action, he left standing, and gave the cattle and plunder to the soldiers. * country on the west side of the Jordan, he took up his residence at a place near Shiloh,* where after the wars the tabernacle was set up, that he might have the opportunity, as occasion should offer, of consulting the divine oracle. After defeating this powerful army, Joshua pursued his route to the most distant parts of Canaan; and, by degrees, subdued all the inhabitants of the country. He slew all their kings, who were thirty-one in number, After being here a few days, Joshua together with the Anakims, or giants, of assembled together the auxiliaries (namely, whom he left none remaining, except at the tribes of Reuben and Gad, with the Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod. half-tribe of Manasseh), and gave them an He acknowledged honorable dismission. the great services they had done him in his wars with the Canaanites, and highly applauded their courage and fidelity. He exhorted them, as they were now going to be separated from the tabernacle, to be diligent in their duty to God, and to bear always in mind those laws which he had given them by his servant Moses. He advised them to distribute a share of the rich booty they had got among their brethren on the other side of Jordan; because, though they did not partake of the troubles of the war, they had nevertheless been of infinite service in protecting their families during With these acknowledg Joshua, having now extended his conquests as far as he thought necessary at present, resolved to divide the country he had taken among the nine tribes and a half who were yet unprovided for, and to dismiss the two tribes and a half (namely, those of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh) who had assisted him in the wars, and whose habitations had been settled by Moses on the east side of the river Jordan. In consequence of this resolution, Joshua appointed commissioners to take a survey of the captured land, and ordered them to report the state of it with all expedition. These messengers having executed their commission, returned. at the expiration of seven their absence." months, to Joshua, to whom, having deliv-ments and exhortations, together with many ered their report, he, assisted by Eleazar the sincere wishes for their prosperity, Joshua high-priest, the elders, and the princes of dismissed them, and they immediately dethe respective tribes, divided the whole parted for their own country. country into equal portions, for which (according to God's direction) each tribe cast lots; but as some of the tribes were larger, and some territories richer than others, he took care to adjust the proportion of land to the largeness of the tribe, and the number of families in each; so that, notwithstanding they cast lots, the divisions were all made as equal as possible. As soon as Joshua had thus divided the * In Judge. xxi. 19 it is said that Shiloh is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah." In agreement with this the traveller at the present day, going north from Jerusalem, lodges the first night at Beitin, the ancient Bethel ; the next day, at the distance of a few hours, turn aside to the right, in order to visit Seilûn, the Arabic for Shiloh; and then passing through the narrow Wady, which b ings him to the main road, leaves el-Lebbân, the Lebonah of Scripture, on the left, as he pursues the highway to Nablus, the ancient Shechem. Shiloh was one of the earliest and most sacred of the Hebrew sanctuaries. The ark of the covenant, which had been kept at Gilgal, during the progress of the Conquest (Josh. xviii. 1 sq.) was removed thence on the subjugation of the country, and kept at Shiloh As soon as these two tribes and a half arrived on the opposite side of the river Jordan, thy erected an altar near the place where they and their brethren had miraculously passed over, not for any religious use, but as a memorial to succeeding generations, that though they were parted by the river, they were of the same descent and religion, and held an equal right to the tabernacle at Shiloh, and to the worship of God performed from the last days of Joshua to the time of A. B. there, as their brethren on the other side the | had passed to the people, they expressed the Jordan. This had like to have proved of greatest satisfaction at the result of the fatal consequences, for the latter, either from embassy; and the angry thoughts of war being misinformed, or misapprehending the were immediately changed into peace and intent of the altar being erected, fell into a brotherly affection. On the other hand, the violent rage, considering them as apostates Reubenites and their brethren, to prevent from the true religion; and, in order to any future jealousy, or suspicion, called the punish them, assembled their forces at altar they had erected Ed, intending it as a Shiloh, with a resolution of immediately de- standing witness (for so the word signifies) claring war against them. But before they that though they lived at a distance from the proceeded to these extremities, their rulers rest of their brethren, yet they had all but advised them to suspend the execution of one origin, and one God, who was the comtheir wrath till they had sent a deputation in mon God and father of all Israel. order to know their reason for building such This matter being adjusted, and the an altar. This being agreed to, they sent Israelites quietly settled in the possession of Phineas, the son of Eleazar, with ten their conquests on both sides the river princes, one out of each tribe, to expostulate Jordan, Joshua disbanded his forces, and with them on their conduct. On their arriv-retired to Shechem. al Phineas accosted them in very severe No particular occurrence took place from terms, charging them with idolatry and this period till the death of Joshua, which rebellion against the Lord. happened about twenty years after. He was at this time far advanced in years, and finding his dissolution near at hand, he convened a general assembly of the princes and magistrates, with as many of the common people as could be gathered together. As soon as they were met, he harangued them in a very pertinent discourse on the great benefits and protection they had received from the hand of Providence. He pointed out to them in what manner he had preserved them, even in the midst of dangers; and that he had not only relieved them in all their wants and distresses, but had removed them from the most abject, to the most prosperous situation in life. In gratitude to so great a protector and benefactor, he exhorted them to a faithful observance of his laws, and invited them to renew their covenant with God, which their forefathers had made. This being done in very ample and significant terms, he recorded the covenant in the book of the law, and set up a great stone under an oak, near a place of religious worship, as a testimony against them, should they ever after deny God's service. He reminded them of the calamities which God had formerly sent upon them for their worship of Baal-peor; and that, if he had been so severe upon them for the offence of one man (namely, Achan only) what might they not expect, when two tribes and a half were going to make a general revolt? He then concluded by saying, "If ye have done this from any apprehension that the land ye possess on this side the Jordan is unclean, or less holy than ours, because the tabernacle is on our side, return and settle among us where the tabernacle resteth; but by no means rebel against the Lord, nor us, in building you an altar, besides the altar of the Lord.' The Reubenites, Gadites, and Manassites, concerned to hear the ill opinion which their brethren had conceived of them, protested their innocence of any idolatrous intention, and made a solemn appeal to God, that so far were they from setting up an altar in opposition to his, that the only design of the structure they had raised was, to perpetuate their right to the service of the tabernacle, and to secure it to their latest posterity. From this answer the deputies were fully convinced that the accusation laid against their brethren was totally groundless, and instead of having committed a crime, that they had only given an instance of their sincere attachment to their religious duties. The deputies, therefore, after taking a friendly leave, returned to Shiloh, and having communicated the particulars of all that A short time after this Joshua paid the debt of nature, in the one hundred and tenth year of his age. He was buried at Timnathserah, in Mount Ephraim, which city, on the division of the land among the tribes, was given to him by the Israelites, as an acknowledgment for the great services they had received from his administration. Much about the same time died Eleazar, the high-priest, who was likewise buried in FROM Joshua to Samuel (a period of Jehovah was set up; but this was soon about four hundred and seventy-four years) transferred to an idol, or was invoked as an Idolatrous images were the condition of the Israelites varied accord-idol by others. ing as the fundamental law of the state was afterward set up, together with the image of observed or transgressed, exactly as Moses Jehovah, and the Israelites fondly imagined if had predicted, and as the sanctions of the that they should be the more prosperous law had determined. they rendered homage to the ancient gods of the land. The propensity to idolatry, which was predominant in all the rest of the world, thus spread itself among the chosen people like a plague. From time to time, idolatry was publicly professed, and this national treachery to their king, Jehovah, always brought with it national misfortunes. The last admonitions of Joshua, and the solemn renewal of the covenant with Jehovah, failed to produce all the effect intended. That generation, indeed, never suffered idolatry to become predominant, but still they were very negligent with respect to the expulsion of the Canaanites. Only a few tribes made war upon them, and even they However, it does not appear that any form were soon weary of the contest. They spared of idolatry was openly tolerated until that their dangerous and corrupting neighbors, generation was extinct, which, under Joshua, and, contrary to express statute, were satisfied had sworn anew to the covenant with Jewith making them tributary. They even hovah. After that the rulers were unable became connected with them by unlawful or unwilling any longer to prevent the public marriages, and then it was no longer easy worship of pagan deities. But the Hebrews, for them to exterminate or banish the near rendered effeminate by this voluptuous relirelatives of their own families. The He- gion, and forsaken by their king, Jehovah, brews thus rendered the execution of so were no longer able to contend with their severe a law in a manner impossible, and foes, and were forced to bend their necks wove for themselves the web in which they under a foreign yoke. In this humiliating were afterward entangled. Their Canaanit- and painful subjection to a conquering people, ish relatives invited them to their festivals, they called to mind their deliverance from where not only lascivious songs were sung in Egypt, the ancient kindnesses of Jehovah, honor of the gods, but fornication and un- the promises and threatenings of the law: natural lusts were indulged in as part of the then they forsook their idols, who could afford divine service. These debaucheries, then them no help, they returned to the sacred consecrated by the religious customs of all tabernacle, and then found a deliverer who nations, were gratifying to the sensual appe- freed them from their bondage. The refortites; and the subject of Jehovah too readily mation was generally of no longer duration submitted himself to such deities, so highly than the life of the deliverer. As soon as honored by his connections, and worshipped that generation was extinct, idolatry again in all the neighboring nations. At first, crept in by the same way, and soon became probably, a symbolical representation of predominant. Then followed subjection and were not more oppression under the yoke of some neighbor- table: as I have done, so God hath requited ing people, until a second reformation pre- me. This proves that, as we have already on pared them for a new deliverance. Between more than one occasion intimated, the war these extremes of prosperity and adversity, practices of the Israelites especially in the the consequences of their fidelity or treachery treatment of their captives to their divine king, the Hebrew nation was barbarous, and, in many respects, less barcontinually fluctuating until the time of barous, than those of their contemporaries; Samuel. Such were the arrangements of and that even their polished neighbors, the Providence, that as soon as idolatry gained Egyptians, were not in this respect above the ascendency, some one of the neighboring them. Adoni-bezek died soon after at Jeru nations grew powerful, acquired the prepon- salem, to which place he was taken by the derance, and subjected the Hebrews. Jehovah conquerors. They at this time had possesalways permitted their oppressions to become sion of the lower part of that town, and soon sufficiently severe to arouse them from their after succeeded in taking the upper city, slumbers, to remind them of the sanctions of upon Mount Zion, which the Jebusites had the law, and to turn them again to their God hitherto retained. They sacked it and and king. Then a hero arose, who inspired burned it with fire. But as we afterward the people with courage, defeated their ene- again find it in the occupation of the Jebumies, abolished idolatry, and re-established sites, down to the time of David, it seems the authority of Jehovah. As the Hebrews, they took advantage of some one of the in the course of time, became more obstinate subsequent oppressions of Israel to recover in their idolatry, so each subsequent oppres- the site and rebuild the upper city. sion of the nation was always more severe than the preceding. So difficult was it, as mankind were then situated, to preserve a knowledge of the true God in the world, although so repeatedly and so expressly revealed, and in so high a degree made manifest to the senses. * After this general view of the whole period above referred to, we may proceed to the historical details from which that view is collected. Soon after the death of Joshua, and while the contemporary elders still lived, the Israelites made some vigorous and successful exertions to extend their territory. The most remarkable of these exertions was that made by the tribe of Judah, assisted by that of Simeon. They slew ten thousand Canaanites and Perizzites in the territory of Bezek, the king of which, Adoni-bezek (literally, my lord of Bezek "), contrived to make his escape; but he was pursued and taken, when the conquerors cut off his thumbs and great toes. Now this, at the first view, was a barbarous act. It was not a mode in which the Hebrews were wont to treat their captives; and the reason for it that it was intended as an act of just retaliation, or, as we should say, of poetic justice appears from the bitter remark of Adoni-bezek himself: Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my Eleazar the high-priest, as we have seen, did not long survive Joshua; and the remnant of the seventy elders, originally appointed by Moses to assist him in the gov ernment of the nation, soon followed them to the tomb. While these venerable persons lived, the Israelites remained faithful to their divine King and to his laws. But soon after their death the beginnings of corruption appeared. A timely attempt was made to check its progress by the remonstrances and threatenings of a prophet from Gilgal. But although they quailed under the rebuke which was there administered, the effect was but temporary. The downward course which the nation had taken was speedily resumed; and it is strikingly illustrated by some circumstances which the author of the book of Judges has given in an appendix contained in the last five chapters of that book, but which we shall find it more convenient to introduce here in their proper chronological place. The history of Micah furnishes a very interesting example of the extent to which even Israelites, well disposed in the main, had become familiarized with superstitious and idolatrous practices, and the curious manner in which they managed to make a monstrous and most unseemly alliance be tween the true doctrine in which they had been brought up, and the erroneous notions which they had imbibed. A woman of Ephraim had, through a mis prive him of both, and take them to their new settlement. They did so, notwithstanding the protests and outcries of the owner: and as for the Levite, he was easily persuaded to prefer the priesthood of a clan to that of a single family. His descendants continued long after to exercise the priestly office, in connection with this idol, at Dan, which was the name the conquerors gave to the town of Laish: and it is lamentable to have to add, that there is good reason to suspect that this Levite was no other than a grandson of Moses. It would seem that the tribe of Benjamin had much the start of the other tribes in the moral corruption, in the infamous vices, which resulted from the looseness of their religious notions, and from the contaminating example of the heathen, with whom they were surrounded and intermixed. taken zeal, dedicated a large quantity of silver (about five hundred-and fifty ounces) to the Lord, intending that her son should make therewith a teraph, in the hope that by this means she might procure to her house the blessings of One who had absolutely forbidden all worship by images. Her son Micah knew not of this sacred appropriation of the money, and took it for the use of the house. But on learning its destination, and hearing his mother lay her curse upon the sacrilegious person by whom she supposed it had been stolen, he became alarmed, and restored her the silver; and received it again from her with directions to give effect to her intention. This he did. He provided a teraph, and all things necessary to the performance of religious services before it, including vestments for a priest. He set apart one of his own sons as priest, until he should be able to procure a Levite to A Levite of Mount Ephraim was on his take that character. He had not long to way home with his wife, whom he was bringwait. It would seem that the dues of the ing back from her father's house in BethleLevites were not properly paid at this time; hem; and, on the approach of night, he for a young Levite, who had lived at Beth- entered the town of Gibeah, in Benjamin, to lehem, felt himself obliged to leave that tarry till the next morning. As the custom place and seek elsewhere a subsistence. of the travellers was, he remained in the Happening to call at Micah's house, he street till some one should invite them to his gladly accepted that person's offer to remain house. But in that wicked place no hosand act as priest for the recompense of his pitable notice was taken of them until an victuals, with two suits of clothes (one prob- old man, himself from Mount Ephraim, but ably sacerdotal), and eleven shekels of sil- living there, invited them to his home. In ver. Micah was delighted at this comple- the night that house was besieged by the tion of his establishment, and, with most men of the place, after the same fashion and marvellous infatuation, cried, "Now I know for the same purpose as that of Lot had been, Jehovah will bless me, seeing I have a Le- when he entertained the angels in Sodom. vite to be my priest." Things went on tran- The efforts of the aged host to turn them quilly for a time. But it happened that from their purpose were unavailing; and, as the tribe of Dan could not get possession of a last resource, the Levite, in the hope of more than the hilly part of its territory, as diverting them from their abominable purpose, the Amorites retained the plain, which was put forth his wife into the street. She was the most rich and valuable part. They grievously maltreated by these vile people therefore sought elsewhere an equivalent until the morning, when they left her. She territory which might be more easily ac- then went and lay down at the door of the quired. Having ascertained that this might house in which her lord lay; and when he be found in the remote but wealthy and afterward opened it—she was dead. The peaceable town and district of Laish, near Levite lay the corpse upon his beast and the sources of the Jordan, a body of six hastened to his home. hundred men was sent to get possession of There was a rather mysterious custom, in it. From the persons they had previously calling an assembly, by sending to the differsent to explore the country, they had heard ent bodies of persons which were to compose of Micah's establishment; and so far from it a portion of a divided beast (see 1 Sam. manifesting any surprise or indignation, they viewed the matter much in the same light as Micah did himself. They envied him his idol and his priest, and resolved to de xi. 7); and it then became awfully imperative upon the party which received the bloody missive to obey the call which it intimated. To give a horrible intensity to the custom in |