Thus the strength of the Israelite nation was exhausted in the struggle for the possession of the land west of Jordan. A people less tenacious, less valiant, less persevering, would never have maintained its national existence so long under the circumstances. By holding its own against Philistines and Aramæans, and succumbing only to the onset of the great Asiatic empires, Israel gave proof of its high capacities in the sphere of politics.
But how did an Israelite state come into being at all under such circumstances? Why did not the Hebrews who migrated to the west of Jordan join themselves to the original Canaanite population which spoke the same language and was ethnologically so closely akin to them? Why did not a Canaanite state arise, seeing that in all points of civilisation the Canaanites were the instructors of the Hebrew immigrants? The answer to this question is to be found in the fact that the immigrant Hebrew clans who gave the first impulse to the creation of the nation of Israel, were prevented from so doing by the difference between their religion and that of the Canaanites. Before their migration across the Jordan they had separated from the rest of the Hebrew tribes and adopted a religion of a far higher type than that of the original Canaanite dwellers west of Jordan. By this means they had already become one people. Concerning the process by which it came to pass we have nothing but myth and legend. But if we compare these with the observations we have been able to make in the case of religion, civilisation, and customs of other Hebrew tribes, we can at all events draw general conclusions as to the course of the movements which led to this result. Let us therefore next consider the relation in which the children of Israel stand to other Hebrew peoples. According to what has been said in the foregoing pages, there are three things which distinguish the children of Israel from the rest of the Hebrews. Firstly, the large intermixture of Canaanite blood—in one, at least, of the latter races there was a larger measure of Arab blood than in the children of Israel. Secondly, their adoption of Canaanite civilisation, and, as a consequence, a more complete transition to agricultural life. Thirdly, the worship of Jehovah as their national god.
Israel represents that section of the Hebrew race which, on the one hand, was most strongly influenced by Canaanite civilisation, and on the other, had advanced farthest in religious development, and was most largely permeated with foreign elements. Generally speaking, the other nations of the same class are of purer Hebrew blood and have remained partly nomadic, and therefore—with the exception of the Moabites—they have remained more barbarous in a lower stage of development. In the earliest times, more particularly, the differences between the Israelites and the Hebrews proper were vague and undefined. Several Hebrew clans found admittance into Judah, a tribe which is not even mentioned among those of Israel in the Song of Deborah, and at that time when Numbers xxv. 1-5 was composed, a licentious worship of Baal of Peor was in vogue in that neighbourhood. But all the Old Testament records prove that the Moabites worshipped one god only, the divinity Chemosh. Hence, since such a narrative as the Yahvistic text is absolutely trustworthy in such matters, we are forced to conclude that it was Chemosh who was thus worshipped in that neighbourhood as the Baal (i.e. Lord) of Peor. The conduct of the Moabite men and women is in no way different from that of Israel of old in the lament of Hosea iv. 13-15. That the Moabites, like the Israelites, gave their god the name of Baal, i.e. Lord, may be deduced from the two Moabite local names of Baal Meon and Bamoth Baal. It is therefore unnecessary to have recourse to the theory that the phrase “Baal Peor” may have been coined by the Israelites.
The language of the Moabites is merely a dialect of that in which the Old Testament scriptures are written, and which we usually call Hebrew, though Israelitish would be the better word. The affinity of the two languages is not only evident from Moabitish proper names that have come down to us; it is raised above the reach of doubt by Mesha’s inscription. From this inscription it is plain that Moabitish presents some points of contact with Arabic, a fact that can be explained by the contiguity of the two languages.
The idea that the Israelites conquered the country north of Arnon as early as the days of Moses must be given up as unhistorical. It is derived from an uncritical application of Numbers ii. From this chapter the inference is usually drawn that an Amorite invasion of Moab had taken place shortly before the time of Moses. They are supposed to have conquered all the northern half of Moab and the farther side of Jordan and then to have been defeated and destroyed by Moses. The groundwork of the passage in Numbers xxi. is a narrative taken from the Elohistic text xxi. 4-9, 12-18, 21-25, 27, 30. According to this, there existed in the time of Moses a kingdom of the Amorites (i.e. Canaanites) under a king named Sihon, to the north of Arnon, between that river and the Jabbok, and bordered on the east by the land of the Ammonites. Verse 26 is warrant that this king Sihon had taken his country from the Moabites. But this verse is an interpolation which interrupts the continuity of vv. 25 and 27, and is intended to bring the view of the Elohistic text into line with that which prevailed elsewhere, and according to which these districts belonged to Moab.
In support of the opinion that this district was invested from the Moabites in the time of Moses, the Elohistic text refers to an ancient song, probably taken from the Book of the Wars of Jehovah. In vv. 27-30 he says, “wherefore they that speak in proverbs say:
‘Come into Heshbon, let the city of Sihon be built and prepared:
For there is a fire gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon:
It hath consumed Ar of Moab, and the lords of the high places of Arnon.
Woe to thee, Moab! thou art undone, O people of Chemosh:
He hath given his sons that escaped, and his daughters into captivity, (unto Sihon, king of the Amorites.)
We have shot at them; Heshbon is perished even unto Dibon.’”
But this song contradicts at all points the statement which the Elohistic text brings it forward to verify. King Sihon, who was conquered according to the song, is rather a king of the Moabites, and his conquerors, who in the introduction are invited to settle in conquered cities, are obviously Israelites, since the invitation comes in an Israelite song. The “Sihon, king of the Amorites” put in brackets above, is proved by its incompatibility with the whole tenor of the song to be a gloss, interpolated for the purpose of bringing it into harmony with the presuppositions of v. 26. The song is a poem, composed on the occasion of such an inroad from the north into Moabite territory north of the Arnon, as the inscription of Mesha describes.
Hence it is out of the question that Israel should have settled in northern Moab after the conquest of an Amorite king, Sihon by name, at a period anterior to the migration into the land west of Jordan. The settlement took place much later, and Sihon, king of the Amorites, whom Moses is supposed to have conquered, came into being by a misinterpretation of the song just quoted.