State. Both of these modes were adopted in the allotment of land in Palestine; though, as might be expected, the latter principle prevailed.'1 Separate conquests. Jair and Attack on The first of these methods is seen in the predatory expeditions of individuals to occupy particular spots hitherto unconquered, or to reclaim those, of which the inhabitants had again revolted. Of this kind were apparently the conquests in the Transjordanic territory, already mentioned,2 by Jair and Nobah. Another instance, which belongs more properly to the next Lecture, and which was the last Dan. wave of the Israelite migration, is that of the Danite expedition to the north. A third is the attack of the Ephraimites on the ancient sanctuary Bethel. of Bethel. Its capture, briefly told, is a repe tition of the capture of Jericho. The spies go before; a friendly Canaanite encounters them; the town is stormed and sacked; the betrayer of the place escapes, like Rahab; and, like her, has a portion assigned to his inheritance "in the land of the Hittites." But the Judah. chief instance is in the tribe of Judah. It is in these early adventures that this great tribe first appears before us. Its vast prospects are still in the distant future, beyond the limits of the period comprised in this volume. Yet to this first appearance of Judah belongs the beginning of the JEWISH CHURCH, properly so called. It is by a pardonable anachronism that we extend the word to the whole of the nation. But we must not the less distinctly mark the point when the name of "Judah" or "Jew" first rises above the horizon, destined to bear in after-years so vast an alternate burden of honor and of shame. The founder, so to speak, of the glories of Judah was not unSee Arnold's Rome, i. 265. 2 See Lecture IX. 3 See Lecture XIII. Caleb. worthy of its later fame. Caleb, in the Desert, is hardly known. It may be, as has been conjectured from some of the links in his descent, that, though occupying this exalted place in the tribe of Judah, he obtained it in the first instance by adoption rather than by birth. He is said to "have his part and his inheritance among "the children of Judah," not as by right but "because "he wholly followed Jehovah the God of Israel."1 And the names of Kenaz, Shobal, Hezron, Jephunneh, amongst his forefathers or his progeny, all point to an Idumean, rather than an Israelite origin. If so, we have a breadth given to the name of Judah, even from its very first start, such as we have already noticed in the case of Abraham. But, Israelite or proselyte, he was the one tried companion of Joshua, and his claims. rested on a yet earlier and greater sanction, that of Moses himself. He was to have a portion of the land, on which "his feet had trodden." 3 The spot, on which Caleb had set his heart, was the fertile valley of Hebron. Of all the country Hebron. which the twelve spies, with Joshua and Caleb at their head, had traversed, this is the one scene which remains fixed in the sacred narrative, as if because fixed in the memory of those who made their report. There was the one field in the whole land which they might fairly call their own, the field which contained the rocky cave of Machpelah, with the graves of their first ancestors. But it was not even this sacred enclosure which had most powerfully impressed the simple explorers of that childlike age. It was the winding valley, whose terraces were covered with the rich verd 1 Josh. xiv. 9-14; xv. 13. See Lord Arthur Hervey's article on "Caleb "in Dictionary of the Bible, and Ewald, i. 338. 3 Joshua xiv. 9. ure and the golden clusters of the Syrian vine, so rarely seen in Egypt, so beautiful a vesture of the bare hills of Palestine. In its rocky hills are still to be seen hewn the ancient wine-presses. Thence came the gigantic cluster,' the one relic of the Promised Land, which was laid at the feet of Moses. Thither, now that he found himself within that land, Caleb was resolved to return. In that valley of vineyards- in that primeval seat, as it was supposed, of the vine itself" by the choice vine, Judah was to bind his "foal; he was to wash his garments in wine, his clothes "in the blood of grapes." This was the prize for Caleb. This he claimed from Joshua. But he was to win it for himself, and it was no easy task. It was the main fastness of the aboriginal inhabitants of the South. Even, as it might seem, after the Canaanites had fled, the chiefs of the older race still lingered there. It was the city of "the Four Giants"— Anak and his three gigantic sons. Within its walls the Last of the Anakim held out against the conquerors. But thrice over the old warrior of Judah insists on his unbroken "strength." A pitched battle takes place outside the walls; he drives them out; and Kirjath-Arba, with all its ancient recollections, becomes "Hebron," the centre of the mighty tribe, which was there to take up its chief abode. Far and wide his name extended, and, alone of all the conquerors on the west of the Jordan, he succeeded in identifying it with the territory which he had won. But this was but the nucleus of a circle of the like spirit of adventure, radiating from this centre. South of Hebron lay a sacred oracular place, as it would seem, "The oracle," "the city of books," 1 Num. xiii. 22-24. 31 Sam. xxv. 3; xxx. 14. 2 Judg. i. 10: "And Hebron came "forth against Judah." (LXX.) Debir, Kirjath-sepher. On this too Caleb fixed his heart; and announced that his daughter Ach- Kirjathsah should be the reward of the successful sepher. assailant. From his own family sprang forth the champion, his nephew or his younger brother Othniel, who won the ancient fortress. And yet again from the same family another claim was put forth. Achsah, worthy of her father and her husband, demands some better heritage than the dry and thirsty frontier of the desert. Underneath the hill on which Debir stood is a deep valley, rich with verdure, from a copious rivulet, which, rising at the crest of the glen, falls, with a continuity unusual in the Judæan hills, down to its lowest depth. On the possession of these upper and lower "bubblings," so contiguous to her lover's prize, Achsah had set her heart. The shyness of the bridegroom to ask, the eagerness of the bride to have, are both put before us. She comes to Othniel's house, seated on her ass, led by her father. She will not enter. According to our Version, she gently descends from her ass: according to the Septuagint, she screams, or she murmurs, from her seat. Her father asks the cause, and then she demands and wins "the blessing" of the green valley; the gushing stream from top to bottom, which made the dry and barren hill above a rich possession.2 66 1 Like Byblos afterwards. See Ew- covered by Dr. Rosen, (Zeitschrift D. ald, i. 286. M. G. 1857, p. 50-64,) and under his guidance I saw it in 1862. The word gulloth translated "springs," but more properly waves or bubblings," well applies to this beautiful rivulet The spots are now called Ain-Nunkur and Dewir-Ban, about one hour S.W. of Hebron. 2 Josh. xv. 18; Judg. i. 14. In the former passage, the LXX. makes Achsah (as in the E. V.) the moving cause; in the latter, Othniel. In both, Achsah is represented, not as lighting off," but as shouting" or nurmuring" ""from the ass." The cene of this incident was first dis On one more enterprise the active spirit of Judah entered. This time we see it not in any individual, but personified in the name of the two ancestors of the kindred tribes Judah and Simeon. Whoever may have been the chiefs of the tribes thus intended, they aimed at yet one greater prize than all besides, and had almost won the glory which was reserved for their de scendant centuries afterwards. Jerusalem, as it would seem for a time, but only for a time, fell into the hands of the warrior tribe. When next it appears, it is still in possession of the old inhabitants. We must not anticipate the future. It is enough to have seen the series of simple and romantic incidents which gave to Judah the desert frontier, the southern fastnesses, and the choice vineyards, which play so large a part in the History of the Jewish, in the imagery of the Christian Church, hereafter. tion of the 2. The second, or more regular mode of assignAssigna- ment, which, as has been well observed, places tribes. the conquest of Palestine, even in that remote and barbarous age, in favorable contrast with the arbitrary caprice by which the lands of England were granted away to the Norman chiefs, was inaugurated, so to speak, by Joshua's quaint but decisive Ephraim. answer to his own tribe of Ephraim, when they claimed more than their due. The apportionment of this great tribe was, in fact, a union of the two principles. One lot, and one only, they were to have; the rest they were to carve out for themselves from the hills and forests of their Canaanite enemies. Why hast thou given me but one lot and one por❝tion to inherit, seeing I am a great people, forasmuch as the Lord hath blessed me hitherto ?" 66 1 Arnold's Hist. of Rome, i. 266. |