* The lot given to each tribe is described in Josh, xiii.-
xxi. It has been maintained by some critics that there is a
double rôle assigned to one and the same person, only that
some maintain that the Jabin of Josh. xi. has been
transferred to the time of the Judges, while others make out
that the Jabin of Deborah was carried back to the time of
the conquest.
** Renan thinks that the principal crossing must have taken
place opposite Jericho, as is apparent from the account in
Josh, ii., iii.
*** Carl Niebuhr believes that he has discovered the exact
spot at the ford of Admah, near Succoth.
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph in Lortet.
The latter at once came into contact with a population having a higher civilization than themselves, and well equipped for a vigorous resistance; the walled towns which had defied the veterans of the Pharaohs had not much to fear from the bands of undisciplined Israelites wandering in their neighbourhood. Properly speaking, there were no pitched battles between them, but rather a succession of raids or skirmishes, in which several citadels would successively fall into the hands of the invaders. Many of these strongholds, harassed by repeated attacks, would prefer to come to terms with the enemy, and would cede or sell them some portion of their territory; others would open their gates freely to the strangers, and their inhabitants would ally themselves by intermarriage with the Hebrews. Judah and the remaining descendants of Simeon and Levi established themselves in the south; Levi comprised but a small number of families, and made no important settlements; whereas Judah took possession of nearly the whole of the mountain district separating the Shephelah from the western shores of the Dead Sea, while Simeon made its abode close by on the borders of the desert around the wells of Beersheba.*
* Wellhausen has remarked that the lot of Levi must not be
separated from that of Simeon, and, as the remnant of Simeon
allied themselves with Judah, that of Levi also must have
shared the patrimony of Judah.
The descendants of Rachel and her handmaid received as their inheritance the regions situated more to the centre of the country, the house of Joseph taking the best domains for its branches of Ephraim and Manasseh. Ephraim received some of the old Canaanite sanctuaries, such as Ramah, Bethel, and Shiloh, and it was at the latter spot that they deposited the ark of the covenant. Manasseh settled to the north of Ephraim, in the hills and valleys of the Carmel group, and to Benjamin were assigned the heights which overlook the plain of Jericho. Four of the less important tribes, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and Zebulon, ventured as far north as the borders of Tyre and Sidon, behind the Phoenician littoral, but were prevented by the Canaanites and Amorites from spreading over the plain, and had to confine themselves to the mountains. All the fortresses commanding the passes of Tabor and Carmel, Megiddo, Taanach, Ibleam, Jezreel, Endor, and Bethshan remained inviolate, and formed as it were an impassable barrier-line between the Hebrews of Galilee and their brethren of Ephraim. The Danites were long before they found a resting-place; they attempted to insert themselves to the north of Judah, between Ajalon and Joppa, but were so harassed by the Amorites, that they had to content themselves with the precarious tenure of a few towns such as Zora, Shaalbîn, and Eshdol. The foreign peoples of the Shephelah and the Canaanite cities almost all preserved their autonomy; the Israelites had no chance against them wherever they had sufficient space to put into the field large bodies of infantry or to use their iron-bound chariots. Finding it therefore impossible to overcome them, the tribes were forced to remain cut off from each other in three isolated groups of unequal extent which they were powerless to connect: in the centre were Joseph, Benjamin, and Dan; in the south, Judah, Levi, and Simeon; while Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and Zebulon lay to the north.
The period following the occupation of Canaan constituted the heroic age of the Hebrews. The sacred writings agree in showing that the ties which bound the twelve tribes together were speedily dissolved, while their fidelity and obedience to God were relaxed with the growth of the young generations to whom Moses or Joshua were merely names. The conquerors “dwelt among the Canaanites: the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite: and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods. And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord their God, and served the Baalim and the Asheroth.” *
