Lecture XII: The Battle of Merom and Settlement of the Tribes (part 1)
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley
The battle of Beth-horon is represented as the most
important battle of the Conquest, because, being the
first, it struck the decisive blow. But, in all such
struggles, there is usually one last effort made for the
defeated cause. This, in the subjugation of Canaan,
was the battle of Merom.
It was a tradition floating in the Gentile world, that
at the time of the irruption of Israel, the Canaanites
were under the dominion of a single king. This is
inconsistent with the number of chiefs who appear in
the Book of Joshua. But there was one such, who
appears in the final struggle, in conformity with the
Phœnician version of the event. High up in the north
was the fortress of Hazor; and in early times
the king who reigned there had been regarded as the
head of all the others. He bore the hereditary name
of Jabin or "the Wise," and his title indicated his
supremacy over the whole country, "the King of Ca-
naan." Its most probable situation is on one of the
rocky heights of the northernmost valley of the Jor-
dan. The name still lingers in various localities along
that region. One of these spots is naturally marked
out for a capital by its beauty, its strength, as well
as by the indispensable sign of Eastern power and
civilization — an inexhaustible source of living water,
and there in later times arose the town of Cæsarea
Philippi, from which, in Jewish tradition, Jabin was
sometimes called the King of Cæsarea. On the other
hand, the place which Hazor holds in the catalogues
of the cities of Naphtali points to a situation farther
south, and on the western side of the plain. Which-
ever spot be regarded as the residence of Jabin, it
was under his auspices that the final gather-
ing of the Canaanite race came to pass. Round
him were assembled the heads of all the tribes
who had not yet fallen under Joshua's sword. As the
British chiefs were driven to the Land's End before
the advance of the Saxon, so at this Land's End of
Palestine were gathered for this last struggle, not only
the kings of the north, in the immediate neighbor-
hood, but from the desert-valley of the Jordan south
of the sea of Galilee, from the maritime plain of Phi-
listia, from the heights above Sharon, and from the
still unconquered Jebus, to the Hivite who dwelt "in
the valley of Baalgad under Hermon;" all these
"went out, they and all their hosts with them, even
as the sand that is upon the sea-shore in multitude,
. . . and when all these kings were met together,
they came and pitched together at the waters of
Merom to fight against Israel."
The new and striking feature of this battle, as dis-
tinct from those of Ai and Gibeon, consisted in the
"horses and chariots of very many," which now for the
first time appear in the Canaanite warfare; and it was
the use of these which probably fixed the scene of
the encampment by the lake, along whose level shores
they could have full play for their force. It was this
new phase of war which called forth the special com-
mand to Joshua, nowhere else recorded: "Thou shalt
hough their horses, and burn their chariots with fire."
Nothing is told us of his previous movements. Even
the scene of the battle is uncertain. "The waters of
Merom" have been usually identified with the upper-
most of the three lakes in the Jordan valley, called
by the Greeks "Samachonitis," and by the Arabs "Hû-
leh." Its neigborhood to what under any hypothesis
must be the site of Hazor renders this probable. But
on the other hand, the expressions both of Josephus
and of the sacred narrative point in a somewhat dif-
ferent direction; and it is therefore safer to consider
it as an open question whether the fight actually took
place on the shores of the lake, or by a spring
or well on the upland plain which overhangs
it. The suddenness of Joshua's appearance reminds us
of the rapid movement by which he raised the siege
of Gibeon. He came, we know not whence or how,
within a day's march on the night before; and then
on the morrow, "dropped" like a thunderbolt upon
them "in the mountain" slopes before they had time
to rally on the level ground. Now for the first time
was brought face to face the infantry of Israel against
the cavalry and war-chariots of Canaan. No details
of the battle are given — the results alone remain.
"The Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel,
"who smote them and chased them," by what passes
we know not, westward to the friendly Sidon, and east-
ward to the plain, wherever it be, of Massoch or Miz-
peh. The rout was complete, and the dumb instru-
ments of Canaanite warfare were here visited with the
same extremities which elsewhere we find applied only
to the living inhabitants. The chariots were burnt as
accursed. The horses, only known as the fierce ani-
mals of war and bloodshed, and the symbols of foreign
dominion were rendered incapable of any further use.
The war was closed with the capture of Hazor. Its
king was taken, and, unlike his brethren of the south,
who were hanged or crucified, underwent the nobler
death of beheading. This city, chief of all those
taken in this campaign, was, like Ai, burnt to the
ground.
II. And now came the apportionment of the terri-
tory among the tribes, which had made the lat-
ter half of the Book of Joshua the geograph-
ical manual of the Holy Land, the Domesday-Book of
the Conquest of Palestine.
Two principles have been adopted in the division
of land by the conquerors of a new territory — one,
specially characteristic of the modern world, and ex-
emplified in the Norman occupation of England, by
which the several chiefs appropriated portions of the
newly conquered country, according to their own power
or will; the other, specially characteristic of the ancient
world, and exemplified in Greece and Rome, where an
equal assignment to the different portions of the con-
quering race took effect by the deliberate act of the
State. Both of these modes were adopted in the al-
lotment of land in Palestine; though, as might be ex-
pected, the latter principle prevailed.
The first of these methods is seen in the predatory
expeditions of individuals to occupy particular
spots hitherto unconquered, or to reclaim those,
of which the inhabitants had again revolted. Of this
kind were apparently the conquests in the Transjor-
danic territory, already mentioned, by Jair and
Nobah. Another instance, which belongs more
properly to the next Lecture, and which was the last
wave of the Israelite migration, is that of the
Danite expedition to the north. A third is the attack
of the Ephraimites on the ancient sanctuary
of Bethel. Its capture, briefly told, is a repe-
tition of the capture of Jericho. The spies go before;
a friendly Canaanite encounters them; the town is
stormed and sacked; the betrayer of the place escapes,
like Rahab; and, like her, has a portion assigned to
his inheritance "in the land of the Hittites." but the
chief instance is in the tribe of Judah. It is
in these early adventures that the great tribe first ap-
pears before us. Its vast prospects are still in the dis-
tant future, beyond the limits of the period comprised
in this volume. Yet to this first appearance of Judah
belongs the beginning of the JEWISH CHURCH, properly
so called. It is by a pardonable anachronism that we
extend the word to the whole of the nation. But we
must not the less distinctly mark the point when the
name of "Judah" or "Jew" first rises above the hori-
zon, destined to bear in after-years so vast an alter-
nate burden of honor and of shame. The founder, so
to speak, of the glories of Judah was not un-
worthy of its later fame. Caleb, in the Desert, is hardly
known. It may be, as has been conjectured from some
of the links in his descent, that, though occupying this
exalted place in the tribe of Judah, he obtained it in
the first instance by adoption rather than by birth. He
is said to "have his part and his inheritance among
the children of Judah," not as by right but "because
he wholly followed Jehovah the God of Israel." And
the names of Kenaz, Shobal, Hezron, Jephunneh, amongst
his forefathers or his progeny, all point to an Idumean,
rather than an Israelite origin. If so, we have a
breadth given to the name of Judah, even from its
very start, such as we have already noticed in
the case of Abraham. But, Israelite or proselyte, he
was the one tried companion of Joshua, and his claims
rested on yet earlier and greater sanction, that of
Moses himself. He was to have a portion of the land,
on which "his feet had trodden."
The spot, on which Caleb had set his heart, was the
fertile valley of Hebron. Of all the country
which the twelve spies, with Joshua and Caleb at
their head, had traversed, this is the one scene which
remains fixed in the sacred narrative, as if because
fixed in the memory of those who made their report.
There was the one field in the whole land which they
might fairly call their own, — the field which contained
the rocky cave of Macpelah, with the graves of their
first ancestors. But it was not even this sacred enclos-
ure which had most powerfully impressed the simple
explorers of that childlike age. It was the winding
valley, whose terraces were covered with the rich verd-
ure and the golden clusters of the Syrian vine, so
rarely seen in Egypt, so beautiful a vesture of the
bare hills of Palestine. In its rocky hills are still to
be seen hewn the ancient wine-presses. Thence came
the gigantic cluster, the one relic of the Promised
Land, which was laid at the feet of Moses. Thither,
now that he found himself within that land, Caleb was
resolved to return. In that valley of vineyards — in
that primeval seat, as it was supposed, of the vine
itself — "by the choice vine, Judah was to bind his
foal; he was to wash his garments in wine, his clothes
in the blood of grapes." This was the prize for Caleb.
This he claimed from Joshua. But he was to win it
for himself, and it was no easy task. It was the main
fastness of the aboriginal inhabitants of the South.
Even, as it might seem, after the Canaanites had fled,
the chief of the older race still lingered there. It was
the city of "the Four Giants" — Anak and his three
gigantic sons. Within its walls the Last of the Anakim
held out against the conquerors. But thrice over the
old warrior of Judah insists on his unbroken "strength."
A pitched battle takes place outside the walls; he
drives them out; and Kirjath-Arba, with all its ancient
recollections, becomes "Hebron," the centre of the
mighty tribe, which was there to take up its chief
abode. Far and wide his name extended, and, alone
of all the conquerors on the west of the Jordan, he
succeeded in identifying it with the territory which
he had won. But this was but the nucleus of a circle
of the like spirit of adventure, radiating from this
centre. South of Hebron lay a sacred oracular place,
as it would seem, "The oracle," "the city of books,"
Debir, Kirjath-sepher. On this too Caleb fixed his
heart; and announced that his daughter Ach-
sah should be the reward of the successful
assailant. From his own family sprang forth the cham-
pion, his nephew or younger brother Othniel, who
won the ancient fortress. And yet again from the same
family another claim was put forth. Achsah, worthy
of her father and her husband, demands some better
heritage than the dry and thirsty frontier of the desert.
Underneath the hill on which Debir stood is a deep
valley, rich with verdure, from a copious rivulet, which,
rising at the crest of the glen, falls, with a continuity
unusual in the Juæan hills, down to its lowest depth.
On the possession of these upper and lower "bub-
blings," so contiguous to her lover's prize, Achsah had
set her heart. The shyness of the bridegroom to ask,
the eagerness of the bride to have, are both put be-
fore us. She comes to Othniel's house, seated on her
ass, led by her father. She will not enter. According
to our Version, she gently descends from her ass: ac-
cording to the Septuagint, she screams, or she murmurs,
from her seat. Her father asks the cause, and then
she demands and wins "the blessing" of the green
valley; the gushing stream from top to bottom,
which made the dry and barren hill above a rich
possession.
On one more enterprise the active spirit of Judah
entered. This time we see it not in any individual
but personified in the name of the two ancestors of
the kindred tribes of Judah and Simeon. Whoever may
have been the chiefs of the tribes thus intended, they
aimed at yet one greater prize than all besides, and had
almost won the glory which was reserved for their de-
scendant centuries afterwards. Jerusalem, as it would
seem for a time, but only for a time, fell into the hands
of the warrior tribe. When next it appears, it is still
in possession of the old inhabitants. We must not an-
ticipate the future. It is enough to have seen the
series of simple and romantic incidents which gave to
Judah the desert frontier, the southern fastness, and
the choice vineyards, which play so large a part in
the history of the Jewish, in the imagery of the
Christian Church, hereafter.
2. The second, or more regular mode of assign-
ment, which, as has been well observed, places
the conquest of Palestine, even in that re-
mote and barbarous age, in favorable contrast with
the arbitrary caprice by which the lands of England
were granted away to the Norman Chiefs, was inau-
gurated, so to speak, by Joshua's quaint but decisive
answer to his own tribe of Ephraim, when
they claimed more than their due. The apportion-
ment of this great tribe was, in fact, a union of the
two principles. One lot, and one only, they were to
have; the rest they were to carve out for themselves
from the hills and the forests of their Canaanite enemies.
"Why hast thou given me but one lot and one por-
tion to inherit, seeing I am a great people, foras-
much as the Lord hath blessed me hitherto?"
Their public-spirited leader replied: — "If thou be a
great people, get thee up to the wood country, and
cut down for thyself there. The mountain shall be
thine, for it is a wood, and thou shalt cut it down;
and the outgoings shall be thine; for thou shalt
drive out the Canaanites, for they have iron chariots,
and 'for' they are strong." The wild bull or buf-
falo of the house of Joseph was to guard the north,
as the lion of Judah was to guard the south. One
half of the tribe of Manasseh, as we have already
seen, had that post on the east of the Jordan; the
other half, with Ephraim, had the same on the west.
The two great tribes being thus provided, the re-
maining seven had their property assigned according
to the strictest rule of the ancient "assignation."
The warlike little band of Benjamites, which had
marched in the desert side by side with the
mighty sons of Joseph, was not parted from them in
the new settlement. It hung on the outskirts of
Ephraim. Thus a group was formed in the centre of
Palestine, firmly compacted of the descendants of Rachel,
cut off on the north by the broad plain of Esdraelon,
and on the south by the precipitous ravine of Hin-
nom. Hemmed in as it was between the two power-
ful neighbors of Ephraim and Judah, the tribe of
Benjamin, nevertheless, retained a character of its
own, eminently indomitable and insubordinate. The
wolf which nursed the founders of Rome was not
more evidently repeated in the martial qualities of
the people of Romulus, than the wolf, to which Ben-
jamin is compared in his father's blessing, appears
in the eager, restless character of his descendants.
"After thee, O Benjamin," was the well-known war
cry. It furnished the artillery (so to speak) of the
Israelite army, by its archers and slingers. For a
short time it rose to the highest rank in the com-
monwealth, when it gave birth to the first king. Its
ultimate position in the nation was altered by the
one great change which affected the polarity of the
whole political and geographical organization of the
country, but of none more than that of Benjamin,
when the fortress of Jebus, hitherto within its terri-
tory, was annexed by Judah, and became the capital
of the monarchy.
In the wild aspect which Simeon henceforward as-
sumes on the edge of the southern desert, we
trace the perpetuation of the fierce temper which had
drawn down the curse of Jacob. It has been ingen-
iously conjectured that the first blow which broke the
numbers and the spirit of the tribe was the pestilence
that visited the camp after the Midianite orgies, and
which would naturally have fallen with peculiar force
on Simeon, the tribe of the chief offender; and that
this accounts for its total omission, at least in one
version of the blessing of Moses. But this is hardly
needed. Simeon is the exact counterpart of Reuben.
With Reuben he marched through the desert: with
Reuben he is joined in another version of the Mosaic
benediction. As Reuben in the east, so Simeon in
the west, blends his fortunes with those of the Arab
hordes on the frontier, and dwindles away accord-
ingly, and only reappears in the dubious, but charac-
teristic, exploits of his descendant Judith.
The four tribes of Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, and
Naphtali, obtain contiguous portions in the
north of Palestine, as they were allied in
birth, and as they marched through the desert.
They formed, as it were, a state by themselves. A
common sanctuary seems to have been intended for
them in Mount Tabor. The forests of Lebanon, the
fertility of the plain of Esdraelon, the port of Accho,
even the glassy deposit of the little stream of Belus,
figure in the blessings pronounced upon them. But,
with the exception of the transient splendor of the
days of Barak and Gideon, they hardly affect the
general fortunes of the nation. It is not till the Jew-
ish is on the point of breaking into the Christian
Church, that these northern tribes acquire a new in-
terest. "Galilee," then by the very reason of its pre-
vious isolation, springs into overwhelming importance.
"The land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali, by the
way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gen-
tiles; the people which sat in darkness saw great
light, and to those who sat in the region and shadow
of death light is sprung up."
The last of the tribes that received its due was
Dan, the smallest of all, — at times overlooked,
— and in the last catalogue of the tribes that appears
in the Sacred volume, dropped out altogether. It
was, as it were, squeezed into the narrow strip be-
tween the mountains and the sea, in the plain already
occupied by the expelled races, as if in the only spot
that was left for them. Its energies were great be-
yond its numbers; and hence, as we shall see in the
next generation it broke out from its narrow terri-
tory and won a seat in the distant north, on the con-
fines of Naphtali, with which it appears blended in the
later history. There was, indeed an outlet for its
powers on the west; for it held the port of Jaffa, and
thither retired "to abode in its ships," when the sur-
rounding territory was too hot to hold it. But it is
characteristic of the essentially inland tendencies of
the Israelite nation, that this possession never raised
the tribe to any eminence. The privilege of Dan
was, that he was to lie in wait for the invader from
the south or from the north. "A serpent," an in-
digenous, home-born "adder," to "bite the heels" of
the invading stranger's horse; a lion's whelp," small
and fierce, "to leap from the heights of Bashan," on
the armies of Damascus, or Nineveh. "For thy sal-
vation, O Lord, have I waited," seems to have been
his war-cry, as if of a warrior in the constant atti-
tude of expectation. Once, only, in the history of
the tribe, so far as we know, was this expectation
fully realized, — in the life of Samson.
Levi, alone, had no regular portion. Its original
character of a tribe without a fixed home, was
preserved. It remained, as we have seen, a monument
of the early age of the desert, in which its consecra-
tion originated. Four cities were allotted to it in each
tribe, if possible (with the exception of the great cen-
tral sanctuaries of Shiloh and Bethel) the holy places
of earlier times. The lands round those cities, how-
ever, were not fields for agriculture, but pastures for
cattle. The old life was, in their case, never entirely
to subside into the new. They were still to keep up,
— in their dress, in their separation, in their sacrificial
ministrations, in their pastoral employments, in their
wild, barbarian habits, an image of the past. In the
curses of Jacob there is no distinction drawn between
them and the nomadic Simeon. "Cursed be their an-
ger, for it was fierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel.
I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Is-
rael." The uncompromising zeal, which had first pro-
cured their consecration in the wilderness, and which
ultimately ensured their perpetuity, even beyond that
of any other of the tribes, is just visible here and there
in that early period. "They shall teach Jacob Thy
judgements, and Israel Thy law. They shall put in-
cense before Thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon
Thine altar. Bless, Lord, his substance, and accept
the work of his hands. Smite through the loins of
them that rise against him, and of them that hate
him, that they rise not again." So the brighter
side is brought out in the blessing of Moses; but its
realization must be reserved for the change of their
position in the altered state of the Jewish Church and
nation under the monarchy.
III. With the conquest of Canaan and the settle-
ment of the tribes, Jewish history entered on
a new phase.
1. The Conquest was the final settlement of the
Chosen People as a nation. It was the en-
trance into the Land of Promise, — "Das Ge-
lobte Land," — the oasis of that portion of Asia. From
a wandering Arabian tribe, they were now turned
into a civilized, and, in a considerable degree, and ag-
ricultural commonwealth. The feeling of repose, of
enjoyment, of thankfulness, which breathes through
the 104th and 105th Psalms, now first became possi-
ble. The festivals of the harvest and the vintage, in
the Feast of Weeks, and (to a large extent) in the
Feast of Tabernacles, were commemorations of this
consciousness of permanent possession. "Begin to
number the seven weeks from such time as thou
beginnest to put the sickle to the corn. . . .
Thou shalt observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven
days, after that thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou,
and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man servant,
and thy maid-servant, and the Levite, the stranger,
and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within
thy gates . . . in the place which the Lord shall
choose: because the Lord thy God shall bless thee
in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine
hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice." The
name of one of these feasts, "Pentecost," has passed
into our Whitsuntide; the spirit of the other, in many
respects, corresponds to our Christmas; and even the
spiritual significance of both the Christian festivals
might gain from a recollection of the actual enjoy-
ment which marked, and which still marks, those an-
cient Israelite solemnities. When the modern Jew, in
whatever part of the world he may be, puts together
the branches in the court of his house, and with his
whole family partakes of his meal underneath their
shade, it is a literal perpetuation of the gayety of
heart with which his ancestors sat down, each under
his fig tree and his vine, in their newly-acquired homes,
— an ever-recurring anniversary of the triumph of the
Conquest.
"And when their wondrous march was o'er,
And they had won their homes,
Where Abraham fed his flocks of yore
Among their fathers' tombs:
A land that drinks the rain of heav'n at will,
Where waters kiss the feet of many a vine-clad hill.
"Oft as they watch'd at thoughtful eve
A gale from bowers of balm
Sweep o'er the billowy corn, and heave
The tresses of the palm;
It was a fearful joy, I ween,
To trace the heathen's toil,
The limpid wells, the orchard green,
Left ready for the spoil."
2. It was, further, the occupation of a country hith-
erto inhabited, and still to a great degree, by
an alien race. The contest was severe, and its
traces still remained. The whole subsequent
history, down to the Captivity, was colored by the wars,
by the customs, by the contagion, of Phœnician and
Canaanite rites, to which, for good or evil, they were
henceforth exposed. It was truly, though on a smaller
scale, like the entrance of the Christian church on the
inheritance of the pagan classical world, at the con-
version of the Roman empire, at the revival of letters,
and, it may be, on the possession of still wider treas-
ures hereafter.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. I : Abraham to Samuel,
Lecture XII: The Battle of Merom and Settlement of the Tribes.
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1879, pp. 286-301
Posted Apr 14, 2018, 10:46 PM UTC
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