ON LAND TENURE IN ANCIENT TIMES. 203 
in severalty to individuals. The account of the allotment in 
Joshua xv. 1, opens with the words, ‘“‘And the lot of the tribe 
of the children of Judah by their families was to the border 
of Edom, &c.” Then follow the tribal borders, from verses 1-12, 
and, as soon as these are described, we read, “‘and this is 
the border of Judah round about according to their families.” 
First Caleb is said to receive the large district of Hebron and its 
dependent villages, even, as we have seen, to 12 miles away at 
Debir, an enormous tract of country, which he must have received 
for his clan and not for himself alone ; and in verse 20 the ‘‘family”’ 
division in general for the tribe of Judah is introduced by the 
words, ‘“‘this is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of 
Judah according to their families,” and a list, not of individual 
holdings but of cities and villages, follows in verses 21-61. In the 
next chapter, Joshua xvi., it is the same. Verse 5 commences an 
account of the tribal boundaries of “the children of Ephraim 
according to their families,” and verse 9 alludes to the separate 
cities for their families without particularising them. Joshua xvii. 
speaks in just the same way about the distribution of land to 
Manasseh. 'l'hen, after a short digression, at Joshua xviii. 11, the 
account of the allotment of the rest of the country amongst the 
seven remaining“tribes is given in like manner, the tribal bound- 
aries first and the cities allotted to families next, but not a hint 
anywhere of allotment to individuals. The ‘Tribe’? and the 
“Family”? alone come into view, yet this long description of 
the distribution of the Promised Land closes with the words, ‘‘ and 
Jehovah gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto 
their fathers; and they possessed it and dwelt therein’ (Joshua 
xxi. 43). The discovery of the holding of land in common by 
Village-Communities, consisting of families or clans, for the first 
time, throws a flood of light which quite clears up the hitherto 
apparently defective and inexplicable account of the allotment 
of the land in the days of. Joshua. 
VOL. XXIV. Q 
