time of the Christian era; when, in the same region as that which he conquered, we find ‘a ruler of the synagogue named 'Jair,' 'whose daughter'1 'was at the point of death.' Nobah. Nobah occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Scriptures. But a certain grandeur must have attached to his career to cause his selection as the representative of the Trans-Jordanic tribes in the Samaritan Book of Joshua.2 There, under the name of Nabih, he receives from Joshua the solemn investiture of royalty over the eastern tribes, and sits in state, clothed in green, on his throne of judgment. The portion of the Manassite tribe which he represented, and which lay beyond the limits of Gilead, must have furnished the more civilised and settled parts of the Trans-Jordanic population, which dwelt in the walled cities left by the expelled Canaanites. Causes of the settle ment. Natural features of the Trans Jordanic district. Whether the settlement of the eastern territory of Palestine was accomplished, as the Book of Numbers would lead us to infer, within a few months, or, as the Books of Joshua and Judges would imply, in a period extending over many years, must be left uncertain. But the causes which led to it are natural in themselves, and are expressly pointed out in the Biblical narrative. The Trans-Jordanic territory was the forest-land, the pasture-land of Palestine. The smooth downs received a special name,3 'Mishor,' expressive of their contrast with the rough and rocky soil of the West. The 'oaks' of Bashan, which still fill the traveller with admiration, were to the Prophets and Psalmist of Israel the chief glory of the vegetation of their common country. The vast herds of wild cattle which then wandered through the woods, as those of Scotland through its ancient forests, were, in like manner, at once the terror and pride of the Israelite,-'the fat bulls of Bashan.' The King of Moab was but a great sheep-master' and ' rendered' for tribute 'an hundred thousand lambs, and an 'hundred thousand rams with the wool.' And still the countless herds and flocks may be seen, droves of cattle moving on like troops of soldiers, descending at sunset to drink of the springs Sinai and Palestine, App. § 6. —literally, in the language of the Prophet, 'rams, and lambs, 'and goats, and bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan.' In the encampment of Israel, two tribes, Reuben and Gad, were pre-eminently nomadic. They had a 'very great multi'tude of cattle.' For this they desired the land, and for this it was given to them, 'that they might build cities for their little 'ones, and folds for their sheep.' 1 In no other case is the relation between the territory and its occupiers so expressly laid down, and such it continued to be to the end. From first to last, they alone of the tribes never emerged from the state of their Patriarchal ancestors. Gad and Reuben accordingly divided the kingdom of Sihon between them—that is, the territory between the Arnon and the Jabbok, and the eastern side of the Jordan valley up to the Lake of Chinnereth,2 or Gennesareth. Reuben was the more purely pastoral of the two, and therefore the more transitory. 'Unstable as water,'' he vanishes away into a mere Arabian tribe; 'his men are few ;'4 Reuben. it is all that he can do 'to live and not die.' The only events of their subsequent history are the multiplication of 'their cattle in the land of Gilead;' their 'wars' with the Bedouin 'sons of Hagar;' 5 their spoils of 'camels fifty thousand, 'and of sheep two hundred and fifty thousand, and of asses 'two thousand.' In the chief struggles of the nation Reuben never took part. The complaint against him in the Song of Deborah is the summary of his whole history. 'By the 'streams" of Reuben ' 6—that is, by the fresh streams which descend from the eastern hills into the Jordan and the Dead Sea, on whose banks the Bedouin chiefs then, as now, met to debate by the "streams" of Reuben, great were the ""debates." Why dwellest thou among the sheep "troughs" to 'hear the "pipings" of the flocks? By the "streams" of 'Reuben great were the searchings of heart.' 666 Gad has a more distinctive character. In the forest region south of the Jabbok, 'he dwelt as a lion.' Out of his tribe Gad. came the eleven valiant chiefs who crossed the ford of the Jordan in flood-time to join the outlawed David, 'whose faces 'were like the faces of lions, and were as swift as 'the "gazelles" upon the mountains.' These heroes also were the Bedouins of their own time. The very name of Gad expressed the wild aspect which he presented to the wild tribes of the East. Gad is "a troop of plunderers ; » 2 a troop ' of plunderers shall "plunder” him, but he shall "plunder " at 'the last.' The northern outposts of the eastern tribes were intrusted to that portion of Manasseh which had originally attacked and expelled the Amorite inhabitants from Gilead. The Manasseh. same martial spirit which fitted the western Manasseh to defend the passes of Esdraelon, fitted 'Machir, the firstborn 'of Manasseh, the father of Gilead,' to defend the passes of Haurân and Anti-Libanus; 'because he was a man of war, 'therefore he had Gilead and Bashan.' The pastoral character common to Gad and Reuben was shared, but in a much less degree, by these descendants of the ruling tribe of Joseph. It is evident that with a country so congenial, and a geographical separation so complete, a disruption might be at once anticipated between these pastoral tribes and their western brethren, similar to that which some centuries later, from other causes, dismembered the monarchy of David. One of the most famous texts in the Bible is founded on the apprehension of this probable calamity, when Moses warned the Trans-Jordanic tribes that they were bound to follow their brethren to assist in the conquest of Western Palestine. 'If 'ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord : 'and be sure your sin will find you out.' 3 How it would have found them out, we can see from the fate of Reuben. nearest actual approach to a breach was on the return of the eastern tribes after the western conquest, when their simple pastoral monument of stones was mistaken by the other tribes for The 'out.' Amongst the many sermons which have been published on this text, I may refer to one of remarkable excellence by the late Rev. J. H. Gurney. an altar. It was put up, apparently, by Bohan the Reubenite, and called after his name, between the fords and the mouth of the Jordan. They were pursued by Phinehas, between the ready for another sacred war, like that in which he western had destroyed the Midianites. The whole transac Controversy eastern and tribes. tion 2 is an instance of what has often occurred afterwards in ecclesiastical history. What was meant innocently, though, perhaps, without due regard for the consequences, is taken for a conspiracy, a rebellion, an attempt to overthrow the faith. There are always theologians keen-sighted to see heresy in the simplest orthodoxy and superstition in the most harmless ceremony. There have been places where it has been impossible, without incurring dangerous suspicions of idolatry, to mention the Cross of Christ. There have been those, from the first ages of the Church downwards, before whom it has been impossible, without incurring dangerous suspicions of Atheism, even to profess the Christian religion. The solution of the controversy between the two pastoral eastern tribes and their western brethren in the Jewish Church is one which might have saved the schism of the Eastern Church from the Western, and have prevented many bitter controversies and persecutions in all Churches. On the one hand, the Reubenites and their companions said: 'The Lord God of Gods, the Lord God of Gods, He 'knoweth, and Israel he shall know. If it be in rebellion, or if ' in transgression against the Lord, save us not this day.'3 It is a text invested with a mournful interest-for it is that on which Welsh, the minister of the army of the Covenanters, preached before the battle of Bothwell Bridge. Whether or not it was sincerely used in that later application, on this, its first occasion, it truly expressed the absence of any sinister intention, and it was accepted as such even by the fierce, uncompromising Phinehas. 'This day we perceive that the • Lord is among us, because ye have not committed this trespass ' against the Lord: now ye have delivered the children of 1 1 Josh. xv. 6; xxii. 11. 2 Josh. xxii. 13. Ibid. 22. Israel out of the hand of the Lord.'1 Its intention. He did not push matters to extremities-he was thankful to have been spared the great crime of attacking as a moral sin what was only an error (if so be) of judgment. Alas! how seldom in the history of religious divisions have thanks been returned for a deliverance from a crime which many religious leaders have regarded as a duty and a blessing! The eastern tribes returned to their distant homes. Their reward was that, in after ages, slight as the connexion might be with the rest of the nation, it was never entirely broken. Legend of One reminiscence of this connexion is preserved in a splendid legend of the Samaritans. It records how, when at the close of his campaigns, Joshua was beset not merely with the armies, but with the enchantments, of the Canaanite and Persians, and imprisoned within a sevenfold wall of iron, a carrier pigeon conveyed the tidings of his situation to Nobah, who sprang from his judgment-seat, and with a shout that rang to the ends of the universe, summoned his Trans-Jordanic troops around him. They came in thousands. One band, clothed in white, rode on red horses; another, clothed in red, rode on white horses; a third in green, on black horses; a fourth in black, on spotted horses. Nobah himself rode at their head on a steed beautiful as a panther, fleet as the winds. He approaches, under cover of a hurricane, which drives the birds to their nests, and the wild beasts to their lairs, and enters the plain of Esdraelon. The mother of the Canaanite king, like the mother of Sisera, or like the watchman on the walls of Jezreel,2 goes up to the tower to worship the sun. She sees the advancing splendours, and she rushes down to announce to her son that 'the moon and the stars are rising from the East: woe to us, if they be enemies! 'blessed are we, if they are friends!' A single combat takes place between Nobah and the Canaanite king, each armed with his mighty bow. At last, the king falls-by the spring that gushed forth, 'known even to this day as the Spring of the 'Arrow.' At Joshua's bidding the priests within the seven Judg. v. 28; 2 Kings ix. 17. 'Josh. xxii. 3. 2 |