Levi also must have
shared the patrimony of Judah.

The descendants of Rachel and her handmaid received as their inheritance
the regions situated more to the centre of the country, the house of
Joseph taking the best domains for its branches of Ephraim and Manasseh.
Ephraim received some of the old Canaanite sanctuaries, such as Ramah,
Bethel, and Shiloh, and it was at the latter spot that they deposited
the ark of the covenant. Manasseh settled to the north of Ephraim, in
the hills and valleys of the Carmel group, and to Benjamin were assigned
the heights which overlook the plain of Jericho. Four of the less
important tribes, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and Zebulon, ventured
as far north as the borders of Tyre and Sidon, behind the Phoenician
littoral, but were prevented by the Canaanites and Amorites from
spreading over the plain, and had to confine themselves to the
mountains. All the fortresses commanding the passes of Tabor and
Carmel, Megiddo, Taanach, Ibleam, Jezreel, Endor, and Bethshan remained
inviolate, and formed as it were an impassable barrier-line between the
Hebrews of Galilee and their brethren of Ephraim. The Danites were long
before they found a resting-place; they attempted to insert themselves
to the north of Judah, between Ajalon and Joppa, but were so harassed
by the Amorites, that they had to content themselves with the precarious
tenure of a few towns such as Zora, Shaalbin, and Eshdol. The foreign
peoples 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