Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/257

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BIBLICAL SOCIOLOGY 243

increase the area of their conquests. No doubt the victory was purchased with much loss of Hfe; and the Israehtes were not wholly united, as the Deborah Song shows (Judg, 5:16, 17). On the other hand, the Canaanites made no further effort to expel the newcomers.

The immediate outcome of the invasion, then, was the set- tlement of the Israelites in the hill-country of Gilead, the hill- country of Ephraim, and the hill-country of Judah. Practically all of the ancient fortified cities, together with neighboring dependent villages, remained in control of the Canaanites. Neither the old nor the new inhabitants had a national organi- zation. The Canaanites were a crowd of "city-states," which occasionally co-operated against enemies. The Israelites, or some of them, had the common worship of Yahweh, and possi- bly some traditions of common blood; but it was as difficult to bring them into a single organization as it was to form a general union of the older inhabitants.