The five allied kings, in the dispersion of their forces, are related to have taken refuge in a cave, to the mouth of which Joshua, hearing of their concealment, commanded stones to be rolled to secure them, till he should have completed the rout of their followers. This done, they were brought out and put to death, of this, the most amazing, if it actually occurred, of all; comp. Ps. lxxviii. 53-55; cxxxv. 8-12. The Prophet Habakkuk, alluding to the same course of events (Hab. iii. 11), uses similar language to that of the composition which the writer of Joshua quotes; but this too is in the midst of a passage in the boldest style of poetry, and it would be just as reasonable to interpret his words literally, when he speaks of lightning as "the light of God's arrows," and "the shining of his glittering spear," as to give such an exposition to what he says of the sun and moon in the context. The account which I have given above of the poet's meaning, where he spoke of the lingering of the heavenly bodies on their course, only supposes a not violent expansion of a not uncommon form of speech. "Moments would seem by thee a summer day," is the language of poetry, it is true; but we are speaking of poetry, which, if in another tongue, is of a yet bolder spirit; and, while I write, a story comes in my way, which contains the following expression; "The impatience ..... need not be described; hours were years, and a few leagues ten thousand miles." If the laws of modern English prose will tolerate this, I cannot think that I have proposed a rash exposition of a fragment of ancient Oriental poetry." Is not this written in the book of Jasher?" (Josh. x. 13.) A poem composed by David was also inserted in that book, (2 Sam. i. 18); and so, say some of the critics, the book of Joshua, referring to the contents of that of Jasher, must have been written, at least, as late as David's time. But the argument is of no value. The book of Jasher, from its probable etymology (from 1, he sang), and from these two specimens of its contents, appears to have been a collection of poems. As such, it was likely to receive accessions from time to time, while it would be quoted, at its different stages, by the same name. So there was (at all events, there might have been, which is sufficient for our purpose) a book of Psalms from the time of David, who wrote a great part of the collection. But it did not reach its present state till several centuries later. So a book of Proverbs might have been quoted, by that name, by writers of any age between that of Solomon and that of Hezekiah. But not till the reign of the latter prince did our present book of Proverbs exist (see Prov. xxv. 1). — “There was no day like that before it or after it" (Josh. x. 14); the writer, who could use these words, did not intend to be understood as living near to the time of the event which he was recording. and their bodies thrown back into their recent hidingplace; and some large stones, standing, in the writer's time, against the entrance to a cavern, are appealed to by him, after his characteristic manner, as a permanent monument of their fate.* The king and inhabitants of Makkedah were the next victims to Joshua's system of exterminating warfare. "He utterly destroyed .... all the souls that were therein; he let none remain;" and most of the residue of the passage which makes the subject of this Lecture is employed in recounting a succession of such conquests so used. Libnah, Lachish, Gezer, Eglon, Hebron, Debir, and various other cities, of the southern region of Canaan," from Kadesh-Barnea even unto Gaza, and all the country of Goshen even unto Gibeon," one after another, fall before the arms of the unsparing victor, and are converted into heaps of bloody ashes.t The tide of conquest next rolls northwards. By the shore of lake Merom, a great battle was fought against a new confederacy in that quarter, in which Joshua, as usual, triumphed. He followed up his successes as before, putting to death the inhabitants of the captured cities, and sharing the property among his troops, but burning only one of them, the rest being reserved for the future habitations of the conquerors. The writer * Joshua x. 15-27.-"Joshua returned ..... unto the camp to Gilgal" (15), at least a day's march distant; yet his victory, according to the following passage (19, 20), was still incomplete, and presently we find his camp again at Makkedah (21), and not until after several intervening transactions, transferred to Gilgal. The fifteenth verse appears to contradict the rest of the chapter, and it is natural to suppose it derived from a different source. † x. 28-43. "The country of Goshen " (41); not, of course, the Egyptian Goshen, but the confines of a city of that name, afterwards included within the bounds of the tribe of Judah; comp. xv. 51. 66 ‡ xi. 1 – 23. — “ Hazor only, that did Joshua burn" (Josh. xi. 13); re * relieves the record of these events with very little variety of statement. He had taken up the idea, that Moses had doomed every Canaanite to death, and that Joshua intended to execute his will; and, accordingly, his compendious account of the undiscriminating warfare is, "All the spoil of these cities and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe." It is gratifying, however, to know, that this is a statement, which portions of the later history sufficiently contradict. The twelfth chapter presents merely a summary view of the respective conquests of Moses and Joshua on the eastern and the western side of the Jordan, with a full list of the cities said to have been captured by the latter commander, amounting to thirty-one in number. This enumeration constituted a suitable preface to the account, which next succeeds, of the distribution of the conquered territory among the tribes. specting the reason of this exception for Hazor, we have no information. "From all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel" (21); this text is much relied on by critics, who maintain, that the book was compiled subsequently to the division of the Israelitish nation into two kingdoms in the time of Rehoboam. But the argument is altogether unsafe. Nothing is more natural, than that portions of one community, obtaining a separate political existence, should continue to be known by names of earlier origin and use. Texas bore, while a part of Mexico, the name which it still bears as an independent state. Should the Basque provinces ever be severed from Spain, it is likely that their name would survive the revolution. Long before the separation, the tribes of Judah and Joseph constituted two rival interests, and might easily give discriminating names to the portions of country which they respectively inhabited. Also, it would appear, that, in point of fact, the distinction was somehow recognised as early as the time of Saul; comp. I Sam. xi. 8; xv. 4. * Josh. xi. 15. VOL. II. 21 † xi. 14. LECTURE XXVII. THE PARTITION OF CANAAN. JOSHUA XIII. 1. — XXIV. 33. SITUATION AND BOUNDARIES OF CANAAN.-NAMES AND POSITION OF ITS PRINCIPAL MOUNTAINS. THE RIVER JORDAN, THE WATERS OF MEROM, THE LAKE OF GENNESARET, AND THE DEAD SEA.PLAINS OF JORDAN AND ESDRAELON. CLIMATE AND SOIL OF CANAAN, AND ITS CAPACITY OF SUSTAINING A LARGE POPULATION. -TERRITORY OF THE ISRAELITES ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE JORDAN. FAVORABLE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION OF THE ISRAELITES.-DIRECTION TO JOSHUA TO MAKE A PARTITION OF THE COUNTRY. QUESTION RESPECTING THE METHOD OF ASSIGNING THE SEVERAL DISTRICTS. - APPROPRIATION OF LAND TO CALEB, TO THE TRIBE OF JUDAH, AND TO THE TRIBES OF EPHRAIM AND MANASSEH.-SURVEY OF THE RESIDUE OF THE COUNTRY. — APPROPRIATION OF LAND TO THE REMAINING TRIBES. SELECTION OF SIX CITIES OF REFUGE. ASSIGNMENT OF CITIES TO JOSHUA, -TO THE PRIESTS, -AND ΤΟ THE LEVITES. ERECTION OF AN ALTAR BY THE THREE EASTERN TRIBES ON THE BANK OF THE JORDAN. DISCOURSES OF JOSHUA TO THE PEOPLE, AND RENEWAL, AT HIS INSTANCE, OF THEIR COVENANT TO SERVE JEHOVAH. DEATH AND BURIAL OF JOSHUA.- BURIAL OF THE BONES OF JOSEPH.-DEATH AND BURIAL OF ELEAZAR. THE Israelites had now gained possession of the territory formerly occupied by the patriarchs of their race. Before we proceed to observe how it was parcelled out among the several tribes, it will be convenient to consider the general features of its geography. An ancient tradition had declared, that God had promised to Abraham, for his posterity, a country extending from the Mediterranean sea to the river Eu * phrates; and Moses had actually received an assurance, that, eventually, the possessions of his people, while embracing all this extent of territory from west to east, should reach to the Red Sea as their southern limit. But these intimations were only prospective. Between the Red Sea and the southern border of Palestine was a region occupied by the Idumeans, or descendants of Esau, to which the Israelites originally laid no claim, though in the time of David it became theirs by the right of conquest. And the country along the eastern bank of the Jordan had neither been occupied by the ancestors of the race of Israel, nor been included within the divine promise of the land of Canaan. In the course of events it had fallen into their hands, before Moses' death, by the fortune of war. The land of Canaan, properly so called, where the patriarchs had dwelt, and which their posterity, under Moses, were directed to repossess, is particularly described in connexion with the narrative of measures taken by him for the invasion. § It lay at the southeast corner of the Mediterranean sea, extending over somewhat less than one degree of longitude, and, as is generally thought, about two degrees and a half of latitude. || The eastern and western boundaries, viz. the river Jordan, with its lakes, on one side, and the Mediterranean Sea on the other, are definite throughout. I As * Gen. xv. 18. + Deut. ii. 4, 5. That is, from about 310 10' to 33° 40′ of north latitude, and from about 35° to 350 50′ of longitude east from Greenwich; the western boundary does not run along a meridian line, but inclines in a westerly direction from north to south. ¶I speak of these boundaries as they were described and designed. It is true, however, that fortified cities along the coast, and their environs, held out against the Israelites through the whole period of their inde |