ON LAND TENURE IN ANCIENT TIMES. 197 
nature of Bible language, as on its human side that of a purely 
Eastern book, is even more overlooked than its curious allusions 
to Eastern manners and customs; for while we have a number of 
really valuable works on the latter subject, it is deeply to be 
deplored that we have not even one of a thorough or exhaustive 
kind in our own, or, I believe, in any other modern tongue, on the 
former ! 
This question is not in any way affected by an extraordinary 
fallow having been appointed for Israel every seventh year, for, 
whether or no they farmed during the intermediate six years by 
a rotation of crops, the land would have constantly to lie fallow 
for short intervals, and would need, as it does now, to be cleaned 
and manured, year by year, by feeding the cattle over it when in 
stubble. And, seeing that Israel came up out of Egypt, as they 
went down into it, a nation of shepherds rather than farmers, the 
question of pasturage for their vast flocks and herds must have 
been much more important to them than to the modern fellahheen 
of Palestine, who are farmers rather than shepherds. Equally, too, 
with the fellahheen of to-day, they would be influenced, at their 
first settlement amid the unexterminated nations of Canaan, and 
for long years after, by considerations as to mutual protection. 
The fact that ‘all arable land is not now ‘undistributed * in 
Palestine”’ is explained by Mr. Samuel Bergheim’s observations 
on my paper as to the ceaseless and determined efforts of the 
Turks, the ruling power, to bring about a holding in severalty, 
with a view to facilitate the collection of taxes. 
But another far more important fact, equally true, that all 
arable land—even that small portion which in recent times, often 
by force and fraud, has been wrested from the Village-Communi- 
ties, and has passed into holding in severalty—s still everywhere 
open and unenclosed, is the strongest possible argument against 
this latter mode of tenure being ancient. No remains, nor the 
faintest traces of remains, are anywhere to be found of walls, 
ditches, hedges, or fences of any kind separating the sudehs of 
Palestine into fields or farms, which are always to be found where 
land has been long and legally held in severalty. The utter 
absence of any such divisions of the sadehs witnesses to the common 
rights of pasture over all the plough land during seasons of fallow, 
and such common rights of pasture over plough land are only 
practicable or possible where there are common rights of tillage 
under the joint husbandry of Village-Communities. 
My critic practically grants all that I have mainly endeavoured 
