* v.49 must be a later addition: not only is it out of place after v.59, but ‘ their tent-villages’ (O7°n)n) in v.41, which can refer only to the ‘ Amorites’ of v.39, shows that once v.41 must have immediately followed v.89. The intention of the addition is evidently to legitimize the conquest of Machir, by repre- senting at as sanctioned by Moses.
t V.83, in which, for the jirst, time in the chapter, the ‘half- tribe of Manasseh’ is mentioned, seems plainly to be a later addition, made for the purpose of harmonizing the passage with the representation of Dt and P.
if vy.’ (see note * above) be disregarded, we have in vy.% 41. 42. (Dillm.) ‘a good historical account of the gradual advance of Manassites into the terri- tory E. of Jordan, though not under, but after Moses.’ By the Deut. writers, a large part of the territory E. of Jordan, viz. ‘the rest of Gilead (i.e. the half of Gilead N. of the Jabbok*), and all Bashan, even all the region of ARGoB’ (Dt 3151), is said to have been given specifically by Moses to ‘the half-tribe of Manasseh’ (οἵ. Dt 29%, Jos 12% 138: [LXX, Dillm.] 39 187 227: + for Bashan, also, as belonging to Manasseh, Dt 4, Jos 20° 915. 3), The same half of the tribe is in Jos 1}3 4% (D?) also represented as crossing over Jordan, together with Reuben and Gad, to assist the other tribes in the conquest of Canaan:§ Jos 22'® describes the blessing with which Joshua sent them away to their homes, when they had discharged this task. According to Jos 22°*4 (probably from a special source, allied to P), the Ralf trite took part with Reuben and Gad in building the altar by Jordan, which so nearly led to a rupture between the E. and W. parts of Israel.
All these statements relate to the part of the tribe settled E. of the Jordan. There was, how- ever, another part settled W. of the Jordan ; and J’s description of the territory belonging to this, and of the manner in which it enlarged the lot originally assigned to it, is preserved (imperfectly) in Jos 1710" 3: δ. θα. 100-18. (taken in connexion with 161% 9-10), In J’s account of the conquest, the two divisions of the tribe, Ephraim and Manasseh, are treated as one (16! 1717 185, Jg 1%, where note the expression ‘House of Joseph’); they receive accordingly a single ‘lot’ (16'; ef. 17"), the borders of which are defined in 16!*: the N. border—which would be the N. border of Man- asseh—is now missing. Jos 171%? describes how the Manassite clans were distributed: Machir had Gilead and Bashan; the other clans (Abi'ezer, Helek, Asriel, Shechem, Hepher, and Shemida’) were settled (it is implied) in W. Palestine. Vv.* 9, 100-18 || are fragments of J’s account of the cities of W. Manasseh: all, however, that these frag- ments state is that Tappuah, on its S. border, belonged to Ephraim, and that on the N. the towns of Beth-shean, Ibleam, Dor, En - dor, Taanach, and Megiddo, though actually in the territories of Issachar and Asher, belonged in fact to Manasseh, but that the Canaanites maintained their ground in them (vv.""8, with verbal dif- ferences, =Jg 1°7-*8), The historical significance of this statement is that on the N. Manasseh was confined to the mountains and ‘cut off from the fertile plain of Esdraelon and the tribes which struggled for a foothold beyond it in Galilee by a chain of fortified cities guarding the passes,—Beth- shean being in the Jordan Valley on the east, Ibleam, Taanach, and Megiddo in the centre, where the central highlands slope down into the plain, and Dor on the seacoast, about 15 miles 8S. of Carmel. There follows(vv.'*?8) the curious narrative describing how the children of Joseph (i.e. Ephraim and Manasseh together), finding the hill-country insuflicient for them, and being unable to make their way into the plain on the N. on account of the Canaanites, with their ‘chariots of iron,’ com-
* Cf. Jos 122-15 1331; the other, southern ‘half,’ belonged to Gad (Dt 812).
+ Vv.14. 19 are repetitions (in substance) of Nu 8241. 40, and are, indeed, most probably a later insertion in the original text of Dt (see Dillm.).
t So also in P, Jos 1329 148,
§ In Nu 32 the command to do this is laid upon Reuben and Gad; but nothing is said about its being laid upon the half- tribe of Manasseh.
On vy.5. 6 see Dillmann.
4 The clause relating to En-dor is, however, omitted in LXX and in Jg 127; and its originality is questioned by Dillm., Budde, Ri. τι. S. p. 13; Moore, Judges, p. 46.
MANASSEH
lain to Joshua ; and are advised by him in reply, fe they are the great people that they claim to be, to go up into the mountains and cut down the forest there—i.e., apparently, augment their avail- able territory by clearing the large thickly wooded areas which it still contained (Stade, Gesch. i. 163 ; Dillm.)—and (v.18) apply themselves more vigor- ously to expel the Canaanites. Fragmentary, and in parts obscure, as these notices of JE are, they nevertheless show clearly how imperfectly, for long after the Israelites first entered into Canaan, the W. half of Manasseh—in this re- spect, indeed, not differing from many of the other tribes (Jg 1)—obtained possession of its territory.