162 JAMES NEIL, M.A., 
There can be little doubt that this method of allotting the 
lands each winter, or, at all events, at short and regular 
intervals, like all the other customs of Palestine, is most 
ancient, and has probably existed from the very commence- 
ment of agriculture. The distribution was probably annual, 
though it is possible that the re-allotment of land under the 
Law may have been every seventh year, for the payment of 
tithes every third year may point to a three years’ rotation of 
crops, twice repeated, followed by a seventh year of fallow.* 
We know that the country was first divided amongst the 
families of Israel by lot. The particular directions given to 
Moses, after the twelve tribes had been numbered, were: “Unto 
these the land shall be divided for an inheritance according 
to the number of names. To many thou shall give his 
inheritance much, and to few thon shalt give his inheritance 
little; to every one shall his inheritance be given according 
to those that were numbered of him. Notwithstanding the 
land shall be divided by lot; according to the names of the 
tribes of their fathers they shall inherit. According to the 
lot shall the possession thereof be divided between the many 
and few.”t These Divine instructions were carefully carried 
out by Joshua as soon as he had conquered the country.? 
It has been generally supposed that, in this division 
amongst the tribes, every man of the 601,730 adult males 
numbered by Moses was put in absolute possession of his 
own plot of arable land, which he had no power to alienate. 
But this absolute ownership of broad acres is nowhere stated 
or implied, though no doubt it prevailed, as in the instances 
of Naboth and Jeremiah, as to house property in the villages 
and towns, and in their adjacent gardens (always situated 
outside), vineyards, olive yards, and fig orchards, &c. The 
general principle laid down in the above instructions to 
Moses was, “'lo many thou shalt give his inheritance much, 
and to few thou shalt give his inheritance little,’§ and this 
we are expressly told held good in the case of families as well 
as of tribes.|| No words could more plainly exclude an 
of the fellahheen whilst farming the lands of Abu-Shusheh on the Philis- 
tine plain. 
* See Denteronomy xiv, 28 ; xxvi. 12; and Amos iv. 4. This septennial 
reallotment has also been inferred from six years being the ordinary term 
that a Hebrew slave was to serve. Exodus xxi. 2-4; Deuteronomy xv, 
12; Jeremiah xxxiv. 14. 
t Numbers xxvi. 53-56. See also Numbers xxxiii. 54, 
t Joshua xiii,—xxi. 
§ Numbers xxvi. 54. || Numbers xxxiii. 54, 
