The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 9

During their long halts in the wilderness there had been some preparation for it; and a fertile tract will tempt even permanently noma,lic tribes to settle long enough to sow ELnd reap a harvest. And now that the Israelites had reached their goal, and looked forward to no more wandering, we need not suppose that the wanderers settled down o.t once, each on his own allotment. Within the limits of each tribe there would be room enough for much changing before a permanent home was m!Lde ; for the theory that the divisions of property made by the Canaanites were adopted, just as they stood, by the Israelites cannot be regarded as probable, or more than in a very remote degree possible. Everything Canaanitish was an abomination. Be this as it may, the important fact remains that during this period a large portion of the Israelites became agricultural. The change from a life of isolation to one of constant intercourse with others was scarcely less pregnant with results. The hermit-nation had returned after long years of solitude into the world; and had at once come in contact with nations whose language was near enough to their own to render intercourse easy, and moreover who, in trade, and art, and civilisation generally, were greatly in advance of themselves. As we might expect, this was specially the case with the nations who inhabited the sea-board of Palestine, and whose opportunities for co=erce were the greatest-the Phrenicians and the Philistines. Tyre and Sidon had ah·eady reached a condition of strength and prosperity, and seem, like the nation of traders that they were, at once to have made the coming of the Israelites a mere matter of business. Neither side appears to have attempted to molest the other, and commercial relations soon began to exist between the Phrenicians and the Israelites. It would seem that the easy-going life of the Sidonians had passed into a proverb (Judg. xviii. 7); the fact probably being that, so long as their co=erce was secure, they never troubled themselves to fight for anything ;-the "peace-at- all-price" policy of a mercantile nation. It was very much otherwise with the Philistines. Their intercourse with the Israelites was by no means of so friendly a nature. Immigrants like the Phrenicians and the Israelites, but at a very early age, they were much less disposed than either to rest peaceably within the limits of the te1Titory which they had occupied. They were a warlike rather tllan a com- mercial people, and seem to have possessed a considemble military organization. Tlleir five confederate cities, Gaza, Askelon, Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron, were strong enough to dispossess Dan, to conquer J udall, and towards tile end of this period to make their heavy hand felt in other tribes as well. While the Phrenicians remained friendly or indifferent towards the new-comers, the Philistines were actively aggressive. The attitude, therefore, of these two important nations towards the Israelites mo.y serve very well as samples of the ve.rie,l influences to which the Chosen People were subjecte,l now that they had come into contact at every corner of the land, and here and there in the very centJ:e of it, with strangers, Roughly speaking, the Isro.elites held the hill-country while the Canaanites held the plains. The Israelites had hardly anything but infantry, a.nd in the plains, where cavalry and chariots were most effective, they were at a. great disadvantage against the Canaanites, who were often very strong in both. It is scarcely too much to say that throughout the greo.ter pa1t of their sojoum in Palestine, the Ismelites were not mo.sters of their own plains ; these were so constantly a.t the mercy of either Ca.naanites or Syrians. These two facts-the change from a nomadic to a stationary aml generally an agricultural life, o.nd the io.terconrse, friendly or hostile, with other nations-are xii lNTRODUCTION TO TlIE B:ISTORICAL BOORS: