Village and city life

Solitary farmsteads were not to be found among the Hebrews Like other peoples of the East, they lived in towns, in clans, septs and families, partly because such life was more convenient and more social as well as safer, and partly because it grew naturally out of their nomadic life Among nomads the individual never thinks to set up for himself independently, but prefers, as he must, for such things are settled for him, to lose himself in his family, his sept, and his clan. Hebrew life in Canaan was, therefore, village and city life. ¹ The necessity of studying the people from this point of view grows out of the nature of this life and out of the fact that these two types of life were essentially distinct, and that both had much to do in determining the character of the people.