of the Shephelah and the Canaanite cities almost all preserved their autonomy; the Israelites had no chance against them wherever they had sufficient space to put into the field large bodies of infantry or to use their iron-bound chariots.  Finding it therefore impossible to overcome them, the tribes were forced to remain cut off from each other in three isolated groups of unequal extent which they were powerless to connect:  in the centre were Joseph, Benjamin, and Dan; in the south, Judah, Levi, and Simeon; while Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and Zebulon lay to the north.

The period following the occupation of Canaan constituted the heroic age of the Hebrews.  The sacred writings agree in showing that the ties which bound the twelve tribes together were speedily dissolved, while their fidelity and obedience to God were relaxed with the growth of the young generations to whom Moses or Joshua were merely names.  The conquerors “dwelt among the Canaanites:  the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite:  and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.  And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord their God, and served the Baalim and the Asheroth."*

[Illustration:  268.jpg MAP OF PALESTINE IN TIME OF THE JUDGES]

When they had once abandoned their ancient faith, political unity was not long preserved.  War broke out between one tribe and another; the stronger allowed the weaker to be oppressed by the heathen, and were themselves often powerless to retain their independence.  In spite of the thousands of men among them, all able to bear arms, they fell an easy prey to the first comer; the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Philistines, all oppressed them in turn, and repaid with usury the ills which Joshua had inflicted on the Canaanites.  “Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had spoken, and as the Lord had sworn unto them:  and they were sore distressed.  And the Lord raised up judges, which saved them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.  And yet they hearkened not unto their judges, for they went a-whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves down unto them:  they turned aside quickly out of the way wherein their fathers walked obeying the commandments of the Lord; but they did not so.  And when the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge:  for it repented the Lord because of their groaning by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them.  But it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their doings, nor from their stubborn way."* The history of this period lacks the unity and precision with which we are at first tempted to credit it.