22. § 3. Division of the Land
§ 3. Division of the Land
Concerning this, Moses had already given instructions. Numbers 26:52-56, comp. with Numbers 33:54, which must here be more particularly explained, because at the first glance they seem to contain a contradiction. In the first passage we read: “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Unto them the land shall be divided for an inheritance, according to the number of names. To many thou shalt give the more inheritance, and to few thou shalt give the less inheritance; to every one shall his inheritance be given according to those that were numbered of him. Notwithstanding the land shall be divided by lot,” etc. The twofold determination contained in these words, that the land should be divided according to the greater or smaller number, and that it should be parcelled out by lot, appear to contradict one another. But the explanation is this: The region which each tribe was to occupy is only generally determined by lot, whether in the southern or northern part of the land, whether on the sea or on the Jordan, etc. By this determination a multitude of otherwise unavoidable quarrels were prevented. All opposition to the result obtained by lot must appear as a murmuring against the providence of God, because, in appointing this method, He gave the most definite promise of His guidance. And when the territory was fixed in this way, it lay with those who had been commissioned to carry out the division to determine the extent and limits according to the greater or smaller number of souls in each tribe, and at the same time with reference to the fruitfulness of the country. The tribes among which the land was to be divided were twelve in number; although Levi, in accordance with the special destiny to which it had been appointed by God, received no territory, but was commanded to dwell in separate towns which should be allotted to it, scattered throughout all Israel. For Jacob had received Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, in the stead of children, and had placed them in exactly the same relation with his other sons, Genesis 48:5. He had taken away from Reuben his right to a double portion of the inheritance, which was connected with the birthright, Deuteronomy 21:17, on account of his incest, and had transferred it to Joseph on account of the great benefits which he had shown to his family in Egypt. As already recorded, Moses directed that the land should be divided among these twelve tribes in the same way and at the same time. But circumstances occurred which hindered the complete carrying out of this regulation. First, the demand of the tribes of Reuben and Gad that the region already conquered beyond the Jordan should be allotted to them on account of their wealth in flocks, which made this district specially appropriate for them. Moses yielded to their demand, but under the condition that they should none the less cross the Jordan, and help to take Canaan proper. He also granted the demands made by a portion of the tribe of Manasseh to the most northern part of the trans-Jordanic territory, by permitting them alone to complete the conquest of it. From the analogy of the half-tribe of Manasseh we can reason respecting the two other tribes. If Manasseh’s territory, the former kingdom of Og of Bashan, were assigned to him because he had conquered it, the same would hold good with reference to Reuben and Gad. They certainly do not expressly mention the claim which they had gained to the country by their deeds of arms; but this is only modesty. They say, “The country which the Lord smote before the congregation of Israel,” withdrawing behind Jehovah and Israel, in whose service and stead they had acted; but the claim stands in the background. The mere number of their flocks, which they doubtless gained in conquering the land of Sihon, would not have been a sufficient motive; the demand would have been presumptuous, and would not have been regarded by Moses if it had not had such a foundation. The country beyond the Jordan was therefore assigned to these two and a half tribes without lot; the first among the three general divisions which occurred. Let us learn somewhat more accurately the district and seat which the tribes received. The western boundary of it is the Jordan, the eastern the Arabian desert, the southern the brook Arnon, the northern Mount Hermon. This whole district bears in Scripture in a wide sense the name of Gilead. According to other passages, when Gilead is taken in a stricter sense it is divided into the two districts Gilead and Bashan. The tribe of Reuben receives the most southern part of this whole district, separated on the south from the Moabites by the brook Arnon. Its northern boundary began somewhere above the Dead Sea. This region had been completely in possession of the Amorites, was then taken from them by the Moabites, and was finally retaken by them. On its borders, parallel to the north end of the Dead Sea, lay its old royal city Hesbon, now Hesbân. Reuben was followed by Gad, separated by Jabbok on the east from the country of the Amorites, whom the Israelites might not drive out from their possessions because they were blood-relations. The half-tribe Manasseh received the most northern part of the country beyond the Jordan, the most northern part of Gilead in a strict sense, and all Bashan. Of this portion of territory North Gilead fell to the race of Machir, by whom it had been taken. Bashan was assigned to Jair, a valiant hero.
According to this division, made by the authority of Moses, there were therefore only nine and a half tribes to provide for. The main camp was still at Gilgal. There, at the time already named, after the close of the campaign narrated, Joshua determined to undertake the division of the land. The reason which called forth this determination just at the present time was probably the conviction, that permanent possession of the country in all its various parts could only be obtained in connection with colonization. Yet this determination was very imperfectly fulfilled at that time. Only the tribes of Judah, Ephraim, and half-Manasseh received their territory. The cause of the incomplete accomplishment is not expressly given in the narrative. Yet it may be gathered with some probability from several hints, although considerable obscurity remains, and the matter requires far more thorough and profound discussion than it has recently received from Keil. In the division Joshua acted on the fundamental axiom, that all the land not yet conquered should be considered as conquered, and must also be parcelled out by lot, Joshua 13:6. In this spirit he regulated the size of the first-drawn lot of the tribe of Judah and of the tribe of Ephraim. So great an extent was given to these tribes, that the greater part of the country which was already conquered fell to them alone. But the remaining tribes were not satisfied with this. Their confidence in the divine promise was not so great that, like Joshua, the hero of faith, they could be as sure of the land that had still to be conquered as of that already conquered. They would prefer still to continue their unsettled life for a period rather than acknowledge the division. They wished to see first how it would go with the further occupation of the land, in order, in case it should prove unfavourable, to lay claim to a portion of the territory of the tribes of Judah and Joseph. That this was the case appears from the fact that, in the later third division at Shiloh, the promised land was not parcelled out, but only the conquered land, and that the tribes of Judah and Ephraim were obliged to give up part of their territory. The tribe of Benjamin was inserted between the two; the tribe of Dan received its possessions westwards, between the two; then Judah was obliged to cede a portion of Simeon. Let us now speak particularly of the distribution at Gilgal. Before the drawing of lots had commenced, according to Joshua 14:6 ff., Caleb, called the Kenezite—i.e. the descendant of a certain Kenaz, of whom nothing further is known—came before Joshua, accompanied by the representatives of the tribe of Judah, which, in order to give more weight to the private petition of one of its citizens, treated it as a general one, and demanded the region round about Hebron, as promised to him, in reward for his faithfulness to the Lord amid the unfaithfulness of the other spies who were sent out with him. The event may be found narrated in Numbers 13 and Deuteronomy 1. In the latter passage, in Deuteronomy 1:36, mention is made of a promise given by Moses to Caleb, yet without an exact definition of the portion of land to be given to Caleb, which is also wanting in Numbers 14:24. It is only stated, that the Lord would give him and his sons the land which he had trodden. That this has reference to Hebron and its environs, where, according to Numbers 14:24, the spies remained for a long time, we first learn with full certainty from the narrative in the book of Joshua. Caleb’s intention in now demanding the fulfilment of this obligation was probably to separate his fate from that of his tribe, which was to be settled by lot. Joshua does nothing further than to give him Hebron; and, according to Joshua 15:1, the tribe of Judah received its territory by lot. It was a decree of divine providence that the lot should have fallen so that Caleb received his inheritance in his tribe. Moreover, it follows from Joshua 20:7, comp. with Joshua 21:4, that the town of Hebron was afterwards ceded by Caleb to the Levites, as part of their possession, in consequence of its choice as a free city for unintentional murder,—for such cities were always obliged to be Levitical. Caleb could accede to this the more readily, since he retained what was most important for him, viz. the surrounding district. In all probability the drawing of lots was so ordered that in one of the vessels were placed the names of the twelve tribes, in the other the designations of the twelve portions of land. As soon as the lot of one tribe was drawn, before proceeding further, the limits of this tribe were determined in proportion to the number of its members. Some—for example, Masius and Bachiëne—have thought that Joshua’s previous intention at Gilgal was only to allow the two tribes, Judah and Joseph, to draw lots between themselves, and to defer the distribution of the land among the other tribes until the remaining territory should be conquered. But this view is at variance with the narrative in the book of Joshua. According to Joshua 14:1 ff. Joshua and the high priest had no other idea than to allow all the tribes to draw lots. The drawing of lots can therefore only have been interrupted by the circumstances already mentioned. If this were not so, we cannot see why at least a few of the tribes besides Judah and Ephraim should not also have drawn lots, since in any case there would have been space enough for them in the land already conquered, even if Judah and Joseph had retained the whole of their territory; as is sufficiently shown by the subsequent division at Shiloh, between which and that at Gilgal no important conquests were made. The first lot fell to the tribe of Judah. As the most numerous tribe, he received the largest territory, the district south of Gilgal in its whole extent between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean. The next lot fell to the children of Joseph. Several, as for example Calvin, think that Ephraim and Manasseh had each a separate lot. The fact that the lots are in close succession, and that both districts immediately adjoined one another, they attribute to a special working of divine providence. But this already gives more probability to the other view, which supposes that there was only a common lot for Ephraim and Manasseh, and that they afterwards divided the land which they had received in this way by lot between themselves. This view is confirmed by the narrative, Joshua 16:1 ff., where mention is made only of a common lot of the children of Ephraim. In this way it came about that the brethren received their inheritance together. Of this common inheritance the tribe of Ephraim received the southern portion. The brook Cana formed the boundary between the two. Ephraim occupied the whole breadth of the land. For both sea and Jordan come into the settlement of the boundary. Between it and Judah lay the tribes of Dan and Benjamin, according to the later determination at Shiloh, which lies at the basis of the statement of the boundaries. The third division among the seven tribes which still remained occurred at Shiloh, a place whose ruins even now bear the name Seilûn: comp. Robinson, iii. p. 303 ff. Thither the tabernacle of the covenant was transferred from Gilgal. Joshua chose Shiloh, probably because it lay in the tribe of Ephraim, to which he himself belonged, in order to have the tabernacle ofthe covenant in the neighbourhood. Add to this that Shiloh was almost in the middle of Canaan, and was therefore easily accessible to all the tribes. There the sanctuary remained for some centuries, during the whole time of the Judges, until, towards the end of this period, it was transferred to Nob, owing to a cause which will be narrated hereafter.
Joshua had by this time perceived that the indolence and want of faith of the Israelites would render the accomplishment of the earlier plan, viz. the whole distribution of the promised land, impossible. Since the distribution at Shiloh nothing of any consequence had been done towards the conquest of the land that still remained. He must therefore content himself with the distribution of the country already conquered, at least in the mass, in order not to leave undone the commission given him by the Lord to distribute the land. The division was now carried out with the greatest precision and foresight. By Joshua’s command Judah and Joseph were to retain their inheritance in those districts which had formerly been allotted to them. One-and-twenty men from the tribes which still remained, three out of every tribe, were to traverse the country, take a geographical survey of it, and divide it into seven parts. In this the Israelites were doubtless assisted by the Egyptian school. Ancient authors, especially Herodotus, ii. 109, Strabo, xvii. 787, Diod. Sic. i. 69, agree in maintaining that Egypt was the fatherland of geographical survey and measurement. The condition of the country must necessarily have led to this invention at a very early period; for, by the overflow of the Nile, boundaries were annually made unrecognisable. We can scarcely suppose but that the persons who were sent out by Joshua made plans or charts of the land, although this is not expressly stated: comp. Clericus on Joshua 17:2. But there was probably no geometrical measurement of the land in detail: comp. Keil on the other side. After the land had been surveyed in this way, the districts were assigned to the seven tribes by lot. The first lot fell upon the tribe of Benjamin. Its northern limit was the southern boundary of the tribe of Ephraim, already mentioned; its southern limit the northern boundary of Judah; on the east it bordered on the Jordan; and on the west, about the centre of the country, on the tribe of Dan, by which it was shut out from the Mediterranean Sea. After Benjamin’s lot came that of Simeon. Of him we read in Joshua 19:1 : “And their inheritance was within the inheritance of the children of Judah.” This is generally understood to mean that Simeon had a district with definite boundaries, but enclosed round about by the tribe of Judah. But such is not probable, for the reason that, in this case, the boundaries of Simeon are not given, as in all the other tribes, but only an enumeration of the towns in his possession. And these towns are too far distant from one another to give any probability to the hypothesis of a common territory. Moreover, on this supposition, it would be impossible to explain the statement of the dying Jacob in Genesis 49:7, that the descendants of Simeon should be no less scattered than those of Levi, on account of the crime perpetrated by the two ancestors together. According to this, therefore, it is far more probable that Simeon only received mere unconnected towns in Judah, with their environs, which also explains why he is omitted in the blessing of Moses. The blessing of Judah concerned him also. The third place was taken by Zebulun. It seems that this tribe must have touched the sea; for, otherwise, neither would the blessing of Jacob have been fulfilled—where special prominence is given to the fact that Zebulun would enjoy the privilege of living on the sea-coast—nor the blessing of Moses, where the sea is also assigned to him as a limit. But the bordering on the sea seems to be entirely excluded by the passage Joshua 17:10, comp. with Joshua 19:26, where we read that the tribe of Manasseh bordered northwards on Asher, and that Asher stretched as far as the promontory Carmel, on the Mediterranean Sea. The explanation is this: In the blessing of Jacob and Moses no special mention is made of the tribe of Zebulun as such; but only in connection with the name Zebulun, dwelling, prominence is given to the advantages which Israel generally enjoyed by their dwelling on the sea, since most of the blessings are not individual, but are only applications of the universal blessing. It is only false interpretation which would draw from Joshua 19:11 that Zebulun bordered on the sea.
After the division had been completed, progress was made towards the execution of the Mosaic decree respecting the establishment of free cities. Moses found the habit of blood-revenge common among his people, or the custom that the relatives of a murdered man must kill the murderer, under penalty of indelible shame; a custom so firmly rooted among the race allied to the Hebrews—the Arabians—that it could not be eradicated by the means which Mohammed instituted against it in the Koran. The injurious consequences of this custom need scarcely be pointed out. The punishment often fell upon those who were quite innocent, because the avenger of blood allowed himself to be deceived by a false report. It involved the rash manslaughterer no less than the intentional murderer. One murder gave rise to an endless succession of others, especially since a private affair was frequently taken up by the tribe, as the history of the Arabs shows. The nimbus in which the blood-revenge was clothed must on the whole have had a strong tendency to promote coarseness and cruelty; as we have melancholy proof in the writings of the Arabs before Mohammed. But this very nimbus made it extremely difficult to root out the custom, as we may perceive from the analogy of duels. The manner in which Moses sought to eradicate the injurious custom justified itself by the result. He ordained that the Israelites, after the occupation of the land, should establish free cities of refuge from the avengers of blood, Numbers 35; Deuteronomy 19. The roads to these cities, which were situated in all parts of the land, were to be kept carefully in repair. In order to give the places a special sanctity, they were all to be Levitical towns. If the perpetrator fortunately arrived in one of these cities, investigation was first of all made whether he was a murderer or a manslaughterer. If the former, he was given up by justice to the avenger of blood—in which respect the law gave way to established custom. By the enactment that the murderer was to be dragged away, even from the altar, and was to die, Exodus 21:14, the asylums of the Israelites were essentially distinguished from those of the Greeks and Romans, and also of the middle ages, which afforded protection to criminals of every kind. If the perpetrator were found innocent, the free city was a sure place of refuge for him. He dared not, however, venture beyond the limits of it. If the avenger of blood were to meet him outside the city, he might kill him; in which circumstance there was also a concession to the prevailing custom. Not until after the death of the then high priest, which, as a country-wide calamity, had a softening and conciliating effect upon the minds of all, durst the murderer return to his native town with perfect safety. In vain do Baumgarten and Keil attribute atoning significance to the death of the high priest. This banishment served a double end. It spared the pain of the relatives of the murdered man, which, aroused by the constant sight of the murderer, might easily have driven them to the perpetration of revenge; and at the same time testimony was borne to the value of man’s blood in the sight of God, who thus punished even an unintentional shedding of it. Compare the copious exposition in Michaelis, Mos. Recht. ii. § 131 ff. The time had now come when the Levites were also to receive the maintenance destined for them. It was enjoined by law. Numbers 35, that every tribe, in proportion to its size, should cede certain cities, with their immediate environs—as much as would suffice to pasture their cattle. The number of these cities amounted in all to forty-eight. At first sight this provision appears too large for a tribe so comparatively small in numbers. But this semblance disappears when we consider that the cities were inhabited not by the Levites alone, but also by their artisans, etc., from other tribes, who in some cases constituted the greater part of the population: comp. Leviticus 25:33; 1 Chronicles 6:40-41. The distribution of these cities among the Levites was accomplished in the following manner: The tribe of Levi was divided into four minor sections. Levi had three sons: Gershom, Kohath, and Merari. The race of the Kohathites was again divided into a double section, the priestly and the non-priestly. Thus Aaron was Kohath’s descendant through Amram, and in his posterity, by the Mosaic decree, the hereditary priesthood was exclusively bound up. Of the four sons of Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar, the two former died in his lifetime, leaving no children. Eleazar and Ithamar therefore became the ancestors of the whole priestly race. These, so far as we can judge, were, even in the Mosaic time, surrounded by a considerable number of sons and grandsons; and it is only by a misunderstanding of Numbers 3:4 that Colenso assumes that there were at that time only three priests. He takes Eleazar and Ithamar to be merely individuals, whereas they ought rather to be considered as heads of races. Aaron died in the last year of the march through the wilderness, at an age of 123 years, so that the priestly race at his death might already have branched out far and wide. After these four divisions, the forty-eight cities were divided into four lots. By a special decree of divine providence it happened that the priestly race received the cities in Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin, and therefore in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, afterwards the seat of the sanctuary. The discrepancies between the list of the Levitical towns in the book of Joshua and that in 1 Chronicles 7 are most easily explained by the fact that a few of the towns assigned to the Levites were at that time still in possession of the Canaanites, and because the hope of immediate conquest proved deceitful, were provisionally replaced by others, which were afterwards retained to escape the inconvenience of changing.