The original promise made to Abraham of the land of Palestine was solemnly repeated to Isaac (Gen. xxvi, 3), the reason assigned being because "Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws," while it is expressly declared that the earlier inhabitants of the country Avere dispos- sessed and destined to extermination for the greatness of their iniquity. The possession of tlie ])roniised land was embraced by Isaac in his dying bouedirtion to Ja- cob (Gen. xxviii, 3, 4), to whom God vouchsafed (Gen. xxviii, 15; see also xxxv, 10, 11) to give a renewed as- surance of the destined inheritance. That this dona- tion, however, was held to be dependent for the time and manner of its fulfilment on the divine will, appears from Gen. xxxiii, 18, where Jacob, on coming into the land of Canaan, bought for a hundred pieces of money " a parcel of a field, at the hand of the children of Ha- mor." Delayed though the execution of the promise was, confidence never deserted the family of Abraham, so that Joseph, dying in the land of Egypt, assured his brothers that they would be visited by God and placed in possession of Canaan, enjoining on them, in this con- viction, that, when conducted to their possession, they should carry his bones with them out of Egypt (Gen. I, 25). A promise thus given, thus repeated, and thus be- lieved, easily, and indeed unavoidably, became the fun- damental principle of that settlement of property which Moses made when at length he had effected the divine will in the redemption of the children of Israel. The observances, and practices too, which we have noticed as prevailing among the patriarchs, would, no doubt, have great influence on the laws which the Jewish leg- islator originated or sanctioned. The land of Canaan was divided among the twelve tribes descended through Isaac antl Jacob from ^Vbraham. The division was made by lot for an inheritance among the families of the sons of Israel, according to the tribes, and to the number and size of families in each tribe. The tribe of Levi, how- ever, had no inheritance ; but fortj'-eight cities with their suburbs were assigned to the Levites, each tribe giving according to the number of cities that fell to its share (Numb, xxxiii, 50; xxxiv, 1; xxxv, 1). The inheritance thus acquired was never to leave the tribe to which it belongecl; every tribe was to keep strictly to its own inheritance. An heiress, in consequence, was not allowed to marry out of her own tribe, lest property should pass by her marriage into another tribe (Numb. xxxvi, 6-9). This restriction led to the marriage of heiresses with their near relations : thus the daughters of Zelophehad " were married unto their father's broth- er's sons," " and their inheritance remained in the tribe of the family of their father" (ver. 11,12; comp. Joseph. A nt. iv, 7, 5). In general cases the inheritance went to sons, the first-born receiving a double portion, '• for he is the beginning of his father's strength." If a man had two wives, one beloved, the other hated, and if the first- born were the son of her who w-as hated, he neverthe- less was to enjoy '• the right of the first-born" ( Dent, xxi, 15). If a man left no sons, the inheritance passed to his daughters; if there was no daughter, it went to his brothers ; in case there were no brothers, it was giv- en to his father's brothers; if his father had no brothers, it came into possession of the nearest kinsman (Numb, xxvii, 8). The land was Jehovah's, an<l could not, tlicre- fore, be permanently alienated. Sec Hlsbandkv. Ev- ery fiftieth year, whatever land had been sold returned to its former owner. The value and price of land nat- urally rose or fell in proportion to the number of years there were to elapse prior to the ensuing fiftieth or jubi-
INHIBITION
586
INK
lee vear. If he who sold the land, or a kinsman, could redeem the land before the }-ear of jubilee, it was to be restored to liim on his paying to the purchaser the value of the produce of the years remaining till the jubilee. Houses in villages or unwalled towns might not be sold forever; they were restored at the jubilee, and might at any time be redeemed. If a man sold a dwelling-house situated in a walled city, he had the option of redeem- ing it within the space' of a full year after it had been sold : but if it remained unredeemed, it belonged to the purchaser, and did not return to him who sold it even at the jubilee (Lev. xxv, 8, 23). The Levites were not al- lowed to sell the land in the suburbs of their cities, though they might dispose of the cities themselves, which, however, were redeemable at any time, and must return at the jubilee to their original possessors (Lev. xxvii, 16). See Land.
The regulations which the laws of Moses established rendered wills, or a testamentary disposition of (at least) landed property, almost, if not quite unnecessarj' ; we accordingly find no provision for anything of the kind. Some dithculty may have been now and then occasioned when near relations failed ; but this was met by the tra- ditional law, which furnished minute directions on the point (Mishna, Baha Balhra, iv, 3, c. 8, 9). Personal property woidd naturally follow the land, or might be bequeathed by word of mouth. At a later period of the Jewish polity the mention of wills is found, but the idea seems to have been taken from foreign nations. In princely families they appear to have been used, as we learn from Josephus (Ant. xiii, 16, 1 ; xvii, 3, 2 ; Wai; ii, 2, 3) ; but such a practice can hardly suffice to establish the general use of wills among the people. In the New Testament, however, wiUs are expressly mentioned (Gal. iii, 15; Heb. ix, 17). Michaelis {Commentarits, i, 431) asserts that the phrase (2 Sam. xvii, 23 ; 2 Kings xx, 1) " set thine house in order'" has reference to a will or tes- tament. But his grounds are by no means sufficient, the literal rendering of the words being, "give com- mands to thy house." The utmost which such an ex- pression could inferentially be held to comprise in re- gard to property is a dying and final distribution of per- sonal property; and we know that it was not iniusual for fathers to make, while yet alive, a division of their goods among their children (Luke xv, 12 ; Rosenm idler, Morf/enl. v, 197). — Kitto. See Heiutage.