DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4641#0019
. ISRAEL. 11
Jordan, the people found an obstacle which they possessed no human means of surmounting, a river
in a state of inundation, spreading beyond its usual channel, a deep and rapid torrent. The order of
march was now changed, and the tabernacle remained no longer in the centre of the tribes; God was
their chieftain, and He led the way. The tabernacle was borne to the front, the host followed. As
the foot of the priest touched the river, it shrank before him, and, by a new miracle, as in the passage
of the Red Sea, the whole host marched over dryshod, and established their camp on the enemy's shore.
Their first conquest was alike by miracle. As God had shown himself the guide, He showed himself
the conqueror.1 Jericho, the first city on their march, was made his exclusive conquest: it was
forbidden to be assailed by arms; the ark was carried round it, the priests blew their trumpets, and the
battlements fell; the trophy alone of the irresistible Lord who led the armies of Israel.
From this period the history assumes more distinctly the form of civil government, and, until the 1451
B.C.
building of the temple, then distant 447 years, exhibits alternately the Divine agency, and the general
influence of human weakness and wisdom. But the first legislative act of Joshua was altogether
supernatural. It was the division of Palestine among the people.
This event has had no example in human annals. In the ages of heathen conquest, and still later,
in the feudal era, there have been arbitrary allotments of territory, on condition of service; but none bear
a comparison with the great Jewish division, in its extent, its personal advantages, and its national
security. By the Divine command, Palestine was divided into twelve provinces, one for each tribe, and
the partition reached downward, until every family was provided for; and this provision was not merely for
life, but for ever. Debt, which formed the misery of the lower classes in heathenism, and, in its heavier
pressure, sank them into hopeless slavery, could weigh down no man in Palestine; every seven years brought
a fall discharge of the debtor, and a full release of the bondsman. The alienation of estates, which in later
ages embitters life, and extinguishes families, could not take place in Israel; for at the end of every fifty
years, on the proclamation of the jubilee, all estates reverted to their original owners. The most ample and
studied preparation was made for passing existence in rational, healthful, and elevated enjoyments. The
national occupation was wholly in the garden and the field; all Judea was one vast scene of agriculture; man
was not self-condemned to darkness, exhaustion, and disease, in those wasting and melancholy labours,
which later necessities inflict on him in the manufactory and the mine. The man of Israel was a free,
cheerful, and vigorous being; a proprietor of the land which he cultivated ; retaining it by a title which no
human power could enfeeble; sitting under the forest and the fruit tree which he had planted with his own
hands, and secure of transmitting his innocent and lovely wealth to his remotest posterity. His soil
luxuriant, his climate the finest in the world, his country divinely shielded from foreign force and
domestic convulsion; what could add to the substantial happiness of this favourite of Heaven ?
But, independently of the enjoyments which every man might find for himself in the animation and
the abundance of pastoral life; the year was a succession of great festivals, some solemn and magnificent, some
cheering and graceful, and all interesting from their variety, their beauty, and their vivid connexion with the
memory of their forefathers. Of the three chief celebrations, the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of
Tabernacles, each was fixed at the gathering of a peculiar harvest,— the barley, the wheat, and the vine,—
1 Joshua vi.
Jordan, the people found an obstacle which they possessed no human means of surmounting, a river
in a state of inundation, spreading beyond its usual channel, a deep and rapid torrent. The order of
march was now changed, and the tabernacle remained no longer in the centre of the tribes; God was
their chieftain, and He led the way. The tabernacle was borne to the front, the host followed. As
the foot of the priest touched the river, it shrank before him, and, by a new miracle, as in the passage
of the Red Sea, the whole host marched over dryshod, and established their camp on the enemy's shore.
Their first conquest was alike by miracle. As God had shown himself the guide, He showed himself
the conqueror.1 Jericho, the first city on their march, was made his exclusive conquest: it was
forbidden to be assailed by arms; the ark was carried round it, the priests blew their trumpets, and the
battlements fell; the trophy alone of the irresistible Lord who led the armies of Israel.
From this period the history assumes more distinctly the form of civil government, and, until the 1451
B.C.
building of the temple, then distant 447 years, exhibits alternately the Divine agency, and the general
influence of human weakness and wisdom. But the first legislative act of Joshua was altogether
supernatural. It was the division of Palestine among the people.
This event has had no example in human annals. In the ages of heathen conquest, and still later,
in the feudal era, there have been arbitrary allotments of territory, on condition of service; but none bear
a comparison with the great Jewish division, in its extent, its personal advantages, and its national
security. By the Divine command, Palestine was divided into twelve provinces, one for each tribe, and
the partition reached downward, until every family was provided for; and this provision was not merely for
life, but for ever. Debt, which formed the misery of the lower classes in heathenism, and, in its heavier
pressure, sank them into hopeless slavery, could weigh down no man in Palestine; every seven years brought
a fall discharge of the debtor, and a full release of the bondsman. The alienation of estates, which in later
ages embitters life, and extinguishes families, could not take place in Israel; for at the end of every fifty
years, on the proclamation of the jubilee, all estates reverted to their original owners. The most ample and
studied preparation was made for passing existence in rational, healthful, and elevated enjoyments. The
national occupation was wholly in the garden and the field; all Judea was one vast scene of agriculture; man
was not self-condemned to darkness, exhaustion, and disease, in those wasting and melancholy labours,
which later necessities inflict on him in the manufactory and the mine. The man of Israel was a free,
cheerful, and vigorous being; a proprietor of the land which he cultivated ; retaining it by a title which no
human power could enfeeble; sitting under the forest and the fruit tree which he had planted with his own
hands, and secure of transmitting his innocent and lovely wealth to his remotest posterity. His soil
luxuriant, his climate the finest in the world, his country divinely shielded from foreign force and
domestic convulsion; what could add to the substantial happiness of this favourite of Heaven ?
But, independently of the enjoyments which every man might find for himself in the animation and
the abundance of pastoral life; the year was a succession of great festivals, some solemn and magnificent, some
cheering and graceful, and all interesting from their variety, their beauty, and their vivid connexion with the
memory of their forefathers. Of the three chief celebrations, the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of
Tabernacles, each was fixed at the gathering of a peculiar harvest,— the barley, the wheat, and the vine,—
1 Joshua vi.