2860. [Josh. xii. 7, 8.] This Interior Canaan, this winepress of Rev. xiv. 20., did but extend in length from the wilderness in the south to Mount Lebanon in the north, 160 furlongs; which, after the Eastern measurement of ten furlongs to the mile, amounts only to 160 miles. Its common breadth, from Jordan on the east to the Mediterranean on the west, is computed to be about fifty miles, and not more than eighty, if the kingdoms of Sihon, and Og be added as they lie on the other side Jordan. This was the good ground, the Interior of the Church, which, according to 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, literally yielded food to thirteen hundred thousand men, besides women, children, impotent persons, and all the Levites and Benjamites that had been left unnumbered. T. FULLER, B. D.

2861. [

-

16. The king of Bethel] Thus it appears that at the very Bethel, near Hai, where Abraham had built an altar to JEHOVAH (Gen. xii. 8), there was now an Idol with its concomitant apparatus for worship, which Joshua and the Israelites were required by their law utterly to destroy. Deut. xii. 2, 3.

2863. [- 6.] This custom of dividing a father's patrimony, by lot, among all his children, is alluded to in the Odyssey of Homer, b. xiv. 1. 250, &c. Cowper.

2868. [Josh. xvii. 11.] Bethsan stood on the confines of Galilee, near the mountains of Gilboa, about a mile from the inner side of the river Jordan, 120 furlongs from the lake of Gennesereth, and 600 furlongs from Jerusalem. It was not adopted by the Israelites, we see, when they converted Palestine; but remained a Canaanitish town, the most considerable of what were denominated the Decapolis. — In 2 Maccabees xii. 29, it is named Scythopolis, as being inhabited by Scythians it is now called Elby zan. -JOSEPHUS says, the dead bodies of Saul and Jonathan were exposed on the walls of this city.

:

See his Antiq. Univer. Hist. vol. ix. p. 6.

2869. [ 16.] It is probable, that the frames of these chariots, or cars, were really like Og's, made of iron. See Deut. iii. 11.

2874. [51. They made an end of dividing the country] Thus we see, "when the Israelites were brought by Joshua into the land of Canaan, they had by Divine appointment small inheritances allotted them: but there were no great estates. The allotments we may suppose were pretty equal; by which means many were made independent, but none could be wealthy tyrants: neither could there be many destitute of the means of subsistence. These family inheritances were inalienable; that is, they could not be sold, except for a limited time, or until the Jubilee year when all alienated lands returned to their original families. Thus it was that none could ever monopolize land to any dangerous extent. A man might divide his inheritance among his own family, but he could never finally sell it out of his family. It would be a degree of presumption to say that any improvement could be made to this distribution of property, which was a Divine institution, and made a nation of people, generally speaking, neither rich nor poor, which is the state of all others, most adapted to human happiness. And whenever mankind shall have wisdom and goodness sufficient to put the world into the best possible posture for happiness, health, and peace, they will effect that great end by adopting the Divine means, by dividing land into small portions, and prohibiting its final alienation."

2870. [Josh. xviii. 1.] The Ark was brought from Gilgal to Shiloh, the first sabbatical year after the Israelites entered the promised land. It was on a similar year removed from Kirjath-jearim to the city of David.

USHER'S Ann. p. 36.

2871. [Josh. xix. 13.] Here yaneth is contracted into yath, and means habitaculum, scilicet principis, a palace.

Arrian, as quoted by Stephanus Byzantinus, tells us that Tyre was called Anatha (Grk.). — The word anath (Neah) means that New Tyre was a residence fixed on a rock.

Archeologia, vol. xiv. pp. 133, 134.

2875. [Josh. xx. 2-9.] Pillars and crosses were, previously to the reformation, placed occasionally in the neighbourhood of churches, to mark the boundaries of those privileged spaces, in which fugitives, whether for debt or crime, were sure to find protection. Of such spaces, to a greater or less extent, all consecrated churches were possessed; which having been indulged to them, in conformity with the corruptions of pagan practice rather than the purer precepts of the Mosaic law, first by Christian emperors in foreign countries, and, in this country, by Christian kings, were afterwards, by Boniface the Fifth, and his successors in the papal chair, fully established and confirmed.

Archeologia, vol. xiv. p. 41.

2894. [17.] Dr. PocoKE tells us, that the Arabs are not so scrupulous about their women as the Turks; and though they have their harem or woman's part of the tent, yet such as they are acquainted with, come into them. "I was kept, says he, "in the harem for greater security; the wife being always with me; no stranger ever daring to come into the woman's apartment, unless introduced." According to the custom of the present Arabs therefore, it was not absurd in Sisera to hope he might be received into Jael's tent, the harem of Eber. It appears too that her tent was the securest place in that encampment wherein to secrete himself, as it would have been the greatest insult to this Kenite emir for any Israelite to have sought him there. Bib. Research, vol. ii. p. 195.

2897. [Judg. v. 7.] In the Indian councils of North America, the business of certain mothers (or matrons) is to take notice of what passes, imprint it in their memories, for they have no writing, and communicate it to their children. These women preserve, also, tradition of the stipulations in treaties a hundred years back; which, says Dr. FRANKLIN, when compare with our writings, we always find exact. See No. 203. See Dr. Franklin's Essays.

we

Rom. xvi. 13.

2898. [8.] Here forty thousand Israelites appeared against Sisera without either shield or spear! In a day of battle against the Philistines, there was found neither sword nor spear in Saul's army, though they had but just gained a sigual victory over the Ammonites! See 1 Sam. xii. xiii. Thus also did Joshua gain bloodless victories: the LORD chasing his enemies with thunder, lightning, hail and

storm.

See No. 2006, 2019, 2797.

2899. When the Israelites departed from their precepts and statutes, and fell into the evils of a neighbouring nation, they were punished by that nation: as for example, by the Assyrians and Chaldeans, when they had adopted their foul idolatries. See SWEDENBORG, on Divine Providence, n. 251.

2900. [———— 10.] In this song Deborah expressly addresses herself to those elders who, in their annual perambulations to execute judgment, rode on white asses. Cartwright, during his travels in those parts, beheld every day, he says, on the banks of the Euphrates, large droves of wild beasts, wild asses in particular, all white. See Dr. Gill. And Hurdis's Diss. p. 62. BURDER'S Oriental Customs, vol. ii. p. 87.