The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 269

EXPOSITION. CHAPTER XIII. 1-33. sessions of particule.r families, still Jess of individual landowners. J oshna and Caleb THE DIVISION OF THE TEIIBITOBY.-Ver. 1. are the only exceptions. Knobel observes -Now Joshua was old. This is uswilly re- that the most powerful tribes were first garded as the second part of the Book of settled in their territory~those, namely, of J oshna ; the first being devoted to the his- Judah and Joseph. He remarks that the tory of the conquest of Palestine, while the author must have had written sources for his second is engaged with the history of its informe.tion, for no single Israelite could di vision among the conquerors. Dean have been personally acquainted with all the Ste.Dley, in his 'Sinai and Palestine,' as details here given. And stricken 1n yea.re. well as in his ' Lectures on the History of Rather, advanced in age. There is no founda- the Jewish Church,' describes this por- tion for the idea of some commentators that tion of the Book of Judges as the 'Domes- the Jews, at the time this book was written, day Book ' of the land of Canaan, and the made any formal distinction in these words remark has been constantly repeated. There between different stages of old age. The is, however, a considerable difference be- Hebrew language rejoiced in repetition, and tween the great survey of the Conqueror and this collllDon phrase is only a means of this one. The former was an accurate ac- adding emphasis to the statement already count, for purposes of taxation, national made. And there remalneth yet very much delence, and public order, of the exact extent land to be possessed, The Hebrew 1~t;) is of soil owned by each landowner, and it stronger than our version. Perhaps the best went so far as to enumerate the cattle on his equivalent in modern English is, "And the estate, to the great disgust of the Saxon a,rumnt of land that remainethforus to occupy chronicler, who had an Englishman's chslike is ven; great indeed." We may observe here of inquisitorial proceedings. There is no that, as with the literal so with the spiritual tra.ce eitlter of such completeness, or of Israel, whether the antitype be the Christian such an inquisitorial character in this sur- Church or the human heart, the work of vey? neither has it quite the same object. It subduing God's enemies is gradual. One assigns to each tribe the limits of its future successful engagement does not conclude the possessions, and enumerates the cities con- war. The enemy renews his assaults, and tained in each portion of territory. But it when force fails he tries fraud ; when direct t:nakes scarcely any effort to describe the fOB· temftatione are of no avail he resorts to oa. XIII. 1-88.) THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. 218