The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max
346), and independently subjugated the surrounding territory.[682] To the man who should conquer Debir he promised his daughter Achsah to wife, and Othniel his brother's son gained the city and the woman. From Debir the tribe of Judah pressed on to the south, and conquered Zephath and Hormah. "And Jehovah"—so we find it in the Book of Judges—"was with Judah, and he took the mountain and possessed it, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the low ground because they had chariots of iron."[683] The inhabitants of the low ground are the Philistines on the coast, whose power was undoubtedly superior to that of the tribes of Judah and Simeon. The Simeonites, a tribe by no means numerous, settled themselves under the tribe of Judah, and had to be content with the least fertile districts on the southern border.
The tribe of Manasseh, so nearly related to Ephraim, had in part remained beyond the Jordan; the other part settled under the Ephraimites, on their northern border in the region from Hadad Rimmon to the mouth of the Kishon, but they were unable to gain the mastery over the greater number of the cities of the Canaanites situated in this district. The little tribe of Benjamin had settled round Gibeon, perhaps immediately after the battle, between Bethhoron and Jericho, on the southern border of Ephraim. The tribes of Issachar and Zebulon, Asher and Naphtali were the last to acquire settled abodes. Issachar conquered the heights of Tirzah and Gilboa, as far as Tabor; Zebulon planted himself between the right bank of the Kishon and the lake of Kinneroth, in the region of Jokneam and Beth Arbel. Westward of the lakes of Kinneroth and Merom lay the tribes of Naphtali and Asher; the first was nearest to the lake of Merom, in the district of the northern Kadesh; Asher was further to the west, on the borders of the land of Tyre. The tribe of Dan attempted to gain the spurs of the mountain westward of Benjamin towards the sea. For a long time it encamped against the Amorites and the northern cities of the Philistines, Ekron and Gath, but though occasionally supported by Ephraim and Judah, it never gained territory enough for its numbers. When the others had long been fixed in settled abodes, a part of the Danites, finding it impossible to advance to the coast, set out to the north, and took the city of Laish, northward of Kadesh and the land of Naphtali, which belonged to the Sidonians,[684] gave it the name of Dan, and here, as they had become more warlike than the rest, owing to their prolonged battles, maintained the northernmost point of the land of Israel.
The conquest was completed. In the middle of the thirteenth century B.C. the Israelites had broken the power of the Amorites in Canaan, and gained a considerable territory (about 10,000 square miles), of which one-half lay on the nearer and the other on the farther side of the Jordan. But this land, divided by the Jordan, was neither a whole united from within, nor protected by natural boundaries from without. As the Israelites immediately after their first successes became again disunited, and the attack became less powerful at every step in advance, the Canaanites maintained themselves in independence, in separate valleys or heights difficult of approach, and in strong fortresses. Remnants of the Canaanites remained everywhere among and between the Israelites. Beside the Benjamites the Jebusites (a tribe of the Amorites) maintained themselves, and at Gibeon, Kirjath-jearim, Chephirah, and Beeroth were the Hivites, who had made peace with the Israelites. In the land of Ephraim the Canaanites held their ground at Gezer and Bethel, until the latter—it was an important city—was stormed by the Ephraimites.[685] Among the tribe of Manasseh the Canaanites were settled at Beth Shean, Dan, Taanach, Jibleam, Megiddo and their districts,[686] and in the northern tribes the Canaanites were still more numerous. It was not till long after the immigration of the Hebrews that they were made in part tributary.[687] The land of the Israelites beyond the Jordan, where the tribe of Manasseh possessed the north, Gad the centre, and Reuben the south as far as the Arnon, was exposed to the attacks of the Ammonites and Moabites, and the migratory tribes of the Syrian desert, and must have had the greater attraction for them, as better pastures were to be found in the heights of Gilead, and the valleys there were more fruitful. To the west only the tribe of Ephraim reached the sea, and became master of a harbourless strip of coast. The remaining part of the coast and all the harbours remained in the hands of the powerful cities of the Philistines and the Phenicians. No attempt was made to conquer these, although border-conflicts took place between the tribes of Judah, Dan, and Asher, and Philistines and Sidonians. Such an attempt could only have been made if the Israelites had remained united, and even then the powers of the Israelites would hardly have sufficed to overthrow the walls of Gaza, Ascalon, and Ashdod, of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus. Yet the invasion of the Israelites was not without results for the cities of the coast: it forced a large part of the population to assemble in them, and we shall see below how rapid and powerful is the growth of the strength and importance of Tyre in the time immediately following the incursion of the Israelites, i.e. immediately after the middle of the thirteenth century. As the population and in consequence the power of the cities on the coast increased, owing to the collection of the ancient population on the shore of the sea, those cities became all the more dangerous neighbours for the Israelites.
It was a misfortune for the new territory which the Israelites had won by the sword that it was without the protection of natural boundaries on the north and east, that the cities of the Philistines and Phenicians barred it towards the sea, and in the interior remnants of the Canaanites still maintained their place. Yet it was a far more serious danger for the immigrants that they were without unity, connection, or guidance, for they had already given up these before the conflict was ended. Undoubtedly a vigorous leadership in the war of conquest against the Canaanites might have established a military monarchy which would have provided better for the maintenance of the borders and the security of the land than was done in its absence. But the isolated defence made by the Canaanites permitted the attacking party also to isolate themselves. The new masters of the land lived, like the Canaanites before and among them, in separate cantons; the mountain land which they possessed was much broken up, and without any natural centre, and though there were dangerous neighbours, there was no single concentrated aggressive power in the neighbourhood, now that Egypt remained in her borders. The cities of the Philistines formed a federation merely, though a federation far more strongly organised than the tribes of the Israelites. Under these circumstances political unity was not an immediately pressing question among the Israelites; but owing to the dispersion in which they lived, and the open borders of their new kingdom, the question seriously arose whether they could enjoy in peace the land they had won. Whatever the weight with which the want of internal concentration and external repulsion might be felt, whatever the difficulties arising from the remnant of Canaanites left in the land, and however unsatisfactory the maintenance of the borders of the land, these political drawbacks were only so many advantages for the development of the religious and moral life of the Israelites.
FOOTNOTES:
[667] That the chronological statements in the book of Judges afford no fixed point for deciding the date of the invasion of Canaan by the Hebrews is proved by Nöldeke ("Chronologie der Richterzeit"). The genealogical tables give only six or seven generations down to Eli and Samuel, and these cannot fill a longer space than of 150 to 175 years. As Ramses III. whose reign according to Lepsius falls in the years 1269–1244 B.C. fought against the Pulista, Cheta, and Amari, i.e. the Philistines, Hittites, and Amorites, within the first nine years of his reign (p. 164) without meeting the Hebrews among them, we may assume that their settlement in Canaan did not take place till after the year 1260 B.C., about the middle of the thirteenth century, B.C.
[668] Cf. Nöldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 95.
[669] Lev. xxvii. 28, 29.