It is still further confirmed by the fact that Gibeon was differently governed from the rest,* as well as by another fact which Movers points out, the.t the Hi,ites were scattered over Palestine. t The term Canaanite is regarded by l\foyers as 1·eferring, not to a genealogical descent, but to the situa.tion of the inhabitants in the lowlands of Palestine, while Perizzito in his opinion means the separated or scattered agricultural families (see eh. iii. 10). Thus it seems not at all improbable that a variety of races may have emigrated to the shores of the Mediterranean, have adopted the same language, manners, and religious customs, t and constituted what has been known to history as the Phrenician people. The Phrenician religion seems to have been the parent of the religions of Greece and Rome. Baal seems to have been equivalent to Zeus, and Ashtaroth § to have combined the characteristics of Artemis and Aphro- dite. Asherah was the prototype of Rhea or Cybele, and her rites seem to have consisted in a combination of the phallic worship with the idea of the fecundity of nature. The worship of Moloch was not known to the Israelites till later times, and he is thought by some to have been an Ammonite deity and identical with Milcom. Yet it is probable that in the worship of the Phcenician representatives of Cronos, the bloody rites ascribed in the Scripture to Moloch were observed, II Thammuz, 'IT known later as Adonis, was fabled to have died on Lebanon, and the temple at Apheka, or Aphaca, was dedicated to the mourning Aphrodite. The remainder of the chief deities known to Greece had their place in the Phrenician, as they appear to have done also in the Babylonian, pantheon. The general character of the worship, as described by Lenormant in his • Manual of the Ancient History of the East,' fully justifies all that is said of it in the books of Moses. " The Canaanites," he says, " were remarkable for the atrocious cruelty that stamped all the ceremonies of their worship, and the precepts of their religion. No other people ever rivalled them in the• mixture of bloodshed and debauchery with which they thought to honour the deity. As the celebrated Creuzer has said, 'Terrar was the inherent principle of this religion ; all its rites were bloodstained, and all its cere- monies were surrounded by bloody images.' " ** Of their political institutions we know but little. They seem, like ancieni Greece, to have been split up into a number of separate states, the great majority of which seem to have &dopted a monarchical, but some, as • Bee notes on eh. ix. 3 ; x. 2. t Bee note on eh. iii. 10. ! Movers does not fail to remark that the Moabites and Ammonites, though Semitic p~oples, adopted the Phoonician religion. It was difficult, he might have added, to prevent the Jews from doing the same. § Bee note on Ashtaroth, eh. xii. 4. Ii Kenrick, 316. Lenonnant thinks he was originally the fire-god. Movers identifies him with Heracles and Ares, as well as with the fire-god or destroying principle. "'. Ezek. :viii. 14. • Vol. ii, p. 223. TO THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. xxvii
Gibeon, a republican government. Society, as has been intimated, wag highly organized among them. They had already reached a high clegree of civilization and culture. The land had long fallen into the hands of private landholders. The slight glimpses we get (as in chs. ii. 1, 2; ix. 1; x. 1, 3, 5; xi, 1, 2) into the interior life of the cities leads us to believe that the kings possessed autocratic power, nor do we read of any assembly of their people in the Book of Joshua. This agrees with the picture of a king given in Deut. xvii. 14-18, taken, no doubt, from the kings of Canaan. The character of the inhabitants seems on the whole to have been peaceful, as we might naturally expect from their mercantile pursuits,* though there seems to have been considerable cohesion among them, since the leagues formed by the northern and southern tribes after Joshua's invasion were apparently formed without any difficulty. This slight tendency to defection, however, may have been due to Joshua's unconcealed purpose of exter- mination, of which the Gibeonites were obviously aware. It seems probable that the kings of Palestine had owed e. sort of feudal allegiance to their Hittite head at Carchemish. But he seems to have had no power to aid them in the time of Joshua. Possibly, therefore, the great Hittite power was already on the wane. The centre was losing its hold on the extremities, and the confederacies of which Jerusalem and Hazor were the heads had become in a great measure independent of the central power. Thie accounts for the fact which otherwise would be surprising, that no attempt was made by the Hittites beyond Palestine to regain their lost territory. Of their literary activity we know but little. Yet the legend of Oadmus, the ancient name of Debir, Kirjath-Sepher, the city of the book, as well as the recent discoveries at Carchemish, prove them to have attained a high pitch of cultivation. Their commercial achievements are better known. Tyre and Sidon retained (see note) to a much later period their mercantile pre-eminence. The colonial development of the Phcenicians arose out of the commercial. It was for trading purposes that these settlements were formed. And so enterprising were they, that while other nations- the Jews among the rest-sought the seas with fear and trembling, the Phrenicians ventured beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and set on foot a brisk trade with the inhabitants of these otherwise unknown islands for tin and other metals. Against such a people was Joshua's memorable expedi- tion directed. Of its leader, and the singular military skill he displayed in the choice of a spot for the invasion, and in his conduct of the enterprise, • Movers, ii. book i. 2 section 2, remo.rks on the absence of any signs o, o. wnrlikc cha.- racter o.mong them in the Book of Genesis, o.nd on their peaceful reception of strangers, o.s evidenced by the whole narro.tive. But society was e'l'idently for more highly organized in the time of Joshua, o.nd, as a no.turo.l consequence of tho wealth go.ined by commerce, not less peaceful, but infinitely more corrupt. xxxiii INTRODUCTION