It was, doubtless, in subservience to this object, and to facilitate the change, that the Israelites were put in possession of a country already in a high state of culti- vation (Deut.vi, 11) , and it was in order to retain them in this condition, to give them a vital interest in it, and to make it a source of happiness to them, that a very peculiar agrarian law was given to them. In stating this law, and in declaring it to have been in the high- est degree wise and salutary, regard must be had to its peculiar object with reference to the segregation of the Hebrew people ; for there are points in which this and other iVIosaic laws were unsuited to general use, some by the very circumstances which adapted them so ad- mirably to their special object. When the Israelites were numbered just before their entrance into the land of Canaan, and were found (exclusive of the Levites) to exceed 600,000 men, the Lord said to INIoses, " Unto these the land shall be divided for an inheritance, ac- cording to the number of names. To many thou shalt give the more inheritance, and to the few thou shalt give the less inheritance ; to every one shall his inher- itance be given according to those that were numbered of him. Notwithstanding the Innd shall be divided by lot : according to the names of the tribes of their fathers shall they inherit" (Numb, xxvi, 33-54). This equal distribution of the soil was the basis of the agrarian law. By it provision was made for the support of 600,000 yeomen, with (according to different calculations) from sixteen to twenty-tive acres of land to each. This land tliev held indciiendent of all tenijioral sui)eriors, by di- rect tenure from .Jehovah their Sovereign, by whose power they were to acquire the territory, and imder Avhose ])rotection they were to enjoy and retain it. " The land shall not be sold forever, for the land is mine, saith the Lord: ye are strangers and sojourners with me" (Lev. XXV, "_':!). Tims the basis of the constitution was an e(iual agrarian law. lint this law was guarded by other jjrovisions cciually wise and salutary. Tlie ac- cumulation of debt was jireventi'd, first, by j-u-ohibiting every Hebrew from accepting interest from any of his fellow-citizens (Lev. xxv,35, 36) ; next, by establishing a regular discharge of debts every seventh year ; and, tinallv, bv ordering that no lands could be alienated for-
ever, but must, on each year of Jubilee, or every sevjnth Sabbatic year, revert to the families which originally possessed them. Thus, without absolutely depriving in- dividuals of all temporary dominion over their landed property, it re-established, everj- fiftieth year, that orig- inal and equal distribution of it which was the founda- tion of the national polity; and as the period of this re- version was fi;xed and regular, all parties had due notice of the terms oir M'hich they negotiated, so that there was no ground for jmblic commotion or private com- plaint. See .Jiiiii.KE.
This law, by which landed property was released in the year of Jubilee from all existing obligations, did not extend to houses in towns, which, if not redeemed ^vitll- in one year after being sold, were alienated forever (Lev. XV, 29, 30). This must have given to property in the country a decided advantage over property in cities, and must have greatly contributed to the essential oliject of all these regulations, by affording an inducement to ev- ery Hebrew to reside on and cultivate his land. Fur- ther, the original distribution of the land Avas to the several tribes according to their families, so that each tribe was, so to speak, settled in the same county, and each family in the same barony or hundred. Nor was the estate of any family in one tribe permitted to pass into another, even by the marriage of an heiress (Nimib. xxvii) ; so that not only was the original balance of property preserved, but the closest and dearest connec- tions of affinity attached to each other the inhabitants of every vicinage. See Inheritance.
It often happens that laws in appearance similar have in view entirely diflferent objects. In Europe the en- tailment of estates in the direct line is designed to en- courage the formation of large properties. In Israel the effect was entirely different, as the entail extended to all the small estates mto which the land was originally divided, so that they could not legally be united to form a large property, and then entailed upon the descend- ants of him by whom the property was formed. This division of the land in small estates among the people, who were to retain them in perpetuity, was emiiKutly suited to the leading objects of the Hebrew institutions. It is allowed on all hands that such a condition of land- ed property is in the highest degree favorable to high cultivation and to increase of population, while it is less favorable to pasturage. The first two were objects which the law had in view, and it did not intend to af- ford undue encouragement to the pastoral life, while the large pastiu-es of the adjacent deserts and of the com- mons secured the country against such a scarcity of cat- tle as the division of the land into small heritages has already produced in France.