74 HEBREW LIFE AND CUSTOM
sense of apportioning land,1 and both in the primary and
intensive reflexive conjugations it means to receive land
as apportioned.2 The familiar renderings ‘ inherit ‘cause
to inherit’, are entirely misleading. Even in the law
respecting a man’s apportionment of his land among his
sons3 it is contemplated that such apportionment will take
place in the father’s lifetime, and there is nothing to prove
that the reference is to inheritance after his death. The
apportionment of the land of Canaan after the Hebrew
conquest is said to have been made by casting lots ;4 and
centuries after the conquest the same method of apportion-
ing land is seen to be still in use.5 It will be remembered
that the result of lots cast with due formalities was regarded
as a divine decision.6
Land so apportioned was known as nahala, and each of
the parts into which it was divided was known as a
‘portion’ [helek)"1 Both the verb nɑhal and the noun
nahala are frequently used metaphorically of Jehovah and
Israel, Israel being represented as Jehovah’s nahala, that is
as the portion of land which He, so to speak, specially
cares for and cultivates. The locus classicus of this metaphor
is Deut. xxxii. 8, 9. According to the reading of the
Hebrew text, followed in the English versions, the meaning
is that when the Most High allotted to the various nations
their territory He so divided the earth as to give to
Israel sufficient land. According to the reading of the
Septuagint, however, which harmonizes much better with
ver. 9, the passage should be translated as follows : ‘ When
the Most High allotted the, Nations ’—the nations being
, Deut. i. 38, xix. 3, xxxi. 7 ; Joshua i. 6.
’ Exod. xxiii. 30, xxxii. 13 ; Num. xviii. 20 ; Deut. xix. 14.
3 Deut. xxi. ι6.
4 Num. xxvi. 55, 56, xxxiii. 54, xxxiv. 13 ; Joshua xviii. 6, &c.
5 Mic. ii. 5. 6 Joshua xviii. 6 ; Prov. xvi. 33.
7 It is noteworthy that the word helek, which originally means
• merely a portion or share of anything (e.g. of b∞ty of war, Gen. xiv.
24), may be used of land without fiɪrther qualification (e.g. Hos. v.
7 ; Mic. ii. 4).
LAND DIVISION 75
compared to land which is to be allotted to various
cultivators—‘ when He separated mankind, He set the
boundaries of peoples according to the number of the
gods.1 For His people is Jehovah’s portion {helek), Jacob
is the measure {lit. ‘ line ’) of His nahala ’ : that is to say,
Jehovah has allotted to each god a nation as a nahala, but
He has reserved Israel to be His own nahala.
If Deuteronomy may be dated in the sixth century b.c.,
or even if it be as early as the eighth century b.g., it is
sufficiently far removed in time from the allotment of
land after the Hebrew conquest of Canaan to make it
extremely improbable that it was this which suggested the
poet’s metaphor. We may therefore conclude—which is
indeed pretty clearly indicated—that the apportionment
of land was a familiar process long after the first allotment
of the conquered territory. A metaphorical expression
may indeed be used proverbially after the usage which
originally suggested it has become obsolete ; it will,
ɪ Literally, ‘ sons of Elôhîm ’. The word ‘ sons ’ is frequently used
to denote members of a class, e.g. ‘ sons of the prophets ’, t sons of the
door-keepers’ (Ezra ii. 42). The sons of the elôhîm (Job i. 6, ii. ι)
are obviously not regarded as sons of Jehovah, but as members of the
class of supernatural beings, subordinated to Jehovah, whom He is
represented as taking into His confidence (Gen. i. 26 ; ɪ Kings xxii.
19). In such a connexion the rendering ‘gods’ is the best. Itis,
however, a wholly gratuitous and unwarrantable assumption that the
poet quoted above intended his words to be taken au pied de la lettre.
When Gustave Doré painted ‘The Triumph of the Cross’, and
depicted Jupiter with his thunderbolts falling from heaven, it would be
doing the French painter a gross injustice to argue from his picture
that he believed in the objective reality of Jupiter. The author of
Deut. xxxii. 8,9, is poetically stating the undoubted fact that Jehovah
was not worshipped by nations other than Israel or regarded by
them as caring for their welfare. Such nations, if they had used the
Hebrew metaphor, would have represented themselves each as the
nahala of some pagan god. The poet of Deuteronomy evidently felt
it hard to understand why Jehovah has not always asserted His right
over all nations, as the poet of Ps. Ixxxii (cf. ver. 8) believes that He
will ultimately do. Compare Acts xiv. ι6, xvii. 30.