The latter view may have come about partly from a literal
interpretation of "lot" (Judges xviii. 1), an expression which
properly applies to the farm of a family but is here used for the
territory of a tribe. It was also favoured no doubt by the
tendency to compress a long development into its first great act;
and as this tendency is carried out with the greatest
thoroughness in the Priestly Code, that document stands furthest
from the origin of the tradition. /1/ The same conclusion is led up
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1. In the Deuteronomistic revision (Joshua xxi, 43-45) there is
still a trace of hesitation, a certain difficulty in parting with
the old view altogether (Deuteronomy vii. 22; Judg. iii. 1, 2);
and besides the motives for the change are much plainer here:
the Canaanites are extirpated to guard against the infection of the
new settlers with their idolatary.
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to by the circumstance that the tribe of Joseph is never mentioned,
one of the two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, being always spoken of
instead, and that these two tribes are almost put out of sight by
Judah.
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