At length, when he was old and stricken in years, he was commanded to divide the conquered territory among the nine tribes and the half tribe of Manasseh.
The mode adopted was twofold.
1. In some cases individual chiefs claimed particular spots on the score of their own prowess, or putting themselves at the head of armed predatory expeditions conquered certain portions with the sword. The chief instance of this was afforded by the aged compeer of Joshua, Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who now won distinction and renown for his own tribe of Judah. Forty-five years had elapsed since as one of the twelve spies in company with Joshua he had come down the Valley of the Cluster to Hebron, the fortress of the giant Arba, where they gathered the enormous bunch of Syrian grapes. On that memorable day Moses had rewarded his eminent faithfulness by promising him the land whereon his feet had trod as an inheritance for himself and his children for ever (Num. xiv. 23, 24; Josh. xiv. 9). This winding Valley, then, of the Cluster, this mountain (Josh. xiv. 12) on which rose the stronghold of the Anakims, was the portion Caleb desired forhimself, and hence with the Divine aid he vowed to drive forth its gigantic possessors, and take it for his own.
Joshua willingly granted his request, and the great warrior of the tribe of Judah went up against the city of Arba, and drove out the sons of Anak, Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai. Thence he proceeded southward to Debir or Kirjath-sephir[161], the City of Books, probably a sacred oracular place, and promised to give to its successful assailant his daughter Achsah in marriage. Thereupon Othniel his nephew, or according to others his younger brother, attacked and took the fortress, and won the promised prize. On the way to Othniel’s house, Achsah dismounted from the ass on which she rode, and begged her father to give her some “better heritage than the dry and thirsty frontier of the desert.” Below the spot on which rose the newly captured fortress was a bubbling rivulet, falling into a rich valley. Thou hast given me, said she, a south land, give me also the bubbling rills, and he gave her the upper and lower bubblings, and thus Hebron and Debir with the rich valley below became the inheritance of the great warrior of Judah, and was long after known by his name (1 Sam. xxv. 3; xxx. 14).
2. But the more general mode of dividing the conquered land, in accordance with the Divine instructions, was by casting lots before the Tabernacle at Shiloh[162], in the presence of Joshua, the High-priest, and the elders of the nation. As the distribution of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh on theeast of the Jordan has been already described, we may confine ourselves to those on the western side, under the threefold division of (a) The South, (b) the Centre, (c) the North.
(a) The South.
i. The most southerly frontier was assigned first to Judah but afterwards to Simeon (Josh. xix. 9), and is often called in Scripture the South (Josh. x. 40; Judg. i. 9). Like Reuben on the east of Jordan, Simeon was destined to have little influence on the subsequent history, to be divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel (Gen. xlix. 5–7), and to be constantly exposed to the attacks of the Amalekites and other nomadic tribes on its frontier (comp. 1 Chron. iv. 39–43).
ii. Next to Simeon on the North was the territory of the lion tribe of Judah, comprising the undulating pasture country of the South, the fertile lowland of the West, the hill fortresses of the centre, and the wild desert bordering on the Dead Sea. Part of his inheritance was fertile, and covered with corn fields and vineyards (Gen. xlix. 11), part was a wild country, “the lair of savage beasts,” where amidst caverns, ravines and mountains, Judah, true to the description in the blessing of Jacob, could stoop down and couch as a lion, guarding the southern frontier of the Promised Land.
iii. North-east of Judah was the warlike little tribe (Ps. lxviii. 27; 1 Sam. ix. 21) of Benjamin, famous for its archers (2 Sam. i. 22), slingers (Judg. xx. 16), and left-handedwarriors (Judg. iii. 15; xx. 16). Its territory was small, being hardly larger than the county of Middlesex, but its position was of great importance. Containing numerous rounded hills[163], which presented favourable sites for strong fortresses, it commanded the chief passes leading down from the central hills to the Jordan on the one side, and the plains of Philistia on the other. In this broken and hilly country the tribe became warlike and indomitable, ravening as a wolf (Gen. xlix. 27).
iv. Compressed into the narrow space between the north-western hills of Judah and the Mediterranean was the tribe of Dan, containing within the 14 miles from Joppa to Ekron one of the most fertile tracts in the land, the corn-field and garden of southern Palestine. But for this rich prize it had to contend first with the Amorites (Judg. i. 34), and afterwards with the Philistines (Judg. xiv. &c.), and eventually, as we shall see, was obliged to seek a new home in the North (Judg. xviii. 27–29).
(b) The Centre.
The central portion of the Holy Land, the Samaria of after ages, was assigned to the two brother tribes of the house of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh. Of this territory, which may be roughly estimated at 55 miles from E. to W., and 70 from N. to S., and which was about equal in extent to the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk combined[164], (i) the more southerly portion was assigned to Joshua’s own tribe of Ephraim. It extended as far south as Ramah and Bethel within a few miles of Jerusalem, and was rich in fountains and streamlets, in “wide plains in the hearts of mountains, and continued tracts of vegetation,” in corn-fields and orchards, the precious things of the earth and the fulness thereof, which the Lawgiver invoked on the ten thousands of Ephraim (Deut. xxxiii. 13–17), and of whose father Jacob had said that he should be a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well (Gen. xlix. 22). (ii) And as the duty of guarding the northern outposts on the east of Jordan had been assigned to one half of the tribe of Manasseh, so to the remaining half on the west was assigned the duty of defending the passes into the great plain of Jezreel. Its territorystretched westwards to the Mediterranean and the slopes of Carmel, but did not quite reach the Jordan on the East.
(c) The North.