12), inclusive of a portion
of land two thousand ells square (square in the strictly literal
sense; Numbers xxxv. 5), which serves as public common.
The physical impracticability of such an arrangement has been
conclusively shown, after Gramberg, by Graf (Merx, Archiv, i.
p. 83). The 4 x 12 or the substituted 13+10+13+12 cities,
of which in spite of Numbers xxxv. 8 for the most part four belong
to each of the twelve tribes, are already sufficient to suggest a
suspicion of artificial construction; but the regulation that a
rectangular territory of two thousand ells square should be
measured off as pasture for the Levites around each city (which
at the same time is itself regarded only as a point; Numbers xxxv.
4) might, to speak with Graf, be very well carried out perhaps in
a South Russian steppe or in newly founded townships in the
western States of America, but not in a mountainous country like
Palestine, where territory that can be thus geometrically
portioned off does not exist, and where it is by no means left to
arbitrary legal enactments to determine what pieces of ground are
adapted for pasturage and what for tillage and gardening; there,
too, the cities were already in existence, the land was already
under cultivation, as the Israelites slowly conquered it in the
course of centuries.
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