158 JAMES NEIL, M.A., 
the price of Messiah’s betrayal, by the tragic name of “the 
bloody field,” Aceldama.* As distinguished from its sepa- 
rate parts, which are not apparent to a stranger's eye, the 
whole arable and pastoral land attached to each village lies 
around it in one seemingly unbroken stretch, known to the 
Hebrew Bible as the MW, sadeh, “broad acres,” or “ open- 
farm-land,” the “field” of our Authorised Version, constantly 
spoken of in the singular, for it has no artificial boundaries 
hike our farm lands, but presents one uninterrupted expanse 
which can be traversed freely in every direction. Thus we 
read that Isaac went out “to meditate [or rather, to grieve] 
in the open-farm-land” (sadeh).f Sadeh answers sometimes 
to the Latin ager, our “land,” as in the expression “the 
sadeh [or land] of the Amalekites.”{ Perhaps that part of 
England which on many accounts most resembles the 
general appearance of Palestine arable, is the centre of the 
chalky downs of Thanet, some two miles inland from Birch- 
ington, Westgate, Margate, Broadstairs, and Ramsgate. Here 
almost all the hedges, fences, walls, and ditches have been 
removed. The farmsteads with their surrounding grounds 
and cottages answer to the small, unwalled Palestine villages, 
and the apparently unbroken stretch of dry, treeless land 
around them to the Eastern sadeh, or “ field.” 
The six representatives, having parcelled out the land, now 
cast lots for its distribution. Each of them gives some object 
to the presiding Khateeb, such as a stone or a piece of wood, 
and he puts them into a bag. The Khateeb then asks to whom 
one of the six parcels of ground which he names is to belong, 
and a little boy, chosen to draw out the objects from the bag, 
puts in his hand, and the ground in question is adjudged to 
the party represented by the chief who gave the stone or 
other object which the child brings out. A very young 
child is generally chosen for this purpose, in order that there 
may be no collusion. 
When the six divisions are thus allotted, they are again 
subdivided, in the case of each party, amongst the ten 
ploughs in a similar way. For this purpose each field of 
each parcel is divided into ten equal strips, which are now 
generally, on the mountains, measured out roughly with an 
* Matthew xxvii. 8; Actsi. 19, 
+ Genesis xxiv. 63. 
t Genesis xiv. 7. See also Genesis xxxii. 3; xxxvi. 35; 1 Samuel vi 
1, &e. 
