Volume 3

The legends of the Jews / by Louis Ginzberg ; translated from the German manuscript by Henrietta Szold.

  • Louis Ginzberg
Date:
1909-38
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The legends of the Jews / by Louis Ginzberg ; translated from the German manuscript by Henrietta Szold. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    elapsed. Over and above all this, the long sojourn in the wilderness was fraught with profit for the Israelites, spirit- ually and materially. If they had reached Palestine directly after leaving Egypt, they would have devoted themselves entirely each to the cultivation of his allotted parcel of ground, and no time would have been left for the study of the Torah. In the wilderness they were relieved of the necessity of providing for their daily wants, and they could give all their efforts to acquiring the law. On the whole, it would not have been advantageous to proceed at once to the Holy Land and take possession thereof, for when the Ca- naanites heard that the Israelites were making for Palestine, they burnt the crops, felled the trees, destroyed the build- ings, and choked the water springs, all in order to render the land uninhabitable. Hereupon God spake, and said: “ I did not promise their fathers to give a devastated land unto their seed, but a land full of all good things. I will lead them about in the wilderness for forty years, and meanwhile the Canaanites will have time to repair the damage they have done.'” 8 Moreover, the many miracles performed for the Israelites during the journey through the wilderness had made their terror to fall upon the other nations, and their hearts melted, and there remained no more spirit in any man. They did not venture to attack the Israelites, and the conquest of the land was all the easier.0 Nor does this exhaust the list of reasons for preferring the longer route through the desert. Abraham had sworn a solemn oath to live at peace with the Philistines during a certain period, and the end of the term had not yet arrived. Besides, there was the fear that the sight of the land of the
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