Shechem in a piece of ground bought by Jacob, together with the death and burial of Eleazar.

II. UNITY, INDEPENDENCE, DIVERSITY OF THE BOOK. We have already seen that the Elohim-document began with the creation of the world and of man, ending with the conquest and division of Canaan. The scope of it was to shew how the Israelites came into possession of the promised land; and therefore it could not but terminate with an account of the occupation of it. We may therefore suppose that the book of Joshua, or most of it, formed part of the document in question. The latter could not have concluded with the death of Moses (Deut. xxxiv. 9), but must have shewn the fulfilment of the ancient promises and so embraced the time of Joshua. It is also apparent, that the chief regulations of Joshua are indicated beforehand, and the narrative of his doings presupposed. Hence we infer, that the book of Joshua was never distinct from the law. Being partly included in the Elohim-document, it was never separate from it. We cannot therefore agree with such as maintain the original independence of Joshua; though they refer to its contents being rounded off and complete in themselves, as well as to its peculiar diction, differing, as it is alleged, from that of the Pentateuch.

The unity of the book is stoutly defended by all the critics who advocate its independent character, by Koenig, Steudel, and Keil. They allege that it is pervaded by one and the same idea; that its parts hang well together, without presenting contradictions or discrepancies in the narration of facts and in modes of thought and language. Let us examine the contents with the view of ascertaining their unity or diversity.

1. The conquest and occupation of the entire land is ascribed to Joshua in xi. 16-23, where we read: "So Joshua took all that land, the hills and all the south country, and all the land of Goshen, and the valley, and the plain, and the mountain of Israel, and the valley of the same, even from the mount Halak that goeth up to Seir, even unto Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon under mount Hermon and all their kings he took and smote them, and slew them. . . So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord said unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes" (xi. 16-23; comp. xii. 7, 8).

In contrast with this we read in Joshua xiii. 1-6: "Now Joshua was old and stricken in years; and the Lord said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. This is the land that yet remaineth all the borders of the Philistines, and all Geshuri, from Sihor which is before Egypt even unto the borders of

Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanite: five lords of the Philistines, the Gazathites, and the Ashdothites, the Eshkalonites, the Gittites and the Ekronites; also the Avites from the south, all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that is beside the Sidonians, unto Aphek, to the borders of the Amorites; and the land of the Giblites, and all Lebanon, toward the sun rising, from Baal-gad under mount Hermon, unto the entering into Hamath. All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, and all the Sidonians, them will I drive out from before the children of Israel," etc. Such is the survey of many places still unconquered. Had the latter place referred to an earlier period in Joshua's life than the former, the two might be easily harmonised; but on the contrary, it is expressly stated that Joshua was old and stricken in years when so many districts were still unsubdued. No attempt that we have seen to harmonise this discrepancy presents any plausibility. Keil believes,' that the solution lies in xi. 23, "Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord said unto Moses;" but we cannot perceive it. Joshua took all the land specified in xi. 16, 17, parts of which very land are mentioned as untaken in xiii. 2, etc. In the one chapter (xi) some places are represented as subdued which in the other are still unoccupied by the conqueror. This is not obviated by saying, that all the Canaanites were not smitten at once but only the majority of them; such as kept out of the way of Joshua being reserved for future extermination agreeably to the divine promises. It is not obviated by the assumption, that whereas the whole land. was to be given to Israel according to promise, Joshua substantially gained possession of it by his victories. To conquer and not to conquer are more widely separated than this. It is not obviated by the assertion that after great campaigns are decided, petty wars of detail remain; for seven tribes were still to get their territory, shewing how much remained to be taken.

2. There is a discrepancy between x. 36, 38, xi. 21, and xiv. 12, xv. 14-17, compared with Judg. i. 10, 11. In the former places it is related, that Hebron and Debir were conquered, and the Anakim cut off from the mountainous district; but in the latter we see that the Anakim were again occupying these cities and not rooted out till after Joshua's death. We are unable to perceive any proper way of harmonising these places. Hävernick thinks that after Joshua took Hebron and Debir he drove back the Anakim to the mountains, without destroying them. When Caleb received Hebron from Joshua, the mountain district was not free from these Anakim. They were in possession

1 Einleitung, pp. 145, 146, second edition. 2 Handbuch der Einleitung, II. 1. p. 19.

of strongholds, whence they could only be dislodged with difficulty. Not until such places were wrested from them, could it be said that they were wholly subdued. Hence a war began with three powerful tribes of Anakim, which was carried on after Joshua's death by Caleb and Judah. Thus one conquest was partial, leaving room for another which was complete. same view for substance is given by Koenig,' who assumes two conquests of Hebron; while Stähelin conjectures that the writer speaks generally at first, but subsequently enters into details.

We cannot approve of such critical shifts. As far as language can express it, Joshua's conquest of Hebron, Debir, and the Anakim was complete. Of Hebron we read, "they took it and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof, and all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining, according to all that he had done to Eglon; but destroyed it utterly, and all the souls that were therein" (x. 37). The language respecting Debir is similar. In like manner it is said of the Anakim, "And at that time came Joshua, and cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel: Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities. There was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, there remained" (xi. 21, 22). Surely this implies utter extermination of the Anakim, except from the cities specified, and is inconsistent with a partial conquest. It is certainly incompatible with xiii. 1-6. The true solution of the discrepancies in question lies in the fact of different documents and writers, as Knobel has rightly perceived.3

3. There is also a discrepancy between xii. 10, 12, 16, 21, 23, in which verses the kings of Jerusalem, Gezer, Bethel, Megiddo, and Dor are said to have been smitten by Joshua, and xv. 63 according to which Jerusalem remained in the hands of the Canaanites. In Judg. i. 29, Gezer is stated to have been still inhabited by the same people; and in Josh. xvii. 12 Dor and Megiddo are said to have been in the same position. After the death of Joshua, Bethel was taken by the house of Joseph (Judg. i. 22, 23). These texts agree with Joshua xv. 63.

The reply made to this by various critics, viz. that there is a distinction between smiting the kings and taking their cities, is more ingenious than satisfactory. Why should the fate of the kings be separated from that of the places they rule over? Besides, it is expressly stated that Joshua gave their territory

1 Alttestamentliche Studien, I. p. 22.

2 Kritische Untersuchungen ueber den Pentateuch, p. 96. 3 Exeget. Handbuch, xiii. p. 399.

"from Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon even unto the mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir" as a possession to be divided among the tribes of Israel; implying that the places they ruled over were taken from them.

4. The ecclesiastical state of the people under Joshua appears to have been in accordance with the divine law. There was the ark of the covenant, priests, a high priest Eleazar, Levitical cities. Circumcision and the passover were observed. The tabernacle was set up, and the whole congregation assembled beside it. The Reubenites, Gadites, and half tribe of Manasseh "kept all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded them" (xxii. 2). The whole congregation of the children of Israel were indignant that an altar had been built by the Reubenites, lest they should turn away from "following the Lord." But in Joshua's address to the people it is said, that idolatry prevailed among them (xxiv. 23); and this is confirmed by what we find in the period of the Judges, in Othniel's days (iii. 1-11.) A satisfactory reply to this has not been furnished by Keil saying that Joshua does not speak of gross idolatry, but merely of such hankering after strange gods as is consistent with the outward legality of the ecclesiastical condition in which the Israelites were at the time. Joshua's words are, "Put away the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel." Surely this language implies the existence of gross idolatry among the people; not a bare hankering after strange deities, especially as it is added, "and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel" (xxiv. 23). Mere individual instances of disobedience to God's law do not exhaust its meaning. The warm expostulation of the whole congregation with the Reubenites and their associates for building an altar in addition to the altar of Jehovah, is inconsistent with the supposition of the people having foreign gods among them. Besides, it is related that the people assembled at Sichem "under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord" and "they presented themselves before God," implying that the tabernacle and ark were there. But we know from xviii. 1 that the tabernacle had been removed from its former place at Gilgal to Shiloh, where it remained for a long period after Joshua's death (1 Sam. iii. 21; iv. 3); and Shechem was a Levitical city of refuge.

This inconsistency has sorely puzzled commentators, who have indulged in all kinds of hypotheses for the purpose of removing it. Masius, Michaelis, and others endeavour to shew that in xxiv. 26 it is not implied that the sanctuary was at Shechem, because the noun denotes the holy place which Abraham

1 Einleitung, page 146.

had consecrated to the Lord (Gen. xii. 6, 7). This is nearly the same as Mede's view of "the sanctuary," meaning a sort of oratory or house of prayer, which the Ephraimites had erected— the spot being selected because the Lord had appeared there to Abraham. That sense of the Hebrew word is contrary to usage. Others boldly propose reading Shiloh for Shechem in the first verse of Josh. xxiv., but not in the thirty-second verse. This is entirely uncritical. Others again assume, that Shiloh was not a town at the time referred to, but merely the name of the place where the tabernacle was erected. If there were no town there, Shechem may have been of all the neighbouring_places_the most convenient for the general assembly of the people; and, as Horsley conjectures, the site of the tabernacle might have been much nearer to this ancient town of Shechem than the town of Shiloh was to the Shechem of Jerome's time. In opposition to this tissue of arbitrary conjectures it is expressly stated in another place, (viii. 33), that the ark was in the neighbourhood of Shechem. But here again a ready evasion of the difficulty occurs; and it is arbitrarily assumed that viii. 30-35 is misplaced. Accordingly some transpose the passage most unwarrantably to the end of the eleventh chapter; others, as Geddes, to chapter xviii. 1. Sound criticism rejects all such expedients. The only natural method of exposition is to maintain that there were different traditions respecting the ark's resting-places; giving rise to varying statements in the book of Joshua.

Such are some of the discrepancies that appear in the contents of the book before us. That they can be harmonised is perhaps possible; but it is very improbable.

The

It has been affirmed, that the discrepancies are owing to misapprehension of one fact, viz., that there were two distributions of territory, the first, of the conquered country in the southern half of Palestine; the second, some years after, of territory as yet only partially subdued, and which it was expected that the tribes would be able, with the help of their nearest neighbours, to clear for themselves. Admitting however this fact, we are unable to see the magic power ascribed to it in removing an immense body of special and false criticism. Let us see. alleged second distribution begins at the eighteenth chapter. The first is noticed in the fourteenth chapter, fifth verse. We should be glad to know how this twofold distribution of territory reconciles xi. 23; "Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord said unto Moses," the whole land being previously explained as stretching from "the mount Halak that goeth up to Seir, even unto Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon under mount Hermon" (xi. 16, 17), with "the land that remained to be possessed," viz., "from Sihor which is before Egypt even unto