THE

CONQUEST OF PALESTINE

quest.

LECTURE IX.

THE CONQUEST OF THE EAST OF THE JORDAN.

'THE Conquest of Palestine' introduces us to one of the most secular portions of the Sacred history. The very phrase is to The Con- some minds an offence. It suggests the likeness of other conquests. It compels us to regard the geography, the battles, the settlement of Israel, as we should consider the like circumstances in other countries. Such an offence is, in a certain degree, inevitable. But this stage of the history, secular as it is, presents also a religious aspect, on which, according to the plan of these Lectures, it will be my object to lay the chief stress, though not to the omission of those general considerations which here, as in other ecclesiastical history, are necessary to the understanding of the purely religious incidents intertwined with them.

The period of the Conquest, properly speaking, commences before the time of Joshua and extends far beyond it. It. began from the passage of the brook Zered under

Its stages.

:

Moses it was not finally closed till the capture of Jerusalem by David.

But in a more limited sense, it may be confined to the period during which the territory, afterwards known by the name of Palestine, was definitively occupied as their own by

the Israelites. This divides itself into two stages: the first including the occupation of the district east of the Jordan; the second, and most important, including the occupation of Western Palestine in its three great divisions, the valley of the Jordan, the southern and central mountains afterwards known as Judæa and Samaria, and the northern mountains afterwards known as Galilee.

The Israelite conquest of Palestine, although it stands above all other like events from its intrinsic grandeur, yet is in itself but one amongst a succession of waves which have swept over the country, and each of which may be used as an illustration of those that have gone before and after. The Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabians, Turks, Crusaders, French, English, have followed in their wake; the Philistines, the Canaanites, the aboriginal inhabitants, accompanied or preceded them.

The early

of Western

1

It is of these earlier conquests alone that we need here speak. The aboriginal inhabitants have already been briefly described. They belonged so entirely to the dim inhabitants distance, that their name, 'Rephaim,' was used in Palestine. after times to designate the huge guardians or the shadowy ghosts 2 of the world below. But we can just discern their forms before they vanish, and some remnants of them lingered till later times. Their lofty stature is often noticed. It is possible that this impression may be partly derived from the contrast between them and the diminutive Hebrews, in like manner as a similar description from the like contrast between the northern races of Europe, and the small limbs and features of the Italians, is given, by Roman historians and poets, of the gigantic Gauls. On the west of the Jordan this race appears chiefly under two names; the 'Anakim' in the southern mountains, and the 'Avites' on the maritime plain.3 The centre of the race of Anak was, as we have seen, Hebron or Kirjath-Arba. The Avites, it would seem, were still comparatively secure in their western corner. Their conquerors,

1 Lecture II.

2 See Gesenius, in voce; Ps. lxxxviii. 10;

Prov. ii. 18, ix. 18, xxi. 16; Isa. xxvi. 14, 19. 3 Deut. ii. 21, 23.

The

3

the Philistines,1 had not yet appeared; at least not in any overwhelming force. But, in all the rest of Palestine, already in the Patriarchal age the 'ancient solitary reign' of Canaanites. these aboriginal tribes had been disturbed by the appearance here and there of powerful chiefs belonging to the Phoenician or Canaanite branch of the Semitic race. The variations in the usage of the words, sometimes the variations of the text, prevent us from accurately fixing the mutual relations of the several Canaanite tribes to each other. Thus much, however, is clear.2 The Canaanites, or 'Lowlanders,' properly so called, occupied the sea-coast as far south as Dor, a considerable portion of the plain of Esdraelon, and some spots in the valley of the Jordan. The Amorites, or mountaineers, occupied the central and southern hills with the Hittites and Hivites. Of these intruders, the Amorites seem to have been the most ancient and the most warlike, perhaps allied to the old gigantic race with which from time to time they appear in connexion. The Hittites belong to the more peaceful occupants, and their name is that by which Palestine in these early ages was chiefly known in foreign countries. The Hivites, like the Phoenicians of the north, inclined to a more regular form of political organisation. Of the lesser subdivisions, the Jebusites are attached to the Amorites, the Perizzites to the Hittites, and the Girgashites to the Hivites.

If, from the bare enumeration of names and geographical situations, we pass to the outward appearance, or the moral and social condition of the inhabitants of Syria, when the Israelites broke in upon them, the task is far more difficult. They seem to rise before us only to vanish away. Hardly a

dying word escapes. The Sacred historian turns away as if

The Phonicians or

in silent aversion. Yet the picture, which from the Israelite point of view is so dark and shadowy, receives a sudden light from a quarter then unknown and unthought of. It is startling to be reminded that

Canaanites.

1 See Lecture XVI.

2 The most exact account of the relations of these tribes is in Num. xiii. 29; and compare, throughout, Ewald, i. 301-342.

3 Deut.

7.

* Deut. iv. 47; xxxi. 4; Jos. ix. 10; Amos ii. 9.

'Canaanite' is but another name for 'Phoenician;'1 that the detested and accursed race, as it appears in the Books of Joshua and Judges, is the same as that to which from Greece we look back as the parent of letters, of commerce, of civilisation. The Septuagint translators wavered between preserving the original Hebrew word, and adopting the name of 'Phoenician,' as already recognised by the Greek language. Had they chosen in all cases, as they have in some,2 the latter of these two alternatives, it is curious to reflect how essentially our ideas of the ancient inhabitants of Palestine might have been modified. Yet, in fact, the illustrations of the Phoenician or Canaanite history from Gentile sources coincide substantially with what we learn from the Jewish annals. In both we see the same dusky complexion of the race, distinguished alike from the western Greeks and the eastern Israelites. In both, we track them advancing into Palestine from the extreme south.1 In both, the coexistence, side by side, of monarchical, federal,5 and aristocratic institutions can be traced. In both, their general equality, if not superiority, in social arts to the surrounding nations and to the Israelites themselves, is acknowledged. They are in possession of fortified towns, treasures of brass, iron, gold, and foreign merchandise. They, no less than the Egyptians and Israelites, retain the mark of an ancient sacred civilisation in the rite of circumcision. And in both accounts, their religious rites are described in the same terms,―human sacrifices, licentious orgies, the worship of a host of divinities. But the difference between the two representations, which has, in fact, almost blinded us to the fact of the identity of the nation described by the two authorities, is more instructive than their likeness. The Israelite version, on takes no heed of the noble Kenrick, 50.

the one hand, we must freely grant,

1 For the name of 'Canaanite' as coextensive with 'Phoenician,' see Kenrick's Phænicia, 42, 52.

2 The word is so translated by the LXX. in Ex. xvi. 35; Josh. v. I.

3 For the dark colour of the race, see the arguments adduced both from Gen. x. 6, and from Strabo, xii. 144, in Kenrick's Phænicia, 50, 52.

4

6

5 See Ewald, ii. 337, and Lecture XV. The argument from the exceptional case of the Philistines, 1 Sam. xviii. 2527, 2 Sam. i. 20, combined with the historical statement in Herod. ii. 104, is convincing. From Gen. xxxiv. 15, it would appear that the early Shechemites were not circumcised.