And ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance: every man's inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth; according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit.
Ye shall divide the land by lot. The particular locality of each tribe was to be determined in this manner, while a line was to be used in measuring the proportion (Joshua 18:10; Psalms 16:5-6). Canaan was to be divided, when they should be settled in peaceful occupation of it, in such a manner that the whole of the 600,000 yeomen should possess property in an equal share of it. This equality was a fundamental principle in the political constitution; and in order to maintain it, the possessions allotted were to be held by an inalienable tenure of entail by the successive generations of the family.