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objects from the bag, puts in his hand, and the ground in question is adjudged to the party
represented by the chief who gave the stone or other object which the child brings out. A
very young child is generally chosen for this purpose, in order that there may be no
collusion. When the six divisions are thus allotted, they are again subdivided, in the case
of each party, amongst the ten ploughs in a similar way. For this purpose each field of
each parcel is divided into ten equal strips, which are now generally, on the mountains,
measured out roughly with an ox-goad, about eight feet long. On the plains they use for
this purpose a rope about twice the length of the ox-goad, made of goat's hair, about half
an inch thick, called hhabaleh, evidently the Hebrew hhevel, `rope', or `measuring line'.
Each of these strips is called a mares, from Arabic meeras, `inheritance' or `allotted
portion' (or, as some say, from maras, `cable', a collective plural from marasah, `rope').
The fields are taken separately, and the ten mawaress, or strips, are apportioned amongst
the ten ploughs by lot. The owner of two ploughs, for instance, would get one-fifth of
each field in his sixth division of the land, and the owner of one plough one-tenth. A man
with two weak oxen who can only plough half a day is set down at half a plough, and gets
one-twentieth of each field; and another who can only plough for a quarter of a day
received one-fortieth. Each farmer then pays the proportion of the land-tax due on the
strips of land allotted to him."
Instead, therefore of questioning the use of the word "lot" to indicate our inheritance,
it would be difficult with such a background to avoid it.
So far we have considered our attention on the word kleronomia, we must now
consider the evidence that is forthcoming to justify one or other of the divergent
translations namely, the inheritance which we have obtained or have had allotted us in
Him, or, as the Revised Version, Cunnington and Rotherham would have it "we were
made God's portion". When we turn to the original of Eph. 1: 11, we find no word
exactly equivalent to "obtain" and observe that we meet here, for the first and only
occasion, the word kleroomai, which is explained in Dr. Bullinger's Lexicon as being in
the middle voice, and meaning "to acquire by lot, to obtain, to possess", but leaves the
question still unsolved, as to who it is that obtains. We have on other occasions
expressed our conviction, that many a doubtful passage in the New Testament can be
rendered with certainty by referring to a parallel use in the 70: One such passage is
I Sam. 14: 41, where in answer to the casting of lots between Saul and Jonathan,
"Jonathan was taken". The Greek kleroomai here is the translation of the Hebrew lakad
"to take" in what is called the niphal or passive voice, "be taken", not actively "to take".
There are six occasions apart from I Sam. 14: 41 and 42 where this word is used for
being taken by lot.
"The tribe of Judah was taken . . . . . and Zabdi was taken . . . . . and Achan . . . . . was
taken" (Josh. 7: 16, 17, 18).
"The tribe of Benjamin was taken . . . . . the family of Matri was taken, and Saul the
son of Kish was taken" (I Sam. 10: 20, 21).
It seems impossible to resist this evidence. Eph. 1: 11 teaches us NOT that we have
obtained an inheritance, but that we have been taken by God for HIS inheritance! Of this
rendering Alford says: "This seems to me the only rendering by which philology and the
context are alike satisfied."