(3) Points in Deuteronomic Law. There are some points in Deuteronomic law which may be considered in connection with this matter : It has often been urged against the law of "the land mark" and the curse against who "removes" it, and especially in reference to the phrase "which they of old time have set in thine inheritance," that such a law implies the long settled habits of land in traditional possession, and therefore is inconsistent with legislation for lands which are yet to be won.
But suppose that the Manassites were resuming their heritage, from which they had been tempo rarily expelled by the Amorites, and with all the old landmarks still in place, and we have exactly the situation of all others to call for such a law. (See LANDNIARK.) The same or nearly so, may be said of the law forbidding usury (Deut. xxiii :19-2o) between Is raelites but permitting it towards aliens. The situation is that of nearly one third of the na tion newly and suddenly settled by conquest, while the remainder has its heritage yet to win. All the available capital of this remainder might be employed by the newly settled portion; while the alien races with whom Israel had been brought into contact, Edom, Moab and Ammon offered a similar field for loans with interest. Eastern Manasseh having the advantage of earlier posses sion and domestication on the spot might readily avail themselves of this condition. Thus if ever a law in reference to usury was necessary it would be now.
(4) Property Regranted to Heirs of Early Owners. The conquests of Sihon and Og must have narrowed or absorbed the Machir-Jair ter ritory, but the earlier settlement of this people is indicated in Num. xxxii :34. NVe are there told that the Gadites and Reubenites "build" (perhaps rebuild after the havoc of war) certain cities, but no such thing is said of the Manassites, only their conquests are recited. The Manassites prob ably did not rebuild, because their cities were not destroyed, they, the former owners being pres ent on the spot to reclaim their lost ownership.
Thus what Moses did was to regrant, either the whole, or a large part of the earlier Manassite area to the posterity of Machir and Gilead. • And thus the Mosaic and the Joshuan narratives har monize with each other and all obscurities are cleared as soon as we comprehend the fact of this earlier conquest.
(5) Testimony of jephthah. A little later we find Jephthah "the Gileadite" arguing with the children of Ammon, and claiming that for three hundred years "Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her t'owns, and in all the citles that be along by the coasts of Arnon" (Judg. xi :26). And this was a portion of the very region which Moses had obtained by the Sihon-Og conquest. We read in Judges xi:1, that "Gilead begat Jeplithah" and Jephthah would of course have kept the tradition of his fa thers.
(6) The Song of Deborah. The designation of the great elder branch of Joseph's house by its sub-patriarch Machir is confirmed hy that early document, the Song of Deborah ( Judg. v :
14-17). When "Gilead abode beyond Jordan," and Reuben hesitated, "out of Machir there came down chieftains" to aid the cause of western pa triotism. Machir dominates the western, and Gilead the eastern branch of the tribe, and they each held their own policy. This suggests that Machir never lost the supremacy of his whole tribe. Having established his son in "the Gilead" and given him its name, he may have returned to Goshen.
(7) Havoth-Jair of Bashan. We now see why Moses in Dent. iii :i4 speaks of the "Havoth Jair of Bashan" being so called "unto Ellis day," a phrase singularly frigid, if the whole series of events concerned had happened since the death of Aaron, and one which has furnished an op portunity for the "higher criticism" to impugn a Mosaic Deuteronomy, but the phrase recovers its suspended animation the moment the light of rectified history falls upon it.
(8) Reunion of a Severed Tribe. We also see now why the total of the Manassite tribe jumps up sixty-three and more per cent. at the second census (Num. xxvi :34, 35). It was evi dently by the reunion of long severed mem bers.
(9) 1Vlachir. We see also why Machir becomes an eponymous hero, and why he is singled out and erected into a patriarchal status in Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua and Judges. He was in fact' the morning star of eastern conquest, pre luding the brilliant campaign of and in his posterity conducing to its completeness. In the case of Zelophehad's daughters, they claimed to represent and embody the title of descent from Machir, Gilead and Hepher to a heritage which had come down through some two centuries of user, and had only been interrupted through an intrusive hostile possession. That intrusion hav ing ceased, their patrimony lies before them in concrete fact, and they claim to be invested with it. On its settlement in their favor follows the further one of limiting their right of matrimonial choice (Num. xxxvi :6).
(10) Conclusion. The case emerges exactly where we ought to find it, if the main lines of the Exodus history are true. The numbering of Numbers xxvi brought the main stock and the dissevered branch of "Joseph" together in con scious unity. The latter comes into touch with the hopes and fortunes of Israel as a whole ; and therefore the question is settled, not by any court of mere tribal elders, but by the highest jurisdic tion of the nation now realizing its corporate ca pacity. The broad side light thus shed on the narrative of the ensuing Joshuan occupation can not be without important exegetical influence as we read, for indeed it is shed from a lost page of patriarchal history. (See Gilead and Basilan, or the Pre-Mosaic Manassite Conquest, by Henry Hayman, D. D., Bibliotheca Sacra, Jan., 18984