further, that these two ideas are cardinal points in the education of the world. It was these two points especially which were endangered by the contact and contamination of the idolatry and the sensuality of the Phoenician tribes. It is 'better,'-so spoke a theologian of no fanatical tendency,' in a strain, it may be, of excessive but still of noble indignation'it is better that the wicked should be destroyed a hundred times over than that they should tempt those who are as yet 'innocent to join their company. Let us but think what 'might have been our fate, and the fate of every other nation under heaven at this hour, had the sword of the Israelites 'done its work more sparingly. Even as it was, the small portions of the Canaanites who were left, and the nations ' around them, so tempted the Israelites by their idolatrous 'practices that we read continually of the whole people of 'God turning away from His service. But, had the heathen 'lived in the land in equal numbers, and, still more, had they 'intermarried largely with the Israelites, how was it possible, 'humanly speaking, that any sparks of the light of God's 'truth should have survived to the coming of Christ? Would 'not the Israelites have lost all their peculiar.character; and if they had retained the name of Jehovah as of their God, would they not have formed as unworthy notions of His attributes, and worshipped Him with a worship as abominable as that which the Moabites paid to Chemosh or the Philistines to Dagon?

'But this was not to be, and 'Canaan were to be cut off utterly.

therefore the nations of The Israelite's sword, in

' its bloodiest executions, wrought a work of mercy for all the

countries of the earth to the very end of the world. They seem of very small importance to us now, those perpetual 'contests with the Canaanites, and the Midianites, and the Ammonites, and the Philistines, with which the Books of 'Joshua and Judges and Samuel are almost filled. We may ' half wonder that God should have interfered in such quarrels, ' or have changed the course of nature, in order to give one of 'Arnold's Sermons, vi. 35–37, 'Wars of the Israelites.'

'the nations of Palestine the victory over another. But in 'these contests, on the fate of one of these nations of Palestine 'the happiness of the human race depended. The Israelites fought not for themselves only, but for us. It might follow ' that they should thus be accounted the enemies of all mankind,-it might be that they were tempted by their very 'distinctness to despise other nations; still they did God's 'work, still they preserved unhurt the seed of eternal life, and 'were the ministers of blessing to all other nations, even though 'they themselves failed to enjoy it.'

LECTURE XII.

THB BATTLE OF MEROM AND SETTLEMENT OF THE TRIBES.

THE battle of Beth-horon is represented as the most important battle of the Conquest, because, being the first, it struck the decisive blow. But in all such struggles, there is usually one last effort made for the defeated cause. This, in the subjugation of Canaan, was the battle of Merom.

Hazor.

It was a tradition floating in the Gentile world that, at the time of the irruption of Israel, the Canaanites were under the dominion of a single king.1 This is inconsistent with the number of chiefs who appear in the Book of Joshua. But there was one such, who appears in the final struggle, in conformity with the Phoenician version of the event. High up in the north was the fortress of Hazor; and in early times the king 2 who reigned there had been regarded as the head of all the others. He bore the hereditary name of Jabin or 'the Wise,' and his title indicated his supremacy over the whole country, the King of Canaan.' Its most probable situation is on one of the rocky heights of the northernmost valley of the Jordan. The name still lingers in various localities along that region. One of these spots is naturally marked out for a capital by its beauty, its strength, as well as by the indispensable sign of Eastern power and civilisation-an inexhaustible source of living water; and there in later times arose the town of Cæsarea Philippi, from which, in Jewish tradition, Jabin was sometimes called the King of Cæsarea. On the

23

other hand, the place which Hazor holds in the catalogues of

1

Suidas, in voce Canaan.'

2 Josh. xi. 10.

3 Judg. iv. 2, 23.

• See Sinai and Palestine, 397.

Gathering of the Canaanite

the cities of Naphtali1 points to a situation farther south, and on the western side of the plain. Whichever spot be regarded as the residence of Jabin, it was under his auspices that the final gathering of the Canaanite race came to pass. Round him were assembled the heads of all the tribes who had not yet fallen under Joshua's sword. As the kings. British chiefs were driven to the Land's End before the advance of the Saxon, so at this Land's End of Palestine were gathered for this last struggle, not only the kings of the north, in the immediate neighbourhood, but from the desert valley of the Jordan south of the sea of Galilee, from the maritime plain of Philistia, from the heights above Sharon, and from the still unconquered Jebus, to the Hivite who dwelt 'in 'the valley of Baal-gad under Hermon ;' all these 'went out, 'they and all their hosts with them, even as the sand that is 'upon the sea-shore in multitude . . . and when all these 'kings were met together, they came and pitched together at 'the waters of Merom to fight against Israel.'

The new and striking feature of this battle, as distinct from those of Ai and Gibeon, consisted in the 'horses and chariots 'very many,' which now for the first time appear in the Canaanite warfare; and it was the use of these which probably fixed the scene of the encampment by the lake, along whose level shores they could have full play for their force. It was this new phase of war which called forth the special command to Joshua, nowhere else recorded: "Thou shalt hough their horses, and burn their chariots with fire.'

Nothing is told us of his previous movements. Even the scene of the battle is uncertain. The waters of Merom' have been usually identified with the uppermost of the three lakes in the Jordan valley, called by the Greeks 'Samachonitis,' and by the Arabs Hûleh.' Its neighbourhood to what under any hypothesis must be the site of Hazor renders this probable. But, on the other hand, the expressions both of Josephus 2 and 1 Josh. xix. 35-37; 2 Kings xv. 29. See Robinson, Bibl. Res. iii. 3.

"Josephus, who mentions the Lake Samachonitis in Ant. v. 5, § 1, omits all mention of it here, and speaks of the battle

as fought at Beeroth (the wells), near Kedesh-Naphtali (Ant. v. 1, § 18). The expression 'waters' (Josh. xi. 7) is never

used elsewhere for a lake.

of the Sacred narrative point in a somewhat different direction; and it is therefore safer to consider it as an open question whether the fight actually took place on the shores of the lake, or by a spring or well on the upland plain which overhangs it. The suddenness of Joshua's appearance reminds us of the rapid The Battle movement by which he raised the siege of Gibeon. of Merom. He came we know not whence or how, within a day's march on the night before; and then, on the morrow, 'dropped' like a thunderbolt upon them 'in the mountain slopes before they had time to rally on the level ground. Now for the first time was brought face to face the infantry of Israel against the cavalry and war chariots of Canaan. No details of the battle are given—the results alone remain. 'The Lord delivered 'them into the hand of Israel, who smote them and chased 'them,' by what passes we know not, westward to the friendly Sidon, and eastward to the plain, wherever it be, of Massoch or Mizpeh.2 The rout was complete, and the dumb instruments of Canaanite warfare were here visited with the same extremities which elsewhere we find applied only to the living inhabitants. The chariots were burned as accursed. The horses,3 only known as the fierce animals of war and bloodshed, and the symbols of foreign dominion, were rendered incapable of any further use. The war was closed with the capture of Hazor. Its king was taken, and, unlike his brethren of the south, who were hanged or crucified, underwent the nobler death of beheading. This city, chief of all those taken in the campaign, was, like Ai, burnt to the ground.5

Settlement

4

II. And now came the apportionment of the territory among the tribes, which has made the latter half of of the tribes. the Book of Joshua the geographical manual of the Holy Land, the Domesday Book of the Conquest of Palestine.

Two principles have been adopted in the division of land by the conquerors of a new territory-one, specially characteristic of the modern world, and exemplified in the Norman