[663] So the old codex, Exod. xxi. 1-6. The priestly law on the other hand puts off the liberation till the year of Jubilee, Levit. xxv. 39 ff.
[664] On Exod. xxi.-xxiii. 19, cf. De Wette-Schrader, "Einleitung," s. 285, 286, and Nöldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 51, 63 ff.
[665] Gen. xlvi. 8-27 Numb. ii 3-31; 1 Chron. ii 10.
[666] Nöldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 103, 109, 128.
CHAPTER XI.
THE HEBREW INVASION OF CANAAN.
When the Israelites had delivered themselves from the dominion of Egypt, they pastured their flocks on the peninsula of Sinai. Afterwards they wandered further to the north-east into the Syrian desert, and at length, as the oases in this district were few, and the wells insufficient, they threw themselves upon the rich uplands on the east of the Jordan. From the table-land, which they had conquered, they saw before them the happy valley of the Jordan, the fig-trees and pomegranates, the vines and green glades in the valleys beyond it. The sight roused the greater portion of the Israelites to descend into the valley, and invade the land beyond the river, in order to win settled abodes where milk and honey were said to flow.
We have already examined the circumstances of Canaan. The Amorites had destroyed the power of the Hittites; and in conjunction with the remnants of the Hittites and Hivites, they possessed the land. They lived separately in the various mountain cantons, under small princes from thirty to forty in number. But their cities were old and well fortified; the nature of the land was in favour of defence, and on the coasts lay the strong cities of the Phenicians and the Philistines. It was no light undertaking. The Israelites had left Egypt a nation of peaceful shepherds, but the sixty or seventy years which they subsequently passed in the desert, and on the uplands beyond the Jordan, had hardened them and made them into warriors. The successes which they gained against the Amalekites, the Amorites of Heshbon, and Bashan must have roused their courage. If they combined in an attack on the isolated cantons of Canaan, they might hope to become masters even of the fortified walls, and perhaps they even found assistance among the Hittites and Hivites, who lived under the oppressive rule of the Amorites. About the middle of the thirteenth century B.C., the greater part of the Israelites marched towards the Jordan. Joshua, the prince of the tribe of Ephraim, led the army. The tribes of Reuben and Gad, and a part of the tribe of Manasseh, remained behind on the other side of the Jordan.[667]
The book of Joshua gives the following account of the conquest of Canaan by the Hebrews: It came to pass after the death of Moses, that Jehovah spoke to Joshua the son of Nun: Up, cross over Jordan, thou and all the people, into a land which I will give thee. Then Joshua commanded the leaders of the people: Go through the camp and say, Make ready your provisions; in three days ye shall cross the Jordan. When the people set out from their tents at Shittim, and reached the Jordan with the priests carrying the ark before them, and the feet of the priests, who carried the ark, touched the water of Jordan, the water which flowed from above stood up, and the water which flowed downwards to the Dead Sea parted from the upper water, till the ark of Jehovah and the people of Israel had passed over on dry land. And the people encamped at Gilgal, on the tenth day of the first month, and Joshua made sharp knives and circumcised the children of Israel, the whole nation that was born in the desert, and kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plain of Jericho. And Jehovah said to Joshua: See, I have given Jericho and her king into thy hand. Go round the city for six days, and let seven priests carry seven trumpets before the ark, and on the seventh day ye shall go round the city seven times, and the priests shall blow upon the trumpets. And when ye hear the sound of the trumpets, all the people shall make a great cry, and the walls of the city will fall down, and the people shall pass over them, every man straight before him. Joshua fulfilled the command of Jehovah, and when the people marched round the walls of Jericho for the seventh time on the seventh day, Joshua said: Cry aloud, for Jehovah has given the city to you, and it shall be sacred, it and all that is in it, to Jehovah, and all the silver and gold, and all the vessels of copper and iron shall belong to Jehovah, and shall go into his treasury. When the people heard the sound of the trumpets, they made a great cry, and the walls fell down, and the people went up into the city and took it. And they set apart all that was in the city from the man to the woman, from the boy to the old man, from the oxen to the sheep, and slew them with the edge of the sword.