And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days: so the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended. And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses. And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, In all the signs and the wonders, which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, And in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel.--_Deuteronomy_ xxxiv. ISRAEL’S EARLY NEIGHBOURS To return to modern analytic accounts, it is noted by Stade that Israel never mastered the whole country west of the Jordan. The coast, with the exception of a few places, remained in the possession of the Canaanites, who, at the period of the Hebrew immigration, had long been organised into the prosperous and powerful commercial states known to us under the name of Phœnician. Nay, the influence, intellectual and material, of Akko, Sor (Tyre), and Sidon on the inland country was so great that it prevented the absorption of the original Canaanite population by the immigrant Israelites, and consequently the formation of compact Israelite tribes in the north. As far as we know, the Israelites were always on a friendly footing with these Phœnician states. They could not avoid trading with one another, and commerce only thrives in time of peace. The Phœnician cities disposed of the produce of Palestine, the wheat of the land west of Jordan, the balsam of the Jordan lowlands, the male and female slaves taken in war, and they offered an ever ready market for the produce of the flocks. The Israelites, on the other hand, procured from them, in ancient times, all products of handicraft and art which could not be made by the inmates of each farm for themselves. Thus it comes about that to the Israelite, Canaanite and trader were synonymous terms. This commerce, no less than the fact that the Phœnician cities were impregnable to their unpretentious strategy, obliged them to keep the peace. Furthermore, from the very moment the Philistines embarked on a career of conquest in Palestine, the interests of the Phœnician cities had been directed towards forming the inhabitants of the southern part of Syria, which they exploited commercially, into a strong political structure. For against the former the Israelites were the only allies to be had.