ON LAND TENURE IN ANCIENT TIMES. 199 
Chronicles,* by Isaiah,t by Amos,{ by Micah,§ and even by 
Moses himself,|| than that this periodical redistribution of the 
lands of each Village-Community was practised by those for whom 
they wrote, and that it was a lawful and proper practice ? 
I am willing to rest the whole case on the cogency of these last 
two considerations. 
Of the eight passages which my critic quotes from the Old 
Testament, Numbers xxvi. 52-54: Numbers xxxvi. 8; Deutero- 
nomy xxi. 17; 1 Chronicles v. 1; Joshua xvii. 5, 6; xv. 16-19; 
1 Samuel viii. 14; and | Kings xxi., only four have any direct 
bearing on the question of the nature of the tenure of tillage. 
The story in 1 Kings xxi. does not refer to a sadeh at all, but to 
a vineyard (OP), always enclosed by a jedar, or unmortared wall 
of loose rough stones, and, like a garden or a house, as I have 
shown in my paper, doubtless held formerly, as now, in severalty. 
The warning given by the prophet in 1 Samuel viii. 14, as to 
the king, ‘‘ And your sadehs .. . . the best he will take and give 
to his servants,” may as well be applied to the appropriation of 
lands belonging to a Village-Community as to lands in individual 
holding, and settles nothing either way. The king’s “servants” 
to wnom the lands would be given may equally have been the 
‘heads of clans or families who would hold the lands in common, 
Deuteronomy xxi. 16, 17, is just as indefinite, for there a man 
is simply said to “ make his sons inherit that which he hath,” and 
commanded to give his first-born, even though by a wife he hates, 
‘a double portion of all that he hath,” without specifying whether 
real or personal property is meant; and, if real property, then, I 
maintain, the inheritance consisted of his freehold house, garden, 
vineyard, olive orchard, fig orchard, or trees, standing on the 
lands of others, and, lastly, his right to plough his share of the 
annually allotted common sadeh. 
In 1 Chronicles v. 1, the writer speaks only of tribal inheritance. 
My critic says, “‘ according to Mosaic laws, there were no Crown 
lands at all. ‘The land is mine,’ Leviticus xxv. 23.” But Israel 
was at first a theocracy. Jehovah was their King. Agreeing with 
this, the royal due of Crown land (ard dmiriyeh), the tithe, was 
commanded to be paid to Him. The words, “the land is mine,’ 
together with the claim of the tithe, tell strongly against the 
absolute holding by individuals in severalty, and as strongly in 
* 1 Chronicles xvi. 18. + Isaiah xxxiv. 17. t Amos vii. 17, 
§ Micah ii. 4, 5. || Deuteronomy xxxii. 9. 
