Conclusion. Here are now some materials for making an estimate of the population of Palestine-a very vague estimate it must be but certain enough to expose the extravagance of the pentateuchal fable of the exode from Egypt.

The fabulist was compelled by ancient traditions to adopt Gilead as the region from which the ingress of the Hebrews took place; and also to weave into his narrative some of these traditions, as the bases of his stories of Trans-Jordanic conquests, perceptible through his magnifications. The fabulist of Joshua has endeavoured to make it appear that this eponymous leader first subdued almost all the south of Palestine and afterwards almost all the north.

His statements on this subject have been already examined, except his story of the war with Jabin king of Hazor, the consideration of which has been reserved.

It is worthy of observation that there is no indication of any Hebrew territorial sovereign, princes or rulers from the time of Moses to the times of Saul and David.

There is no indication of any such ruler over the Trans-Jordanic Hebrew occupancy, or over the territory of Judah, or over the territory ascribed to Benjamin, or over the territory ascribed to Ephraim.

There is no territorial Hebrew ruler over the regions occupied by Manasseh in Palestine, or over either of those in which Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, or Naphtali, pastured their flocks and herds.

They appear to have been shepherds and herdsmen, families wandering like other nomads under their sheiks, for the most part independent, but occasionally recognising the superiority of elders of the leading families, nomad emirs.

Occasionally a bold sheik or emir obtained a temporary ascendency in some part of the country, by assuming the lead in an invasive or insurrectionary movement, or by instigating scattered septs to a common defence.

Such was Joshua in leading the invasion of the Bene Ephraim, Caleb in leading the Bene Yudah in their invasion.

Such was Othniel in resisting an inroad from the east. Such was Barak in an insurrection against the prince of Hazor. Such was Jepthah in repelling an invasion of the Ammonites. And such was Gideon who drove out the Midianite nomads, who had invaded pastures, which the Hebrew nomads had previously enjoyed.

But none of these established a permanent rule even in the localities in which they established their temporary supremacy. Caleb and Othniel left no successor as prince of Hebron. Even Joshua left no successor as prince of Ephraim. The only Hebrew territorial principality there, was that acquired by Gideon by marriage with a princess of Sechem, to him Abimelech succeeded in his mother's right. But that rule was determined by his death and was never restored.

The migrations are all from Gilead into Palestine. It is, therefore, material to inquire what population each of those countries could, and what they respectively did, contain. The only censuses we have are the inventions of subsequent centuries. One object of this work is to prove that they were not only false but absolutely absurd.

The most liberal mode of estimating the population of Gilead and its emigrants is by the course here adopted, of assuming the immigrations into Palestine to have occurred, not at once, but successively at intervals, as the surplus of population in Gilead arose from time to time.

On the most extravagant assumption of the limits of the TransJordanic Hebrew settlements, adding to Gilead northward all the country to Lake Huleh (the waters of Merom) and southward all the plain of Moab to the river Arnon; the whole length does not exceed 120 miles and its average breadth hardly exceeds 20 miles of land fit for pasture. This gives an area of 2,400 square miles, and allowing so large a population as 200 persons to a square mile of this country almost entirely bare rock and pasture, its extreme population could not have exceeded 500,000 of all ages and sexes.

Assuming that the Hebrews had expelled from Gilead all the earlier races, which is by no means credible, it was not a very large hive for emigration, even on the assumption of a swarm from it once in a generation.

And these dimensions of the country greatly exceed what may be with any confidence gathered from the Hebrew writings. And 200 to a square mile of such a country is an enormous average.

The nature and character of Palestine have already been described. It only remains to refer again to the pastoral character of the immigrants and to the facts that the chief towns were retained by the former owners, and that other nomads, Kenites and Midianites, roved into the more accessible pastures; and to the

almost necessary inference that there was an indigenous rural population.

All this indicates that the original settlements of the Hebrews in Palestine must have been more nearly in tens of thousands at the utmost, than in millions.

CHAPTER VI.

LEGENDS, STORIES, AND TRADITIONS OF THE HEROIC AGE.

THESE legends are all contained in Judges.

The compiler, after giving the legends and traditions as to the settlement of the Hebrews in Palestine, probably, as already suggested, in continuation of a collection from which those in Joshua were derived, introduces an exordium in levitical style, as to the duty of the Hebrews to extirpate all the religions, and, indeed, all the peoples of the land.

The Gilgal is still the kebla and sanctuary of the invaders, and hence is reiterated the Adonite mandate to invade and destroy.

This mandate had not been obeyed by the Hebrews after the death of Joshua and after the generation of invaders which came with him had passed away, wherefore the angelic captain of the host of Adoni did not drive the people out before them.

The exordium proceeds with a general statement that all the difficulties encountered, and all the evils and oppressions endured, arose from disobedience to this command: "Ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars; but ye have not obeyed my voice."

The generation of the pentateuchal fiction had passed away, or rather, had never existed; the command had been forgotten, or, rather, had never been given; the real generation of the Bene Israel knew not Adoni, he was invented in later times; the Bene Israel served Baalim-Baal and Ashtaroth-the gods of the people that were round about them; the religious distinction afterwards so cruelly instituted did not exist. There was no religious animosity between the settlers and the earlier occupants of the land to interfere with kindly relations between them, wherever there was sufficient room, or to prevent their being hospitably received. The new comers took the daughters of the other peoples to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods.

Except where there was not room enough for both, there was peace, with friendly relations, and intercourse throughout the regions in which the Bene Israel settled; and except in the south, and there indeed the contest was between the civilised cultivators of the plains and the fierce and hungry mountaineers, until the Adonite persecutions began.

All the frame-work of the legends is of levitical manufacture, every one of them is set in almost a similar frame, "and the Bene Israel again did evil in the sight of Adoni." This expression prevails throughout the scriptures. It means not that they were in moral conduct worse than other men, but that they did not worship the levitical god.

In this collection as in Joshua, and in almost all the scriptures, reference is made, again and again, to the story of the exode, as though it had been well known. Indeed it is so unnecessarily, inappropriately, and often so absurdly introduced, as to indicate the interpolation of a slightly varied common form. Adoni and his angels tell it over and over again. It is told over and over again to Adoni. It is told by the harlot of Jericho, and by heathen after heathen to those who might be supposed to know all about it. And it often looks like a differently coloured patch sewn upon the original texture of the tale.

Josephus says (Ant. II. v. 7) that the people had grown effeminate as to fighting any more against their enemies, but applied themselves to the cultivation of the land.

The legend of the angel from Gilgal.-Judges ii. 1.--And an angel of Adoni came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers, and I said I will never break my covenant with you.

2. And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this?

3. Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.

4. And it came to pass when the angel of Adoni spake these words unto all the Bene Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and wept. And they called the name of that place Bochim: and they sacrificed there unto Adoni.

INTRODUCTION OF THE COLLECTOR OF JUDGES.-After the message

VOL. I.

L