once an earnest of the whole inheritance, and, as the world then stood, an effectual step toward its realization. Fairbairn. Palestine was from the beginning an isolated country, and was intended so to be just as Israel was ordained to be a peculiar people; and thus it happened that, for thousands of years, both remained unintelligible as well as inaccessible to other lands and nations. The position which Palestine held with reference to the world at large became apparent, in its historical individuality, at an early period. Though surrounded on all sides by the capitals of the most flourishing and civilized nations, yet the country with its temple-city was little affected by the active operations of its neighbors; deserts and seas rendering it of difficult access in those times, and the rocks, ravines, and hills that guarded its frontiers, proving a competent barrier against such small temptations as a district but moderately adorned by nature, and poor withal, could hold out to foreigners. Thus, by perseveringly cultivating its poor soil, which, however, amply remunerated the labor bestowed on it, and by always falling back on its own patriarchal centre, there being no navigable rivers leading to the sea, nor other channels encouraging external commerce, the people of Israel were enabled to complete their internal development independently, and thus to arrive at a high degree of compactness. This it was competent to perform through what nature had portioned out to it—an insulated position on the globe; this it was destined to perform, by reason of its having kept itself undefiled by the heathen rites and idolatry of its immediate neighbors (of those tribes that were severally less powerful than the people of Israel, and that had not yet been incorporated with the great monarchies), from the time of Abraham, during fifteen hundred years at the least, until Palestine had gone through the part it had to act as the home of one people, until it had fulfilled its prescribed mission exactly on that spot of our planet that was now to take its rank as the spiritual home of all the nations on earth. Ritter. In the conformation of the Jewish hills, the secret of the immense vitality of the Jewish nationality is probably to be found. Had the capital of Judea been placed at Cæsarea, on the high road from Greece to Egypt—had it even been permanently fixed at Shechem, accessible through the open valley of Samaria, it cannot be doubted that Greek or Egyptian influence would have affected far more the manners and religion of the Jews. Remote and inaccessible in its rugged mountains, Jerusalem was removed from the highway by which the hosts of the Pharaohs advanced on Assyria. It was only accessible by one of three difficult passes, unless the whole country of Samaria were in the hands of the enemy. Hence, in the mountains of Judea, the national faith had a secure home. The Philistines overran the plains, and even came up into the Shephelah; Egyptian and Assyrian monarchs conquered Samaria and Galilee; but a small band of undisciplined peasants was able, under the Maccabees, to hold at bay the armies of the Seleucidæ, and it required the fullest efforts of Roman energy and discipline to compass the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus or under Hadrian. The history again repeats itself in Crusading times. The Judean hills resisted long after all other parts of the country had been lost, and Saladin held Jerusalem undisturbed while Richard overran the plains. Conder. #### Witness of the Land to the Sacred History. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 13 1 Now Joshua was old and well stricken in years ; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and well stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. 2 This is the land that yet remaineth : all the regions of the Philistines, and all the Geshurites ; 3 from the Shihor, which is before Egypt, even unto the border of Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanites : the five lords of the Philistines ; the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, 4 the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites ; also the Avvim, on the south : all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that belongeth to the Zidonians, unto Aphek, to the border of 5 the Amorites : and the land of the Gebalites, and all Lebahon, toward the sunrising, from 6 Baal-gad under mount Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath : all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, even all the Zidonians ; them will I drive out from before the children of Israel : only allot thou it unto Israel for an inheritance, as I have 7 commanded thee. Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes, and the half tribe of Manasseh. 14 1 And these are the inheritances which the children of Israel took in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the 2 tribes of the children of Israel, distributed unto them, by the lot of their inheritance, as the 3 LORD commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes, and for the half tribe. For Moses had given the inheritance of the two tribes and the half tribe beyond Jordan : but unto the 4 Levites he gave none inheritance among them. For the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim : and they gave no portion unto the Levites in the land, save cities to 5 dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for their cattle and for their substance. As the LORD commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did, and they divided the land. 15 : 1-12, 20-63. The inheritance of Judah. 16 : 1-10 ; 17 : 1-11. The inheritance of Ephraim and Manasseh. 17 12 Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities ; but 13 the Canaanites would dwell in that land. And it came to pass, when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the Canaanites to task work, and did not utterly drive them out. 14 And the children of Joseph spake unto Joshua, saying, Why hast thou given me but one lot and one part for an inheritance, seeing I am a great people, forasmuch as hitherto the LORD 15 hath blessed me? And Joshua said unto them, If thou be a great people, get thee up to the forest, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim ; since 16 the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for thee. And the children of Joseph said, The hill country is not enough for us : and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are in Bethshean and her towns, and they who are in the valley 17 of Jezreel. And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and to Manasseh, 18 saying, Thou art a great people, and hast great power : thou shalt not have one lot only : but the hill country shall be thine ; for though it is a forest, thou shalt cut it down, and the goings out thereof shall be thine : for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they be strong. 18 1 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together 2 at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there : and the land was subdued before them. And there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes, which had not yet divided their in- 3 heritance. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go in to 4 possess the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, hath given you? Appoint for you three men for each tribe : and I will send them, and they shall arise, and walk through the 5 land, and describe it according to their inheritance ; and they shall come unto me. And they shall divide it into seven portions : Judah shall abide in his border on the south, and the house 6 of Joseph shall abide in their border on the north. And ye shall describe the land into seven portions, and bring the description hither to me : and I will cast lots for you here before the 7 LORD our God. For the Levites have no portion among you ; for the priesthood of the LORD is their inheritance : and Gad and Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh have received their 8 inheritance beyond Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave them. And the men arose, and went : and Joshua charged them that went to describe the land, saying, Go and walk through the land, and describe it, and come again to me, and I will cast lots for you 9 here before the LORD in Shiloh. And the men went and passed through the land, and de- scribed it by cities into seven portions in a book, and they came to Joshua unto the camp at 10 Shiloh. And Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the LORD : and there Joshua divided the land unto the children of Israel according to their divisions. 18 : 11-28 ; 19 : 1-48. Inheritances of Benjamin, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naph- tali, and Dan. 49. So they made an end of distributing the land for inheritance by the borders thereof ; 51. These are the inheritances, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel, distributed for inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the LORD, at the door of the tent of meeting. So they made an end of dividing the land. The conquest of Canaan by Joshua was suffi- ciently complete to permit the distribution of the territory among the tribes of Israel, and its general occupation accordingly. The assign- ment to each tribe of its portion of the territory was made, as a rule, by lot ; and it is remarkable how well the condition of the several tribes, in its district thus assigned, answered to the con- dition predicted of it, many years before, by the dying Moses, and even to the condition predicted of it hundreds of years before in Egypt by the dying Jacob. N. C. B.—The Book of Joshua is the Domesday Book of Palestine, not only describing, with the fulness of a govern- ment survey, the various tribal boundaries throughout the land, but containing long lists of the towns and villages allotted to each tribe, in the order, as recent research has shown, of their geographical position. Porter. The conquest of Palestine, so far as it required the united forces of all Israel, was over; what remained to be done, in putting down risings, in consolidating what had been won, and in capturing isolated and still unconquered cities, was left for the most part to the energy of the tribe to which the territory in question was assigned. The warlike half of Joshua's great task was accomplished: the peaceful work of dividing the territory between the victorious tribes remained. The second half of the Book of Joshua—chapters 13-22—the Domesday Book of Palestine, is mainly taken up with details of the distribution. These are no less honorable to the man who carried them out than the details of the campaign which rendered them possible. Plummer. 13:1. Now Joshua was old. To what age he was now advanced we cannot certainly know, because we do not know his age when he came out of Egypt. If he was then forty-three, he was eighty-three when they came into Canaan; and now he wanted not much of a hundred. Patrick. 3. When the Israelites arrived, the Philistines were in full possession of the Shephelah, or maritime plain, from the "river of Egypt" in the south to Ekron in the north, and had formed a confederacy of five powerful cities—Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. The interval that elapsed between Abraham and the Exodus seems sufficient to allow for the alteration that took place in the position of the Philistines, and their transformation from a pastoral tribe to a settled and powerful nation. P. S. 5. The notices in the Bible lead us to search for Baal-gad in the direction and neighborhood of Baalbek. In the valley of Lebanon, under Hermon, and the entrance into Hamath: these are the geographical indications. Let any one ride from Baalbek northward to Lebweh or 'Ain, or, better still, to Kamâa Hermel, and look off toward Hamath, and he will be struck with the propriety of the phrase, entrance into Hamath. From his standpoint the valley of the Bak'ah opens out like a vast fan on to the great plain of northern Syria, and he is at the gate of the kingdom. Baalbek being, therefore, in the neighborhood where we must look for Baal gad, there seems to be no good reason to doubt their identity, for there is no rival to dispute the honor of the name and site. The remains at Baalbek are adequate to meet the demands of any history, and some of them may claim an antiquity equal to anything that even Egypt can boast. Thompson. 6. It should be always remembered that the promise made by God, of driving out the old inhabitants ("Them will I drive out," verse 6), was conditional, and depended on the adherence of the Israelites to his worship and service. Accordingly, in consequence of their flagrant and repeated disobedience, they only partially deserved the fulfilment of the promise. We do not read that the Sidonians (verse 6) were ever conquered by the Israelites, and the people of Lebanon were not made tributary till the days of David and Solomon. Patrick.—Joshua actually did all that it was promised he should do. God never said that he should conquer all the land, but simply that he should bring Israel into it, and divide it among them, both which he did, and procured them footing by his conquests sufficient to have enabled them to establish themselves in it forever. Their failure to do so was owing wholly to themselves. 7. Dividing the land by lot was the readiest way of satisfying all parties, and preventing discontent and discord. The several allotments are here very minutely detailed in order that litigation growing out of disputed boundaries might ever after be prevented. When the limits of each tribe were so clearly settled there could be little room for contending claims; or if there were, an authentic register of the lot of each tribe would be at hand to be appealed to for a decision, and there is no doubt that it was often made use of in after ages for this purpose. The reading of this account by succeeding generations would tend to excite a deep impression of the goodness of God in bestowing upon their ancestors for the benefit of their posterity, such a large and fertile country, an inheritance so replete with all worldly blessings. Bush. Ch. 13: 8-33. 8-13. These verses comprise a general description of the whole country east of Jordan given to the two tribes and a half. The remainder of the chapter is occupied with a detailed account of the several districts allotted to each. Bush. Chs. 14-19. 14: 1-5. These verses comprise a general introduction to the six chapters. The division of the land among the nine and a half tribes was, in strict accordance with Divine direction (Nu. 26: 52-56; 33: 54; 34: 2-29), made by Eleazar, Joshua, and one representative from each of the ten tribes. It was decided by the "lot," which probably, however, only determined the situation of each inheritance, whether north or south, inland or by the seashore, not its extent and precise boundaries. These would depend upon the size of each tribe. In point of fact, the original arrangements had in some cases to be afterward modified, not as to tribal localization which was unalterably fixed by the Divine lot, but as to extent of territory. Thus Judah had to give up part of its possession to Simeon (19 : 9), while Dan, whose portion proved too small, obtained certain cities both from Judah and from Ephraim. A. E. 2. The sacred lot was employed at the division of the tribal territories, to discover the guilty one who had brought a curse on the people (Josh. 7), and in 1 S. 10 : 20 f., at the king's election. These methods of inquiring into the Divine will retire into the background the more prophecy becomes prominent. O.—This distribution by lot was overruled by a special providence, so as to correspond with the inspired predictions of Jacob and Moses respecting the allotment of each tribe. The fact is unquestionable, that the tribes found themselves placed by lot in the very sections of the country which Jacob had foretold two hundred and fifty years before, and Moses shortly before his death (comp. Gen. 49 and De. 33). To Judah fell a country abounding in vineyards and pastures; to Zebulun, sea-coasts; to Issachar, a rich plain between ranges of mountains; to Asher, one abounding in plenty of oil, wheat, and metals; and so of the others. Bush. Chs. 15-17. Judah and Joseph, as the two great tribes, dividing the birthright between them, had the land first divided between them, their general outlines being given. Afterward the other tribes are arranged, modifying the first division. The lot probably gave only general indications, while the commissioners made the special allotments, according to circumstances. Crosby. The tribe of Judah was powerful in consequence of its numbers, and now received such natural frontiers as to form, on the south, a rampart of protection to the whole of Israel against the enemy. Therefore its boundaries went from the south end of the Salt Sea westward to where Sihor empties itself into the Mediterranean; its eastern limits, from the south end of the Salt Sea to the point where it receives the waters of the Jordan; its northern, from thence over Mount Zion, by Timnah and the brook Sorek, to the sea which bounds it on the west. C. G. B.—The lot of Judah as here marked out was bounded on the south by the wilderness of Sin and the southern coast of the Salt Sea; on the east by that sea, reaching to the place at which it receives the waters of the Jordan; on the north by a line drawn nearly parallel to Jerusalem across from the northern extremity of the Salt Sea to the south boundary of the Philistines and to the Mediterranean Sea; which sea was its western boundary as far as the river of Egypt. Joshua is particular in giving the limits of this tribe, as being the first, the most numerous, the most important, that which was to furnish the kings of Judea, that in which pure religion was to be preserved, and that from which the Messiah was to spring. As this portion, however, contained nearly half the southern part of Canaan, it was afterward found too extensive, and the possessions of Simeon and Dan were taken out of it. Bush.—In travelling over these places one begins early to perceive that not only is the geography and scenery of Palestine "a fifth gospel," but it is a second Pentateuch, Book of Joshua, and Kings. The feeling deepened at every step of the journey. S. C. B. 20. This is the preface to the list of principal towns of Judah, which follow in four sections: those in the Negeb (the technical "South" of Judah); those in the Shephelah (the fertile plain on the coast); those in the Mountain country, and those in the Wilderness west of the Dead Sea. Crosby. # Natural or Physical Characteristics of Judah's Inheritance. First, the Negeb or "South" country extends along the whole southern frontier from east to west. It is an irregularly shaped tract, extending from the mountains of Judah on the north to the edge of the Desert of Paran, and from the south end of the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean; but stretching in a sloping direction toward the northeast to the Dead Sea, and to the southwest to El Arish, thus occupying a middle position, both topographically and physically, between the rich soil of central Canaan and the sandy wastes of that great and terrible wilderness. The south differs from the hill country of Judah to the north of it, not merely so much in being pastoral instead of cultivated, for its whole extent yields proof of very extensive though not universal cultivation in former times; nor in its being less hilly, for it has but few plains of any extent; but in its deep ravines, torn and rent by winter torrents, "the streams of the south" of Ps 126 : 4. These torrents, quite dry in summer, cut down steep cliffs into narrow gullies by their violence in winter. On the west side they drain toward the Arish and Philistia, on the east toward the Dead Sea, none running south into Paran or the Wilderness. The wide central expanse is now a sort of upland wilderness, a series of rolling hills, with scanty herbage more abundant on their northern slopes, but without a tree or a bush more than three feet high. The words of Dr. Robinson, about Zephath or Hormah, may be applied to every city of the Negeb :—"Once, as we judged upon the spot, this must have been a city of not less than 10,000 or 12,000 inhabitants. Now it is a perfect field of ruins, a scene of unutterable desolation, across which the passing stranger can with difficulty find his way." A mighty spell seems to rest upon the cities of the south. We turn to the word of prophecy, and we read, "The cities of the south (Negeb) shall be shut up, and none shall open them : Judah shall be carried away captive, all of it : it shall be wholly carried away captive" (Jer. 13 : 19). The second physical division of the allotment of Joshua was the Shephelah, or low country, translated generally in our version as "the valley" (Josh. 15 : 33), and sometimes "the plain." It comprises the low lying flat country, whether desert or corn-growing, which intervenes between the central backbone of hills extending from north to south and the sea. The expression, though equally applicable to all the coast plains of Palestine, is generally confined to those of Philistia and Sharon, which are limited northward by the bold projecting spur of Carmel ; while the next plain, that of Acre, is similarly cut off by the precipitous Ladder of Tyre from the Plain of Phœnicia. This region in the allotment of the tribes fell principally to Judah, in the south of whose portion were several towns assigned to Simeon ; while the northern part, better known as the Plain of Sharon, was the rich but narrow heritage of Dan. Practically, however, the more important and valuable part of this vast corn-plain was never conquered till after the monarchy, and remained in the possession of the Philistines, who were often the terror and the scourge of Israel. There is no natural boundary line between Philistia and Sharon. The plain stretches with scarce an undulation, but with very varying depth inland, from the southern frontiers of the Desert of Gaza to the foot of Carmel. The descent from the Negeb, or south land, to the low country is gentle and insensible on its southern limit, but much more steep and clearly defined from the hill country of Judah on the east. From the low country of the coast we now turn eastward to the third physical division of the territory of Judah, recognized constantly in Holy Writ as "the mountains," or the "Hill country." The line of demarcation between it and "the south country" is very easily recognized, though they blend into each other. The great pasture district of the south melts into the hill country a few miles to the south of Hebron. The northern part of the "Negeb" presents the appearance of a long series of gently-rolling downs, wide shallow valleys, and broad rounded ridges. But a few hours before reaching Hebron the valleys become narrower and steeper, the hill tops are sharper, the ridges are full of caves, natural or artificial—the dwellings of the Horites, or Cave-men, in olden times ; and when we reach Debir we can fully understand the petition of Achsah to her father Caleb : "Give me a blessing ; for thou hast given me a south land : give me also springs of water" (Ju. 1 : 15), as we see the springs gushing forth from the rocky side of the valley, and feel we are no longer in a "south land." Here the ruins of the cities of Judah begin to crowd upon us. Almost every hill-top is marked by the groups of deserted dwellings—not grass-grown, like those of the south, but with walls and narrow streets, bare and barren. Every name recalls some incident in the life of the Bethlehemite—Jattir, Lebaoth, Eshtemoa, Maon, Carmel, Ziph—scarcely altered in the Arabic vernacular from the old Hebrew. The register of Joshua (verses 21-62) gives thirty-eight cities in the hill country of Judah, divided into five topographical groups ; and even among these are omitted some of future distinction, as Bethlehem and Tekoa. But it is impossible to wander among these hills without perceiving that the expression, "her towns," applied in the enumeration to many of the cities, was no mere figure of speech. The groups of ruins, "the desolate heaps" of Judah, far outnumber any catalogue of her cities that has come down to us. There are no streams, but many springs, and wells innumerable. The hill country culminates at Hebron, but it slopes very little either east or west, forming throughout its whole extent a rugged plateau from Philistia to the Dead Sea ; and its deep dells, or wadys, are scarcely seen till we are upon them. They run for the most part east and west from the central ridge, and add immensely to the natural strength of the district, every nook of which is almost a natural fortress, independently of the cities whose ruins crown every brow, where once "the Lion of Judah" crouched secure. The wells are sunk in hill and vale alike; and all the hill-sides, ribbed with their parallel lines of terrace, once covered with gardens, vineyards, and fig-trees, attest the indefatigable industry no less than the dense population of its ancient inhabitants. But the position of the towns and the character of the ruins are so constantly alike, that it is in vain to attempt separate descriptions for each, save in very few instances. Tristram. The Wilderness is the district stretching along the western shore of the Dead Sea in which David took refuge for some time when pursued by Saul; it is a dreary waste of bare hills cut up by innumerable water-courses, uncultivated, and bearing no traces of former occupation. Wilson. The tribe of Joseph had the centre of the land across from Jordan to the Mediterranean. Ephraim lay north of Judah; but between them were the districts afterward allotted to Benjamin and Dan. Besides the sacred valley of Shechem, it included some of the finest parts of Palestine, the mountains of Ephraim, and the great and fertile maritime plain of Sharon, proverbial for its roses. P. S.—16 : 1-4. The descendants of Joseph received two shares of the inheritance. As closely allied tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh received each many towns situated in the territory of the other. C. G. B.—The central hill country of Palestine is often spoken of as "Mount Ephraim," an expression which comprises all the hilly region from within a few miles north of Jerusalem at Bethel, as far as the Plain of Esdraelon, including, therefore, the whole of the west allotment of Manasseh. Mount Ephraim was to the northern country what the hill country of Judah was to the southern—the backbone, centre, and strength of the nation. Like the hill country of Judah, and unlike the possessions of the northern tribes by Esdraelon, or the western ones by the coast, it was inaccessible to invaders, who were not prepared for the risks of mountain defiles and the storming of hill forts. Its military topography is such, that it is defensible at every turn, and nothing but a panic could disorganize the defence of such a region. Thus the tribe of Manasseh was charged by the High Priest "to keep the passages of the hill country, for by them there was an entrance into Judea; and it was easy to stop them that would come up, because the passage was strait for two men at the most" (Judith 4 : 7). Tristram. Shechem, famous in the days of Abraham and Jacob, and which Joshua may be said to have made the civil capital of the country, was situated in the tribe of Ephraim. So was Shiloh, the first ecclesiastical capital, where the ark was solemnly placed, at the end of Joshua's wars. So also was Samaria, which became, under Omri, the capital of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Joshua himself was a man of Ephraim, and must have given no small importance to the tribe. Gideon, one of the most noble of the judges, with his seventy princely brothers, was a native of the adjacent tribe of Manasseh. "The mountain," or mountainous part, "of Ephraim," was frequently the rallying-place for the nation, where the appointed deliverers raised the standard of resistance to their oppressors. Deborah, though herself apparently of the northern tribes, dwelt between Ramah and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim; Tola of Issachar judged Israel in Shamir, in the same mount; Samuel was of Ramah. W. G. B.—Of the southern tribes, the most powerful was Judah; of the northern, Ephraim; whence originated a jealousy between the two, which broke out early, and laid the foundation of that fatal schism which took place on the death of Solomon, by the revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam an Ephraimite. Hales. 17 : 2. In 16 : 1 the revision reads, "And the lot for the children of Joseph went out from the Jordan," etc., connecting the verb with the locality, whereas the meaning is that "the lot came out [from the urn or receptacle of the lots] for the children of Joseph," etc. So in the second verse of this seventeenth chapter the revision reads, "And the lot was for the rest of Manasseh," as if this was a new statement in addition to what preceded, whereas it is a mere resumption of what has gone before. The Appendix therefore reads, "So the lot was for the rest," etc. Chambers. 17 : 12. The children of Manasseh could not drive out. They could not drive them out through want of faith in God, and of zeal to perform his commands. Here the fountain of all the evils which afterward befell the Israelites begins to be opened, in that, either through sloth or covetousness or distrust of God's power, they did not attempt to drive out those people that were stronger than ordinary; or through want of faith in God, failed in the attempt. Patrick.—The Canaanites would dwell in that land. Heb. "willed to dwell." A very remarkable expression, indicative of the obstinate determination of the Canaanites to retain possession of the country, and carrying with it a severe reflection upon the supineness, cowardice, and unbelief of the Israelites. Bush. 13. They put the Canaanites to tribute.** Herein they offended against the Divine command (De. 20 : 16, 17), by which they were peremptorily directed to destroy the Canaanites when they were able. In thus putting them to tribute, they were probably influenced by motives of indolence and gain. Patrick.—This early degree of sloth and worldly-mindedness, afterward displayed in other instances, laid the foundation of all the ensuing calamities which befell the people. Pyle.—Any conformity to the heathen around, or tolerance of heathenism, any decay of the spirit in which they had entered the land, would result not only in weakness, but in the triumph of the enemy. And so it was intended of the Lord. The lesson of all this is obvious and important. To us also has our Joshua given entrance into Canaan, and victory over our enemies—the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have present possession of the land. But we do not yet hold all its cities, nor are our enemies exterminated. It needs on our part constant faith; there must be no compromise with the enemy, no tolerance of his spirit, no cessation of our warfare. Only that which at first gave us the land can complete and consolidate our possession of it. A. E. Complaint of Ephraim and Manasseh. 14-18. The children of Joseph, that is, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, complain to Joshua of the narrowness of their allotment, which was increased by the Canaanites still retaining so large a portion of it. Joshua, though a descendant himself of Joseph, remained perfectly impartial; and told them they must enlarge the country by their valor, by driving out their enemies from the woody and mountainous parts, and thus making them habitable for themselves. Pyle.—One lot and one only should they have in the general apportionment. If they wanted more they must conquer it for themselves. They grounded their claim on being “a great people,” having “great power.” Well, then, let them prove it by great deeds. There was room enough for them in “the wood country;” let them get them up there and clear away the forest, and drive out the Perizzites and the giants, if Mount Ephraim were too narrow for them. So they might obtain a second portion, and not have “one lot only.” E. V. Many wish for larger possessions, who do not cultivate and make the best of what they have, think they should have more talents given them, who do not trade with those with which they are intrusted. Most people’s poverty is the effect of their idleness; would they dig, they need not beg. He bids them fight for more (verses 17, 18), when they pleaded that they could not come at the wood-lands he spoke of, because in the valley between them and it there were Canaanites whom they durst not enter the lists with. “Never fear them,” said Joshua, “thou hast God on thy side, and thou shalt drive out the Canaanites if thou wilt set about it in good earnest, though they have iron chariots.” We straiten ourselves by apprehending the difficulties in the way of our enlargement to be greater than they are. H. The attitude of the children of Joseph throughout the history of the twelve tribes is in precise accordance with the hint given here. They were proud of their numerical preponderance over the remaining tribes. Thus they, and they only, ventured to remonstrate with Joshua about the inadequacy of the portion allotted to them. Such a sensitiveness was likely to degenerate into insolence when the authority of the great leader was removed. And the history of Gideon and of Jephthah shows that this was actually the case. Here, again, we have a sign of that deep undercurrent of consistency which underlies our history, and is a guarantee of its authenticity. Lias. These tribes had plenty of power, plenty of stalwart men to clear the waste or conquer their enemies; but they had not moral force to match. They want to dominate, without paying the price of lordship in daring and willingness to encounter difficulty and hardship. Glover.—For the Church, too, conquest is the condition of security and of continuance. Pressed on every hand by a hostile world, it must be ever in an attitude of active defence and advance. Every new generation needs to be won afresh for Jesus Christ. The Church cannot even hold its own without ever fresh conquests. De P. THE TABERNACLE (“Tent of Meeting”) SET UP AT SHILOH. When the two great tribes of Judah and Joseph had been located, the one taking the south and the other the middle portion of the country, there seems to have been a pause in the work of distribution. We have no direct statement of the reason, nor are we told how long the interval was between the dividing of the land to the two tribes at Gilgal and the dividing of the land to the seven tribes at Shiloh. Crosby. 18:1. And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled at Shiloh. This was the first assembly or diet of the people, held for important consultation; therefore the expression is not, "the children of Israel," but "the whole congregation of the children of Israel." The encampment was moved from Gilgal to Shiloh, and the tabernacle set up. C. G. B. (See maps, pp. 86, 110.) The situation of Shiloh was central to the whole country, and probably this fact determined its selection. The able-bodied men of the nation being required three times a year to leave their homes and journey to the place of the sanctuary, for the celebration of the national religious festivals, convenience of location became an important consideration. Shiloh was in the midst of the hills of Ephraim, about half way between Bethel on the south and Shechem on the north. It continued the religious capital for three hundred years, or until the time of old Eli and young Samuel, when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines. N. C. B.—Shiloh was situated in the tribe of Ephraim, in the very centre of Canaan, about twenty miles north of Jerusalem. It was therefore the most convenient location for all the tribes, and as Joshua was himself of the tribe of Ephraim, he, as chief magistrate of the nation, would always have a ready access to the sanctuary when the God of Israel was to be consulted. -Bush.—The central position of Shiloh was combined with a rare degree of seclusion. Standing in the very heart of the land, a little to the "east of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem," Shiloh, on its gentle eminence, yet surrounded by loftier hills, was shut out from the world. A labyrinth of valleys leads up to it and off from it, so intricate as to render the services of a guide quite indispensable to the modern traveller. N. C. B. (Sec. 232.) The ruined village Seilún is the site of Shiloh, where the Ark first rested after the capture of Ai and Jericho, and where Joshua divided the newly-conquered land of Canaan among the twelve tribes. The position of Shiloh is accurately defined in the Book of Judges (21:19) to be on the north of Bethel, on the south of Lebonah, and on the east of the highway that goeth from Bethel to Shechem. There is very little to mark the site now but ruins and a curious excavation in the rock in the side of the hill. In a little valley about half a mile from the ruins are the spring and well of Shiloh, where the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance at their periodical festival (Ju. 21). Tent Work. INHERITANCE OF SEVEN TRIBES: BENJAMIN, SIMEON, ZEBULUN, ISSACHAR, ASHER, NAPHTALI, AND DAN. 18:2-10. Twenty-one delegated commissioners survey the remaining land and divide it into seven portions. By Lot Joshua assigns a portion to each of the seven tribes. Joshua solemnly admonished the assembled people as to their "slackness" in taking possession of the land which Jehovah had given them. To terminate further jealousies, he asked the people to choose three representatives from each of the seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been allotted. These were to "go through the land and describe it," that is, to make a general estimate and valuation, rather than an accurate survey, "with reference to their inheritance," that is, in view of their inheriting the land. After their return to Shiloh these twenty-one delegates were to divide the land into seven portions, when the lot would assign to each tribe the place of its inheritance. A. E.—The surveying party, instead of mapping out the country by its natural boundaries (rivers or mountain ranges) or by lines of latitude and longitude, described it by cities and their adjacent villages. The whole was thus divided into seven parts, and these parts assigned to the seven tribes by lot. As Judah and Ephraim were found to have a disproportionate share, Benjamin's allotment was taken from theirs, and also the allotment for Simeon was cut from the southwestern portion of Judah. H. C. Inheritance of Benjamin. 11. Between the children of Judah and the children of Joseph (33:12). The prediction of Moses in regard to the lot of Benjamin was remarkably fulfilled. Bush.—The warlike little band of Benjamites, which had marched in the desert side by side with the mighty sons of Joseph, was not parted from them in the new settlement. It hung on the outskirts of Ephraim. Thus a group was formed in the centre of Palestine, firmly compacted of the descendants of Rachel, cut off on the north by the broad plain of Esdraelon. Stanley. The territory assigned to Benjamin lay immediately to the north of Judah. In its general features it resembled Judah, but it was greatly less in extent. Notwithstanding its narrow limits, it was the scene of many great events. It was "little Benjamin" that furnished the first royal "ruler" to the nation of Israel. Gibeah, Saul's capital, lay within its borders, as did also Jerusalem, emphatically and almost imperishably, "the holy city." Here, too, at first at least (for afterward it belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes), was Bethel, where Jacob had his wonderful vision, and from whose heights Abraham got one of his first views of the Land of Promise. The Mount of Olives was in the tribe of Benjamin, and so were nearly all those places in and around Jerusalem which have been crowned with undying fame. Thus, though little, in one sense, among the tribes of Israel, Benjamin, in real interest and greatness, rivalled them all. It was not the least of its glories that Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, was a member of this tribe, and could describe himself as "an Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin." W. G. B. In the description of the lots of Judah and Benjamin, an account is given both of the limits by which they were bounded and of the cities contained in them. In that of Ephraim and Manasseh the boundaries are given, but not the cities. In this chapter Simeon and Dan are described by their cities only, and not by their borders, because they were small and the former lay within the limits of another tribe. The rest have both their borders described, and their cities named. Bush. 19:1-9. The Inheritance of Simeon. This was included within the limits of Judah, and is elsewhere seldom or never spoken of as a distinct district. In this arrangement the providence of God is to be especially noted, as Jacob, in the spirit of prophecy, had foretold that Simeon and Levi should be "divided in Jacob," and "scattered in Israel." This was accordingly most literally fulfilled in the manner in which these tribes were now disposed of. Levi was "scattered" throughout all the land not having received any distinct inheritance, but only certain "cities to dwell in;" and Simeon, as we here learn, was "divided" or dispersed over the territories of Judah instead of having one of their own. This arrangement brought them into confederacy with the tribe of Judah (Jn. 1:3), and afterward was the occasion of the adherence of many of this tribe to the house of David at the time of the revolt of the ten tribes. Bush. 10-39. The four tribes of Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, and Naphtali obtain contiguous portions in the north of Palestine, as they were allied in birth, and as they marched through the desert. The forests of Lebanon, the fertility of the plain of Esdraelon, the port of Accho, figure in the blessings pronounced upon them. But, with the exception of the transient splendor of the days of Barak and of Gideon, they hardly affect the general fortunes of the nation. Stanley. To Zebulun was allotted the hill country bordering on the great plain of Esdraelon from the sea-coast to the Sea of Galilee. Issachar received for his inheritance the fertile plain of Esdraelon, with the beautiful valley of Jezreel; here, on the highway of the armies of Egypt and Assyria, the great battle-field of Palestine, he was to lead a nomad life, dwelling "in tents," but at the same time he was equally with Zebulun to suck of the abundance of the seas and of treasures hid in the sand. To Asher was assigned the sea-coast from Carmel to Sidon, with the plain of Phœnicia and the low hills on its western border—one of the richest tracts in Palestine, well fulfilling the promise made in the blessing of Jacob, that his "bread" should be "fat," and that he should yield "royal dainties;" and in that of Moses, that he should be "blessed with children," and "dip his feet in oil," and that his "shoes" should be "iron and brass." To Naphtali fell the broad elevated tract lying between Asher and the Jordan, which may still be described in the words of Josephus as "universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation by its fruitfulness"—a land in which Naphtali was to be "satisfied with favor, and full with the blessing of the Lord." Wilson. Phœnicia was never conquered, and no one can help being struck by the peculiar relations that existed between the Israelites and their northern neighbors. In Ju. 1:31, we are told that Asher did not drive out "the inhabitants of Accho, nor of Zidon, Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, nor of Rehob;" and in verse 32, that the Asherites "dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land." Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Bethshemesh and Beth-anath, but "he dwelt among the Canaanites;" nevertheless, the inhabitants of these towns became tributaries to him, and in the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, whose husband was "a man of Tyre, a worker in brass" (1 K. 7:14), we have an indication that mixed marriages were not uncommon. There is no trace of any great war between the Israelites and the Phœnicians, and it is not unlikely that a considerable portion of the northern tribes settled down as fellow-citizens among the people of Tyre, Sidon, and other Phœnician cities. Wilson.—It was to Zarephath, one of the towns of Phœnicia, that Elijah was sent, in the time of a great famine, to bring life and sustenance to the Syro-phœnician widow and her son; and it was somewhere within the borders of this territory that another Syro-phœnician woman once came, seeking a greater prophet than Elijah, and, after a memorable exhibition of faith, went home rejoicing, her afflicted daughter having been made whole. W. G. B. 40-48. The last of the tribes that received its due was Dan, the smallest of all, at times overlooked, and in the last catalogue of the tribes that appears in the Sacred Volume (Rev.), dropped out altogether. It was squeezed into the narrow strip between the mountains and the sea, in the plain already occupied by the expelled races. Sanley.—Dan, though commander of one of the four squadrons of the camp of Israel in the wilderness, that which brought up the rear, yet was last provided for in Canaan, and his lot fell in the southern part of Canaan, between Judah on the east and the land of the Philistines on the west; Ephraim on the north and Simeon on the south. H. 47. The meaning is that the Danites, being closely pressed upon by their powerful neighbors the Philistines, were forced in considerable numbers to abandon their allotted possessions. In consequence of having their original portion thus wrested out of their hands, they were induced to seek another in a distant quarter of the land, and made an inroad accordingly upon Leshem, lying at the foot of Mount Lebanon and near the sources of the river Jordan. This event, which occurred some time after the death of Joshua, and is more fully recorded (Jn. 18:1-29), is touched upon here both to complete what is said of the inheritance of the Danites, and to intimate how it happened that a part of the tribe were afterward found inhabiting a district of the country so remote from their original possessions. This addition to the narrative was perhaps made by Phineas. Bush.—The children of Dan fought against, and took Leshem, a city not far from Jordan, called Laish in the Book of Judges; in aftertimes Cæsarea Philippi. They dwelt therein, or remained in undisturbed possession of it, and gave it the name of Dan; all this was done after Joshua's death, and is related more largely in the Book of Judges (ch. 18). Shuckford. To the tribe of Judah there fell a country abounding with vines and pasture grounds (Gen. 49:11), to that of Ashur, one plenteous in oil, iron and brass (De. 33:24), to that of Naphtali, one extending from the west to the south of Judea (De. 30:23), to that of Benjamin, one in which the temple was afterward built (De. 33:12), to that of Zebulun, a country abounding in seaports (Gen. 49:13), to those of Ephraim and Manasseh, countries renowned for their precious fruits (De. 33:14), and to those of Simeon and Levi no particular countries at all, forasmuch as the former had a portion with Judah, and the latter was dispersed through the several tribes. Since, therefore, each particular lot answered so exactly to each prediction, we are supplied with the most indisputable proof that there was divine inspiration in these predictions, and divine direction in the distribution of the lots. Stackhouse. The ultimate location of all the tribes in their own cities and territory was an event of profound significance, worthy to be long remembered. A great people, four hundred years oppressed in Egypt, forty years wandering homeless in the deserts of Arabia, full seven years up to this date in the conquest of Canaan, and therefore unsettled—in a state of war, living in camp: but now they fold up their tents and make their permanent homes in cities already built; in houses constructed, not to say, furnished ready to their hand. Around them are lands under tillage, fruit trees in bearing condition, everything prepared for living with all the comforts of Oriental life. H. C. The division of the land was carried out, so that not merely the limits of the tribal territories were fixed, but inside these also the districts of the families. Thus the life of tribe and family remained the basis of civil society. This certainly fostered a disposition to maintain the interests of the tribes at the cost of the national cause, in times when there was no powerful central authority, and every one did what seemed right to him; but it also insured the propagation of the faith and customs of the fathers within the family circle, when declensions began to grow frequent. Thus the "good land" was won, where, on the basis of a life of husbandry requiring regular industry, the people were to be matured for the fulfilment of their destiny in quiet and retirement. O. Lowman has given three different estimates of the extent of territory occupied by the twelve tribes; the mean between the two extremes approaches probably the nearest to the truth. According to this computation, the Jewish dominion, at the time of the division, was 180 miles long by 130 wide, and contained 14,976,000 acres. "This quantity of land will divide to 600,000 men, about 2½ acres in property, with a remainder of 1,976,000 acres for the Levitical cities, the princes of tribes, the heads of families, and other public uses." Assuming this estate of 21½ acres assigned to each household, of course a larger proportion of pasture must have been given to those tribes who subsisted on their herds and flocks, than of arable to those who lived by tillage; the portions of the latter, therefore, must be considerably reduced. On the other hand, the extraordinary fertility of the whole country must be taken into the account. No part was waste; very little was occupied by unprofitable wood; the more fertile hills were cultivated in artificial terraces, others were hung with orchards of fruit-trees; the more rocky and barren districts were covered with vineyards. Even in the present day, the wars and misgovernment of ages have not exhausted the natural richness of the soil. Galilee, says Malté Brun, would be a paradise were it inhabited by an industrious people, under an enlightened government. No land could be less dependent on foreign importation; it bore within itself everything that could be necessary for the subsistence and comfort of a simple agricultural people. The climate was healthy, the seasons regular; the former rains, which fell about October, after the vintage, prepared the ground for the seed; the latter, which prevailed during March and the beginning of April, made it grow rapidly. Directly the rains ceased, the grain ripened with still greater rapidity, and was gathered in before the end of May. The summer months were dry and very hot, but the nights cool and refreshed by copious dews. In September, the vintage was gathered. Grain of all kinds, wheat, barley, millet, zea, and other sorts, grew in abundance; the wheat commonly yielded thirty for one. Besides the vine and the olive, the almond, the date, figs of many kinds, the orange, the pomegranate, and many other fruit-trees, flourished in the greatest luxuriance. With a country under a delicious climate, where the corn-fields, the pastures, the vineyards, and olive-grounds vied with each other in fertility; perfect freedom and equality; a mild and parental government, the administration of justice by local authorities according to a written law; national festivals tending to promote national union;—had the people duly appreciated the blessings attached to the strict and permanent observance of their constitution, poets might have found their golden age in the plains of Galilee and the valleys of Judea. The assignment of the different estates seems to have been left to the local government of each tribe. Certain distinguished persons, as Joshua and Caleb, received grants of land larger than ordinary; but the whole land was subject to the common law of property. The great principle of this law was the inalienability of estates. Houses in walled towns might be sold in perpetuity, if unredeemed within the year; land only for a limited period. At the Jubilee, every estate reverted, without repurchase, to the original proprietor. Even during this period it might be redeemed, should the proprietor become rich enough, at the value which the estate would produce during the years unelapsed before the jubilee. This remarkable agrarian law secured the political equality of the people, and anticipated all the mischiefs so fatal to the early republics of Greece and Italy, the appropriation of the whole territory of the state by a rich and powerful landed oligarchy, with the consequent convulsions of the community from the deadly struggle between the patrician and plebeian orders. In the Hebrew state, the improvident individual might reduce himself and his family to penury or servitude, but he could not perpetuate a race of slaves or paupers. Every fifty years God, the King and Lord of the soil, as it were resumed the whole territory, and granted it back in the same portions to the descendants of the original possessors. It is curious to observe in this earliest practical Utopia the realization of Machiavelli's great maxim, the constant renovation of the state according to the first principles of its constitution. Milman. On the conquest of Canaan, it was divided into twelve parts, which were assigned by lot to the different tribes. Thus the Hebrew state was a confederacy of twelve small provinces, like the Swiss cantons. The territory of each was then subdivided, so that a portion of land was assigned to every family. This gave to every man a fixed and permanent home. Each tribe was marched to its new possession, every family entered on its humble estate, and Israel began its national existence. This determined the occupations of the people. By planting every father of a family upon a plot of ground which he was to cultivate, Moses formed a nation of farmers—the best citizens for a free Commonwealth. The miracle was as great as if immense hordes of wandering Bedaween were instantly transformed into quiet husbandmen. Agriculture, keeping all the inhabitants at home, promotes patriotism and attachment to the national religion. Farmers are the strength of a state, for they are generally both peaceful citizens and brave warriors. A small state is never so invincible as when all its citizens are independent freeholders. Then every man has an interest rooted in the soil. He fights for his country because he fights for his home. At the beginning the Hebrew state presented the remarkable spectacle of two millions and a half of people, all equal in rank, and very nearly so in condition. This fact is the more surprising when contrasted with the monstrous inequalities which prevailed in other Oriental countries. Indeed, a parallel to this it would not be possible to find in the most democratic modern state. Field. It cannot be disputed that the Israelites, after having been enslaved for centuries in Egypt, escaped by their unaided efforts from the strongest government in the world, crossed the sea, lived long in the peninsula of Sinai, and suddenly acquiring a warlike character, scattered the powerful armies of the confederate princes that opposed their entrance into Canaan. It cannot be disputed that they set up a remarkable civil and religious polity with laws and rites of a unique character, and that their whole institutions, civil and sacred, which lasted fifteen hundred years, sprang out of their history as it is recorded by Moses and Joshua. Can these facts be accounted for without the supernatural? Is it not true that of all things incredulity is the most credulous, and rationalism the most irrational? W. G. B. CALEB'S REQUEST FOR THE INHERITANCE PROMISED BY MOSES; JOSHUA'S GIFT IN FULFILMENT; CALEB'S CONQUEST OF HEBRON AND DEBIR; ACHSAH'S PETITION GRANTED BY CALEB. INHERITANCE OF JOSHUA. CITIES OF REFUGE ASSIGNED. THIRTEEN PRIESTLY CITIES. FORTY-EIGHT CITIES OF LEVITES. CONCLUDING STATEMENT. 14 6 THEN the children of Judah drew nigh unto Joshua in Gilgal : and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the LORD spake unto Moses the man of God concerning me and concerning thee in Kadesh-barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land ; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt : but I wholly followed the LORD my God. And Moses swore on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy foot hath trodden shall be an inheritance to thee and to thy children forever, because thou hast wholly followed the LORD my God. And now, behold, the LORD hath kept me alive, as he spake, these forty and five years, from the time that the LORD spake this word unto Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness : and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me : as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, and to go out and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day ; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakim were there, and cities great and fenced : it may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall drive them out, as the LORD spake. And Joshua blessed him ; and he gave Hebron unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, unto this day ; because that he wholly followed the LORD, the God of Israel. Now the name of Hebron beforetime was Kiriath-arba ; which Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. And the land had rest from war. 15 13 And unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh he gave a portion among the children of Judah, according to the commandment of the LORD to Joshua, even Kiriath-arba, which Arba was the father of Anak (the same is Hebron). And Caleb drove out thence the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak. And he went up thence against the inhabitants of Debir : now the name of Debir before time was Kiriath-sepher. And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kiriath-sepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my 17 daughter to wife. And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, took it : and he gave 18 him Achsah his daughter to wife. And it came to pass, when she came unto him, that she moved him to ask of her father a field : and she lighted down from off her ass ; and Caleb said 19 unto her, What wouldest thou? And she said, Give me a blessing ; for that thou hast set me in the land of the South, give me also springs of water. And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs. 19 49 And the children of Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua the son of Nun in the midst of them : according to the commandment of the LORD they gave him the city which he asked, even Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim : and he built the city, and dwelt therein. 20 1, 2 And the LORD spake unto Joshua, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Assign you the cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses : that the manslayer that killeth any person unwittingly and unawares may flee thither : and they shall be unto you for a refuge from the avenger of blood. And he shall flee unto one of those cities, and shall stand at the entering of the gate of the city, and declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city ; and they shall take him into the city unto them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them. And if the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver up the manslayer into his hand ; because he smote his neighbor unawares, and hated him not beforetime. And he shall dwell in that city, until he stand before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days : then shall the manslayer return, and come unto his own city, and unto his own house, unto the city from whence he fled. And they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (the same is Hebron) in the hill country of Judah. And beyond the Jordan at Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness in the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh. These were the appointed cities for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them, that whosoever killeth any person unwittingly might flee thither, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stood before the congregation. 21 1 Then came near the heads of fathers' houses of the Levites unto Eleazar the priest, and unto Joshua the son of Nun, and unto the heads of fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel ; and they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, The LORD commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle. And the children of Israel gave unto the Levites out of their inheritance, according to the commandment of the LORD, these cities with their suburbs. And the lot came out for the families of the Kohathites : and the children of Aaron the priest, which were of the Levites, had by lot out of the tribe of Judah, and out of the tribe of the Simeonites, and out of the tribe of Benjamin, thirteen cities. And the children of Israel gave by lot unto the Levites these cities with their suburbs, as the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses. And they gave out of the tribe of the children of Judah, and out of the tribe of the children of Simeon, these cities which are here mentioned by name : and they were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi : for theirs was the first lot. And they gave them Kiriath-arba, which Arba was the father of Anak (the same is Hebron), in the hill country of Judah, with the suburbs thereof round about it. But the fields of the city, and the villages thereof, gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for his possession. And unto the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with her suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Libnah with her suburbs ; and Jattir with her suburbs, and Eshtemoa with her suburbs ; and Holon with her suburbs, and Debir with her suburbs ; and Ain with her suburbs, and Juttah with her suburbs, and Beth-shemesh with her suburbs ; nine cities out of those two tribes. And out of the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with her suburbs, Geba with her suburbs ; Anathoth, with her suburbs, and Almon with her suburbs ; four cities. All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen cities with their suburbs. All the cities of the Levites in the midst of the possession of the children of Israel were forty and eight cities with their suburbs. These cities were every one with their suburbs round about them : thus it was with all these cities. So the LORD gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers ; and 44 they possessed it, and dwelt therein. And the LORD gave them rest round about, according to all that he swore unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before 45 them; the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand. There failed not aught of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass. [The cities of the Levites omitted in the text.] 6. We infer from the words and attitude of Caleb, and from the similar privileges afterward accorded to Joshua, that Moses had, by direction of the Lord, given these two a right of special and personal choice. This on account of their exceptional faithfulness, and as the sole survivors of the generation to whom the land had been given. Of this Caleb now reminds Joshua, and in words of such vigorous faith as make us love still better the tried old warrior of Jehovah. Appearing at the head of "the house of fathers," in Judah of which he was the head, he first refers to the past, then owns God's faithfulness in having preserved him to the age of eighty five, with strength and courage undiminished for the holy war. From verse 9 we infer that when the twelve spies distributed themselves singly over the land for the purposes of their mission, Caleb specially "searched" that "mountain," which was the favorite haunt of the dreaded Anakim. A. E.—We see in Caleb a life built on God's promise. Five times in his short speech does he refer to the word which "the Lord spake." On the first mention of it, he includes Joshua as the joint recipient of the promise, but in the others he speaks only of himself when he is urging his claim founded on it. A true reliance on God's word makes it a personal word, however many besides may have a portion in it. "He loved me and gave himself for me" is faith's version of "He so loved the world that he gave himself for it." A. M. 7. I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. That what came from the simple impulses of his heart was well pleasing to God, shows that his heart was right with God; and that he had formed true conceptions of his character, his designs, and his covenant relations to Israel. A good understanding have all they that seek God—all they that love him; and they can venture to speak all that is in their hearts, knowing under what influence their judgments have been formed. This was the case with Caleb. 8. I wholly followed the LORD my God. In this all his secret, all his distinction, lay. He wholly followed the Lord—he had no reserve, no secondary objects, no fears, no regard to human influence or man's opinions. Kit.—The energy of the expression is well preserved in our version. The words give the idea of a traveller, who, intent upon following his guide, so treads in his steps as to leave hardly any void space between. As he had obtained this testimony from God himself, it was not vain-glory for him to speak of it, especially as this was the main ground on which he had become entitled to the object of his petition. It is not pride but simply a tribute of due acknowledgment to declare what a gracious God has done for him. Bush.—His language corresponded to his name, which means All-heart. He said then, "Let us go up at once and possess the land," not merely let us attempt it, since faith in Jehovah's promises assures him of success, "for we are well able to overcome it." His sole and firm dependence was on Jehovah: "It may be that the Lord will be with me, then I shall drive them out" (verse 12). He believed God's word to Judah (ch. 1:2), "Behold I have delivered the land into his hand." According to his faith it was to him. A. R. F. He twice quotes the never-to-be-forgotten phrase which he had received from God, that he "wholly followed the Lord." The old soldier's cheek may well flush and his eye glitter, as he repeats the General's "well done." The commendation is high. Caleb had kept close behind his divine guide, and had not allowed fear or sloth or sense to shape his course. But, high as the praise was, it was God's judgment on his act, and he might well say it of himself after God had said it of him. He beautifully adds "my God" to the divine eulogium, thus unconsciously showing the root of his thorough obedience in his personal devotion, by which he had made the "God of Israel" (verse 14) his God, whom he possessed by faith and love, and who possessed him. Thus the old man looks back on the long stretch of eighty-five years, and sees in them two things,—God's preserving care and his own clinging to God, his leader and support. And still, a life of trust and following Christ however imperfectly does yield calm remembrances, which nothing else does, and for the lack of which nothing can compensate. If we would lay up for ourselves against old age the treasure of such calm and humble memories, we must in youth and manhood choose God for our God, and take heed to follow him though we may be singular; and to do it wholly. A. M. 10. And now behold the LORD hath kept me alive.** It was the Lord that did everything for him. He does not exult in the strength of his constitution, on which time had made so slight impression. Notwithstanding his consciousness of strength even in age—he does not venture to think himself equal to this great enterprise, unless the Lord were with him. Kd.—The dates given in this brief personal history of Caleb avail to show that this transaction was seven years after the crossing of the Jordan. Caleb being forty years (verse 7) of age at the mission of the spies from Kadesh-barnea and eighty-five now, the difference (forty-five) allows thirty-eight years for the remaining wilderness sojourning, and seven for residence in Canaan. These seven years measure the duration thus far of the wars of the conquest. H. C. A man who wholly followed the Lord at forty is all right at eighty-five. The panic of his fellow-spies and the threatened stoning by the people made no differences at twoscore. He has no more fear of giants and walled cities at fourscore and five. He never for a moment lost his confidence in God's promise or his expectation of its fulfilment. That land was his from the instant of promise, as much as heaven is ours from the instant we claim the promise that was left us. Bp. Warren. He considered the promise a gift of Hebron to him; and Joshua concurred in the opinion. For five and forty years he had kept this word "hid in his heart," and now he puts out a hand, unweakened by age and long-delayed fulfilment, to grasp the realization,—a grand example of steady, persistent faith, which waits for the vision, though it tarry, and buoyantly welcomes it when it comes at last! A life thus filled with trust in God's faithful word has ever present instalments of accomplishment, as brooks by the way, to keep its hope fresh. The prolongation of Caleb's life was the pledge to him of the fulfilment of the remoter promise. Faith, which looks forward to yet unfulfilled promises of an inheritance, is strengthened by a backward look on a life which, however commonplace its separate incidents may have seemed as they occurred, is discerned in retrospect to have been all of God, and all good. Such a life has hope burning as a guiding star to the very end. The heart which trusts to his sure word may make certain that, for this life, it can never outlive its joys nor its hopes, but that "to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant:" and that, after all earthly hopes have gone out in darkness, that hope which is set on God shall "abide." God keeps his children alive in the wilderness, and brings them, after the desert, to the mountain of their inheritance, "whereof the Lord spake in that day." This "old young man," as Thomas Fuller calls him, followed the Lord wholly; therefore he "brought forth fruit in old age," and the aged tree was "full of sap and green" in all its gnarled branches. In a very true sense, a man may keep himself young all his days. A youth and manhood of Christian sobriety and self-restraint, temperate, chaste, and free from the "sins of youth," which rot "the bones" and "lie down with" their victims "in the dust," is likely to conserve physical vigor. A life of Christian devotion and faith will keep its spring flowers blowing till late autumn, and blossom and fruit will hang together. The buoyancy, carelessness, hopefulness, cheeriness of youth are not far away from the aged heart, which lives by faith, and therefore dwells at ease, and is glad and secure, though the shadows of evening be falling. "Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." The perfection of life is to carry on to each stage the best of the preceding, harmonized with the best of the new. A Christian old age may be like Mount Heela, which bears snow on its crest and a fire in its heart. 12. Caleb and Joshua had seen all that the other ten had, but everything depends on the eyes which look. The others had measured themselves against the trained soldiers and giants, and were in despair. These two measured Amalekites and Anaks against God, and were jubilant. They do not dispute the facts, but they reverse the implied conclusion, because they add the governing fact of God's help. How differently the same facts strike a man who lives by faith, and one who lives by calculation! Israel might be a row of ciphers, but with God at the head they meant something. Caleb's confidence that "we are well able to overcome" was religious trust, as is plain from God's eulogium on him in Nu. 14 : 24. The lessons from it are that faith is the parent of wise courage; that where duty, which is God's voice, points, difficulties must not deter; that when we have God's assurance of support, they are nothing. Now, Caleb claims his portion because God has given it him, and he urges his request for a chivalrous reason,—"Give me this mountain; . . . for . . . the Anakim were there, and cities great and fenced." That is the true temper of the Christian soldier, seeking the hardest, not the easiest, work, and finding in danger an attraction. How nobly it has been exemplified in many a mission field, to which, whenever disease has smitten down one, two have been ready to go! To-day American and English Christianity is showing that the old heroic fire burns yet, in the men who, on the Congo and elsewhere, have hazarded their lives for the name of Jesus, and been drawn to the field by its very dangers. Paul made a long stay at Ephesus, because a great door and effectual was opened, and there were many adversaries, and he knew the door to be effectual, just because the adversaries were many. Caleb's spirit is the true spirit for Christ's soldiers. A. M. 12. Another point which greatly interests us is to mark the combination of manly courage with humble acknowledgment of God which characterizes the speech of Caleb. He is prepared to take his possession with his good sword, yet he trusts for success not in his prowess, but in the blessing of God; nor, in his might, is he afraid of the fortresses or the power of the Anakim. We also should not desire success without our own personal and best exertions—whatever our calling be. Yet do we look for it, not from our own labor, but from the blessing of God; and in that struggle we fear no foe. A. E. 14. Caleb's readiness for one more fight was fed by his reliance on God's help in it. When he says, "It may be the Lord will be with me," the perhaps is that of humility, not of doubt. The old warrior's eye flashes, and his voice sounds strong and full, as he ends his words with "I shall drive them out, as the Lord spake." That has the true ring. What were the three Anak tribes, with their barbarous names, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, and their giant stature, to the onset of a warrior faith like that? Of course, "Caleb drove out thence the three sons of Anak," and Hebron became his inheritance. A. M.—"Add to your faith manliness," says Peter. Courage to avow and to obey your faith. Most failures in conduct are preceded by failures in courage. To face duty as well as danger requires hardihood of spirit. Now observe the magnificent manliness of Caleb. It gleams through his report as a spy. It is apparent in this choice of the as yet unconquered territory. It comes out in the energy of his old age. And this simple quality in one man was of incalculable service to Israel. We all need this quality. More manliness would mean less falsehood, less failure, less wretchedness of apprehension, more enterprise and grand success. And godliness begets it. For godliness gives larger thought, greater dignity, scope for grand purposes, consciousness of help laid up in all providential law and processes. By communion with God man attains calmness, wisdom, strength, and help. Glover. 13. The claim thus made was immediately acknowledged, Joshua adding his blessing on Caleb's proposed undertaking. But it was many years later that the expedition was actually made. A. E.—15:14-10; Ju. 1:10-15. The reconquest of Hebron and vicinity occurred after Joshua's death. It is inserted in Joshua as appertaining to the history of Judah's allotment. Crosby.—Hebron was one of the most ancient towns in Palestine, built "seven years before Zoan in Egypt;" originally called Kirjath-arba, from Arba the father of Anak, it afterward received the name of Mamre, and was the scene of some of the most remarkable events in the lives of the Patriarchs. The town is prettily situated in a narrow valley, the sides of which are clothed with vineyards producing grapes still reckoned among the finest in Palestine. For a long period Hebron was the centre of the tribe of Judah, and in the extensive vineyards which surround it, producing the vine and grape, which were always, among the Jews, the type of the blessings of Jehovah, we may see "the choice vine" by which "Judah was to bind his foal; he was to wash his garments in wine, his clothes in the blood of grapes." Wilson. 17. This Othniel, who thus signalized himself when he was young, long after, in his advanced years, was led by the spirit to be both a deliverer and a judge in Israel, the first single person that presided in their affairs after Joshua's death. H. 18. As was the father, so was the daughter, the worthy offspring of a worthy sire, no degenerate child, but large-hearted, like the whole-hearted Caleb. Her father gave her in marriage to the victor of Kirjath Sepher, a stronghold of the enemy. Othniel, though urged by Achsah, was too modest to ask anything more from his father-in-law, having received from him the best of earthly gifts, a devoted wife. But Achsah knew her father's generosity and readiness to give, and that he only needed to be asked. Caleb did not even wait to be asked, but observing her eagerness anticipated her with his question, "What wilt thou?" "Give me a blessing," was her reply; "thou hast given me a dry land, give me also springs of water." So he gave her the upper and the nether springs; that is, springs on the higher and the lower ground. We need the upper and the nether springs. All that is good for us here below, and the fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore above. God begins by giving the upper and heavenly blessings, and promises, if we make them our first desire, He will add with them the lower (Matt. 6 : 33). So that we shall experience that "godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." A. R. F. Joshua's Inheritance. 49,50. It was not until they had "made an end of dividing the country," and all other just claims had been satisfied, that the unselfish and public-spirited ruler received his own inheritance. The true nobility of Joshua's character shines out conspicuously here. He who might have claimed the first and largest share of the spoils of victory postpones his right to that of the meanest of his people. A special portion had been promised to him by God, as to Caleb, as a reward for "following the Lord fully" in the matter of the spies. But he calmly waits till all have received their portions before he "asks" for his own. And then it is no widespread district, no province, that he requires, but just one city. "They gave him that which he asked, and he built the city and dwelt there:" the name given to the city—Timnath serah, "the portion that remains"—recording the fact that the conqueror's inheritance was the last assignment made in the whole distribution of his conquests. E. V.—Joshua was last served, though the eldest and greatest man of all Israel, and who, having commanded in the conquest of Canaan, might have demanded the first settlement in it for himself and his family. But he was content to be unfixed till he saw them all placed; and herein is a great example to all in public places, to prefer the common welfare before their particular satisfaction. Let the public be first served. He had his lot, according unto the Word of the Lord; it is probable, when God by Moses told Caleb what inheritance he should have (ch. 14 : 9), he gave the like promise to Joshua, which he had an eye to in making his election, which made his portion doubly pleasant, that he had it, not as the rest, by common providence, but by special promise. H. Joshua takes care that every one is served before himself. Such utter self-abandonment as was displayed by Moses and Joshua affords incontestable proof of the claim of the Mosaic dispensation to have been Divine. The invasion of Canaan has been declaimed against as cruel; but its cruelty was at least the fruit of a moral idea, a righteous indignation against an obscene and ferocious religion, which was itself the cause of infinite misery to mankind; while Joshua's cruelty was kindness itself compared to the revolting atrocities recorded at their own instance by the Eastern conquerors of old, Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Moabite. We hear in excess of the impossibility of God's ordering the slaughter of the unoffending Canaanites. We hear nothing of the high morality, the sublime disinterestedness, the devotion to a grand ideal which characterized the giver of the Law and the conqueror of Canaan. Such characters have been rare since Christ came into the world. Save these two great men, they were unknown before it. Lias. 20 : 3-6. In Nu. 35 two kinds of murder are distinguished in reference to which the avenging of blood is commanded: verses 16-18, if any one strikes another in such a way that death may be foreseen to be the probable consequence; verse 20, if one has slain another out of hatred, or by design, or out of enmity, in which case the means by which death was brought about is indifferent. On the other hand, in order to shelter from vengeance him who had slain a man undesignedly, without intending to hurt his neighbor, and inadvertently, the law provided for the selection of six free cities, three on the east, and three on the west side of the Jordan. The manslayer who fled into one of these must be protected from the avenger of blood who pursued him, after a provisional cognizance of the case by the elders of the free town, until the community of the place where the murder was committed had, through their elders, examined the matter. If the accused person was proved guilty of intentional murder, he must be given over to the avenger of blood, and even the altar could not protect him. In the opposite case, however, he was obliged to remain in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest in whose time the murder had occurred. For intentional murder, there was no other expiation than the blood of the manslayer. The jus talionis is here maintained in the most stringent sense; every substitute for the punishment of death is refused. Nor can exemption from residence in the city of refuge in consequence of accidental murder be purchased. The custom of other ancient nations permitted the manslayer to satisfy the injured family by making compensation. O. 8. The cities on the other side Jordan, Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan, had been assigned by Moses (De. 4 : 43), but did not, until now, obtain the privilege of cities of refuge. They were all Levitical cities; which appears to have been so ordered, that the cases of manslaughter might come under the cognizance of those who might be presumed to be most thoroughly versed in the law of God, and most competent to give judgment according to it, and who moreover would be less likely than any others to be swayed by private bias in their decisions. Compare De. 21 : 5, where it is said of the priests, the sons of Levi, that "by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried." Bush. Some observe a significance in the names of these cities with application to Christ our Refuge. I delight not in quibbling upon names, yet am willing to take notice of these. Kadesh signifies holy, and our refuge is the holy Jesus. Shechem, a shoulder, and the government is upon his shoulder. Hebron, fellowship, and believers are called into the fellowship of Christ Jesus our Lord. Bezer, a fortification, for he is a Strong Hold to all them that trust in him. Ramoth, high or exalted, for him hath God exalted with his own right hand. Golan, joy, or exultation, for in him all the saints are justified, and shall glory. H. 7. The six cities were chosen from all parts of the land, so that some one of them would be near to any scene of blood. The highways to the cities—so we are told—were prepared to facilitate the flight of the manslayer, and signboards were erected at intervals along them, with directing letters so large that he who ran might read. Now, three of the cities designated for refuge were on the east side of the Jordan, and three were on the west side. And of those on the west side, Hebron was one. "They appointed," it is said, "Kadesh in Galilee, in Mount Naphtali"—to the north—"and Shechem in Mount Ephraim"—in the middle of the country—"and Kirjath Arba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Jadah"—on the south. N. C. B. The existence of the cities of refuge and their purpose have often been used in illustration of the escape of men from the avenger of sin under the Gospel, and certainly with fine effect. There is much in any suggestion from such a source to stir the imagination and awaken the feelings. And this use of Old Testament usages is not only legitimate but praiseworthy, as indeed is everything which gives to well-known truth point, force, and incisiveness. But when matters are pressed beyond this, and we are bidden to see in all this arrangement a typical foreshadowing of the elements of the Gospel, essential truth is needlessly sacrificed. The typology of Scripture is a very important and useful branch of Biblical study, but it needs to be pursued with reverence and care. Conducted on genuine principles, it illumines much of the Old Testament, and imparts great freshness and vividness to the didactic statements of the New. But followed under the guidance of mere fancy or a capricious and arbitrary use of analogies, it sheds darkness instead of light, and is likely to lead its votaries sadly astray. Chambers. The Lord is exalted in the Scripture as the Refuge, and between these cities of refuge and Christ as a Refuge there are some happy resemblance and some marked contrasts. Points of Likeness. The cities were always accessible—could be entered at any hour of day or night. The manslayer never perished because of delay at the gates or because those gates were barred against him. So one of the unspeakably blessed things about Christ as a Refuge is that he is always accessible. The cities were open to all. There were no class distinctions in this provision of mercy. And a voice sounds out from the New Testament Refuge, saying, "Whosoever will," let him run into the strong tower and be safe. The way to the cities was prepared and made plain. The roads to them were to be kept open and in good repair. At the cross-roads posts were put up bearing the words Refuge, Refuge, to guide the flight of the fugitive. So for the flight of the sinner to Christ every obstacle has been removed. The way is made light with truth, and easy to the feet with exceeding great and precious promises; and at every crossing and bypath there is a gospel signboard pointing to Jesus and bearing on it the evermore blessed words, "The eternal God is thy Refuge!" The city of refuge needed to be sought, and with effort. The manslayer had no agency in providing the refuge, but there was necessary a very urgency of effort on his part to secure it. He could be no loiterer on his way there and count on security. Swiftly, eagerly, earnestly, with active feet and intense look and resolute heart, he must speed his way to the city or fail of its refuge. Imagine him thus in flight, and you have a vivid picture of the sinner fleeing for refuge to Christ. Inside the city of refuge the manslayer was safe. "So there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe—is safe! Happy resemblances are these indeed. They are beautifully and strikingly illustrative of Christ as the Refuge of the sinner. They put before us in a definite and tangible way some most precious truths about the Lord our hiding-place. But these points of likeness fail to set forth the chief and distinguishing glories of Christ as a covert from the tempest and a refuge from an avenging law and an accusing conscience and a hating and malignant devil. It is by contrast we can best be told all that the Lord our God is as our Refuge. Points of Unlikeness. The city was a temporary refuge. Christ is an everlasting Refuge. The city of refuge was sometimes distant, taking hours, and even days, to reach it. Christ is near—so near that the sinner, no matter how far he may have wandered from God, if he but feel that he is athirst and weary, homeless, and perishing, need but turn to find that a spiritual Rock is beside him, and that Rock is Christ, in the cleft of which he may instantly hide and be at peace. The manslayer, turned to the city of refuge, and running with all his might to reach it, could possibly fail, nevertheless. With the sinner once turned to Christ as a Refuge failure is impossible. “Look and live,” that “Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.” These are the words that make it impossible a sinner should ever be overtaken by the avenging law while running to covert in the cleft of the Rock of ages. The refuge of the city freed from unjust condemnation. It only protected the involuntary homicide, the man who had slain another by accident, without evil intent or any intent. If he were proved a willful murderer, even the city of refuge did not shield him from the avenger of blood. But the refuge of Christ frees from all condemnation, just as well as unjust. The avenging law thunders at the gates of the strong tower, and, flaming out in terrible majesty its righteous and exact demands, declares that they have not been met by the fugitive within, and says, as if with the awful emphasis of Sinai, “His condemnation is just.” And a voice comes from the tower—a voice in which blends all the majesty of Sinai with all the pathos and tenderness of Calvary—saying, “It is true, O Law; it is true he is a sinner, but he is mine. I bore his sins in my own body on the tree. And there is now therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” And before that plea Satan is silenced, and conscience is silenced, and the law is silenced. And the pursued, accused, and guilty sinner, pardoned and sheltered now, and saved, sings over and over, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. The eternal God is my refuge, and underneath me are the everlasting arms.” H. Johnson. Thirteen Cities of the Priests (verses 4, 8-19). Thirty-five Cities of the Levites (verses 5-7, 20-42). 3. These cities were assigned by lot, that it might fully appear that God designed the Levites their habitations, as he designed the others their inheritances. The result of this arrangement would naturally be, that the Levites would be dispersed in every part of the land, to instruct the people in the knowledge of the Divine law, to edify them by their example, to restrain them from idolatry, and prompt them to a constant adherence to the worship of Jehovah, the only true God. Thus the prophetic sentence of the patriarch (Gen. 49 : 7), that they should be “divided in Jacob, and scattered in Israel,” though originally carrying with it a punitive import, was through the special mercy of heaven converted to a blessing to themselves and to the nation. 4. The children of Aaron the priest. All the Kohathites were children of Aaron, in being lineally descended from him, but they were not all priests; whereas the phrase “children of Aaron” here is but another name for the priests, his successors in office; and these had their allotment of cities in the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin; the rest, who were merely Levites and not priests, had their lot, as appears from verse 5, in the tribes of Ephraim, Dan, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. Bush. Of the forty-eight Levitical cities, thirteen (verses 13-19) were properly sacerdotal, being assigned to the sons of Aaron, to whom the priesthood was exclusively confined. Although the cities were all assigned by lot, yet it was directed by a special Providence that the share which fell to the priests should be in the tribes nearest to the great city which God intended should be the fixed place of his worship, to the end that the priests might be always ready to give their attendance. Patrick.—It is remarkable that all the cities of the priests lay within the southern tribes; eight belonging to Judah, four to Benjamin, and only one to Simeon. This was wisely allotted by Providence, to guard against the evils of schism between the southern and northern tribes. For by this arrangement all these cities, except one, lay in the faithful tribes of Judah and Benjamin, to keep up the national worship in them in opposition to the apostasy of the other tribes; and that one may have remained under the control of Judah, as being situated on his frontier. Otherwise the kingdom of Judah might have experienced a scarcity of priests, or have been burdened with the maintenance of those who fled from the kingdom of Israel, when Jeroboam made priests of the lowest of the people, without learning or religion, to officiate in their room. Hales.—There is no evidence that the priests were bound to live in these, and in no other cities. When the tabernacle was at Nob, both the priests and Levites dwelt there (1 S. 21 : 1-7), and when the worship of God was established at Jerusalem, multitudes both of priests and Levites resided there, though it was no Levitical city; as did the courses of the priests afterward at Jericho. This was a circumstance which Moses had foreseen and for which he had provided (De. 18 : 6). So, on the other hand, persons belonging to the other tribes were not precluded from living in the Levitical cities; as, for instance, Gibeah of Benjamin, which is here made a Levitical city (verse 17), was always peopled by the Benjamites. 41. All the cities—were forty and eight cities, with their suburbs. This was in exact accordance with the direction given by Moses several years before, as we learn from Nu. 35 : 7. This order of Moses is a direct demonstration that it was given under Divine inspiration, as otherwise, how could he possibly have known that so many cities could be assigned to the Levites, without unduly encroaching on the limits of the other tribes? Bush. Distribution Among the Tribes. | KOHATHITES. | | | --- | --- | | Priests... | Judah and Simeon... 9 | | | Benjamin... 4 | | Not Priests... | Ephraim... 4 | | | Dan... 4 | | | Half-Manasseh (West)... 2 | | GERSHONITES. | | | Half-Manasseh (East) ... | 2 | | Issachar... | 4 | | Asher ... | 4 | | Naphtali... | 3 | | MERARITES. | | | Zebulun... | 4 | | Rouben ... | 4 | | Gad... | 4 | | | 43 | After their settlement in their cities they took the place of the household priests (subject, of course, to the special rights of the Aaronic priesthood), sharing in all festivals and rejoicings. They preserved, transcribed, and interpreted the law, which they solemnly read every seventh year at the Feast of Tabernacles. At a still later time they became the learned class in the community, the chroniclers of the time in which they lived. They are described as "officers and judges" under David, and as such are employed "in all the business of Jehovah, and in the service of the king." They are the agents of Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah in their work of reformation, and are sent forth to proclaim and enforce the law. Under Josiah the function has passed into a title, and they are "the Levites that taught all Israel." The two Books of Chronicles bear unmistakable marks of having been written by men whose interests were all gathered round the services of the Temple, and who were familiar with its records. P. S. What Jehovah said to Aaron (Nu. 18 : 30) is in De. 10 : 9 applied to the whole tribe of Levi—namely, that Jehovah Himself would be their inheritance. The tribe is scattered among the other tribes, in the territories of which it received forty-eight towns, with their suburbs—that is, pasturages. In this law the priests are included with the Levites. The tithes were assigned to them for their support, not an overabundant endowment. Even when the tithe was conscientiously paid, it was no certain income. Moreover, if the people showed themselves averse to this tax, the tribe of Levi was subjected to unavoidable poverty. And thus Deuteronomy represents the Levites as placed in a position requiring the support of alms, and as standing in the same line with strangers, widows, and orphans. O. Distribution of the Land Completed. Concluding Statement. And now the ancient promise had been fulfilled: the solitary, childless patriarch who had listened to the Voice which spake at Ur of the Chaldees had grown by regular gradations into a family, a tribe, a horde, and now a nation. The inheritance of the heathen was theirs: wells they digged not, vineyards they planted not, cities they builded not—all these were theirs. Over the old strongholds of the mighty giant chieftains waved the banners of the House of Jacob. Joshua, the grave single hearted soldier, had been enabled to finish thoroughly his mission. Wilberforce. We may note in these verses the threefold repetition of the one thought, of God's punctual and perfect fulfilment of his word. He "gave unto Israel all the land which he swore to give;" "he gave them rest, . . . according to all that he swore;" "there failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken." It is the joy of thankful hearts to compare the promise with the reality, to lay the one upon the other, and to declare how precisely their outlines correspond. It is no small part of Christian duty, and a still greater part of Christian blessedness, to do this. Many a fulfilment passes unnoticed, and many a joy, which might be sacred and sweet as a token of love from his own hand, remains common and unhallowed, because we fail to see that it is a fulfilled promise. The eye that is trained to watch for God's being as good as his word will never have long to wait for proofs that he is. "Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even he shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord." And to such a one faith will become easier, being sustained by experience; and a present thus manifestly studded with indications of God's faithfulness will merge into a future still fuller of these. A. M. We have here the foregoing history summed up, and to make it appear the more bright, compared with the promise of which it was the full accomplishment. God's word and his works mutually illustrate each other. The performance makes the promise appear very true, and the promise makes the performance appear very kind. God had promised to give the seed of Abraham the land of Canaan for a possession, and now at last he performed that promise, they possessed it and dwelt therein. Though they had often forfeited the benefit of that promise, and God had long delayed the performance of it, yet at last all difficulties were conquered and Canaan was their own. And the promise of the heavenly Canaan is as sure to all God's spiritual Israel, for it is the promise of him that cannot lie. God had promised to give them rest in that land, and now they had rest round about. Rest from the fatigues of their travel through the wilderness, rest from their wars in Canaan. They now dwelt, not only in habitations of their own, but quiet and peaceable ones; though there were Canaanites that remained, yet none that had either strength or spirit to attack them. This rest continued till they by their own sin and folly put thorns into their own beds and their own eyes. God had promised to give them victory and success in their wars, and this promise likewise was fulfilled, there s'ood not a man before them. They had the better in every battle, and which way soever they turned their forces they prospered. So that the foundation of God stands sure; Israel's experience of God's fidelity is here upon record, and is an acquittance under their hands to the honor of God, the vindication of his promise which had been so often distrusted, and the encouragement of all believers to the end of the world. There failed not any good thing, no, nor aught of any good thing (so full is it expressed), which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel, but in due time all came to pass. Such an acknowledgment as this, here subscribed by Joshua in the name of all Israel, we afterward find made by Solomon, and all Israel did in effect say amen to it (1 K. 8 : 56). The inviolable truth of God's promise and the performance of it to the utmost, is what all the saints have been ready to bear their testimony to; and if in anything it has seemed to come short, they have been as ready to own that they themselves must bear all the blame. H. Here is the triumphant record of God's faithfulness. But the only name inscribed thereon is Jehovah's. Other memorials of victories have borne the pompous titles of commanders who arrogated the glory to themselves; but the Bible knows of only one conqueror, and that is God. "The help that is done on earth, he doeth it all himself." The military genius and heroic constancy of Joshua, the eagerness for perilous honor that flamed, undimmed by age, in Caleb, the daring and strong arms of many a humbler private in the ranks, have their due recognition and reward; but when the history that tells of these comes to sum up the whole, and to put the "philosophy" of the conquest into a sentence, it has only one name to speak as cause of Israel's victory. That is the true point of view from which to look at the history of the world and of the church in the world. The difference between the "miraculous" conquest of Canaan and the "ordinary" facts of history is not that God did the one and men do the other; both are equally, though in different methods, his acts. A. M. RETURN OF THE ARMED CONTINGENT OF THE TWO AND HALF TRIBES. WITNESS-ALTAR ERECTED. MISAPPREHENSION EXPLAINED. 13 1 Now Joshua was old and well stricken in years ; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and well stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. 2 This is the land that yet remaineth : all the regions of the Philistines, and all the Geshurites ; 3 from the Shihor, which is before Egypt, even unto the border of Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanites : the five lords of the Philistines ; the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, 4 the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites ; also the Avvim, on the south : all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that belongeth to the Zidonians, unto Aphek, to the border of 5 the Amorites : and the land of the Gebalites, and all Lebahon, toward the sunrising, from 6 Baal-gad under mount Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath : all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, even all the Zidonians ; them will I drive out from before the children of Israel : only allot thou it unto Israel for an inheritance, as I have 7 commanded thee. Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes, and the half tribe of Manasseh. 14 1 And these are the inheritances which the children of Israel took in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the 2 tribes of the children of Israel, distributed unto them, by the lot of their inheritance, as the 3 LORD commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes, and for the half tribe. For Moses had given the inheritance of the two tribes and the half tribe beyond Jordan : but unto the 4 Levites he gave none inheritance among them. For the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim : and they gave no portion unto the Levites in the land, save cities to 5 dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for their cattle and for their substance. As the LORD commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did, and they divided the land. 15 : 1-12, 20-63. The inheritance of Judah. 16 : 1-10 ; 17 : 1-11. The inheritance of Ephraim and Manasseh. 17 12 Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities ; but 13 the Canaanites would dwell in that land. And it came to pass, when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the Canaanites to task work, and did not utterly drive them out. 14 And the children of Joseph spake unto Joshua, saying, Why hast thou given me but one lot and one part for an inheritance, seeing I am a great people, forasmuch as hitherto the LORD 15 hath blessed me? And Joshua said unto them, If thou be a great people, get thee up to the forest, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim ; since 16 the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for thee. And the children of Joseph said, The hill country is not enough for us : and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are in Bethshean and her towns, and they who are in the valley 17 of Jezreel. And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and to Manasseh, 18 saying, Thou art a great people, and hast great power : thou shalt not have one lot only : but the hill country shall be thine ; for though it is a forest, thou shalt cut it down, and the goings out thereof shall be thine : for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they be strong. 18 1 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together 2 at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there : and the land was subdued before them. And there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes, which had not yet divided their in- 3 heritance. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go in to 4 possess the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, hath given you? Appoint for you three men for each tribe : and I will send them, and they shall arise, and walk through the 5 land, and describe it according to their inheritance ; and they shall come unto me. And they shall divide it into seven portions : Judah shall abide in his border on the south, and the house 6 of Joseph shall abide in their border on the north. And ye shall describe the land into seven portions, and bring the description hither to me : and I will cast lots for you here before the 7 LORD our God. For the Levites have no portion among you ; for the priesthood of the LORD is their inheritance : and Gad and Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh have received their 8 inheritance beyond Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave them. And the men arose, and went : and Joshua charged them that went to describe the land, saying, Go and walk through the land, and describe it, and come again to me, and I will cast lots for you 9 here before the LORD in Shiloh. And the men went and passed through the land, and de- scribed it by cities into seven portions in a book, and they came to Joshua unto the camp at 10 Shiloh. And Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the LORD : and there Joshua divided the land unto the children of Israel according to their divisions. 18 : 11-28 ; 19 : 1-48. Inheritances of Benjamin, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naph- tali, and Dan. 49. So they made an end of distributing the land for inheritance by the borders thereof ; 51. These are the inheritances, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel, distributed for inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the LORD, at the door of the tent of meeting. So they made an end of dividing the land. The conquest of Canaan by Joshua was suffi- ciently complete to permit the distribution of the territory among the tribes of Israel, and its general occupation accordingly. The assign- ment to each tribe of its portion of the territory was made, as a rule, by lot ; and it is remarkable how well the condition of the several tribes, in its district thus assigned, answered to the con- dition predicted of it, many years before, by the dying Moses, and even to the condition predicted of it hundreds of years before in Egypt by the dying Jacob. N. C. B.—The Book of Joshua is the Domesday Book of Palestine, not only describing, with the fulness of a govern- ment survey, the various tribal boundaries throughout the land, but containing long lists of the towns and villages allotted to each tribe, in the order, as recent research has shown, of their geographical position. Porter. The conquest of Palestine, so far as it required the united forces of all Israel, was over; what remained to be done, in putting down risings, in consolidating what had been won, and in capturing isolated and still unconquered cities, was left for the most part to the energy of the tribe to which the territory in question was assigned. The warlike half of Joshua's great task was accomplished: the peaceful work of dividing the territory between the victorious tribes remained. The second half of the Book of Joshua—chapters 13-22—the Domesday Book of Palestine, is mainly taken up with details of the distribution. These are no less honorable to the man who carried them out than the details of the campaign which rendered them possible. Plummer. 13:1. Now Joshua was old. To what age he was now advanced we cannot certainly know, because we do not know his age when he came out of Egypt. If he was then forty-three, he was eighty-three when they came into Canaan; and now he wanted not much of a hundred. Patrick. 3. When the Israelites arrived, the Philistines were in full possession of the Shephelah, or maritime plain, from the "river of Egypt" in the south to Ekron in the north, and had formed a confederacy of five powerful cities—Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. The interval that elapsed between Abraham and the Exodus seems sufficient to allow for the alteration that took place in the position of the Philistines, and their transformation from a pastoral tribe to a settled and powerful nation. P. S. 5. The notices in the Bible lead us to search for Baal-gad in the direction and neighborhood of Baalbek. In the valley of Lebanon, under Hermon, and the entrance into Hamath: these are the geographical indications. Let any one ride from Baalbek northward to Lebweh or 'Ain, or, better still, to Kamâa Hermel, and look off toward Hamath, and he will be struck with the propriety of the phrase, entrance into Hamath. From his standpoint the valley of the Bak'ah opens out like a vast fan on to the great plain of northern Syria, and he is at the gate of the kingdom. Baalbek being, therefore, in the neighborhood where we must look for Baal gad, there seems to be no good reason to doubt their identity, for there is no rival to dispute the honor of the name and site. The remains at Baalbek are adequate to meet the demands of any history, and some of them may claim an antiquity equal to anything that even Egypt can boast. Thompson. 6. It should be always remembered that the promise made by God, of driving out the old inhabitants ("Them will I drive out," verse 6), was conditional, and depended on the adherence of the Israelites to his worship and service. Accordingly, in consequence of their flagrant and repeated disobedience, they only partially deserved the fulfilment of the promise. We do not read that the Sidonians (verse 6) were ever conquered by the Israelites, and the people of Lebanon were not made tributary till the days of David and Solomon. Patrick.—Joshua actually did all that it was promised he should do. God never said that he should conquer all the land, but simply that he should bring Israel into it, and divide it among them, both which he did, and procured them footing by his conquests sufficient to have enabled them to establish themselves in it forever. Their failure to do so was owing wholly to themselves. 7. Dividing the land by lot was the readiest way of satisfying all parties, and preventing discontent and discord. The several allotments are here very minutely detailed in order that litigation growing out of disputed boundaries might ever after be prevented. When the limits of each tribe were so clearly settled there could be little room for contending claims; or if there were, an authentic register of the lot of each tribe would be at hand to be appealed to for a decision, and there is no doubt that it was often made use of in after ages for this purpose. The reading of this account by succeeding generations would tend to excite a deep impression of the goodness of God in bestowing upon their ancestors for the benefit of their posterity, such a large and fertile country, an inheritance so replete with all worldly blessings. Bush. Ch. 13: 8-33. 8-13. These verses comprise a general description of the whole country east of Jordan given to the two tribes and a half. The remainder of the chapter is occupied with a detailed account of the several districts allotted to each. Bush. Chs. 14-19. 14: 1-5. These verses comprise a general introduction to the six chapters. The division of the land among the nine and a half tribes was, in strict accordance with Divine direction (Nu. 26: 52-56; 33: 54; 34: 2-29), made by Eleazar, Joshua, and one representative from each of the ten tribes. It was decided by the "lot," which probably, however, only determined the situation of each inheritance, whether north or south, inland or by the seashore, not its extent and precise boundaries. These would depend upon the size of each tribe. In point of fact, the original arrangements had in some cases to be afterward modified, not as to tribal localization which was unalterably fixed by the Divine lot, but as to extent of territory. Thus Judah had to give up part of its possession to Simeon (19 : 9), while Dan, whose portion proved too small, obtained certain cities both from Judah and from Ephraim. A. E. 2. The sacred lot was employed at the division of the tribal territories, to discover the guilty one who had brought a curse on the people (Josh. 7), and in 1 S. 10 : 20 f., at the king's election. These methods of inquiring into the Divine will retire into the background the more prophecy becomes prominent. O.—This distribution by lot was overruled by a special providence, so as to correspond with the inspired predictions of Jacob and Moses respecting the allotment of each tribe. The fact is unquestionable, that the tribes found themselves placed by lot in the very sections of the country which Jacob had foretold two hundred and fifty years before, and Moses shortly before his death (comp. Gen. 49 and De. 33). To Judah fell a country abounding in vineyards and pastures; to Zebulun, sea-coasts; to Issachar, a rich plain between ranges of mountains; to Asher, one abounding in plenty of oil, wheat, and metals; and so of the others. Bush. Chs. 15-17. Judah and Joseph, as the two great tribes, dividing the birthright between them, had the land first divided between them, their general outlines being given. Afterward the other tribes are arranged, modifying the first division. The lot probably gave only general indications, while the commissioners made the special allotments, according to circumstances. Crosby. The tribe of Judah was powerful in consequence of its numbers, and now received such natural frontiers as to form, on the south, a rampart of protection to the whole of Israel against the enemy. Therefore its boundaries went from the south end of the Salt Sea westward to where Sihor empties itself into the Mediterranean; its eastern limits, from the south end of the Salt Sea to the point where it receives the waters of the Jordan; its northern, from thence over Mount Zion, by Timnah and the brook Sorek, to the sea which bounds it on the west. C. G. B.—The lot of Judah as here marked out was bounded on the south by the wilderness of Sin and the southern coast of the Salt Sea; on the east by that sea, reaching to the place at which it receives the waters of the Jordan; on the north by a line drawn nearly parallel to Jerusalem across from the northern extremity of the Salt Sea to the south boundary of the Philistines and to the Mediterranean Sea; which sea was its western boundary as far as the river of Egypt. Joshua is particular in giving the limits of this tribe, as being the first, the most numerous, the most important, that which was to furnish the kings of Judea, that in which pure religion was to be preserved, and that from which the Messiah was to spring. As this portion, however, contained nearly half the southern part of Canaan, it was afterward found too extensive, and the possessions of Simeon and Dan were taken out of it. Bush.—In travelling over these places one begins early to perceive that not only is the geography and scenery of Palestine "a fifth gospel," but it is a second Pentateuch, Book of Joshua, and Kings. The feeling deepened at every step of the journey. S. C. B. 20. This is the preface to the list of principal towns of Judah, which follow in four sections: those in the Negeb (the technical "South" of Judah); those in the Shephelah (the fertile plain on the coast); those in the Mountain country, and those in the Wilderness west of the Dead Sea. Crosby. # Natural or Physical Characteristics of Judah's Inheritance. First, the Negeb or "South" country extends along the whole southern frontier from east to west. It is an irregularly shaped tract, extending from the mountains of Judah on the north to the edge of the Desert of Paran, and from the south end of the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean; but stretching in a sloping direction toward the northeast to the Dead Sea, and to the southwest to El Arish, thus occupying a middle position, both topographically and physically, between the rich soil of central Canaan and the sandy wastes of that great and terrible wilderness. The south differs from the hill country of Judah to the north of it, not merely so much in being pastoral instead of cultivated, for its whole extent yields proof of very extensive though not universal cultivation in former times; nor in its being less hilly, for it has but few plains of any extent; but in its deep ravines, torn and rent by winter torrents, "the streams of the south" of Ps 126 : 4. These torrents, quite dry in summer, cut down steep cliffs into narrow gullies by their violence in winter. On the west side they drain toward the Arish and Philistia, on the east toward the Dead Sea, none running south into Paran or the Wilderness. The wide central expanse is now a sort of upland wilderness, a series of rolling hills, with scanty herbage more abundant on their northern slopes, but without a tree or a bush more than three feet high. The words of Dr. Robinson, about Zephath or Hormah, may be applied to every city of the Negeb :—"Once, as we judged upon the spot, this must have been a city of not less than 10,000 or 12,000 inhabitants. Now it is a perfect field of ruins, a scene of unutterable desolation, across which the passing stranger can with difficulty find his way." A mighty spell seems to rest upon the cities of the south. We turn to the word of prophecy, and we read, "The cities of the south (Negeb) shall be shut up, and none shall open them : Judah shall be carried away captive, all of it : it shall be wholly carried away captive" (Jer. 13 : 19). The second physical division of the allotment of Joshua was the Shephelah, or low country, translated generally in our version as "the valley" (Josh. 15 : 33), and sometimes "the plain." It comprises the low lying flat country, whether desert or corn-growing, which intervenes between the central backbone of hills extending from north to south and the sea. The expression, though equally applicable to all the coast plains of Palestine, is generally confined to those of Philistia and Sharon, which are limited northward by the bold projecting spur of Carmel ; while the next plain, that of Acre, is similarly cut off by the precipitous Ladder of Tyre from the Plain of Phœnicia. This region in the allotment of the tribes fell principally to Judah, in the south of whose portion were several towns assigned to Simeon ; while the northern part, better known as the Plain of Sharon, was the rich but narrow heritage of Dan. Practically, however, the more important and valuable part of this vast corn-plain was never conquered till after the monarchy, and remained in the possession of the Philistines, who were often the terror and the scourge of Israel. There is no natural boundary line between Philistia and Sharon. The plain stretches with scarce an undulation, but with very varying depth inland, from the southern frontiers of the Desert of Gaza to the foot of Carmel. The descent from the Negeb, or south land, to the low country is gentle and insensible on its southern limit, but much more steep and clearly defined from the hill country of Judah on the east. From the low country of the coast we now turn eastward to the third physical division of the territory of Judah, recognized constantly in Holy Writ as "the mountains," or the "Hill country." The line of demarcation between it and "the south country" is very easily recognized, though they blend into each other. The great pasture district of the south melts into the hill country a few miles to the south of Hebron. The northern part of the "Negeb" presents the appearance of a long series of gently-rolling downs, wide shallow valleys, and broad rounded ridges. But a few hours before reaching Hebron the valleys become narrower and steeper, the hill tops are sharper, the ridges are full of caves, natural or artificial—the dwellings of the Horites, or Cave-men, in olden times ; and when we reach Debir we can fully understand the petition of Achsah to her father Caleb : "Give me a blessing ; for thou hast given me a south land : give me also springs of water" (Ju. 1 : 15), as we see the springs gushing forth from the rocky side of the valley, and feel we are no longer in a "south land." Here the ruins of the cities of Judah begin to crowd upon us. Almost every hill-top is marked by the groups of deserted dwellings—not grass-grown, like those of the south, but with walls and narrow streets, bare and barren. Every name recalls some incident in the life of the Bethlehemite—Jattir, Lebaoth, Eshtemoa, Maon, Carmel, Ziph—scarcely altered in the Arabic vernacular from the old Hebrew. The register of Joshua (verses 21-62) gives thirty-eight cities in the hill country of Judah, divided into five topographical groups ; and even among these are omitted some of future distinction, as Bethlehem and Tekoa. But it is impossible to wander among these hills without perceiving that the expression, "her towns," applied in the enumeration to many of the cities, was no mere figure of speech. The groups of ruins, "the desolate heaps" of Judah, far outnumber any catalogue of her cities that has come down to us. There are no streams, but many springs, and wells innumerable. The hill country culminates at Hebron, but it slopes very little either east or west, forming throughout its whole extent a rugged plateau from Philistia to the Dead Sea ; and its deep dells, or wadys, are scarcely seen till we are upon them. They run for the most part east and west from the central ridge, and add immensely to the natural strength of the district, every nook of which is almost a natural fortress, independently of the cities whose ruins crown every brow, where once "the Lion of Judah" crouched secure. The wells are sunk in hill and vale alike; and all the hill-sides, ribbed with their parallel lines of terrace, once covered with gardens, vineyards, and fig-trees, attest the indefatigable industry no less than the dense population of its ancient inhabitants. But the position of the towns and the character of the ruins are so constantly alike, that it is in vain to attempt separate descriptions for each, save in very few instances. Tristram. The Wilderness is the district stretching along the western shore of the Dead Sea in which David took refuge for some time when pursued by Saul; it is a dreary waste of bare hills cut up by innumerable water-courses, uncultivated, and bearing no traces of former occupation. Wilson. The tribe of Joseph had the centre of the land across from Jordan to the Mediterranean. Ephraim lay north of Judah; but between them were the districts afterward allotted to Benjamin and Dan. Besides the sacred valley of Shechem, it included some of the finest parts of Palestine, the mountains of Ephraim, and the great and fertile maritime plain of Sharon, proverbial for its roses. P. S.—16 : 1-4. The descendants of Joseph received two shares of the inheritance. As closely allied tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh received each many towns situated in the territory of the other. C. G. B.—The central hill country of Palestine is often spoken of as "Mount Ephraim," an expression which comprises all the hilly region from within a few miles north of Jerusalem at Bethel, as far as the Plain of Esdraelon, including, therefore, the whole of the west allotment of Manasseh. Mount Ephraim was to the northern country what the hill country of Judah was to the southern—the backbone, centre, and strength of the nation. Like the hill country of Judah, and unlike the possessions of the northern tribes by Esdraelon, or the western ones by the coast, it was inaccessible to invaders, who were not prepared for the risks of mountain defiles and the storming of hill forts. Its military topography is such, that it is defensible at every turn, and nothing but a panic could disorganize the defence of such a region. Thus the tribe of Manasseh was charged by the High Priest "to keep the passages of the hill country, for by them there was an entrance into Judea; and it was easy to stop them that would come up, because the passage was strait for two men at the most" (Judith 4 : 7). Tristram. Shechem, famous in the days of Abraham and Jacob, and which Joshua may be said to have made the civil capital of the country, was situated in the tribe of Ephraim. So was Shiloh, the first ecclesiastical capital, where the ark was solemnly placed, at the end of Joshua's wars. So also was Samaria, which became, under Omri, the capital of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Joshua himself was a man of Ephraim, and must have given no small importance to the tribe. Gideon, one of the most noble of the judges, with his seventy princely brothers, was a native of the adjacent tribe of Manasseh. "The mountain," or mountainous part, "of Ephraim," was frequently the rallying-place for the nation, where the appointed deliverers raised the standard of resistance to their oppressors. Deborah, though herself apparently of the northern tribes, dwelt between Ramah and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim; Tola of Issachar judged Israel in Shamir, in the same mount; Samuel was of Ramah. W. G. B.—Of the southern tribes, the most powerful was Judah; of the northern, Ephraim; whence originated a jealousy between the two, which broke out early, and laid the foundation of that fatal schism which took place on the death of Solomon, by the revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam an Ephraimite. Hales. 17 : 2. In 16 : 1 the revision reads, "And the lot for the children of Joseph went out from the Jordan," etc., connecting the verb with the locality, whereas the meaning is that "the lot came out [from the urn or receptacle of the lots] for the children of Joseph," etc. So in the second verse of this seventeenth chapter the revision reads, "And the lot was for the rest of Manasseh," as if this was a new statement in addition to what preceded, whereas it is a mere resumption of what has gone before. The Appendix therefore reads, "So the lot was for the rest," etc. Chambers. 17 : 12. The children of Manasseh could not drive out. They could not drive them out through want of faith in God, and of zeal to perform his commands. Here the fountain of all the evils which afterward befell the Israelites begins to be opened, in that, either through sloth or covetousness or distrust of God's power, they did not attempt to drive out those people that were stronger than ordinary; or through want of faith in God, failed in the attempt. Patrick.—The Canaanites would dwell in that land. Heb. "willed to dwell." A very remarkable expression, indicative of the obstinate determination of the Canaanites to retain possession of the country, and carrying with it a severe reflection upon the supineness, cowardice, and unbelief of the Israelites. Bush. 13. They put the Canaanites to tribute.** Herein they offended against the Divine command (De. 20 : 16, 17), by which they were peremptorily directed to destroy the Canaanites when they were able. In thus putting them to tribute, they were probably influenced by motives of indolence and gain. Patrick.—This early degree of sloth and worldly-mindedness, afterward displayed in other instances, laid the foundation of all the ensuing calamities which befell the people. Pyle.—Any conformity to the heathen around, or tolerance of heathenism, any decay of the spirit in which they had entered the land, would result not only in weakness, but in the triumph of the enemy. And so it was intended of the Lord. The lesson of all this is obvious and important. To us also has our Joshua given entrance into Canaan, and victory over our enemies—the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have present possession of the land. But we do not yet hold all its cities, nor are our enemies exterminated. It needs on our part constant faith; there must be no compromise with the enemy, no tolerance of his spirit, no cessation of our warfare. Only that which at first gave us the land can complete and consolidate our possession of it. A. E. Complaint of Ephraim and Manasseh. 14-18. The children of Joseph, that is, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, complain to Joshua of the narrowness of their allotment, which was increased by the Canaanites still retaining so large a portion of it. Joshua, though a descendant himself of Joseph, remained perfectly impartial; and told them they must enlarge the country by their valor, by driving out their enemies from the woody and mountainous parts, and thus making them habitable for themselves. Pyle.—One lot and one only should they have in the general apportionment. If they wanted more they must conquer it for themselves. They grounded their claim on being “a great people,” having “great power.” Well, then, let them prove it by great deeds. There was room enough for them in “the wood country;” let them get them up there and clear away the forest, and drive out the Perizzites and the giants, if Mount Ephraim were too narrow for them. So they might obtain a second portion, and not have “one lot only.” E. V. Many wish for larger possessions, who do not cultivate and make the best of what they have, think they should have more talents given them, who do not trade with those with which they are intrusted. Most people’s poverty is the effect of their idleness; would they dig, they need not beg. He bids them fight for more (verses 17, 18), when they pleaded that they could not come at the wood-lands he spoke of, because in the valley between them and it there were Canaanites whom they durst not enter the lists with. “Never fear them,” said Joshua, “thou hast God on thy side, and thou shalt drive out the Canaanites if thou wilt set about it in good earnest, though they have iron chariots.” We straiten ourselves by apprehending the difficulties in the way of our enlargement to be greater than they are. H. The attitude of the children of Joseph throughout the history of the twelve tribes is in precise accordance with the hint given here. They were proud of their numerical preponderance over the remaining tribes. Thus they, and they only, ventured to remonstrate with Joshua about the inadequacy of the portion allotted to them. Such a sensitiveness was likely to degenerate into insolence when the authority of the great leader was removed. And the history of Gideon and of Jephthah shows that this was actually the case. Here, again, we have a sign of that deep undercurrent of consistency which underlies our history, and is a guarantee of its authenticity. Lias. These tribes had plenty of power, plenty of stalwart men to clear the waste or conquer their enemies; but they had not moral force to match. They want to dominate, without paying the price of lordship in daring and willingness to encounter difficulty and hardship. Glover.—For the Church, too, conquest is the condition of security and of continuance. Pressed on every hand by a hostile world, it must be ever in an attitude of active defence and advance. Every new generation needs to be won afresh for Jesus Christ. The Church cannot even hold its own without ever fresh conquests. De P. THE TABERNACLE (“Tent of Meeting”) SET UP AT SHILOH. When the two great tribes of Judah and Joseph had been located, the one taking the south and the other the middle portion of the country, there seems to have been a pause in the work of distribution. We have no direct statement of the reason, nor are we told how long the interval was between the dividing of the land to the two tribes at Gilgal and the dividing of the land to the seven tribes at Shiloh. Crosby. 18:1. And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled at Shiloh. This was the first assembly or diet of the people, held for important consultation; therefore the expression is not, "the children of Israel," but "the whole congregation of the children of Israel." The encampment was moved from Gilgal to Shiloh, and the tabernacle set up. C. G. B. (See maps, pp. 86, 110.) The situation of Shiloh was central to the whole country, and probably this fact determined its selection. The able-bodied men of the nation being required three times a year to leave their homes and journey to the place of the sanctuary, for the celebration of the national religious festivals, convenience of location became an important consideration. Shiloh was in the midst of the hills of Ephraim, about half way between Bethel on the south and Shechem on the north. It continued the religious capital for three hundred years, or until the time of old Eli and young Samuel, when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines. N. C. B.—Shiloh was situated in the tribe of Ephraim, in the very centre of Canaan, about twenty miles north of Jerusalem. It was therefore the most convenient location for all the tribes, and as Joshua was himself of the tribe of Ephraim, he, as chief magistrate of the nation, would always have a ready access to the sanctuary when the God of Israel was to be consulted. -Bush.—The central position of Shiloh was combined with a rare degree of seclusion. Standing in the very heart of the land, a little to the "east of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem," Shiloh, on its gentle eminence, yet surrounded by loftier hills, was shut out from the world. A labyrinth of valleys leads up to it and off from it, so intricate as to render the services of a guide quite indispensable to the modern traveller. N. C. B. (Sec. 232.) The ruined village Seilún is the site of Shiloh, where the Ark first rested after the capture of Ai and Jericho, and where Joshua divided the newly-conquered land of Canaan among the twelve tribes. The position of Shiloh is accurately defined in the Book of Judges (21:19) to be on the north of Bethel, on the south of Lebonah, and on the east of the highway that goeth from Bethel to Shechem. There is very little to mark the site now but ruins and a curious excavation in the rock in the side of the hill. In a little valley about half a mile from the ruins are the spring and well of Shiloh, where the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance at their periodical festival (Ju. 21). Tent Work. INHERITANCE OF SEVEN TRIBES: BENJAMIN, SIMEON, ZEBULUN, ISSACHAR, ASHER, NAPHTALI, AND DAN. 18:2-10. Twenty-one delegated commissioners survey the remaining land and divide it into seven portions. By Lot Joshua assigns a portion to each of the seven tribes. Joshua solemnly admonished the assembled people as to their "slackness" in taking possession of the land which Jehovah had given them. To terminate further jealousies, he asked the people to choose three representatives from each of the seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been allotted. These were to "go through the land and describe it," that is, to make a general estimate and valuation, rather than an accurate survey, "with reference to their inheritance," that is, in view of their inheriting the land. After their return to Shiloh these twenty-one delegates were to divide the land into seven portions, when the lot would assign to each tribe the place of its inheritance. A. E.—The surveying party, instead of mapping out the country by its natural boundaries (rivers or mountain ranges) or by lines of latitude and longitude, described it by cities and their adjacent villages. The whole was thus divided into seven parts, and these parts assigned to the seven tribes by lot. As Judah and Ephraim were found to have a disproportionate share, Benjamin's allotment was taken from theirs, and also the allotment for Simeon was cut from the southwestern portion of Judah. H. C. Inheritance of Benjamin. 11. Between the children of Judah and the children of Joseph (33:12). The prediction of Moses in regard to the lot of Benjamin was remarkably fulfilled. Bush.—The warlike little band of Benjamites, which had marched in the desert side by side with the mighty sons of Joseph, was not parted from them in the new settlement. It hung on the outskirts of Ephraim. Thus a group was formed in the centre of Palestine, firmly compacted of the descendants of Rachel, cut off on the north by the broad plain of Esdraelon. Stanley. The territory assigned to Benjamin lay immediately to the north of Judah. In its general features it resembled Judah, but it was greatly less in extent. Notwithstanding its narrow limits, it was the scene of many great events. It was "little Benjamin" that furnished the first royal "ruler" to the nation of Israel. Gibeah, Saul's capital, lay within its borders, as did also Jerusalem, emphatically and almost imperishably, "the holy city." Here, too, at first at least (for afterward it belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes), was Bethel, where Jacob had his wonderful vision, and from whose heights Abraham got one of his first views of the Land of Promise. The Mount of Olives was in the tribe of Benjamin, and so were nearly all those places in and around Jerusalem which have been crowned with undying fame. Thus, though little, in one sense, among the tribes of Israel, Benjamin, in real interest and greatness, rivalled them all. It was not the least of its glories that Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, was a member of this tribe, and could describe himself as "an Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin." W. G. B. In the description of the lots of Judah and Benjamin, an account is given both of the limits by which they were bounded and of the cities contained in them. In that of Ephraim and Manasseh the boundaries are given, but not the cities. In this chapter Simeon and Dan are described by their cities only, and not by their borders, because they were small and the former lay within the limits of another tribe. The rest have both their borders described, and their cities named. Bush. 19:1-9. The Inheritance of Simeon. This was included within the limits of Judah, and is elsewhere seldom or never spoken of as a distinct district. In this arrangement the providence of God is to be especially noted, as Jacob, in the spirit of prophecy, had foretold that Simeon and Levi should be "divided in Jacob," and "scattered in Israel." This was accordingly most literally fulfilled in the manner in which these tribes were now disposed of. Levi was "scattered" throughout all the land not having received any distinct inheritance, but only certain "cities to dwell in;" and Simeon, as we here learn, was "divided" or dispersed over the territories of Judah instead of having one of their own. This arrangement brought them into confederacy with the tribe of Judah (Jn. 1:3), and afterward was the occasion of the adherence of many of this tribe to the house of David at the time of the revolt of the ten tribes. Bush. 10-39. The four tribes of Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, and Naphtali obtain contiguous portions in the north of Palestine, as they were allied in birth, and as they marched through the desert. The forests of Lebanon, the fertility of the plain of Esdraelon, the port of Accho, figure in the blessings pronounced upon them. But, with the exception of the transient splendor of the days of Barak and of Gideon, they hardly affect the general fortunes of the nation. Stanley. To Zebulun was allotted the hill country bordering on the great plain of Esdraelon from the sea-coast to the Sea of Galilee. Issachar received for his inheritance the fertile plain of Esdraelon, with the beautiful valley of Jezreel; here, on the highway of the armies of Egypt and Assyria, the great battle-field of Palestine, he was to lead a nomad life, dwelling "in tents," but at the same time he was equally with Zebulun to suck of the abundance of the seas and of treasures hid in the sand. To Asher was assigned the sea-coast from Carmel to Sidon, with the plain of Phœnicia and the low hills on its western border—one of the richest tracts in Palestine, well fulfilling the promise made in the blessing of Jacob, that his "bread" should be "fat," and that he should yield "royal dainties;" and in that of Moses, that he should be "blessed with children," and "dip his feet in oil," and that his "shoes" should be "iron and brass." To Naphtali fell the broad elevated tract lying between Asher and the Jordan, which may still be described in the words of Josephus as "universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation by its fruitfulness"—a land in which Naphtali was to be "satisfied with favor, and full with the blessing of the Lord." Wilson. Phœnicia was never conquered, and no one can help being struck by the peculiar relations that existed between the Israelites and their northern neighbors. In Ju. 1:31, we are told that Asher did not drive out "the inhabitants of Accho, nor of Zidon, Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, nor of Rehob;" and in verse 32, that the Asherites "dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land." Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Bethshemesh and Beth-anath, but "he dwelt among the Canaanites;" nevertheless, the inhabitants of these towns became tributaries to him, and in the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, whose husband was "a man of Tyre, a worker in brass" (1 K. 7:14), we have an indication that mixed marriages were not uncommon. There is no trace of any great war between the Israelites and the Phœnicians, and it is not unlikely that a considerable portion of the northern tribes settled down as fellow-citizens among the people of Tyre, Sidon, and other Phœnician cities. Wilson.—It was to Zarephath, one of the towns of Phœnicia, that Elijah was sent, in the time of a great famine, to bring life and sustenance to the Syro-phœnician widow and her son; and it was somewhere within the borders of this territory that another Syro-phœnician woman once came, seeking a greater prophet than Elijah, and, after a memorable exhibition of faith, went home rejoicing, her afflicted daughter having been made whole. W. G. B. 40-48. The last of the tribes that received its due was Dan, the smallest of all, at times overlooked, and in the last catalogue of the tribes that appears in the Sacred Volume (Rev.), dropped out altogether. It was squeezed into the narrow strip between the mountains and the sea, in the plain already occupied by the expelled races. Sanley.—Dan, though commander of one of the four squadrons of the camp of Israel in the wilderness, that which brought up the rear, yet was last provided for in Canaan, and his lot fell in the southern part of Canaan, between Judah on the east and the land of the Philistines on the west; Ephraim on the north and Simeon on the south. H. 47. The meaning is that the Danites, being closely pressed upon by their powerful neighbors the Philistines, were forced in considerable numbers to abandon their allotted possessions. In consequence of having their original portion thus wrested out of their hands, they were induced to seek another in a distant quarter of the land, and made an inroad accordingly upon Leshem, lying at the foot of Mount Lebanon and near the sources of the river Jordan. This event, which occurred some time after the death of Joshua, and is more fully recorded (Jn. 18:1-29), is touched upon here both to complete what is said of the inheritance of the Danites, and to intimate how it happened that a part of the tribe were afterward found inhabiting a district of the country so remote from their original possessions. This addition to the narrative was perhaps made by Phineas. Bush.—The children of Dan fought against, and took Leshem, a city not far from Jordan, called Laish in the Book of Judges; in aftertimes Cæsarea Philippi. They dwelt therein, or remained in undisturbed possession of it, and gave it the name of Dan; all this was done after Joshua's death, and is related more largely in the Book of Judges (ch. 18). Shuckford. To the tribe of Judah there fell a country abounding with vines and pasture grounds (Gen. 49:11), to that of Ashur, one plenteous in oil, iron and brass (De. 33:24), to that of Naphtali, one extending from the west to the south of Judea (De. 30:23), to that of Benjamin, one in which the temple was afterward built (De. 33:12), to that of Zebulun, a country abounding in seaports (Gen. 49:13), to those of Ephraim and Manasseh, countries renowned for their precious fruits (De. 33:14), and to those of Simeon and Levi no particular countries at all, forasmuch as the former had a portion with Judah, and the latter was dispersed through the several tribes. Since, therefore, each particular lot answered so exactly to each prediction, we are supplied with the most indisputable proof that there was divine inspiration in these predictions, and divine direction in the distribution of the lots. Stackhouse. The ultimate location of all the tribes in their own cities and territory was an event of profound significance, worthy to be long remembered. A great people, four hundred years oppressed in Egypt, forty years wandering homeless in the deserts of Arabia, full seven years up to this date in the conquest of Canaan, and therefore unsettled—in a state of war, living in camp: but now they fold up their tents and make their permanent homes in cities already built; in houses constructed, not to say, furnished ready to their hand. Around them are lands under tillage, fruit trees in bearing condition, everything prepared for living with all the comforts of Oriental life. H. C. The division of the land was carried out, so that not merely the limits of the tribal territories were fixed, but inside these also the districts of the families. Thus the life of tribe and family remained the basis of civil society. This certainly fostered a disposition to maintain the interests of the tribes at the cost of the national cause, in times when there was no powerful central authority, and every one did what seemed right to him; but it also insured the propagation of the faith and customs of the fathers within the family circle, when declensions began to grow frequent. Thus the "good land" was won, where, on the basis of a life of husbandry requiring regular industry, the people were to be matured for the fulfilment of their destiny in quiet and retirement. O. Lowman has given three different estimates of the extent of territory occupied by the twelve tribes; the mean between the two extremes approaches probably the nearest to the truth. According to this computation, the Jewish dominion, at the time of the division, was 180 miles long by 130 wide, and contained 14,976,000 acres. "This quantity of land will divide to 600,000 men, about 2½ acres in property, with a remainder of 1,976,000 acres for the Levitical cities, the princes of tribes, the heads of families, and other public uses." Assuming this estate of 21½ acres assigned to each household, of course a larger proportion of pasture must have been given to those tribes who subsisted on their herds and flocks, than of arable to those who lived by tillage; the portions of the latter, therefore, must be considerably reduced. On the other hand, the extraordinary fertility of the whole country must be taken into the account. No part was waste; very little was occupied by unprofitable wood; the more fertile hills were cultivated in artificial terraces, others were hung with orchards of fruit-trees; the more rocky and barren districts were covered with vineyards. Even in the present day, the wars and misgovernment of ages have not exhausted the natural richness of the soil. Galilee, says Malté Brun, would be a paradise were it inhabited by an industrious people, under an enlightened government. No land could be less dependent on foreign importation; it bore within itself everything that could be necessary for the subsistence and comfort of a simple agricultural people. The climate was healthy, the seasons regular; the former rains, which fell about October, after the vintage, prepared the ground for the seed; the latter, which prevailed during March and the beginning of April, made it grow rapidly. Directly the rains ceased, the grain ripened with still greater rapidity, and was gathered in before the end of May. The summer months were dry and very hot, but the nights cool and refreshed by copious dews. In September, the vintage was gathered. Grain of all kinds, wheat, barley, millet, zea, and other sorts, grew in abundance; the wheat commonly yielded thirty for one. Besides the vine and the olive, the almond, the date, figs of many kinds, the orange, the pomegranate, and many other fruit-trees, flourished in the greatest luxuriance. With a country under a delicious climate, where the corn-fields, the pastures, the vineyards, and olive-grounds vied with each other in fertility; perfect freedom and equality; a mild and parental government, the administration of justice by local authorities according to a written law; national festivals tending to promote national union;—had the people duly appreciated the blessings attached to the strict and permanent observance of their constitution, poets might have found their golden age in the plains of Galilee and the valleys of Judea. The assignment of the different estates seems to have been left to the local government of each tribe. Certain distinguished persons, as Joshua and Caleb, received grants of land larger than ordinary; but the whole land was subject to the common law of property. The great principle of this law was the inalienability of estates. Houses in walled towns might be sold in perpetuity, if unredeemed within the year; land only for a limited period. At the Jubilee, every estate reverted, without repurchase, to the original proprietor. Even during this period it might be redeemed, should the proprietor become rich enough, at the value which the estate would produce during the years unelapsed before the jubilee. This remarkable agrarian law secured the political equality of the people, and anticipated all the mischiefs so fatal to the early republics of Greece and Italy, the appropriation of the whole territory of the state by a rich and powerful landed oligarchy, with the consequent convulsions of the community from the deadly struggle between the patrician and plebeian orders. In the Hebrew state, the improvident individual might reduce himself and his family to penury or servitude, but he could not perpetuate a race of slaves or paupers. Every fifty years God, the King and Lord of the soil, as it were resumed the whole territory, and granted it back in the same portions to the descendants of the original possessors. It is curious to observe in this earliest practical Utopia the realization of Machiavelli's great maxim, the constant renovation of the state according to the first principles of its constitution. Milman. On the conquest of Canaan, it was divided into twelve parts, which were assigned by lot to the different tribes. Thus the Hebrew state was a confederacy of twelve small provinces, like the Swiss cantons. The territory of each was then subdivided, so that a portion of land was assigned to every family. This gave to every man a fixed and permanent home. Each tribe was marched to its new possession, every family entered on its humble estate, and Israel began its national existence. This determined the occupations of the people. By planting every father of a family upon a plot of ground which he was to cultivate, Moses formed a nation of farmers—the best citizens for a free Commonwealth. The miracle was as great as if immense hordes of wandering Bedaween were instantly transformed into quiet husbandmen. Agriculture, keeping all the inhabitants at home, promotes patriotism and attachment to the national religion. Farmers are the strength of a state, for they are generally both peaceful citizens and brave warriors. A small state is never so invincible as when all its citizens are independent freeholders. Then every man has an interest rooted in the soil. He fights for his country because he fights for his home. At the beginning the Hebrew state presented the remarkable spectacle of two millions and a half of people, all equal in rank, and very nearly so in condition. This fact is the more surprising when contrasted with the monstrous inequalities which prevailed in other Oriental countries. Indeed, a parallel to this it would not be possible to find in the most democratic modern state. Field. It cannot be disputed that the Israelites, after having been enslaved for centuries in Egypt, escaped by their unaided efforts from the strongest government in the world, crossed the sea, lived long in the peninsula of Sinai, and suddenly acquiring a warlike character, scattered the powerful armies of the confederate princes that opposed their entrance into Canaan. It cannot be disputed that they set up a remarkable civil and religious polity with laws and rites of a unique character, and that their whole institutions, civil and sacred, which lasted fifteen hundred years, sprang out of their history as it is recorded by Moses and Joshua. Can these facts be accounted for without the supernatural? Is it not true that of all things incredulity is the most credulous, and rationalism the most irrational? W. G. B. CALEB'S REQUEST FOR THE INHERITANCE PROMISED BY MOSES; JOSHUA'S GIFT IN FULFILMENT; CALEB'S CONQUEST OF HEBRON AND DEBIR; ACHSAH'S PETITION GRANTED BY CALEB. INHERITANCE OF JOSHUA. CITIES OF REFUGE ASSIGNED. THIRTEEN PRIESTLY CITIES. FORTY-EIGHT CITIES OF LEVITES. CONCLUDING STATEMENT. 13 1 Now Joshua was old and well stricken in years ; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and well stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. 2 This is the land that yet remaineth : all the regions of the Philistines, and all the Geshurites ; 3 from the Shihor, which is before Egypt, even unto the border of Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanites : the five lords of the Philistines ; the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, 4 the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites ; also the Avvim, on the south : all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that belongeth to the Zidonians, unto Aphek, to the border of 5 the Amorites : and the land of the Gebalites, and all Lebahon, toward the sunrising, from 6 Baal-gad under mount Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath : all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, even all the Zidonians ; them will I drive out from before the children of Israel : only allot thou it unto Israel for an inheritance, as I have 7 commanded thee. Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes, and the half tribe of Manasseh. 14 1 And these are the inheritances which the children of Israel took in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the 2 tribes of the children of Israel, distributed unto them, by the lot of their inheritance, as the 3 LORD commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes, and for the half tribe. For Moses had given the inheritance of the two tribes and the half tribe beyond Jordan : but unto the 4 Levites he gave none inheritance among them. For the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim : and they gave no portion unto the Levites in the land, save cities to 5 dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for their cattle and for their substance. As the LORD commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did, and they divided the land. 15 : 1-12, 20-63. The inheritance of Judah. 16 : 1-10 ; 17 : 1-11. The inheritance of Ephraim and Manasseh. 17 12 Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities ; but 13 the Canaanites would dwell in that land. And it came to pass, when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the Canaanites to task work, and did not utterly drive them out. 14 And the children of Joseph spake unto Joshua, saying, Why hast thou given me but one lot and one part for an inheritance, seeing I am a great people, forasmuch as hitherto the LORD 15 hath blessed me? And Joshua said unto them, If thou be a great people, get thee up to the forest, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim ; since 16 the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for thee. And the children of Joseph said, The hill country is not enough for us : and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are in Bethshean and her towns, and they who are in the valley 17 of Jezreel. And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and to Manasseh, 18 saying, Thou art a great people, and hast great power : thou shalt not have one lot only : but the hill country shall be thine ; for though it is a forest, thou shalt cut it down, and the goings out thereof shall be thine : for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they be strong. 18 1 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together 2 at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there : and the land was subdued before them. And there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes, which had not yet divided their in- 3 heritance. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go in to 4 possess the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, hath given you? Appoint for you three men for each tribe : and I will send them, and they shall arise, and walk through the 5 land, and describe it according to their inheritance ; and they shall come unto me. And they shall divide it into seven portions : Judah shall abide in his border on the south, and the house 6 of Joseph shall abide in their border on the north. And ye shall describe the land into seven portions, and bring the description hither to me : and I will cast lots for you here before the 7 LORD our God. For the Levites have no portion among you ; for the priesthood of the LORD is their inheritance : and Gad and Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh have received their 8 inheritance beyond Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave them. And the men arose, and went : and Joshua charged them that went to describe the land, saying, Go and walk through the land, and describe it, and come again to me, and I will cast lots for you 9 here before the LORD in Shiloh. And the men went and passed through the land, and de- scribed it by cities into seven portions in a book, and they came to Joshua unto the camp at 10 Shiloh. And Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the LORD : and there Joshua divided the land unto the children of Israel according to their divisions. 18 : 11-28 ; 19 : 1-48. Inheritances of Benjamin, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naph- tali, and Dan. 49. So they made an end of distributing the land for inheritance by the borders thereof ; 51. These are the inheritances, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel, distributed for inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the LORD, at the door of the tent of meeting. So they made an end of dividing the land. The conquest of Canaan by Joshua was suffi- ciently complete to permit the distribution of the territory among the tribes of Israel, and its general occupation accordingly. The assign- ment to each tribe of its portion of the territory was made, as a rule, by lot ; and it is remarkable how well the condition of the several tribes, in its district thus assigned, answered to the con- dition predicted of it, many years before, by the dying Moses, and even to the condition predicted of it hundreds of years before in Egypt by the dying Jacob. N. C. B.—The Book of Joshua is the Domesday Book of Palestine, not only describing, with the fulness of a govern- ment survey, the various tribal boundaries throughout the land, but containing long lists of the towns and villages allotted to each tribe, in the order, as recent research has shown, of their geographical position. Porter. The conquest of Palestine, so far as it required the united forces of all Israel, was over; what remained to be done, in putting down risings, in consolidating what had been won, and in capturing isolated and still unconquered cities, was left for the most part to the energy of the tribe to which the territory in question was assigned. The warlike half of Joshua's great task was accomplished: the peaceful work of dividing the territory between the victorious tribes remained. The second half of the Book of Joshua—chapters 13-22—the Domesday Book of Palestine, is mainly taken up with details of the distribution. These are no less honorable to the man who carried them out than the details of the campaign which rendered them possible. Plummer. 13:1. Now Joshua was old. To what age he was now advanced we cannot certainly know, because we do not know his age when he came out of Egypt. If he was then forty-three, he was eighty-three when they came into Canaan; and now he wanted not much of a hundred. Patrick. 3. When the Israelites arrived, the Philistines were in full possession of the Shephelah, or maritime plain, from the "river of Egypt" in the south to Ekron in the north, and had formed a confederacy of five powerful cities—Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. The interval that elapsed between Abraham and the Exodus seems sufficient to allow for the alteration that took place in the position of the Philistines, and their transformation from a pastoral tribe to a settled and powerful nation. P. S. 5. The notices in the Bible lead us to search for Baal-gad in the direction and neighborhood of Baalbek. In the valley of Lebanon, under Hermon, and the entrance into Hamath: these are the geographical indications. Let any one ride from Baalbek northward to Lebweh or 'Ain, or, better still, to Kamâa Hermel, and look off toward Hamath, and he will be struck with the propriety of the phrase, entrance into Hamath. From his standpoint the valley of the Bak'ah opens out like a vast fan on to the great plain of northern Syria, and he is at the gate of the kingdom. Baalbek being, therefore, in the neighborhood where we must look for Baal gad, there seems to be no good reason to doubt their identity, for there is no rival to dispute the honor of the name and site. The remains at Baalbek are adequate to meet the demands of any history, and some of them may claim an antiquity equal to anything that even Egypt can boast. Thompson. 6. It should be always remembered that the promise made by God, of driving out the old inhabitants ("Them will I drive out," verse 6), was conditional, and depended on the adherence of the Israelites to his worship and service. Accordingly, in consequence of their flagrant and repeated disobedience, they only partially deserved the fulfilment of the promise. We do not read that the Sidonians (verse 6) were ever conquered by the Israelites, and the people of Lebanon were not made tributary till the days of David and Solomon. Patrick.—Joshua actually did all that it was promised he should do. God never said that he should conquer all the land, but simply that he should bring Israel into it, and divide it among them, both which he did, and procured them footing by his conquests sufficient to have enabled them to establish themselves in it forever. Their failure to do so was owing wholly to themselves. 7. Dividing the land by lot was the readiest way of satisfying all parties, and preventing discontent and discord. The several allotments are here very minutely detailed in order that litigation growing out of disputed boundaries might ever after be prevented. When the limits of each tribe were so clearly settled there could be little room for contending claims; or if there were, an authentic register of the lot of each tribe would be at hand to be appealed to for a decision, and there is no doubt that it was often made use of in after ages for this purpose. The reading of this account by succeeding generations would tend to excite a deep impression of the goodness of God in bestowing upon their ancestors for the benefit of their posterity, such a large and fertile country, an inheritance so replete with all worldly blessings. Bush. Ch. 13: 8-33. 8-13. These verses comprise a general description of the whole country east of Jordan given to the two tribes and a half. The remainder of the chapter is occupied with a detailed account of the several districts allotted to each. Bush. Chs. 14-19. 14: 1-5. These verses comprise a general introduction to the six chapters. The division of the land among the nine and a half tribes was, in strict accordance with Divine direction (Nu. 26: 52-56; 33: 54; 34: 2-29), made by Eleazar, Joshua, and one representative from each of the ten tribes. It was decided by the "lot," which probably, however, only determined the situation of each inheritance, whether north or south, inland or by the seashore, not its extent and precise boundaries. These would depend upon the size of each tribe. In point of fact, the original arrangements had in some cases to be afterward modified, not as to tribal localization which was unalterably fixed by the Divine lot, but as to extent of territory. Thus Judah had to give up part of its possession to Simeon (19 : 9), while Dan, whose portion proved too small, obtained certain cities both from Judah and from Ephraim. A. E. 2. The sacred lot was employed at the division of the tribal territories, to discover the guilty one who had brought a curse on the people (Josh. 7), and in 1 S. 10 : 20 f., at the king's election. These methods of inquiring into the Divine will retire into the background the more prophecy becomes prominent. O.—This distribution by lot was overruled by a special providence, so as to correspond with the inspired predictions of Jacob and Moses respecting the allotment of each tribe. The fact is unquestionable, that the tribes found themselves placed by lot in the very sections of the country which Jacob had foretold two hundred and fifty years before, and Moses shortly before his death (comp. Gen. 49 and De. 33). To Judah fell a country abounding in vineyards and pastures; to Zebulun, sea-coasts; to Issachar, a rich plain between ranges of mountains; to Asher, one abounding in plenty of oil, wheat, and metals; and so of the others. Bush. Chs. 15-17. Judah and Joseph, as the two great tribes, dividing the birthright between them, had the land first divided between them, their general outlines being given. Afterward the other tribes are arranged, modifying the first division. The lot probably gave only general indications, while the commissioners made the special allotments, according to circumstances. Crosby. The tribe of Judah was powerful in consequence of its numbers, and now received such natural frontiers as to form, on the south, a rampart of protection to the whole of Israel against the enemy. Therefore its boundaries went from the south end of the Salt Sea westward to where Sihor empties itself into the Mediterranean; its eastern limits, from the south end of the Salt Sea to the point where it receives the waters of the Jordan; its northern, from thence over Mount Zion, by Timnah and the brook Sorek, to the sea which bounds it on the west. C. G. B.—The lot of Judah as here marked out was bounded on the south by the wilderness of Sin and the southern coast of the Salt Sea; on the east by that sea, reaching to the place at which it receives the waters of the Jordan; on the north by a line drawn nearly parallel to Jerusalem across from the northern extremity of the Salt Sea to the south boundary of the Philistines and to the Mediterranean Sea; which sea was its western boundary as far as the river of Egypt. Joshua is particular in giving the limits of this tribe, as being the first, the most numerous, the most important, that which was to furnish the kings of Judea, that in which pure religion was to be preserved, and that from which the Messiah was to spring. As this portion, however, contained nearly half the southern part of Canaan, it was afterward found too extensive, and the possessions of Simeon and Dan were taken out of it. Bush.—In travelling over these places one begins early to perceive that not only is the geography and scenery of Palestine "a fifth gospel," but it is a second Pentateuch, Book of Joshua, and Kings. The feeling deepened at every step of the journey. S. C. B. 20. This is the preface to the list of principal towns of Judah, which follow in four sections: those in the Negeb (the technical "South" of Judah); those in the Shephelah (the fertile plain on the coast); those in the Mountain country, and those in the Wilderness west of the Dead Sea. Crosby. # Natural or Physical Characteristics of Judah's Inheritance. First, the Negeb or "South" country extends along the whole southern frontier from east to west. It is an irregularly shaped tract, extending from the mountains of Judah on the north to the edge of the Desert of Paran, and from the south end of the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean; but stretching in a sloping direction toward the northeast to the Dead Sea, and to the southwest to El Arish, thus occupying a middle position, both topographically and physically, between the rich soil of central Canaan and the sandy wastes of that great and terrible wilderness. The south differs from the hill country of Judah to the north of it, not merely so much in being pastoral instead of cultivated, for its whole extent yields proof of very extensive though not universal cultivation in former times; nor in its being less hilly, for it has but few plains of any extent; but in its deep ravines, torn and rent by winter torrents, "the streams of the south" of Ps 126 : 4. These torrents, quite dry in summer, cut down steep cliffs into narrow gullies by their violence in winter. On the west side they drain toward the Arish and Philistia, on the east toward the Dead Sea, none running south into Paran or the Wilderness. The wide central expanse is now a sort of upland wilderness, a series of rolling hills, with scanty herbage more abundant on their northern slopes, but without a tree or a bush more than three feet high. The words of Dr. Robinson, about Zephath or Hormah, may be applied to every city of the Negeb :—"Once, as we judged upon the spot, this must have been a city of not less than 10,000 or 12,000 inhabitants. Now it is a perfect field of ruins, a scene of unutterable desolation, across which the passing stranger can with difficulty find his way." A mighty spell seems to rest upon the cities of the south. We turn to the word of prophecy, and we read, "The cities of the south (Negeb) shall be shut up, and none shall open them : Judah shall be carried away captive, all of it : it shall be wholly carried away captive" (Jer. 13 : 19). The second physical division of the allotment of Joshua was the Shephelah, or low country, translated generally in our version as "the valley" (Josh. 15 : 33), and sometimes "the plain." It comprises the low lying flat country, whether desert or corn-growing, which intervenes between the central backbone of hills extending from north to south and the sea. The expression, though equally applicable to all the coast plains of Palestine, is generally confined to those of Philistia and Sharon, which are limited northward by the bold projecting spur of Carmel ; while the next plain, that of Acre, is similarly cut off by the precipitous Ladder of Tyre from the Plain of Phœnicia. This region in the allotment of the tribes fell principally to Judah, in the south of whose portion were several towns assigned to Simeon ; while the northern part, better known as the Plain of Sharon, was the rich but narrow heritage of Dan. Practically, however, the more important and valuable part of this vast corn-plain was never conquered till after the monarchy, and remained in the possession of the Philistines, who were often the terror and the scourge of Israel. There is no natural boundary line between Philistia and Sharon. The plain stretches with scarce an undulation, but with very varying depth inland, from the southern frontiers of the Desert of Gaza to the foot of Carmel. The descent from the Negeb, or south land, to the low country is gentle and insensible on its southern limit, but much more steep and clearly defined from the hill country of Judah on the east. From the low country of the coast we now turn eastward to the third physical division of the territory of Judah, recognized constantly in Holy Writ as "the mountains," or the "Hill country." The line of demarcation between it and "the south country" is very easily recognized, though they blend into each other. The great pasture district of the south melts into the hill country a few miles to the south of Hebron. The northern part of the "Negeb" presents the appearance of a long series of gently-rolling downs, wide shallow valleys, and broad rounded ridges. But a few hours before reaching Hebron the valleys become narrower and steeper, the hill tops are sharper, the ridges are full of caves, natural or artificial—the dwellings of the Horites, or Cave-men, in olden times ; and when we reach Debir we can fully understand the petition of Achsah to her father Caleb : "Give me a blessing ; for thou hast given me a south land : give me also springs of water" (Ju. 1 : 15), as we see the springs gushing forth from the rocky side of the valley, and feel we are no longer in a "south land." Here the ruins of the cities of Judah begin to crowd upon us. Almost every hill-top is marked by the groups of deserted dwellings—not grass-grown, like those of the south, but with walls and narrow streets, bare and barren. Every name recalls some incident in the life of the Bethlehemite—Jattir, Lebaoth, Eshtemoa, Maon, Carmel, Ziph—scarcely altered in the Arabic vernacular from the old Hebrew. The register of Joshua (verses 21-62) gives thirty-eight cities in the hill country of Judah, divided into five topographical groups ; and even among these are omitted some of future distinction, as Bethlehem and Tekoa. But it is impossible to wander among these hills without perceiving that the expression, "her towns," applied in the enumeration to many of the cities, was no mere figure of speech. The groups of ruins, "the desolate heaps" of Judah, far outnumber any catalogue of her cities that has come down to us. There are no streams, but many springs, and wells innumerable. The hill country culminates at Hebron, but it slopes very little either east or west, forming throughout its whole extent a rugged plateau from Philistia to the Dead Sea ; and its deep dells, or wadys, are scarcely seen till we are upon them. They run for the most part east and west from the central ridge, and add immensely to the natural strength of the district, every nook of which is almost a natural fortress, independently of the cities whose ruins crown every brow, where once "the Lion of Judah" crouched secure. The wells are sunk in hill and vale alike; and all the hill-sides, ribbed with their parallel lines of terrace, once covered with gardens, vineyards, and fig-trees, attest the indefatigable industry no less than the dense population of its ancient inhabitants. But the position of the towns and the character of the ruins are so constantly alike, that it is in vain to attempt separate descriptions for each, save in very few instances. Tristram. The Wilderness is the district stretching along the western shore of the Dead Sea in which David took refuge for some time when pursued by Saul; it is a dreary waste of bare hills cut up by innumerable water-courses, uncultivated, and bearing no traces of former occupation. Wilson. The tribe of Joseph had the centre of the land across from Jordan to the Mediterranean. Ephraim lay north of Judah; but between them were the districts afterward allotted to Benjamin and Dan. Besides the sacred valley of Shechem, it included some of the finest parts of Palestine, the mountains of Ephraim, and the great and fertile maritime plain of Sharon, proverbial for its roses. P. S.—16 : 1-4. The descendants of Joseph received two shares of the inheritance. As closely allied tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh received each many towns situated in the territory of the other. C. G. B.—The central hill country of Palestine is often spoken of as "Mount Ephraim," an expression which comprises all the hilly region from within a few miles north of Jerusalem at Bethel, as far as the Plain of Esdraelon, including, therefore, the whole of the west allotment of Manasseh. Mount Ephraim was to the northern country what the hill country of Judah was to the southern—the backbone, centre, and strength of the nation. Like the hill country of Judah, and unlike the possessions of the northern tribes by Esdraelon, or the western ones by the coast, it was inaccessible to invaders, who were not prepared for the risks of mountain defiles and the storming of hill forts. Its military topography is such, that it is defensible at every turn, and nothing but a panic could disorganize the defence of such a region. Thus the tribe of Manasseh was charged by the High Priest "to keep the passages of the hill country, for by them there was an entrance into Judea; and it was easy to stop them that would come up, because the passage was strait for two men at the most" (Judith 4 : 7). Tristram. Shechem, famous in the days of Abraham and Jacob, and which Joshua may be said to have made the civil capital of the country, was situated in the tribe of Ephraim. So was Shiloh, the first ecclesiastical capital, where the ark was solemnly placed, at the end of Joshua's wars. So also was Samaria, which became, under Omri, the capital of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Joshua himself was a man of Ephraim, and must have given no small importance to the tribe. Gideon, one of the most noble of the judges, with his seventy princely brothers, was a native of the adjacent tribe of Manasseh. "The mountain," or mountainous part, "of Ephraim," was frequently the rallying-place for the nation, where the appointed deliverers raised the standard of resistance to their oppressors. Deborah, though herself apparently of the northern tribes, dwelt between Ramah and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim; Tola of Issachar judged Israel in Shamir, in the same mount; Samuel was of Ramah. W. G. B.—Of the southern tribes, the most powerful was Judah; of the northern, Ephraim; whence originated a jealousy between the two, which broke out early, and laid the foundation of that fatal schism which took place on the death of Solomon, by the revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam an Ephraimite. Hales. 17 : 2. In 16 : 1 the revision reads, "And the lot for the children of Joseph went out from the Jordan," etc., connecting the verb with the locality, whereas the meaning is that "the lot came out [from the urn or receptacle of the lots] for the children of Joseph," etc. So in the second verse of this seventeenth chapter the revision reads, "And the lot was for the rest of Manasseh," as if this was a new statement in addition to what preceded, whereas it is a mere resumption of what has gone before. The Appendix therefore reads, "So the lot was for the rest," etc. Chambers. 17 : 12. The children of Manasseh could not drive out. They could not drive them out through want of faith in God, and of zeal to perform his commands. Here the fountain of all the evils which afterward befell the Israelites begins to be opened, in that, either through sloth or covetousness or distrust of God's power, they did not attempt to drive out those people that were stronger than ordinary; or through want of faith in God, failed in the attempt. Patrick.—The Canaanites would dwell in that land. Heb. "willed to dwell." A very remarkable expression, indicative of the obstinate determination of the Canaanites to retain possession of the country, and carrying with it a severe reflection upon the supineness, cowardice, and unbelief of the Israelites. Bush. 13. They put the Canaanites to tribute.** Herein they offended against the Divine command (De. 20 : 16, 17), by which they were peremptorily directed to destroy the Canaanites when they were able. In thus putting them to tribute, they were probably influenced by motives of indolence and gain. Patrick.—This early degree of sloth and worldly-mindedness, afterward displayed in other instances, laid the foundation of all the ensuing calamities which befell the people. Pyle.—Any conformity to the heathen around, or tolerance of heathenism, any decay of the spirit in which they had entered the land, would result not only in weakness, but in the triumph of the enemy. And so it was intended of the Lord. The lesson of all this is obvious and important. To us also has our Joshua given entrance into Canaan, and victory over our enemies—the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have present possession of the land. But we do not yet hold all its cities, nor are our enemies exterminated. It needs on our part constant faith; there must be no compromise with the enemy, no tolerance of his spirit, no cessation of our warfare. Only that which at first gave us the land can complete and consolidate our possession of it. A. E. Complaint of Ephraim and Manasseh. 14-18. The children of Joseph, that is, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, complain to Joshua of the narrowness of their allotment, which was increased by the Canaanites still retaining so large a portion of it. Joshua, though a descendant himself of Joseph, remained perfectly impartial; and told them they must enlarge the country by their valor, by driving out their enemies from the woody and mountainous parts, and thus making them habitable for themselves. Pyle.—One lot and one only should they have in the general apportionment. If they wanted more they must conquer it for themselves. They grounded their claim on being “a great people,” having “great power.” Well, then, let them prove it by great deeds. There was room enough for them in “the wood country;” let them get them up there and clear away the forest, and drive out the Perizzites and the giants, if Mount Ephraim were too narrow for them. So they might obtain a second portion, and not have “one lot only.” E. V. Many wish for larger possessions, who do not cultivate and make the best of what they have, think they should have more talents given them, who do not trade with those with which they are intrusted. Most people’s poverty is the effect of their idleness; would they dig, they need not beg. He bids them fight for more (verses 17, 18), when they pleaded that they could not come at the wood-lands he spoke of, because in the valley between them and it there were Canaanites whom they durst not enter the lists with. “Never fear them,” said Joshua, “thou hast God on thy side, and thou shalt drive out the Canaanites if thou wilt set about it in good earnest, though they have iron chariots.” We straiten ourselves by apprehending the difficulties in the way of our enlargement to be greater than they are. H. The attitude of the children of Joseph throughout the history of the twelve tribes is in precise accordance with the hint given here. They were proud of their numerical preponderance over the remaining tribes. Thus they, and they only, ventured to remonstrate with Joshua about the inadequacy of the portion allotted to them. Such a sensitiveness was likely to degenerate into insolence when the authority of the great leader was removed. And the history of Gideon and of Jephthah shows that this was actually the case. Here, again, we have a sign of that deep undercurrent of consistency which underlies our history, and is a guarantee of its authenticity. Lias. These tribes had plenty of power, plenty of stalwart men to clear the waste or conquer their enemies; but they had not moral force to match. They want to dominate, without paying the price of lordship in daring and willingness to encounter difficulty and hardship. Glover.—For the Church, too, conquest is the condition of security and of continuance. Pressed on every hand by a hostile world, it must be ever in an attitude of active defence and advance. Every new generation needs to be won afresh for Jesus Christ. The Church cannot even hold its own without ever fresh conquests. De P. THE TABERNACLE (“Tent of Meeting”) SET UP AT SHILOH. When the two great tribes of Judah and Joseph had been located, the one taking the south and the other the middle portion of the country, there seems to have been a pause in the work of distribution. We have no direct statement of the reason, nor are we told how long the interval was between the dividing of the land to the two tribes at Gilgal and the dividing of the land to the seven tribes at Shiloh. Crosby. 18:1. And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled at Shiloh. This was the first assembly or diet of the people, held for important consultation; therefore the expression is not, "the children of Israel," but "the whole congregation of the children of Israel." The encampment was moved from Gilgal to Shiloh, and the tabernacle set up. C. G. B. (See maps, pp. 86, 110.) The situation of Shiloh was central to the whole country, and probably this fact determined its selection. The able-bodied men of the nation being required three times a year to leave their homes and journey to the place of the sanctuary, for the celebration of the national religious festivals, convenience of location became an important consideration. Shiloh was in the midst of the hills of Ephraim, about half way between Bethel on the south and Shechem on the north. It continued the religious capital for three hundred years, or until the time of old Eli and young Samuel, when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines. N. C. B.—Shiloh was situated in the tribe of Ephraim, in the very centre of Canaan, about twenty miles north of Jerusalem. It was therefore the most convenient location for all the tribes, and as Joshua was himself of the tribe of Ephraim, he, as chief magistrate of the nation, would always have a ready access to the sanctuary when the God of Israel was to be consulted. -Bush.—The central position of Shiloh was combined with a rare degree of seclusion. Standing in the very heart of the land, a little to the "east of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem," Shiloh, on its gentle eminence, yet surrounded by loftier hills, was shut out from the world. A labyrinth of valleys leads up to it and off from it, so intricate as to render the services of a guide quite indispensable to the modern traveller. N. C. B. (Sec. 232.) The ruined village Seilún is the site of Shiloh, where the Ark first rested after the capture of Ai and Jericho, and where Joshua divided the newly-conquered land of Canaan among the twelve tribes. The position of Shiloh is accurately defined in the Book of Judges (21:19) to be on the north of Bethel, on the south of Lebonah, and on the east of the highway that goeth from Bethel to Shechem. There is very little to mark the site now but ruins and a curious excavation in the rock in the side of the hill. In a little valley about half a mile from the ruins are the spring and well of Shiloh, where the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance at their periodical festival (Ju. 21). Tent Work. INHERITANCE OF SEVEN TRIBES: BENJAMIN, SIMEON, ZEBULUN, ISSACHAR, ASHER, NAPHTALI, AND DAN. 18:2-10. Twenty-one delegated commissioners survey the remaining land and divide it into seven portions. By Lot Joshua assigns a portion to each of the seven tribes. Joshua solemnly admonished the assembled people as to their "slackness" in taking possession of the land which Jehovah had given them. To terminate further jealousies, he asked the people to choose three representatives from each of the seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been allotted. These were to "go through the land and describe it," that is, to make a general estimate and valuation, rather than an accurate survey, "with reference to their inheritance," that is, in view of their inheriting the land. After their return to Shiloh these twenty-one delegates were to divide the land into seven portions, when the lot would assign to each tribe the place of its inheritance. A. E.—The surveying party, instead of mapping out the country by its natural boundaries (rivers or mountain ranges) or by lines of latitude and longitude, described it by cities and their adjacent villages. The whole was thus divided into seven parts, and these parts assigned to the seven tribes by lot. As Judah and Ephraim were found to have a disproportionate share, Benjamin's allotment was taken from theirs, and also the allotment for Simeon was cut from the southwestern portion of Judah. H. C. Inheritance of Benjamin. 11. Between the children of Judah and the children of Joseph (33:12). The prediction of Moses in regard to the lot of Benjamin was remarkably fulfilled. Bush.—The warlike little band of Benjamites, which had marched in the desert side by side with the mighty sons of Joseph, was not parted from them in the new settlement. It hung on the outskirts of Ephraim. Thus a group was formed in the centre of Palestine, firmly compacted of the descendants of Rachel, cut off on the north by the broad plain of Esdraelon. Stanley. The territory assigned to Benjamin lay immediately to the north of Judah. In its general features it resembled Judah, but it was greatly less in extent. Notwithstanding its narrow limits, it was the scene of many great events. It was "little Benjamin" that furnished the first royal "ruler" to the nation of Israel. Gibeah, Saul's capital, lay within its borders, as did also Jerusalem, emphatically and almost imperishably, "the holy city." Here, too, at first at least (for afterward it belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes), was Bethel, where Jacob had his wonderful vision, and from whose heights Abraham got one of his first views of the Land of Promise. The Mount of Olives was in the tribe of Benjamin, and so were nearly all those places in and around Jerusalem which have been crowned with undying fame. Thus, though little, in one sense, among the tribes of Israel, Benjamin, in real interest and greatness, rivalled them all. It was not the least of its glories that Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, was a member of this tribe, and could describe himself as "an Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin." W. G. B. In the description of the lots of Judah and Benjamin, an account is given both of the limits by which they were bounded and of the cities contained in them. In that of Ephraim and Manasseh the boundaries are given, but not the cities. In this chapter Simeon and Dan are described by their cities only, and not by their borders, because they were small and the former lay within the limits of another tribe. The rest have both their borders described, and their cities named. Bush. 19:1-9. The Inheritance of Simeon. This was included within the limits of Judah, and is elsewhere seldom or never spoken of as a distinct district. In this arrangement the providence of God is to be especially noted, as Jacob, in the spirit of prophecy, had foretold that Simeon and Levi should be "divided in Jacob," and "scattered in Israel." This was accordingly most literally fulfilled in the manner in which these tribes were now disposed of. Levi was "scattered" throughout all the land not having received any distinct inheritance, but only certain "cities to dwell in;" and Simeon, as we here learn, was "divided" or dispersed over the territories of Judah instead of having one of their own. This arrangement brought them into confederacy with the tribe of Judah (Jn. 1:3), and afterward was the occasion of the adherence of many of this tribe to the house of David at the time of the revolt of the ten tribes. Bush. 10-39. The four tribes of Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, and Naphtali obtain contiguous portions in the north of Palestine, as they were allied in birth, and as they marched through the desert. The forests of Lebanon, the fertility of the plain of Esdraelon, the port of Accho, figure in the blessings pronounced upon them. But, with the exception of the transient splendor of the days of Barak and of Gideon, they hardly affect the general fortunes of the nation. Stanley. To Zebulun was allotted the hill country bordering on the great plain of Esdraelon from the sea-coast to the Sea of Galilee. Issachar received for his inheritance the fertile plain of Esdraelon, with the beautiful valley of Jezreel; here, on the highway of the armies of Egypt and Assyria, the great battle-field of Palestine, he was to lead a nomad life, dwelling "in tents," but at the same time he was equally with Zebulun to suck of the abundance of the seas and of treasures hid in the sand. To Asher was assigned the sea-coast from Carmel to Sidon, with the plain of Phœnicia and the low hills on its western border—one of the richest tracts in Palestine, well fulfilling the promise made in the blessing of Jacob, that his "bread" should be "fat," and that he should yield "royal dainties;" and in that of Moses, that he should be "blessed with children," and "dip his feet in oil," and that his "shoes" should be "iron and brass." To Naphtali fell the broad elevated tract lying between Asher and the Jordan, which may still be described in the words of Josephus as "universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation by its fruitfulness"—a land in which Naphtali was to be "satisfied with favor, and full with the blessing of the Lord." Wilson. Phœnicia was never conquered, and no one can help being struck by the peculiar relations that existed between the Israelites and their northern neighbors. In Ju. 1:31, we are told that Asher did not drive out "the inhabitants of Accho, nor of Zidon, Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, nor of Rehob;" and in verse 32, that the Asherites "dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land." Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Bethshemesh and Beth-anath, but "he dwelt among the Canaanites;" nevertheless, the inhabitants of these towns became tributaries to him, and in the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, whose husband was "a man of Tyre, a worker in brass" (1 K. 7:14), we have an indication that mixed marriages were not uncommon. There is no trace of any great war between the Israelites and the Phœnicians, and it is not unlikely that a considerable portion of the northern tribes settled down as fellow-citizens among the people of Tyre, Sidon, and other Phœnician cities. Wilson.—It was to Zarephath, one of the towns of Phœnicia, that Elijah was sent, in the time of a great famine, to bring life and sustenance to the Syro-phœnician widow and her son; and it was somewhere within the borders of this territory that another Syro-phœnician woman once came, seeking a greater prophet than Elijah, and, after a memorable exhibition of faith, went home rejoicing, her afflicted daughter having been made whole. W. G. B. 40-48. The last of the tribes that received its due was Dan, the smallest of all, at times overlooked, and in the last catalogue of the tribes that appears in the Sacred Volume (Rev.), dropped out altogether. It was squeezed into the narrow strip between the mountains and the sea, in the plain already occupied by the expelled races. Sanley.—Dan, though commander of one of the four squadrons of the camp of Israel in the wilderness, that which brought up the rear, yet was last provided for in Canaan, and his lot fell in the southern part of Canaan, between Judah on the east and the land of the Philistines on the west; Ephraim on the north and Simeon on the south. H. 47. The meaning is that the Danites, being closely pressed upon by their powerful neighbors the Philistines, were forced in considerable numbers to abandon their allotted possessions. In consequence of having their original portion thus wrested out of their hands, they were induced to seek another in a distant quarter of the land, and made an inroad accordingly upon Leshem, lying at the foot of Mount Lebanon and near the sources of the river Jordan. This event, which occurred some time after the death of Joshua, and is more fully recorded (Jn. 18:1-29), is touched upon here both to complete what is said of the inheritance of the Danites, and to intimate how it happened that a part of the tribe were afterward found inhabiting a district of the country so remote from their original possessions. This addition to the narrative was perhaps made by Phineas. Bush.—The children of Dan fought against, and took Leshem, a city not far from Jordan, called Laish in the Book of Judges; in aftertimes Cæsarea Philippi. They dwelt therein, or remained in undisturbed possession of it, and gave it the name of Dan; all this was done after Joshua's death, and is related more largely in the Book of Judges (ch. 18). Shuckford. To the tribe of Judah there fell a country abounding with vines and pasture grounds (Gen. 49:11), to that of Ashur, one plenteous in oil, iron and brass (De. 33:24), to that of Naphtali, one extending from the west to the south of Judea (De. 30:23), to that of Benjamin, one in which the temple was afterward built (De. 33:12), to that of Zebulun, a country abounding in seaports (Gen. 49:13), to those of Ephraim and Manasseh, countries renowned for their precious fruits (De. 33:14), and to those of Simeon and Levi no particular countries at all, forasmuch as the former had a portion with Judah, and the latter was dispersed through the several tribes. Since, therefore, each particular lot answered so exactly to each prediction, we are supplied with the most indisputable proof that there was divine inspiration in these predictions, and divine direction in the distribution of the lots. Stackhouse. The ultimate location of all the tribes in their own cities and territory was an event of profound significance, worthy to be long remembered. A great people, four hundred years oppressed in Egypt, forty years wandering homeless in the deserts of Arabia, full seven years up to this date in the conquest of Canaan, and therefore unsettled—in a state of war, living in camp: but now they fold up their tents and make their permanent homes in cities already built; in houses constructed, not to say, furnished ready to their hand. Around them are lands under tillage, fruit trees in bearing condition, everything prepared for living with all the comforts of Oriental life. H. C. The division of the land was carried out, so that not merely the limits of the tribal territories were fixed, but inside these also the districts of the families. Thus the life of tribe and family remained the basis of civil society. This certainly fostered a disposition to maintain the interests of the tribes at the cost of the national cause, in times when there was no powerful central authority, and every one did what seemed right to him; but it also insured the propagation of the faith and customs of the fathers within the family circle, when declensions began to grow frequent. Thus the "good land" was won, where, on the basis of a life of husbandry requiring regular industry, the people were to be matured for the fulfilment of their destiny in quiet and retirement. O. Lowman has given three different estimates of the extent of territory occupied by the twelve tribes; the mean between the two extremes approaches probably the nearest to the truth. According to this computation, the Jewish dominion, at the time of the division, was 180 miles long by 130 wide, and contained 14,976,000 acres. "This quantity of land will divide to 600,000 men, about 2½ acres in property, with a remainder of 1,976,000 acres for the Levitical cities, the princes of tribes, the heads of families, and other public uses." Assuming this estate of 21½ acres assigned to each household, of course a larger proportion of pasture must have been given to those tribes who subsisted on their herds and flocks, than of arable to those who lived by tillage; the portions of the latter, therefore, must be considerably reduced. On the other hand, the extraordinary fertility of the whole country must be taken into the account. No part was waste; very little was occupied by unprofitable wood; the more fertile hills were cultivated in artificial terraces, others were hung with orchards of fruit-trees; the more rocky and barren districts were covered with vineyards. Even in the present day, the wars and misgovernment of ages have not exhausted the natural richness of the soil. Galilee, says Malté Brun, would be a paradise were it inhabited by an industrious people, under an enlightened government. No land could be less dependent on foreign importation; it bore within itself everything that could be necessary for the subsistence and comfort of a simple agricultural people. The climate was healthy, the seasons regular; the former rains, which fell about October, after the vintage, prepared the ground for the seed; the latter, which prevailed during March and the beginning of April, made it grow rapidly. Directly the rains ceased, the grain ripened with still greater rapidity, and was gathered in before the end of May. The summer months were dry and very hot, but the nights cool and refreshed by copious dews. In September, the vintage was gathered. Grain of all kinds, wheat, barley, millet, zea, and other sorts, grew in abundance; the wheat commonly yielded thirty for one. Besides the vine and the olive, the almond, the date, figs of many kinds, the orange, the pomegranate, and many other fruit-trees, flourished in the greatest luxuriance. With a country under a delicious climate, where the corn-fields, the pastures, the vineyards, and olive-grounds vied with each other in fertility; perfect freedom and equality; a mild and parental government, the administration of justice by local authorities according to a written law; national festivals tending to promote national union;—had the people duly appreciated the blessings attached to the strict and permanent observance of their constitution, poets might have found their golden age in the plains of Galilee and the valleys of Judea. The assignment of the different estates seems to have been left to the local government of each tribe. Certain distinguished persons, as Joshua and Caleb, received grants of land larger than ordinary; but the whole land was subject to the common law of property. The great principle of this law was the inalienability of estates. Houses in walled towns might be sold in perpetuity, if unredeemed within the year; land only for a limited period. At the Jubilee, every estate reverted, without repurchase, to the original proprietor. Even during this period it might be redeemed, should the proprietor become rich enough, at the value which the estate would produce during the years unelapsed before the jubilee. This remarkable agrarian law secured the political equality of the people, and anticipated all the mischiefs so fatal to the early republics of Greece and Italy, the appropriation of the whole territory of the state by a rich and powerful landed oligarchy, with the consequent convulsions of the community from the deadly struggle between the patrician and plebeian orders. In the Hebrew state, the improvident individual might reduce himself and his family to penury or servitude, but he could not perpetuate a race of slaves or paupers. Every fifty years God, the King and Lord of the soil, as it were resumed the whole territory, and granted it back in the same portions to the descendants of the original possessors. It is curious to observe in this earliest practical Utopia the realization of Machiavelli's great maxim, the constant renovation of the state according to the first principles of its constitution. Milman. On the conquest of Canaan, it was divided into twelve parts, which were assigned by lot to the different tribes. Thus the Hebrew state was a confederacy of twelve small provinces, like the Swiss cantons. The territory of each was then subdivided, so that a portion of land was assigned to every family. This gave to every man a fixed and permanent home. Each tribe was marched to its new possession, every family entered on its humble estate, and Israel began its national existence. This determined the occupations of the people. By planting every father of a family upon a plot of ground which he was to cultivate, Moses formed a nation of farmers—the best citizens for a free Commonwealth. The miracle was as great as if immense hordes of wandering Bedaween were instantly transformed into quiet husbandmen. Agriculture, keeping all the inhabitants at home, promotes patriotism and attachment to the national religion. Farmers are the strength of a state, for they are generally both peaceful citizens and brave warriors. A small state is never so invincible as when all its citizens are independent freeholders. Then every man has an interest rooted in the soil. He fights for his country because he fights for his home. At the beginning the Hebrew state presented the remarkable spectacle of two millions and a half of people, all equal in rank, and very nearly so in condition. This fact is the more surprising when contrasted with the monstrous inequalities which prevailed in other Oriental countries. Indeed, a parallel to this it would not be possible to find in the most democratic modern state. Field. It cannot be disputed that the Israelites, after having been enslaved for centuries in Egypt, escaped by their unaided efforts from the strongest government in the world, crossed the sea, lived long in the peninsula of Sinai, and suddenly acquiring a warlike character, scattered the powerful armies of the confederate princes that opposed their entrance into Canaan. It cannot be disputed that they set up a remarkable civil and religious polity with laws and rites of a unique character, and that their whole institutions, civil and sacred, which lasted fifteen hundred years, sprang out of their history as it is recorded by Moses and Joshua. Can these facts be accounted for without the supernatural? Is it not true that of all things incredulity is the most credulous, and rationalism the most irrational? W. G. B. CALEB'S REQUEST FOR THE INHERITANCE PROMISED BY MOSES; JOSHUA'S GIFT IN FULFILMENT; CALEB'S CONQUEST OF HEBRON AND DEBIR; ACHSAH'S PETITION GRANTED BY CALEB. INHERITANCE OF JOSHUA. CITIES OF REFUGE ASSIGNED. THIRTEEN PRIESTLY CITIES. FORTY-EIGHT CITIES OF LEVITES. CONCLUDING STATEMENT. 13 1 Now Joshua was old and well stricken in years ; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and well stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. 2 This is the land that yet remaineth : all the regions of the Philistines, and all the Geshurites ; 3 from the Shihor, which is before Egypt, even unto the border of Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanites : the five lords of the Philistines ; the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, 4 the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites ; also the Avvim, on the south : all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that belongeth to the Zidonians, unto Aphek, to the border of 5 the Amorites : and the land of the Gebalites, and all Lebahon, toward the sunrising, from 6 Baal-gad under mount Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath : all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, even all the Zidonians ; them will I drive out from before the children of Israel : only allot thou it unto Israel for an inheritance, as I have 7 commanded thee. Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes, and the half tribe of Manasseh. 14 1 And these are the inheritances which the children of Israel took in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the 2 tribes of the children of Israel, distributed unto them, by the lot of their inheritance, as the 3 LORD commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes, and for the half tribe. For Moses had given the inheritance of the two tribes and the half tribe beyond Jordan : but unto the 4 Levites he gave none inheritance among them. For the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim : and they gave no portion unto the Levites in the land, save cities to 5 dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for their cattle and for their substance. As the LORD commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did, and they divided the land. 15 : 1-12, 20-63. The inheritance of Judah. 16 : 1-10 ; 17 : 1-11. The inheritance of Ephraim and Manasseh. 17 12 Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities ; but 13 the Canaanites would dwell in that land. And it came to pass, when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the Canaanites to task work, and did not utterly drive them out. 14 And the children of Joseph spake unto Joshua, saying, Why hast thou given me but one lot and one part for an inheritance, seeing I am a great people, forasmuch as hitherto the LORD 15 hath blessed me? And Joshua said unto them, If thou be a great people, get thee up to the forest, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim ; since 16 the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for thee. And the children of Joseph said, The hill country is not enough for us : and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are in Bethshean and her towns, and they who are in the valley 17 of Jezreel. And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and to Manasseh, 18 saying, Thou art a great people, and hast great power : thou shalt not have one lot only : but the hill country shall be thine ; for though it is a forest, thou shalt cut it down, and the goings out thereof shall be thine : for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they be strong. 18 1 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together 2 at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there : and the land was subdued before them. And there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes, which had not yet divided their in- 3 heritance. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go in to 4 possess the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, hath given you? Appoint for you three men for each tribe : and I will send them, and they shall arise, and walk through the 5 land, and describe it according to their inheritance ; and they shall come unto me. And they shall divide it into seven portions : Judah shall abide in his border on the south, and the house 6 of Joseph shall abide in their border on the north. And ye shall describe the land into seven portions, and bring the description hither to me : and I will cast lots for you here before the 7 LORD our God. For the Levites have no portion among you ; for the priesthood of the LORD is their inheritance : and Gad and Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh have received their 8 inheritance beyond Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave them. And the men arose, and went : and Joshua charged them that went to describe the land, saying, Go and walk through the land, and describe it, and come again to me, and I will cast lots for you 9 here before the LORD in Shiloh. And the men went and passed through the land, and de- scribed it by cities into seven portions in a book, and they came to Joshua unto the camp at 10 Shiloh. And Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the LORD : and there Joshua divided the land unto the children of Israel according to their divisions. 18 : 11-28 ; 19 : 1-48. Inheritances of Benjamin, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naph- tali, and Dan. 49. So they made an end of distributing the land for inheritance by the borders thereof ; 51. These are the inheritances, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel, distributed for inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the LORD, at the door of the tent of meeting. So they made an end of dividing the land. The conquest of Canaan by Joshua was suffi- ciently complete to permit the distribution of the territory among the tribes of Israel, and its general occupation accordingly. The assign- ment to each tribe of its portion of the territory was made, as a rule, by lot ; and it is remarkable how well the condition of the several tribes, in its district thus assigned, answered to the con- dition predicted of it, many years before, by the dying Moses, and even to the condition predicted of it hundreds of years before in Egypt by the dying Jacob. N. C. B.—The Book of Joshua is the Domesday Book of Palestine, not only describing, with the fulness of a govern- ment survey, the various tribal boundaries throughout the land, but containing long lists of the towns and villages allotted to each tribe, in the order, as recent research has shown, of their geographical position. Porter. The conquest of Palestine, so far as it required the united forces of all Israel, was over; what remained to be done, in putting down risings, in consolidating what had been won, and in capturing isolated and still unconquered cities, was left for the most part to the energy of the tribe to which the territory in question was assigned. The warlike half of Joshua's great task was accomplished: the peaceful work of dividing the territory between the victorious tribes remained. The second half of the Book of Joshua—chapters 13-22—the Domesday Book of Palestine, is mainly taken up with details of the distribution. These are no less honorable to the man who carried them out than the details of the campaign which rendered them possible. Plummer. 13:1. Now Joshua was old. To what age he was now advanced we cannot certainly know, because we do not know his age when he came out of Egypt. If he was then forty-three, he was eighty-three when they came into Canaan; and now he wanted not much of a hundred. Patrick. 3. When the Israelites arrived, the Philistines were in full possession of the Shephelah, or maritime plain, from the "river of Egypt" in the south to Ekron in the north, and had formed a confederacy of five powerful cities—Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. The interval that elapsed between Abraham and the Exodus seems sufficient to allow for the alteration that took place in the position of the Philistines, and their transformation from a pastoral tribe to a settled and powerful nation. P. S. 5. The notices in the Bible lead us to search for Baal-gad in the direction and neighborhood of Baalbek. In the valley of Lebanon, under Hermon, and the entrance into Hamath: these are the geographical indications. Let any one ride from Baalbek northward to Lebweh or 'Ain, or, better still, to Kamâa Hermel, and look off toward Hamath, and he will be struck with the propriety of the phrase, entrance into Hamath. From his standpoint the valley of the Bak'ah opens out like a vast fan on to the great plain of northern Syria, and he is at the gate of the kingdom. Baalbek being, therefore, in the neighborhood where we must look for Baal gad, there seems to be no good reason to doubt their identity, for there is no rival to dispute the honor of the name and site. The remains at Baalbek are adequate to meet the demands of any history, and some of them may claim an antiquity equal to anything that even Egypt can boast. Thompson. 6. It should be always remembered that the promise made by God, of driving out the old inhabitants ("Them will I drive out," verse 6), was conditional, and depended on the adherence of the Israelites to his worship and service. Accordingly, in consequence of their flagrant and repeated disobedience, they only partially deserved the fulfilment of the promise. We do not read that the Sidonians (verse 6) were ever conquered by the Israelites, and the people of Lebanon were not made tributary till the days of David and Solomon. Patrick.—Joshua actually did all that it was promised he should do. God never said that he should conquer all the land, but simply that he should bring Israel into it, and divide it among them, both which he did, and procured them footing by his conquests sufficient to have enabled them to establish themselves in it forever. Their failure to do so was owing wholly to themselves. 7. Dividing the land by lot was the readiest way of satisfying all parties, and preventing discontent and discord. The several allotments are here very minutely detailed in order that litigation growing out of disputed boundaries might ever after be prevented. When the limits of each tribe were so clearly settled there could be little room for contending claims; or if there were, an authentic register of the lot of each tribe would be at hand to be appealed to for a decision, and there is no doubt that it was often made use of in after ages for this purpose. The reading of this account by succeeding generations would tend to excite a deep impression of the goodness of God in bestowing upon their ancestors for the benefit of their posterity, such a large and fertile country, an inheritance so replete with all worldly blessings. Bush. Ch. 13: 8-33. 8-13. These verses comprise a general description of the whole country east of Jordan given to the two tribes and a half. The remainder of the chapter is occupied with a detailed account of the several districts allotted to each. Bush. Chs. 14-19. 14: 1-5. These verses comprise a general introduction to the six chapters. The division of the land among the nine and a half tribes was, in strict accordance with Divine direction (Nu. 26: 52-56; 33: 54; 34: 2-29), made by Eleazar, Joshua, and one representative from each of the ten tribes. It was decided by the "lot," which probably, however, only determined the situation of each inheritance, whether north or south, inland or by the seashore, not its extent and precise boundaries. These would depend upon the size of each tribe. In point of fact, the original arrangements had in some cases to be afterward modified, not as to tribal localization which was unalterably fixed by the Divine lot, but as to extent of territory. Thus Judah had to give up part of its possession to Simeon (19 : 9), while Dan, whose portion proved too small, obtained certain cities both from Judah and from Ephraim. A. E. 2. The sacred lot was employed at the division of the tribal territories, to discover the guilty one who had brought a curse on the people (Josh. 7), and in 1 S. 10 : 20 f., at the king's election. These methods of inquiring into the Divine will retire into the background the more prophecy becomes prominent. O.—This distribution by lot was overruled by a special providence, so as to correspond with the inspired predictions of Jacob and Moses respecting the allotment of each tribe. The fact is unquestionable, that the tribes found themselves placed by lot in the very sections of the country which Jacob had foretold two hundred and fifty years before, and Moses shortly before his death (comp. Gen. 49 and De. 33). To Judah fell a country abounding in vineyards and pastures; to Zebulun, sea-coasts; to Issachar, a rich plain between ranges of mountains; to Asher, one abounding in plenty of oil, wheat, and metals; and so of the others. Bush. Chs. 15-17. Judah and Joseph, as the two great tribes, dividing the birthright between them, had the land first divided between them, their general outlines being given. Afterward the other tribes are arranged, modifying the first division. The lot probably gave only general indications, while the commissioners made the special allotments, according to circumstances. Crosby. The tribe of Judah was powerful in consequence of its numbers, and now received such natural frontiers as to form, on the south, a rampart of protection to the whole of Israel against the enemy. Therefore its boundaries went from the south end of the Salt Sea westward to where Sihor empties itself into the Mediterranean; its eastern limits, from the south end of the Salt Sea to the point where it receives the waters of the Jordan; its northern, from thence over Mount Zion, by Timnah and the brook Sorek, to the sea which bounds it on the west. C. G. B.—The lot of Judah as here marked out was bounded on the south by the wilderness of Sin and the southern coast of the Salt Sea; on the east by that sea, reaching to the place at which it receives the waters of the Jordan; on the north by a line drawn nearly parallel to Jerusalem across from the northern extremity of the Salt Sea to the south boundary of the Philistines and to the Mediterranean Sea; which sea was its western boundary as far as the river of Egypt. Joshua is particular in giving the limits of this tribe, as being the first, the most numerous, the most important, that which was to furnish the kings of Judea, that in which pure religion was to be preserved, and that from which the Messiah was to spring. As this portion, however, contained nearly half the southern part of Canaan, it was afterward found too extensive, and the possessions of Simeon and Dan were taken out of it. Bush.—In travelling over these places one begins early to perceive that not only is the geography and scenery of Palestine "a fifth gospel," but it is a second Pentateuch, Book of Joshua, and Kings. The feeling deepened at every step of the journey. S. C. B. 20. This is the preface to the list of principal towns of Judah, which follow in four sections: those in the Negeb (the technical "South" of Judah); those in the Shephelah (the fertile plain on the coast); those in the Mountain country, and those in the Wilderness west of the Dead Sea. Crosby. # Natural or Physical Characteristics of Judah's Inheritance. First, the Negeb or "South" country extends along the whole southern frontier from east to west. It is an irregularly shaped tract, extending from the mountains of Judah on the north to the edge of the Desert of Paran, and from the south end of the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean; but stretching in a sloping direction toward the northeast to the Dead Sea, and to the southwest to El Arish, thus occupying a middle position, both topographically and physically, between the rich soil of central Canaan and the sandy wastes of that great and terrible wilderness. The south differs from the hill country of Judah to the north of it, not merely so much in being pastoral instead of cultivated, for its whole extent yields proof of very extensive though not universal cultivation in former times; nor in its being less hilly, for it has but few plains of any extent; but in its deep ravines, torn and rent by winter torrents, "the streams of the south" of Ps 126 : 4. These torrents, quite dry in summer, cut down steep cliffs into narrow gullies by their violence in winter. On the west side they drain toward the Arish and Philistia, on the east toward the Dead Sea, none running south into Paran or the Wilderness. The wide central expanse is now a sort of upland wilderness, a series of rolling hills, with scanty herbage more abundant on their northern slopes, but without a tree or a bush more than three feet high. The words of Dr. Robinson, about Zephath or Hormah, may be applied to every city of the Negeb :—"Once, as we judged upon the spot, this must have been a city of not less than 10,000 or 12,000 inhabitants. Now it is a perfect field of ruins, a scene of unutterable desolation, across which the passing stranger can with difficulty find his way." A mighty spell seems to rest upon the cities of the south. We turn to the word of prophecy, and we read, "The cities of the south (Negeb) shall be shut up, and none shall open them : Judah shall be carried away captive, all of it : it shall be wholly carried away captive" (Jer. 13 : 19). The second physical division of the allotment of Joshua was the Shephelah, or low country, translated generally in our version as "the valley" (Josh. 15 : 33), and sometimes "the plain." It comprises the low lying flat country, whether desert or corn-growing, which intervenes between the central backbone of hills extending from north to south and the sea. The expression, though equally applicable to all the coast plains of Palestine, is generally confined to those of Philistia and Sharon, which are limited northward by the bold projecting spur of Carmel ; while the next plain, that of Acre, is similarly cut off by the precipitous Ladder of Tyre from the Plain of Phœnicia. This region in the allotment of the tribes fell principally to Judah, in the south of whose portion were several towns assigned to Simeon ; while the northern part, better known as the Plain of Sharon, was the rich but narrow heritage of Dan. Practically, however, the more important and valuable part of this vast corn-plain was never conquered till after the monarchy, and remained in the possession of the Philistines, who were often the terror and the scourge of Israel. There is no natural boundary line between Philistia and Sharon. The plain stretches with scarce an undulation, but with very varying depth inland, from the southern frontiers of the Desert of Gaza to the foot of Carmel. The descent from the Negeb, or south land, to the low country is gentle and insensible on its southern limit, but much more steep and clearly defined from the hill country of Judah on the east. From the low country of the coast we now turn eastward to the third physical division of the territory of Judah, recognized constantly in Holy Writ as "the mountains," or the "Hill country." The line of demarcation between it and "the south country" is very easily recognized, though they blend into each other. The great pasture district of the south melts into the hill country a few miles to the south of Hebron. The northern part of the "Negeb" presents the appearance of a long series of gently-rolling downs, wide shallow valleys, and broad rounded ridges. But a few hours before reaching Hebron the valleys become narrower and steeper, the hill tops are sharper, the ridges are full of caves, natural or artificial—the dwellings of the Horites, or Cave-men, in olden times ; and when we reach Debir we can fully understand the petition of Achsah to her father Caleb : "Give me a blessing ; for thou hast given me a south land : give me also springs of water" (Ju. 1 : 15), as we see the springs gushing forth from the rocky side of the valley, and feel we are no longer in a "south land." Here the ruins of the cities of Judah begin to crowd upon us. Almost every hill-top is marked by the groups of deserted dwellings—not grass-grown, like those of the south, but with walls and narrow streets, bare and barren. Every name recalls some incident in the life of the Bethlehemite—Jattir, Lebaoth, Eshtemoa, Maon, Carmel, Ziph—scarcely altered in the Arabic vernacular from the old Hebrew. The register of Joshua (verses 21-62) gives thirty-eight cities in the hill country of Judah, divided into five topographical groups ; and even among these are omitted some of future distinction, as Bethlehem and Tekoa. But it is impossible to wander among these hills without perceiving that the expression, "her towns," applied in the enumeration to many of the cities, was no mere figure of speech. The groups of ruins, "the desolate heaps" of Judah, far outnumber any catalogue of her cities that has come down to us. There are no streams, but many springs, and wells innumerable. The hill country culminates at Hebron, but it slopes very little either east or west, forming throughout its whole extent a rugged plateau from Philistia to the Dead Sea ; and its deep dells, or wadys, are scarcely seen till we are upon them. They run for the most part east and west from the central ridge, and add immensely to the natural strength of the district, every nook of which is almost a natural fortress, independently of the cities whose ruins crown every brow, where once "the Lion of Judah" crouched secure. The wells are sunk in hill and vale alike; and all the hill-sides, ribbed with their parallel lines of terrace, once covered with gardens, vineyards, and fig-trees, attest the indefatigable industry no less than the dense population of its ancient inhabitants. But the position of the towns and the character of the ruins are so constantly alike, that it is in vain to attempt separate descriptions for each, save in very few instances. Tristram. The Wilderness is the district stretching along the western shore of the Dead Sea in which David took refuge for some time when pursued by Saul; it is a dreary waste of bare hills cut up by innumerable water-courses, uncultivated, and bearing no traces of former occupation. Wilson. The tribe of Joseph had the centre of the land across from Jordan to the Mediterranean. Ephraim lay north of Judah; but between them were the districts afterward allotted to Benjamin and Dan. Besides the sacred valley of Shechem, it included some of the finest parts of Palestine, the mountains of Ephraim, and the great and fertile maritime plain of Sharon, proverbial for its roses. P. S.—16 : 1-4. The descendants of Joseph received two shares of the inheritance. As closely allied tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh received each many towns situated in the territory of the other. C. G. B.—The central hill country of Palestine is often spoken of as "Mount Ephraim," an expression which comprises all the hilly region from within a few miles north of Jerusalem at Bethel, as far as the Plain of Esdraelon, including, therefore, the whole of the west allotment of Manasseh. Mount Ephraim was to the northern country what the hill country of Judah was to the southern—the backbone, centre, and strength of the nation. Like the hill country of Judah, and unlike the possessions of the northern tribes by Esdraelon, or the western ones by the coast, it was inaccessible to invaders, who were not prepared for the risks of mountain defiles and the storming of hill forts. Its military topography is such, that it is defensible at every turn, and nothing but a panic could disorganize the defence of such a region. Thus the tribe of Manasseh was charged by the High Priest "to keep the passages of the hill country, for by them there was an entrance into Judea; and it was easy to stop them that would come up, because the passage was strait for two men at the most" (Judith 4 : 7). Tristram. Shechem, famous in the days of Abraham and Jacob, and which Joshua may be said to have made the civil capital of the country, was situated in the tribe of Ephraim. So was Shiloh, the first ecclesiastical capital, where the ark was solemnly placed, at the end of Joshua's wars. So also was Samaria, which became, under Omri, the capital of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Joshua himself was a man of Ephraim, and must have given no small importance to the tribe. Gideon, one of the most noble of the judges, with his seventy princely brothers, was a native of the adjacent tribe of Manasseh. "The mountain," or mountainous part, "of Ephraim," was frequently the rallying-place for the nation, where the appointed deliverers raised the standard of resistance to their oppressors. Deborah, though herself apparently of the northern tribes, dwelt between Ramah and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim; Tola of Issachar judged Israel in Shamir, in the same mount; Samuel was of Ramah. W. G. B.—Of the southern tribes, the most powerful was Judah; of the northern, Ephraim; whence originated a jealousy between the two, which broke out early, and laid the foundation of that fatal schism which took place on the death of Solomon, by the revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam an Ephraimite. Hales. 17 : 2. In 16 : 1 the revision reads, "And the lot for the children of Joseph went out from the Jordan," etc., connecting the verb with the locality, whereas the meaning is that "the lot came out [from the urn or receptacle of the lots] for the children of Joseph," etc. So in the second verse of this seventeenth chapter the revision reads, "And the lot was for the rest of Manasseh," as if this was a new statement in addition to what preceded, whereas it is a mere resumption of what has gone before. The Appendix therefore reads, "So the lot was for the rest," etc. Chambers. 17 : 12. The children of Manasseh could not drive out. They could not drive them out through want of faith in God, and of zeal to perform his commands. Here the fountain of all the evils which afterward befell the Israelites begins to be opened, in that, either through sloth or covetousness or distrust of God's power, they did not attempt to drive out those people that were stronger than ordinary; or through want of faith in God, failed in the attempt. Patrick.—The Canaanites would dwell in that land. Heb. "willed to dwell." A very remarkable expression, indicative of the obstinate determination of the Canaanites to retain possession of the country, and carrying with it a severe reflection upon the supineness, cowardice, and unbelief of the Israelites. Bush. 13. They put the Canaanites to tribute.** Herein they offended against the Divine command (De. 20 : 16, 17), by which they were peremptorily directed to destroy the Canaanites when they were able. In thus putting them to tribute, they were probably influenced by motives of indolence and gain. Patrick.—This early degree of sloth and worldly-mindedness, afterward displayed in other instances, laid the foundation of all the ensuing calamities which befell the people. Pyle.—Any conformity to the heathen around, or tolerance of heathenism, any decay of the spirit in which they had entered the land, would result not only in weakness, but in the triumph of the enemy. And so it was intended of the Lord. The lesson of all this is obvious and important. To us also has our Joshua given entrance into Canaan, and victory over our enemies—the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have present possession of the land. But we do not yet hold all its cities, nor are our enemies exterminated. It needs on our part constant faith; there must be no compromise with the enemy, no tolerance of his spirit, no cessation of our warfare. Only that which at first gave us the land can complete and consolidate our possession of it. A. E. Complaint of Ephraim and Manasseh. 14-18. The children of Joseph, that is, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, complain to Joshua of the narrowness of their allotment, which was increased by the Canaanites still retaining so large a portion of it. Joshua, though a descendant himself of Joseph, remained perfectly impartial; and told them they must enlarge the country by their valor, by driving out their enemies from the woody and mountainous parts, and thus making them habitable for themselves. Pyle.—One lot and one only should they have in the general apportionment. If they wanted more they must conquer it for themselves. They grounded their claim on being “a great people,” having “great power.” Well, then, let them prove it by great deeds. There was room enough for them in “the wood country;” let them get them up there and clear away the forest, and drive out the Perizzites and the giants, if Mount Ephraim were too narrow for them. So they might obtain a second portion, and not have “one lot only.” E. V. Many wish for larger possessions, who do not cultivate and make the best of what they have, think they should have more talents given them, who do not trade with those with which they are intrusted. Most people’s poverty is the effect of their idleness; would they dig, they need not beg. He bids them fight for more (verses 17, 18), when they pleaded that they could not come at the wood-lands he spoke of, because in the valley between them and it there were Canaanites whom they durst not enter the lists with. “Never fear them,” said Joshua, “thou hast God on thy side, and thou shalt drive out the Canaanites if thou wilt set about it in good earnest, though they have iron chariots.” We straiten ourselves by apprehending the difficulties in the way of our enlargement to be greater than they are. H. The attitude of the children of Joseph throughout the history of the twelve tribes is in precise accordance with the hint given here. They were proud of their numerical preponderance over the remaining tribes. Thus they, and they only, ventured to remonstrate with Joshua about the inadequacy of the portion allotted to them. Such a sensitiveness was likely to degenerate into insolence when the authority of the great leader was removed. And the history of Gideon and of Jephthah shows that this was actually the case. Here, again, we have a sign of that deep undercurrent of consistency which underlies our history, and is a guarantee of its authenticity. Lias. These tribes had plenty of power, plenty of stalwart men to clear the waste or conquer their enemies; but they had not moral force to match. They want to dominate, without paying the price of lordship in daring and willingness to encounter difficulty and hardship. Glover.—For the Church, too, conquest is the condition of security and of continuance. Pressed on every hand by a hostile world, it must be ever in an attitude of active defence and advance. Every new generation needs to be won afresh for Jesus Christ. The Church cannot even hold its own without ever fresh conquests. De P. THE TABERNACLE (“Tent of Meeting”) SET UP AT SHILOH. When the two great tribes of Judah and Joseph had been located, the one taking the south and the other the middle portion of the country, there seems to have been a pause in the work of distribution. We have no direct statement of the reason, nor are we told how long the interval was between the dividing of the land to the two tribes at Gilgal and the dividing of the land to the seven tribes at Shiloh. Crosby. 18:1. And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled at Shiloh. This was the first assembly or diet of the people, held for important consultation; therefore the expression is not, "the children of Israel," but "the whole congregation of the children of Israel." The encampment was moved from Gilgal to Shiloh, and the tabernacle set up. C. G. B. (See maps, pp. 86, 110.) The situation of Shiloh was central to the whole country, and probably this fact determined its selection. The able-bodied men of the nation being required three times a year to leave their homes and journey to the place of the sanctuary, for the celebration of the national religious festivals, convenience of location became an important consideration. Shiloh was in the midst of the hills of Ephraim, about half way between Bethel on the south and Shechem on the north. It continued the religious capital for three hundred years, or until the time of old Eli and young Samuel, when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines. N. C. B.—Shiloh was situated in the tribe of Ephraim, in the very centre of Canaan, about twenty miles north of Jerusalem. It was therefore the most convenient location for all the tribes, and as Joshua was himself of the tribe of Ephraim, he, as chief magistrate of the nation, would always have a ready access to the sanctuary when the God of Israel was to be consulted. -Bush.—The central position of Shiloh was combined with a rare degree of seclusion. Standing in the very heart of the land, a little to the "east of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem," Shiloh, on its gentle eminence, yet surrounded by loftier hills, was shut out from the world. A labyrinth of valleys leads up to it and off from it, so intricate as to render the services of a guide quite indispensable to the modern traveller. N. C. B. (Sec. 232.) The ruined village Seilún is the site of Shiloh, where the Ark first rested after the capture of Ai and Jericho, and where Joshua divided the newly-conquered land of Canaan among the twelve tribes. The position of Shiloh is accurately defined in the Book of Judges (21:19) to be on the north of Bethel, on the south of Lebonah, and on the east of the highway that goeth from Bethel to Shechem. There is very little to mark the site now but ruins and a curious excavation in the rock in the side of the hill. In a little valley about half a mile from the ruins are the spring and well of Shiloh, where the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance at their periodical festival (Ju. 21). Tent Work. INHERITANCE OF SEVEN TRIBES: BENJAMIN, SIMEON, ZEBULUN, ISSACHAR, ASHER, NAPHTALI, AND DAN. 18:2-10. Twenty-one delegated commissioners survey the remaining land and divide it into seven portions. By Lot Joshua assigns a portion to each of the seven tribes. Joshua solemnly admonished the assembled people as to their "slackness" in taking possession of the land which Jehovah had given them. To terminate further jealousies, he asked the people to choose three representatives from each of the seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been allotted. These were to "go through the land and describe it," that is, to make a general estimate and valuation, rather than an accurate survey, "with reference to their inheritance," that is, in view of their inheriting the land. After their return to Shiloh these twenty-one delegates were to divide the land into seven portions, when the lot would assign to each tribe the place of its inheritance. A. E.—The surveying party, instead of mapping out the country by its natural boundaries (rivers or mountain ranges) or by lines of latitude and longitude, described it by cities and their adjacent villages. The whole was thus divided into seven parts, and these parts assigned to the seven tribes by lot. As Judah and Ephraim were found to have a disproportionate share, Benjamin's allotment was taken from theirs, and also the allotment for Simeon was cut from the southwestern portion of Judah. H. C. Inheritance of Benjamin. 11. Between the children of Judah and the children of Joseph (33:12). The prediction of Moses in regard to the lot of Benjamin was remarkably fulfilled. Bush.—The warlike little band of Benjamites, which had marched in the desert side by side with the mighty sons of Joseph, was not parted from them in the new settlement. It hung on the outskirts of Ephraim. Thus a group was formed in the centre of Palestine, firmly compacted of the descendants of Rachel, cut off on the north by the broad plain of Esdraelon. Stanley. The territory assigned to Benjamin lay immediately to the north of Judah. In its general features it resembled Judah, but it was greatly less in extent. Notwithstanding its narrow limits, it was the scene of many great events. It was "little Benjamin" that furnished the first royal "ruler" to the nation of Israel. Gibeah, Saul's capital, lay within its borders, as did also Jerusalem, emphatically and almost imperishably, "the holy city." Here, too, at first at least (for afterward it belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes), was Bethel, where Jacob had his wonderful vision, and from whose heights Abraham got one of his first views of the Land of Promise. The Mount of Olives was in the tribe of Benjamin, and so were nearly all those places in and around Jerusalem which have been crowned with undying fame. Thus, though little, in one sense, among the tribes of Israel, Benjamin, in real interest and greatness, rivalled them all. It was not the least of its glories that Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, was a member of this tribe, and could describe himself as "an Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin." W. G. B. In the description of the lots of Judah and Benjamin, an account is given both of the limits by which they were bounded and of the cities contained in them. In that of Ephraim and Manasseh the boundaries are given, but not the cities. In this chapter Simeon and Dan are described by their cities only, and not by their borders, because they were small and the former lay within the limits of another tribe. The rest have both their borders described, and their cities named. Bush. 19:1-9. The Inheritance of Simeon. This was included within the limits of Judah, and is elsewhere seldom or never spoken of as a distinct district. In this arrangement the providence of God is to be especially noted, as Jacob, in the spirit of prophecy, had foretold that Simeon and Levi should be "divided in Jacob," and "scattered in Israel." This was accordingly most literally fulfilled in the manner in which these tribes were now disposed of. Levi was "scattered" throughout all the land not having received any distinct inheritance, but only certain "cities to dwell in;" and Simeon, as we here learn, was "divided" or dispersed over the territories of Judah instead of having one of their own. This arrangement brought them into confederacy with the tribe of Judah (Jn. 1:3), and afterward was the occasion of the adherence of many of this tribe to the house of David at the time of the revolt of the ten tribes. Bush. 10-39. The four tribes of Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, and Naphtali obtain contiguous portions in the north of Palestine, as they were allied in birth, and as they marched through the desert. The forests of Lebanon, the fertility of the plain of Esdraelon, the port of Accho, figure in the blessings pronounced upon them. But, with the exception of the transient splendor of the days of Barak and of Gideon, they hardly affect the general fortunes of the nation. Stanley. To Zebulun was allotted the hill country bordering on the great plain of Esdraelon from the sea-coast to the Sea of Galilee. Issachar received for his inheritance the fertile plain of Esdraelon, with the beautiful valley of Jezreel; here, on the highway of the armies of Egypt and Assyria, the great battle-field of Palestine, he was to lead a nomad life, dwelling "in tents," but at the same time he was equally with Zebulun to suck of the abundance of the seas and of treasures hid in the sand. To Asher was assigned the sea-coast from Carmel to Sidon, with the plain of Phœnicia and the low hills on its western border—one of the richest tracts in Palestine, well fulfilling the promise made in the blessing of Jacob, that his "bread" should be "fat," and that he should yield "royal dainties;" and in that of Moses, that he should be "blessed with children," and "dip his feet in oil," and that his "shoes" should be "iron and brass." To Naphtali fell the broad elevated tract lying between Asher and the Jordan, which may still be described in the words of Josephus as "universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation by its fruitfulness"—a land in which Naphtali was to be "satisfied with favor, and full with the blessing of the Lord." Wilson. Phœnicia was never conquered, and no one can help being struck by the peculiar relations that existed between the Israelites and their northern neighbors. In Ju. 1:31, we are told that Asher did not drive out "the inhabitants of Accho, nor of Zidon, Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, nor of Rehob;" and in verse 32, that the Asherites "dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land." Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Bethshemesh and Beth-anath, but "he dwelt among the Canaanites;" nevertheless, the inhabitants of these towns became tributaries to him, and in the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, whose husband was "a man of Tyre, a worker in brass" (1 K. 7:14), we have an indication that mixed marriages were not uncommon. There is no trace of any great war between the Israelites and the Phœnicians, and it is not unlikely that a considerable portion of the northern tribes settled down as fellow-citizens among the people of Tyre, Sidon, and other Phœnician cities. Wilson.—It was to Zarephath, one of the towns of Phœnicia, that Elijah was sent, in the time of a great famine, to bring life and sustenance to the Syro-phœnician widow and her son; and it was somewhere within the borders of this territory that another Syro-phœnician woman once came, seeking a greater prophet than Elijah, and, after a memorable exhibition of faith, went home rejoicing, her afflicted daughter having been made whole. W. G. B. 40-48. The last of the tribes that received its due was Dan, the smallest of all, at times overlooked, and in the last catalogue of the tribes that appears in the Sacred Volume (Rev.), dropped out altogether. It was squeezed into the narrow strip between the mountains and the sea, in the plain already occupied by the expelled races. Sanley.—Dan, though commander of one of the four squadrons of the camp of Israel in the wilderness, that which brought up the rear, yet was last provided for in Canaan, and his lot fell in the southern part of Canaan, between Judah on the east and the land of the Philistines on the west; Ephraim on the north and Simeon on the south. H. 47. The meaning is that the Danites, being closely pressed upon by their powerful neighbors the Philistines, were forced in considerable numbers to abandon their allotted possessions. In consequence of having their original portion thus wrested out of their hands, they were induced to seek another in a distant quarter of the land, and made an inroad accordingly upon Leshem, lying at the foot of Mount Lebanon and near the sources of the river Jordan. This event, which occurred some time after the death of Joshua, and is more fully recorded (Jn. 18:1-29), is touched upon here both to complete what is said of the inheritance of the Danites, and to intimate how it happened that a part of the tribe were afterward found inhabiting a district of the country so remote from their original possessions. This addition to the narrative was perhaps made by Phineas. Bush.—The children of Dan fought against, and took Leshem, a city not far from Jordan, called Laish in the Book of Judges; in aftertimes Cæsarea Philippi. They dwelt therein, or remained in undisturbed possession of it, and gave it the name of Dan; all this was done after Joshua's death, and is related more largely in the Book of Judges (ch. 18). Shuckford. To the tribe of Judah there fell a country abounding with vines and pasture grounds (Gen. 49:11), to that of Ashur, one plenteous in oil, iron and brass (De. 33:24), to that of Naphtali, one extending from the west to the south of Judea (De. 30:23), to that of Benjamin, one in which the temple was afterward built (De. 33:12), to that of Zebulun, a country abounding in seaports (Gen. 49:13), to those of Ephraim and Manasseh, countries renowned for their precious fruits (De. 33:14), and to those of Simeon and Levi no particular countries at all, forasmuch as the former had a portion with Judah, and the latter was dispersed through the several tribes. Since, therefore, each particular lot answered so exactly to each prediction, we are supplied with the most indisputable proof that there was divine inspiration in these predictions, and divine direction in the distribution of the lots. Stackhouse. The ultimate location of all the tribes in their own cities and territory was an event of profound significance, worthy to be long remembered. A great people, four hundred years oppressed in Egypt, forty years wandering homeless in the deserts of Arabia, full seven years up to this date in the conquest of Canaan, and therefore unsettled—in a state of war, living in camp: but now they fold up their tents and make their permanent homes in cities already built; in houses constructed, not to say, furnished ready to their hand. Around them are lands under tillage, fruit trees in bearing condition, everything prepared for living with all the comforts of Oriental life. H. C. The division of the land was carried out, so that not merely the limits of the tribal territories were fixed, but inside these also the districts of the families. Thus the life of tribe and family remained the basis of civil society. This certainly fostered a disposition to maintain the interests of the tribes at the cost of the national cause, in times when there was no powerful central authority, and every one did what seemed right to him; but it also insured the propagation of the faith and customs of the fathers within the family circle, when declensions began to grow frequent. Thus the "good land" was won, where, on the basis of a life of husbandry requiring regular industry, the people were to be matured for the fulfilment of their destiny in quiet and retirement. O. Lowman has given three different estimates of the extent of territory occupied by the twelve tribes; the mean between the two extremes approaches probably the nearest to the truth. According to this computation, the Jewish dominion, at the time of the division, was 180 miles long by 130 wide, and contained 14,976,000 acres. "This quantity of land will divide to 600,000 men, about 2½ acres in property, with a remainder of 1,976,000 acres for the Levitical cities, the princes of tribes, the heads of families, and other public uses." Assuming this estate of 21½ acres assigned to each household, of course a larger proportion of pasture must have been given to those tribes who subsisted on their herds and flocks, than of arable to those who lived by tillage; the portions of the latter, therefore, must be considerably reduced. On the other hand, the extraordinary fertility of the whole country must be taken into the account. No part was waste; very little was occupied by unprofitable wood; the more fertile hills were cultivated in artificial terraces, others were hung with orchards of fruit-trees; the more rocky and barren districts were covered with vineyards. Even in the present day, the wars and misgovernment of ages have not exhausted the natural richness of the soil. Galilee, says Malté Brun, would be a paradise were it inhabited by an industrious people, under an enlightened government. No land could be less dependent on foreign importation; it bore within itself everything that could be necessary for the subsistence and comfort of a simple agricultural people. The climate was healthy, the seasons regular; the former rains, which fell about October, after the vintage, prepared the ground for the seed; the latter, which prevailed during March and the beginning of April, made it grow rapidly. Directly the rains ceased, the grain ripened with still greater rapidity, and was gathered in before the end of May. The summer months were dry and very hot, but the nights cool and refreshed by copious dews. In September, the vintage was gathered. Grain of all kinds, wheat, barley, millet, zea, and other sorts, grew in abundance; the wheat commonly yielded thirty for one. Besides the vine and the olive, the almond, the date, figs of many kinds, the orange, the pomegranate, and many other fruit-trees, flourished in the greatest luxuriance. With a country under a delicious climate, where the corn-fields, the pastures, the vineyards, and olive-grounds vied with each other in fertility; perfect freedom and equality; a mild and parental government, the administration of justice by local authorities according to a written law; national festivals tending to promote national union;—had the people duly appreciated the blessings attached to the strict and permanent observance of their constitution, poets might have found their golden age in the plains of Galilee and the valleys of Judea. The assignment of the different estates seems to have been left to the local government of each tribe. Certain distinguished persons, as Joshua and Caleb, received grants of land larger than ordinary; but the whole land was subject to the common law of property. The great principle of this law was the inalienability of estates. Houses in walled towns might be sold in perpetuity, if unredeemed within the year; land only for a limited period. At the Jubilee, every estate reverted, without repurchase, to the original proprietor. Even during this period it might be redeemed, should the proprietor become rich enough, at the value which the estate would produce during the years unelapsed before the jubilee. This remarkable agrarian law secured the political equality of the people, and anticipated all the mischiefs so fatal to the early republics of Greece and Italy, the appropriation of the whole territory of the state by a rich and powerful landed oligarchy, with the consequent convulsions of the community from the deadly struggle between the patrician and plebeian orders. In the Hebrew state, the improvident individual might reduce himself and his family to penury or servitude, but he could not perpetuate a race of slaves or paupers. Every fifty years God, the King and Lord of the soil, as it were resumed the whole territory, and granted it back in the same portions to the descendants of the original possessors. It is curious to observe in this earliest practical Utopia the realization of Machiavelli's great maxim, the constant renovation of the state according to the first principles of its constitution. Milman. On the conquest of Canaan, it was divided into twelve parts, which were assigned by lot to the different tribes. Thus the Hebrew state was a confederacy of twelve small provinces, like the Swiss cantons. The territory of each was then subdivided, so that a portion of land was assigned to every family. This gave to every man a fixed and permanent home. Each tribe was marched to its new possession, every family entered on its humble estate, and Israel began its national existence. This determined the occupations of the people. By planting every father of a family upon a plot of ground which he was to cultivate, Moses formed a nation of farmers—the best citizens for a free Commonwealth. The miracle was as great as if immense hordes of wandering Bedaween were instantly transformed into quiet husbandmen. Agriculture, keeping all the inhabitants at home, promotes patriotism and attachment to the national religion. Farmers are the strength of a state, for they are generally both peaceful citizens and brave warriors. A small state is never so invincible as when all its citizens are independent freeholders. Then every man has an interest rooted in the soil. He fights for his country because he fights for his home. At the beginning the Hebrew state presented the remarkable spectacle of two millions and a half of people, all equal in rank, and very nearly so in condition. This fact is the more surprising when contrasted with the monstrous inequalities which prevailed in other Oriental countries. Indeed, a parallel to this it would not be possible to find in the most democratic modern state. Field. It cannot be disputed that the Israelites, after having been enslaved for centuries in Egypt, escaped by their unaided efforts from the strongest government in the world, crossed the sea, lived long in the peninsula of Sinai, and suddenly acquiring a warlike character, scattered the powerful armies of the confederate princes that opposed their entrance into Canaan. It cannot be disputed that they set up a remarkable civil and religious polity with laws and rites of a unique character, and that their whole institutions, civil and sacred, which lasted fifteen hundred years, sprang out of their history as it is recorded by Moses and Joshua. Can these facts be accounted for without the supernatural? Is it not true that of all things incredulity is the most credulous, and rationalism the most irrational? W. G. B. CALEB'S REQUEST FOR THE INHERITANCE PROMISED BY MOSES; JOSHUA'S GIFT IN FULFILMENT; CALEB'S CONQUEST OF HEBRON AND DEBIR; ACHSAH'S PETITION GRANTED BY CALEB. INHERITANCE OF JOSHUA. CITIES OF REFUGE ASSIGNED. THIRTEEN PRIESTLY CITIES. FORTY-EIGHT CITIES OF LEVITES. CONCLUDING STATEMENT. 13 1 Now Joshua was old and well stricken in years ; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and well stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. 2 This is the land that yet remaineth : all the regions of the Philistines, and all the Geshurites ; 3 from the Shihor, which is before Egypt, even unto the border of Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanites : the five lords of the Philistines ; the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, 4 the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites ; also the Avvim, on the south : all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that belongeth to the Zidonians, unto Aphek, to the border of 5 the Amorites : and the land of the Gebalites, and all Lebahon, toward the sunrising, from 6 Baal-gad under mount Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath : all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, even all the Zidonians ; them will I drive out from before the children of Israel : only allot thou it unto Israel for an inheritance, as I have 7 commanded thee. Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes, and the half tribe of Manasseh. 14 1 And these are the inheritances which the children of Israel took in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the 2 tribes of the children of Israel, distributed unto them, by the lot of their inheritance, as the 3 LORD commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes, and for the half tribe. For Moses had given the inheritance of the two tribes and the half tribe beyond Jordan : but unto the 4 Levites he gave none inheritance among them. For the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim : and they gave no portion unto the Levites in the land, save cities to 5 dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for their cattle and for their substance. As the LORD commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did, and they divided the land. 15 : 1-12, 20-63. The inheritance of Judah. 16 : 1-10 ; 17 : 1-11. The inheritance of Ephraim and Manasseh. 17 12 Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities ; but 13 the Canaanites would dwell in that land. And it came to pass, when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the Canaanites to task work, and did not utterly drive them out. 14 And the children of Joseph spake unto Joshua, saying, Why hast thou given me but one lot and one part for an inheritance, seeing I am a great people, forasmuch as hitherto the LORD 15 hath blessed me? And Joshua said unto them, If thou be a great people, get thee up to the forest, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim ; since 16 the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for thee. And the children of Joseph said, The hill country is not enough for us : and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are in Bethshean and her towns, and they who are in the valley 17 of Jezreel. And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and to Manasseh, 18 saying, Thou art a great people, and hast great power : thou shalt not have one lot only : but the hill country shall be thine ; for though it is a forest, thou shalt cut it down, and the goings out thereof shall be thine : for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they be strong. 18 1 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together 2 at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there : and the land was subdued before them. And there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes, which had not yet divided their in- 3 heritance. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go in to 4 possess the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, hath given you? Appoint for you three men for each tribe : and I will send them, and they shall arise, and walk through the 5 land, and describe it according to their inheritance ; and they shall come unto me. And they shall divide it into seven portions : Judah shall abide in his border on the south, and the house 6 of Joseph shall abide in their border on the north. And ye shall describe the land into seven portions, and bring the description hither to me : and I will cast lots for you here before the 7 LORD our God. For the Levites have no portion among you ; for the priesthood of the LORD is their inheritance : and Gad and Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh have received their 8 inheritance beyond Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave them. And the men arose, and went : and Joshua charged them that went to describe the land, saying, Go and walk through the land, and describe it, and come again to me, and I will cast lots for you 9 here before the LORD in Shiloh. And the men went and passed through the land, and de- scribed it by cities into seven portions in a book, and they came to Joshua unto the camp at 10 Shiloh. And Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the LORD : and there Joshua divided the land unto the children of Israel according to their divisions. 18 : 11-28 ; 19 : 1-48. Inheritances of Benjamin, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naph- tali, and Dan. 49. So they made an end of distributing the land for inheritance by the borders thereof ; 51. These are the inheritances, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel, distributed for inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the LORD, at the door of the tent of meeting. So they made an end of dividing the land. The conquest of Canaan by Joshua was suffi- ciently complete to permit the distribution of the territory among the tribes of Israel, and its general occupation accordingly. The assign- ment to each tribe of its portion of the territory was made, as a rule, by lot ; and it is remarkable how well the condition of the several tribes, in its district thus assigned, answered to the con- dition predicted of it, many years before, by the dying Moses, and even to the condition predicted of it hundreds of years before in Egypt by the dying Jacob. N. C. B.—The Book of Joshua is the Domesday Book of Palestine, not only describing, with the fulness of a govern- ment survey, the various tribal boundaries throughout the land, but containing long lists of the towns and villages allotted to each tribe, in the order, as recent research has shown, of their geographical position. Porter. The conquest of Palestine, so far as it required the united forces of all Israel, was over; what remained to be done, in putting down risings, in consolidating what had been won, and in capturing isolated and still unconquered cities, was left for the most part to the energy of the tribe to which the territory in question was assigned. The warlike half of Joshua's great task was accomplished: the peaceful work of dividing the territory between the victorious tribes remained. The second half of the Book of Joshua—chapters 13-22—the Domesday Book of Palestine, is mainly taken up with details of the distribution. These are no less honorable to the man who carried them out than the details of the campaign which rendered them possible. Plummer. 13:1. Now Joshua was old. To what age he was now advanced we cannot certainly know, because we do not know his age when he came out of Egypt. If he was then forty-three, he was eighty-three when they came into Canaan; and now he wanted not much of a hundred. Patrick. 3. When the Israelites arrived, the Philistines were in full possession of the Shephelah, or maritime plain, from the "river of Egypt" in the south to Ekron in the north, and had formed a confederacy of five powerful cities—Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. The interval that elapsed between Abraham and the Exodus seems sufficient to allow for the alteration that took place in the position of the Philistines, and their transformation from a pastoral tribe to a settled and powerful nation. P. S. 5. The notices in the Bible lead us to search for Baal-gad in the direction and neighborhood of Baalbek. In the valley of Lebanon, under Hermon, and the entrance into Hamath: these are the geographical indications. Let any one ride from Baalbek northward to Lebweh or 'Ain, or, better still, to Kamâa Hermel, and look off toward Hamath, and he will be struck with the propriety of the phrase, entrance into Hamath. From his standpoint the valley of the Bak'ah opens out like a vast fan on to the great plain of northern Syria, and he is at the gate of the kingdom. Baalbek being, therefore, in the neighborhood where we must look for Baal gad, there seems to be no good reason to doubt their identity, for there is no rival to dispute the honor of the name and site. The remains at Baalbek are adequate to meet the demands of any history, and some of them may claim an antiquity equal to anything that even Egypt can boast. Thompson. 6. It should be always remembered that the promise made by God, of driving out the old inhabitants ("Them will I drive out," verse 6), was conditional, and depended on the adherence of the Israelites to his worship and service. Accordingly, in consequence of their flagrant and repeated disobedience, they only partially deserved the fulfilment of the promise. We do not read that the Sidonians (verse 6) were ever conquered by the Israelites, and the people of Lebanon were not made tributary till the days of David and Solomon. Patrick.—Joshua actually did all that it was promised he should do. God never said that he should conquer all the land, but simply that he should bring Israel into it, and divide it among them, both which he did, and procured them footing by his conquests sufficient to have enabled them to establish themselves in it forever. Their failure to do so was owing wholly to themselves. 7. Dividing the land by lot was the readiest way of satisfying all parties, and preventing discontent and discord. The several allotments are here very minutely detailed in order that litigation growing out of disputed boundaries might ever after be prevented. When the limits of each tribe were so clearly settled there could be little room for contending claims; or if there were, an authentic register of the lot of each tribe would be at hand to be appealed to for a decision, and there is no doubt that it was often made use of in after ages for this purpose. The reading of this account by succeeding generations would tend to excite a deep impression of the goodness of God in bestowing upon their ancestors for the benefit of their posterity, such a large and fertile country, an inheritance so replete with all worldly blessings. Bush. Ch. 13: 8-33. 8-13. These verses comprise a general description of the whole country east of Jordan given to the two tribes and a half. The remainder of the chapter is occupied with a detailed account of the several districts allotted to each. Bush. Chs. 14-19. 14: 1-5. These verses comprise a general introduction to the six chapters. The division of the land among the nine and a half tribes was, in strict accordance with Divine direction (Nu. 26: 52-56; 33: 54; 34: 2-29), made by Eleazar, Joshua, and one representative from each of the ten tribes. It was decided by the "lot," which probably, however, only determined the situation of each inheritance, whether north or south, inland or by the seashore, not its extent and precise boundaries. These would depend upon the size of each tribe. In point of fact, the original arrangements had in some cases to be afterward modified, not as to tribal localization which was unalterably fixed by the Divine lot, but as to extent of territory. Thus Judah had to give up part of its possession to Simeon (19 : 9), while Dan, whose portion proved too small, obtained certain cities both from Judah and from Ephraim. A. E. 2. The sacred lot was employed at the division of the tribal territories, to discover the guilty one who had brought a curse on the people (Josh. 7), and in 1 S. 10 : 20 f., at the king's election. These methods of inquiring into the Divine will retire into the background the more prophecy becomes prominent. O.—This distribution by lot was overruled by a special providence, so as to correspond with the inspired predictions of Jacob and Moses respecting the allotment of each tribe. The fact is unquestionable, that the tribes found themselves placed by lot in the very sections of the country which Jacob had foretold two hundred and fifty years before, and Moses shortly before his death (comp. Gen. 49 and De. 33). To Judah fell a country abounding in vineyards and pastures; to Zebulun, sea-coasts; to Issachar, a rich plain between ranges of mountains; to Asher, one abounding in plenty of oil, wheat, and metals; and so of the others. Bush. Chs. 15-17. Judah and Joseph, as the two great tribes, dividing the birthright between them, had the land first divided between them, their general outlines being given. Afterward the other tribes are arranged, modifying the first division. The lot probably gave only general indications, while the commissioners made the special allotments, according to circumstances. Crosby. The tribe of Judah was powerful in consequence of its numbers, and now received such natural frontiers as to form, on the south, a rampart of protection to the whole of Israel against the enemy. Therefore its boundaries went from the south end of the Salt Sea westward to where Sihor empties itself into the Mediterranean; its eastern limits, from the south end of the Salt Sea to the point where it receives the waters of the Jordan; its northern, from thence over Mount Zion, by Timnah and the brook Sorek, to the sea which bounds it on the west. C. G. B.—The lot of Judah as here marked out was bounded on the south by the wilderness of Sin and the southern coast of the Salt Sea; on the east by that sea, reaching to the place at which it receives the waters of the Jordan; on the north by a line drawn nearly parallel to Jerusalem across from the northern extremity of the Salt Sea to the south boundary of the Philistines and to the Mediterranean Sea; which sea was its western boundary as far as the river of Egypt. Joshua is particular in giving the limits of this tribe, as being the first, the most numerous, the most important, that which was to furnish the kings of Judea, that in which pure religion was to be preserved, and that from which the Messiah was to spring. As this portion, however, contained nearly half the southern part of Canaan, it was afterward found too extensive, and the possessions of Simeon and Dan were taken out of it. Bush.—In travelling over these places one begins early to perceive that not only is the geography and scenery of Palestine "a fifth gospel," but it is a second Pentateuch, Book of Joshua, and Kings. The feeling deepened at every step of the journey. S. C. B. 20. This is the preface to the list of principal towns of Judah, which follow in four sections: those in the Negeb (the technical "South" of Judah); those in the Shephelah (the fertile plain on the coast); those in the Mountain country, and those in the Wilderness west of the Dead Sea. Crosby. # Natural or Physical Characteristics of Judah's Inheritance. First, the Negeb or "South" country extends along the whole southern frontier from east to west. It is an irregularly shaped tract, extending from the mountains of Judah on the north to the edge of the Desert of Paran, and from the south end of the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean; but stretching in a sloping direction toward the northeast to the Dead Sea, and to the southwest to El Arish, thus occupying a middle position, both topographically and physically, between the rich soil of central Canaan and the sandy wastes of that great and terrible wilderness. The south differs from the hill country of Judah to the north of it, not merely so much in being pastoral instead of cultivated, for its whole extent yields proof of very extensive though not universal cultivation in former times; nor in its being less hilly, for it has but few plains of any extent; but in its deep ravines, torn and rent by winter torrents, "the streams of the south" of Ps 126 : 4. These torrents, quite dry in summer, cut down steep cliffs into narrow gullies by their violence in winter. On the west side they drain toward the Arish and Philistia, on the east toward the Dead Sea, none running south into Paran or the Wilderness. The wide central expanse is now a sort of upland wilderness, a series of rolling hills, with scanty herbage more abundant on their northern slopes, but without a tree or a bush more than three feet high. The words of Dr. Robinson, about Zephath or Hormah, may be applied to every city of the Negeb :—"Once, as we judged upon the spot, this must have been a city of not less than 10,000 or 12,000 inhabitants. Now it is a perfect field of ruins, a scene of unutterable desolation, across which the passing stranger can with difficulty find his way." A mighty spell seems to rest upon the cities of the south. We turn to the word of prophecy, and we read, "The cities of the south (Negeb) shall be shut up, and none shall open them : Judah shall be carried away captive, all of it : it shall be wholly carried away captive" (Jer. 13 : 19). The second physical division of the allotment of Joshua was the Shephelah, or low country, translated generally in our version as "the valley" (Josh. 15 : 33), and sometimes "the plain." It comprises the low lying flat country, whether desert or corn-growing, which intervenes between the central backbone of hills extending from north to south and the sea. The expression, though equally applicable to all the coast plains of Palestine, is generally confined to those of Philistia and Sharon, which are limited northward by the bold projecting spur of Carmel ; while the next plain, that of Acre, is similarly cut off by the precipitous Ladder of Tyre from the Plain of Phœnicia. This region in the allotment of the tribes fell principally to Judah, in the south of whose portion were several towns assigned to Simeon ; while the northern part, better known as the Plain of Sharon, was the rich but narrow heritage of Dan. Practically, however, the more important and valuable part of this vast corn-plain was never conquered till after the monarchy, and remained in the possession of the Philistines, who were often the terror and the scourge of Israel. There is no natural boundary line between Philistia and Sharon. The plain stretches with scarce an undulation, but with very varying depth inland, from the southern frontiers of the Desert of Gaza to the foot of Carmel. The descent from the Negeb, or south land, to the low country is gentle and insensible on its southern limit, but much more steep and clearly defined from the hill country of Judah on the east. From the low country of the coast we now turn eastward to the third physical division of the territory of Judah, recognized constantly in Holy Writ as "the mountains," or the "Hill country." The line of demarcation between it and "the south country" is very easily recognized, though they blend into each other. The great pasture district of the south melts into the hill country a few miles to the south of Hebron. The northern part of the "Negeb" presents the appearance of a long series of gently-rolling downs, wide shallow valleys, and broad rounded ridges. But a few hours before reaching Hebron the valleys become narrower and steeper, the hill tops are sharper, the ridges are full of caves, natural or artificial—the dwellings of the Horites, or Cave-men, in olden times ; and when we reach Debir we can fully understand the petition of Achsah to her father Caleb : "Give me a blessing ; for thou hast given me a south land : give me also springs of water" (Ju. 1 : 15), as we see the springs gushing forth from the rocky side of the valley, and feel we are no longer in a "south land." Here the ruins of the cities of Judah begin to crowd upon us. Almost every hill-top is marked by the groups of deserted dwellings—not grass-grown, like those of the south, but with walls and narrow streets, bare and barren. Every name recalls some incident in the life of the Bethlehemite—Jattir, Lebaoth, Eshtemoa, Maon, Carmel, Ziph—scarcely altered in the Arabic vernacular from the old Hebrew. The register of Joshua (verses 21-62) gives thirty-eight cities in the hill country of Judah, divided into five topographical groups ; and even among these are omitted some of future distinction, as Bethlehem and Tekoa. But it is impossible to wander among these hills without perceiving that the expression, "her towns," applied in the enumeration to many of the cities, was no mere figure of speech. The groups of ruins, "the desolate heaps" of Judah, far outnumber any catalogue of her cities that has come down to us. There are no streams, but many springs, and wells innumerable. The hill country culminates at Hebron, but it slopes very little either east or west, forming throughout its whole extent a rugged plateau from Philistia to the Dead Sea ; and its deep dells, or wadys, are scarcely seen till we are upon them. They run for the most part east and west from the central ridge, and add immensely to the natural strength of the district, every nook of which is almost a natural fortress, independently of the cities whose ruins crown every brow, where once "the Lion of Judah" crouched secure. The wells are sunk in hill and vale alike; and all the hill-sides, ribbed with their parallel lines of terrace, once covered with gardens, vineyards, and fig-trees, attest the indefatigable industry no less than the dense population of its ancient inhabitants. But the position of the towns and the character of the ruins are so constantly alike, that it is in vain to attempt separate descriptions for each, save in very few instances. Tristram. The Wilderness is the district stretching along the western shore of the Dead Sea in which David took refuge for some time when pursued by Saul; it is a dreary waste of bare hills cut up by innumerable water-courses, uncultivated, and bearing no traces of former occupation. Wilson. The tribe of Joseph had the centre of the land across from Jordan to the Mediterranean. Ephraim lay north of Judah; but between them were the districts afterward allotted to Benjamin and Dan. Besides the sacred valley of Shechem, it included some of the finest parts of Palestine, the mountains of Ephraim, and the great and fertile maritime plain of Sharon, proverbial for its roses. P. S.—16 : 1-4. The descendants of Joseph received two shares of the inheritance. As closely allied tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh received each many towns situated in the territory of the other. C. G. B.—The central hill country of Palestine is often spoken of as "Mount Ephraim," an expression which comprises all the hilly region from within a few miles north of Jerusalem at Bethel, as far as the Plain of Esdraelon, including, therefore, the whole of the west allotment of Manasseh. Mount Ephraim was to the northern country what the hill country of Judah was to the southern—the backbone, centre, and strength of the nation. Like the hill country of Judah, and unlike the possessions of the northern tribes by Esdraelon, or the western ones by the coast, it was inaccessible to invaders, who were not prepared for the risks of mountain defiles and the storming of hill forts. Its military topography is such, that it is defensible at every turn, and nothing but a panic could disorganize the defence of such a region. Thus the tribe of Manasseh was charged by the High Priest "to keep the passages of the hill country, for by them there was an entrance into Judea; and it was easy to stop them that would come up, because the passage was strait for two men at the most" (Judith 4 : 7). Tristram. Shechem, famous in the days of Abraham and Jacob, and which Joshua may be said to have made the civil capital of the country, was situated in the tribe of Ephraim. So was Shiloh, the first ecclesiastical capital, where the ark was solemnly placed, at the end of Joshua's wars. So also was Samaria, which became, under Omri, the capital of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Joshua himself was a man of Ephraim, and must have given no small importance to the tribe. Gideon, one of the most noble of the judges, with his seventy princely brothers, was a native of the adjacent tribe of Manasseh. "The mountain," or mountainous part, "of Ephraim," was frequently the rallying-place for the nation, where the appointed deliverers raised the standard of resistance to their oppressors. Deborah, though herself apparently of the northern tribes, dwelt between Ramah and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim; Tola of Issachar judged Israel in Shamir, in the same mount; Samuel was of Ramah. W. G. B.—Of the southern tribes, the most powerful was Judah; of the northern, Ephraim; whence originated a jealousy between the two, which broke out early, and laid the foundation of that fatal schism which took place on the death of Solomon, by the revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam an Ephraimite. Hales. 17 : 2. In 16 : 1 the revision reads, "And the lot for the children of Joseph went out from the Jordan," etc., connecting the verb with the locality, whereas the meaning is that "the lot came out [from the urn or receptacle of the lots] for the children of Joseph," etc. So in the second verse of this seventeenth chapter the revision reads, "And the lot was for the rest of Manasseh," as if this was a new statement in addition to what preceded, whereas it is a mere resumption of what has gone before. The Appendix therefore reads, "So the lot was for the rest," etc. Chambers. 17 : 12. The children of Manasseh could not drive out. They could not drive them out through want of faith in God, and of zeal to perform his commands. Here the fountain of all the evils which afterward befell the Israelites begins to be opened, in that, either through sloth or covetousness or distrust of God's power, they did not attempt to drive out those people that were stronger than ordinary; or through want of faith in God, failed in the attempt. Patrick.—The Canaanites would dwell in that land. Heb. "willed to dwell." A very remarkable expression, indicative of the obstinate determination of the Canaanites to retain possession of the country, and carrying with it a severe reflection upon the supineness, cowardice, and unbelief of the Israelites. Bush. 13. They put the Canaanites to tribute.** Herein they offended against the Divine command (De. 20 : 16, 17), by which they were peremptorily directed to destroy the Canaanites when they were able. In thus putting them to tribute, they were probably influenced by motives of indolence and gain. Patrick.—This early degree of sloth and worldly-mindedness, afterward displayed in other instances, laid the foundation of all the ensuing calamities which befell the people. Pyle.—Any conformity to the heathen around, or tolerance of heathenism, any decay of the spirit in which they had entered the land, would result not only in weakness, but in the triumph of the enemy. And so it was intended of the Lord. The lesson of all this is obvious and important. To us also has our Joshua given entrance into Canaan, and victory over our enemies—the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have present possession of the land. But we do not yet hold all its cities, nor are our enemies exterminated. It needs on our part constant faith; there must be no compromise with the enemy, no tolerance of his spirit, no cessation of our warfare. Only that which at first gave us the land can complete and consolidate our possession of it. A. E. Complaint of Ephraim and Manasseh. 14-18. The children of Joseph, that is, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, complain to Joshua of the narrowness of their allotment, which was increased by the Canaanites still retaining so large a portion of it. Joshua, though a descendant himself of Joseph, remained perfectly impartial; and told them they must enlarge the country by their valor, by driving out their enemies from the woody and mountainous parts, and thus making them habitable for themselves. Pyle.—One lot and one only should they have in the general apportionment. If they wanted more they must conquer it for themselves. They grounded their claim on being “a great people,” having “great power.” Well, then, let them prove it by great deeds. There was room enough for them in “the wood country;” let them get them up there and clear away the forest, and drive out the Perizzites and the giants, if Mount Ephraim were too narrow for them. So they might obtain a second portion, and not have “one lot only.” E. V. Many wish for larger possessions, who do not cultivate and make the best of what they have, think they should have more talents given them, who do not trade with those with which they are intrusted. Most people’s poverty is the effect of their idleness; would they dig, they need not beg. He bids them fight for more (verses 17, 18), when they pleaded that they could not come at the wood-lands he spoke of, because in the valley between them and it there were Canaanites whom they durst not enter the lists with. “Never fear them,” said Joshua, “thou hast God on thy side, and thou shalt drive out the Canaanites if thou wilt set about it in good earnest, though they have iron chariots.” We straiten ourselves by apprehending the difficulties in the way of our enlargement to be greater than they are. H. The attitude of the children of Joseph throughout the history of the twelve tribes is in precise accordance with the hint given here. They were proud of their numerical preponderance over the remaining tribes. Thus they, and they only, ventured to remonstrate with Joshua about the inadequacy of the portion allotted to them. Such a sensitiveness was likely to degenerate into insolence when the authority of the great leader was removed. And the history of Gideon and of Jephthah shows that this was actually the case. Here, again, we have a sign of that deep undercurrent of consistency which underlies our history, and is a guarantee of its authenticity. Lias. These tribes had plenty of power, plenty of stalwart men to clear the waste or conquer their enemies; but they had not moral force to match. They want to dominate, without paying the price of lordship in daring and willingness to encounter difficulty and hardship. Glover.—For the Church, too, conquest is the condition of security and of continuance. Pressed on every hand by a hostile world, it must be ever in an attitude of active defence and advance. Every new generation needs to be won afresh for Jesus Christ. The Church cannot even hold its own without ever fresh conquests. De P. THE TABERNACLE (“Tent of Meeting”) SET UP AT SHILOH. When the two great tribes of Judah and Joseph had been located, the one taking the south and the other the middle portion of the country, there seems to have been a pause in the work of distribution. We have no direct statement of the reason, nor are we told how long the interval was between the dividing of the land to the two tribes at Gilgal and the dividing of the land to the seven tribes at Shiloh. Crosby. 18:1. And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled at Shiloh. This was the first assembly or diet of the people, held for important consultation; therefore the expression is not, "the children of Israel," but "the whole congregation of the children of Israel." The encampment was moved from Gilgal to Shiloh, and the tabernacle set up. C. G. B. (See maps, pp. 86, 110.) The situation of Shiloh was central to the whole country, and probably this fact determined its selection. The able-bodied men of the nation being required three times a year to leave their homes and journey to the place of the sanctuary, for the celebration of the national religious festivals, convenience of location became an important consideration. Shiloh was in the midst of the hills of Ephraim, about half way between Bethel on the south and Shechem on the north. It continued the religious capital for three hundred years, or until the time of old Eli and young Samuel, when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines. N. C. B.—Shiloh was situated in the tribe of Ephraim, in the very centre of Canaan, about twenty miles north of Jerusalem. It was therefore the most convenient location for all the tribes, and as Joshua was himself of the tribe of Ephraim, he, as chief magistrate of the nation, would always have a ready access to the sanctuary when the God of Israel was to be consulted. -Bush.—The central position of Shiloh was combined with a rare degree of seclusion. Standing in the very heart of the land, a little to the "east of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem," Shiloh, on its gentle eminence, yet surrounded by loftier hills, was shut out from the world. A labyrinth of valleys leads up to it and off from it, so intricate as to render the services of a guide quite indispensable to the modern traveller. N. C. B. (Sec. 232.) The ruined village Seilún is the site of Shiloh, where the Ark first rested after the capture of Ai and Jericho, and where Joshua divided the newly-conquered land of Canaan among the twelve tribes. The position of Shiloh is accurately defined in the Book of Judges (21:19) to be on the north of Bethel, on the south of Lebonah, and on the east of the highway that goeth from Bethel to Shechem. There is very little to mark the site now but ruins and a curious excavation in the rock in the side of the hill. In a little valley about half a mile from the ruins are the spring and well of Shiloh, where the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance at their periodical festival (Ju. 21). Tent Work. INHERITANCE OF SEVEN TRIBES: BENJAMIN, SIMEON, ZEBULUN, ISSACHAR, ASHER, NAPHTALI, AND DAN. 18:2-10. Twenty-one delegated commissioners survey the remaining land and divide it into seven portions. By Lot Joshua assigns a portion to each of the seven tribes. Joshua solemnly admonished the assembled people as to their "slackness" in taking possession of the land which Jehovah had given them. To terminate further jealousies, he asked the people to choose three representatives from each of the seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been allotted. These were to "go through the land and describe it," that is, to make a general estimate and valuation, rather than an accurate survey, "with reference to their inheritance," that is, in view of their inheriting the land. After their return to Shiloh these twenty-one delegates were to divide the land into seven portions, when the lot would assign to each tribe the place of its inheritance. A. E.—The surveying party, instead of mapping out the country by its natural boundaries (rivers or mountain ranges) or by lines of latitude and longitude, described it by cities and their adjacent villages. The whole was thus divided into seven parts, and these parts assigned to the seven tribes by lot. As Judah and Ephraim were found to have a disproportionate share, Benjamin's allotment was taken from theirs, and also the allotment for Simeon was cut from the southwestern portion of Judah. H. C. Inheritance of Benjamin. 11. Between the children of Judah and the children of Joseph (33:12). The prediction of Moses in regard to the lot of Benjamin was remarkably fulfilled. Bush.—The warlike little band of Benjamites, which had marched in the desert side by side with the mighty sons of Joseph, was not parted from them in the new settlement. It hung on the outskirts of Ephraim. Thus a group was formed in the centre of Palestine, firmly compacted of the descendants of Rachel, cut off on the north by the broad plain of Esdraelon. Stanley. The territory assigned to Benjamin lay immediately to the north of Judah. In its general features it resembled Judah, but it was greatly less in extent. Notwithstanding its narrow limits, it was the scene of many great events. It was "little Benjamin" that furnished the first royal "ruler" to the nation of Israel. Gibeah, Saul's capital, lay within its borders, as did also Jerusalem, emphatically and almost imperishably, "the holy city." Here, too, at first at least (for afterward it belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes), was Bethel, where Jacob had his wonderful vision, and from whose heights Abraham got one of his first views of the Land of Promise. The Mount of Olives was in the tribe of Benjamin, and so were nearly all those places in and around Jerusalem which have been crowned with undying fame. Thus, though little, in one sense, among the tribes of Israel, Benjamin, in real interest and greatness, rivalled them all. It was not the least of its glories that Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, was a member of this tribe, and could describe himself as "an Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin." W. G. B. In the description of the lots of Judah and Benjamin, an account is given both of the limits by which they were bounded and of the cities contained in them. In that of Ephraim and Manasseh the boundaries are given, but not the cities. In this chapter Simeon and Dan are described by their cities only, and not by their borders, because they were small and the former lay within the limits of another tribe. The rest have both their borders described, and their cities named. Bush. 19:1-9. The Inheritance of Simeon. This was included within the limits of Judah, and is elsewhere seldom or never spoken of as a distinct district. In this arrangement the providence of God is to be especially noted, as Jacob, in the spirit of prophecy, had foretold that Simeon and Levi should be "divided in Jacob," and "scattered in Israel." This was accordingly most literally fulfilled in the manner in which these tribes were now disposed of. Levi was "scattered" throughout all the land not having received any distinct inheritance, but only certain "cities to dwell in;" and Simeon, as we here learn, was "divided" or dispersed over the territories of Judah instead of having one of their own. This arrangement brought them into confederacy with the tribe of Judah (Jn. 1:3), and afterward was the occasion of the adherence of many of this tribe to the house of David at the time of the revolt of the ten tribes. Bush. 10-39. The four tribes of Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, and Naphtali obtain contiguous portions in the north of Palestine, as they were allied in birth, and as they marched through the desert. The forests of Lebanon, the fertility of the plain of Esdraelon, the port of Accho, figure in the blessings pronounced upon them. But, with the exception of the transient splendor of the days of Barak and of Gideon, they hardly affect the general fortunes of the nation. Stanley. To Zebulun was allotted the hill country bordering on the great plain of Esdraelon from the sea-coast to the Sea of Galilee. Issachar received for his inheritance the fertile plain of Esdraelon, with the beautiful valley of Jezreel; here, on the highway of the armies of Egypt and Assyria, the great battle-field of Palestine, he was to lead a nomad life, dwelling "in tents," but at the same time he was equally with Zebulun to suck of the abundance of the seas and of treasures hid in the sand. To Asher was assigned the sea-coast from Carmel to Sidon, with the plain of Phœnicia and the low hills on its western border—one of the richest tracts in Palestine, well fulfilling the promise made in the blessing of Jacob, that his "bread" should be "fat," and that he should yield "royal dainties;" and in that of Moses, that he should be "blessed with children," and "dip his feet in oil," and that his "shoes" should be "iron and brass." To Naphtali fell the broad elevated tract lying between Asher and the Jordan, which may still be described in the words of Josephus as "universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation by its fruitfulness"—a land in which Naphtali was to be "satisfied with favor, and full with the blessing of the Lord." Wilson. Phœnicia was never conquered, and no one can help being struck by the peculiar relations that existed between the Israelites and their northern neighbors. In Ju. 1:31, we are told that Asher did not drive out "the inhabitants of Accho, nor of Zidon, Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, nor of Rehob;" and in verse 32, that the Asherites "dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land." Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Bethshemesh and Beth-anath, but "he dwelt among the Canaanites;" nevertheless, the inhabitants of these towns became tributaries to him, and in the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, whose husband was "a man of Tyre, a worker in brass" (1 K. 7:14), we have an indication that mixed marriages were not uncommon. There is no trace of any great war between the Israelites and the Phœnicians, and it is not unlikely that a considerable portion of the northern tribes settled down as fellow-citizens among the people of Tyre, Sidon, and other Phœnician cities. Wilson.—It was to Zarephath, one of the towns of Phœnicia, that Elijah was sent, in the time of a great famine, to bring life and sustenance to the Syro-phœnician widow and her son; and it was somewhere within the borders of this territory that another Syro-phœnician woman once came, seeking a greater prophet than Elijah, and, after a memorable exhibition of faith, went home rejoicing, her afflicted daughter having been made whole. W. G. B. 40-48. The last of the tribes that received its due was Dan, the smallest of all, at times overlooked, and in the last catalogue of the tribes that appears in the Sacred Volume (Rev.), dropped out altogether. It was squeezed into the narrow strip between the mountains and the sea, in the plain already occupied by the expelled races. Sanley.—Dan, though commander of one of the four squadrons of the camp of Israel in the wilderness, that which brought up the rear, yet was last provided for in Canaan, and his lot fell in the southern part of Canaan, between Judah on the east and the land of the Philistines on the west; Ephraim on the north and Simeon on the south. H. 47. The meaning is that the Danites, being closely pressed upon by their powerful neighbors the Philistines, were forced in considerable numbers to abandon their allotted possessions. In consequence of having their original portion thus wrested out of their hands, they were induced to seek another in a distant quarter of the land, and made an inroad accordingly upon Leshem, lying at the foot of Mount Lebanon and near the sources of the river Jordan. This event, which occurred some time after the death of Joshua, and is more fully recorded (Jn. 18:1-29), is touched upon here both to complete what is said of the inheritance of the Danites, and to intimate how it happened that a part of the tribe were afterward found inhabiting a district of the country so remote from their original possessions. This addition to the narrative was perhaps made by Phineas. Bush.—The children of Dan fought against, and took Leshem, a city not far from Jordan, called Laish in the Book of Judges; in aftertimes Cæsarea Philippi. They dwelt therein, or remained in undisturbed possession of it, and gave it the name of Dan; all this was done after Joshua's death, and is related more largely in the Book of Judges (ch. 18). Shuckford. To the tribe of Judah there fell a country abounding with vines and pasture grounds (Gen. 49:11), to that of Ashur, one plenteous in oil, iron and brass (De. 33:24), to that of Naphtali, one extending from the west to the south of Judea (De. 30:23), to that of Benjamin, one in which the temple was afterward built (De. 33:12), to that of Zebulun, a country abounding in seaports (Gen. 49:13), to those of Ephraim and Manasseh, countries renowned for their precious fruits (De. 33:14), and to those of Simeon and Levi no particular countries at all, forasmuch as the former had a portion with Judah, and the latter was dispersed through the several tribes. Since, therefore, each particular lot answered so exactly to each prediction, we are supplied with the most indisputable proof that there was divine inspiration in these predictions, and divine direction in the distribution of the lots. Stackhouse. The ultimate location of all the tribes in their own cities and territory was an event of profound significance, worthy to be long remembered. A great people, four hundred years oppressed in Egypt, forty years wandering homeless in the deserts of Arabia, full seven years up to this date in the conquest of Canaan, and therefore unsettled—in a state of war, living in camp: but now they fold up their tents and make their permanent homes in cities already built; in houses constructed, not to say, furnished ready to their hand. Around them are lands under tillage, fruit trees in bearing condition, everything prepared for living with all the comforts of Oriental life. H. C. The division of the land was carried out, so that not merely the limits of the tribal territories were fixed, but inside these also the districts of the families. Thus the life of tribe and family remained the basis of civil society. This certainly fostered a disposition to maintain the interests of the tribes at the cost of the national cause, in times when there was no powerful central authority, and every one did what seemed right to him; but it also insured the propagation of the faith and customs of the fathers within the family circle, when declensions began to grow frequent. Thus the "good land" was won, where, on the basis of a life of husbandry requiring regular industry, the people were to be matured for the fulfilment of their destiny in quiet and retirement. O. Lowman has given three different estimates of the extent of territory occupied by the twelve tribes; the mean between the two extremes approaches probably the nearest to the truth. According to this computation, the Jewish dominion, at the time of the division, was 180 miles long by 130 wide, and contained 14,976,000 acres. "This quantity of land will divide to 600,000 men, about 2½ acres in property, with a remainder of 1,976,000 acres for the Levitical cities, the princes of tribes, the heads of families, and other public uses." Assuming this estate of 21½ acres assigned to each household, of course a larger proportion of pasture must have been given to those tribes who subsisted on their herds and flocks, than of arable to those who lived by tillage; the portions of the latter, therefore, must be considerably reduced. On the other hand, the extraordinary fertility of the whole country must be taken into the account. No part was waste; very little was occupied by unprofitable wood; the more fertile hills were cultivated in artificial terraces, others were hung with orchards of fruit-trees; the more rocky and barren districts were covered with vineyards. Even in the present day, the wars and misgovernment of ages have not exhausted the natural richness of the soil. Galilee, says Malté Brun, would be a paradise were it inhabited by an industrious people, under an enlightened government. No land could be less dependent on foreign importation; it bore within itself everything that could be necessary for the subsistence and comfort of a simple agricultural people. The climate was healthy, the seasons regular; the former rains, which fell about October, after the vintage, prepared the ground for the seed; the latter, which prevailed during March and the beginning of April, made it grow rapidly. Directly the rains ceased, the grain ripened with still greater rapidity, and was gathered in before the end of May. The summer months were dry and very hot, but the nights cool and refreshed by copious dews. In September, the vintage was gathered. Grain of all kinds, wheat, barley, millet, zea, and other sorts, grew in abundance; the wheat commonly yielded thirty for one. Besides the vine and the olive, the almond, the date, figs of many kinds, the orange, the pomegranate, and many other fruit-trees, flourished in the greatest luxuriance. With a country under a delicious climate, where the corn-fields, the pastures, the vineyards, and olive-grounds vied with each other in fertility; perfect freedom and equality; a mild and parental government, the administration of justice by local authorities according to a written law; national festivals tending to promote national union;—had the people duly appreciated the blessings attached to the strict and permanent observance of their constitution, poets might have found their golden age in the plains of Galilee and the valleys of Judea. The assignment of the different estates seems to have been left to the local government of each tribe. Certain distinguished persons, as Joshua and Caleb, received grants of land larger than ordinary; but the whole land was subject to the common law of property. The great principle of this law was the inalienability of estates. Houses in walled towns might be sold in perpetuity, if unredeemed within the year; land only for a limited period. At the Jubilee, every estate reverted, without repurchase, to the original proprietor. Even during this period it might be redeemed, should the proprietor become rich enough, at the value which the estate would produce during the years unelapsed before the jubilee. This remarkable agrarian law secured the political equality of the people, and anticipated all the mischiefs so fatal to the early republics of Greece and Italy, the appropriation of the whole territory of the state by a rich and powerful landed oligarchy, with the consequent convulsions of the community from the deadly struggle between the patrician and plebeian orders. In the Hebrew state, the improvident individual might reduce himself and his family to penury or servitude, but he could not perpetuate a race of slaves or paupers. Every fifty years God, the King and Lord of the soil, as it were resumed the whole territory, and granted it back in the same portions to the descendants of the original possessors. It is curious to observe in this earliest practical Utopia the realization of Machiavelli's great maxim, the constant renovation of the state according to the first principles of its constitution. Milman. On the conquest of Canaan, it was divided into twelve parts, which were assigned by lot to the different tribes. Thus the Hebrew state was a confederacy of twelve small provinces, like the Swiss cantons. The territory of each was then subdivided, so that a portion of land was assigned to every family. This gave to every man a fixed and permanent home. Each tribe was marched to its new possession, every family entered on its humble estate, and Israel began its national existence. This determined the occupations of the people. By planting every father of a family upon a plot of ground which he was to cultivate, Moses formed a nation of farmers—the best citizens for a free Commonwealth. The miracle was as great as if immense hordes of wandering Bedaween were instantly transformed into quiet husbandmen. Agriculture, keeping all the inhabitants at home, promotes patriotism and attachment to the national religion. Farmers are the strength of a state, for they are generally both peaceful citizens and brave warriors. A small state is never so invincible as when all its citizens are independent freeholders. Then every man has an interest rooted in the soil. He fights for his country because he fights for his home. At the beginning the Hebrew state presented the remarkable spectacle of two millions and a half of people, all equal in rank, and very nearly so in condition. This fact is the more surprising when contrasted with the monstrous inequalities which prevailed in other Oriental countries. Indeed, a parallel to this it would not be possible to find in the most democratic modern state. Field. It cannot be disputed that the Israelites, after having been enslaved for centuries in Egypt, escaped by their unaided efforts from the strongest government in the world, crossed the sea, lived long in the peninsula of Sinai, and suddenly acquiring a warlike character, scattered the powerful armies of the confederate princes that opposed their entrance into Canaan. It cannot be disputed that they set up a remarkable civil and religious polity with laws and rites of a unique character, and that their whole institutions, civil and sacred, which lasted fifteen hundred years, sprang out of their history as it is recorded by Moses and Joshua. Can these facts be accounted for without the supernatural? Is it not true that of all things incredulity is the most credulous, and rationalism the most irrational? W. G. B. CALEB'S REQUEST FOR THE INHERITANCE PROMISED BY MOSES; JOSHUA'S GIFT IN FULFILMENT; CALEB'S CONQUEST OF HEBRON AND DEBIR; ACHSAH'S PETITION GRANTED BY CALEB. INHERITANCE OF JOSHUA. CITIES OF REFUGE ASSIGNED. THIRTEEN PRIESTLY CITIES. FORTY-EIGHT CITIES OF LEVITES. CONCLUDING STATEMENT. 13 1 Now Joshua was old and well stricken in years ; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and well stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. 2 This is the land that yet remaineth : all the regions of the Philistines, and all the Geshurites ; 3 from the Shihor, which is before Egypt, even unto the border of Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanites : the five lords of the Philistines ; the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, 4 the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites ; also the Avvim, on the south : all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that belongeth to the Zidonians, unto Aphek, to the border of 5 the Amorites : and the land of the Gebalites, and all Lebahon, toward the sunrising, from 6 Baal-gad under mount Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath : all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, even all the Zidonians ; them will I drive out from before the children of Israel : only allot thou it unto Israel for an inheritance, as I have 7 commanded thee. Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes, and the half tribe of Manasseh. 14 1 And these are the inheritances which the children of Israel took in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the 2 tribes of the children of Israel, distributed unto them, by the lot of their inheritance, as the 3 LORD commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes, and for the half tribe. For Moses had given the inheritance of the two tribes and the half tribe beyond Jordan : but unto the 4 Levites he gave none inheritance among them. For the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim : and they gave no portion unto the Levites in the land, save cities to 5 dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for their cattle and for their substance. As the LORD commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did, and they divided the land. 15 : 1-12, 20-63. The inheritance of Judah. 16 : 1-10 ; 17 : 1-11. The inheritance of Ephraim and Manasseh. 17 12 Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities ; but 13 the Canaanites would dwell in that land. And it came to pass, when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the Canaanites to task work, and did not utterly drive them out. 14 And the children of Joseph spake unto Joshua, saying, Why hast thou given me but one lot and one part for an inheritance, seeing I am a great people, forasmuch as hitherto the LORD 15 hath blessed me? And Joshua said unto them, If thou be a great people, get thee up to the forest, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim ; since 16 the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for thee. And the children of Joseph said, The hill country is not enough for us : and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are in Bethshean and her towns, and they who are in the valley 17 of Jezreel. And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and to Manasseh, 18 saying, Thou art a great people, and hast great power : thou shalt not have one lot only : but the hill country shall be thine ; for though it is a forest, thou shalt cut it down, and the goings out thereof shall be thine : for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they be strong. 18 1 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together 2 at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there : and the land was subdued before them. And there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes, which had not yet divided their in- 3 heritance. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go in to 4 possess the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, hath given you? Appoint for you three men for each tribe : and I will send them, and they shall arise, and walk through the 5 land, and describe it according to their inheritance ; and they shall come unto me. And they shall divide it into seven portions : Judah shall abide in his border on the south, and the house 6 of Joseph shall abide in their border on the north. And ye shall describe the land into seven portions, and bring the description hither to me : and I will cast lots for you here before the 7 LORD our God. For the Levites have no portion among you ; for the priesthood of the LORD is their inheritance : and Gad and Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh have received their 8 inheritance beyond Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave them. And the men arose, and went : and Joshua charged them that went to describe the land, saying, Go and walk through the land, and describe it, and come again to me, and I will cast lots for you 9 here before the LORD in Shiloh. And the men went and passed through the land, and de- scribed it by cities into seven portions in a book, and they came to Joshua unto the camp at 10 Shiloh. And Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the LORD : and there Joshua divided the land unto the children of Israel according to their divisions. 18 : 11-28 ; 19 : 1-48. Inheritances of Benjamin, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naph- tali, and Dan. 49. So they made an end of distributing the land for inheritance by the borders thereof ; 51. These are the inheritances, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel, distributed for inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the LORD, at the door of the tent of meeting. So they made an end of dividing the land. The conquest of Canaan by Joshua was suffi- ciently complete to permit the distribution of the territory among the tribes of Israel, and its general occupation accordingly. The assign- ment to each tribe of its portion of the territory was made, as a rule, by lot ; and it is remarkable how well the condition of the several tribes, in its district thus assigned, answered to the con- dition predicted of it, many years before, by the dying Moses, and even to the condition predicted of it hundreds of years before in Egypt by the dying Jacob. N. C. B.—The Book of Joshua is the Domesday Book of Palestine, not only describing, with the fulness of a govern- ment survey, the various tribal boundaries throughout the land, but containing long lists of the towns and villages allotted to each tribe, in the order, as recent research has shown, of their geographical position. Porter. The conquest of Palestine, so far as it required the united forces of all Israel, was over; what remained to be done, in putting down risings, in consolidating what had been won, and in capturing isolated and still unconquered cities, was left for the most part to the energy of the tribe to which the territory in question was assigned. The warlike half of Joshua's great task was accomplished: the peaceful work of dividing the territory between the victorious tribes remained. The second half of the Book of Joshua—chapters 13-22—the Domesday Book of Palestine, is mainly taken up with details of the distribution. These are no less honorable to the man who carried them out than the details of the campaign which rendered them possible. Plummer. 13:1. Now Joshua was old. To what age he was now advanced we cannot certainly know, because we do not know his age when he came out of Egypt. If he was then forty-three, he was eighty-three when they came into Canaan; and now he wanted not much of a hundred. Patrick. 3. When the Israelites arrived, the Philistines were in full possession of the Shephelah, or maritime plain, from the "river of Egypt" in the south to Ekron in the north, and had formed a confederacy of five powerful cities—Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. The interval that elapsed between Abraham and the Exodus seems sufficient to allow for the alteration that took place in the position of the Philistines, and their transformation from a pastoral tribe to a settled and powerful nation. P. S. 5. The notices in the Bible lead us to search for Baal-gad in the direction and neighborhood of Baalbek. In the valley of Lebanon, under Hermon, and the entrance into Hamath: these are the geographical indications. Let any one ride from Baalbek northward to Lebweh or 'Ain, or, better still, to Kamâa Hermel, and look off toward Hamath, and he will be struck with the propriety of the phrase, entrance into Hamath. From his standpoint the valley of the Bak'ah opens out like a vast fan on to the great plain of northern Syria, and he is at the gate of the kingdom. Baalbek being, therefore, in the neighborhood where we must look for Baal gad, there seems to be no good reason to doubt their identity, for there is no rival to dispute the honor of the name and site. The remains at Baalbek are adequate to meet the demands of any history, and some of them may claim an antiquity equal to anything that even Egypt can boast. Thompson. 6. It should be always remembered that the promise made by God, of driving out the old inhabitants ("Them will I drive out," verse 6), was conditional, and depended on the adherence of the Israelites to his worship and service. Accordingly, in consequence of their flagrant and repeated disobedience, they only partially deserved the fulfilment of the promise. We do not read that the Sidonians (verse 6) were ever conquered by the Israelites, and the people of Lebanon were not made tributary till the days of David and Solomon. Patrick.—Joshua actually did all that it was promised he should do. God never said that he should conquer all the land, but simply that he should bring Israel into it, and divide it among them, both which he did, and procured them footing by his conquests sufficient to have enabled them to establish themselves in it forever. Their failure to do so was owing wholly to themselves. 7. Dividing the land by lot was the readiest way of satisfying all parties, and preventing discontent and discord. The several allotments are here very minutely detailed in order that litigation growing out of disputed boundaries might ever after be prevented. When the limits of each tribe were so clearly settled there could be little room for contending claims; or if there were, an authentic register of the lot of each tribe would be at hand to be appealed to for a decision, and there is no doubt that it was often made use of in after ages for this purpose. The reading of this account by succeeding generations would tend to excite a deep impression of the goodness of God in bestowing upon their ancestors for the benefit of their posterity, such a large and fertile country, an inheritance so replete with all worldly blessings. Bush. Ch. 13: 8-33. 8-13. These verses comprise a general description of the whole country east of Jordan given to the two tribes and a half. The remainder of the chapter is occupied with a detailed account of the several districts allotted to each. Bush. Chs. 14-19. 14: 1-5. These verses comprise a general introduction to the six chapters. The division of the land among the nine and a half tribes was, in strict accordance with Divine direction (Nu. 26: 52-56; 33: 54; 34: 2-29), made by Eleazar, Joshua, and one representative from each of the ten tribes. It was decided by the "lot," which probably, however, only determined the situation of each inheritance, whether north or south, inland or by the seashore, not its extent and precise boundaries. These would depend upon the size of each tribe. In point of fact, the original arrangements had in some cases to be afterward modified, not as to tribal localization which was unalterably fixed by the Divine lot, but as to extent of territory. Thus Judah had to give up part of its possession to Simeon (19 : 9), while Dan, whose portion proved too small, obtained certain cities both from Judah and from Ephraim. A. E. 2. The sacred lot was employed at the division of the tribal territories, to discover the guilty one who had brought a curse on the people (Josh. 7), and in 1 S. 10 : 20 f., at the king's election. These methods of inquiring into the Divine will retire into the background the more prophecy becomes prominent. O.—This distribution by lot was overruled by a special providence, so as to correspond with the inspired predictions of Jacob and Moses respecting the allotment of each tribe. The fact is unquestionable, that the tribes found themselves placed by lot in the very sections of the country which Jacob had foretold two hundred and fifty years before, and Moses shortly before his death (comp. Gen. 49 and De. 33). To Judah fell a country abounding in vineyards and pastures; to Zebulun, sea-coasts; to Issachar, a rich plain between ranges of mountains; to Asher, one abounding in plenty of oil, wheat, and metals; and so of the others. Bush. Chs. 15-17. Judah and Joseph, as the two great tribes, dividing the birthright between them, had the land first divided between them, their general outlines being given. Afterward the other tribes are arranged, modifying the first division. The lot probably gave only general indications, while the commissioners made the special allotments, according to circumstances. Crosby. The tribe of Judah was powerful in consequence of its numbers, and now received such natural frontiers as to form, on the south, a rampart of protection to the whole of Israel against the enemy. Therefore its boundaries went from the south end of the Salt Sea westward to where Sihor empties itself into the Mediterranean; its eastern limits, from the south end of the Salt Sea to the point where it receives the waters of the Jordan; its northern, from thence over Mount Zion, by Timnah and the brook Sorek, to the sea which bounds it on the west. C. G. B.—The lot of Judah as here marked out was bounded on the south by the wilderness of Sin and the southern coast of the Salt Sea; on the east by that sea, reaching to the place at which it receives the waters of the Jordan; on the north by a line drawn nearly parallel to Jerusalem across from the northern extremity of the Salt Sea to the south boundary of the Philistines and to the Mediterranean Sea; which sea was its western boundary as far as the river of Egypt. Joshua is particular in giving the limits of this tribe, as being the first, the most numerous, the most important, that which was to furnish the kings of Judea, that in which pure religion was to be preserved, and that from which the Messiah was to spring. As this portion, however, contained nearly half the southern part of Canaan, it was afterward found too extensive, and the possessions of Simeon and Dan were taken out of it. Bush.—In travelling over these places one begins early to perceive that not only is the geography and scenery of Palestine "a fifth gospel," but it is a second Pentateuch, Book of Joshua, and Kings. The feeling deepened at every step of the journey. S. C. B. 20. This is the preface to the list of principal towns of Judah, which follow in four sections: those in the Negeb (the technical "South" of Judah); those in the Shephelah (the fertile plain on the coast); those in the Mountain country, and those in the Wilderness west of the Dead Sea. Crosby. # Natural or Physical Characteristics of Judah's Inheritance. First, the Negeb or "South" country extends along the whole southern frontier from east to west. It is an irregularly shaped tract, extending from the mountains of Judah on the north to the edge of the Desert of Paran, and from the south end of the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean; but stretching in a sloping direction toward the northeast to the Dead Sea, and to the southwest to El Arish, thus occupying a middle position, both topographically and physically, between the rich soil of central Canaan and the sandy wastes of that great and terrible wilderness. The south differs from the hill country of Judah to the north of it, not merely so much in being pastoral instead of cultivated, for its whole extent yields proof of very extensive though not universal cultivation in former times; nor in its being less hilly, for it has but few plains of any extent; but in its deep ravines, torn and rent by winter torrents, "the streams of the south" of Ps 126 : 4. These torrents, quite dry in summer, cut down steep cliffs into narrow gullies by their violence in winter. On the west side they drain toward the Arish and Philistia, on the east toward the Dead Sea, none running south into Paran or the Wilderness. The wide central expanse is now a sort of upland wilderness, a series of rolling hills, with scanty herbage more abundant on their northern slopes, but without a tree or a bush more than three feet high. The words of Dr. Robinson, about Zephath or Hormah, may be applied to every city of the Negeb :—"Once, as we judged upon the spot, this must have been a city of not less than 10,000 or 12,000 inhabitants. Now it is a perfect field of ruins, a scene of unutterable desolation, across which the passing stranger can with difficulty find his way." A mighty spell seems to rest upon the cities of the south. We turn to the word of prophecy, and we read, "The cities of the south (Negeb) shall be shut up, and none shall open them : Judah shall be carried away captive, all of it : it shall be wholly carried away captive" (Jer. 13 : 19). The second physical division of the allotment of Joshua was the Shephelah, or low country, translated generally in our version as "the valley" (Josh. 15 : 33), and sometimes "the plain." It comprises the low lying flat country, whether desert or corn-growing, which intervenes between the central backbone of hills extending from north to south and the sea. The expression, though equally applicable to all the coast plains of Palestine, is generally confined to those of Philistia and Sharon, which are limited northward by the bold projecting spur of Carmel ; while the next plain, that of Acre, is similarly cut off by the precipitous Ladder of Tyre from the Plain of Phœnicia. This region in the allotment of the tribes fell principally to Judah, in the south of whose portion were several towns assigned to Simeon ; while the northern part, better known as the Plain of Sharon, was the rich but narrow heritage of Dan. Practically, however, the more important and valuable part of this vast corn-plain was never conquered till after the monarchy, and remained in the possession of the Philistines, who were often the terror and the scourge of Israel. There is no natural boundary line between Philistia and Sharon. The plain stretches with scarce an undulation, but with very varying depth inland, from the southern frontiers of the Desert of Gaza to the foot of Carmel. The descent from the Negeb, or south land, to the low country is gentle and insensible on its southern limit, but much more steep and clearly defined from the hill country of Judah on the east. From the low country of the coast we now turn eastward to the third physical division of the territory of Judah, recognized constantly in Holy Writ as "the mountains," or the "Hill country." The line of demarcation between it and "the south country" is very easily recognized, though they blend into each other. The great pasture district of the south melts into the hill country a few miles to the south of Hebron. The northern part of the "Negeb" presents the appearance of a long series of gently-rolling downs, wide shallow valleys, and broad rounded ridges. But a few hours before reaching Hebron the valleys become narrower and steeper, the hill tops are sharper, the ridges are full of caves, natural or artificial—the dwellings of the Horites, or Cave-men, in olden times ; and when we reach Debir we can fully understand the petition of Achsah to her father Caleb : "Give me a blessing ; for thou hast given me a south land : give me also springs of water" (Ju. 1 : 15), as we see the springs gushing forth from the rocky side of the valley, and feel we are no longer in a "south land." Here the ruins of the cities of Judah begin to crowd upon us. Almost every hill-top is marked by the groups of deserted dwellings—not grass-grown, like those of the south, but with walls and narrow streets, bare and barren. Every name recalls some incident in the life of the Bethlehemite—Jattir, Lebaoth, Eshtemoa, Maon, Carmel, Ziph—scarcely altered in the Arabic vernacular from the old Hebrew. The register of Joshua (verses 21-62) gives thirty-eight cities in the hill country of Judah, divided into five topographical groups ; and even among these are omitted some of future distinction, as Bethlehem and Tekoa. But it is impossible to wander among these hills without perceiving that the expression, "her towns," applied in the enumeration to many of the cities, was no mere figure of speech. The groups of ruins, "the desolate heaps" of Judah, far outnumber any catalogue of her cities that has come down to us. There are no streams, but many springs, and wells innumerable. The hill country culminates at Hebron, but it slopes very little either east or west, forming throughout its whole extent a rugged plateau from Philistia to the Dead Sea ; and its deep dells, or wadys, are scarcely seen till we are upon them. They run for the most part east and west from the central ridge, and add immensely to the natural strength of the district, every nook of which is almost a natural fortress, independently of the cities whose ruins crown every brow, where once "the Lion of Judah" crouched secure. The wells are sunk in hill and vale alike; and all the hill-sides, ribbed with their parallel lines of terrace, once covered with gardens, vineyards, and fig-trees, attest the indefatigable industry no less than the dense population of its ancient inhabitants. But the position of the towns and the character of the ruins are so constantly alike, that it is in vain to attempt separate descriptions for each, save in very few instances. Tristram. The Wilderness is the district stretching along the western shore of the Dead Sea in which David took refuge for some time when pursued by Saul; it is a dreary waste of bare hills cut up by innumerable water-courses, uncultivated, and bearing no traces of former occupation. Wilson. The tribe of Joseph had the centre of the land across from Jordan to the Mediterranean. Ephraim lay north of Judah; but between them were the districts afterward allotted to Benjamin and Dan. Besides the sacred valley of Shechem, it included some of the finest parts of Palestine, the mountains of Ephraim, and the great and fertile maritime plain of Sharon, proverbial for its roses. P. S.—16 : 1-4. The descendants of Joseph received two shares of the inheritance. As closely allied tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh received each many towns situated in the territory of the other. C. G. B.—The central hill country of Palestine is often spoken of as "Mount Ephraim," an expression which comprises all the hilly region from within a few miles north of Jerusalem at Bethel, as far as the Plain of Esdraelon, including, therefore, the whole of the west allotment of Manasseh. Mount Ephraim was to the northern country what the hill country of Judah was to the southern—the backbone, centre, and strength of the nation. Like the hill country of Judah, and unlike the possessions of the northern tribes by Esdraelon, or the western ones by the coast, it was inaccessible to invaders, who were not prepared for the risks of mountain defiles and the storming of hill forts. Its military topography is such, that it is defensible at every turn, and nothing but a panic could disorganize the defence of such a region. Thus the tribe of Manasseh was charged by the High Priest "to keep the passages of the hill country, for by them there was an entrance into Judea; and it was easy to stop them that would come up, because the passage was strait for two men at the most" (Judith 4 : 7). Tristram. Shechem, famous in the days of Abraham and Jacob, and which Joshua may be said to have made the civil capital of the country, was situated in the tribe of Ephraim. So was Shiloh, the first ecclesiastical capital, where the ark was solemnly placed, at the end of Joshua's wars. So also was Samaria, which became, under Omri, the capital of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Joshua himself was a man of Ephraim, and must have given no small importance to the tribe. Gideon, one of the most noble of the judges, with his seventy princely brothers, was a native of the adjacent tribe of Manasseh. "The mountain," or mountainous part, "of Ephraim," was frequently the rallying-place for the nation, where the appointed deliverers raised the standard of resistance to their oppressors. Deborah, though herself apparently of the northern tribes, dwelt between Ramah and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim; Tola of Issachar judged Israel in Shamir, in the same mount; Samuel was of Ramah. W. G. B.—Of the southern tribes, the most powerful was Judah; of the northern, Ephraim; whence originated a jealousy between the two, which broke out early, and laid the foundation of that fatal schism which took place on the death of Solomon, by the revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam an Ephraimite. Hales. 17 : 2. In 16 : 1 the revision reads, "And the lot for the children of Joseph went out from the Jordan," etc., connecting the verb with the locality, whereas the meaning is that "the lot came out [from the urn or receptacle of the lots] for the children of Joseph," etc. So in the second verse of this seventeenth chapter the revision reads, "And the lot was for the rest of Manasseh," as if this was a new statement in addition to what preceded, whereas it is a mere resumption of what has gone before. The Appendix therefore reads, "So the lot was for the rest," etc. Chambers. 17 : 12. The children of Manasseh could not drive out. They could not drive them out through want of faith in God, and of zeal to perform his commands. Here the fountain of all the evils which afterward befell the Israelites begins to be opened, in that, either through sloth or covetousness or distrust of God's power, they did not attempt to drive out those people that were stronger than ordinary; or through want of faith in God, failed in the attempt. Patrick.—The Canaanites would dwell in that land. Heb. "willed to dwell." A very remarkable expression, indicative of the obstinate determination of the Canaanites to retain possession of the country, and carrying with it a severe reflection upon the supineness, cowardice, and unbelief of the Israelites. Bush. 13. They put the Canaanites to tribute.** Herein they offended against the Divine command (De. 20 : 16, 17), by which they were peremptorily directed to destroy the Canaanites when they were able. In thus putting them to tribute, they were probably influenced by motives of indolence and gain. Patrick.—This early degree of sloth and worldly-mindedness, afterward displayed in other instances, laid the foundation of all the ensuing calamities which befell the people. Pyle.—Any conformity to the heathen around, or tolerance of heathenism, any decay of the spirit in which they had entered the land, would result not only in weakness, but in the triumph of the enemy. And so it was intended of the Lord. The lesson of all this is obvious and important. To us also has our Joshua given entrance into Canaan, and victory over our enemies—the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have present possession of the land. But we do not yet hold all its cities, nor are our enemies exterminated. It needs on our part constant faith; there must be no compromise with the enemy, no tolerance of his spirit, no cessation of our warfare. Only that which at first gave us the land can complete and consolidate our possession of it. A. E. Complaint of Ephraim and Manasseh. 14-18. The children of Joseph, that is, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, complain to Joshua of the narrowness of their allotment, which was increased by the Canaanites still retaining so large a portion of it. Joshua, though a descendant himself of Joseph, remained perfectly impartial; and told them they must enlarge the country by their valor, by driving out their enemies from the woody and mountainous parts, and thus making them habitable for themselves. Pyle.—One lot and one only should they have in the general apportionment. If they wanted more they must conquer it for themselves. They grounded their claim on being “a great people,” having “great power.” Well, then, let them prove it by great deeds. There was room enough for them in “the wood country;” let them get them up there and clear away the forest, and drive out the Perizzites and the giants, if Mount Ephraim were too narrow for them. So they might obtain a second portion, and not have “one lot only.” E. V. Many wish for larger possessions, who do not cultivate and make the best of what they have, think they should have more talents given them, who do not trade with those with which they are intrusted. Most people’s poverty is the effect of their idleness; would they dig, they need not beg. He bids them fight for more (verses 17, 18), when they pleaded that they could not come at the wood-lands he spoke of, because in the valley between them and it there were Canaanites whom they durst not enter the lists with. “Never fear them,” said Joshua, “thou hast God on thy side, and thou shalt drive out the Canaanites if thou wilt set about it in good earnest, though they have iron chariots.” We straiten ourselves by apprehending the difficulties in the way of our enlargement to be greater than they are. H. The attitude of the children of Joseph throughout the history of the twelve tribes is in precise accordance with the hint given here. They were proud of their numerical preponderance over the remaining tribes. Thus they, and they only, ventured to remonstrate with Joshua about the inadequacy of the portion allotted to them. Such a sensitiveness was likely to degenerate into insolence when the authority of the great leader was removed. And the history of Gideon and of Jephthah shows that this was actually the case. Here, again, we have a sign of that deep undercurrent of consistency which underlies our history, and is a guarantee of its authenticity. Lias. These tribes had plenty of power, plenty of stalwart men to clear the waste or conquer their enemies; but they had not moral force to match. They want to dominate, without paying the price of lordship in daring and willingness to encounter difficulty and hardship. Glover.—For the Church, too, conquest is the condition of security and of continuance. Pressed on every hand by a hostile world, it must be ever in an attitude of active defence and advance. Every new generation needs to be won afresh for Jesus Christ. The Church cannot even hold its own without ever fresh conquests. De P. THE TABERNACLE (“Tent of Meeting”) SET UP AT SHILOH. When the two great tribes of Judah and Joseph had been located, the one taking the south and the other the middle portion of the country, there seems to have been a pause in the work of distribution. We have no direct statement of the reason, nor are we told how long the interval was between the dividing of the land to the two tribes at Gilgal and the dividing of the land to the seven tribes at Shiloh. Crosby. 18:1. And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled at Shiloh. This was the first assembly or diet of the people, held for important consultation; therefore the expression is not, "the children of Israel," but "the whole congregation of the children of Israel." The encampment was moved from Gilgal to Shiloh, and the tabernacle set up. C. G. B. (See maps, pp. 86, 110.) The situation of Shiloh was central to the whole country, and probably this fact determined its selection. The able-bodied men of the nation being required three times a year to leave their homes and journey to the place of the sanctuary, for the celebration of the national religious festivals, convenience of location became an important consideration. Shiloh was in the midst of the hills of Ephraim, about half way between Bethel on the south and Shechem on the north. It continued the religious capital for three hundred years, or until the time of old Eli and young Samuel, when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines. N. C. B.—Shiloh was situated in the tribe of Ephraim, in the very centre of Canaan, about twenty miles north of Jerusalem. It was therefore the most convenient location for all the tribes, and as Joshua was himself of the tribe of Ephraim, he, as chief magistrate of the nation, would always have a ready access to the sanctuary when the God of Israel was to be consulted. -Bush.—The central position of Shiloh was combined with a rare degree of seclusion. Standing in the very heart of the land, a little to the "east of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem," Shiloh, on its gentle eminence, yet surrounded by loftier hills, was shut out from the world. A labyrinth of valleys leads up to it and off from it, so intricate as to render the services of a guide quite indispensable to the modern traveller. N. C. B. (Sec. 232.) The ruined village Seilún is the site of Shiloh, where the Ark first rested after the capture of Ai and Jericho, and where Joshua divided the newly-conquered land of Canaan among the twelve tribes. The position of Shiloh is accurately defined in the Book of Judges (21:19) to be on the north of Bethel, on the south of Lebonah, and on the east of the highway that goeth from Bethel to Shechem. There is very little to mark the site now but ruins and a curious excavation in the rock in the side of the hill. In a little valley about half a mile from the ruins are the spring and well of Shiloh, where the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance at their periodical festival (Ju. 21). Tent Work. INHERITANCE OF SEVEN TRIBES: BENJAMIN, SIMEON, ZEBULUN, ISSACHAR, ASHER, NAPHTALI, AND DAN. 18:2-10. Twenty-one delegated commissioners survey the remaining land and divide it into seven portions. By Lot Joshua assigns a portion to each of the seven tribes. Joshua solemnly admonished the assembled people as to their "slackness" in taking possession of the land which Jehovah had given them. To terminate further jealousies, he asked the people to choose three representatives from each of the seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been allotted. These were to "go through the land and describe it," that is, to make a general estimate and valuation, rather than an accurate survey, "with reference to their inheritance," that is, in view of their inheriting the land. After their return to Shiloh these twenty-one delegates were to divide the land into seven portions, when the lot would assign to each tribe the place of its inheritance. A. E.—The surveying party, instead of mapping out the country by its natural boundaries (rivers or mountain ranges) or by lines of latitude and longitude, described it by cities and their adjacent villages. The whole was thus divided into seven parts, and these parts assigned to the seven tribes by lot. As Judah and Ephraim were found to have a disproportionate share, Benjamin's allotment was taken from theirs, and also the allotment for Simeon was cut from the southwestern portion of Judah. H. C. Inheritance of Benjamin. 11. Between the children of Judah and the children of Joseph (33:12). The prediction of Moses in regard to the lot of Benjamin was remarkably fulfilled. Bush.—The warlike little band of Benjamites, which had marched in the desert side by side with the mighty sons of Joseph, was not parted from them in the new settlement. It hung on the outskirts of Ephraim. Thus a group was formed in the centre of Palestine, firmly compacted of the descendants of Rachel, cut off on the north by the broad plain of Esdraelon. Stanley. The territory assigned to Benjamin lay immediately to the north of Judah. In its general features it resembled Judah, but it was greatly less in extent. Notwithstanding its narrow limits, it was the scene of many great events. It was "little Benjamin" that furnished the first royal "ruler" to the nation of Israel. Gibeah, Saul's capital, lay within its borders, as did also Jerusalem, emphatically and almost imperishably, "the holy city." Here, too, at first at least (for afterward it belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes), was Bethel, where Jacob had his wonderful vision, and from whose heights Abraham got one of his first views of the Land of Promise. The Mount of Olives was in the tribe of Benjamin, and so were nearly all those places in and around Jerusalem which have been crowned with undying fame. Thus, though little, in one sense, among the tribes of Israel, Benjamin, in real interest and greatness, rivalled them all. It was not the least of its glories that Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, was a member of this tribe, and could describe himself as "an Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin." W. G. B. In the description of the lots of Judah and Benjamin, an account is given both of the limits by which they were bounded and of the cities contained in them. In that of Ephraim and Manasseh the boundaries are given, but not the cities. In this chapter Simeon and Dan are described by their cities only, and not by their borders, because they were small and the former lay within the limits of another tribe. The rest have both their borders described, and their cities named. Bush. 19:1-9. The Inheritance of Simeon. This was included within the limits of Judah, and is elsewhere seldom or never spoken of as a distinct district. In this arrangement the providence of God is to be especially noted, as Jacob, in the spirit of prophecy, had foretold that Simeon and Levi should be "divided in Jacob," and "scattered in Israel." This was accordingly most literally fulfilled in the manner in which these tribes were now disposed of. Levi was "scattered" throughout all the land not having received any distinct inheritance, but only certain "cities to dwell in;" and Simeon, as we here learn, was "divided" or dispersed over the territories of Judah instead of having one of their own. This arrangement brought them into confederacy with the tribe of Judah (Jn. 1:3), and afterward was the occasion of the adherence of many of this tribe to the house of David at the time of the revolt of the ten tribes. Bush. 10-39. The four tribes of Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, and Naphtali obtain contiguous portions in the north of Palestine, as they were allied in birth, and as they marched through the desert. The forests of Lebanon, the fertility of the plain of Esdraelon, the port of Accho, figure in the blessings pronounced upon them. But, with the exception of the transient splendor of the days of Barak and of Gideon, they hardly affect the general fortunes of the nation. Stanley. To Zebulun was allotted the hill country bordering on the great plain of Esdraelon from the sea-coast to the Sea of Galilee. Issachar received for his inheritance the fertile plain of Esdraelon, with the beautiful valley of Jezreel; here, on the highway of the armies of Egypt and Assyria, the great battle-field of Palestine, he was to lead a nomad life, dwelling "in tents," but at the same time he was equally with Zebulun to suck of the abundance of the seas and of treasures hid in the sand. To Asher was assigned the sea-coast from Carmel to Sidon, with the plain of Phœnicia and the low hills on its western border—one of the richest tracts in Palestine, well fulfilling the promise made in the blessing of Jacob, that his "bread" should be "fat," and that he should yield "royal dainties;" and in that of Moses, that he should be "blessed with children," and "dip his feet in oil," and that his "shoes" should be "iron and brass." To Naphtali fell the broad elevated tract lying between Asher and the Jordan, which may still be described in the words of Josephus as "universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation by its fruitfulness"—a land in which Naphtali was to be "satisfied with favor, and full with the blessing of the Lord." Wilson. Phœnicia was never conquered, and no one can help being struck by the peculiar relations that existed between the Israelites and their northern neighbors. In Ju. 1:31, we are told that Asher did not drive out "the inhabitants of Accho, nor of Zidon, Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, nor of Rehob;" and in verse 32, that the Asherites "dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land." Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Bethshemesh and Beth-anath, but "he dwelt among the Canaanites;" nevertheless, the inhabitants of these towns became tributaries to him, and in the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, whose husband was "a man of Tyre, a worker in brass" (1 K. 7:14), we have an indication that mixed marriages were not uncommon. There is no trace of any great war between the Israelites and the Phœnicians, and it is not unlikely that a considerable portion of the northern tribes settled down as fellow-citizens among the people of Tyre, Sidon, and other Phœnician cities. Wilson.—It was to Zarephath, one of the towns of Phœnicia, that Elijah was sent, in the time of a great famine, to bring life and sustenance to the Syro-phœnician widow and her son; and it was somewhere within the borders of this territory that another Syro-phœnician woman once came, seeking a greater prophet than Elijah, and, after a memorable exhibition of faith, went home rejoicing, her afflicted daughter having been made whole. W. G. B. 40-48. The last of the tribes that received its due was Dan, the smallest of all, at times overlooked, and in the last catalogue of the tribes that appears in the Sacred Volume (Rev.), dropped out altogether. It was squeezed into the narrow strip between the mountains and the sea, in the plain already occupied by the expelled races. Sanley.—Dan, though commander of one of the four squadrons of the camp of Israel in the wilderness, that which brought up the rear, yet was last provided for in Canaan, and his lot fell in the southern part of Canaan, between Judah on the east and the land of the Philistines on the west; Ephraim on the north and Simeon on the south. H. 47. The meaning is that the Danites, being closely pressed upon by their powerful neighbors the Philistines, were forced in considerable numbers to abandon their allotted possessions. In consequence of having their original portion thus wrested out of their hands, they were induced to seek another in a distant quarter of the land, and made an inroad accordingly upon Leshem, lying at the foot of Mount Lebanon and near the sources of the river Jordan. This event, which occurred some time after the death of Joshua, and is more fully recorded (Jn. 18:1-29), is touched upon here both to complete what is said of the inheritance of the Danites, and to intimate how it happened that a part of the tribe were afterward found inhabiting a district of the country so remote from their original possessions. This addition to the narrative was perhaps made by Phineas. Bush.—The children of Dan fought against, and took Leshem, a city not far from Jordan, called Laish in the Book of Judges; in aftertimes Cæsarea Philippi. They dwelt therein, or remained in undisturbed possession of it, and gave it the name of Dan; all this was done after Joshua's death, and is related more largely in the Book of Judges (ch. 18). Shuckford. To the tribe of Judah there fell a country abounding with vines and pasture grounds (Gen. 49:11), to that of Ashur, one plenteous in oil, iron and brass (De. 33:24), to that of Naphtali, one extending from the west to the south of Judea (De. 30:23), to that of Benjamin, one in which the temple was afterward built (De. 33:12), to that of Zebulun, a country abounding in seaports (Gen. 49:13), to those of Ephraim and Manasseh, countries renowned for their precious fruits (De. 33:14), and to those of Simeon and Levi no particular countries at all, forasmuch as the former had a portion with Judah, and the latter was dispersed through the several tribes. Since, therefore, each particular lot answered so exactly to each prediction, we are supplied with the most indisputable proof that there was divine inspiration in these predictions, and divine direction in the distribution of the lots. Stackhouse. The ultimate location of all the tribes in their own cities and territory was an event of profound significance, worthy to be long remembered. A great people, four hundred years oppressed in Egypt, forty years wandering homeless in the deserts of Arabia, full seven years up to this date in the conquest of Canaan, and therefore unsettled—in a state of war, living in camp: but now they fold up their tents and make their permanent homes in cities already built; in houses constructed, not to say, furnished ready to their hand. Around them are lands under tillage, fruit trees in bearing condition, everything prepared for living with all the comforts of Oriental life. H. C. The division of the land was carried out, so that not merely the limits of the tribal territories were fixed, but inside these also the districts of the families. Thus the life of tribe and family remained the basis of civil society. This certainly fostered a disposition to maintain the interests of the tribes at the cost of the national cause, in times when there was no powerful central authority, and every one did what seemed right to him; but it also insured the propagation of the faith and customs of the fathers within the family circle, when declensions began to grow frequent. Thus the "good land" was won, where, on the basis of a life of husbandry requiring regular industry, the people were to be matured for the fulfilment of their destiny in quiet and retirement. O. Lowman has given three different estimates of the extent of territory occupied by the twelve tribes; the mean between the two extremes approaches probably the nearest to the truth. According to this computation, the Jewish dominion, at the time of the division, was 180 miles long by 130 wide, and contained 14,976,000 acres. "This quantity of land will divide to 600,000 men, about 2½ acres in property, with a remainder of 1,976,000 acres for the Levitical cities, the princes of tribes, the heads of families, and other public uses." Assuming this estate of 21½ acres assigned to each household, of course a larger proportion of pasture must have been given to those tribes who subsisted on their herds and flocks, than of arable to those who lived by tillage; the portions of the latter, therefore, must be considerably reduced. On the other hand, the extraordinary fertility of the whole country must be taken into the account. No part was waste; very little was occupied by unprofitable wood; the more fertile hills were cultivated in artificial terraces, others were hung with orchards of fruit-trees; the more rocky and barren districts were covered with vineyards. Even in the present day, the wars and misgovernment of ages have not exhausted the natural richness of the soil. Galilee, says Malté Brun, would be a paradise were it inhabited by an industrious people, under an enlightened government. No land could be less dependent on foreign importation; it bore within itself everything that could be necessary for the subsistence and comfort of a simple agricultural people. The climate was healthy, the seasons regular; the former rains, which fell about October, after the vintage, prepared the ground for the seed; the latter, which prevailed during March and the beginning of April, made it grow rapidly. Directly the rains ceased, the grain ripened with still greater rapidity, and was gathered in before the end of May. The summer months were dry and very hot, but the nights cool and refreshed by copious dews. In September, the vintage was gathered. Grain of all kinds, wheat, barley, millet, zea, and other sorts, grew in abundance; the wheat commonly yielded thirty for one. Besides the vine and the olive, the almond, the date, figs of many kinds, the orange, the pomegranate, and many other fruit-trees, flourished in the greatest luxuriance. With a country under a delicious climate, where the corn-fields, the pastures, the vineyards, and olive-grounds vied with each other in fertility; perfect freedom and equality; a mild and parental government, the administration of justice by local authorities according to a written law; national festivals tending to promote national union;—had the people duly appreciated the blessings attached to the strict and permanent observance of their constitution, poets might have found their golden age in the plains of Galilee and the valleys of Judea. The assignment of the different estates seems to have been left to the local government of each tribe. Certain distinguished persons, as Joshua and Caleb, received grants of land larger than ordinary; but the whole land was subject to the common law of property. The great principle of this law was the inalienability of estates. Houses in walled towns might be sold in perpetuity, if unredeemed within the year; land only for a limited period. At the Jubilee, every estate reverted, without repurchase, to the original proprietor. Even during this period it might be redeemed, should the proprietor become rich enough, at the value which the estate would produce during the years unelapsed before the jubilee. This remarkable agrarian law secured the political equality of the people, and anticipated all the mischiefs so fatal to the early republics of Greece and Italy, the appropriation of the whole territory of the state by a rich and powerful landed oligarchy, with the consequent convulsions of the community from the deadly struggle between the patrician and plebeian orders. In the Hebrew state, the improvident individual might reduce himself and his family to penury or servitude, but he could not perpetuate a race of slaves or paupers. Every fifty years God, the King and Lord of the soil, as it were resumed the whole territory, and granted it back in the same portions to the descendants of the original possessors. It is curious to observe in this earliest practical Utopia the realization of Machiavelli's great maxim, the constant renovation of the state according to the first principles of its constitution. Milman. On the conquest of Canaan, it was divided into twelve parts, which were assigned by lot to the different tribes. Thus the Hebrew state was a confederacy of twelve small provinces, like the Swiss cantons. The territory of each was then subdivided, so that a portion of land was assigned to every family. This gave to every man a fixed and permanent home. Each tribe was marched to its new possession, every family entered on its humble estate, and Israel began its national existence. This determined the occupations of the people. By planting every father of a family upon a plot of ground which he was to cultivate, Moses formed a nation of farmers—the best citizens for a free Commonwealth. The miracle was as great as if immense hordes of wandering Bedaween were instantly transformed into quiet husbandmen. Agriculture, keeping all the inhabitants at home, promotes patriotism and attachment to the national religion. Farmers are the strength of a state, for they are generally both peaceful citizens and brave warriors. A small state is never so invincible as when all its citizens are independent freeholders. Then every man has an interest rooted in the soil. He fights for his country because he fights for his home. At the beginning the Hebrew state presented the remarkable spectacle of two millions and a half of people, all equal in rank, and very nearly so in condition. This fact is the more surprising when contrasted with the monstrous inequalities which prevailed in other Oriental countries. Indeed, a parallel to this it would not be possible to find in the most democratic modern state. Field. It cannot be disputed that the Israelites, after having been enslaved for centuries in Egypt, escaped by their unaided efforts from the strongest government in the world, crossed the sea, lived long in the peninsula of Sinai, and suddenly acquiring a warlike character, scattered the powerful armies of the confederate princes that opposed their entrance into Canaan. It cannot be disputed that they set up a remarkable civil and religious polity with laws and rites of a unique character, and that their whole institutions, civil and sacred, which lasted fifteen hundred years, sprang out of their history as it is recorded by Moses and Joshua. Can these facts be accounted for without the supernatural? Is it not true that of all things incredulity is the most credulous, and rationalism the most irrational? W. G. B. CALEB'S REQUEST FOR THE INHERITANCE PROMISED BY MOSES; JOSHUA'S GIFT IN FULFILMENT; CALEB'S CONQUEST OF HEBRON AND DEBIR; ACHSAH'S PETITION GRANTED BY CALEB. INHERITANCE OF JOSHUA. CITIES OF REFUGE ASSIGNED. THIRTEEN PRIESTLY CITIES. FORTY-EIGHT CITIES OF LEVITES. CONCLUDING STATEMENT. 14 6 THEN the children of Judah drew nigh unto Joshua in Gilgal : and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the LORD spake unto Moses the man of God concerning me and concerning thee in Kadesh-barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land ; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt : but I wholly followed the LORD my God. And Moses swore on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy foot hath trodden shall be an inheritance to thee and to thy children forever, because thou hast wholly followed the LORD my God. And now, behold, the LORD hath kept me alive, as he spake, these forty and five years, from the time that the LORD spake this word unto Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness : and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me : as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, and to go out and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day ; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakim were there, and cities great and fenced : it may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall drive them out, as the LORD spake. And Joshua blessed him ; and he gave Hebron unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, unto this day ; because that he wholly followed the LORD, the God of Israel. Now the name of Hebron beforetime was Kiriath-arba ; which Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. And the land had rest from war. 15 13 And unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh he gave a portion among the children of Judah, according to the commandment of the LORD to Joshua, even Kiriath-arba, which Arba was the father of Anak (the same is Hebron). And Caleb drove out thence the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak. And he went up thence against the inhabitants of Debir : now the name of Debir before time was Kiriath-sepher. And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kiriath-sepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my 17 daughter to wife. And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, took it : and he gave 18 him Achsah his daughter to wife. And it came to pass, when she came unto him, that she moved him to ask of her father a field : and she lighted down from off her ass ; and Caleb said 19 unto her, What wouldest thou? And she said, Give me a blessing ; for that thou hast set me in the land of the South, give me also springs of water. And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs. 19 49 And the children of Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua the son of Nun in the midst of them : according to the commandment of the LORD they gave him the city which he asked, even Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim : and he built the city, and dwelt therein. 20 1, 2 And the LORD spake unto Joshua, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Assign you the cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses : that the manslayer that killeth any person unwittingly and unawares may flee thither : and they shall be unto you for a refuge from the avenger of blood. And he shall flee unto one of those cities, and shall stand at the entering of the gate of the city, and declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city ; and they shall take him into the city unto them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them. And if the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver up the manslayer into his hand ; because he smote his neighbor unawares, and hated him not beforetime. And he shall dwell in that city, until he stand before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days : then shall the manslayer return, and come unto his own city, and unto his own house, unto the city from whence he fled. And they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (the same is Hebron) in the hill country of Judah. And beyond the Jordan at Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness in the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh. These were the appointed cities for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them, that whosoever killeth any person unwittingly might flee thither, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stood before the congregation. 21 1 Then came near the heads of fathers' houses of the Levites unto Eleazar the priest, and unto Joshua the son of Nun, and unto the heads of fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel ; and they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, The LORD commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle. And the children of Israel gave unto the Levites out of their inheritance, according to the commandment of the LORD, these cities with their suburbs. And the lot came out for the families of the Kohathites : and the children of Aaron the priest, which were of the Levites, had by lot out of the tribe of Judah, and out of the tribe of the Simeonites, and out of the tribe of Benjamin, thirteen cities. And the children of Israel gave by lot unto the Levites these cities with their suburbs, as the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses. And they gave out of the tribe of the children of Judah, and out of the tribe of the children of Simeon, these cities which are here mentioned by name : and they were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi : for theirs was the first lot. And they gave them Kiriath-arba, which Arba was the father of Anak (the same is Hebron), in the hill country of Judah, with the suburbs thereof round about it. But the fields of the city, and the villages thereof, gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for his possession. And unto the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with her suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Libnah with her suburbs ; and Jattir with her suburbs, and Eshtemoa with her suburbs ; and Holon with her suburbs, and Debir with her suburbs ; and Ain with her suburbs, and Juttah with her suburbs, and Beth-shemesh with her suburbs ; nine cities out of those two tribes. And out of the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with her suburbs, Geba with her suburbs ; Anathoth, with her suburbs, and Almon with her suburbs ; four cities. All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen cities with their suburbs. All the cities of the Levites in the midst of the possession of the children of Israel were forty and eight cities with their suburbs. These cities were every one with their suburbs round about them : thus it was with all these cities. So the LORD gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers ; and 44 they possessed it, and dwelt therein. And the LORD gave them rest round about, according to all that he swore unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before 45 them; the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand. There failed not aught of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass. [The cities of the Levites omitted in the text.] 6. We infer from the words and attitude of Caleb, and from the similar privileges afterward accorded to Joshua, that Moses had, by direction of the Lord, given these two a right of special and personal choice. This on account of their exceptional faithfulness, and as the sole survivors of the generation to whom the land had been given. Of this Caleb now reminds Joshua, and in words of such vigorous faith as make us love still better the tried old warrior of Jehovah. Appearing at the head of "the house of fathers," in Judah of which he was the head, he first refers to the past, then owns God's faithfulness in having preserved him to the age of eighty five, with strength and courage undiminished for the holy war. From verse 9 we infer that when the twelve spies distributed themselves singly over the land for the purposes of their mission, Caleb specially "searched" that "mountain," which was the favorite haunt of the dreaded Anakim. A. E.—We see in Caleb a life built on God's promise. Five times in his short speech does he refer to the word which "the Lord spake." On the first mention of it, he includes Joshua as the joint recipient of the promise, but in the others he speaks only of himself when he is urging his claim founded on it. A true reliance on God's word makes it a personal word, however many besides may have a portion in it. "He loved me and gave himself for me" is faith's version of "He so loved the world that he gave himself for it." A. M. 7. I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. That what came from the simple impulses of his heart was well pleasing to God, shows that his heart was right with God; and that he had formed true conceptions of his character, his designs, and his covenant relations to Israel. A good understanding have all they that seek God—all they that love him; and they can venture to speak all that is in their hearts, knowing under what influence their judgments have been formed. This was the case with Caleb. 8. I wholly followed the LORD my God. In this all his secret, all his distinction, lay. He wholly followed the Lord—he had no reserve, no secondary objects, no fears, no regard to human influence or man's opinions. Kit.—The energy of the expression is well preserved in our version. The words give the idea of a traveller, who, intent upon following his guide, so treads in his steps as to leave hardly any void space between. As he had obtained this testimony from God himself, it was not vain-glory for him to speak of it, especially as this was the main ground on which he had become entitled to the object of his petition. It is not pride but simply a tribute of due acknowledgment to declare what a gracious God has done for him. Bush.—His language corresponded to his name, which means All-heart. He said then, "Let us go up at once and possess the land," not merely let us attempt it, since faith in Jehovah's promises assures him of success, "for we are well able to overcome it." His sole and firm dependence was on Jehovah: "It may be that the Lord will be with me, then I shall drive them out" (verse 12). He believed God's word to Judah (ch. 1:2), "Behold I have delivered the land into his hand." According to his faith it was to him. A. R. F. He twice quotes the never-to-be-forgotten phrase which he had received from God, that he "wholly followed the Lord." The old soldier's cheek may well flush and his eye glitter, as he repeats the General's "well done." The commendation is high. Caleb had kept close behind his divine guide, and had not allowed fear or sloth or sense to shape his course. But, high as the praise was, it was God's judgment on his act, and he might well say it of himself after God had said it of him. He beautifully adds "my God" to the divine eulogium, thus unconsciously showing the root of his thorough obedience in his personal devotion, by which he had made the "God of Israel" (verse 14) his God, whom he possessed by faith and love, and who possessed him. Thus the old man looks back on the long stretch of eighty-five years, and sees in them two things,—God's preserving care and his own clinging to God, his leader and support. And still, a life of trust and following Christ however imperfectly does yield calm remembrances, which nothing else does, and for the lack of which nothing can compensate. If we would lay up for ourselves against old age the treasure of such calm and humble memories, we must in youth and manhood choose God for our God, and take heed to follow him though we may be singular; and to do it wholly. A. M. 10. And now behold the LORD hath kept me alive.** It was the Lord that did everything for him. He does not exult in the strength of his constitution, on which time had made so slight impression. Notwithstanding his consciousness of strength even in age—he does not venture to think himself equal to this great enterprise, unless the Lord were with him. Kd.—The dates given in this brief personal history of Caleb avail to show that this transaction was seven years after the crossing of the Jordan. Caleb being forty years (verse 7) of age at the mission of the spies from Kadesh-barnea and eighty-five now, the difference (forty-five) allows thirty-eight years for the remaining wilderness sojourning, and seven for residence in Canaan. These seven years measure the duration thus far of the wars of the conquest. H. C. A man who wholly followed the Lord at forty is all right at eighty-five. The panic of his fellow-spies and the threatened stoning by the people made no differences at twoscore. He has no more fear of giants and walled cities at fourscore and five. He never for a moment lost his confidence in God's promise or his expectation of its fulfilment. That land was his from the instant of promise, as much as heaven is ours from the instant we claim the promise that was left us. Bp. Warren. He considered the promise a gift of Hebron to him; and Joshua concurred in the opinion. For five and forty years he had kept this word "hid in his heart," and now he puts out a hand, unweakened by age and long-delayed fulfilment, to grasp the realization,—a grand example of steady, persistent faith, which waits for the vision, though it tarry, and buoyantly welcomes it when it comes at last! A life thus filled with trust in God's faithful word has ever present instalments of accomplishment, as brooks by the way, to keep its hope fresh. The prolongation of Caleb's life was the pledge to him of the fulfilment of the remoter promise. Faith, which looks forward to yet unfulfilled promises of an inheritance, is strengthened by a backward look on a life which, however commonplace its separate incidents may have seemed as they occurred, is discerned in retrospect to have been all of God, and all good. Such a life has hope burning as a guiding star to the very end. The heart which trusts to his sure word may make certain that, for this life, it can never outlive its joys nor its hopes, but that "to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant:" and that, after all earthly hopes have gone out in darkness, that hope which is set on God shall "abide." God keeps his children alive in the wilderness, and brings them, after the desert, to the mountain of their inheritance, "whereof the Lord spake in that day." This "old young man," as Thomas Fuller calls him, followed the Lord wholly; therefore he "brought forth fruit in old age," and the aged tree was "full of sap and green" in all its gnarled branches. In a very true sense, a man may keep himself young all his days. A youth and manhood of Christian sobriety and self-restraint, temperate, chaste, and free from the "sins of youth," which rot "the bones" and "lie down with" their victims "in the dust," is likely to conserve physical vigor. A life of Christian devotion and faith will keep its spring flowers blowing till late autumn, and blossom and fruit will hang together. The buoyancy, carelessness, hopefulness, cheeriness of youth are not far away from the aged heart, which lives by faith, and therefore dwells at ease, and is glad and secure, though the shadows of evening be falling. "Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." The perfection of life is to carry on to each stage the best of the preceding, harmonized with the best of the new. A Christian old age may be like Mount Heela, which bears snow on its crest and a fire in its heart. 12. Caleb and Joshua had seen all that the other ten had, but everything depends on the eyes which look. The others had measured themselves against the trained soldiers and giants, and were in despair. These two measured Amalekites and Anaks against God, and were jubilant. They do not dispute the facts, but they reverse the implied conclusion, because they add the governing fact of God's help. How differently the same facts strike a man who lives by faith, and one who lives by calculation! Israel might be a row of ciphers, but with God at the head they meant something. Caleb's confidence that "we are well able to overcome" was religious trust, as is plain from God's eulogium on him in Nu. 14 : 24. The lessons from it are that faith is the parent of wise courage; that where duty, which is God's voice, points, difficulties must not deter; that when we have God's assurance of support, they are nothing. Now, Caleb claims his portion because God has given it him, and he urges his request for a chivalrous reason,—"Give me this mountain; . . . for . . . the Anakim were there, and cities great and fenced." That is the true temper of the Christian soldier, seeking the hardest, not the easiest, work, and finding in danger an attraction. How nobly it has been exemplified in many a mission field, to which, whenever disease has smitten down one, two have been ready to go! To-day American and English Christianity is showing that the old heroic fire burns yet, in the men who, on the Congo and elsewhere, have hazarded their lives for the name of Jesus, and been drawn to the field by its very dangers. Paul made a long stay at Ephesus, because a great door and effectual was opened, and there were many adversaries, and he knew the door to be effectual, just because the adversaries were many. Caleb's spirit is the true spirit for Christ's soldiers. A. M. 12. Another point which greatly interests us is to mark the combination of manly courage with humble acknowledgment of God which characterizes the speech of Caleb. He is prepared to take his possession with his good sword, yet he trusts for success not in his prowess, but in the blessing of God; nor, in his might, is he afraid of the fortresses or the power of the Anakim. We also should not desire success without our own personal and best exertions—whatever our calling be. Yet do we look for it, not from our own labor, but from the blessing of God; and in that struggle we fear no foe. A. E. 14. Caleb's readiness for one more fight was fed by his reliance on God's help in it. When he says, "It may be the Lord will be with me," the perhaps is that of humility, not of doubt. The old warrior's eye flashes, and his voice sounds strong and full, as he ends his words with "I shall drive them out, as the Lord spake." That has the true ring. What were the three Anak tribes, with their barbarous names, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, and their giant stature, to the onset of a warrior faith like that? Of course, "Caleb drove out thence the three sons of Anak," and Hebron became his inheritance. A. M.—"Add to your faith manliness," says Peter. Courage to avow and to obey your faith. Most failures in conduct are preceded by failures in courage. To face duty as well as danger requires hardihood of spirit. Now observe the magnificent manliness of Caleb. It gleams through his report as a spy. It is apparent in this choice of the as yet unconquered territory. It comes out in the energy of his old age. And this simple quality in one man was of incalculable service to Israel. We all need this quality. More manliness would mean less falsehood, less failure, less wretchedness of apprehension, more enterprise and grand success. And godliness begets it. For godliness gives larger thought, greater dignity, scope for grand purposes, consciousness of help laid up in all providential law and processes. By communion with God man attains calmness, wisdom, strength, and help. Glover. 13. The claim thus made was immediately acknowledged, Joshua adding his blessing on Caleb's proposed undertaking. But it was many years later that the expedition was actually made. A. E.—15:14-10; Ju. 1:10-15. The reconquest of Hebron and vicinity occurred after Joshua's death. It is inserted in Joshua as appertaining to the history of Judah's allotment. Crosby.—Hebron was one of the most ancient towns in Palestine, built "seven years before Zoan in Egypt;" originally called Kirjath-arba, from Arba the father of Anak, it afterward received the name of Mamre, and was the scene of some of the most remarkable events in the lives of the Patriarchs. The town is prettily situated in a narrow valley, the sides of which are clothed with vineyards producing grapes still reckoned among the finest in Palestine. For a long period Hebron was the centre of the tribe of Judah, and in the extensive vineyards which surround it, producing the vine and grape, which were always, among the Jews, the type of the blessings of Jehovah, we may see "the choice vine" by which "Judah was to bind his foal; he was to wash his garments in wine, his clothes in the blood of grapes." Wilson. 17. This Othniel, who thus signalized himself when he was young, long after, in his advanced years, was led by the spirit to be both a deliverer and a judge in Israel, the first single person that presided in their affairs after Joshua's death. H. 18. As was the father, so was the daughter, the worthy offspring of a worthy sire, no degenerate child, but large-hearted, like the whole-hearted Caleb. Her father gave her in marriage to the victor of Kirjath Sepher, a stronghold of the enemy. Othniel, though urged by Achsah, was too modest to ask anything more from his father-in-law, having received from him the best of earthly gifts, a devoted wife. But Achsah knew her father's generosity and readiness to give, and that he only needed to be asked. Caleb did not even wait to be asked, but observing her eagerness anticipated her with his question, "What wilt thou?" "Give me a blessing," was her reply; "thou hast given me a dry land, give me also springs of water." So he gave her the upper and the nether springs; that is, springs on the higher and the lower ground. We need the upper and the nether springs. All that is good for us here below, and the fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore above. God begins by giving the upper and heavenly blessings, and promises, if we make them our first desire, He will add with them the lower (Matt. 6 : 33). So that we shall experience that "godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." A. R. F. Joshua's Inheritance. 49,50. It was not until they had "made an end of dividing the country," and all other just claims had been satisfied, that the unselfish and public-spirited ruler received his own inheritance. The true nobility of Joshua's character shines out conspicuously here. He who might have claimed the first and largest share of the spoils of victory postpones his right to that of the meanest of his people. A special portion had been promised to him by God, as to Caleb, as a reward for "following the Lord fully" in the matter of the spies. But he calmly waits till all have received their portions before he "asks" for his own. And then it is no widespread district, no province, that he requires, but just one city. "They gave him that which he asked, and he built the city and dwelt there:" the name given to the city—Timnath serah, "the portion that remains"—recording the fact that the conqueror's inheritance was the last assignment made in the whole distribution of his conquests. E. V.—Joshua was last served, though the eldest and greatest man of all Israel, and who, having commanded in the conquest of Canaan, might have demanded the first settlement in it for himself and his family. But he was content to be unfixed till he saw them all placed; and herein is a great example to all in public places, to prefer the common welfare before their particular satisfaction. Let the public be first served. He had his lot, according unto the Word of the Lord; it is probable, when God by Moses told Caleb what inheritance he should have (ch. 14 : 9), he gave the like promise to Joshua, which he had an eye to in making his election, which made his portion doubly pleasant, that he had it, not as the rest, by common providence, but by special promise. H. Joshua takes care that every one is served before himself. Such utter self-abandonment as was displayed by Moses and Joshua affords incontestable proof of the claim of the Mosaic dispensation to have been Divine. The invasion of Canaan has been declaimed against as cruel; but its cruelty was at least the fruit of a moral idea, a righteous indignation against an obscene and ferocious religion, which was itself the cause of infinite misery to mankind; while Joshua's cruelty was kindness itself compared to the revolting atrocities recorded at their own instance by the Eastern conquerors of old, Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Moabite. We hear in excess of the impossibility of God's ordering the slaughter of the unoffending Canaanites. We hear nothing of the high morality, the sublime disinterestedness, the devotion to a grand ideal which characterized the giver of the Law and the conqueror of Canaan. Such characters have been rare since Christ came into the world. Save these two great men, they were unknown before it. Lias. 20 : 3-6. In Nu. 35 two kinds of murder are distinguished in reference to which the avenging of blood is commanded: verses 16-18, if any one strikes another in such a way that death may be foreseen to be the probable consequence; verse 20, if one has slain another out of hatred, or by design, or out of enmity, in which case the means by which death was brought about is indifferent. On the other hand, in order to shelter from vengeance him who had slain a man undesignedly, without intending to hurt his neighbor, and inadvertently, the law provided for the selection of six free cities, three on the east, and three on the west side of the Jordan. The manslayer who fled into one of these must be protected from the avenger of blood who pursued him, after a provisional cognizance of the case by the elders of the free town, until the community of the place where the murder was committed had, through their elders, examined the matter. If the accused person was proved guilty of intentional murder, he must be given over to the avenger of blood, and even the altar could not protect him. In the opposite case, however, he was obliged to remain in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest in whose time the murder had occurred. For intentional murder, there was no other expiation than the blood of the manslayer. The jus talionis is here maintained in the most stringent sense; every substitute for the punishment of death is refused. Nor can exemption from residence in the city of refuge in consequence of accidental murder be purchased. The custom of other ancient nations permitted the manslayer to satisfy the injured family by making compensation. O. 8. The cities on the other side Jordan, Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan, had been assigned by Moses (De. 4 : 43), but did not, until now, obtain the privilege of cities of refuge. They were all Levitical cities; which appears to have been so ordered, that the cases of manslaughter might come under the cognizance of those who might be presumed to be most thoroughly versed in the law of God, and most competent to give judgment according to it, and who moreover would be less likely than any others to be swayed by private bias in their decisions. Compare De. 21 : 5, where it is said of the priests, the sons of Levi, that "by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried." Bush. Some observe a significance in the names of these cities with application to Christ our Refuge. I delight not in quibbling upon names, yet am willing to take notice of these. Kadesh signifies holy, and our refuge is the holy Jesus. Shechem, a shoulder, and the government is upon his shoulder. Hebron, fellowship, and believers are called into the fellowship of Christ Jesus our Lord. Bezer, a fortification, for he is a Strong Hold to all them that trust in him. Ramoth, high or exalted, for him hath God exalted with his own right hand. Golan, joy, or exultation, for in him all the saints are justified, and shall glory. H. 7. The six cities were chosen from all parts of the land, so that some one of them would be near to any scene of blood. The highways to the cities—so we are told—were prepared to facilitate the flight of the manslayer, and signboards were erected at intervals along them, with directing letters so large that he who ran might read. Now, three of the cities designated for refuge were on the east side of the Jordan, and three were on the west side. And of those on the west side, Hebron was one. "They appointed," it is said, "Kadesh in Galilee, in Mount Naphtali"—to the north—"and Shechem in Mount Ephraim"—in the middle of the country—"and Kirjath Arba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Jadah"—on the south. N. C. B. The existence of the cities of refuge and their purpose have often been used in illustration of the escape of men from the avenger of sin under the Gospel, and certainly with fine effect. There is much in any suggestion from such a source to stir the imagination and awaken the feelings. And this use of Old Testament usages is not only legitimate but praiseworthy, as indeed is everything which gives to well-known truth point, force, and incisiveness. But when matters are pressed beyond this, and we are bidden to see in all this arrangement a typical foreshadowing of the elements of the Gospel, essential truth is needlessly sacrificed. The typology of Scripture is a very important and useful branch of Biblical study, but it needs to be pursued with reverence and care. Conducted on genuine principles, it illumines much of the Old Testament, and imparts great freshness and vividness to the didactic statements of the New. But followed under the guidance of mere fancy or a capricious and arbitrary use of analogies, it sheds darkness instead of light, and is likely to lead its votaries sadly astray. Chambers. The Lord is exalted in the Scripture as the Refuge, and between these cities of refuge and Christ as a Refuge there are some happy resemblance and some marked contrasts. Points of Likeness. The cities were always accessible—could be entered at any hour of day or night. The manslayer never perished because of delay at the gates or because those gates were barred against him. So one of the unspeakably blessed things about Christ as a Refuge is that he is always accessible. The cities were open to all. There were no class distinctions in this provision of mercy. And a voice sounds out from the New Testament Refuge, saying, "Whosoever will," let him run into the strong tower and be safe. The way to the cities was prepared and made plain. The roads to them were to be kept open and in good repair. At the cross-roads posts were put up bearing the words Refuge, Refuge, to guide the flight of the fugitive. So for the flight of the sinner to Christ every obstacle has been removed. The way is made light with truth, and easy to the feet with exceeding great and precious promises; and at every crossing and bypath there is a gospel signboard pointing to Jesus and bearing on it the evermore blessed words, "The eternal God is thy Refuge!" The city of refuge needed to be sought, and with effort. The manslayer had no agency in providing the refuge, but there was necessary a very urgency of effort on his part to secure it. He could be no loiterer on his way there and count on security. Swiftly, eagerly, earnestly, with active feet and intense look and resolute heart, he must speed his way to the city or fail of its refuge. Imagine him thus in flight, and you have a vivid picture of the sinner fleeing for refuge to Christ. Inside the city of refuge the manslayer was safe. "So there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe—is safe! Happy resemblances are these indeed. They are beautifully and strikingly illustrative of Christ as the Refuge of the sinner. They put before us in a definite and tangible way some most precious truths about the Lord our hiding-place. But these points of likeness fail to set forth the chief and distinguishing glories of Christ as a covert from the tempest and a refuge from an avenging law and an accusing conscience and a hating and malignant devil. It is by contrast we can best be told all that the Lord our God is as our Refuge. Points of Unlikeness. The city was a temporary refuge. Christ is an everlasting Refuge. The city of refuge was sometimes distant, taking hours, and even days, to reach it. Christ is near—so near that the sinner, no matter how far he may have wandered from God, if he but feel that he is athirst and weary, homeless, and perishing, need but turn to find that a spiritual Rock is beside him, and that Rock is Christ, in the cleft of which he may instantly hide and be at peace. The manslayer, turned to the city of refuge, and running with all his might to reach it, could possibly fail, nevertheless. With the sinner once turned to Christ as a Refuge failure is impossible. “Look and live,” that “Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.” These are the words that make it impossible a sinner should ever be overtaken by the avenging law while running to covert in the cleft of the Rock of ages. The refuge of the city freed from unjust condemnation. It only protected the involuntary homicide, the man who had slain another by accident, without evil intent or any intent. If he were proved a willful murderer, even the city of refuge did not shield him from the avenger of blood. But the refuge of Christ frees from all condemnation, just as well as unjust. The avenging law thunders at the gates of the strong tower, and, flaming out in terrible majesty its righteous and exact demands, declares that they have not been met by the fugitive within, and says, as if with the awful emphasis of Sinai, “His condemnation is just.” And a voice comes from the tower—a voice in which blends all the majesty of Sinai with all the pathos and tenderness of Calvary—saying, “It is true, O Law; it is true he is a sinner, but he is mine. I bore his sins in my own body on the tree. And there is now therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” And before that plea Satan is silenced, and conscience is silenced, and the law is silenced. And the pursued, accused, and guilty sinner, pardoned and sheltered now, and saved, sings over and over, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. The eternal God is my refuge, and underneath me are the everlasting arms.” H. Johnson. Thirteen Cities of the Priests (verses 4, 8-19). Thirty-five Cities of the Levites (verses 5-7, 20-42). 3. These cities were assigned by lot, that it might fully appear that God designed the Levites their habitations, as he designed the others their inheritances. The result of this arrangement would naturally be, that the Levites would be dispersed in every part of the land, to instruct the people in the knowledge of the Divine law, to edify them by their example, to restrain them from idolatry, and prompt them to a constant adherence to the worship of Jehovah, the only true God. Thus the prophetic sentence of the patriarch (Gen. 49 : 7), that they should be “divided in Jacob, and scattered in Israel,” though originally carrying with it a punitive import, was through the special mercy of heaven converted to a blessing to themselves and to the nation. 4. The children of Aaron the priest. All the Kohathites were children of Aaron, in being lineally descended from him, but they were not all priests; whereas the phrase “children of Aaron” here is but another name for the priests, his successors in office; and these had their allotment of cities in the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin; the rest, who were merely Levites and not priests, had their lot, as appears from verse 5, in the tribes of Ephraim, Dan, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. Bush. Of the forty-eight Levitical cities, thirteen (verses 13-19) were properly sacerdotal, being assigned to the sons of Aaron, to whom the priesthood was exclusively confined. Although the cities were all assigned by lot, yet it was directed by a special Providence that the share which fell to the priests should be in the tribes nearest to the great city which God intended should be the fixed place of his worship, to the end that the priests might be always ready to give their attendance. Patrick.—It is remarkable that all the cities of the priests lay within the southern tribes; eight belonging to Judah, four to Benjamin, and only one to Simeon. This was wisely allotted by Providence, to guard against the evils of schism between the southern and northern tribes. For by this arrangement all these cities, except one, lay in the faithful tribes of Judah and Benjamin, to keep up the national worship in them in opposition to the apostasy of the other tribes; and that one may have remained under the control of Judah, as being situated on his frontier. Otherwise the kingdom of Judah might have experienced a scarcity of priests, or have been burdened with the maintenance of those who fled from the kingdom of Israel, when Jeroboam made priests of the lowest of the people, without learning or religion, to officiate in their room. Hales.—There is no evidence that the priests were bound to live in these, and in no other cities. When the tabernacle was at Nob, both the priests and Levites dwelt there (1 S. 21 : 1-7), and when the worship of God was established at Jerusalem, multitudes both of priests and Levites resided there, though it was no Levitical city; as did the courses of the priests afterward at Jericho. This was a circumstance which Moses had foreseen and for which he had provided (De. 18 : 6). So, on the other hand, persons belonging to the other tribes were not precluded from living in the Levitical cities; as, for instance, Gibeah of Benjamin, which is here made a Levitical city (verse 17), was always peopled by the Benjamites. 41. All the cities—were forty and eight cities, with their suburbs. This was in exact accordance with the direction given by Moses several years before, as we learn from Nu. 35 : 7. This order of Moses is a direct demonstration that it was given under Divine inspiration, as otherwise, how could he possibly have known that so many cities could be assigned to the Levites, without unduly encroaching on the limits of the other tribes? Bush. Distribution Among the Tribes. | KOHATHITES. | | | --- | --- | | Priests... | Judah and Simeon... 9 | | | Benjamin... 4 | | Not Priests... | Ephraim... 4 | | | Dan... 4 | | | Half-Manasseh (West)... 2 | | GERSHONITES. | | | Half-Manasseh (East) ... | 2 | | Issachar... | 4 | | Asher ... | 4 | | Naphtali... | 3 | | MERARITES. | | | Zebulun... | 4 | | Rouben ... | 4 | | Gad... | 4 | | | 43 | After their settlement in their cities they took the place of the household priests (subject, of course, to the special rights of the Aaronic priesthood), sharing in all festivals and rejoicings. They preserved, transcribed, and interpreted the law, which they solemnly read every seventh year at the Feast of Tabernacles. At a still later time they became the learned class in the community, the chroniclers of the time in which they lived. They are described as "officers and judges" under David, and as such are employed "in all the business of Jehovah, and in the service of the king." They are the agents of Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah in their work of reformation, and are sent forth to proclaim and enforce the law. Under Josiah the function has passed into a title, and they are "the Levites that taught all Israel." The two Books of Chronicles bear unmistakable marks of having been written by men whose interests were all gathered round the services of the Temple, and who were familiar with its records. P. S. What Jehovah said to Aaron (Nu. 18 : 30) is in De. 10 : 9 applied to the whole tribe of Levi—namely, that Jehovah Himself would be their inheritance. The tribe is scattered among the other tribes, in the territories of which it received forty-eight towns, with their suburbs—that is, pasturages. In this law the priests are included with the Levites. The tithes were assigned to them for their support, not an overabundant endowment. Even when the tithe was conscientiously paid, it was no certain income. Moreover, if the people showed themselves averse to this tax, the tribe of Levi was subjected to unavoidable poverty. And thus Deuteronomy represents the Levites as placed in a position requiring the support of alms, and as standing in the same line with strangers, widows, and orphans. O. Distribution of the Land Completed. Concluding Statement. And now the ancient promise had been fulfilled: the solitary, childless patriarch who had listened to the Voice which spake at Ur of the Chaldees had grown by regular gradations into a family, a tribe, a horde, and now a nation. The inheritance of the heathen was theirs: wells they digged not, vineyards they planted not, cities they builded not—all these were theirs. Over the old strongholds of the mighty giant chieftains waved the banners of the House of Jacob. Joshua, the grave single hearted soldier, had been enabled to finish thoroughly his mission. Wilberforce. We may note in these verses the threefold repetition of the one thought, of God's punctual and perfect fulfilment of his word. He "gave unto Israel all the land which he swore to give;" "he gave them rest, . . . according to all that he swore;" "there failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken." It is the joy of thankful hearts to compare the promise with the reality, to lay the one upon the other, and to declare how precisely their outlines correspond. It is no small part of Christian duty, and a still greater part of Christian blessedness, to do this. Many a fulfilment passes unnoticed, and many a joy, which might be sacred and sweet as a token of love from his own hand, remains common and unhallowed, because we fail to see that it is a fulfilled promise. The eye that is trained to watch for God's being as good as his word will never have long to wait for proofs that he is. "Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even he shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord." And to such a one faith will become easier, being sustained by experience; and a present thus manifestly studded with indications of God's faithfulness will merge into a future still fuller of these. A. M. We have here the foregoing history summed up, and to make it appear the more bright, compared with the promise of which it was the full accomplishment. God's word and his works mutually illustrate each other. The performance makes the promise appear very true, and the promise makes the performance appear very kind. God had promised to give the seed of Abraham the land of Canaan for a possession, and now at last he performed that promise, they possessed it and dwelt therein. Though they had often forfeited the benefit of that promise, and God had long delayed the performance of it, yet at last all difficulties were conquered and Canaan was their own. And the promise of the heavenly Canaan is as sure to all God's spiritual Israel, for it is the promise of him that cannot lie. God had promised to give them rest in that land, and now they had rest round about. Rest from the fatigues of their travel through the wilderness, rest from their wars in Canaan. They now dwelt, not only in habitations of their own, but quiet and peaceable ones; though there were Canaanites that remained, yet none that had either strength or spirit to attack them. This rest continued till they by their own sin and folly put thorns into their own beds and their own eyes. God had promised to give them victory and success in their wars, and this promise likewise was fulfilled, there s'ood not a man before them. They had the better in every battle, and which way soever they turned their forces they prospered. So that the foundation of God stands sure; Israel's experience of God's fidelity is here upon record, and is an acquittance under their hands to the honor of God, the vindication of his promise which had been so often distrusted, and the encouragement of all believers to the end of the world. There failed not any good thing, no, nor aught of any good thing (so full is it expressed), which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel, but in due time all came to pass. Such an acknowledgment as this, here subscribed by Joshua in the name of all Israel, we afterward find made by Solomon, and all Israel did in effect say amen to it (1 K. 8 : 56). The inviolable truth of God's promise and the performance of it to the utmost, is what all the saints have been ready to bear their testimony to; and if in anything it has seemed to come short, they have been as ready to own that they themselves must bear all the blame. H. Here is the triumphant record of God's faithfulness. But the only name inscribed thereon is Jehovah's. Other memorials of victories have borne the pompous titles of commanders who arrogated the glory to themselves; but the Bible knows of only one conqueror, and that is God. "The help that is done on earth, he doeth it all himself." The military genius and heroic constancy of Joshua, the eagerness for perilous honor that flamed, undimmed by age, in Caleb, the daring and strong arms of many a humbler private in the ranks, have their due recognition and reward; but when the history that tells of these comes to sum up the whole, and to put the "philosophy" of the conquest into a sentence, it has only one name to speak as cause of Israel's victory. That is the true point of view from which to look at the history of the world and of the church in the world. The difference between the "miraculous" conquest of Canaan and the "ordinary" facts of history is not that God did the one and men do the other; both are equally, though in different methods, his acts. A. M. RETURN OF THE ARMED CONTINGENT OF THE TWO AND HALF TRIBES. WITNESS-ALTAR ERECTED. MISAPPREHENSION EXPLAINED. 14 6 THEN the children of Judah drew nigh unto Joshua in Gilgal : and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the LORD spake unto Moses the man of God concerning me and concerning thee in Kadesh-barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land ; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt : but I wholly followed the LORD my God. And Moses swore on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy foot hath trodden shall be an inheritance to thee and to thy children forever, because thou hast wholly followed the LORD my God. And now, behold, the LORD hath kept me alive, as he spake, these forty and five years, from the time that the LORD spake this word unto Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness : and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me : as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, and to go out and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day ; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakim were there, and cities great and fenced : it may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall drive them out, as the LORD spake. And Joshua blessed him ; and he gave Hebron unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, unto this day ; because that he wholly followed the LORD, the God of Israel. Now the name of Hebron beforetime was Kiriath-arba ; which Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. And the land had rest from war. 15 13 And unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh he gave a portion among the children of Judah, according to the commandment of the LORD to Joshua, even Kiriath-arba, which Arba was the father of Anak (the same is Hebron). And Caleb drove out thence the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak. And he went up thence against the inhabitants of Debir : now the name of Debir before time was Kiriath-sepher. And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kiriath-sepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my 17 daughter to wife. And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, took it : and he gave 18 him Achsah his daughter to wife. And it came to pass, when she came unto him, that she moved him to ask of her father a field : and she lighted down from off her ass ; and Caleb said 19 unto her, What wouldest thou? And she said, Give me a blessing ; for that thou hast set me in the land of the South, give me also springs of water. And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs. 19 49 And the children of Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua the son of Nun in the midst of them : according to the commandment of the LORD they gave him the city which he asked, even Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim : and he built the city, and dwelt therein. 20 1, 2 And the LORD spake unto Joshua, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Assign you the cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses : that the manslayer that killeth any person unwittingly and unawares may flee thither : and they shall be unto you for a refuge from the avenger of blood. And he shall flee unto one of those cities, and shall stand at the entering of the gate of the city, and declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city ; and they shall take him into the city unto them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them. And if the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver up the manslayer into his hand ; because he smote his neighbor unawares, and hated him not beforetime. And he shall dwell in that city, until he stand before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days : then shall the manslayer return, and come unto his own city, and unto his own house, unto the city from whence he fled. And they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (the same is Hebron) in the hill country of Judah. And beyond the Jordan at Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness in the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh. These were the appointed cities for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them, that whosoever killeth any person unwittingly might flee thither, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stood before the congregation. 21 1 Then came near the heads of fathers' houses of the Levites unto Eleazar the priest, and unto Joshua the son of Nun, and unto the heads of fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel ; and they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, The LORD commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle. And the children of Israel gave unto the Levites out of their inheritance, according to the commandment of the LORD, these cities with their suburbs. And the lot came out for the families of the Kohathites : and the children of Aaron the priest, which were of the Levites, had by lot out of the tribe of Judah, and out of the tribe of the Simeonites, and out of the tribe of Benjamin, thirteen cities. And the children of Israel gave by lot unto the Levites these cities with their suburbs, as the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses. And they gave out of the tribe of the children of Judah, and out of the tribe of the children of Simeon, these cities which are here mentioned by name : and they were for the children of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi : for theirs was the first lot. And they gave them Kiriath-arba, which Arba was the father of Anak (the same is Hebron), in the hill country of Judah, with the suburbs thereof round about it. But the fields of the city, and the villages thereof, gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for his possession. And unto the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with her suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Libnah with her suburbs ; and Jattir with her suburbs, and Eshtemoa with her suburbs ; and Holon with her suburbs, and Debir with her suburbs ; and Ain with her suburbs, and Juttah with her suburbs, and Beth-shemesh with her suburbs ; nine cities out of those two tribes. And out of the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with her suburbs, Geba with her suburbs ; Anathoth, with her suburbs, and Almon with her suburbs ; four cities. All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen cities with their suburbs. All the cities of the Levites in the midst of the possession of the children of Israel were forty and eight cities with their suburbs. These cities were every one with their suburbs round about them : thus it was with all these cities. So the LORD gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers ; and 44 they possessed it, and dwelt therein. And the LORD gave them rest round about, according to all that he swore unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before 45 them; the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand. There failed not aught of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass. [The cities of the Levites omitted in the text.] 6. We infer from the words and attitude of Caleb, and from the similar privileges afterward accorded to Joshua, that Moses had, by direction of the Lord, given these two a right of special and personal choice. This on account of their exceptional faithfulness, and as the sole survivors of the generation to whom the land had been given. Of this Caleb now reminds Joshua, and in words of such vigorous faith as make us love still better the tried old warrior of Jehovah. Appearing at the head of "the house of fathers," in Judah of which he was the head, he first refers to the past, then owns God's faithfulness in having preserved him to the age of eighty five, with strength and courage undiminished for the holy war. From verse 9 we infer that when the twelve spies distributed themselves singly over the land for the purposes of their mission, Caleb specially "searched" that "mountain," which was the favorite haunt of the dreaded Anakim. A. E.—We see in Caleb a life built on God's promise. Five times in his short speech does he refer to the word which "the Lord spake." On the first mention of it, he includes Joshua as the joint recipient of the promise, but in the others he speaks only of himself when he is urging his claim founded on it. A true reliance on God's word makes it a personal word, however many besides may have a portion in it. "He loved me and gave himself for me" is faith's version of "He so loved the world that he gave himself for it." A. M. 7. I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. That what came from the simple impulses of his heart was well pleasing to God, shows that his heart was right with God; and that he had formed true conceptions of his character, his designs, and his covenant relations to Israel. A good understanding have all they that seek God—all they that love him; and they can venture to speak all that is in their hearts, knowing under what influence their judgments have been formed. This was the case with Caleb. 8. I wholly followed the LORD my God. In this all his secret, all his distinction, lay. He wholly followed the Lord—he had no reserve, no secondary objects, no fears, no regard to human influence or man's opinions. Kit.—The energy of the expression is well preserved in our version. The words give the idea of a traveller, who, intent upon following his guide, so treads in his steps as to leave hardly any void space between. As he had obtained this testimony from God himself, it was not vain-glory for him to speak of it, especially as this was the main ground on which he had become entitled to the object of his petition. It is not pride but simply a tribute of due acknowledgment to declare what a gracious God has done for him. Bush.—His language corresponded to his name, which means All-heart. He said then, "Let us go up at once and possess the land," not merely let us attempt it, since faith in Jehovah's promises assures him of success, "for we are well able to overcome it." His sole and firm dependence was on Jehovah: "It may be that the Lord will be with me, then I shall drive them out" (verse 12). He believed God's word to Judah (ch. 1:2), "Behold I have delivered the land into his hand." According to his faith it was to him. A. R. F. He twice quotes the never-to-be-forgotten phrase which he had received from God, that he "wholly followed the Lord." The old soldier's cheek may well flush and his eye glitter, as he repeats the General's "well done." The commendation is high. Caleb had kept close behind his divine guide, and had not allowed fear or sloth or sense to shape his course. But, high as the praise was, it was God's judgment on his act, and he might well say it of himself after God had said it of him. He beautifully adds "my God" to the divine eulogium, thus unconsciously showing the root of his thorough obedience in his personal devotion, by which he had made the "God of Israel" (verse 14) his God, whom he possessed by faith and love, and who possessed him. Thus the old man looks back on the long stretch of eighty-five years, and sees in them two things,—God's preserving care and his own clinging to God, his leader and support. And still, a life of trust and following Christ however imperfectly does yield calm remembrances, which nothing else does, and for the lack of which nothing can compensate. If we would lay up for ourselves against old age the treasure of such calm and humble memories, we must in youth and manhood choose God for our God, and take heed to follow him though we may be singular; and to do it wholly. A. M. 10. And now behold the LORD hath kept me alive.** It was the Lord that did everything for him. He does not exult in the strength of his constitution, on which time had made so slight impression. Notwithstanding his consciousness of strength even in age—he does not venture to think himself equal to this great enterprise, unless the Lord were with him. Kd.—The dates given in this brief personal history of Caleb avail to show that this transaction was seven years after the crossing of the Jordan. Caleb being forty years (verse 7) of age at the mission of the spies from Kadesh-barnea and eighty-five now, the difference (forty-five) allows thirty-eight years for the remaining wilderness sojourning, and seven for residence in Canaan. These seven years measure the duration thus far of the wars of the conquest. H. C. A man who wholly followed the Lord at forty is all right at eighty-five. The panic of his fellow-spies and the threatened stoning by the people made no differences at twoscore. He has no more fear of giants and walled cities at fourscore and five. He never for a moment lost his confidence in God's promise or his expectation of its fulfilment. That land was his from the instant of promise, as much as heaven is ours from the instant we claim the promise that was left us. Bp. Warren. He considered the promise a gift of Hebron to him; and Joshua concurred in the opinion. For five and forty years he had kept this word "hid in his heart," and now he puts out a hand, unweakened by age and long-delayed fulfilment, to grasp the realization,—a grand example of steady, persistent faith, which waits for the vision, though it tarry, and buoyantly welcomes it when it comes at last! A life thus filled with trust in God's faithful word has ever present instalments of accomplishment, as brooks by the way, to keep its hope fresh. The prolongation of Caleb's life was the pledge to him of the fulfilment of the remoter promise. Faith, which looks forward to yet unfulfilled promises of an inheritance, is strengthened by a backward look on a life which, however commonplace its separate incidents may have seemed as they occurred, is discerned in retrospect to have been all of God, and all good. Such a life has hope burning as a guiding star to the very end. The heart which trusts to his sure word may make certain that, for this life, it can never outlive its joys nor its hopes, but that "to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant:" and that, after all earthly hopes have gone out in darkness, that hope which is set on God shall "abide." God keeps his children alive in the wilderness, and brings them, after the desert, to the mountain of their inheritance, "whereof the Lord spake in that day." This "old young man," as Thomas Fuller calls him, followed the Lord wholly; therefore he "brought forth fruit in old age," and the aged tree was "full of sap and green" in all its gnarled branches. In a very true sense, a man may keep himself young all his days. A youth and manhood of Christian sobriety and self-restraint, temperate, chaste, and free from the "sins of youth," which rot "the bones" and "lie down with" their victims "in the dust," is likely to conserve physical vigor. A life of Christian devotion and faith will keep its spring flowers blowing till late autumn, and blossom and fruit will hang together. The buoyancy, carelessness, hopefulness, cheeriness of youth are not far away from the aged heart, which lives by faith, and therefore dwells at ease, and is glad and secure, though the shadows of evening be falling. "Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." The perfection of life is to carry on to each stage the best of the preceding, harmonized with the best of the new. A Christian old age may be like Mount Heela, which bears snow on its crest and a fire in its heart. 12. Caleb and Joshua had seen all that the other ten had, but everything depends on the eyes which look. The others had measured themselves against the trained soldiers and giants, and were in despair. These two measured Amalekites and Anaks against God, and were jubilant. They do not dispute the facts, but they reverse the implied conclusion, because they add the governing fact of God's help. How differently the same facts strike a man who lives by faith, and one who lives by calculation! Israel might be a row of ciphers, but with God at the head they meant something. Caleb's confidence that "we are well able to overcome" was religious trust, as is plain from God's eulogium on him in Nu. 14 : 24. The lessons from it are that faith is the parent of wise courage; that where duty, which is God's voice, points, difficulties must not deter; that when we have God's assurance of support, they are nothing. Now, Caleb claims his portion because God has given it him, and he urges his request for a chivalrous reason,—"Give me this mountain; . . . for . . . the Anakim were there, and cities great and fenced." That is the true temper of the Christian soldier, seeking the hardest, not the easiest, work, and finding in danger an attraction. How nobly it has been exemplified in many a mission field, to which, whenever disease has smitten down one, two have been ready to go! To-day American and English Christianity is showing that the old heroic fire burns yet, in the men who, on the Congo and elsewhere, have hazarded their lives for the name of Jesus, and been drawn to the field by its very dangers. Paul made a long stay at Ephesus, because a great door and effectual was opened, and there were many adversaries, and he knew the door to be effectual, just because the adversaries were many. Caleb's spirit is the true spirit for Christ's soldiers. A. M. 12. Another point which greatly interests us is to mark the combination of manly courage with humble acknowledgment of God which characterizes the speech of Caleb. He is prepared to take his possession with his good sword, yet he trusts for success not in his prowess, but in the blessing of God; nor, in his might, is he afraid of the fortresses or the power of the Anakim. We also should not desire success without our own personal and best exertions—whatever our calling be. Yet do we look for it, not from our own labor, but from the blessing of God; and in that struggle we fear no foe. A. E. 14. Caleb's readiness for one more fight was fed by his reliance on God's help in it. When he says, "It may be the Lord will be with me," the perhaps is that of humility, not of doubt. The old warrior's eye flashes, and his voice sounds strong and full, as he ends his words with "I shall drive them out, as the Lord spake." That has the true ring. What were the three Anak tribes, with their barbarous names, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, and their giant stature, to the onset of a warrior faith like that? Of course, "Caleb drove out thence the three sons of Anak," and Hebron became his inheritance. A. M.—"Add to your faith manliness," says Peter. Courage to avow and to obey your faith. Most failures in conduct are preceded by failures in courage. To face duty as well as danger requires hardihood of spirit. Now observe the magnificent manliness of Caleb. It gleams through his report as a spy. It is apparent in this choice of the as yet unconquered territory. It comes out in the energy of his old age. And this simple quality in one man was of incalculable service to Israel. We all need this quality. More manliness would mean less falsehood, less failure, less wretchedness of apprehension, more enterprise and grand success. And godliness begets it. For godliness gives larger thought, greater dignity, scope for grand purposes, consciousness of help laid up in all providential law and processes. By communion with God man attains calmness, wisdom, strength, and help. Glover. 13. The claim thus made was immediately acknowledged, Joshua adding his blessing on Caleb's proposed undertaking. But it was many years later that the expedition was actually made. A. E.—15:14-10; Ju. 1:10-15. The reconquest of Hebron and vicinity occurred after Joshua's death. It is inserted in Joshua as appertaining to the history of Judah's allotment. Crosby.—Hebron was one of the most ancient towns in Palestine, built "seven years before Zoan in Egypt;" originally called Kirjath-arba, from Arba the father of Anak, it afterward received the name of Mamre, and was the scene of some of the most remarkable events in the lives of the Patriarchs. The town is prettily situated in a narrow valley, the sides of which are clothed with vineyards producing grapes still reckoned among the finest in Palestine. For a long period Hebron was the centre of the tribe of Judah, and in the extensive vineyards which surround it, producing the vine and grape, which were always, among the Jews, the type of the blessings of Jehovah, we may see "the choice vine" by which "Judah was to bind his foal; he was to wash his garments in wine, his clothes in the blood of grapes." Wilson. 17. This Othniel, who thus signalized himself when he was young, long after, in his advanced years, was led by the spirit to be both a deliverer and a judge in Israel, the first single person that presided in their affairs after Joshua's death. H. 18. As was the father, so was the daughter, the worthy offspring of a worthy sire, no degenerate child, but large-hearted, like the whole-hearted Caleb. Her father gave her in marriage to the victor of Kirjath Sepher, a stronghold of the enemy. Othniel, though urged by Achsah, was too modest to ask anything more from his father-in-law, having received from him the best of earthly gifts, a devoted wife. But Achsah knew her father's generosity and readiness to give, and that he only needed to be asked. Caleb did not even wait to be asked, but observing her eagerness anticipated her with his question, "What wilt thou?" "Give me a blessing," was her reply; "thou hast given me a dry land, give me also springs of water." So he gave her the upper and the nether springs; that is, springs on the higher and the lower ground. We need the upper and the nether springs. All that is good for us here below, and the fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore above. God begins by giving the upper and heavenly blessings, and promises, if we make them our first desire, He will add with them the lower (Matt. 6 : 33). So that we shall experience that "godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." A. R. F. Joshua's Inheritance. 49,50. It was not until they had "made an end of dividing the country," and all other just claims had been satisfied, that the unselfish and public-spirited ruler received his own inheritance. The true nobility of Joshua's character shines out conspicuously here. He who might have claimed the first and largest share of the spoils of victory postpones his right to that of the meanest of his people. A special portion had been promised to him by God, as to Caleb, as a reward for "following the Lord fully" in the matter of the spies. But he calmly waits till all have received their portions before he "asks" for his own. And then it is no widespread district, no province, that he requires, but just one city. "They gave him that which he asked, and he built the city and dwelt there:" the name given to the city—Timnath serah, "the portion that remains"—recording the fact that the conqueror's inheritance was the last assignment made in the whole distribution of his conquests. E. V.—Joshua was last served, though the eldest and greatest man of all Israel, and who, having commanded in the conquest of Canaan, might have demanded the first settlement in it for himself and his family. But he was content to be unfixed till he saw them all placed; and herein is a great example to all in public places, to prefer the common welfare before their particular satisfaction. Let the public be first served. He had his lot, according unto the Word of the Lord; it is probable, when God by Moses told Caleb what inheritance he should have (ch. 14 : 9), he gave the like promise to Joshua, which he had an eye to in making his election, which made his portion doubly pleasant, that he had it, not as the rest, by common providence, but by special promise. H. Joshua takes care that every one is served before himself. Such utter self-abandonment as was displayed by Moses and Joshua affords incontestable proof of the claim of the Mosaic dispensation to have been Divine. The invasion of Canaan has been declaimed against as cruel; but its cruelty was at least the fruit of a moral idea, a righteous indignation against an obscene and ferocious religion, which was itself the cause of infinite misery to mankind; while Joshua's cruelty was kindness itself compared to the revolting atrocities recorded at their own instance by the Eastern conquerors of old, Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Moabite. We hear in excess of the impossibility of God's ordering the slaughter of the unoffending Canaanites. We hear nothing of the high morality, the sublime disinterestedness, the devotion to a grand ideal which characterized the giver of the Law and the conqueror of Canaan. Such characters have been rare since Christ came into the world. Save these two great men, they were unknown before it. Lias. 20 : 3-6. In Nu. 35 two kinds of murder are distinguished in reference to which the avenging of blood is commanded: verses 16-18, if any one strikes another in such a way that death may be foreseen to be the probable consequence; verse 20, if one has slain another out of hatred, or by design, or out of enmity, in which case the means by which death was brought about is indifferent. On the other hand, in order to shelter from vengeance him who had slain a man undesignedly, without intending to hurt his neighbor, and inadvertently, the law provided for the selection of six free cities, three on the east, and three on the west side of the Jordan. The manslayer who fled into one of these must be protected from the avenger of blood who pursued him, after a provisional cognizance of the case by the elders of the free town, until the community of the place where the murder was committed had, through their elders, examined the matter. If the accused person was proved guilty of intentional murder, he must be given over to the avenger of blood, and even the altar could not protect him. In the opposite case, however, he was obliged to remain in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest in whose time the murder had occurred. For intentional murder, there was no other expiation than the blood of the manslayer. The jus talionis is here maintained in the most stringent sense; every substitute for the punishment of death is refused. Nor can exemption from residence in the city of refuge in consequence of accidental murder be purchased. The custom of other ancient nations permitted the manslayer to satisfy the injured family by making compensation. O. 8. The cities on the other side Jordan, Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan, had been assigned by Moses (De. 4 : 43), but did not, until now, obtain the privilege of cities of refuge. They were all Levitical cities; which appears to have been so ordered, that the cases of manslaughter might come under the cognizance of those who might be presumed to be most thoroughly versed in the law of God, and most competent to give judgment according to it, and who moreover would be less likely than any others to be swayed by private bias in their decisions. Compare De. 21 : 5, where it is said of the priests, the sons of Levi, that "by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried." Bush. Some observe a significance in the names of these cities with application to Christ our Refuge. I delight not in quibbling upon names, yet am willing to take notice of these. Kadesh signifies holy, and our refuge is the holy Jesus. Shechem, a shoulder, and the government is upon his shoulder. Hebron, fellowship, and believers are called into the fellowship of Christ Jesus our Lord. Bezer, a fortification, for he is a Strong Hold to all them that trust in him. Ramoth, high or exalted, for him hath God exalted with his own right hand. Golan, joy, or exultation, for in him all the saints are justified, and shall glory. H. 7. The six cities were chosen from all parts of the land, so that some one of them would be near to any scene of blood. The highways to the cities—so we are told—were prepared to facilitate the flight of the manslayer, and signboards were erected at intervals along them, with directing letters so large that he who ran might read. Now, three of the cities designated for refuge were on the east side of the Jordan, and three were on the west side. And of those on the west side, Hebron was one. "They appointed," it is said, "Kadesh in Galilee, in Mount Naphtali"—to the north—"and Shechem in Mount Ephraim"—in the middle of the country—"and Kirjath Arba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Jadah"—on the south. N. C. B. The existence of the cities of refuge and their purpose have often been used in illustration of the escape of men from the avenger of sin under the Gospel, and certainly with fine effect. There is much in any suggestion from such a source to stir the imagination and awaken the feelings. And this use of Old Testament usages is not only legitimate but praiseworthy, as indeed is everything which gives to well-known truth point, force, and incisiveness. But when matters are pressed beyond this, and we are bidden to see in all this arrangement a typical foreshadowing of the elements of the Gospel, essential truth is needlessly sacrificed. The typology of Scripture is a very important and useful branch of Biblical study, but it needs to be pursued with reverence and care. Conducted on genuine principles, it illumines much of the Old Testament, and imparts great freshness and vividness to the didactic statements of the New. But followed under the guidance of mere fancy or a capricious and arbitrary use of analogies, it sheds darkness instead of light, and is likely to lead its votaries sadly astray. Chambers. The Lord is exalted in the Scripture as the Refuge, and between these cities of refuge and Christ as a Refuge there are some happy resemblance and some marked contrasts. Points of Likeness. The cities were always accessible—could be entered at any hour of day or night. The manslayer never perished because of delay at the gates or because those gates were barred against him. So one of the unspeakably blessed things about Christ as a Refuge is that he is always accessible. The cities were open to all. There were no class distinctions in this provision of mercy. And a voice sounds out from the New Testament Refuge, saying, "Whosoever will," let him run into the strong tower and be safe. The way to the cities was prepared and made plain. The roads to them were to be kept open and in good repair. At the cross-roads posts were put up bearing the words Refuge, Refuge, to guide the flight of the fugitive. So for the flight of the sinner to Christ every obstacle has been removed. The way is made light with truth, and easy to the feet with exceeding great and precious promises; and at every crossing and bypath there is a gospel signboard pointing to Jesus and bearing on it the evermore blessed words, "The eternal God is thy Refuge!" The city of refuge needed to be sought, and with effort. The manslayer had no agency in providing the refuge, but there was necessary a very urgency of effort on his part to secure it. He could be no loiterer on his way there and count on security. Swiftly, eagerly, earnestly, with active feet and intense look and resolute heart, he must speed his way to the city or fail of its refuge. Imagine him thus in flight, and you have a vivid picture of the sinner fleeing for refuge to Christ. Inside the city of refuge the manslayer was safe. "So there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe—is safe! Happy resemblances are these indeed. They are beautifully and strikingly illustrative of Christ as the Refuge of the sinner. They put before us in a definite and tangible way some most precious truths about the Lord our hiding-place. But these points of likeness fail to set forth the chief and distinguishing glories of Christ as a covert from the tempest and a refuge from an avenging law and an accusing conscience and a hating and malignant devil. It is by contrast we can best be told all that the Lord our God is as our Refuge. Points of Unlikeness. The city was a temporary refuge. Christ is an everlasting Refuge. The city of refuge was sometimes distant, taking hours, and even days, to reach it. Christ is near—so near that the sinner, no matter how far he may have wandered from God, if he but feel that he is athirst and weary, homeless, and perishing, need but turn to find that a spiritual Rock is beside him, and that Rock is Christ, in the cleft of which he may instantly hide and be at peace. The manslayer, turned to the city of refuge, and running with all his might to reach it, could possibly fail, nevertheless. With the sinner once turned to Christ as a Refuge failure is impossible. “Look and live,” that “Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.” These are the words that make it impossible a sinner should ever be overtaken by the avenging law while running to covert in the cleft of the Rock of ages. The refuge of the city freed from unjust condemnation. It only protected the involuntary homicide, the man who had slain another by accident, without evil intent or any intent. If he were proved a willful murderer, even the city of refuge did not shield him from the avenger of blood. But the refuge of Christ frees from all condemnation, just as well as unjust. The avenging law thunders at the gates of the strong tower, and, flaming out in terrible majesty its righteous and exact demands, declares that they have not been met by the fugitive within, and says, as if with the awful emphasis of Sinai, “His condemnation is just.” And a voice comes from the tower—a voice in which blends all the majesty of Sinai with all the pathos and tenderness of Calvary—saying, “It is true, O Law; it is true he is a sinner, but he is mine. I bore his sins in my own body on the tree. And there is now therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” And before that plea Satan is silenced, and conscience is silenced, and the law is silenced. And the pursued, accused, and guilty sinner, pardoned and sheltered now, and saved, sings over and over, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. The eternal God is my refuge, and underneath me are the everlasting arms.” H. Johnson. Thirteen Cities of the Priests (verses 4, 8-19). Thirty-five Cities of the Levites (verses 5-7, 20-42). 3. These cities were assigned by lot, that it might fully appear that God designed the Levites their habitations, as he designed the others their inheritances. The result of this arrangement would naturally be, that the Levites would be dispersed in every part of the land, to instruct the people in the knowledge of the Divine law, to edify them by their example, to restrain them from idolatry, and prompt them to a constant adherence to the worship of Jehovah, the only true God. Thus the prophetic sentence of the patriarch (Gen. 49 : 7), that they should be “divided in Jacob, and scattered in Israel,” though originally carrying with it a punitive import, was through the special mercy of heaven converted to a blessing to themselves and to the nation. 4. The children of Aaron the priest. All the Kohathites were children of Aaron, in being lineally descended from him, but they were not all priests; whereas the phrase “children of Aaron” here is but another name for the priests, his successors in office; and these had their allotment of cities in the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin; the rest, who were merely Levites and not priests, had their lot, as appears from verse 5, in the tribes of Ephraim, Dan, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. Bush. Of the forty-eight Levitical cities, thirteen (verses 13-19) were properly sacerdotal, being assigned to the sons of Aaron, to whom the priesthood was exclusively confined. Although the cities were all assigned by lot, yet it was directed by a special Providence that the share which fell to the priests should be in the tribes nearest to the great city which God intended should be the fixed place of his worship, to the end that the priests might be always ready to give their attendance. Patrick.—It is remarkable that all the cities of the priests lay within the southern tribes; eight belonging to Judah, four to Benjamin, and only one to Simeon. This was wisely allotted by Providence, to guard against the evils of schism between the southern and northern tribes. For by this arrangement all these cities, except one, lay in the faithful tribes of Judah and Benjamin, to keep up the national worship in them in opposition to the apostasy of the other tribes; and that one may have remained under the control of Judah, as being situated on his frontier. Otherwise the kingdom of Judah might have experienced a scarcity of priests, or have been burdened with the maintenance of those who fled from the kingdom of Israel, when Jeroboam made priests of the lowest of the people, without learning or religion, to officiate in their room. Hales.—There is no evidence that the priests were bound to live in these, and in no other cities. When the tabernacle was at Nob, both the priests and Levites dwelt there (1 S. 21 : 1-7), and when the worship of God was established at Jerusalem, multitudes both of priests and Levites resided there, though it was no Levitical city; as did the courses of the priests afterward at Jericho. This was a circumstance which Moses had foreseen and for which he had provided (De. 18 : 6). So, on the other hand, persons belonging to the other tribes were not precluded from living in the Levitical cities; as, for instance, Gibeah of Benjamin, which is here made a Levitical city (verse 17), was always peopled by the Benjamites. 41. All the cities—were forty and eight cities, with their suburbs. This was in exact accordance with the direction given by Moses several years before, as we learn from Nu. 35 : 7. This order of Moses is a direct demonstration that it was given under Divine inspiration, as otherwise, how could he possibly have known that so many cities could be assigned to the Levites, without unduly encroaching on the limits of the other tribes? Bush. Distribution Among the Tribes. | KOHATHITES. | | | --- | --- | | Priests... | Judah and Simeon... 9 | | | Benjamin... 4 | | Not Priests... | Ephraim... 4 | | | Dan... 4 | | | Half-Manasseh (West)... 2 | | GERSHONITES. | | | Half-Manasseh (East) ... | 2 | | Issachar... | 4 | | Asher ... | 4 | | Naphtali... | 3 | | MERARITES. | | | Zebulun... | 4 | | Rouben ... | 4 | | Gad... | 4 | | | 43 | After their settlement in their cities they took the place of the household priests (subject, of course, to the special rights of the Aaronic priesthood), sharing in all festivals and rejoicings. They preserved, transcribed, and interpreted the law, which they solemnly read every seventh year at the Feast of Tabernacles. At a still later time they became the learned class in the community, the chroniclers of the time in which they lived. They are described as "officers and judges" under David, and as such are employed "in all the business of Jehovah, and in the service of the king." They are the agents of Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah in their work of reformation, and are sent forth to proclaim and enforce the law. Under Josiah the function has passed into a title, and they are "the Levites that taught all Israel." The two Books of Chronicles bear unmistakable marks of having been written by men whose interests were all gathered round the services of the Temple, and who were familiar with its records. P. S. What Jehovah said to Aaron (Nu. 18 : 30) is in De. 10 : 9 applied to the whole tribe of Levi—namely, that Jehovah Himself would be their inheritance. The tribe is scattered among the other tribes, in the territories of which it received forty-eight towns, with their suburbs—that is, pasturages. In this law the priests are included with the Levites. The tithes were assigned to them for their support, not an overabundant endowment. Even when the tithe was conscientiously paid, it was no certain income. Moreover, if the people showed themselves averse to this tax, the tribe of Levi was subjected to unavoidable poverty. And thus Deuteronomy represents the Levites as placed in a position requiring the support of alms, and as standing in the same line with strangers, widows, and orphans. O. Distribution of the Land Completed. Concluding Statement. And now the ancient promise had been fulfilled: the solitary, childless patriarch who had listened to the Voice which spake at Ur of the Chaldees had grown by regular gradations into a family, a tribe, a horde, and now a nation. The inheritance of the heathen was theirs: wells they digged not, vineyards they planted not, cities they builded not—all these were theirs. Over the old strongholds of the mighty giant chieftains waved the banners of the House of Jacob. Joshua, the grave single hearted soldier, had been enabled to finish thoroughly his mission. Wilberforce. We may note in these verses the threefold repetition of the one thought, of God's punctual and perfect fulfilment of his word. He "gave unto Israel all the land which he swore to give;" "he gave them rest, . . . according to all that he swore;" "there failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken." It is the joy of thankful hearts to compare the promise with the reality, to lay the one upon the other, and to declare how precisely their outlines correspond. It is no small part of Christian duty, and a still greater part of Christian blessedness, to do this. Many a fulfilment passes unnoticed, and many a joy, which might be sacred and sweet as a token of love from his own hand, remains common and unhallowed, because we fail to see that it is a fulfilled promise. The eye that is trained to watch for God's being as good as his word will never have long to wait for proofs that he is. "Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even he shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord." And to such a one faith will become easier, being sustained by experience; and a present thus manifestly studded with indications of God's faithfulness will merge into a future still fuller of these. A. M. We have here the foregoing history summed up, and to make it appear the more bright, compared with the promise of which it was the full accomplishment. God's word and his works mutually illustrate each other. The performance makes the promise appear very true, and the promise makes the performance appear very kind. God had promised to give the seed of Abraham the land of Canaan for a possession, and now at last he performed that promise, they possessed it and dwelt therein. Though they had often forfeited the benefit of that promise, and God had long delayed the performance of it, yet at last all difficulties were conquered and Canaan was their own. And the promise of the heavenly Canaan is as sure to all God's spiritual Israel, for it is the promise of him that cannot lie. God had promised to give them rest in that land, and now they had rest round about. Rest from the fatigues of their travel through the wilderness, rest from their wars in Canaan. They now dwelt, not only in habitations of their own, but quiet and peaceable ones; though there were Canaanites that remained, yet none that had either strength or spirit to attack them. This rest continued till they by their own sin and folly put thorns into their own beds and their own eyes. God had promised to give them victory and success in their wars, and this promise likewise was fulfilled, there s'ood not a man before them. They had the better in every battle, and which way soever they turned their forces they prospered. So that the foundation of God stands sure; Israel's experience of God's fidelity is here upon record, and is an acquittance under their hands to the honor of God, the vindication of his promise which had been so often distrusted, and the encouragement of all believers to the end of the world. There failed not any good thing, no, nor aught of any good thing (so full is it expressed), which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel, but in due time all came to pass. Such an acknowledgment as this, here subscribed by Joshua in the name of all Israel, we afterward find made by Solomon, and all Israel did in effect say amen to it (1 K. 8 : 56). The inviolable truth of God's promise and the performance of it to the utmost, is what all the saints have been ready to bear their testimony to; and if in anything it has seemed to come short, they have been as ready to own that they themselves must bear all the blame. H. Here is the triumphant record of God's faithfulness. But the only name inscribed thereon is Jehovah's. Other memorials of victories have borne the pompous titles of commanders who arrogated the glory to themselves; but the Bible knows of only one conqueror, and that is God. "The help that is done on earth, he doeth it all himself." The military genius and heroic constancy of Joshua, the eagerness for perilous honor that flamed, undimmed by age, in Caleb, the daring and strong arms of many a humbler private in the ranks, have their due recognition and reward; but when the history that tells of these comes to sum up the whole, and to put the "philosophy" of the conquest into a sentence, it has only one name to speak as cause of Israel's victory. That is the true point of view from which to look at the history of the world and of the church in the world. The difference between the "miraculous" conquest of Canaan and the "ordinary" facts of history is not that God did the one and men do the other; both are equally, though in different methods, his acts. A. M. RETURN OF THE ARMED CONTINGENT OF THE TWO AND HALF TRIBES. WITNESS-ALTAR ERECTED. MISAPPREHENSION EXPLAINED. 22 1 THEN Joshua called the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, 2 and said unto them, Ye have kept all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, and 3 have hearkened unto my voice in all that I commanded you : ye have not left your brethren these many days unto this day, but have kept the charge of the commandment of the LORD 4 your God. And now the LORD your God hath given rest unto your brethren, as he spake unto them : therefore now turn ye, and get you unto your tents, unto the land of your possession, 5 which Moses the servant of the LORD gave you beyond Jordan. Only take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave 6 unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. So Joshua blessed them, and sent them away : and they went unto their tents. 7 Now to the one half tribe of Manasseh Moses had given inheritance in Bashan : but unto the other half gave Joshua among their brethren beyond Jordan westward. Moreover when 8 Joshua sent them away unto their tents, he blessed them, and spake unto them, saying, Re- turn with much wealth unto your tents, and with very much cattle, with silver, and with gold, and with brass, and with iron, and with very much raiment : divide the spoil of your enemies with your brethren. 9 And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh re- turned, and departed from the children of Israel out of Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go unto the land of Gilead, to the land of their possession, whereof they were possessed, 10 according to the commandment of the LORD by the hand of Moses. And when they came unto the region about Jordan, that is in the land of Canaan, the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh built there an altar by Jordan, a great altar to see to, 11 And the children of Israel heard say, Behold, the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh have built an altar in the forefront of the land of Canaan, in 12 the region about Jordan, on the side that pertaineth to the children of Israel. And when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel gathered them- selves together at Shiloh, to go up against them to war. 13 And the children of Israel sent unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, 14 and to the half tribe of Manasseh, into the land of Gilead, Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest ; and with him ten princes, one prince of a fathers' house for each of the tribes of Israel ; and they were every one of them head of their fathers' houses among the thousands of 15 Israel. And they came unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the 16 half tribe of Manasseh, unto the land of Gilead, and they spake with them, saying, Thus saith the whole congregation of the LORD, What trespass is this that ye have committed against the God of Israel, to turn away this day from following the LORD, in that ye have builded you an 17 altar, to rebel this day against the LORD ? Is the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we have not cleansed ourselves unto this day, although there came a plague upon the congre- 18 gation of the LORD, that ye must turn away this day from following the LORD ? and it will be, seeing ye rebel to-day against the LORD, that to-morrow he will be wroth with the whole 19 congregation of Israel. Howbeit, if the land of your possession be unclean, then pass ye over unto the land of the possession of the LORD, wherein the LORD's tabernacle dwelleth, and take possession among us : but rebel not against the LORD, nor rebel against us, in building you an 20 altar besides the altar of the LORD our God. Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a tres- pass in the devoted thing, and wrath fell upon all the congregation of Israel ? and that man perished not alone in his iniquity. 21 Then the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh an- 22 swered, and spake unto the heads of the thousands of Israel, The LORD, the God of gods, the LORD, the God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know ; if it be in rebellion, or if in 23 trespass against the LORD (save thou us not this day), that we have built us an altar to turn away from following the LORD; or if to offer thereon burnt offering or meal offering, or if to offer sacrifices of peace offerings thereon, let the LORD himself require it; and if we have not rather out of carefulness done this, and of purpose, saying, In time to come your children might speak unto our children, saying, What have ye to do with the LORD, the God of Israel? for the LORD hath made Jordan a border between us and you, ye children of Reuben and children of Gad; ye have no portion in the LORD: so shall your children make our children cease from fearing the LORD. Therefore we said, Let us now prepare to build us an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice: but it shall be a witness between us and you, and between our generations after us, that we may do the service of the LORD before him with our burnt offerings, and with our sacrifices, and with our peace offerings; that your children may not say to our children in time to come, Ye have no portion in the LORD. Therefore said we, It shall be, when they so say to us or to our generations in time to come, that we shall say, Behold the pattern of the altar of the LORD, which our fathers made, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice; but it is a witness between us and you. God forbid that we should rebel against the LORD, and turn away this day from following the LORD, to build an altar for burnt offering, for meal offering, or for sacrifice, besides the altar of the LORD our God that is before his tabernacle. And when Phinehas the priest, and the princes of the congregation, even the heads of the thousands of Israel which were with him, heard the words that the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the children of Manasseh spake, it pleased them well. And Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest said unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the children of Manasseh, This day we know that the LORD is in the midst of us, because ye have not committed this trespass against the LORD: now have ye delivered the children of Israel out of the hand of the LORD. And Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, and the princes, returned from the children of Reuben, and from the children of Gad, out of the land of Gilead, unto the land of Canaan, to the children of Israel, and brought them word again. And the thing pleased the children of Israel; and the children of Israel blessed God, and spake no more of going up against them to war, to destroy the land wherein the children of Reuben and the children of Gad dwelt. And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad called the altar Ed: For, said they, it is a witness between us that the LORD is God. Since the distribution of the land is now completed, the Reubenites, Gadites, and Manassites of the trans-Jordanic region, who had faithfully for seven years continued with their brethren in the subjugation of the western country, are dismissed by Joshua to their homes. As this return gave rise to a remarkable incident, which evinced the faithfulness of Israel, its details are carefully recorded in this chapter. Crosby. I-6. The two and a half tribes did not go of their own accord even when their work was finished; but Joshua "called" them and dismissed them with a blessing, now that God had given their brethren rest. A E.—Forty thousand fighting men, of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half of Manasseh, had willingly helped in the conquest, leaving their own newly-won homes on the eastern side of Jordan, and for seven long years taking their share in the hardships and dangers of their brethren. It was no small tax which they had thus cheerfully paid for the sake of brotherly unity. Their aid had not only been valuable as strengthening Joshua's force, but still more so as a witness of the unbroken oneness of the nation, and of the sympathy which the tribes already settled bore to the others. Politically, it was wise to associate the whole people in the whole conquest; for nothing welds a nation together like the glories of common victories and the remembrance of common dangers survived. The separation of the trans-Jordanic tribes by the rapid river, and by their pastoral life, was a possible source of weakness, and would, no doubt, have led to more complete severance, if it had not been for the uniting power of the campaign. Even as it was, the eastern tribes drifted somewhat away from the western; but the disintegration would have been still more complete if no memories of the war, when all Israel stood side by side, had lived on among them. Their share in the conquest was not only a piece of policy,—it was the natural expression of the national brotherhood. The law for us is the same as for these warriors. In the family, the city, the nation, the church, and the world, union with others binds us to help them in their conflicts, and that especially if we are blessed with secure possessions, while they have to struggle for theirs. We are tempted to selfish lives of indulgence in our quiet peace, and sometimes think it hard that we should be expected to buckle on our armor and leave our leisurely repose, because our brethren ask the help of our arms. If we did as Reuben and Gad did, would there be so many who never stir a finger to relieve poverty, so many whose religion is much more selfish than beneficent? Would so many souls be left to toil without help, to struggle without allies, to weep without comforters, to wander in the dark without a guide? All God's gifts in providence and in the Gospel are given that we may have somewhat wherewith to bless our less happy brethren. "The service of man" is not the substitute for, but the expression of Christianity. Are we not kept here, on this side Jordan, away for a time from our inheritance, for the very same reason that these men were separated from theirs, —that we may strike some strokes for God and our fellows in the great war? Would that the church of to-day, with infinitely deeper and sacreder ties knitting it to suffering, struggling humanity, had a tithe of the willing relinquishment of legitimate possessions and patient participation in the long campaign for God which kept these rude soldiers faithful to their flag and forgetful of home and ease till their general gave them their discharge! A. M. It is well to take with us, as did they of the two and a half tribes, the testimony of earlier duties well performed. They will find good resting places in active life who come to it from Shiloh after having well discharged their obligations in the position in which duty placed them. On the other hand, there was also full and generous acknowledgment on the part of Joshua. We are perhaps sometimes too niggardly in that respect, or else our acknowledgment is not put on the right basis. In this case it was faithfulness to their engagements to Moses, submission to Joshua, patient endurance, and steady adherence to the will of God as made known to them. A roll of humble achievements, some may say; but all the more difficult for their humbleness. A. E. 5. Take diligent heed.** Joshua thinks it not enough merely to dismiss them with the commendations which their zeal and fidelity had so richly merited, but in the spirit of a true servant of God, adds his counsels. The expressions are remarkably varied and accumulated, to show in the most forcible manner the importance of a life of devoted obedience. They were to give the most diligent heed that the love of God, as the great ruling principle of action, was deeply seated in their hearts; this must be evinced by the universality of their obedience, extending to every divine precept, and still further illustrated by the constancy, humility, resolution, and affection which were to characterize their walk. Counsel like this can never be unseasonable or superfluous. Even the most established Christian, as long as he abides in the flesh, needs to be "put in remembrance of these things." Especially does he need these kindly monitions when settled down in a state of peace and prosperity; for such a state is one of peculiar danger to his spiritual interests. These disbanded soldiers of Israel were now returning to their families, and the peaceful prosecution of their worldly business. They needed, therefore, to be reminded of the danger, of which Moses had long before warned them, of forgetting the Lord their God while enjoying "houses which they built not, wells which they digged not, and vineyards which they planted not." A constant mindfulness of God accordingly was the great object of Joshua's solicitude for his departing brethren. Bush. Joshua bids them henceforth in their own homes fight that other warfare, in which victory means to love the Lord, to walk in his ways, to keep his commandments, to cleave to him, and to serve him with heart and soul. It was the old and yet the new commandment. Assuredly, there could not be better evidence of the spiritual character of the Old Testament than that its obligations and contents could be summed up in these three words: love, service, and obedience. A. E. —It is a rule of God's dominion that he shall be loved. Nor is it to be merely a vague good-will that we are bound to give him. Nothing general, impersonal or impassionate will satisfy him. It is vivid, impetuous, enthusiastic personal love that he orders us to feel for him; love without limit, love without reserve, love without a rival, love without an end, this is his rule, the law of his state. H. S. Holland. He sends them away with one commandment, the imperative stringency of which is expressed by the accumulation of expressions in verse 5. They are to give diligent heed to the law of Moses. Their obedience is to be based on love to God, who is their God no less than the God of the other tribes. It is to be comprehensive, —walking in all his ways; it is to be resolute, —cleaving to him; it is to be whole-hearted and whole-souled service, that will be the true bond between the separated parts of the whole. Independence so limited will be harmless; and, however wide apart the paths may lie, Israel will be one. In like manner the bond that knits all divisions of God's people together, however different their modes of life and thought, however unlike their homes and their work, is the similarity of relation to God. They are one in a common faith, a common love, a common obedience. Wider waters than Jordan part them. Graver differences of tasks and outlooks than separated these two sections of Israel part them. But all are one who love and obey the one Lord. The closer we cleave to him, the nearer we shall be to all his tribes. A. M. 8. Joshua blessed them. He bade them take the cattle, the precious and useful metals, and the raiment, which had been amassed as their share of the spoil of their enemies during their seven years of hardship and conflict. And he enjoins upon them to divide the spoil with their brethren who had remained in charge of their newly occupied inheritance over the Jordan. B. Witness-Allar Erected on the West Side of Jordan by the Returning Tribes (verses 9, 10). 10. Built there a great altar to see to. The Hebrew word includes the idea of a view; and "an altar visible from a great distance," is probably the correct translation. It was intended as a landmark and a beacon to be seen from the eastern side, and there can be no doubt that some prominent natural object, conspicuous from the eastern plateau, is the natural site to be looked for. Like most altars, it would be placed on a hill-top, and on one easily distinguishable in the range of the chalk peaks above the Jordan valley. It was a "great altar;" no mere pile of stones put up in a single night. The fighting men of two and a half tribes were concerned in its erection, and the fame of their work spread throughout the country. As a monument it may well have consisted of hewn stones, and in this it would have resembled the ancient beacons to be found in other conspicuous points throughout Palestine. From the internal evidence we are able to point with tolerable accuracy to the approximate position and character of the great Witness Altar. It must be near and above Jordan, on some hill-top west of the river, between the modern village of Seilún (Shiloh) and the ford of the Damieh, placed in a conspicuous position, and possibly giving ruins of some magnitude. In addition to which we should hope to find remains of the name in some modern Arabic word. There is but one spot in Palestine which will fulfil these requirements, and that spot is perhaps the most conspicuous in the country. From the heights of Ebal a sharp cone stands out against the white valley; from the castle of Kaukab el Hawa, near Gennesaret, it is visible at a distance of thirty miles;  from the shores of the Dead Sea and the plains of Jericho it stands forth prominently as a great bastion closing the Jordan valley; from the eastern highlands it is no less conspicuous, and from the Judean watershed it is visible at a great distance. The place in question is the high cone of the Kurn Surtabeh, the Surtabeh of the Talmud, and one of the most important of our trigonometrical stations on the eastern border of the survey. The Kurn Surtabeh is the culminating summit of an almost isolated block of hill which closes in the broader part of the Jordan valley on the north. From the summit the whole valley of Jordan is spread out like a map. On the south lie the black groves round Elisha's fountain, the sharp peaks and shining waters and distant blue ranges round the Dead Sea. Nearer is the white cone, which rises, a miniature of the Kurn itself, against the sharp rocky precipices of the Mountain of Temptation, and which I have endeavored to show is the "rock Oreb" of the Book of Judges. Dark ranges close in to the watershed, shutting out the view of the first beacon station of the Rabbis on Olivet. On the east the great mountain wall stretches away north, broken only by the outline of the famous castle Kala'at el Rabed. At the foot of the mountain, 2000 feet below, lies a green plain. Beyond the plain are rugged hills, with steep slopes, the valley here becoming a mere gorge, and in the far distance are the hills of Gilboa, Tabor, and Kaukab, with the narrow thread of the Sea of Galilee, and the white crest of Hermon beyond all. Standing thus centrally as regards the eastern and western possessions of the tribes, the Kurn is very difficult of approach. The peculiarity of its summit consists in a cone or tell, about 270 feet high on the west, where it joins a narrow plateau. On other sides the slope is sheer to the base of the mountain, 2000 feet below. Upon the summit is a great platform 18 feet high, consisting of ten courses of stones beautifully cut, and averaging three or four feet in length, with a broad marginal draft. The platform is long and narrow, apparently solid, and of a most puzzling character. It was at once evident that it was either Jewish, or at the latest Roman work, and intended as a gigantic altar or beacon. The name may be still traced in the neighborhood. On the north side I find marked on our map as a valley name Tal'at Abu 'Ayd. The ascent of the father of 'Ayd. Between the Arabic 'Ayd and the Hebrew Ed, no scholar can fail to see the identity. Conder. 11. The law, to repress all danger of that plurality of worship which was the bane of all ancient religions, as well as to preserve the unity of the tribes, had decreed that there should be but one altar—that at the tabernacle—for all the people. The act of the returning warriors was therefore open to the suspicion that they meant, if not to adopt another worship, at least to set up another and independent establishment for worship, which, besides the obvious tendency to idolatry, could not fail in the event to destroy the connection by which the tribes were linked together. The obligation of all the Israelites to resort three times in the year, for worship, to the sole altar of the people, was admirably suited to retain them as one people, by continually keeping before their minds their common origin and common obligations; but if a separate establishment were allowed to exist they would cease to put themselves to the trouble of visiting the parent establishment in Canaan, and would, in no long time, come to regard themselves as a separate people. This was precisely the view of the case which struck the minds of the people. Their holy jealousy on this occasion for the glory of God and for the honor of the institutions he had given them, gives us a favorable opinion of the character of this generation. The sequel bears out this impression. Ki'. 12. The whole congregation—gathered themselves together. Not perhaps in their own persons, but by their representatives the elders, who transacted all affairs of this nature in the name and behalf of the people. To go up to war against them. The case was one that laid a just ground for suspicion. Having no conception of an altar being erected for any purpose but that of sacrifice, the other tribes naturally regarded it as an act of rebellion against God, and determined instantly to go and punish the supposed apostates. Bush. Shiloh was the place of their rendezvous, because it was in defence of the divine charter lately granted to that place that they now appeared; their resolution was as became a kingdom of priests, who being devoted to God and his service did not acknowledge their brethren nor know their own children (De. 33 : 9). They would immediately go up to war against them, if it appeared they were revolted from God and in rebellion against him: though they were bone of their bone, had been serviceable to them in the wars of Canaan; yet if they turn to serve other gods they will treat them as enemies, not as sons of Israel, for so God had appointed (De. 13 : 12). They had but lately sheathed their swords and retired from the perils and fatigues of war to the rest God had given them, and yet they are willing to begin a new war rather than be any way wanting in their duty to restrain, repress, and revenge idolatry and every step toward it. H. Phinehas, the Priest, and Ten Princes sent on a Mission of Inquiry into the Two and a Half Tribes. Their Spirited Reproach and Generous Proposal. Reply of the Two and a Half Tribes, showing a Misapprehension of their Purpose in Erecting the Altar. Satisfaction and Delight of the Ten Tribes (verses 13-34). Their prudence is no less commendable. God had appointed them in cases of this nature to inquire and make search (De. 13 : 14), that they might not wrong their brethren under pretence of righting their religion; accordingly they resolve here not to send forth their armies to wage war till they had first sent their ambassadors to inquire into the merits of the cause, men of the first rank, one out of each tribe, and Phinehas at the head to be their spokesman (verses 13, 14). Thus was their zeal for God tempered, guided, and governed by the weekness of wisdom. He that knows all things and hates all evil things would not punish the worst of criminals, but he would first go down and see (Gen. 18 : 21). Many an unhappy strife would be prevented or soon taken up by an impartial and favorable inquiry into that which is the matter of the offence. The rectifying of mistakes and misunderstandings and the setting of misconstrued words and actions in a true light, would be the most effectual way to accommodate both private and public quarrels, and bring them to a happy period. H. They send ere they go, and consult ere they execute. Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, and ten princes, are addressed both to inquire and dissuade; to inquire of the purpose of the fact; to dissuade from that which they imagined was purposed. Not only wisdom but charity moved them to this message; for, grant they had been guilty, must they perish unwarned? Peaceable means must first be used to recall them, ere violence be sent to persecute them. Bp. H. 19. The proposal displayed a generous and disinterested spirit, a willingness to make sacrifices in order to preserve purity, and consequently peace. Rather than they should set up a separate altar from a groundless dissatisfaction with their inheritance, they would cheerfully welcome them back to the other side of the Jordan, "where the Lord's tabernacle dwelt," though they should straiten themselves by so doing. Bush.—They were willing to part with a considerable share of the land which God himself had by the lot assigned them, to comcomprehend them and take them in among them. This was the spirit of Israelites indeed. H. 21-29. On hearing to what constructions they had laid themselves open and how the transaction had been viewed, the two and a half tribes were overwhelmed with grief and astonishment; they disclaimed the injurious imputation and declared the views on which they had really acted. They commenced by invoking God himself to witness the innocency of their intentions. The form in which they did this is the most emphatic that language can express, and such as can scarcely be represented in a translation. There are the three principal names of God in Hebrew—El, Elohim, Jehovah,—and all three are used together by them, and repeated twice. "El, Elohim, Jehovah—El, Elohim, Jehovah,"—he knoweth, etc. If translated at all, it might be perhaps thus:—"Almighty God, Elohim, Jehovah," etc.; for the first term involves the idea of might or strength. They proceed to declare that their object was in all respects the very reverse of that imputed to them. Instead of meaning a separation, they had set up their altar as a monument to future ages of the connection between the tribes separated by the river; so that if, at any time to come, their descendants should attempt to cast off the connection and assert their own independence, or if the Israelites should hereafter attempt to disown their union and declare that the people beyond the river had "no part in the Lord," this monument might be pointed to in evidence of the fact. Kit. 26-29. Having this copy of the altar in their custody, it might be produced as an evidence of their right to the privileges of the original. Every one that saw this altar, and observed it was never used for sacrifice and offering, would inquire what was the meaning of it, and this answer would be given to that inquiry, that it was built by those separate tribes, in token of their communion with their brethren, and their joint interest with them in the altar of the Lord. H.—Since therefore we may not either remove God's altar to us or remove our patrimony to the altar, the pattern of the altar shall go with us, not for sacrifice but for memorial; that both the posterity of the other Israelites may know we are no less derived from them than this altar from theirs, and that our posterity may know they pertain to that altar whereof this is the resemblance. Bp. H. 29. God forbid that we should rebel against the Lord.** We cannot have a stronger proof of the zeal of the whole nation for the observance of the Divine law than this transaction between the two tribes and a half, and the remaining tribes. The impression was, indeed, most deep which the judgments of God had made on the whole nation, that they were animated with the most watchful anxiety to fulfil the Law and to avoid the wrath of Jehovah, at once their Sovereign and their God. Graves. 30-34. We have here the good issue of this controversy, which, if there had not been on both sides a disposition to peace, as there was on both sides a zeal for God, might have been of ill consequence; for quarrels about religion, for want of wisdom and love, often prove the most fierce and most difficult to be taken up. But these contending parties, when the matter was fairly stated and argued, were so happy as to understand one another very well, and so the difference was presently compromised. H.—We behold very much to admire in both. When the accusers found themselves mistaken, they did not shift their ground, and condemn their brethren for imprudence; nor when the accused had evinced their innocence, did they upbraid their accusers with hasty, rash, or unjust surmises. Aware that the measure was easily susceptible of the interpretation their brethren had put upon it, they took their reproofs, severe as they were, in good part, and instead of angry retorts or recriminations, gave them the soft answer which turneth away wrath, and by a candid and honest declaration of their real intentions at once set themselves right in the opinion of their brethren. Bush. Leaving Egypt while yet young or wilderness born; mostly uncontaminated with her idolatries and pollutions of moral life, looking upon the scenes of the Exodus and of Sinai with young eyes and susceptible souls; trained under Moses forty years; taking the ritual of religious worship in its freshness, with hearts tender to its first strong impressions—they give us certainly the best fruits of this wonderful moral and religious training. So many fearers of God—so large a host imbued with the spirit of obedience to God's authority—the world had never seen before. They were prepared of God for the conquest of Canaan. They are living witnesses that the discipline of those desert wanderings was not in vain. H. C. The revulsion of popular feeling at once rendered the monument one of the most favorite sites in the country—a bond of union between the divided tribes. "The thing pleased the children of Israel. And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad called the altar Ed: for it shall be a witness between us that the Lord is God." Conder.—It was a witness of the relation they stood in to God and Israel, and of their concurrence with the rest of the tribes in the same common faith, that Jehovah he is God, he and no other. It was a witness to posterity of their care to transmit their religion pure and entire to them, and would be a witness against them if ever they should forsake God, and turn from following after him. H. Two noble lessons stand out conspicuously in this record touching the two and a half tribes. First, it teaches specially the same great truth which is illustrated in the history of the whole people. The great mission of the Hebrew people was to establish nationally, in order to its later establishment universally, the worship and service of the true God. Their occupation of the promised land got all its great importance as being a means to that end and a reward of that effort and achievement. Their ultimate and pre-eminent quest, as the old knights called it, was the kingdom of God. The two and a half tribes recognized this—vaguely, maybe, yet genuinely—when, proposing to settle east of Jordan, they nevertheless placed their own material fortunes second, in time and value, to the completion of the conquest of Canaan. It was an exhibition of their faith in the precept of Christ, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." They made that search and effort first in order of time; and Joshua commends them and dismisses them to the enjoyment of their reward. But at the same time he warns them that this dismissal does not dismiss; that to make this effort first, once, in time, is not all; they must keep it first in their desires, efforts, and valuations. "Take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, . . . to love the Lord . . . and to serve him." The other lesson is the brotherhood of all God's children, and the duty of conforming religion—life—not two things but one in two aspects—to this idea. Our religion must be controllingly unselfish. These two and a half tribes actually consecrated their lives during the time of the conquest, put them in all the jeopardies of frequent, bloody battle, for the establishment of their brethren in the kingdom of God. They laid down their lives for the brethren. Whoever seeks the kingdom of heaven for himself alone may win it, so great is God's mercy and compassion; but he cannot even keep it, much less enlarge and extend his entrance into it, unless he widens out his solicitude and effort until it includes the bringing of that kingdom to his brother man, and him into it. Cable. The work given Israel to do was emphatically a work of God, bearing on it the impress alike of His greatness and His holiness. And both a living faith and a sanctified heart were needed, on the part of Israel, to fulfil what was required of them. On this account special supports were given to faith in the miracles wrought by God at the commencement of the work, in the separation of the waters of the river and the falling of the walls of Jericho, as afterward in the extraordinary prolongation of the day at the request of Joshua; showing it was God's work rather than their own they were accomplishing, and that His power was singularly exerted in their behalf. And not only in the charges given to Joshua regarding his careful meditation of the law of God, and punctual observance of all that was commanded in it; but also, and more particularly, in the discomfiture appointed on account of the sin of Achan, was the necessity forcibly impressed upon the people of the maintenance of holiness; they were made to feel the inseparable connection between being themselves faithful to God, and having power to prevail. It served also impressively to teach them their unity as a people and how the holiness which they were bound collectively to maintain, must be individual, in order that it might be national. Nor was the instruction disregarded by the immediate agents in the work of judgment. They cast out from among them the sin that was discovered in Achan; and, at a later period, their jealousy regarding the tribes on the other side of Jordan, lest they would separate themselves from the one altar and commonwealth of Israel, and the protestations of allegiance to God which Joshua made before his death, and they again to him, clearly showed that much of the spirit of faith and holiness rested upon that generation. In them the covenant found, in no small degree, a faithful representation, as well in regard to its requirements of duty, as to its promises of grace and blessing. Fairbairn. PARTING ADDRESSES OF JOSHUA. ISRAEL'S RENEWAL OF COVENANT WITH JEHOVAH DEATH AND CHARACTER OF JOSHUA. BURIAL OF THE BONES OF JOSEPH. DEATH OF ELEAZAR. 23 1 And it came to pass after many days, when the LORD had given rest unto Israel from all their enemies round about, and Joshua was old and well stricken in years; that Joshua called for all Israel, for their elders and for their heads, and for their judges and for their officers, and said unto them, I am old and well stricken in years: and ye have seen all that the LORD your God hath done unto all these nations because of you; for the LORD your God, he it is that hath fought for you. Behold, I have allotted unto you these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, even unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun. And the LORD your God, he shall thrust them out from before you, and drive them from out of your sight; and ye shall possess their land, as the LORD your God spake unto you. Therefore be ye very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left; that ye come not among these nations, these that remain among you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them, nor bow down yourselves unto them: but cleave unto the LORD your God, as ye have done unto this day. For the LORD hath driven out from before you great nations and strong: but as for you, no man hath stood before you unto this day. One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD your God, he it is that fighteth for you, as he spake unto you. Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the LORD your God. Else if ye do in any wise go back, and cleave unto the remnant of these nations, even these that remain among you, and make marriages with them, and go in unto them, and they to you: 13 know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no more drive these nations from out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap unto you, and a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you. 14. And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, not one thing hath failed thereof. 15. And it shall come to pass, that as all the good things are come upon you of which the LORD your God spake unto you, so shall the LORD bring upon you all the evil things, until he have 16 destroyed you from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you. When ye transgress the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down yourselves to them; then shall the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which he hath given unto you. 24. I And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented 2 themselves before God. And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt of old time beyond the River, even Terah, the father of Abraham, 3 and the father of Nahor: and they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and 4 gave him Isaac. And I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau: and I gave unto Esau mount Seir, 5 to possess it; and Jacob and his children went down into Egypt. And I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to that which I did in the midst thereof: and after- 6 ward I brought you out. And I brought your fathers out of Egypt: and ye came unto the sea; and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and with horsemen unto the Red 7. Sea. And when they cried out unto the LORD, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them, and covered them; and your eyes saw what I did in Egypt: 8 and ye dwelt in the wilderness many days. And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, which dwelt beyond Jordan; and they fought with you: and I gave them into your hand, and 12 ye possessed their land; and I destroyed them from before you. And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; not with thy 9 sword, nor with thy bow. Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought 10 against Israel; and he sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you: but I would not hearken unto Balaam; therefore he blessed you still: so I delivered you out of his hand. 11. And ye went over Jordan, and came unto Jericho: and the men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Girgashite, the 13. Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I delivered them into your hand. And I gave you a land whereon thou hadst not labored, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell therein; of vine- 14 yards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat. Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the 15. River, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me 16 and my house, we will serve the LORD. And the people answered and said, God forbid that 17 we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods; for the LORD our God, he it is that brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and that did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the 18 peoples through the midst of whom we passed: and the LORD drave out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land: therefore we also will serve the 19. LORD; for he is our God. And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the Lord; for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgression nor your sins. 20. If ye forsake the LORD, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you evil, and con- 21 sume you, after that he hath done you good. And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we 22 will serve the LORD. And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves 23 that ye have chosen you the LORD, to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses. Now, therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart 24 unto the LORD, the God of Israel. And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will 25 we serve, and unto his voice will we hearken. So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. 26. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, 27 and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD. And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us; for it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness against you, lest ye 28 deny your God. So Joshua sent the people away, every man unto his inheritance. Ju. 2 6 Now when Joshua had sent the people away, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land. Josh. 24 29 And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant 30 of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of 31 the mountain of Gaash. And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen and known all the great work of the LORD, that 32 he had wrought for Israel. And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in the parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of money: and they became the in- 33 heritance of the children of Joseph. And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in the hill of Phinehas his son, which was given him in the hill country of Ephraim. Ju. 2 10 And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the work which he had wrought for Israel. Chapters 23 and 24 transmit two discourses of Joshua to the assembled people of Israel, both of which meetings and addresses must have been near the close of his life. It is probable that there were two different meetings rather than two addresses at the same meeting, since that of chapter 23 is made specific by its note of time. "A long time after" (verse 1); while that of chapter 24 is made definite by a note of its place, "to Shechem" (verse 1). In both cases the call embraced "all Israel," with their "elders, heads, judges, and officers." The general purpose of each meeting was the same; yet the things said by Joshua in each were quite different. In the second meeting, the national covenant was solemnly renewed at Shechem. H. C. A twofold work had been intrusted to Joshua: to conquer the land, and to divide it by inheritance among the people. Both had been done in the spirit of strength, of courage, and of believing obedience enjoined at the outset. Unlike his great predecessor Moses, he had been allowed to finish his task and even to rest after its completion. And now he had reached one hundred and ten years, the age at which his ancestor Joseph had died. Like a father who thinks of and seeks to provide for the future of his children after his death; like Moses when he gathered up all his life, his mission, and his teaching in his last discourses; so did Joshua care for the people of his charge. On two successive occasions he gathered all Israel, to address to them last words. They are in spirit and even in tenor singularly like those of Moses, as indeed he had no new truth to communicate. A. E. Chapter 23 may be summed up in the words, "Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses." He well remembered all the experience of the desert, and all the warnings of Moses. He reminds them of all that God had done to the Canaanites for their sakes; and promises that the land divided to them should be wholly theirs and the heathen be driven out before them. On their part they had thus far been faithful; let them still thus cleave to Jehovah their God! Let them not mix with the people that remained; nor name their gods, nor swear by them, nor worship them! If once they began this course, and if they intermarried with them, God would cease to drive out those nations, which would become to them as snares and scourges and thorns, till they themselves should perish from the land. P. S. 5. The wars under Joshua put Israel into possession of Canaan and broke the power of its inhabitants, but the latter were not exterminated, nor yet all their cities taken by Israel. Indeed, such a result could scarcely have been desirable, either in reference to the country or to Israel, while, from Ex. 23: 28-30 and De. 7: 22, we know that from the beginning it had not been the Divine purpose. But there was also a higher object in this. It would teach that a conquest, begun in the power of God and in believing dependence on Him, must be completed and consolidated in the same spirit. Only thus could Israel prosper as a nation. Canaan had been given to Israel by God, and given to their faith. But much was left to be done which only the same faith could achieve. A. E. 6. Joshua here repeats the essential part of the charge he himself had received from Jehovah at his commission (ch. 1 : 7). Be very courageous to do, God had said to him then. And now, after thirty years of unwavering obedience, he transmits the charge in almost identical terms, "Be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the law of Moses, turn not therefrom to the right hand or to the left!" B. As ye have done this day. It could be only in a limited sense that this praise could be given to the children of Israel. But probably during that score of years which intervened between the entrance into Canaan and the death of Joshua the Hebrews were more true in their allegiance to their heavenly King than at any other period. While Joshua lived they did cleave as fully as they ever cleaved to the Lord their God. Paget.—At the death of Moses a sudden gleam of heaven came over the elder Church; all was privilege on the one side, all was obedience on the other. Joshua led the people into rest and prosperity. His history is made up of two parts: triumph and peace. Newman. 12-16. Joshua once more presses upon the people their true character as the chosen people of the Lord God. He is able now to appeal to facts; to point to what God has done, to call the people themselves to witness that all the promises of God have come to pass, and that not one good thing hath failed of all those which the Lord their God had promised them. Joshua found in his old age nothing to retract of what he had said in former times concerning God and the people, and the relation of the one to the other. He next implores the people to guard against backsliding. He says: Go on as you have begun, and God will bless you; your shame, and misery, and damnation will be if you turn back from following the Lord. Goodwin. 13. The promise which God had made to the Israelites was conditional: and as they manifestly forfeited their part of the obligation by engaging first in affinity and afterward in idolatry with the nations which they were bound to destroy, so God would no longer grant them success and enlargement of their boundary; but as they had been the ministers of his vengeance in punishing the disorders of the Canaanites, so the Canaanites were to be made the instruments of his chastising the disobedience of his own people. Stackhouse. 14. "Ye know that not one thing hath failed, of all the good things which the Lord spake concerning you." God had promised them victory, rest, plenty, his tabernacle among them, etc., and not one thing had failed of all he had promised. "Now," said he, "has God been thus true to you? Be not you false to him." It is the apostle's argument for perseverance (Heb. 10 : 23). He is faithful that has promised. H. 15,16. But as they had experienced the good, and were now in the enjoyment of it, so the evil would as certainly come, if they were disobedient. This is three times mentioned here. Your enemies will vex you until ye perish from off this good land (verse 13). God will plague you until he have destroyed you from off this good land (verse 15). Heaven and earth will concur to root you out. So that (verse 16) ye shall perish from off the good land. Joshua thus sets before them the fatal consequences of their apostasy, that knowing the terror of the Lord, they might be persuaded with purpose of heart to cleave to him. H.—We may bring forth every promise from the Bible, and then search the annals of the world, and one single instance will be sought in vain of God's violating or forgetting a promise. The accomplishment may have been delayed or brought to pass in a way that was not expected, but the whole world may be challenged to impeach his veracity, or contradict the assertion that "all which he hath promised is come to pass; not one thing hath failed thereof." But let it not be forgotten that the veracity of God is as much pledged for the execution of his threatenings, as for the performance of his promises. The one is a proof of the other. Bush. 24 : 1-28. Ju. 2 : 6. The second address of Joshua was even more solemn. For the assembly took place at Shechem, where on first entering the land Israel had made solemn covenant by responding from Mounts Ebal and Gerizim to the blessings and the curses enunciated in the law. And the present gathering also was to end in renewal of that covenant. Moreover, it was in Shechem that Abraham had, on entering Canaan, received the first Divine promise, and here he had built an altar unto Jehovah. Here also had Jacob settled after his return from Mesopotamia, and purged his household from lingering idolatry, by burying their Teraphim under an oak. It was truly a "sanctuary of Jehovah" (verse 26), and they who came to it "gathered before God" (verse 1). A. E.—The place was sacred by these past manifestations of God and devotions of the fathers, so that we need not wonder that Joshua selected it rather than Shiloh, where the ark was, for the scene of this national oath of obedience. Patriotism and devotion would both burn brighter in such an atmosphere. A. M. The final farewell of Joshua, the manifest dignity and serenity of saintly ripeness, the vigor of his exhortations, and the assurance of his faith, are worthy of devout study. This his last service is his best service. He had been faithful as a spy, as the helper of Moses, as a warrior and leader, and as a divider of the land among the tribes. But here he seeks to lead them into covenant with God, that they may through faith and obedience be enabled to keep all they had conquered. Glover. In the first meeting Joshua reminded the people of all the Lord had wrought for them in Canaan, subduing their enemies and giving them the land so long before promised to their fathers. Upon the basis of these great facts he exhorted the people to courage and faith in whatever conflicts of arms might be yet before them; but especially implored them to stand invincibly against idolatry and cleave to the Lord their God alone, assuring them that as God had faithfully fulfilled all his promises of good to the nation while obedient, so would he as faithfully fulfil his threatenings of evil if they apostatized to idols. In this the second meeting and address Joshua takes a larger range of historic review, sketching the history of Abraham even from his native home on the other side of the great Euphrates ("the flood," as our translators render the Hebrew word "the river"); then continuing his sketch through Isaac, Jacob, Esau, Moses, the Exodus, Balak, the wars of Canaan, and finally the possession of lands put under cultivation by other laborers and cities built by other hands. All this history is presented for the purpose of enforcing his final appeal; "Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the Euphrates." H. C. In language most tender and impressive Joshua recalled to them the mercies of God (2-13), specially in those five great events: the calling of Abraham, the deliverance from Egypt, the defeat of the Amorites and of the purpose of Balaam, the miraculous crossing of Jordan and taking of Jericho, and finally, the Divine victory given them over all the nations of Canaan. On these grounds he now earnestly entreated them to make decisive choice of Jehovah as their God. And they replied by solemnly protesting their determination to cleave unto the Lord, in language which not only re-echoed that of the preface to the Ten Commandments, but also showed that they fully responded to Joshua's appeals. A. E. Nothing can be conceived more impressive or sublime than the circumstances of this last public interview of the aged leader with the people whom he had put in possession of the goodly land of Canaan, and who had so often followed him in his victorious path. In the midst of the elders, the chiefs, and magistrates of Israel; surrounded by a respectful people, formerly bondsmen of Pharaoh but now in possession of a rich and beautiful country, their illustrious and venerable commander—the oldest man in all their nation—spoke to them as to his sons. And of what did he speak? He was a soldier, and his career had been essentially military; yet he spoke to them not of conquest, but of the holiness and obedience which become the people chosen of God. It is such a discourse as a patriarch might have given on his death-bed, or a prophet might have uttered from the valley of vision. Kit. 14,15. The Israelites were in most danger from idolatry, and therefore, as a pledge of their sincerity, and as a help to their future perseverance, if they were earnest in their present purpose to serve the Lord, Joshua requires them to put away their idols. Hamilton.—This is not a demand to purge themselves from actual idolatry, into which they had not yet fallen, but to renounce forever the examples which might seduce them to it. He ends with an appeal, unequalled in simple force except by that of Elijah to Israel; if they found fault with the service of Jehovah, let them at once choose whom they would serve, whether the idols of their fathers, or the gods of the Amorites; but his own choice was made, to serve Jehovah. P. S. Notice here the same striking decision of character and thorough independence of thought and will which we have seen in all his military life. To the people he said, "If ye see fit to serve other gods, make your choice, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." My house will go where I lead. My decision is made, and can never be reversed; we serve the Lord! H. C.—This resolution to serve was a very noble one. He would not serve alone. His house and his family were also included. He could not command the tribes, since his authority was at an end. But he still held authority over his household, and the force of his example and the influence of his character would be generally felt. It too often occurs that heads of families who profess to be religious manifest but little concern for the members of their family, or having given up all thoughts of religion themselves, still cherish some concern for their children and express an anxious hope that they may become truly pious. But every true servant of God will be especially anxious for himself first, and then for his own flesh and blood. He will not wait for them, but lead the way and set them a bright example. R. Hall. Choose you. There are but two gods in this world, Jehovah and—under whatever one of his thousand idolatrous disguises he may be hidden—self. Choose which of these you will serve. Choose; do not merely assent and approve, choose. Do not serve now one and now the other, as one or the other seems easiest or pleasantest to serve; do not try to serve both; choose between them; choose! Cable.—Joshua's putting of the matter here to this issue, plainly intimates two things, First, That it is the will of God we should every one of us make religion our serious and deliberate choice. Let us state the matter impartially to ourselves, weigh things in an even balance, and then determine for that which we find to be really true and good. Secondly, That religion has so much self-evident reason and righteousness on its side, that it may safely be referred to every man that allows himself a free thought, either to choose or refuse it; for the merits of the cause are so plain that no considerate man can do otherwise but choose it. The case is so clear that it determines itself. H. God deals with men as rational creatures. He proposes adequate motives for choosing his service. He sets before them life and death, blessing and cursing; and exhibits the responsibility arising out of such knowledge, the happy results of a compliance with the precept, and the terrible consequences of a refusal. R. Hall.—There is surely no such crowd of motives and reasons attendant on any other question as on that of the reception of Christianity. It is a question between life and death, in which our highest interests are concerned, which appeals to our hopes and fears, our consciences, our aspirations after a better life, our gratitude and love. It founds its appeals on the most remarkable facts in the universe, on the love of God to sinners, on the incarnation and death of Christ. We have the offer of pardon, peace, help to raise us up to God, deliverance from fear, support in death, and a blessed immortality. The way in which the Gospel comes to us is the most inviting possible—through a person who lived a life like ours on earth, and came into tender sympathy with us; through a concrete exhibition of everything true and good, not through doctrine and abstract statement. It has been the religion of our fathers, and of the holy in all time. It is venerable in our eyes. It is God's voice to us. Where else can so many motives, such power of persuasion be found? Woolsey. A man may be urged to decide whether he will be God's true child and servant or not; whether he will serve God or himself, Christ or this world, the Holy Spirit or Satan. He may be urged to make it on the right grounds, to make it fairly and intelligently, to make it for his eternal life, and to declare it honestly when he makes it. But make it he must. There are only two possible attitudes in which any man can stand toward God in Christ: one is that of union, the other of opposition; one is that of willing, conscious, faithful, affectionate obedience, the other is that of distrust, separation, alienation. Not to be in the first is to be in the last. Neutrality is utterly out of the question. "He that is not with me is against me." F. D. H.—The claims of Christ are so supreme and unquestionable that to be neutral is to be hostile. Indifference to Him is opposition. His majesty is so great He will brook no rival. R. Hall. 19. To bring the matter to a clear issue, Joshua next represented to them that they could not serve Jehovah, that is, "in their own strength, without the aid of grace; without real and serious conversion from all idols; and without true repentance and faith." A. E.—Joshua was stating the plain fact which his own higher conception of the law had taught him, that the law was too "holy, just, and good," for it to be possible that Israel should keep it. With forebodings of coming failure, true and faithful to the last, he set before them the majesty and fulness of the law's requirements, and the unsuspected dangers that lay in their weak and wayward hearts. Lias.—For he is an holy God, a jealous God. God is holy and consequently demands abstinence from sin. He is jealous and therefore exacts whole-hearted allegiance and unvarying fidelity. Aldridge.—"He is an holy God," or one who has no equal; "a jealous God," who endures no rival; "He will not forgive your transgressions," in giving to another the worship due solely to him. Wells. 20. Joshua, it would seem, both save and foresave that idol-worship was and was to be the giant sin of Israel. How then could he die in peace without bearing his most emphatic testimony against this sin? No wonder he accumulated the utmost force of appeal, of historic testimony, of earnest presentation, of solemn covenant, and of impressive memorial, to stem this anticipated and already apparent tendency to idols. How closely did he follow in the footsteps of Moses! How grandly did he fill the sphere God had assigned him! Now so near heaven, about to close a life so eventful, it is sad that his anticipations of the future of his people should be so shaded—but blessed to think that amid these painful apprehensions, he yet did his duty so fearlessly, so wisely, so well. II. C. Joshua's warning turns mainly on two points, —the extent of the obligations which they were so lightly incurring, and the heavy penalties of their infraction. As to the former, the vow to "serve the Lord" had been made as he fears with small consideration of what it meant. In heathenism the "service" of a god is a mere matter of outward acts of so-called worship. There is absolutely no connection between religion and morality in idolatrous systems. The notion that the service of a god implies any duties in common life beyond ceremonial ones is wholly foreign to paganism in all its forms. The establishment of the opposite idea is wholly the consequence of revelation. So we need not wonder if the pagan conception of service was here in the minds of the vowing assembly. If we look at their vow, as recorded in verses 16–18, we see nothing in it which necessarily implies a loftier idea. Jehovah is their national God, who has fought and conquered for them, therefore they will "serve him." If we substitute Baal, or Chemosh, or Nebo, or Ra, for Jehovah, this is exactly what we read on Moabite stones and Assyrian tablets and Egyptian tombs. The reasons for the service and the service itself are both suspiciously external. We are not judging them more harshly than Joshua did; for he clearly was not satisfied with them, and the tone of his answer sufficiently shows what he thought wrong in them. Observe the points in the character of God on which he dwells, as indicating the points which were left out of view by the people, and as fitted to rectify their notions of service. First, he is holy. Joshua here urges the infinite distance between man and God, and especially the infinite moral distance, in order to enforce a profounder conception of what goes to God's service. A holy God cannot have impure worshippers. His service can be no mere ceremonial, but must be the bowing of the whole man before his majesty, the aspiration of the whole man after his loftiness, the transformation of the whole man into the reflection of his purity, the approach of the unholy to the holy through a sacrifice which puts away sin. Further, he is "a jealous God." "Jealous" is an ugly word, with repulsive associations, and its application to God has sometimes been explained in ugly fashion. But, rightly looked at, what does it mean but that God desires our whole hearts for his own, and loves us so much and is so desirous to pour his love into us, that he will have no rivals in our love? The metaphor of marriage, which puts his love to men in the tenderest form, underlies this word, so harsh on the surface but so gracious at the core. There is abundant need still for Joshua's warning. We rejoice that it takes so little to be a Christian that the feeblest and simplest act of faith knits the soul to the all-forgiving Christ. But let us not forget that, on the other hand, it is hard to be a Christian indeed; for it means forsaking all that we have and loving God with all our powers. The measure of his love is the measure of his "jealousy," and he loves us no less than he did Israel. Unless our conceptions of his service are based upon our recognition of his holiness and demand for our all, we, too, "cannot serve the Lord." A. M. There is a light and easy way of taking the vows of Christian service on the part of some, without considering very well what is required, or what may be the consequences to the name of Christ if they walk unworthy of it. Many profess Christianity with far more irreverence than some others keep aloof from it. The highest thing, indeed, is to advance to it deliberately and in humble reliance no the grace of God; but there are thoughtful and self-distrustful natures which have long and deep shrinking, because their eye has seen the purity of God and the poverty of self. Within certain limits the feeling is true, and most becoming. It is God repeating in a humble heart the words of Joshua: "Ye cannot serve the Lord, for He is an holy God." Ker. Discouragements, rightly put, encourage. The best way to deepen and confirm good resolutions which have been too swiftly and inconsiderately formed, is to state very plainly all the difficulty of keeping them. There is no better way of turning a somewhat careless "we will" into a persistent "nay, but we will," than to interpose a "ye cannot." Joshua here is doing exactly what Jesus Christ did often. His very longing that men should follow him made him send them back to bethink themselves when they promised to do it. When once "great multitudes' came to him he turned on them, with no invitation in his words, and told them the hard conditions of discipleship as being entire self-renunciation. They shall know the full difficulties and trials which they must meet; and if, knowing these, they still are willing to take his yoke upon them, then how exuberant and warm the welcome which he gives! There is a real danger that this side of the evangelist's work should be overlooked in the earnestness with which the other side is done. We cannot be too emphatic in our reiteration of Christ's call to all the weary and heavy-laden to come unto him, nor too confident in our assurance that whosoever comes will not be cast out; but we may be, and I fear often are, defective in our repetition of Christ's demand for entire surrender, and of his warning to intending disciples of what they are taking upon them. We shall repel no true seeker by duly emphasizing the difficulties of the Christian course. Perhaps if there were more plain speaking about them at the beginning, there would be fewer backsliders and dead professors with a name to live. A. M. Obstacles thrown in the way of men who offer themselves to the service of God sift the true from the false seeker. No one will be able to complain of any real wrong from these obstacles. The false seeker is not injured, because he never sincerely sought at all. The true seeker is not injured, for never was such a one disappointed. Obstacles, too, lead the true seeker to examine himself more thoroughly. And it is good for a man that he should be compelled to examine himself both about his view of God's character in the pardon of sin, and what this requires of him in the way of self-surrender to God. God will beguile none of us into His service by false pretences. He tells us the nature of the work, what His own character gives Him a right to expect of us; then, if we still go forward, He can say, "Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen the Lord, to serve Him." Further, obstacles educate us to a higher growth and greater capacity for happiness. If we are to rise to anything great in the spiritual life, it must be by endurance of hardship and pressing on against repulse. The delay which Christians have in gaining a sense of acceptance with God arises often from making the sense of acceptance the main object of pursuit. But there is something higher: to serve God whether we have the sense of acceptance or no—to have this as the one great purpose of life and end of our being,—"Nay, but we will serve the Lord." Ker. 22. Witnesses against yourselves.** It is still true of men that they are witnesses against themselves, as to their duty toward God now; and they will be all the witnesses needed in the day of judgment. Every sinner's conscience is a witness against his course. The principles on which business men must act as the condition of worldly success will witness against those who refuse to apply like principles to religion—principles which, if lived out, would lead them to be Christians. The fault-findings of men against good people show that these fault-finders know what is right, and are to blame if they do not live up to it. The principles on which good government in this world is based will justify God's moral dealings with men. The obedience which parents require of their children, the gratitude acknowledged to be due for favors received, the honor demanded for those to whom honor is due, will all witness to the justice of God's demand for our obedient and loving service. Our professions of religion are an abiding witness against us if we forsake God. Peloubet. 25. The service of God being thus made their deliberate choice, Joshua binds them to it by a solemn covenant. Moses had twice publicly ratified this covenant between God and Israel, at Mount Sinai, and in the plains of Moab. Joshua had likewise done it once (ch. 8: 31), and now the second time. It is here called a statute and an ordinance, because of the strength and perpetuity of its obligation; and because even this covenant bound them to no more than what they were antecedently bound to by the Divine command. H. 26. This phrase, "The book of the law of God," included the Pentateuch and whatever subsequent matter, like the account of this proceeding, it was important to put on permanent record for the use of future generations. Joshua made another memorial of this transaction—a great stone set up under an oak near the sanctuary of the Lord. H. C.—Moses and Joshua employed every expedient to secure a remembrance of God in the people's minds. They therefore marked the stations and stages in their progress with monumental circumstances and objects, connected in some express and memorable manner with the providential interferences of God, or his declarations, or with the people's conduct. Thus they marked places and times with monuments; built altars; raised heaps of stones (as at the passage of Jordan); set up single great stones, gave significant names to places; carefully preserved particular things as "the rod that budded" and a portion of the manna; and appointed periodical observances at particular seasons. And they told the people expressly what each of these things was for; so that they should be able to tell their posterity when they asked, "What mean ye by these stones?" And, doubtless, this "great stone" which was set up by Joshua did, in a measure, answer this end. Tens of thousands of eyes must have looked at it with the perception of its memorial meaning. Foster.—27. This stone shall be a witness. The words spoken in its presence were so joined to this transaction that every sight of the pillar would remind them of their obligations and promises. The eye and the ear of the people being both addressed, it was calculated to leave an indelible impression; and, with spirits elevated by their brilliant victories in the land of promise, memory would often revert to the striking scene on Mounts Ebal and Gerizim and in the vale of Sychar. Jamieson. Thus on the spot made sacred by so many ancient memories the people ended their wandering and homeless life, and passed into the possession of the inheritance, through the portal of this fresh acceptance of the covenant, proclaiming thereby that they held the land on condition of serving God, and writing their own sentence in case of unfaithfulness. It was the last act of the assembled people, and the crown and close of Joshua's career. A. M.—Josh. 24 : 29 ; Ju. 2 : 8. There was no more for Joshua to do. To the end of his heroic and spotless career he had "followed the Lord fully," and he could now contentedly "go the way of all the earth." He died as he lived, "the servant of the Lord." He was a hundred and ten years old—ten years short of his great master Moses—when God called his weary servant home. E. V. His name, Jehoshua, "Jehovah is help," is the key to his life and work. Alike in bringing the people into Canaan, in his wars, and in the distribution of the land among the tribes—from the miraculous crossing of Jordan and taking of Jericho to his last address—he was the embodiment of his new name: "Jehovah is help!" So far also as the conquest and division of the land were concerned, his work was not complete, nor, indeed, intended to be complete. And this is characteristic of the whole Old Testament dispensation, that no period in its history sees its work completed, but only begun and pointing forward to another yet future, till at last all becomes complete in the "fulness of time" in Christ Jesus. Thus viewed, a fresh light is cast upon the name and history of Joshua. Assuredly Joshua did not give "rest" even to his own generation, far less to Israel as a nation. It was rest begun, but not completed—a rest which even in its temporal aspect left so much unrest; and as such it pointed to Christ. What the one Joshua could only begin, not really achieve, even in its outward typical aspect, pointed to and called for the other Joshua, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom and by whom all is reality and all is perfect and all is rest forever. And so also it was only after many years that Oshea became Joshua, while the name Joshua was given to our Lord by the angel before His birth. The first became, the second was Joshua. And so the name and the work of Joshua pointed forward to the fulness in Christ, alike by what it was and by what it was not, and this in entire accordance with the whole character and object of the Old Testament. A. E. Joshua combined in a remarkable degree strategy for the conduct of war, and sagacity for the administration of civil affairs. He had also the moral courage to avow his dependence upon God, and to inculcate virtue and religion by precept and example. Having secured for his people a country by his arms, he did not seek to make himself king; but, laying aside his command, he established a covenant or constitution by which they should be governed. J. P. T.—Joshua was the ruler of the people, yet he took no regal honors. He led them to victory, yet he received no exceptional reward. He quietly retired to private life when he had completed his great task. His is a grand example of unselfishness, simplicity, and humility. Adeney. The character of Joshua is not only one of the finest in Scripture history, but one of the most remarkable that the world ever saw. We behold in him that rare combination of the highest qualities of the statesman and the warrior. We see that he is quite equal to every emergency under which he has to act; and that he puts forth just that degree of power—just that degree of the qualities suited to the occasion. No care, no advantage, no duty is neglected by him. In the passage of the Jordan, in the judgment of Achan, in the siege of Ai, he forgot nothing which might tend to deepen the impression the miracle produced—nothing which might render the justice of the doom apparent—nothing by which the victory might be assured. The generation which he led was better and wiser than that which came forth from Egypt, and yielded to him a more willing obedience than Moses had obtained from their fathers. Toward the enemy alone was his countenance terrible; for, regarding himself as the minister of the Divine anathemas against a guilty people, he executed his awful commission with no shrinking hand; but at the same time with calmness and without fury. His piety is, however, gentle, while his faith is impregnable, and his confidence in God unshaken. K? We see him diligently and laboriously distributing the land among its new occupants, exhibiting the most scrupulous equity in his assignment of their portions to the several tribes. We watch him appeasing jealousies, calming rising fends, checking arrogance, moderating overweening pretensions, and, with the magnanimity of real greatness and the calmness of conscious strength, executing in all its details the difficult task devolved upon him. And when the work of his life is done, and in extreme old age he gathers together the tribes, those whose fathers he had so often led to victory, to receive his parting commission, how full of dignity is the reticence he observes with regard to himself and his own exploits. All he had done is omitted, and the whole of the brilliant past is gathered up in one sentence, in which the entire glory is attributed to God: "Jehovah, your God, is he that hath fought for you;" and the human agent does not appear at all. Let his people, for whom he had labored and fought, only be true to their covenant with their God, and Joshua would be content to be forgotten. E. V.—His lofty character, his chivalrous and trustful spirit, made a profound impression on the people whom he led and governed. His courage and his thorough devotion to the cause of God exerted the most beneficent influence on the whole congregation of Israel. In his farewell address to the people, when his work both of war and peace was done, he spoke not of conquest—the sound of the trumpet and the flash of the sword cannot be recognized in it—but of the holiness and the obedience which become the chosen of the Lord. Moorehead.—Grand man! chosen because choice. Counted worthy at the first to stand nearest Moses at the giving of the Law; proved worthy at the end to stand himself its mightiest vindicator. Standing also in history, a character which for its height is an inspiration rather than an example; spotless as he was strong. As conqueror of nations, mighty; as conqueror of self, sublime. J. L. Chamberlain.—A saintly and noble life truly, and one which teaches us the secret of success in the righteous war with evil. To obey, to be wholly consecrated to God, to believe in the fulfilment of the Divine promises, to fight fearlessly with eye fixed upon the Cap- Captain of our salvation, whose strength is perfected in weakness—this is the unfailing secret of success. An. Josh. 24 : 31 ; Ju. 2 : 7. This bright period of Jewish history is crowned by the record that "Israel served Jehovah all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of Jehovah that He had done for Israel." The lessons of the wilderness had not been lost upon them. Not in vain had they seen their fathers drop and die till they were all consumed for their rebellion. We search the sacred history in vain, from the Exodus to the Captivity, for another generation that was so wholly faithful to Jehovah. P. S.—As the faithful minister of Moses, as the servant of God, as the bold and believing spy, as the successor of Moses, as the captain of the hosts of Israel, as the conqueror of Canaan, as the type of the Lord Jesus, whose name he bore, Joshua holds a distinguished place among the great men of the sacred history. But in nothing is he more conspicuously great than in the influence which he exercised upon others by his authority and example. We learn here that his weight and influence with the Israelitish nation was such that for a period of not much less than half a century it sufficed to keep the fickle people steadfast in their allegiance to the God of their fathers. By his own influence while he lived, and after his death by the influence of those whom he had trained during his lifetime, the contagion of idolatry was checked, and the service of God maintained. A. C. H. # The Bones of Joseph Buried. 32. The bones of Joseph buried they in Shechem.** Joseph's death took place in Egypt about two hundred years before that of Joshua, and we learn (Gen. 50 : 25 ; Ex. 13 : 19), that prior to his decease he had given a strict charge that his bones should be conveyed away out of Egypt by his people when they themselves went up from thence. Accordingly they had carried these precious relics with them in all their wanderings through the wilderness, and never attempted to bury them till they were peaceably settled in the promised land. The act of sepulture, though here related after the account of the death of Joshua, undoubtedly took place before it. Bush.—The interment of Joseph's remains most probably took place as soon as Shechem was in the possession of Israel. Nothing could more fully show the reverence in which the name of Joseph was held in Israel than this scrupulous fulfilment of his commands, and the careful record of it in the history. This record is another link in the evidence which establishes the authenticity and early date of the Book of Joshua. Lias. It was in great haste that the people of Israel left Egypt; but they were careful to take with them the embalmed body of their honored Joseph. They reach the Red Sea, and pass safely through its waters; they encounter many perils and live a pilgrim life in the peninsula of Sinai for forty years; they cross the Jordan as they had crossed the Red Sea; but in all these scenes and years they carry with them "the bones of Joseph." They have to fight their way through the land, and only after many battles and much time, do they become masters of Canaan. They have lost much and forgotten much. But Joseph's bones are in safe keeping, and there in Shechem, with Ebal and Gerizim looking down on the scene—there in the region with which the eyes of the living Joseph were familiar, whence he was taken away as a slave-boy hundreds of years before—there they laid these treasured bones in their resting-place. "By faith," we are told, "Joseph gave commandment concerning his bones." He believed that God would take Israel out of Egypt and give them Canaan for a possession. They were God's people, and that to Joseph's faith was everything. He would not be an Egyptian even while he ruled over Egyptians. He would be an Israelite, and would not let Egypt or Israel forget that he was, in life and in death. And with this purpose, "by faith he gave commandment concerning his bones." Kennedy. 33. And Eleazar died.** Probably about the same time with Joshua. In a hill that pertained to Phinehas. As the cities assigned to the priests lay in the lots of Judah, Benjamin, and Simeon, neither father nor son could properly inherit a portion located in Mount Ephraim. But the probability is that the people voluntarily gave to the high priest a place of residence situated at a convenient distance from Joshua and the tabernacle, and that this was called the "hill of Phinehas," because he dwelt longer there than his father Eleazar had done. Bush. Three graves. Such is the story of life. The end of it is always in some sepulchre. "They buried Joshua." "They buried the bones of Joseph." "They buried Eleazar." So the land is taken in possession. Every grave becoming a stronger link, binding the people to each other and to the land God gave them. Look at these graves. And observe that while every life finds a grave, life does not end, but only takes a new departure from the grave. Death to the saints of God is only the promised "coming again" of Christ to "receive them unto himself." Nor does death end our usefulness. On the contrary, its touch canonizes. Death makes the neglected counsel and example the revered oracle; and the despised creed the life-giving truth. There is something touching in these earliest graves of Israel—Machpelah, Shechem, Timnath, Mount Ephraim. Such graves were thrones, on each of which a great spirit ruled, teaching faith and truth and courage, spirituality and communion with God. The graves consecrated the land. Grover. The great man dies, and yet the work goes on. The minister ceases, but the ministry proceeds. The individual sermon closes, but the everlasting Gospel never ceases its sweet and redeeming proclamations. And if we give the mind free range over all the noble and marvellous history of the world, we shall see that how great soever have been the men who have led us, the world could do without them. God knew how to supply their places, and amid all change and fear and dismay the purpose of Heaven went steadily forward in all the grandeur of its strength and all the tenderness of its beneficence. J. P. At this early period in the history of mankind, fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, centuries before Greece and Rome had obtained a foothold in history, five hundred years before Homer sang, and one thousand years and more before Plato dreamed of his ideal Republic, when all Western Europe was an untrodden wilderness, the children of Israel, just emerged from centuries of bondage, not only recognized the guiding principles of civil and religious liberty, that "all men are created equal," that God and the laws are the only kings, but also established a free commonwealth under a written constitution, a government of and for the people. O. Strauss. THE JUDGES AND THEIR TIMES. PARTIAL CONQUESTS BY THE NINE AND HALF TRIBES. REPROOF OF THE ANGEL JEHOVAH FOR THEIR DISOBEDIENT FAILURE. THEIR REPENTANCE AT BOCHIM. EPITOME OF ISRAEL'S HISTORY DURING THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES. 23 1 And it came to pass after many days, when the LORD had given rest unto Israel from all their enemies round about, and Joshua was old and well stricken in years; that Joshua called for all Israel, for their elders and for their heads, and for their judges and for their officers, and said unto them, I am old and well stricken in years: and ye have seen all that the LORD your God hath done unto all these nations because of you; for the LORD your God, he it is that hath fought for you. Behold, I have allotted unto you these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, even unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun. And the LORD your God, he shall thrust them out from before you, and drive them from out of your sight; and ye shall possess their land, as the LORD your God spake unto you. Therefore be ye very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left; that ye come not among these nations, these that remain among you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them, nor bow down yourselves unto them: but cleave unto the LORD your God, as ye have done unto this day. For the LORD hath driven out from before you great nations and strong: but as for you, no man hath stood before you unto this day. One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD your God, he it is that fighteth for you, as he spake unto you. Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the LORD your God. Else if ye do in any wise go back, and cleave unto the remnant of these nations, even these that remain among you, and make marriages with them, and go in unto them, and they to you: 13 know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no more drive these nations from out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap unto you, and a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you. 14. And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, not one thing hath failed thereof. 15. And it shall come to pass, that as all the good things are come upon you of which the LORD your God spake unto you, so shall the LORD bring upon you all the evil things, until he have 16 destroyed you from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you. When ye transgress the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down yourselves to them; then shall the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which he hath given unto you. 24. I And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented 2 themselves before God. And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt of old time beyond the River, even Terah, the father of Abraham, 3 and the father of Nahor: and they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and 4 gave him Isaac. And I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau: and I gave unto Esau mount Seir, 5 to possess it; and Jacob and his children went down into Egypt. And I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to that which I did in the midst thereof: and after- 6 ward I brought you out. And I brought your fathers out of Egypt: and ye came unto the sea; and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and with horsemen unto the Red 7. Sea. And when they cried out unto the LORD, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them, and covered them; and your eyes saw what I did in Egypt: 8 and ye dwelt in the wilderness many days. And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, which dwelt beyond Jordan; and they fought with you: and I gave them into your hand, and 12 ye possessed their land; and I destroyed them from before you. And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; not with thy 9 sword, nor with thy bow. Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought 10 against Israel; and he sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you: but I would not hearken unto Balaam; therefore he blessed you still: so I delivered you out of his hand. 11. And ye went over Jordan, and came unto Jericho: and the men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Girgashite, the 13. Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I delivered them into your hand. And I gave you a land whereon thou hadst not labored, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell therein; of vine- 14 yards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat. Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the 15. River, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me 16 and my house, we will serve the LORD. And the people answered and said, God forbid that 17 we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods; for the LORD our God, he it is that brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and that did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the 18 peoples through the midst of whom we passed: and the LORD drave out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land: therefore we also will serve the 19. LORD; for he is our God. And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the Lord; for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgression nor your sins. 20. If ye forsake the LORD, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you evil, and con- 21 sume you, after that he hath done you good. And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we 22 will serve the LORD. And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves 23 that ye have chosen you the LORD, to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses. Now, therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart 24 unto the LORD, the God of Israel. And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will 25 we serve, and unto his voice will we hearken. So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. 26. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, 27 and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD. And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us; for it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness against you, lest ye 28 deny your God. So Joshua sent the people away, every man unto his inheritance. Ju. 2 6 Now when Joshua had sent the people away, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land. Josh. 24 29 And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant 30 of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of 31 the mountain of Gaash. And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen and known all the great work of the LORD, that 32 he had wrought for Israel. And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in the parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of money: and they became the in- 33 heritance of the children of Joseph. And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in the hill of Phinehas his son, which was given him in the hill country of Ephraim. Ju. 2 10 And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the work which he had wrought for Israel. Chapters 23 and 24 transmit two discourses of Joshua to the assembled people of Israel, both of which meetings and addresses must have been near the close of his life. It is probable that there were two different meetings rather than two addresses at the same meeting, since that of chapter 23 is made specific by its note of time. "A long time after" (verse 1); while that of chapter 24 is made definite by a note of its place, "to Shechem" (verse 1). In both cases the call embraced "all Israel," with their "elders, heads, judges, and officers." The general purpose of each meeting was the same; yet the things said by Joshua in each were quite different. In the second meeting, the national covenant was solemnly renewed at Shechem. H. C. A twofold work had been intrusted to Joshua: to conquer the land, and to divide it by inheritance among the people. Both had been done in the spirit of strength, of courage, and of believing obedience enjoined at the outset. Unlike his great predecessor Moses, he had been allowed to finish his task and even to rest after its completion. And now he had reached one hundred and ten years, the age at which his ancestor Joseph had died. Like a father who thinks of and seeks to provide for the future of his children after his death; like Moses when he gathered up all his life, his mission, and his teaching in his last discourses; so did Joshua care for the people of his charge. On two successive occasions he gathered all Israel, to address to them last words. They are in spirit and even in tenor singularly like those of Moses, as indeed he had no new truth to communicate. A. E. Chapter 23 may be summed up in the words, "Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses." He well remembered all the experience of the desert, and all the warnings of Moses. He reminds them of all that God had done to the Canaanites for their sakes; and promises that the land divided to them should be wholly theirs and the heathen be driven out before them. On their part they had thus far been faithful; let them still thus cleave to Jehovah their God! Let them not mix with the people that remained; nor name their gods, nor swear by them, nor worship them! If once they began this course, and if they intermarried with them, God would cease to drive out those nations, which would become to them as snares and scourges and thorns, till they themselves should perish from the land. P. S. 5. The wars under Joshua put Israel into possession of Canaan and broke the power of its inhabitants, but the latter were not exterminated, nor yet all their cities taken by Israel. Indeed, such a result could scarcely have been desirable, either in reference to the country or to Israel, while, from Ex. 23: 28-30 and De. 7: 22, we know that from the beginning it had not been the Divine purpose. But there was also a higher object in this. It would teach that a conquest, begun in the power of God and in believing dependence on Him, must be completed and consolidated in the same spirit. Only thus could Israel prosper as a nation. Canaan had been given to Israel by God, and given to their faith. But much was left to be done which only the same faith could achieve. A. E. 6. Joshua here repeats the essential part of the charge he himself had received from Jehovah at his commission (ch. 1 : 7). Be very courageous to do, God had said to him then. And now, after thirty years of unwavering obedience, he transmits the charge in almost identical terms, "Be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the law of Moses, turn not therefrom to the right hand or to the left!" B. As ye have done this day. It could be only in a limited sense that this praise could be given to the children of Israel. But probably during that score of years which intervened between the entrance into Canaan and the death of Joshua the Hebrews were more true in their allegiance to their heavenly King than at any other period. While Joshua lived they did cleave as fully as they ever cleaved to the Lord their God. Paget.—At the death of Moses a sudden gleam of heaven came over the elder Church; all was privilege on the one side, all was obedience on the other. Joshua led the people into rest and prosperity. His history is made up of two parts: triumph and peace. Newman. 12-16. Joshua once more presses upon the people their true character as the chosen people of the Lord God. He is able now to appeal to facts; to point to what God has done, to call the people themselves to witness that all the promises of God have come to pass, and that not one good thing hath failed of all those which the Lord their God had promised them. Joshua found in his old age nothing to retract of what he had said in former times concerning God and the people, and the relation of the one to the other. He next implores the people to guard against backsliding. He says: Go on as you have begun, and God will bless you; your shame, and misery, and damnation will be if you turn back from following the Lord. Goodwin. 13. The promise which God had made to the Israelites was conditional: and as they manifestly forfeited their part of the obligation by engaging first in affinity and afterward in idolatry with the nations which they were bound to destroy, so God would no longer grant them success and enlargement of their boundary; but as they had been the ministers of his vengeance in punishing the disorders of the Canaanites, so the Canaanites were to be made the instruments of his chastising the disobedience of his own people. Stackhouse. 14. "Ye know that not one thing hath failed, of all the good things which the Lord spake concerning you." God had promised them victory, rest, plenty, his tabernacle among them, etc., and not one thing had failed of all he had promised. "Now," said he, "has God been thus true to you? Be not you false to him." It is the apostle's argument for perseverance (Heb. 10 : 23). He is faithful that has promised. H. 15,16. But as they had experienced the good, and were now in the enjoyment of it, so the evil would as certainly come, if they were disobedient. This is three times mentioned here. Your enemies will vex you until ye perish from off this good land (verse 13). God will plague you until he have destroyed you from off this good land (verse 15). Heaven and earth will concur to root you out. So that (verse 16) ye shall perish from off the good land. Joshua thus sets before them the fatal consequences of their apostasy, that knowing the terror of the Lord, they might be persuaded with purpose of heart to cleave to him. H.—We may bring forth every promise from the Bible, and then search the annals of the world, and one single instance will be sought in vain of God's violating or forgetting a promise. The accomplishment may have been delayed or brought to pass in a way that was not expected, but the whole world may be challenged to impeach his veracity, or contradict the assertion that "all which he hath promised is come to pass; not one thing hath failed thereof." But let it not be forgotten that the veracity of God is as much pledged for the execution of his threatenings, as for the performance of his promises. The one is a proof of the other. Bush. 24 : 1-28. Ju. 2 : 6. The second address of Joshua was even more solemn. For the assembly took place at Shechem, where on first entering the land Israel had made solemn covenant by responding from Mounts Ebal and Gerizim to the blessings and the curses enunciated in the law. And the present gathering also was to end in renewal of that covenant. Moreover, it was in Shechem that Abraham had, on entering Canaan, received the first Divine promise, and here he had built an altar unto Jehovah. Here also had Jacob settled after his return from Mesopotamia, and purged his household from lingering idolatry, by burying their Teraphim under an oak. It was truly a "sanctuary of Jehovah" (verse 26), and they who came to it "gathered before God" (verse 1). A. E.—The place was sacred by these past manifestations of God and devotions of the fathers, so that we need not wonder that Joshua selected it rather than Shiloh, where the ark was, for the scene of this national oath of obedience. Patriotism and devotion would both burn brighter in such an atmosphere. A. M. The final farewell of Joshua, the manifest dignity and serenity of saintly ripeness, the vigor of his exhortations, and the assurance of his faith, are worthy of devout study. This his last service is his best service. He had been faithful as a spy, as the helper of Moses, as a warrior and leader, and as a divider of the land among the tribes. But here he seeks to lead them into covenant with God, that they may through faith and obedience be enabled to keep all they had conquered. Glover. In the first meeting Joshua reminded the people of all the Lord had wrought for them in Canaan, subduing their enemies and giving them the land so long before promised to their fathers. Upon the basis of these great facts he exhorted the people to courage and faith in whatever conflicts of arms might be yet before them; but especially implored them to stand invincibly against idolatry and cleave to the Lord their God alone, assuring them that as God had faithfully fulfilled all his promises of good to the nation while obedient, so would he as faithfully fulfil his threatenings of evil if they apostatized to idols. In this the second meeting and address Joshua takes a larger range of historic review, sketching the history of Abraham even from his native home on the other side of the great Euphrates ("the flood," as our translators render the Hebrew word "the river"); then continuing his sketch through Isaac, Jacob, Esau, Moses, the Exodus, Balak, the wars of Canaan, and finally the possession of lands put under cultivation by other laborers and cities built by other hands. All this history is presented for the purpose of enforcing his final appeal; "Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the Euphrates." H. C. In language most tender and impressive Joshua recalled to them the mercies of God (2-13), specially in those five great events: the calling of Abraham, the deliverance from Egypt, the defeat of the Amorites and of the purpose of Balaam, the miraculous crossing of Jordan and taking of Jericho, and finally, the Divine victory given them over all the nations of Canaan. On these grounds he now earnestly entreated them to make decisive choice of Jehovah as their God. And they replied by solemnly protesting their determination to cleave unto the Lord, in language which not only re-echoed that of the preface to the Ten Commandments, but also showed that they fully responded to Joshua's appeals. A. E. Nothing can be conceived more impressive or sublime than the circumstances of this last public interview of the aged leader with the people whom he had put in possession of the goodly land of Canaan, and who had so often followed him in his victorious path. In the midst of the elders, the chiefs, and magistrates of Israel; surrounded by a respectful people, formerly bondsmen of Pharaoh but now in possession of a rich and beautiful country, their illustrious and venerable commander—the oldest man in all their nation—spoke to them as to his sons. And of what did he speak? He was a soldier, and his career had been essentially military; yet he spoke to them not of conquest, but of the holiness and obedience which become the people chosen of God. It is such a discourse as a patriarch might have given on his death-bed, or a prophet might have uttered from the valley of vision. Kit. 14,15. The Israelites were in most danger from idolatry, and therefore, as a pledge of their sincerity, and as a help to their future perseverance, if they were earnest in their present purpose to serve the Lord, Joshua requires them to put away their idols. Hamilton.—This is not a demand to purge themselves from actual idolatry, into which they had not yet fallen, but to renounce forever the examples which might seduce them to it. He ends with an appeal, unequalled in simple force except by that of Elijah to Israel; if they found fault with the service of Jehovah, let them at once choose whom they would serve, whether the idols of their fathers, or the gods of the Amorites; but his own choice was made, to serve Jehovah. P. S. Notice here the same striking decision of character and thorough independence of thought and will which we have seen in all his military life. To the people he said, "If ye see fit to serve other gods, make your choice, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." My house will go where I lead. My decision is made, and can never be reversed; we serve the Lord! H. C.—This resolution to serve was a very noble one. He would not serve alone. His house and his family were also included. He could not command the tribes, since his authority was at an end. But he still held authority over his household, and the force of his example and the influence of his character would be generally felt. It too often occurs that heads of families who profess to be religious manifest but little concern for the members of their family, or having given up all thoughts of religion themselves, still cherish some concern for their children and express an anxious hope that they may become truly pious. But every true servant of God will be especially anxious for himself first, and then for his own flesh and blood. He will not wait for them, but lead the way and set them a bright example. R. Hall. Choose you. There are but two gods in this world, Jehovah and—under whatever one of his thousand idolatrous disguises he may be hidden—self. Choose which of these you will serve. Choose; do not merely assent and approve, choose. Do not serve now one and now the other, as one or the other seems easiest or pleasantest to serve; do not try to serve both; choose between them; choose! Cable.—Joshua's putting of the matter here to this issue, plainly intimates two things, First, That it is the will of God we should every one of us make religion our serious and deliberate choice. Let us state the matter impartially to ourselves, weigh things in an even balance, and then determine for that which we find to be really true and good. Secondly, That religion has so much self-evident reason and righteousness on its side, that it may safely be referred to every man that allows himself a free thought, either to choose or refuse it; for the merits of the cause are so plain that no considerate man can do otherwise but choose it. The case is so clear that it determines itself. H. God deals with men as rational creatures. He proposes adequate motives for choosing his service. He sets before them life and death, blessing and cursing; and exhibits the responsibility arising out of such knowledge, the happy results of a compliance with the precept, and the terrible consequences of a refusal. R. Hall.—There is surely no such crowd of motives and reasons attendant on any other question as on that of the reception of Christianity. It is a question between life and death, in which our highest interests are concerned, which appeals to our hopes and fears, our consciences, our aspirations after a better life, our gratitude and love. It founds its appeals on the most remarkable facts in the universe, on the love of God to sinners, on the incarnation and death of Christ. We have the offer of pardon, peace, help to raise us up to God, deliverance from fear, support in death, and a blessed immortality. The way in which the Gospel comes to us is the most inviting possible—through a person who lived a life like ours on earth, and came into tender sympathy with us; through a concrete exhibition of everything true and good, not through doctrine and abstract statement. It has been the religion of our fathers, and of the holy in all time. It is venerable in our eyes. It is God's voice to us. Where else can so many motives, such power of persuasion be found? Woolsey. A man may be urged to decide whether he will be God's true child and servant or not; whether he will serve God or himself, Christ or this world, the Holy Spirit or Satan. He may be urged to make it on the right grounds, to make it fairly and intelligently, to make it for his eternal life, and to declare it honestly when he makes it. But make it he must. There are only two possible attitudes in which any man can stand toward God in Christ: one is that of union, the other of opposition; one is that of willing, conscious, faithful, affectionate obedience, the other is that of distrust, separation, alienation. Not to be in the first is to be in the last. Neutrality is utterly out of the question. "He that is not with me is against me." F. D. H.—The claims of Christ are so supreme and unquestionable that to be neutral is to be hostile. Indifference to Him is opposition. His majesty is so great He will brook no rival. R. Hall. 19. To bring the matter to a clear issue, Joshua next represented to them that they could not serve Jehovah, that is, "in their own strength, without the aid of grace; without real and serious conversion from all idols; and without true repentance and faith." A. E.—Joshua was stating the plain fact which his own higher conception of the law had taught him, that the law was too "holy, just, and good," for it to be possible that Israel should keep it. With forebodings of coming failure, true and faithful to the last, he set before them the majesty and fulness of the law's requirements, and the unsuspected dangers that lay in their weak and wayward hearts. Lias.—For he is an holy God, a jealous God. God is holy and consequently demands abstinence from sin. He is jealous and therefore exacts whole-hearted allegiance and unvarying fidelity. Aldridge.—"He is an holy God," or one who has no equal; "a jealous God," who endures no rival; "He will not forgive your transgressions," in giving to another the worship due solely to him. Wells. 20. Joshua, it would seem, both save and foresave that idol-worship was and was to be the giant sin of Israel. How then could he die in peace without bearing his most emphatic testimony against this sin? No wonder he accumulated the utmost force of appeal, of historic testimony, of earnest presentation, of solemn covenant, and of impressive memorial, to stem this anticipated and already apparent tendency to idols. How closely did he follow in the footsteps of Moses! How grandly did he fill the sphere God had assigned him! Now so near heaven, about to close a life so eventful, it is sad that his anticipations of the future of his people should be so shaded—but blessed to think that amid these painful apprehensions, he yet did his duty so fearlessly, so wisely, so well. II. C. Joshua's warning turns mainly on two points, —the extent of the obligations which they were so lightly incurring, and the heavy penalties of their infraction. As to the former, the vow to "serve the Lord" had been made as he fears with small consideration of what it meant. In heathenism the "service" of a god is a mere matter of outward acts of so-called worship. There is absolutely no connection between religion and morality in idolatrous systems. The notion that the service of a god implies any duties in common life beyond ceremonial ones is wholly foreign to paganism in all its forms. The establishment of the opposite idea is wholly the consequence of revelation. So we need not wonder if the pagan conception of service was here in the minds of the vowing assembly. If we look at their vow, as recorded in verses 16–18, we see nothing in it which necessarily implies a loftier idea. Jehovah is their national God, who has fought and conquered for them, therefore they will "serve him." If we substitute Baal, or Chemosh, or Nebo, or Ra, for Jehovah, this is exactly what we read on Moabite stones and Assyrian tablets and Egyptian tombs. The reasons for the service and the service itself are both suspiciously external. We are not judging them more harshly than Joshua did; for he clearly was not satisfied with them, and the tone of his answer sufficiently shows what he thought wrong in them. Observe the points in the character of God on which he dwells, as indicating the points which were left out of view by the people, and as fitted to rectify their notions of service. First, he is holy. Joshua here urges the infinite distance between man and God, and especially the infinite moral distance, in order to enforce a profounder conception of what goes to God's service. A holy God cannot have impure worshippers. His service can be no mere ceremonial, but must be the bowing of the whole man before his majesty, the aspiration of the whole man after his loftiness, the transformation of the whole man into the reflection of his purity, the approach of the unholy to the holy through a sacrifice which puts away sin. Further, he is "a jealous God." "Jealous" is an ugly word, with repulsive associations, and its application to God has sometimes been explained in ugly fashion. But, rightly looked at, what does it mean but that God desires our whole hearts for his own, and loves us so much and is so desirous to pour his love into us, that he will have no rivals in our love? The metaphor of marriage, which puts his love to men in the tenderest form, underlies this word, so harsh on the surface but so gracious at the core. There is abundant need still for Joshua's warning. We rejoice that it takes so little to be a Christian that the feeblest and simplest act of faith knits the soul to the all-forgiving Christ. But let us not forget that, on the other hand, it is hard to be a Christian indeed; for it means forsaking all that we have and loving God with all our powers. The measure of his love is the measure of his "jealousy," and he loves us no less than he did Israel. Unless our conceptions of his service are based upon our recognition of his holiness and demand for our all, we, too, "cannot serve the Lord." A. M. There is a light and easy way of taking the vows of Christian service on the part of some, without considering very well what is required, or what may be the consequences to the name of Christ if they walk unworthy of it. Many profess Christianity with far more irreverence than some others keep aloof from it. The highest thing, indeed, is to advance to it deliberately and in humble reliance no the grace of God; but there are thoughtful and self-distrustful natures which have long and deep shrinking, because their eye has seen the purity of God and the poverty of self. Within certain limits the feeling is true, and most becoming. It is God repeating in a humble heart the words of Joshua: "Ye cannot serve the Lord, for He is an holy God." Ker. Discouragements, rightly put, encourage. The best way to deepen and confirm good resolutions which have been too swiftly and inconsiderately formed, is to state very plainly all the difficulty of keeping them. There is no better way of turning a somewhat careless "we will" into a persistent "nay, but we will," than to interpose a "ye cannot." Joshua here is doing exactly what Jesus Christ did often. His very longing that men should follow him made him send them back to bethink themselves when they promised to do it. When once "great multitudes' came to him he turned on them, with no invitation in his words, and told them the hard conditions of discipleship as being entire self-renunciation. They shall know the full difficulties and trials which they must meet; and if, knowing these, they still are willing to take his yoke upon them, then how exuberant and warm the welcome which he gives! There is a real danger that this side of the evangelist's work should be overlooked in the earnestness with which the other side is done. We cannot be too emphatic in our reiteration of Christ's call to all the weary and heavy-laden to come unto him, nor too confident in our assurance that whosoever comes will not be cast out; but we may be, and I fear often are, defective in our repetition of Christ's demand for entire surrender, and of his warning to intending disciples of what they are taking upon them. We shall repel no true seeker by duly emphasizing the difficulties of the Christian course. Perhaps if there were more plain speaking about them at the beginning, there would be fewer backsliders and dead professors with a name to live. A. M. Obstacles thrown in the way of men who offer themselves to the service of God sift the true from the false seeker. No one will be able to complain of any real wrong from these obstacles. The false seeker is not injured, because he never sincerely sought at all. The true seeker is not injured, for never was such a one disappointed. Obstacles, too, lead the true seeker to examine himself more thoroughly. And it is good for a man that he should be compelled to examine himself both about his view of God's character in the pardon of sin, and what this requires of him in the way of self-surrender to God. God will beguile none of us into His service by false pretences. He tells us the nature of the work, what His own character gives Him a right to expect of us; then, if we still go forward, He can say, "Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen the Lord, to serve Him." Further, obstacles educate us to a higher growth and greater capacity for happiness. If we are to rise to anything great in the spiritual life, it must be by endurance of hardship and pressing on against repulse. The delay which Christians have in gaining a sense of acceptance with God arises often from making the sense of acceptance the main object of pursuit. But there is something higher: to serve God whether we have the sense of acceptance or no—to have this as the one great purpose of life and end of our being,—"Nay, but we will serve the Lord." Ker. 22. Witnesses against yourselves.** It is still true of men that they are witnesses against themselves, as to their duty toward God now; and they will be all the witnesses needed in the day of judgment. Every sinner's conscience is a witness against his course. The principles on which business men must act as the condition of worldly success will witness against those who refuse to apply like principles to religion—principles which, if lived out, would lead them to be Christians. The fault-findings of men against good people show that these fault-finders know what is right, and are to blame if they do not live up to it. The principles on which good government in this world is based will justify God's moral dealings with men. The obedience which parents require of their children, the gratitude acknowledged to be due for favors received, the honor demanded for those to whom honor is due, will all witness to the justice of God's demand for our obedient and loving service. Our professions of religion are an abiding witness against us if we forsake God. Peloubet. 25. The service of God being thus made their deliberate choice, Joshua binds them to it by a solemn covenant. Moses had twice publicly ratified this covenant between God and Israel, at Mount Sinai, and in the plains of Moab. Joshua had likewise done it once (ch. 8: 31), and now the second time. It is here called a statute and an ordinance, because of the strength and perpetuity of its obligation; and because even this covenant bound them to no more than what they were antecedently bound to by the Divine command. H. 26. This phrase, "The book of the law of God," included the Pentateuch and whatever subsequent matter, like the account of this proceeding, it was important to put on permanent record for the use of future generations. Joshua made another memorial of this transaction—a great stone set up under an oak near the sanctuary of the Lord. H. C.—Moses and Joshua employed every expedient to secure a remembrance of God in the people's minds. They therefore marked the stations and stages in their progress with monumental circumstances and objects, connected in some express and memorable manner with the providential interferences of God, or his declarations, or with the people's conduct. Thus they marked places and times with monuments; built altars; raised heaps of stones (as at the passage of Jordan); set up single great stones, gave significant names to places; carefully preserved particular things as "the rod that budded" and a portion of the manna; and appointed periodical observances at particular seasons. And they told the people expressly what each of these things was for; so that they should be able to tell their posterity when they asked, "What mean ye by these stones?" And, doubtless, this "great stone" which was set up by Joshua did, in a measure, answer this end. Tens of thousands of eyes must have looked at it with the perception of its memorial meaning. Foster.—27. This stone shall be a witness. The words spoken in its presence were so joined to this transaction that every sight of the pillar would remind them of their obligations and promises. The eye and the ear of the people being both addressed, it was calculated to leave an indelible impression; and, with spirits elevated by their brilliant victories in the land of promise, memory would often revert to the striking scene on Mounts Ebal and Gerizim and in the vale of Sychar. Jamieson. Thus on the spot made sacred by so many ancient memories the people ended their wandering and homeless life, and passed into the possession of the inheritance, through the portal of this fresh acceptance of the covenant, proclaiming thereby that they held the land on condition of serving God, and writing their own sentence in case of unfaithfulness. It was the last act of the assembled people, and the crown and close of Joshua's career. A. M.—Josh. 24 : 29 ; Ju. 2 : 8. There was no more for Joshua to do. To the end of his heroic and spotless career he had "followed the Lord fully," and he could now contentedly "go the way of all the earth." He died as he lived, "the servant of the Lord." He was a hundred and ten years old—ten years short of his great master Moses—when God called his weary servant home. E. V. His name, Jehoshua, "Jehovah is help," is the key to his life and work. Alike in bringing the people into Canaan, in his wars, and in the distribution of the land among the tribes—from the miraculous crossing of Jordan and taking of Jericho to his last address—he was the embodiment of his new name: "Jehovah is help!" So far also as the conquest and division of the land were concerned, his work was not complete, nor, indeed, intended to be complete. And this is characteristic of the whole Old Testament dispensation, that no period in its history sees its work completed, but only begun and pointing forward to another yet future, till at last all becomes complete in the "fulness of time" in Christ Jesus. Thus viewed, a fresh light is cast upon the name and history of Joshua. Assuredly Joshua did not give "rest" even to his own generation, far less to Israel as a nation. It was rest begun, but not completed—a rest which even in its temporal aspect left so much unrest; and as such it pointed to Christ. What the one Joshua could only begin, not really achieve, even in its outward typical aspect, pointed to and called for the other Joshua, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom and by whom all is reality and all is perfect and all is rest forever. And so also it was only after many years that Oshea became Joshua, while the name Joshua was given to our Lord by the angel before His birth. The first became, the second was Joshua. And so the name and the work of Joshua pointed forward to the fulness in Christ, alike by what it was and by what it was not, and this in entire accordance with the whole character and object of the Old Testament. A. E. Joshua combined in a remarkable degree strategy for the conduct of war, and sagacity for the administration of civil affairs. He had also the moral courage to avow his dependence upon God, and to inculcate virtue and religion by precept and example. Having secured for his people a country by his arms, he did not seek to make himself king; but, laying aside his command, he established a covenant or constitution by which they should be governed. J. P. T.—Joshua was the ruler of the people, yet he took no regal honors. He led them to victory, yet he received no exceptional reward. He quietly retired to private life when he had completed his great task. His is a grand example of unselfishness, simplicity, and humility. Adeney. The character of Joshua is not only one of the finest in Scripture history, but one of the most remarkable that the world ever saw. We behold in him that rare combination of the highest qualities of the statesman and the warrior. We see that he is quite equal to every emergency under which he has to act; and that he puts forth just that degree of power—just that degree of the qualities suited to the occasion. No care, no advantage, no duty is neglected by him. In the passage of the Jordan, in the judgment of Achan, in the siege of Ai, he forgot nothing which might tend to deepen the impression the miracle produced—nothing which might render the justice of the doom apparent—nothing by which the victory might be assured. The generation which he led was better and wiser than that which came forth from Egypt, and yielded to him a more willing obedience than Moses had obtained from their fathers. Toward the enemy alone was his countenance terrible; for, regarding himself as the minister of the Divine anathemas against a guilty people, he executed his awful commission with no shrinking hand; but at the same time with calmness and without fury. His piety is, however, gentle, while his faith is impregnable, and his confidence in God unshaken. K? We see him diligently and laboriously distributing the land among its new occupants, exhibiting the most scrupulous equity in his assignment of their portions to the several tribes. We watch him appeasing jealousies, calming rising fends, checking arrogance, moderating overweening pretensions, and, with the magnanimity of real greatness and the calmness of conscious strength, executing in all its details the difficult task devolved upon him. And when the work of his life is done, and in extreme old age he gathers together the tribes, those whose fathers he had so often led to victory, to receive his parting commission, how full of dignity is the reticence he observes with regard to himself and his own exploits. All he had done is omitted, and the whole of the brilliant past is gathered up in one sentence, in which the entire glory is attributed to God: "Jehovah, your God, is he that hath fought for you;" and the human agent does not appear at all. Let his people, for whom he had labored and fought, only be true to their covenant with their God, and Joshua would be content to be forgotten. E. V.—His lofty character, his chivalrous and trustful spirit, made a profound impression on the people whom he led and governed. His courage and his thorough devotion to the cause of God exerted the most beneficent influence on the whole congregation of Israel. In his farewell address to the people, when his work both of war and peace was done, he spoke not of conquest—the sound of the trumpet and the flash of the sword cannot be recognized in it—but of the holiness and the obedience which become the chosen of the Lord. Moorehead.—Grand man! chosen because choice. Counted worthy at the first to stand nearest Moses at the giving of the Law; proved worthy at the end to stand himself its mightiest vindicator. Standing also in history, a character which for its height is an inspiration rather than an example; spotless as he was strong. As conqueror of nations, mighty; as conqueror of self, sublime. J. L. Chamberlain.—A saintly and noble life truly, and one which teaches us the secret of success in the righteous war with evil. To obey, to be wholly consecrated to God, to believe in the fulfilment of the Divine promises, to fight fearlessly with eye fixed upon the Cap- Captain of our salvation, whose strength is perfected in weakness—this is the unfailing secret of success. An. Josh. 24 : 31 ; Ju. 2 : 7. This bright period of Jewish history is crowned by the record that "Israel served Jehovah all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of Jehovah that He had done for Israel." The lessons of the wilderness had not been lost upon them. Not in vain had they seen their fathers drop and die till they were all consumed for their rebellion. We search the sacred history in vain, from the Exodus to the Captivity, for another generation that was so wholly faithful to Jehovah. P. S.—As the faithful minister of Moses, as the servant of God, as the bold and believing spy, as the successor of Moses, as the captain of the hosts of Israel, as the conqueror of Canaan, as the type of the Lord Jesus, whose name he bore, Joshua holds a distinguished place among the great men of the sacred history. But in nothing is he more conspicuously great than in the influence which he exercised upon others by his authority and example. We learn here that his weight and influence with the Israelitish nation was such that for a period of not much less than half a century it sufficed to keep the fickle people steadfast in their allegiance to the God of their fathers. By his own influence while he lived, and after his death by the influence of those whom he had trained during his lifetime, the contagion of idolatry was checked, and the service of God maintained. A. C. H. # The Bones of Joseph Buried. 32. The bones of Joseph buried they in Shechem.** Joseph's death took place in Egypt about two hundred years before that of Joshua, and we learn (Gen. 50 : 25 ; Ex. 13 : 19), that prior to his decease he had given a strict charge that his bones should be conveyed away out of Egypt by his people when they themselves went up from thence. Accordingly they had carried these precious relics with them in all their wanderings through the wilderness, and never attempted to bury them till they were peaceably settled in the promised land. The act of sepulture, though here related after the account of the death of Joshua, undoubtedly took place before it. Bush.—The interment of Joseph's remains most probably took place as soon as Shechem was in the possession of Israel. Nothing could more fully show the reverence in which the name of Joseph was held in Israel than this scrupulous fulfilment of his commands, and the careful record of it in the history. This record is another link in the evidence which establishes the authenticity and early date of the Book of Joshua. Lias. It was in great haste that the people of Israel left Egypt; but they were careful to take with them the embalmed body of their honored Joseph. They reach the Red Sea, and pass safely through its waters; they encounter many perils and live a pilgrim life in the peninsula of Sinai for forty years; they cross the Jordan as they had crossed the Red Sea; but in all these scenes and years they carry with them "the bones of Joseph." They have to fight their way through the land, and only after many battles and much time, do they become masters of Canaan. They have lost much and forgotten much. But Joseph's bones are in safe keeping, and there in Shechem, with Ebal and Gerizim looking down on the scene—there in the region with which the eyes of the living Joseph were familiar, whence he was taken away as a slave-boy hundreds of years before—there they laid these treasured bones in their resting-place. "By faith," we are told, "Joseph gave commandment concerning his bones." He believed that God would take Israel out of Egypt and give them Canaan for a possession. They were God's people, and that to Joseph's faith was everything. He would not be an Egyptian even while he ruled over Egyptians. He would be an Israelite, and would not let Egypt or Israel forget that he was, in life and in death. And with this purpose, "by faith he gave commandment concerning his bones." Kennedy. 33. And Eleazar died.** Probably about the same time with Joshua. In a hill that pertained to Phinehas. As the cities assigned to the priests lay in the lots of Judah, Benjamin, and Simeon, neither father nor son could properly inherit a portion located in Mount Ephraim. But the probability is that the people voluntarily gave to the high priest a place of residence situated at a convenient distance from Joshua and the tabernacle, and that this was called the "hill of Phinehas," because he dwelt longer there than his father Eleazar had done. Bush. Three graves. Such is the story of life. The end of it is always in some sepulchre. "They buried Joshua." "They buried the bones of Joseph." "They buried Eleazar." So the land is taken in possession. Every grave becoming a stronger link, binding the people to each other and to the land God gave them. Look at these graves. And observe that while every life finds a grave, life does not end, but only takes a new departure from the grave. Death to the saints of God is only the promised "coming again" of Christ to "receive them unto himself." Nor does death end our usefulness. On the contrary, its touch canonizes. Death makes the neglected counsel and example the revered oracle; and the despised creed the life-giving truth. There is something touching in these earliest graves of Israel—Machpelah, Shechem, Timnath, Mount Ephraim. Such graves were thrones, on each of which a great spirit ruled, teaching faith and truth and courage, spirituality and communion with God. The graves consecrated the land. Grover. The great man dies, and yet the work goes on. The minister ceases, but the ministry proceeds. The individual sermon closes, but the everlasting Gospel never ceases its sweet and redeeming proclamations. And if we give the mind free range over all the noble and marvellous history of the world, we shall see that how great soever have been the men who have led us, the world could do without them. God knew how to supply their places, and amid all change and fear and dismay the purpose of Heaven went steadily forward in all the grandeur of its strength and all the tenderness of its beneficence. J. P. At this early period in the history of mankind, fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, centuries before Greece and Rome had obtained a foothold in history, five hundred years before Homer sang, and one thousand years and more before Plato dreamed of his ideal Republic, when all Western Europe was an untrodden wilderness, the children of Israel, just emerged from centuries of bondage, not only recognized the guiding principles of civil and religious liberty, that "all men are created equal," that God and the laws are the only kings, but also established a free commonwealth under a written constitution, a government of and for the people. O. Strauss. THE JUDGES AND THEIR TIMES. PARTIAL CONQUESTS BY THE NINE AND HALF TRIBES. REPROOF OF THE ANGEL JEHOVAH FOR THEIR DISOBEDIENT FAILURE. THEIR REPENTANCE AT BOCHIM. EPITOME OF ISRAEL'S HISTORY DURING THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES.