The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 10

among the chief forces which are at work dming the period of the Judges to mould the netion into the form in which we find it under the early kiugR, And indeed, other seed is being sown to bear fruit in a still more distant future. In the selfish indifference with which one tribe rega.rds the cala.mities of another, in the jealous rirnlry which shows itself between them, especially between the more powerful tribes, we see the first beginnings of the strife which was to end in the permanent disruption of the nation. Deborah complains bitterly of the apathy of Reuben, Dan, and Asher, dming the oppression of Zebulon and Naphtali; and any joint action between Judah and Ephraim was evidently not looked for. Judah is not even mentioned, as if its absence on such an occMion was a matter of course. This silence respecting Judah is not confined to the Song of Deborah. During the whole period there is very little mention of this tribe. On the principle that happy is the nation that has no history, we may consider this silence as being to ·the credit of those whose doings are left 1mrecorded. Simeon, the neighbour of Judah, shares this honourable obscurity. We can only conjecture the cause; but it is not improbable that these two tribes, seclll'e in their mountain fastnesses, remained aloof from the others, neither mixing in their squabbles nor sharing their dangerous intercourse with the heathen. Omitting Ibzan and Shamgar as doubtful, only one of the numerous Judges belonged to Judah-Othniel, who was perhaps the first of the Judges. The reason may have been that, being comparatively free from the disorders which troubled the rest of the Israelites, these two southern tribes had no need of exceptional deliverers and rulers. And even Othniel was not in the strictest sense of Judah. He is called" son of Kenaz" (eh. i. 18), and his elder broLher Caleb is described both as a" Kenezite" (Num. xxxii.12), and also of Judah (~um. riii. 6). The Kenezites belonged to the old inhabitants (Gen. xv. 19), so that some of them at any rate must have been allowed to unite with the tribe of Judah, and to be counted as members of the tribe. This remarkable adoption by on exalted a tribe as Judah is of great interest, and has a parallel in the case of the Kenites. Kenaz was a descendant of Esau; and if the Kenites were Midianites; tl.iey also sprang from Abraham ; so that the Kenezites and Kenites, though not Israelites, were not absolute aliens. The fact that Othniel, the Kenezite, delivered Israel from an in'l'asion which came from the north, seems to show that in this first oppression, and probably in this one only, the whole land was overrun. From most of tl.ie troubles of this period Judah remained exempt; and we have some evidence that this was dne to its own good conduct. First, we have the beautiful picture of quiet and pure domestic life preserved for us in the Book of Ruth, in tremendous contrast to the episodes of Micah and the Danites, the men of Gibeah and the Benjamite war, the act of Jael, and the whole history of Samson and of J ephthah. Secondly, there is the evident superiority of the tribe of Judah, so soon as it emerges from its obscurity under David. True that Judah did not altogether escape the oppression of the Am01ites, and still less that of the Philistines ; yet they were not ground down as were other tribes by these oppressions; and in David's time they more than paid their debt to both. The remainder of the tribes on the west of Jordan were far from united among themselves; but the tendency was to acquiesce in the pretensions of Ephraim, which lost no opportunity of asserting itself. Thus the way was steadily being prepared for the future division of the kingdom. The two-and-a-half tribes on the other side of the Jordan were cut off by this natural barrier from much intercourse with their brethren. Nor were they united among themselves. Here also, as on the west bnnk, the southern•  JOSHUA TO NEHEMIAH. xiii