Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/628

 limbed. Issachar had strength enough, but preferred ease to exertion.—] The common interpretation 'sheep-pens' has no appropriateness here, and may be a conjecture based on Ju. 5$16$. Equally unsuitable are the renderings of the old Vns. ('boundaries,' etc.), and the 'fire-places' or 'ash-heaps' which the Heb. etymology would suggest. The form is dual, and one naturally thinks of the 'panniers' carried by the ass (v.i.).—15. ] A technical term for the settled, as contrasted with the nomadic, life (Gu.).—a labouring drudge] Lit. 'became a toiling labour-gang'; cf. Jos. 16$10$. is a levy raised under the system of forced labour (corvée). That a Heb. tribe should submit to this indignity was a shameful reversal of the normal relations between Israel and the Canaanites (Jos. 16$10$ 17$13$ [= Ju. 1$28$], Ju. 1$30. 33. 35$).

The two northern Leah-tribes found a settlement in Lower Galilee, where they mingled with the Canaanite inhabitants. According to Jos. 19$10-16$, Zebulun occupied the hills north of the Great Plain, being cut off from the sea both by Asher and by the strip of Phœnician coast. We must therefore suppose that the tribal boundaries fluctuated greatly in early times, and that at the date of the poem Zebulun had access at some point to the sea. The almost identical description on Ju. 5$17$ is considered by Gu. to have been transferred from Zebulun to Asher,—a view which, if it can be substantiated, affords a reliable criterion of the relative dates of the two oracles. The district of Issachar seems to have been between the Great Plain and the Jordan, including the Vale of Jezreel,—a position in which it was peculiarly difficult for a Hebrew tribe to maintain its independence. The tribe is not even mentioned in the survey of Ju. 1, as if it had ceased to be part of Israel. Yet both it and Zebulun had played a gallant part in the wars of the Judges (Ju. 4$6. 10$ 5$14. 18$ 6$35$ 5$15$). The absence of any allusion to these exploits lends colour to the view that this part of the poem is of older date than the Song of Deborah.

of sojourners' (unless be an adj. fr. ). G (= : Ginsb. Introd. p. 254); S, Aq. and V support on the whole MT.—] Ju. 5$16$†, but cf. Ps. 68$14$. The three pass. are somehow interrelated, although no sense will suit them all. Vns. mostly render 'territories,' or something equivalent, both here and in Ju. But the of G in Ju. (see Schleusner) is noteworthy, and shows that the rendering above has some show of authority. So the late Gr.-Ven. . For the rest, see Moore on Ju. 5$16$.—15. ] [E] .—] G (Ginsb. l.c.).—On, see DBD?], and Moore, Jud. p. 47.