J^^fc^fc^fc ^fc^^^^^fe^^^^ ' fSi :i':i' ES FISfESMLMIG). THE HOME OF GOD'S PEOPLE. Rev. WILLIAM L. GAGE, Editor and Translntor of "Ritter's Palestine," " Tischemlorf 's Origin of the Gospeti," e*c., etc., and Author of " Life of Carl Kilter," '' Modern Historical Atliis," " Lowell Lectures on Palestine," " Studies in Bible Lands," &c., &c. FULLY ILLUSTRATED WITH Nearly One Hundred and Seventy-Five Engravings, ALSO, ACCURATE AND AUTHENTIC MAPS. PUBLISHED BY SUBSCRIPTION, ONLY. DUSTIN, GTLMAN, & CO., HARTFORD, CONN. QUEEN" CITY rUUMSHING COMPANY, CINCINNATI, OIUO-M A. PARKER & CO., CHICAGO, ILL -F A. HUTCHINSON & CO , ST. LOUIS, MO. 1874. ^':;iC-%^ Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1873, by DUSTIN, OILMAN & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. TO THOSE ilANY FRIENDS IN FOR- EIGN LANDS, WHO HAVE ASSISTED ME WITH THEIR COUNSEL, OR LIGHTENED MY LABORS WITH THEIR FRIENDSHIP, WHILE COLLECTING THE MATERIALS FOR THIS AND KIN- DRED WORKS, THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY DEDI- CATED, BY THE AUTHOR. * * ■ * PREFACE. There is a certain mystery which rests upon the land where those writings were indited which we all agree in calling Sacred. The Book which records the development of the religious thought of those who have gained the clearest insight into the character of God, is a book of mystery, and its secrets are still the wonder and the controversy of the world. Egypt, Sinai and Palestine share that mystery; they are still the regions over which a halo, brighter than romance, still hovers, and the common, garish light of nineteenth century reality has not yet banished the charm with which the imagination lingers on what we call, with a deeper meaning than we know, the Holy Land. I may be permitted to confess to the reader that I have put much honest labor into this work, and now give it to the public as the ripened result of many years' study. Amid the cares of an active pastorship, my recreation has long been in the field of sacred geography and history; a protracted residence abroad has allowed me to accumulate much material, and the public has already received the results in the large PREFACE. V work of Ritter, translated from the German, and edited with conscientious care. The key note of this book may be said to be Hitter's great and dominating idea of the sisterhood, or rather twinship of geography and history. Though the pages will be seen to have largely a historical character, and at first glance will appear to be a repetition of what other pens have done, yet a more careful scrutiny will show that the old story is told afresh mainly for the purpose of casting upon it the side light of sacred geography. The Land of the Bible is the best com- mentator on the Bible itself, and he alone can enter into an understanding of Holy Writ who is willing to read the handwriting of God on those rocks and hills and plains where he mirrored his own thought, and whose physical features have become the symbols of his own truth. W. L. Gage. THE HOME OF GOD'S PEOPLE. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. P»6e. 1. The Modern City of Okfa, 25 2. Bethel, 29 3. The Expulsion of Hagar, . 39 4. Mosque at Hebron, (Machpelah), and Part of the Town, 43 5. River Jabbok, 47 6. Sdccoth, 49 7. Jacob's Well, 51 8. Presentation of Moses to Pharaoh, 55 9. The Sphinx and Pvkamids of Memphis, 57 10. The Dead Sea, 65 11. Marah (Ain Amara, The Bitter Wells), 71 12. Engraved Rocks in the Ouadi Mokattab, 75 13. Convent of St. Catharine, Mt. Sinai, 81 14. Fac Simile of Sinaitic Manuscript, 84 15. Do. do. do. do 85 16. Do. do. do. do 86 17. Fragment of Egyptian Manuscript, 87 18. Chapel of Moses upon the Supposed Site of the Burning Bush, 89 19. Mount Hor, 96 20. Stone Door of an Ancient House, 103 21. Ruins of a Temple at Kennath, 105 22. Mount Hermon from near Tiberias, 108 23. Mountains of Moab, Ill 24. Ain Sultan, 114 25. View of the Jordan Valley, 117 26. Aqueduct and Part of the Town of Hammath, 119 27. View on the Road from Jerusalem to Jericho, 127 28. Ancient Battering Ram, 133 29. Ancient Axes, 133 30. Ancient Battle-axes, Pole-axe, Maces and Club, 133 31. Tortoise Shield, 134 32. Lake Merom from the South, 137 33. Beersheba, 142 34. C.ESAREA, 147 35. Valley and Town of Nablous, (Ancient Sheechem), 153 36. Akka, or Acco, Ancient Accho, Ptolemais, 159 37. Ancient Swords and Daggers, 164 VIII LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 38. Jezreel, 171 89. Scene in the Mountains of Gilead, 179 40. Gaza, 185 41. Gods of Wood, 188 42. Jerusalem fkom the Mount of Olives, 191 43. Easteun Woman with Veil, 194 44. Do. do. do 195 45. Ploughing, Hoeing and Sowing, 196 46. Wueat Field with Olives, 196 47. Women Gkinding Gkain, 196 48. Ancient IIoes, 196 49. Gkanaky 196 50. AsiiDOD, 202 51. Egyptian Asses saddled. Ancient, 207 52. Egyptian Asses saddled, Modern, 207 53. Rachel's Tomb, 209 54. Warrior with Helmet and Shield, 212 55. Ancient Harps, , 215 56. Ancient Harp, 215 57. Ancient Signet Rings, 215 58. Tar, " Timbrel or Tabret," 215 59. Ancient Sheepfold, 215 60. Verdure of Engedi, 222 61. The so-called Golden Gate of Jerusalem, 226 62. River Jordan with Jacob's Bridge, 227 63. Interior of Golden Gate, 228 64. Hills and Walls of Jerusalem, 231 65. Castle of David and Jaffa Gate, 235 66. The Grand Range of Lebanon, 240 67. Petra, 251 68. The Summit of Mt. Hor, 261 69. Amman, General View, with Stream and Bridge, 263 70. AY ELL OF JOAB, 265 71. Ancient War, 269 72. Oriental Gate, or Door, 273 73. Gorge of the Kidron, 275 74. Different Modes of Obeisance, 277 75. Do. do. do. do 278 76. Absalom's Tomb, 285 77. Ancient Coins, 289 78. Shekels, 290 79. Pieces of Silver, 291 80. Mosque of Omar, or Dome of the Rock, 293 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. IX Page. 81. Sepulchral Monvments near Sidon, 301 82. Table of Shew Bread, 304 83. Golden Candlestick, 305 84. Temple at Baalbec, 306 85. Altar of Burnt Offering, 307 86. Pools of Soloman, 309 87. Hyssop, • ^^^ 88. Defile in Idum.ea, in the Road from Palestine to Egypt, .... 320 89. Altar of Incense, 325 90. Head and whole Figure of Phcenician Baal, 329 91. Mount Carmel from the North, with the Village of Haifa, . 834 92. Valley of Jehoshaphat, 336 93. Ancient Chariot, 345 94. Suspended Battering Ram, 347 95. Mount Ararat, 351 96. Sebastieh, the Ancient Samaria, 353 97. Sacked Symbolic Tree of the Assyrians, 861 From Lord Aberdeen's Biackstone. Fcrgusson's J^Tineveh and Persopolis. 98. Assyrian Knives, . = 361 From Originals in British Museum. 99. Ancient Assyrian Lamps in the British Museum, 361 100. Sennacherib on his Throne before Lachish, 361 101. Impressions of the Signets of the Kings of Assyria and Egypt, {Original Size,) 361 102. Roman As, 862 103. Roman and Barbarian Combat, 364 104. Ancient Dials, 366 105. Armies Approaching Jerusalem, 367 106. The Dial of Ahaz 369 107. TojiBS OF the Kings of Judah, in the Valleys of Jehoshaphat, . . 371 108. Ancient Persian Spears and Shields, 372 109. Heavy armed Warrior, 373 From Hope's Ckistumes of the .Ancients. 110. Persian Sword, or Acinaces, *l 373 111. Roman Slinger, 373 From Columns of Jlntonius. 112. Ancient Cuirasses, 373 From Wilkinson. 113. Ancient Cuirass, 373 114. Ancient Records, 374 115. Clog Almanac, 375 116. Ancient Persian Combat, 377 117. Street in Jerusalem, 378 118. Ancient Armor. Persian Horseman, 879 119. View of the Kasr, 380 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. P«ge. 120. Ancient Entertainment, showing toe form of the Chairs, 383 121. Reputed Tomb of Estiier and Mordecai, 385 122. Tomb of Cyrus at Murg-Aub, 387 123. Ancient Bottles, 391 124. Ancient Cups, 391 125. Ancient Cups, 391 126. East End of South Wall, 393 127. Reputed Tomb of Ezra on the Banks of the Tigris, 397 128. Brick Pyramid of Taioum, 402 129. Oriental Migration, 404 130. Plain and Obelisk of Heliopolis, or On, 417 131. Antakia the Modern Representation of Antioch, 421 132. Bethlehem, 433 133. Cave of the Nativity 435 134. Grotto of the Nativity, 439 185. Vale and City of Nazareth, 445 136. Via Dolorosa, — Jerusalem with the Arch of Ecce Homo, . . . 452 137. Mount of Olives, 455 138. Bethany, 457 139. The Holy Sepulchre, 461 140. Jews' Place of Wailing, 465 141. All that remains op Capernaum 467 142. Pool of Bethesda, 469 143. Ruins of the Palace of the Caesars, 471 144. Pool of Siloam, 473 145. Temple of Birs-Nimrud — Babel, (Tower of Tongues), 483 146. " No," Thebes, 485 147.. Ruins of an Egyptian City, 487 148. Damascus 499 149. Bedouin Encampment, 502 150. View of old Olive Trees in Gethsemane, 509 151. Cedars of Lebanon, 511 152. Abraham's Oak near Hebron, 514 153. Lake op Tiberias, from the Baths, 521 154. Modern Laida or Sidon, 524 155. St. Paul's Bay, Malta, 535 156. Corinth, 545 157. Patmos, 551 MAPS. 158. Palestine before the Conquest, 32 159. The Environs of Jerusalem, 229 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE HAUNTS AND WANDERINGS OF ABRAHAM. Obscurity of the Opening Chapters of the Bible — Not the Men and "Women of To-day — Clearing Up — Abraliam a Distinct Character — Ur of the Chal- dees — Ur now a Missionary Station of the American Board — Abraham Journeys to Haran — Goes Onward to Damascus — Next Appears at the smiling Plain of Shechem — Then at the Hallowed Shrine of Bethel — Famines, common in those days — Abraham, the Rich Man, divides the whole country with Lot — ^Abraham gets after all the Best of the Bargain — Invasion of the "Kings of the East" — Dead Sea Described — Abra- ham's Victory over the Chieftains from the Plains of Shinar, ..... 23 CHAPTER II. JACOB AND THE "SOUTH COUNTRY." Change m the Character of the Country — Hills give place to Rolling Land — Grass Appears — This Land the Last Resting-place of Abraham and the Home of Isaac — This Region not yet Thoroughly Explored — Wells still a Subject of Contention — The Real Home of the Patriarchs — Hagar — Hebron and the Cave of Machpelah — Prince of Wales' Examination of It • — Jacob's Embalmed Body probably there now — Jacob's Wanderings " in Search of a Wife " — His Return to Palestine — Shechem — The Death and Burial place of Rachel, 37 CHAPTER III. EGYPT, AND THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. Egypt the Mother of Civilization — Sesostris — The Land of Goshen — Its Boundaries — Occupations of the Hebrew Slaves — The Treasure-cities — Succoth— Etham — The Natural Route of the Israelites— Why they made their Detour — The Head of the Red Sea — The Places near it — xn CONTENTS. PAOS. The Crossing of the Gulf of Suez — Dr. Bonar and Dr. Robinson on the Miracle wrought there, 54 CHAPTER IV. THE SINAI PENINSULA. A Toilful Piljrriniage — Physical Aspect of the " Wilderness " — The Triangle of Land — llutj;ged Sublimity of Nature — A Great Mass of Molten Rock Suddenly Cooled— Tlie Till Plateau— Its Wall of Mountains— The Dead Sea Gorge — Captain Allen's Theory — The Results of Modern Science — A Land Without a History — Unchanged Aspect — Want of Vegetation ^A Land of Pilgrims — Literature of the Desert — The Bitter Springs of Marah — The Sweet Springs of Elini — The " Goodly " Vale — A Tediou? Climb — A Desolate Plain — Desert of Sin — The One Beautiful Valley of the Whole Region — Serb.T.1, the Mountain of Mystery — The Written Characters on the Rock — Approach to Sinai, 63 CHAPTER V. MOUNT SINAI, AND THE YEARS OF WANDERING. The Broad, Curved Valley called Wady Sheikh— Pass of the Winds— The Plain before Sinai a Lofty, Craggy Pile— A Wall of Rock — Form and Structure of the Mountain — Discovery of the Sinaitic Manuscript of the New Testament by Prof Tischendorf — The Convent of the Forty — Con- vent of St. Catharine — Scene of the Israelites' Encampment — Moses' Ascent — The Wilderness of Sinai — What Grows there — Silence of the Desert — Effect of a Thunder-storm — Elijah's Chapel — View from Sinai — The Stay of the Israelites around the Mount — Their Journey North- ward — The Spies — Kadesh Barnea — Scene of the First Contest — Region of the Edomites — Aaron's Burial-place — Route of the Spies — Preliminary Survey of Palestine — Petra — Approach to the " Promised Land," ... 79 CHAPTER VI. THE TRANS-JORDANIC DISTRICT. A New Field— Recapitulation — The Ancient Tribes — The Moabites and the Ammonites — Moab and its Divisions — A Country Little Explored — Who have gone through it — Hindrances made by the Savage Bedouins — Victory over " Sihon, King of Amorites " — Rampage Northward into Og's Region — Porter's Researches — The Houses of Bashan — Argob and its Threescore Cities — Territory Given to Reuben — To Gad — To Half- Manassah — Hermon and its Various Names — The Midianites — Balaam and the Scene of His Vision — The Theoretical Limits of Palestine — Prominent Objects in the Landscape — Scene of Moses' Death — His Allot- ment of the " Promised Land," 100 CONTENTS. xiii CHAPTER VII. PASSAGE OF THE JORDAN, AND BEGINNING OF THE CONQUEST. PAQI. Fording the Jordan — Depth in Summer — In Spring — In Winter — Melting Snows of Hermon — Wlien the Israelites Crossed — Harvest Season — No Bridges then over the Jordan — Comparison with our American Rivers — Gilgal, the Place of the First Encampment — What Remains of It — Ruins of Jericho — Palms and Roses of that City — Vices of the Arabs There — The Man who Fell among Thieves — Natural Highway up to the Moun- tains — Route from Jericho to Ai — Taking of Ai — Ebal and Gerizim — Setting Up of the Law — Visit of the Gibeonites — Their Disguise — The Five Kings — Joshua as a Military Leader — Battle of Beth-horon — The Scene of the Contest — Slaughter of the Kings- — " Sun, Stand Still " — The Great Miracle— Battle of Hazor, - 122 CHAPTER VIII. ALLOTMENT AMONG THE TWELVE TRIBES. Full Description of the Allotment in the Bible — Retention of the Ancient Names in the Mouth of the Arabs — Robinson and Smith's Discoveries — . The Three Tribes East of the Jordan, Reuben, Gad, and Half-Manasseh — The Beautiful Land of Bashan — The Inequalities in Western Palestine in Respect to Soil — A Wonderful System of Compensations — Only One Tribe Fares Badlj^ — Territory of Judah — Its Advantages — Benjamin — Its Sacred Localities — Dan — Its Narrowness and Subsequent Emigration — Ephraim — Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulon — The Cities of Refuge — Moses' Knowledge of the Land — Site of Shiloh and its Discovery by Robinson, 139 CHAPTER IX. TROUBLOUS DAYS — THE JUDGES — DEBORAH. . The Subjugation not Perfect as Yet — Adonibezek — His Cruelties — Some very Strong Cities which had not been Taken — A Touch of Humor — The Five Philistine Cities — Gath not to be found — Who were the Canaan- ites? — Great Invasion from the East — The First of the Judges — The Second Judge — The Scene Changes to the Jordan — Ehud and Eglon — The Great Battle of Deborah — Description of the Plain of Jezreel — The Battle Painted — Heroism of Deborah — Geographical Localities Visible at the Present Time — The Victory — Reflections, 157 XIV . CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. GIDEON AND HIS GREAT DELIVERANCE. PAOI. A DiflScult Theme — Some Localities Unknown — Who were the Midianite , Invaders? — The Bedouin of Tliat Day — Their Costume and Manners — Where They Crossed the Jordan — Tiie Plain of Esdraelon — Its Physical Conformation — The Order of the Midianite Invasion — Wlio Entered into the Alliance Against Them — The Character of Gideon — His Call as a Deliverer — His Brothers — The "Spring of Trembling" — The Sifting of His Men — How he got rid of the Cowards — The Night Attack — The Victory — The Pursuit into the High Lands East of the Jordan — Death of the "Raven" and the "Wolf" — Change in Gideon's Character, .... 168 CHAPTER XI. ABIMELECH THE TYRANT AND JEPHTHAH THE FREE- BOOTER. A Tragic Tale — The Fertile Vale of Shechem — Its Conformation and An- cient Landmarks — The Scene of Jotham's Parable — Other Important Sites — Jephthah's Home East of the Jordan — A Wild, Rugged Character — How Jephthah Resembles Elijah — The Wildest of the Arabs — The First Movement of the Freebooter — The Territory of Amnion — The Crisis for which Jephthah was Raised Up — The Brief Campaign Against the Am- monites — The Scene of the World famous Vow — The Daughter's Fate, . 176 CHAPTER Xn. SAMSON THE GREAT HUMORIST. Scene Transferred to the Hill-Country of Dan — Samson a Danite — Char- acter of the Country where he was Reared — The Philistines and their Domain — Whence They Came — IIow They Surpassed the Israelites in Arts — The Gradual Increase of the Philistines' Power — Their Use of Horses and Chariots — The Rudeness of the Arts of War Among the Israelites — The Name Palestine Derived from Philistine — The Chief Cities — Their Ruins at the Present Day — Ashkelon, Ekron, Ashdod — The Physical Character of the Pliilistine Territory, 182 CHAPTER XIH. MICAH AND THE LEVITE— THE WAR OF EXTERMINA- TION ON BENJAMIN — THE PASTORAL OF RUTH. The Close of the Book of Judges — The Scene of Sacred Story Moves to the Neighborhood of Jerusalem and then to the Extreme North of Pal- CONTENTS. XV PAOI. estine — Tell el Kadi, the Mound of the Judge — The Profuse Jordan Spring Found There— Its Waters, Whence Obtained — The Course Taken by the Spies — Their Report — The Capture of Laish and its Fate — Tris- tam's Account of the Conquered Region — The Great War of Extermina- tion — The Site of Gibeali — Mizpeh, Whence Named — The Old and the New Place which Bore That Name — The Sacredness of Mizpeh — The Battle which Surged Around that Hallowed Place — The Course of the Battle— The Structure and Contents of the Book of Ruth, 18T CHAPTER XIV. SAMUEL THE PRINCELY. The First Book of Samuel a Real Continuation of Judges — Samuel a True Member of the Line of Men who Judged Israel — Contrast Between Sam- eon and Samuel — The Religious Degeneracy of tiie Hebrews — The Pro- fligacy of Eli's Sons a Symptom of the Age — The First Battle With the Philistines — Victory at Eben-ezer — The Ark and its Use During the Bat- tle—The Death of Hophni and Phinehas— Its Effect on Eli— The Ark Passes Into the Hands of the Philistines — They get Rid of It — Another Battle With the Philistines, 198 CHAPTER XV. FAILURE OF THE COMMONWEALTH— CHOICE OF A KING— SAUL. Moses' Policy Precluded Forever the Establishing of a King Over the Jews — Yet he Feared a Degeneracy which should sometime Result in Having a King — Provision Made to This End — Failure of the Common- wealth — Encroachment of the Philistines on the West — Of Arab Barbari- ans on the East — No Smith in Israel — All Repairing of Tools Done by the Philistines — Feelings of Weakness — Saul's Search for his Asses — Geograpliicjil Difficulties — Unsolved Questions of Location — Across the Jordan to Jabesh-gilead — Its Deliverance — Saul's Wonderful Alacrity — The Battle at Michmash — Other Advantages which Followed — The Slaughter of Agag — The Rejection of Sard, 204 CHAPTER XVI. DAVID AND SAUL. The Anointing of David — Not Followed by his Immediate Accession to Power — David had a Reputation Even in His Youth — The Rare Qualities Which a Sheplierd was Compelled to Have — David's Additional Accom- plishments — His Exploits — The Psalms Written During his Shepherd Life — Saul's Madness — Similar in Ciiaracter to That of Theodore the Late Emperor of Abyssinia — The Contest With Goliath — The Geographical XVI CONTENTS. PAOI. Situation— The Friendship With Jonathan— David Hunted Before Saul — Tli3 Refuge Places Where we Find Ilim— He Even Seeks Shelter Among the Philistines— The Cave of Adullam—Moab— Return to hia Native Heath — Keilah and its Deliverance— Recent Identifications of David's Haunts — Physical Character of Southern Palestine — David's Wild, Wretched, Wander- Years— Grand Attack on Saul— The Philistines at Jezrcel — The Death of Saul and Jonathan, 214 CHAPTER XVII. DAVID AS KING— CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM— ALLI- ANCE WITH PHCENICIA. The Career and Misfortunes of Saul's Son — Site of Mahanaim — The Princely Abner— A State of Anarchy and Civil War— David at Hebron —The Region Around that City— The Change of the Capital— The Na^ ural Seat of Government was at Shechem— Zion — Millo — Tiie City of David— Insignificant Size of the Jerusalem of that Day— Great War with the Philistines— A Speedy and Brilliant Campaign — David's False Policy Regarding Philistia — The Alliance with the "Phoenicians and What it Meant — The Northern Tribes and their Relations with Phoenicia — David's Palace, 225 CHAPTER XVIII. REMOVAL OF THE ARK— MILITARY CONQUESTS. The Place where the Ark had Lain for Twenty Years — Its Removal to Gibeah— The Pomp of that Removal— The Twenty-fourth Psalm— The Acme of David's Career — David's Conquests — His Eminence as a Poet, Contrasted with his Fame as a Warrior — The Extent of David's Vic- tories — Campaign Against the Philistines — Mistaken Policy Regarding Them — War Against Moab — Improvement on the Old Carnage of Joshua's Time — Wrong to Judge the Ethics of the Old Testament by those of the New — War Against the King of Zobah — The Riches Gained by this Campaign — The Frontier Lines as now Drawn by David — Master now of nearly all the "Promised Land" — Petra and its Subjugation — Full Description of Petra from Ritter — Subjugation of Ammon— Size of Pales- tine Contrasted with that of Other Great Nations of that Age, .... 234 CHAPTER XIX. DAVID'S SIN— ABSALOM'S REVOLT. The Fall of David — A Turning-point in His Life — Bathsheba Descried from the Palace — Her Husband a Foreigner — Uriah's Wonderful Fidelity — David's Sin must not be Measured by the Standard of Our Day — The Fifty-first Psalm — An Autobiographical Confession — David's Star on the CONTENTS. Xvii PAOB. Wane — The Story of Absalom Minutely Told in the Bible — Stanley's Account — Absalom's Beauty — Eastern Family Customs — David's Love for Absalom — The Flight of the King — The Insults which were Offered Him — Ahithopel's Counsel — The Psalms which Grew Out of this Event — David in Security East of the Jordan — Death of Absalom — Effect on the King — David's Return, 267 CHAPTER XX. CLOSING EVENTS OF DAVID'S REIGN— PREPARATIONS FOR THE TEMPLE. Two Minor Rebellions — David Falls into the Usual Ways of an Oriental Despot — Introduction of a Strict Military Discipline — Heavy Taxes Laid on the People — The King's Favorites — Popular Discontent — Sheba's Re- bellion — The Conscription under Joab — The Penalty Laid on David — Pestilence — Its Limits — The Threshing-floor of Araunah — Mount Mo- riah — David's Purchase — Its Consecration to a New Use — The Pres- ent Aspect of that Threshing-floor — Mosque of Omar — Access to it — The Cavern Beneath the Dome — Adonijah's Rebellion — David an Old Man — The Royal Succession — Death of David — His Burial — His Sepulchre, 287 CHAPTER XXI. SOLOMON'S CHARACTER AND EARLIER ACTS. The Reign of Solomon a Contrast to that of David — Change in the Public Tastes — Not Much of Shepherd Life Left in the Royal Home — David's Palace a Simple House Judged by Solomon's Standard — Not Altogether an Advance from David's to Solomon's Time, but Rather a Fall — No In- crease in Faith and Purity — An Epoch of Effeminacy — Solomon a Be- liever in the Visible — His Life Pitched to a Much Lower Key than that of David — The Influences Around His Youth — His Crafty and Ambitious Mother — The Realm He Found Himself Master of — Its Extent and Boundary Lines — His First Act one of Destruction — His Marriage into the Royal House of Egypt — Mighty Contrast Between Moses' Time and Solomon's — The Effect of the Egyptian Alliance — The Compact with Hiram of Tyre — The Officers of Solomon's Household, 296 CHAPTER XXn. SOLOMON'S ARCHITECTURAL AND OTHER PUBLIC WORKS. The Erection of the Temple — Planned by David, but Executed by Solomon —Relation of Its Size to that of the Tabernacle— The Temple About tlie Size of a Moderately Large Village Church — Its Divisions — Its Sacred Vessels— The Gold Used in Its Floor and Sides— The Fame of the Edifice 2 XVIU CONTENTS. PAOl. — The Foundation Stones Which now Remain — Their Great Size — Other Remains — Solomon's Palace — Tlie Armory — The House of the Forest of Lebanon — The Porch of Pillars — Magnificence of all these Structures — Adornment of the Suburbs of Jerusalem — The Pools of Solomon — The Aqueduct — The Fortifications Which He Built — Palmyra — Solomon's Drain upon the Resources of his Subjects — The Establishment of a Navy in the Red Sea — ^Trade With Ophir — Where was Ophir — The " Ships of Tdrshish" — The Queen of Sheba — Solomon's Administration — His Mistakes, 808 CHAPTER XXIII. THE TWO KINGDOMS— REHOBOAM AND JEROBOAM. Change at this Point in the Character of Kings and Chronicles — Crisis at the Close of Solomon's Reign — Rehoboam Inherits his Father's Love of Splendor — His Mother — The Council at Shechem — An Abrupt Break — Jeroboam's Origin — Resemblance Between Jeroboam and the First Na- poleon — His Education in Egypt — His Great Deeds — An Egyptian Inva- sion — Artificiality of Rehoboam's Character — Extent of the Northern Compared with that of the Southern Kingdom — The Isolation of the Southern Kingdom its best Safeguard — Jeroboam's Want of Religion — ^ He Organizes a State Religion for the "Masses" — Philosophy which Underlay the Worship of the Bullock — The Homage Paid to Nature — Apotheosis of Men — No Binding Force in his State Religion — The Doom of the House of Jeroboam — Tumults and Conspiracies — Zimri, and bis Seven Days' Reign — Omri — Abijah — Asa, 316 CHAPTER XXIV. AHAB AND ELIJAH-JEHOSHAPHAT. Ahab Surpasses even Jeroboam in Wickedness — His Marriage with Jezebel — The Worship of Foreign Images comes in — The Adoration of Baal an Apotheosis of Power — Parallel Between the Ideas of Ancient Idolaters and those Current Among Ourselves — The Brilliant and Festive Charac- ter of much of the "Divine Worship" of Our Day — A Falling Away from the Grave and Earnest Spirit of Moses and His Successors — The Character of Jezebel — The Rites She Introduced — Elijah Starts, as it were from the Ground — His Training — His Rough, Wild, Ungracious Ways — Contrast Between Eastern and Western Palestine — Thunder in a Clear Sky — Ahab's First Rebuke — Suddenness of Elijah's Moves — Scenes where He Appears — He is Always at Hand when Needed — Hopes that he would Again Visit this Earth — Mendelssohn's Elijah — War Be- tween Ahab and the King of Syria — The Reign of Ahab Almost Uncon- nected with that of His Contemporary, Jehoshaphat — The Great Deeds of the Latter King — He Revives the Glories of Solomon, 328 CONTENTS. XIX CHAPTER XXV. ELISHA AND HIS TIMES. ' PASS. Contrast Between Elisha and Elijah — Mont Blanc and Righi — Elisha is Commonplace Compared with his Predecessor — Yet a Sweet and Benig- nant Character — Hazael the King of Syria — The Call of Elisha — Strange Affection of Elijah for Elisha — The Going Up from Gilgal to Bethel — Elisha's Short Hair and the Ridicule it Occasioned — " Go Up Thou Bald Head " Explained — A Peaceful Career — Elisha's Great Kindnesses — The Wonders He Wrought — Elisha is the Master Even of liings, 338 CHAPTER XXVI. JEHU AND HIS REIGN. Encroaching Power of Syria — Combination Thus Enforced Between the Kingdom of Israel and that of Judah — The Syrians Masters of Ramoth- gilead — The City Occupied Temporarily by Jehu — Marriage Alliances — Jehu Appointed King — The Effect of the Tidings on Him — Jehu Hurries to the City of Jezreel — Riding " Like Jehu " — Treachery at Court — Jezebel at the Capital — Death of the Wicked Queen — Jehu's First Acts —The Infamy of Athaliah 343 CHAPTER XXVH. DOWNFALL OF ISRAEL. A Line of Wicked Kings — The Old Story of Jeroboam Oft Repeated — Jehu Hardly Better than the Rest — Jeroboam the Second — A Period of Crisis and Calamities — Trouble in Syria — Rise of Assyria — The Assyrian Kings — The First Invasion and the Taking of the People of the North- ern Kingdom Captive — The Next Blow of the Assyrians — Palestine as Viewed by the Assyrians — Compared with Modern European Nations — A Kingdom Blotted Out — Alleged Modern Discoveries of the Ten Tribes —The Site of Nineveh— The Prophets of the Bible— Their Function as Preachers, 349 CHAPTER XXVIH. THE ANNALS OF JUDAH— THE GOOD KING HEZEKIAH. The Annals of Judah not so Remarkable for Wicked Kings as those of Israel — Instances of Piety on the Throne — Hezekiah the Most Memorable of them all— His Life Narrated in Three Different Parts of the Bible— The Book of Isaiah — The Former Assyrian Invasions — The One which Now Occurred — Sennacherib, His Character — The Memorial of Him at Dog River, Near Beyrout — Other Memorials There — The Assyrian Army — XX CONTENTS. PAOI. What was Expected — Isaiah's Description of the Approach — Topographi- cal Worth of His Description — Siege of Lachish — Its Ruins— Insulting Message of the Assyrian King to Hezekiah — Not Difficult to Take Jerusa- jem — No Words of Submission — The Plague at Night— Byron's Lines— The Danger Passed — A Trace of this Fragment of History Found in Herodotus, 858 CHAPTER XXIX. THE CAPTIVITY— NEBUCHADNEZZAR. Prevalence in Corruption in Jerusalem and Judah — Josiah Raised Up to Stem it — Brief Reigns — Kings Carried into Captivity at Babylon — Zede- kiah has his Eyes Put Out — Battle of Megiddo — Rivalry of Babylon and Egypt — The Prophecy of Jeremiah — Discovery of the Bible — The Old Faith a Dead Thing— The Approach of the Final Siege of Jerusalem — The Invasion of Nebuchadnezzar — The Character of this Monarch — Daniel — The Ruins of Babylon — Nebuchadnezzar's Insanity, 370 CHAPTER XXX. CONDITION OF THE JEWS DURING THE CAPTIVITY. The Books of Daniel, Ezekiel and Esther — The Grandeur of the Babylonian Monarch — Glimpses of the Jewish People — Their Slavery — The Book of Esther in Special — A Romantic History — Why that Book is Found in the Bible — Objections Considered — Xerxes the Great — Esther Herself — The Great Providence Displayed in the Wiiole History — Salvation of the Jewish Nation — The Feast of Purim Still Kept by the Jews — Side Lights Thrown Upon Jewish History — Their Prosperity in Babylon — Reluctant to Return — Cyrus — His Shrewdness in Allowing the Jews to Go Back, . 382 CHAPTER XXXI. THE RETURN FROM BABYLON. The First Colony or Caravan that Returned — View of Jerusalem from the East — A Scene of Desolation — Rebuilding of the Temple — Hindrances Put in the Way — The Work Sped — Bqok of Ezra — Nehemiah Goes Up with Another Colony — Ezra's Work of Reformation — The Effect Felt to the Present Day — Restoration of the Wall — The People had a Mind to Work — Gross Evils Ceased — Synagogue Worship Began — Ceasing of Prophecy — The Editing of the Bible — Malachi — Restoration of the Sabbath — The Reform in Marriage and the Abolishment of Idolatry, . . 389 CHAPTER XXXII. PALESTINE AFTER THE CAPTIVITY. Limitation of the Church Land of the Hebrews to the Hill-country Around Jerusalem — New and Large Relations — Great Extent of the New Empire — By Whom it had been Conquered — The Policy of Cyrus — Egypt the CONTENTS. XXI PAOS. Ground-work of our Conceptions — Eesemblances between the Ruins of Babylon and tliose of Egypt — Condition of Palestine at tliis Time — The Character of the Men who Returned from Babylon — What Jerusalem was still to the Jews — The Work of Nehemiah told in Greater Detail — The Men who Followed Nehemiah and Their Work, 398 CHAPTER XXXIII. THE LAND OF THE MACCABEES. The Empire of Alexander and the Place of Palestine in it — Changes Going Forward — Alexandria and Egypt — The Ptolemaic Restorations — Exten- sion of the Syro-Grecian Power — Course of Affairs at Jerusalem — The Fidelity of Judas Maccabaeus — A Period of Depression — Hopes of Finding the Dispersed Jews — The Maccabean Kingdom — The Conquest by Rome, 414 CHAPTER XXXIV. THE HOLY PLACES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Difference Between the Old and New Testaments in Respect to Geograph- ical Importance — Holy Places Narrated — Bethlehem — Church of Helena — Grotto of the Nativity — Nazareth — Grotto in the Latin Convent — Spring Near the Greek Church — House at Loretto — Jerusalem — Church of the Ascension — Tomb of the Virgin — Garden of Gethsemane — The Ccenaculum — Church of the Holy Sepulchre — Rock of Golgotha — Diver- sity of Sects— The Holy Fire— Travels of St. Paul— Patmos, 432 CHAPTER XXXV. HOLY PLACES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT— (Continded.) Uniformity of Tradition Regarding the Holy Places — Growth of Legends in Greece and Rome — Different in Jerusalem — The Church of the Ascen- sion — Its Antiquity — The Church Built by Helena — The Cave at Bethle- hem — The Mount of Olives — Church of the Virgin — Garden of Geth- semane — Mount Zion — Mosque of the Tomb of David — The Ccenaculum — The Site of the Holy Sepulchre — Hadrian's Temple — Tomb of Adam — The Wall of Herod — Golgotha — Chapel of the " Invention of the Cross " — Capernaum — The Two Canas — Bethesda — The Trav-els of St. Paul — The Fastnesses of Asia Minor — The Holy Places of Greece, .... 451 CHAPTER XXXVI. PALESTINE, ITS ASPECT AND SITUATION. The Highlands of Syria — Lebanon — The Four Rivers of Palestine — The Orontes — The Litany — The Barada — The Jordan — Physical Conforma- tion of Palestine — Seclusion from the rest of the Ancient World — Small- neae and Narrow Territory — Central Situation — ^A Land of Ruins, . . . 474 XXU CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXVII. CLIMATE AND SCENERY OF PALESTINE. /AOB. The Land of "Milk and Honey" — Destruction of Forests — Contrast with the Desert — Contrast with Assyria and Egypt — Variety of Structure and Climate — Palestine a Mountainous Country — Aram — The Views of Sacred History — Wiiat Abraham Saw from Bethel — What Balaam Saw from the Hills of Moab — What Moses Saw from Pisgah — What Jesus Saw from the Mount of Temptation — The Fenced Cities — The "High Places" — Political Divisions and Conquests — Highlands and Lowlands — Distinction Between Palestine and Other Half-civilized Countries — Scen- ery of Palestine, 488 CHAPTER XXXVIII. NATURAL PRODUCTIONS AND SOIL OF PALESTINE. Vegetation of Palestine — Trees — Olives — Cedars of Lebanon — Oaks — Terebinths — Abraham's Oak — Sacred Trees — Oak of Moreh — Oak of Mamre — Palms — Sycamores — Oleanders — The Wells of Palestine — Springs — Sepulchres — Caves — Legendary Curiosities, 507 CHAPTER XXXIX. A COMPARATIVE SURVEY OF SYRIA. The Three Routes into Palestine from the South — Insignificant Size of Palestine — Perpetuation of the Bond which Binds the Jew to his Former Home — Sacredness of Palestine in the Eyes of the Mahometans — Close Connection between the Local Geography of the Holy Land and the Mental Characteristics of the People — The Philosophy which Underlies This — Syria, how Bounded — Palestine's Position in Relation to the Ancient World — Palestine Viewed in Detail, 531 CHAPTER XL. COMPARATIVE SURVEY OF SYRLA.— (Concluded.) The Barriers of Palestine Sharply Defined — The Country Viewed in its Living Relations — Direction of the Mountain Ranges — Their Parallelism — The Desert Plateau — Caravan Routes — The Sea-coast of Syria — Want of Good Harbors — Diversity Between Eastern and Western Sides of Pal- estine — The Jordan a Unique River — The Ccele-Syrian Valley — The Road Lines of Palestine Run North and South — The Knotted Masses of the Lebanon — The Streams of Palestine — Small Brooks of the South of Palestine — Difference Between Phoenicia and Palestine — Resemblances Between Syria and Persia — Terrace-culture, 543 CHAPTER I. THE HAUNTS AND WANDERINGS OF ABRAHAM. Obscurity of the Opening Chapters of the Bible — Not the Men and Women of To-day — Clearing Up — Abraham a Distinct Character — Ur of the Chaldee« — Ur now a Missionary Station of the American Board — Abraham Journeys to Haran — Goes Onward to Damascus — Next Appears at tlie smiling Plain of Shecheni — Then at the Hallowed Shrine of Bethel — Famines, common in those days — Abraham, the Rich Man, divides the whole country with Lot — Abraham gets after all the Best of the Bargain — Invasion of the " Kings of the East" — Dead Sea Described — Abraham's Victory over the Chieftains from the Plains of Shinar. [HE Bible carries us back to the beginning of all things, and forward to the end of all things. Yet, when we read the first chapters of that venerable volume, we feel that we are dealing with events which have not the definiteness and clearness of modern history. We seem to be looking at a landscape partly obscured by mist, and the figures which we see have a weird outline, and do not appear like the men and women of to-day. But after the story of the flood there is at once a clearing up ; we seem to be among men of the same race with ourselves, and we enter upon authentic and crystallized history. In Abraham we see a man whose features we can clearly trace, and from him the stream of events flows onward without a break. He is the founder, not alone of the Jewish history, but of all con- nected and undoubted history. We do not know the world of the first chapters of Genesis sufficiently well to trace the current of those dark and distant times. But we have no such difficulty with Abraham and with all who follow him. At " Ur of the Chaldees," Abraham's first home, is then 24 UR OF THE CHALDEES. the fountain-head to which we resort, in our effort to trace the sacred story, and to read the Bible by the light of its own scenery. The name Chaldea appears to have passed like the sands which the Euphrates carries to the sea, down from the highlands of Armenia to the neighborhood of the Persian gulf. In the oldest parts of the Bible the land of the Chal- dees appears to have been near the head-waters of the Eu- phrates, while at the close of the Old Testament times, it has passed to the tract around Babylon. There have been many debates respecting the situation of "Ur of the Chaldees," and those who like Rawlinson have devoted themselves to studies in the district of the lower Euphrates, have decided that either Warka or Mugheh% great heaps of ruins, was the city whence Abraham migrated. The weight of evidence, turns the scale, in my judgment, in favor of the city now known as Oorfa, near the head-waters of the Euphrates, and some three or four hundred mUes north-east of Palestine. Among the singular retributions of history is this, that the city which stands where Ur once stood, is now a station of the American Board, and the Gospel of Chris,t, and the story of Abraham's life are now sent back by a young nation of America to that ancient spot whence Abraham journeyed so long ago, taking with him the worship of a living and spiritual God. The place has always been noted for its profuse spring, and around that spring people have always clustered, and so Ur has never been without a history. In the period of classic Rome it was a large and well-known city called Edessa, and the modern Orfa or Oorfa is not a place without size and architectural adornment. True to some divine intimation, Abraham, then a young man, took his aged father, and all the family possessions, and journeyed on to Haran. This place lay about twenty miles south of Ur, and was not a place of sufficient attractions to induce him to tarry long. It has not that profuse and ex- haustless supply of water which enriched Ur, his childhood's home ; but it has always been a place of some note in history. •i'tlllulJll' 26 HARAN THE SECOND HOME. It has been and is a great place of meeting for the caravans journeying from Egypt and Syria to the Euphrates and the Tigris, and the roads which lead to Nineveh and Babylon and Damascus crossed at Haran. When Stephen was uttering his dying speech, he alluded to Abraham's jom-ney to "Harran," as to a place well known, to all who heard his words, and not far from the time when Stephen lived and died,- this old Haran or Harran had been the scene of Crassus, a Roman general's defeat. It is therefore one of the clearly determinable land- marks of history. While some debate circles around " Ur of the Chaldees," none brings Haran mto doubt. True, once in a while, an erratic and wrong-headed man like Dr. Beke, di-ags it into dispute, but the learned world agree almost to a man that Haran was near the Euphrates, at a point about three hundred and fifty miles north-east of the mountams of Gilead, east of the Jordan. Leaving the body of his father Terah, Abraham once more ■ journeyed forth. And this time he plunged at once into the desert, and directed his march towards a land distant a week's weary way, and over a country desolate and barren. It was a great thing to do ; to take flocks and herds, and family and servants, and tents, and strike out into that desert, only to en- ter at last a land held by races of half savage men, from whom he could expect neither welcome nor sympathy. But he obeyed the " call ; " he " was not disobedient to the heavenly vision," and "he went out, not knowing whither he went." We can not trace him in the various stages of his journey, but we know that he must have passed by Damascus, for after- wards we find that his steward, his chief servant, was Eliezer of Damascus. That ancient city was built then, at the time of Abraham. Those mountain streams, which were fed by the dissolving snows of Hermon, then as now converted the otherwise arid plain into a garden, and allowed man to turn it into his uses and establish there a city. Damascus is a child of the mountain waters and the sand, united in marriage beneath that fervid Syrian sun. ABRAHAM AT SHECHEM. 27 Abraham comes into clear view at that peerless plain of Moreh or Shechem, as it was subsequently called, always one of the fanest scenes in Palestine. On one side towered the frowning Ebal even then, and on the other side, the smiling Gerizim. The plain was as winning then as it is now, and it kindled Abraham with such admiration, that he tarried there, and under one of its groves he buUded an altar and wor- shiped his God. He did not come into violent collision with the mhabitants of the place, — his nature was too gentle and peaceful for that, — but he made no long stay there, and still journeyed on toward the south. His next halting place was hard by a place which had no note then, but which was afterwards in connection with Abraham's grandson, to become one of the hallowed spots of the world. Near Bethel, between it and the walled city of Hai or Ai, which was afterwards to be one of the first to fall before the victorious arms of Joshua, was a high ridge, on the summit of which Abraham tarried again. He had passed from a rich and smiling valley to the comparatively sterile hill country of Central Palestine. It was not such a spot as the beautiful Moreh or Shechem, which he had left behind; it was not of course desolate and barren as it is in its neglect and misrule to-day, but it was no pleasant, attractive place. It was there that he felt the hard pressure of famine, for Pales- tine was then as now a land of precarious fortunes, liable to that great scourge, of which we know so little, an almost en- tire failure of the crops. The world is so bound together now, that the want of one region is at once and without observa- tion, compensated by the increased supply of some other region, and so we know little or nothing of suffering from famine. But it was not so in the past, nor is it so now in lands out of the regular march of civilization. In those ancient days, Egypt was the one unfailing source of supply. Its certain inundation gave it every year just that amount of virgin soil, and its never fading waters secured it that kind of irrigation which made the crops as sure as the return of th(» 28 DIVIDES WITH LOT. year, and all the lands on the north-east, east, and west of Egypt, Palestine, Arabia Petrsea and Libya, looked to Egypt for bread when their own supplies failed. And so when on those uplands near Bethel where Abraham had built another altar, the crops gave no return, he took his flocks and herds and household and went down into the Nile country. Re- maining there till the famine was past, he retui-ned to the neighborhood of Bethel. He was then a rich man, "very rich in cattle and in silver and in gold." His flocks had increased to that degree that the upland was not able to afford them sustenance, and it was necessary to divide the country between himself and his nephew, Lot. With that fine courtesy which always distin- guished him, and as the older and stronger giving the better opportunity to the younger, he surveyed with Lot all the land from that high ridge. Down at their feet, at the east, could be seen the fertile plain of the Jordan, not arid and desolate as now, with a dense jungle along the banks the only vege- tation, but a well watered and verdant plain, terminated at the south by the luxuriant shores of the Dead Sea. That'sea was not then a scene of wild and repulsive desolation, but was a gem of blue in a setting of emerald ; its coast studded with opulent cities, and all its surroundings as beautiful as they are now ghastly. Southward could be seen the hills of Southern Palestine, northward the peaks of Galilee, and far in the background, the : lofty and snowy summit of Hermon. It was, and stUl is, a splendid panorama. This Abraham proposed to divide with Lot. With that rare and winning gentleness of his, he said, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen, for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left." Lot, with a greedy desire to secure the best, at once selected the Jordan plain, and went down into it, and ever after lived HEBEON AND MAMRE. 31 there and on the borders of the Dead Sea. But the future proved that in his haste he had overleaped, and chosen badly. For in that fervid 'and steaming climate, men always de- generate, and the Arabs now living in the Ghor or deep Jor- dan valley are among the lowest of their name. Lot's lineage blended afterwards with the people of that region, and be- came the Moabites and the wild Ammonites, but they shared all the ill fortune which fell upon the wickedness of the Dead Sea cities, and became entangled in aU their misfortunes. Abraham on the other hand, became the possessor of the breezy and invigorating hill-tops, having a hardy soil, indeed, and a rougher chmate, but having those qualities which pro- duce able and rugged manhood, and which saved his stock fi-om premature decay. Just as New England's soil and cli- mate have been the vigorous nursing mother of a stalwart race, so did Abraham's possessions, though apparently the less propitious, make his fortune much the better. From the halting place near Bethel, Abraham moved south- ward to the neighborhood of Hebron, the place named in Scripture the " Plains of Mamre." It was doubtless hard by the present city of Hebron, for the unvarying voice of tradi- tion and the hints which the Scriptures give us, make it certam that it was there where Abraham tarried. The place was probably the high upland in the rear of modern Hebron, and his flocks and herds may have found pasturage m the fertile valleys near by. Hebron was then a city, one of the most ancient cities of the world, and giving tokens, like Damascus, that it had note and mark even then. The tribe of Hittites occupied it then, and m the neighborhood were some of those giants, whose names have been preserved in the Scriptures, but of whom we know little but the names. It was whHe Abraham dwelt near Hebron, that the invasion of the " Kings of the East" occm-red, recounted m the four- teenth chapter of Genesis. The story is one on which the reader does not generally linger, for the popular ignorance ot sacred geography is so great, that a narrative Uke that, em- THE DEAD SEA. 33 bracing so many of these grotesque and unpronounceable He- brew names, is usually jumped in the perusal. Nevertheless, the patient reader, who wiQ take the pains to study that chapter wUl find his reward. It is a graphic and admirable narrative of great events, and if we will but decipher it as we would the story of the Franco-Prussian war, we shall find it as clear as the story of that campaign. The lower course of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers was then bordered by tribes of rude men, under the control of chieftains whose names have been preserved. That region embraced the Plains of Shinar, and became a part of the la- ter provinces of Chaldea and Babylonia. It was then in the rudimentary stage of its history. The nearest rivals of these chieftains, on the west, were the five kings of the five cities of the Dead Sea Plain, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Zoar. These cities stood at the southern ex- tremity of the Dead Sea, as Wolcott has conclusively shown. The whole region was one of great fertility. That salty tract of varying breadth which stretched southward from six to ten miles, from the Dead Sea to the base of the hills and cliffs, was then a beautiful and verdurous plain. It was covered with population and studded with cities. Zoar stood on or near the peninsula of Lisan, which extends into the Dead Sea from the eastern side. Just where the other cities were we do not know, but tradition places Sodom at the southern extremity of the lake. The general appearance of the sea was then as it is now, although it was by no means so bit- ter and repulsive to the taste as now, for the Jordan has been poming in its brackish waters for thousands of years, while evaporation has continually been going on, and the brine has been growing stronger and stronger. All the salts which have been dissolved for ages from the soil of Palestine, are now in the bitter waters of the Dead Sea, for there is no out- let, and evaporation carries off what is absolutely pure, leaving all that is acrid behind. The tongue of land known as the Lisan, which juts into the 84 THE DEAD SEA. Dead Sea from the east, divides it into two parts which are entirely different. The northern one embraces about two- thirds of the entire area, the southern, the remaining one-third. The depth of the northern part is very great, about 1,312 feet, and it is 1,100 feet deep a mere cable length fi-om the mouth of the Arnon. From the steep cliffs in the east, the coast sinks away at once to those great distances. But the average depth of the southern portion is but 18 feet, and there is a large part that can be forded with perfect ease. Indeed it is said that in the early part of the present century, two English travelers went on foot from the Lisan peninsula across the lower arm of the Dead Sea. It has been supposed by Robin- son and others who have blindly followed him, that that was " the plain " of Scripture, and that in the great catastrophe of Sodom it was submerged ; and indeed the bitumen some- times found floating on the water, and the scanty depth, do give a certain color to the conjecture, but the studies of the best geologists who have explored that region, do not confirm it, and it is now considered to be beyond doubt, that the physical character of the Dead Sea has not been changed by any violent convulsion of nature, within the limits of human history. The course of the five kings who came from the plains around the lower Euphrates, was unquestionably up that river many hundreds of miles, to a point where it is but a week's journey or less across the desert to the uplands of Syria and then down the central mountain land of Palestine. To have gone directly across the great desert from the lower Euphrates to the Dead Sea would have been madness. No other course was feasible but the long, circuitous route already indicated. They descended on the kings of the five cities of the plain and brought them into immediate subjection. That subjec- tion continued for thhteen years, but in the fourteenth the conquered kings on the shore of the Dead Sea rebelled, and Chedorlaomei" and the other three chieftains from Shinar, were compelled to come once more and do their work over THE CHIEFTAINS FROM THE EAST. 85 again. Their course this time was down through the high- lands of Palestine east of the Jordan. They first vanquished the stalwart Rephauns, whose capitol was Ashteroth Karnaim, thence advancing southward they conquered successively the two powerful tribes of Zuzims and Emims, who held the dis- trict east and north-east of the Dead Sea, the precursors of the Moabites and Ammonites afterwards to come, they then fell upon the inhabitants of the Seu' or Edom range extending from the Dead Sea to the eastern arm of the Red Sea and brought them into subjection, then doubling that range, they passed up along its western base, attacking and overcoming the fierce Amalekites, that notable tribe of Arabs who held the northern edge of the Sinaitic wilderness, and lastly fell upon one of the old tribes- of Palestine, the warlike Amorites, who lived in the rocky and sterile region west of the Dead Sea. They smote them at a place then called Hazezon-tamar, but afterwards better known as Engedi, the place to which David fled from Saul, and where he wrote two at least of his most moving psalms. The place is still known as Ain Jidy, the old name differently spelled, but still pronounced hke Engedi. Reaching this spot, they were attacked by the five kings of the cities near by, but to no avail. The men of the plain were vanquished by the invaders from the east, and among those who were taken prisoner and whose goods were seized, were Lot and his household. A messenger was at once des- patched to carry the tidings to his uncle Abraham at Hebron, but a few miles across the country. At once the old sheikh, touched by the strong tie of kin, so potent in the east, started in pursuit of the flying invaders. We get a glimpse of him and his well-trained servants, three hundred and eighteen m number, at Dan, near the sources of Jordan. Abraham over- took them at Hobah, near Damascus, and falling upon them in the night, routed them completely, and rescued those whom he wished to save. His return was that of a conqueror. Melchisedek, the king of Salem, a man, who like Abraham, had learned in some unknown way, the worship of a spiritual S6 MELCHISEDEK. God, came forth to meet him, and blessed him and spread "be- fore him a noble feast. Who this man was, and where he lived, we do not know. It has been conjectured that Salem was the subsequent Jerusalem, but that we do not know. The closing years of Abraham's life were spent in Beer- sheba and in the region adjacent, to be more particularly des- cribed in the next chapter. CHAPTER n. JACOB AND THE "SOUTH COUNTRY." I Change in the Character of the Country — Hills give place to Rolling Land — Grass Appears — This Land the Last Resting-place of Abraham and the Home of Isaac — This Region not yet Thoroughly Explored — Wells still a subject of Contention — The Real Home of the Patriarchs — Hagar — Hebron and the Cave of Machpelah — Prince of Wales' Examination of it — Jacob's Embalmed Body probably there now — Jacob's Wanderings " in Search of a Wife " — His Return to Palestine — Shechem — The Death and Burial-place of RacheL OUTH of Beersheba the hills fade away, and are lost in the rolling country which stretches onward to the distant mountain-land lying on the northern part of the great Et Tih plateau. As one passes up from the Sinaitic Wilderness into the hill country of Palestine, he no- tices, in the last twenty miles before reaching Beersheba, the symptoms of a change. The aromatic shrubs of the desert gradually disappear, and grass takes its place. There are no trees, and yet the ground loses its almost fearfully sterile look, and begins to put on the first indications of fertility. Of all the travelers who have written of this south country, no other one has traced its features with the tender fidelity of Bonar, the Scotch poet and preacher, in his " Desert of Sinai " and " Land of Promise," — ^both excellent and admir- able works. Not that there is much that can detain the traveler for any length of time : its resources are very slight, and its features are not striking. Yet, as the home of Abraham for an exceed- ingly attractive part of his life, as the home of Isaac and of Jacob for a part of theirs, it is one of the most interesting regions mentioned in the Bible. It is not yet, strange to say, 38 SCENE OF HAGAR's WANDERINGS. thoroughly explored. Wliile there is scarcely a wady between Dan and Beersheba which has not been examined with a cer- tain degree of care, the south country is known only as it has been traversed by the caravan routes of the desert. The two hasty tours made a few years ago by Rev. Mr. Rowland, in search of Kadesh, lasting but three or foiu' days each, are almost the only ones which have been made south of Beer- sheba, except by those who have had occasion to cross the region. And discredited as Mr. Rowland apparently must be, in respect to his alleged discovery of the site of Kadesh, and the fancied identification of the well which he encountered in the desert with the one which Hagar stumbled upon when famished and at the door of death, still the remarks which he makes show, that, in spite of the distempered enthusiasm with which he recounts his explorations, there is a rich field for the researches of a learned, careful, and zealous man. Yet, even with such exjjloration, there is no startling mystery in that south country wliich will be brought to light. We know, almost beyond question, that the country where Abraham lived was at Beersheba and in its immediate vicinity ; that Isaac went westward to Gerar, and digged his numerous wells up and down the course of Wady Sheriah, a broad and shallow water-course a few miles south-east of Gaza, and running toward the latter city. Very careful research might bring to hght the wells which the provident and domestic Isaac digged, — the sources of such frequent controversy between his herds- men and those of the Philistine king. Even to the present day, wells are the most valuable possession of the Arab tribes ; and no contentions are so prolonged or so bitter as those which are held in respect to their possession. But, of all the wells of the whole region, no two come so prominently forward as Beersheba, the favorite residence of Abraham and Jacob, and Beer-lahai-roi, the place around which Isaac loved to caU together his flocks. Mr. Rowland, in his hasty tour through the south country, discovered a well some distance south of Wady Sheriah, the ancient Valley of Gerar, bearing the name THE EXPULSION OF HAGAR. THE REAL HOME OP THE PATRIARCHS. 41 Moilalii. This, from the resemblance in the names, he con- jectured to be Hagar and Isaac's Lahai-roi. It is scarcely- possible that this was the case. The country where Rowland made his early discoveries is too barren to have been attractive to a good husbandman like Isaac : he wovdd have chos^ the more fertile land south of Gaza, and in fact encroaching some distance upon what was the subsequent territory of the Pliil- istines. The retem or juniper-bush grows there now just as it did in the olden time ; and it affords a scanty shelter from the sun's rays to the Arab of to-day, jugt as it did to Elijah, while he was on his pilgrimage to Horeb, and had advanced a day's journey south of Beersheba. Here, then, in this half-fertile, half-desert tract, was the real home of the patriarchs. South of it was the wilderness, the subsequent scene of their descendants' trials and protracted wanderings. North of it was the home of the Canaanites, the powerful and partly civiUzed descendants of Ham. "With the patriarchal famihes we see mingled rival lords of the soil, the Abimelechs, wandering princes also, men who lived in tents, and possessed vast flocks and herds. Abraham did not at- tempt to dispossess the strong tribes which he found lying be- tween Dan and Beersheba : but after tarrying briefly at She- chem. Bethel, and Hebron, he went a few miles farther south, to the open country, where there were no walled cities ; and here he and his sons and his sons' sons led their roving, pas- toral hfe. We trace Hagar passing beyond that desert where she famished, making her abode for a season in Egypt, and securing a wife there for her son Ishmael ; but none of the descendants (Gen. xxv.) work their way northward into the land of the Canaanites : they go south-eastward into the hills and plains, and become the fathers of those wandering Arabs, who perpetuate, in the smallest details, the peculiarities of the time when Ishmael led liis roving life. The other descend- ants of Abraham, his sons by Keturah (Gen. xxv.), went far- ther away ; and we find them and their successors in the most fertile parts of Arabia Felix. Isaac remains at Beersheba and 42 THE CAVE OP MACHPELAH. Mamre, and in the Vale of Gerar, a little westward, nevei leaving that region but once, and then when his father car- ried him for sacrifice to Moriah. Allusion may be made here to the rock-tomb which Abraham purchased of the Hittite tribe, and*which was directly before those oaks of Mamre which for thirteen years sheltered Abraham's tents. The upland of Mamre is passed now by the traveler directly after leaving Hebron and going northward, itself bare and possessed of lit- tle that is striking or interesting, saving a great oak, a vivid reminder of the terebinth under which Abraham refreshed him- self. But the grave has had a more splendid destiny than the shaded spot where Abraham lived. There is no doubt whatever that the place where Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah, were buried, is now sacredly guarded within the mosque at Hebron. It is one of those places which are equally revered at the present time by Jew, Mahometan, and Christian ; and there has been not a year nor a day since the time of Abraham when that rock-tomb has been exposed to desecration, or when a guard has not been set over it. From the time when Abraham purchased it, down all the cen- tmies of the Old Covenant, it remained in the hands of the Jews. The Christians then gained possession of it ; then the Mahometans grasped it: but the patriarchs, and especially Abraham, were beloved in their eyes, and it suffered no det- riment. The Christians held it again for the little season in which the Crusaders were victorious, and then relinquished it once more into the hands of the Moslems. These hold it to- day, as must be said to the shame of the Christian world. There is but one race which should possess and keep that hal- lowed tomb,— the Jews themselves. It ought, indeed, to be freely open to the Gentile world, — to those who, though not of Abrahamic lineage, yet revere his memory, and accept the Christian fulfilling of his faith ; and yet it is owed to the Jews that it be taken from those who hold it now in their foul and unseemly clutch, and given to the descendants of the ancient patriarchs. Happily, the strong arm of the British govern- 44 THE PRINCE OF WALES' VISIT. ment has wrested within our days what assuredly would not have been given ; and the Prince of Wales, accompanied by a small and chosen party of fiiends and scholars, has been per- mitted to go as far as some might perhaps consider it seemly under any cncumstances to advance. It is true, they did not enter the cave itself. The darkened slmnes which bear the names of the ancient patriarchs and their wives, and which are jealously guarded by the Moslem keepers, are directly over the tomb ; yet, in that part of the mosque wliich is called the shrine of Abraham, the royal party saw a hole about eight inches across, which leads directly into the cave below. Every night, a lamp is lowered into the vault, but it is withdrawn by day. The original entrance is closed by masonry, but was doubtless on the southern face of the hill, and so situated that Abraham, as he. sat under his oaks, could look fully into it. The student who may wish to trace the architectural history of the mosque will find it fully detailed in Ritter's work on the Holy Land, vol. iii. pp. 305 et seq. ; and no one can fail to be instructed by the graphic nan-ative which Dean Stanley, one of the Prince of Wales' party, has given of the royal visit in 1862. It is not to be forgotten, that the great earnestness to penetrate the cave of Machpelah is peculiar, it would seem, to the Christian nations of the present day. The pasha of Jerusalem, who yielded the right of entrance to the EngHsh party, expressed wonder at then- curiosity, and said that "he had never thought of visitmg the mosque for any other pur- pose than snuffing the sacred air." Yet it may be doubted whether, in case a strong curiosity should prompt a Mahom- etan to descend, he would dare to ; for Quaresmius tells us " that, early as the seventh century, it was firmly believed, that, if any Mussulman entered the cavern, immediate death would be the consequence." I trust, however, that the growing weak- ness of the Turkish government will allow of even more per- fect exploration. It is not too much to say, that, in a good measure of probability, the body of Jacob, embalmed as it was in Egypt, is in as perfect condition there to-day as are the JACOB IN SEARCH OF A WIFE. 45 mummies which are disinterred on the Nile ; and, it may be, the first layers of the masonry to be still seen at Hebron were laid by. Joseph himself, on the occasion of his father's sumptu- ous funeral. • That this is no idle fancy is shown by the wealth and power of the man, whose father had been a Hebrew shep- herd, but who had wrought out his fortune with such signal success in Egypt. Here Joseph had become habituated to magnificent sepulchers, as well as to sumptuous sepultures ; and after that costly pageantry of burial described so strik- ingly in the closing chapter of Genesis, it is hardly to be sup- posed that he would fail to designate, with some architectural memorial, the simple rock-grave which his great-grandfather purchased, and which for three generations had lain in its orig- inal rudeness. Jacob's return to the land of his forefathers, that he might take a wife from his own family and not from strangers, brings Haran momentarily into view again ; and not Haran only, but one or two other places which have already become familiar to us in connection with Abraham's wanderings. He leaves Beersheba, the home of his childhood ; but he leaves it not to return to its comparative bareness, and the scanty resources which it had yielded to Abraham and Isaac. We find him living farther north, in the fertile vale of Hebron and on the fruitful plain of Shechem, but no more in the south country. His way led him from his childliood's home, along the great ridge which runs north and southward all the way fi'om Dan to Beersheba. We get no glimpse of him till he reaches Bethel, the same place ah-eady noticed, the Luz of a former time, on a mountain directly east of which Abraham and Lot stood when they surveyed the whole country, and divided it between themselves. On one of the stones of that still wild and rocky spot, Jacob pillowed his head, and saw in his dream the ladder that reached to the stars. On he went, — no names of places given us, — and came to the distant Mesopotamia, " the land of the people of the East," and at last greeted his kinsmen of Haran. Near the home of his grandfather, he 46 Jacob's return from haran. wrought his fourteen years' service, and at last returned, no longer a solitary shepherd with crook and staff alone, but a man of substance. His flight with his wives and herds carried him, not, as before, past the foot of Hermon, and not far from Damascus, but south-westward, direct toward the mountains of Gilcad, a distance of three hundred and fifty miles. This natural defense he reached on the seventh day. The hight Mizpah, where he made his covenant with Laban, was long considered a sacred spot, and the cairn erected there testified to the historical interest of the place. It is not known with certainty at the present time where was that Mizpah, one of the many whose names are scattered through the Bible, and all of them designating a lofty natural watch-tower ; but there is but little doubt that it lay on the eastern part of the Gilead range. Thence Jacob passed westward to the site of his next encampment, Mahanaim. This place, the scene of that " wrestling " which has given its own name to the Jabbok River, is familiarly known. It can be readily seen from any high point near the plain of Esdraelon. The eye, tracing the Jabbok from its confluence without the Jordan eastward, sees with distinctness, even at a considerable distance, the cleft which the river makes through the great rock wall which runs parallel with the Jordan, on the eastern bank, from its source to its mouth. On this ravine, but a half-day's march from the Jordan, was Mahanaim. From this point Jacob sent his messengers southwaird to the mountains of Seir, the possession of his brother Esau, to greet and propitiate that powerful chieftain. Instead of bringing back a peaceful response, the martial brother, having already subdued the powerful Horites, who formerly inhabited Seir, headed his bands and rushed northward, as if with the object of checking Jacob's advance. I need not remind the reader of the fear of the younger brother, of the rich present sent to propitiate the elder, of the sudden revulsion in the mind of the impulsive Esau, and the peaceful interview of the chieftains. Esau and Jacob part on the borders of the Jabbok for the last 48 SUCCOTH AND SHECHEM. time ; the former returns with his retinue to his own moun- tains, the hitter crosses the brook, then follows its course to the Jordan, and lodges at Succoth. Here he does not erect tents ; he is passing into a higher stage of life. Suc- coth means " booths ; " and the place, thousands of years subsequently, the scene of Lynch's encampment on the Jordan, testifies in its very etymology that there, on Is- rael's real entering the promised land as a nation, the day of tents and nomadic wanderings had passed away for ever. From Succoth, near the confluence of the Jabbok and the Jordan, there are wadies, or gorges, running north-westward to the j^lain of Esdraelon and westward to the neighborhood of Shechem. The course which Jacob then took is one which has been frightfully familiar to the people of Palestine ever since. Down that cleft which he followed, over that same ford where he crossed the Jordan, and up the wadies, are even now, and have always been, the ravaging courses of those terrible Arabs who come from the east, and who are so much fiercer than any who are met in Palestine, or in the Sinai Peninsula. It is that open door eastward which now makes the rich vale of Esdraelon httle better than a waste of flowers, uncut grass, and rank weeds ; no man dares till it ; for with the approach of harvest the Arabs would come up from across the Ghor, by Jacob's former path, and bring terror to man and destruction to every growing thing. And so it will be, so long as the present inefiicient government holds sway, — a government so notoriously deficient in the power to protect its people that a land which once supported eight millions of souls now meagerly gives sustenance to one-tenth of tha'i number. Shechem, that loveliest of all the vales of Palestine, wrought the same effect upon Jacob that it had done upon Abraham. As we find the grandfather tarrying at the plain of Moreh, and building an altar there ; so, under its changed name of Shechem, we see that it wins the grandson just as cordially. 60 DEATH AND BURIAL OP RACHEL. % It was doubtless inhabited in Abraham's day, but of its earlier tenants we do not hear , enough that Abraham went south- ward before coming into collision with them. And there, by the side of that well which Jacob digged, and which, little changed, can be seen to-day, the shrewd, careful man could have lived without serious contention as well as Isaac lived in the valley of Gerar, far to the south. But this was not to be. The strivings of Isaac's herdsmen with those of Abimelech were easily pacified, in comparison with the feuds which the turbulent sons of Jacob stirred up with the Canaanites, who possessed the valley of Shechem. The cautious and peace- loving patriarch preferred to withdraw to a less favored spot, to the vale of Hebron, which his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac had loved. His journey southward took him past a site already sacred in his memory, the Luz, or Bethel, where that wonderful vision of angels ascending and descend- ing came to him as he lay beneath the stars. He, as well as his grandfather before him, appears to have always passed around that strong rock where the Jebusites lived, little con- scious of its great destiny, and only once coming into moment- ary sight as the home of Melchisedek, whence he goes forth to greet Abraham after his victory over the kings of the East. But, south of the Jerusalem that was to be, Jacob came to a place which was to witness his greatest sorrow. On the high- land a little north of Bethlehem, at a place called Ephrath, Rachel died and was buried. The place of her burial, kept in remembrance by successive structures, one of which, of com- paratively modern construction, can be seen even now, is un- questionably authentically preserved. She could not be car- ried to Hebron, it would seem ; she must be buried by the wayside, where she fell. The next stage brings him to famil- iar ground, to Hebron and Mamre, and they become his home till his visit to Egypt. His sons do not appear to have re- pressed the wish to return and feed their flocks on the far richer and more extensive pasture-lands of the north ; and we find them once more on that fertile plain of Shechem, tending i "i'lir'iipiiifwp JOSEPH AT DOTHAN. 53 their flocks, wMle Joseph goes ten miles farther north-east- ward to Dothan, just on the southern border of the vale of Esdraelon. This place was brought to hght by Robmson and Van de Velde, only fifteen years ago ; the traces of the great ancient road running southward toward Egypt being still disr cernible. CHAPTER III. EGYPT, AND THE PASSAGE' OF THE RED SEA. Egypt the Mother of Civilization — Sesostris — The Land of Goshen— Its Boun- daries — Occupations of the Hebrew Slaves — The Treasure Cities — Suecoth — Etham — Tlie Natural Route of the Israelites — Wliy they made their Detour — The Head of the Red Sea — The Places near it — The Crossing of the Gulf of Suez — Dr. Bonar and Dr. Robinson on the Miracle wrought there. HE scene of the Bible story now passes from Pales- tine to Egypt. That strip of land, but a few miles wide, and lining the banks of the Nile with emerald, was the mother of civilization. Zoan, in Egypt, lying east of the Tanitic mouth of the Nile, is referred to in the Bible as one of the most ancient cities in the world, and the rise of Egyptian civilization antedates all authentic history. The power of that nation culminated during the time of the He- brew sojourn in that country ; Sesostris, the greatest and most formidable of the Egyptian monarchs, being almost unques- tionably one of the Pharaohs who ruled while the Jews were in Goshen. It brings our subject out from the shadowy vagueness which might seem to rest upon it, to remember that in all great collections of Egyptian antiquities, such as that at Berlin, for example, the features of that mighty monarch are preserved, colossal in size, but perfectly well kept, and unquestionably authentic. Not that Rameses the Great, or Sesostris, as the Greeks called him, was the king of Egypt when Joseph went down into that country ; not that he was the Pharaoh who resisted Moses' demands ; he lived between Joseph and Moses, and was one of those kings whose stern hand crushed the chosen people. The royal residences were at Memphis, a PRESENTATION OF MOSES TO PHARAOH. From a beautiful English painting by Chapman. 56 GOSHEN. little s6uth of Cairo, and near the pyramids (to be seen on those plains even in Abraham's time), and at Zoan, east of the Tanitic mouth of the Nile. The sacred city, the seat of learning, the place where Joseph found his wife, and where Moses was educated, was at On, or Heliojjolis, about ten miles north-east of Cau-o ; its remains are to be discerned even at the present day, though in a state of great decay. The tract which most interests us, however, is Goshen. The various hints of the Bible, when brought together and compared, enable us to determine the location of that fertile tract. It was unquestionably within the Lower Delta ; it was the country which lay between the capitals of Egypt and Pales- tine ; it was the tract on the extreme eastern frontier of the kingdom ; it was but three days' journey from the Red Sea ; it embraced some one or more of the Nile mouths. As we learn from Ps. Ixxviii. 12, 43, Zoan was within Goshen, and this city lay even west of the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile. The repeated references to the use of the river take away all doubt about a portion of the Israelites' dwelling upon its shores. The fish which they ate, the food which they raised, and which is found profusely where the inundations occur, as well as the express allusions to watering the ground with the foot, make it certain 'that the western border of Goshen was on the river. The distinct statement that it was but a three- days' march from one of the cities to the sea proves, on the other hand, that the district extended a considerable distance to the eastward, and embraced no inconsiderable share of that comparatively infertile country where the desert sands and the luxuriant Nile Valley struggle for supremacy. Its southern limit evidently came down well-nigh to On, or Heliopolis, about ten miles north, as already intimated, of the present city of Cairo ; for Joseph says, in the message which he sends to Jacob (Gen. xlv. 10), " Thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near me." When the patriarchal family and the dependants came down to Egypt, Joseph goes forth " to meet Israel, his father, to Goshen," showing that 58 GOSHEN AND THE TREASURE-CITIES. the district lay between the capital and southern Palestine. That tract, which even in its present neglect manifests that it is " the best in the land," was well adapted to a race of herds- men ; and the abundant pasturage which the Hebrews' flocks would lind would even surpass what had been seen on the fruitful i)lains of Shechem. The Hebrews were useful as a kind of breakwater against the irruptions of wild Bedouin tribes ; and as they themselves were Bedouin in their charac- teristics, they would be skilled in all the arts of a half-civilized warfare. They were, therefore, of the very highest service to their Egyptian masters, for the inroads of wild Aciatic tribes constituted one of the greatest sc5urges of Egyptian civiliza- tion. In the Greek translation of the Bible made in Egypt by the Seventy, while the memory of the old liistory was yet fresh, the word translated " treasure-cities," in the account of the works which the Hebrew bondmen wrought, is rendered " fortified cities," as if in allusion to the need of protection against inroads on the eastern frontier. Two of those cities are expressly named, — Rameses and Pithom. It may be that archaeologists are mistaken in their alleged identification of the sites of those two cities, yet the physical character of the country makes it impossible to mistake their approximate situ- ation. A little north of Cairo, the lines of long parallel lime- stone cliffs which accompany the river northward to this point recede from each other, and allow space for the Delta, — one of the lines of cliffs running away to the north-east, the otlier to the north-west. At one point, nearly east of the spot where the Pelusiac branch of the Nile diverges, there is a narrow break in this line of cliffs, and a valley may be traced eastward to the so-called Bitter Lakes of Suez. Excellent pasturage still extends up this valley, and here, on the extreme border of what was Egypt proper, and at the door of a natu- ral avenue into the Nile Valley, the cities of Rameses and Pithom were built. Subsequent ages have recognized the value of that same natural communication, and the canal which has been recently opened is the third on the same hne SUCCOTH AND ETHAM. 59 which has connected the Nile and the Red Sea. Here, and here alone, in this valley the rich basin of the Nile' shades away by imperceptible gradations into the desert. Elsewhere the hne between fertility and sterility is one strictly drawn : here it is not. And thus it was in the time of the Exodus, when the Israelites exchanged the rank luxirriance of the Nile country for Succoth, the place of scant herbage, the place of " booths," and then for Etham, " on the edge of the wilder- ness." Here transition is manifestly depicted ; but this tran- sition is only to be foimd in this valley. Those w^ho have put Goshen fiu-ther south, near Cairo, have not only to contend with the impossibility of passing in those days down to the Gulf of Suez, but also with the want of that gradual shading away of Goshen into the wilderness which the allusions to Succoth and Etham bring into view. The exact locality of these places, as well as of those in the immediate vicinity of the Red Sea, is not known. Rameses almost unquestionably lay at the western opening of the valley that runs eastward to the Bitter Lakes. A collection of ruins is pointed out near to the village of Abbasah, which our countryman, Rev. Dr. Samson, one of the most careful observ- ers who have investigated the subject, believes to be the remains of Rameses. No one wishing to investigate exhaust- ively the geography of Goshen and its treasure-cities of Rame- ses and Pithom can pass over Dr. Samson's contributions to " The Clmstian Review " for 1849 and 1850. From that pomt it is a three days' journey, thirty-five miles, to the head of the Gulf. The first day's journey brought them to Succoth, a place whose name, signifying booths, sufficiently indicates its most striking physical character. Doubtless here they parted with civilization, and passed from houses to tents, by the transitional use, for a night, of structures which should par- take of the nature of both, and be protected, it may be, with a thin covering of leaves. It is easy even now to see where such an encampment would be naturally reared, and equally easy it is to mark the spot which is " on the edge of the 60 NATURAL ROUTE OF THE ISRAELITES. wilderness." This line has no doubt shifted to a certain ex- tent within four thousand years ; yet it may be approximately made out; and where the grass ceased utterly, there was Ethara. • The natural course of the Israelites was not directly toward the Red Sea ; it lay north of it, and was unquestionably known to their leader. Moses had been over the ground before, possibly often; for the Egyptians had a mining colony in Arabia, not far from Mt. Sinai, and the way tliither was a well-beaten track. It formed no part of his plan, however, to lead the people up to the Promised Land by the route which had been taken by Abraham when four centuries before he had come down to Egypt for bread ; which had been taken too by the Midianites when they brought Joseph down ; by the sons of Jacob and by Jacob himself when they came down ; and by Joseph when he carried his father's body up to Hebron in that imposing j)rocession which has been described in the closing chapter of Genesis: this was a direct route running north-eastward, not far from the Mediterranean coast, and not passing within many miles of the Red Sea. The reason why that route was not taken is explicitly stated in the Scriptures. (Ex. xiii. 17, 18.) " And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near ; for God said, lest peradv«nture the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt. But God led the people about through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea." Their direction was toward the south-east, instead of toward the north-east. The long detour which Moses pro- posed led him through territory with which he was perfectly familiar. Forty years of his life had been passed in that des- ert country, and even now a secluded dell close by the tradi- tional Mt. Sinai bears the name of Moses' father-in-law. The real home of the Midianites was on the eastern side of the eastern arm of the Red Sea, it is true ; but the nomadic habits of those days took Jethro and his tribe west of the Gulf of REASON OF THEIR DETOUR. 61 Akabah, and permitted them to look for pasturage even in the central granitic ridge where the law was afterward given to Moses. The whole country was doubtless as famihar to the Hebrew lawgiver as it is now to any Arab sheik ; he knew every wady, every spring, every mountain, every place of pastiu-age. Mt. Serbal, the most imposing, though by no means the loftiest, mountain of the peninsula, had long been a hallowed place. It had been the resort of Phoenician and Philistine worshipers even before Moses' day, and. was doubt- less the goal of that pretended pilgrimage which Moses asked permission of Pharaoh to make (Ex. viii. 27) : " We will go three days' joiu-ney into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God." In vie\^ of the fact that Moses proposed to enter Palestine by a long detour, in order that the training of the desert might disciplme them, and transform them from an enervated, effem- inate, leprous race into hardy and energetic soldiers, equal to the great task of conquest before them, he struck out in the general direction of the Gulf of Suez. Doubtless, as already remarked, a regular road ran past the head of the gulf to the Egyptian mining colony of Serabit el Khadem, north-west of Mt. Serbal, and it was a simple matter to follow it and double the northern extremity of the gulf. It is true, the Red Sea extended some miles farther north than it does now ; yet near its head were cities, and a beaten road ran eastward into the Sinai Peninsula. Much difficulty is found by certain biblical studeifts in accepting the story of the sea's opening and afford- ing deliverance to the Israelites, and closing in upon the pur- suing Egyptians ; but there is an antecedent difficulty which rises even before we reach this. There are three places men- tioned (Ex. xiv.) as in proximity with the sea,— Migdol, Pi- hahiroth, and Baalzephon. The location of the second of these is not determined ; probably it is undeterminable. Mig- dol, the town or tower which the Greeks subsequently called Magdalon, was at some distance north of the gulf. Baal-ze- phon appears to have been the ridge even then consecrated to 62 CROSSING THE RED SEA. the worship of Baal, which is now to be recognized in the bold Jebel Attakah, running south-eastwardly down to the shore, and forming in its eastern extremity a striking bluff. Between this ridge and the sea was a triangular piece of land, on some part of which was Pi-hahiroth. For some reason, entirely unexplainable on any theory but that which recog- nizes a miraculous intervention in parting the waters of the sea, Moses did not lead the host of the Israehtes along the well-beaten road which doubled the head of the gulf, but drew them into that triangle which was bordered on the right by Baal-zephon, or Jebel Attakah, on the left by the sea, and in the rear by the great Egyptian army. It was, therefore, ap- propriate for Pharaoh to say, " They are entangled in the land ; the wilderness hath shut them in." The place where the crossing was effected was limited to the few miles between the point where the bold bluff of Jebel Attakah runs down to the sea, and the ancient head of the gulf, a few miles north of the present city of Suez. Every- where there the water is shallow, and landings are at the pres- ent day only effected by means of boats, and with much diffi- culty. It is a safe conjecture, that the passage was made very near the site of Suez. Dovibtless, wind and tide were agents in the piling-up of the waters, and their subsequent return ; the Scripture itself states, that the " Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night." Dr. Bonar, in his excellent book called "The Desert of Sinai," accuses the learned and pious Robinson of trying to weaken the fdi^ce of the miracle by ascribing it to the wind and tide ; but not so do I read the work of our countryman : on the contrary, he stands strongly on the ground that a miracle was wrought, but simply claims that in working this great wonder God brought the winds and the waves into subjection to his will, and made them the ministers in executing his mighty purpose. CHAPTER IV. THE SINAI PENINSULA. A Toilful Pilgrimage — Physical Aspect of tlie " Wilderness "—The Triangle of Land— Rugged Sublimity of Nature — A Great Mass of Molten Rock Sud' denly Cooled— The Tih Plateau— Its Wall of Mountains— The Dead Sea Gorge— Captain Allen's Theory— The Results of Modern Science — A Land Without a History — Unchanged Aspect — Want of Vegetation— A Land of Pilgrims — Literature of the Desert — The Bitter Springs of Marah — The Sweet Springs of EHm — The "Goodly" Vale — A Tedious Climb— A Deso- late Plain— Desert of Sin— The One Beautiful Valley of the Whole Region — Serbal, the Mountain of Mystery — The Written Characters on the Rock — Approach to Sinai. E have now taken the Hebrews back into Asia, their true home. Our next step will be to follow them in their long and toilful pilgrimage. It is true that they reached the borders of the promised land m about a year and a half after going out from Egypt, of which time a year was spent in the shadow of Mt. Sinai. The other thu-ty-eight years of then* wanderings were passed in a limited region on the eastern and north-eastern border of the peninsula, and in a country of almost no resources, and scarcely superior to the deserts of Shur or Sinai. Before attempting to follow the journey of the Israehtes through the "wilderness," let me briefly sketch the physical character of the whole tract known as the Peninsula of Sinai. Between the two arms of the Red Sea known as the Gulfs of Akabah and Suez, there is a triangular piece of land, whose base-line is about one hundred and thirty miles in length, and runs from the city of Suez to the fortress of Akabah. The lower portion of this triangle is a mass of granitic mountains, 64 SUBLEVHTY OF THE DESERT. broken up into the most ii-regular and fantastic forms, and yet having a manifest center, the striking group of peaks of which Mt. Sinai is one. From this central knot of mountains there are various wadies, or waterless river-courses, running away to the sea, and forming natural means of communication be- tween the various parts of this wild and formidable mass of rock. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is the face of nature more ruggedly sublime than here. The mountains met there are of no ordinary hight ; the loftiest one, Om Shaumer, be- ing nine thousand thr^e hundred feet in altitude, and St. Cath- erine being eight thousand seven hundred. Standing on the summit of either one of these, the Gulf of Akabah is plainly seen on the east, and that of Suez on the west, neither of them but a few miles away. The country itself seems as if some gigantic convulsion once passed over it, heaving up huge waves of molten granite, and then cooling them at once. They have retained the ancient sharpness ; and such is the drjTiess of the ak, and the want of great and wearing rains, added to the natural hardness of the rock, that time has exerted no cor- rosive influence, and the aspect of the country can scarcely be changed from what it was when the Israelites passed through. North of this triangle, which occupies a good portion of the peninsula proper, there is an elevated plateau of hmestone, the southern border of which is an almost precipitous wall of rock, four thousand feet in hight. This does not run due east and west ; it forms a rude rim around the southern, south- western, and south-eastern sides of the plateau. The surface of this elevated plateau is undulating, and, in its north-east portion, rises into a second or superimposed plateau, which gradually settles away northward to meet the thin and scanty pasture lands of the "south country," the ancient patriarchal home. East of this great plateau runs northward and south- ward the desolate and arid trough of the Arabah, connectmg the Dead Sea and the Gidf of Akabah, and forming a continu- ation of that great cleft, or depressed chasm, which connects the Red Sea with Lake Tiberias. It was supposed, until a 66 THE DEAD SEA GORGE. very recent date, that the lower portion of the Ghor, or Jor- dan gorge, \yas so far depressed below the level of the ocean, that, if it were possible to run a canal across the plain of Es- draelon, and onward, between Gilboa and Tabor, till it should reach the Jordan, the entrance of the Mediterranean would at once form a noble ship-canal between Lake Tiberias and the Red Sea ; and it is not many years since Capt. Allen, of the English Navy, wrote a book called " The Dead Sea a New Route to India," in which he discussed this theory in extenso. Later investigations have shown, however, that the land east of the plain of Esdraelon is so elevated that a canal would be impracticable at that point ; and, moreover, that could the Jordan be flooded in this way, could that long defile between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea be converted mto a deep lake, and the Jatter made many feet deeper than it is, the Ara- bah, the trough running from the Dead Sea southward to the Gulf of Akabah, instead of being all the way depressed to the extent that it has been supposed, rises at its liighest portion to an altitude (eight hundred feet) altogether precluding the possibility of its being submerged. Measurements have been made repeatedly with a view to ascertain this fact ; and at last it has been put beyond the possibility of error. The physical character of the Sinai Peninsula is little changed, as remarked before, from what it was at the time of the Exodus. It is a land without a history ; the only point where it links itself in with the changing destinies of the world is at the time when the Israelites sojourned within it. It always had a scanty, wandering population ; and the few thousands of Arabs who inhabit the peninsula to-day are about as nu- merous, probably, and live in precisely the same manner, as the Amalekites of old, who had possession of the pasture land of the country. It is a region which always has been with- out houses ; the little ecclesiastical city of Pharan, now in ruins, not being a real exception, so foreign was it to the whole character of the land. It has no soil capable of continuous and profitable cultivation ; the long and fertile valley known WATER AND SOIL OF THE DESERT. 67 as the Wady Feii-an, at the foot of Mt. Serbal, not having breadth and scope enough to rei)ay for colonizing it alone. A great part of the country is so sterile as to fill the mind of travelers with dismay ; there is no grass, no thrifty trees, except in Wady Feiran and at the Convent of Mt. Sinai, nothing but acacia-bushes, and furzy, thin, aromatic shrubs. After the rains of winter, it is true, a quick vegetation springs up ; but the sun and the subsequent drought cause it to wither and utterly vanish. There are comparatively few springs in the country ; those which emerge from the lunestone tract are almost intolerably bad, while those issuing from the southern granitic tract are sweet and refreshing. The natural channels of communication across the country are in one sense numer- ous : in another they are not so ; for, although the number of unimportant wadies is large, yet the really effective lines of in- tercourse are so few and so striking that there is no difficulty whatever in following them. Despite, therefore, the want of historical monuments, and the want of a nation there which perpetuates the history of the past, the pliysical character of the country is such that the simple narrative of the Bible al- lows us to follow, with tolerable closeness, and with a sense of certitude, the line of the Israelites' march. From the head of the Gulf of Suez there is a roughened plain, about ten miles in width, running southward for several miles, having the sea on the west, and the precipitous edge of the great Tih plateau on the east. Moses and the Israelites must have fol- lowed this plain ; there is no alternative. South of this plain the system of great wadies is so simple that we have little if any difficulty in tracing them to Sinai. From Sinai, north-east- ward, the task of following them is much more difficult, it is true ; but there are certain landmarks there which make it tol- erably easy to determine the course of the wanderers. I need not say that the word wilderness, used almost invariably in the Bible to signify the Sinai Peninsula, does not correspond at all with our use of the same term. To many of us it suggests the idea of dense woodland ; it should imply the very reverse, 68 LITERATURE OF THE DESERT. — a tract utterly destitute of vegetation, and wholly desert, sterile, respulsive. Nor should it convey the impression of a sandy waste. With the exception of the limited tract known as Ramleh, south of the Tih plateau, there is no sandy district in the whole peninsula. The country is stony and pebbly, but not sandy. Arabia Petrsea, as this country is sometimes called, is a land which has always been interesting to pilgrims. As early as the time of Elijah, to go to Horeb was a journey of devotion ; and the old prophet is seen going down thither to commune with God in the place which had been consecrated centuries before his day. Very early in the history of the Christian church, the Sinaitic region became a sacred resort ; and Ara- bian geographers and Christian travelers have explored it in all ages. The first volume -of Ritter's " Comparative Geogra- phy of Palestine and the Sinaitic Penmsula " is devoted, in a large measure, to the tracing of the routes of those who have carefully explored the land ; and no man in our time has had the patience to sift and compare their accounts with .the care and fidelity and ability of the great German geographer. He has reviewed all the Roman itineraries, examined the Pentin- ger Tables, read all the Arabian and Greek geographers, and investigated the whole Christian literature of the subject. In my translation of his important work on the peninsula I have j'etained all that could illustrate the Bible ; and yet no one can adequately measure the enormous erudition of Carl Ritter who does not look into the original and see what he has culled out to illustrate the geography of Arabia Petrsea as it is con- nected with extra-biblical literature. What Ritter has done for this department, our countryman, Dr. Robinson, only second to Ritter in his command of the literature of Sinai and Palestine, has done for original research on the spot. Ritter was never in the Holy Land ; Robinson was the most acute and at the same time the most learned investigator who has ever gone thither. It is not too much to say that Robinson's Biblical Researches are worth all the JOURNEY or THE ISRAELITES. 69 records of travel in the Holy Land from the tune of the Saviour down to the time when he published his work. And this I say in full recognition of the value of Seetzen's, Irby and Mangles', Burckhardt's, Niebuhr's, Russegger's, and Rup- pell's thorough, accurate, and hard-gained results, and in recognition, too, of a certain degree of merit to be ascribed to such writers as Felix Fabri, Cosmas Indicopleustes, Pietro della Valle, Bucldngham, Pococke, and Monro. Yet all can- did students of biblical geograpliy know that when Robinson ca;me upon the field, he observed so closely, with such ample preparation, and such acumen, that the publication of his work produced a revolution in the department. He has been worthily followed ; but such works as Stanley's, Schubert's, Tristram's, Wilson's, Porter's, Laborde's even, and Thomson's, would hardly have been possible had Robinson not gone be- fore. Indeed, he did his work so thoroughly that others have had but little to do except to glean in the field which he har- vested. With the exception of a few narrow men who adhere closely to the monkish traditions respecting holy places, Euro- pean scholars place just as high value on Robinson as we Americans can do : indeed, much more, for he is really only appreciated fully in Eui'ope. I think I can not be wrong m saying, that, in the judgment of Enghsh and German schol- ars, Edward Robinson is the greatest name that has sprung up among us ; and the preface of almost every new work on Biblical antiquities echoes thei words of Ritter and Stanley respecting the amazing extent and accuracy of Robinson''s investigations. Having briefly sketched the physical character of the Sina- itic peninsula, and alluded to the literature of the subject, let me enter into some detail respecting the journey of the Is- raelites through the land. The first part of the way is un- mistakable ; it ran along that undulating plain which has already been referred to as lying between the lofty limestone wall on the east and the sea on the west. Northward and southward, as far as the eye can reach, the Israelites could see 70 THE BITTER SPRINGS OF MARAH. confronting them that giant barricade, rising to the altitude of about four thousand feet. To ascend it would have been impossible for such a number of people, although the regular Mecca caravans now climb to the top by a natural pass, and strike directly eastward across the high plateau, descending again on the eastern margin, not far from the head of the Gulf of Akabah. The Israelites, however, did not attempt this, but followed the plain along the shore. It is a cheerless and most inhospitable country. There are some tolerable springs near the place where they crossed the sea, still known as the springs of Moses, shaded by palms, and a favorite resort to-day for the people of Suez, who, in the absence' of better attrac- tions, elevate that scanty oasis into the rank of their fashion- able watering-place. But from that point for many miles southward, for a three days' journey of the slowly-moving Israelite host, there are no supplies of water, and not a plant or a slirub which could in the slightest degree satisfy the hunger of man or beast. The Israelites, who had so recently left the luxurious vaUey of the Nile, were sorely tried even at the very start ; indeed, there are few spots in the whole peninsula which would have more disheartened them than this barren plain along the sea. The site of the fountains of Marah, the bitter waters which they could not drink, is now easily traced ; and mdeed, the name stiU clings to the spot : and not only do travelers speak •of the Ain Howarah, but of the Ain Amarah, almost side by side, whose waters are only used from sheer necessity. All the springs which flow fi:om that limestone soil are bad, but none are intolerable excepting those which are first encountered after leaving Ain Musa, opposite Suez. And these are the ones which correspond with the Marah fountains of Scripture. Still farther on, about one day's journey southward, are the well-shaded and numerous springs of Wadies Ghurundel, Ilseit and Tayibeh, whose palm-trees are still the '^ht of all trav- elers. These were threescore and ten in number when the Israelites passed that way ; they are variously counted by the ;i^ i|i|l' l||iil,if! )!%' \ Inl !'' ^M ., llil!i||tllill^ ELIM, THE WELLS OF REFRESHMENT. 73 explorers of our own day, but are not widely different from the old number. The taste of the water is not markedly dif- ferent from that found at the old springs of Marah ; yet nearly all agree that the preference is to be given to that of Elim. The Scripture does not assert nor even imply that that of Elim was pleasant ; it is an unwarranted inference — which has been drawn from the obviously attractive character of the place where they made their first long encampment— ^that the water of Elim was sweeter than that of Marah. That it is somewhat more agreeable is asserted by travelers ; yet the difference is not marked : the same physical cause which con- trols the one controls the other also. In the midst of the attractions of Elim the Israelites tarried a month and a half. The place of their chief encampment was doubtless in the broad, open, fair wady known still as the " goodly," or Wady Tapbeh. It runs downward to the sea, and has a fine open view of the opposite coast-land of Egypt, and the intensely blue waters of the Gulf of Suez, a good way northward and southward. It has been the custom of some writers to assume that the single Wady of Ghurundel is the Elim of Scripture ; but the requisitions of so vast a host as that of the Israelites during a sojourn of more than a month make it almost neces- sary to infer that they distributed themselves over all the fertile tracts in the immediate neighborhood. From Elim there was a tedious and difiicult passage to the Wilderness of Sin. They could either have passed by narrow and obstructed defiles, or round about, as some travelers do, by a narrow and dangerous path running between the rocks and the sea. Here is the natural boundary between the Des- ert of Shur and the Desert of Sin. The latter is a desolate plain, about twelve mUes in length, and known to-day as El Murkah. Little water is found upon it, and what there is, is bitter. It is a place which one can see at a glance would sorely try the Israelites, and compel them to cry out, " Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, and when we did eat 5 74 THE THREE ROUTES TO SINAI. bread to the full ; for ye have brought us forth into this wilder- ness to kill this, whole assembly with hunger." It is noticea- ble that it was in tliis desert, where the tamarisk-tree is not found, where, in fact, there is no vegetation, that the supply of manna first appeared. From the plain of El Murkah, the Wilderness of Sin, there are three ways which might have been taken. One of these passes near the base of the great rock-waU of the Tih plateau, runs near the ancient EgyjDtian mining colony of Serabit el Khadem, — whose ruins are still distinctly visible, and which was probably a busy scene at the time of the Exodus, — soon after traverses the sandy waste of Debbet er Ramleh, and then, by a difficult and narrow hne of wadies, or rock valleys, runs down to the open plain in front of the traditional Mt. Sinai. This led the Israelites toward the left. Another way ran along the borders of the sea to the plam El Kaa, which lies between the whole granitic mountain-mass at the south of -the peninsula, and the sea ; and from this plain, by way of the important Wady Hebran, up to Mt. Sinai. This would cause them to bear to the right, and then to take a sharp tui'n to the left. There still is a middle course. They may have crossed the Desert of Sin, entered the romantic valley known as Shellal, and passed by it into the long and curious ravine known as Wady Mukatteb, or Valley of the Inscriptions ; thence into the fair, fertile, and well-watered Wady Feiran, and directly to the base of Mt. Sinai. There is little or no doubt that the latter was the one chosen ; it has every advan- tage in its favor, — it is the most direct, the best supphed with shade and water, and the one which is most in harmony with the Scripture narrative. The first of the three ways is rocky, scantily supplied with springs, and longer than the last ; the second is much longer and much harder ; the last is the one which is now assumed by all later observers as the route of the Israelites. Two places are then mentioned as the scenes of temporary encampment, — Dophkah and Alush: no traces of them re- 76 A BEAUTIFUL VALE. main, but they were unquestionably on or near the plain El Murkali. But passing that, we come to more explicit allu- sions, and to scenes .of even greater interest. In the well- watered and palm-shaded Wady Feiian, du-ectly at the base of the imposing five-peaked Serbal, — a sacred mountain for long ages even when the Israelites passed by its foot, — there was the encampment of a part of the numerous and widely- scattered Amalekites. They were just such a race, doubtless, as the strongest and fiercest of the Arab tribes of the pres- ent day. They knew of the approach of the Israelites, and predicted with certainty, that, if a stand were not made, the delightful paradise which they inhabited would be wrested from them, and its clear brook and lofty palms become the possession of this host of strangers. This was the reason of the stand which they made ; this the cause of that noted battle. The Israelites advanced along that wonderful Valley of Inscriptions, Wady Mukatteb, whose walls are written over with those mysterious and undeciphered hieroglyphics, pro- voking the curiosity of travelers more than any other object in the whole peninsula, and traced more or less numerousl}'- on every important mountain and rock-wall in the land, with the single exception of Mt. Sinai. From Wady Mukatteb they passed into Wady Feiran ; the place where they are con- nected being, it would seem, the site of Rephidim. At the very foot of Serbal, and rising distinctly in view of those who stand in the valley known as Feiran, is a low but well-marked hill, on which Moses, Aaron, and Hur appear to have stood during the battle. The victory of the Israelites put them in possession of the most paradisaical spot in the whole penin- sula. For more than a month and a half they remained in that fertile vale. The Egj^tian colony at Serabit el Khadem was not far from them ; but not a hint is given in the Bible to indicate whether the two races came at all into contact. Yet visitors came from Midian, east of the Gulf of Akabah, with an errand of great import to the Israehtes. It is a curious fact that the polity which Jethro imparted to Moses, his son- AN IMPOSING MOUNTAIN. 77 in-law, is singularly like that which prevails among the Bed- oums of the present time. The taking away of that single responsibility which was slowly crushing the strength of the great lawgiver by overtaxing his power, was followed by that delegation of trust to rulers of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, which is a marked feature of Arab polity ; and every line in the description of the interview of Moses and Jethro is faithful to the experience of all close observers of the Bedouin character. It has been supposed by many, and by some too whose opinions are entitled to the most respectful consideration,^that Mt. Serbal, the most striking by far in the whole peninsula, is the Sinai of the Bible. There is httle or no doubt that that was a holy mountain at the time of the Exo- dus, and that it was the place whither not only Phoenicians and Philistines resorted, but Eg}'ptians as well, for the purpose of sacrifice. It has been a hallowed spot in modern time ; the remains of altars may be seen on the summit, and the ecclesi- astical city of Pharan, the walls of which are yet standing, was at its base. It is the place to which, in all probability, as has already been remarked, Moses wished to go to sacrifice, a three days' journey in the wilderness. Some have thought that Horeb is Serbal, and Sinai the well-known sacred moun- tain ten miles farther west ; others, with more reason, as it seems to me, make Horeb a generic word comprising that whole region embracing both Sinai and Serbal. Still, after giving due weight to the argiuuents of Lepsius, that Serbal, the sacred mountain of that region in the most ancient time, was the scene of the lawgiving, I must admit that the hints given in the Bible do not apply so well to it as to the tradi- tional mountain of Sinai. I know that Serbal is the most im- posing mountain ; but it is by no means the loftiest, it being but six thousand three hundred feet high, while the traditional Sinai is more than eight thousand. Besides, the delightful Wady Feiran at its base can not be confounded with the Wilderness of Sinai. The Bible says (Ex. xix. 1), after its account of the battle with the Amalekites and the interview 78 APPROACHING SINAI. with Jethro, manifestly in Wady Feiran, " In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness ; and there Israel camped before the mount." CHAPTER V. MOUNT SINAI, AND THE YEARS OF WANDERING. The Broad, Curved "Valley called Wady Sheikh— Pass of the Winds— The Plain before Sinai a Lofty, Craggy Pile— A Wall of Rock— Form and Structure of the Mountain — Discovery of the Sinaitic Manuscript of the New Testament by Prof Tischendorf— The Convent of the Forty — Convent of St. Catharine — Scene of the Israelites' Encampment — Moses' Ascent — The Wilderness of Sinai — What Grows there — Silence, of the Desert — Effect of a Thunder- storm — Elijah's Chapel — View from Sinai — The Stay of the Israelites around the Mount — Their Journey Northward — The Spies — Kadesh Barnea — Scene of the First Contest — Region of the Edomites — Aaron's Burial-place — Route of the Spies — Preliminary Survey of Palestine — Petra — ^Approach to the "Promised Land." ROM the foot of Serbal, and the luxuriant verdure of Wady Feiran, there runs a broad, curving valley, the largest and most important in the whole penin- sula, bearing the name of Wady Sheikh. It is a continually- ascending way, and leads to a plain from which rises the group of mountains, Ed Deir, St. Catherine, Sinai, and Om Shaumer. From Serbal to Sinai there is a more direct but frightfully precipitous and rocky path, the Nubh Hawy, or Pass of the Winds, whose difficulties travelers agree in regarding as the most formidable in the peninsula. The broader and longer one of these was doubtless taken by the main body of the Israelites; and there is found in it, even now, no scanty amount of pastiu^age for flocks. Emerging from the broad mouth of Wady Sheikh, the traveler stands on the Desert of Sinai. A plain is seen, vast in size when one thinks how rare it is to meet any continuous tract in that broken and rocky country, for it embraces no less than a square mile. At one extremity there towers the lofty, craggy pile known as Ras 80 THE PEAK OF SINAI. Sasafeh, the northern abutment of Sinai. Its grandeur and precipitousness, taken in connection with the great plain at its base, caused Robinson to suspect in a moment that here was the scene of the law-giving. The highest peak of Sinai can not be seen from this plain ; one must pass round the moun- tain to the south side to see it ; but the northern side is so bold and steep that it makes an even more striking impression on the mind than the more shelving southern ascent. The face of Ras Sasafeh rises so that one can well see that the command was an intelligible one, that the mount be not touched ; towering, as it does, like a wall of rock. On that plain, hundreds of thousands of people could stand, and look up to the majestic, overhanging cliff. At the southern base of Sinai is another tolerably large tract of ground, known as the Plain of Sebaiyeh ; but it is far more broken and uneven than the great camping-ground on the north. Since the time of Robinson, most travelers have coincided with this view, that the latter was the place where the people assembled when the law was given, though there are some who insist that they were on the more uneven ground south of the mountain, since there is the view of the true crest of Sinai. The moun- tain is long, rather than round, and its physical character is this : On the east there is a defile running northward and southward, separating Sinai from the lofty mountain known as Ed Deu'. On the western side there is another similar ra- vine, separating Sinai from the still loftier peak of St. Cathe- rine. In the former of these defiles, a mile from the great plain at the north base of the mountain, is the Greek convent, built in the sixth century by the Emperor Justinian, and the only hostelry for travelers in the whole peninsula. It has been so often described that I need only allude to it, for it bears no special relation to my subject. It has, within a very few years, been brought into new prominence as the scene of Prof. Tischendorf 's discovery of a very ancient manuscript of the New Testament ; and I shall not soon forget the rare pleasure I enjoyed, a few months since, in hearing from his PLACE OF THE ENCAMPMENT. 83 own lips the story of that most interesting discovery, — the unfolding of hint after hint, the intense anxiety, and the hours of joy when the precious document came to light.* In the other ravine, that along the western base of the mountain, is a deserted convent, that of El Arbain, or the Forty. The ascent is made from the convent, the way leading up continu- ous flights of rude stairs, cut along in the solid granite. The top of the mountain is long and tolerably flat, being mostly a small rock-plateau, running northward to a sharp edge, down which you can look, as from the eaves of a house, directly upon the gi-eat plain. The southern portion of the mountain rises cone-like into the air, and looks down upon the narrower and more broken Plain of Sebaiyeh at the southern base of Sinai. On this high peak Moses would seem to have dwelt during those long forty days and forty nights in which he was communing with his God ; while Joshua appears not to have gone above the rock-plateau, and there to have awaited the return of Moses from the loftier hight. The place has for centuries been a sacred one, and the broken remnants of churches and chapels, and a mosque, even, testify to the an- cient regard of Mohammedans as well as Christians for this sacred spot. I am inclined to think that the true view of the place of the encampment must be gained by partial concession both of those who hold to the northern and those who hold to the southern plain. They are connected, not only by the narrow ravine east of Sinai, which beyond the convent narrows into a mere foot-path, but by a very broad line of valley which passes east of the mountain east of Sinai. In this valley, as well as in the two plains, there was an excellent opportunity for encampment ; and I can not forbear thinking that the great host of the Israelites filled both the plains and this circuitous Wady Sebaiyeh, as well as that portion of Wady Sheikh which connects the great plain Er Rahah with Wady Sebaiyeh. The play of lightnings was doubtless visible all over the mountain ; the elders and the chief priests were * On the three following pages, specimens in exact fac-simile are given of thia ancient manuscript. AUJTH N en>rr€A/ NN[Toyn>^vrrocM«T Ac l I e f CD ey/sO royNTecTONON lY^rreAhN Tcataaykan'^ ^ofe. — The above is Luke xxiv. 49-53, in exact fac-siniile from the Sinai manu* Bcript. TCOYA^TI M O N ON AAA6NTXOYANTI KAITCpAi MATIKN Ton N A€ CTI NTO M Ap TY P OTN OTIT*> riNAeCTINHA^H eeiAOTioiTpei^:!! cmoiTHLApTTP^V TecTo TT N ak: A| Toy acupkattoaiha KAioitP^'C^J^T** TY f I ^NTQyjOX^^^ 2 HCeNCHMeiON9<^ ro H o YTO c e CTI N AAHococonro^*" ^ iTHCOelCTONK^'^M- epxoMeNOC ICOYNTNOYCOTI CeAPKXIApnA^elN AYTOH kX I X MA i^i^^'f ^^CYretnAAi N^IT* Of OCMONOCKrTo** Note. — No. 1, is John v. 6-9. No. 2, is John vi. 14, 15. 8 oycKKi R pexi en i^v«t^ Ip 5 Toi c^i5f^ef f oyNT€c €A0i»HTr«O KXI XM AprCDXOj 7 o-xnImh JO Yo Ae2^ I e 8 9 ToxH ceyceRenvG MYCTHflONOCe no NTec 6 1 el ecv^^ ^ 15 -V* M)te No. 3, is a correction in Matt. v. 45. No. 4, is a correction in Matt. x. 39. No. 5, is a correction in 2 Cor. x. 12. No. 6, is a correction in Matt. ix. 10. No. 7, is a correction in Matt. iii. 13, 14. No. 8, is a correction in Luke xxiv. 51. No. 9, is a correction in Matt, xxiii. 35. No. 10, is a caligrapliic flourish. No. 11, is a correction in Rev. xi. 1. No. 12, is a correction in Isaiali viii. 28. No. 13, is a correction in 1 Tim. iii. 16. No. 14, is a correction in Matt. xix. 3. No. 15, is a sentence by a certain monk who had been employed on the manu- script, or had the use of it, nearly? aa late as the 12th century. FRAGMENT OF EGYPTIAN MANUSCRIPT. Similar in character to those found on the written rocks in the Sinaitic desert. 88 MOSES' FOOT-PATH TO THE TOP. probably in the plain south of the mountain, and an immense multitude doubtless stood on the northern plain, and looked up to the top of the massive wall which is called Ras Sasafeh. Most travelers have inferred, from the fact that the ascent is on the eastern side, that there was the path by which Moses went up ; but my friend, Rev. F. W. Holland of London, who has recently passed several weeks in that neighborhood, as- sures me the most accessible way is one leading from the northern extremity of the western defile, and that there is lit- tle doubt that Moses went up and down that way. If that is the case, the old tradition which makes the casting of the golden calf at that point would seem to rest upon a certain basis of truth ; although, as a general rule, these traditions — such for instance as that the convent occupies the place where Moses discovered the burning bush, and that the rock can stUl be seen at the foot of Sinai which was smitten by Moses, and from which water gushed — are idle fables, invented by the Greek monks for the easy credidity of the Arabs. Still, there are one or two interesting circumstances connected even with these traditions : one is, that the mountain itself bears the name, not of Sinai, but of Jebel Musa, the Mount of Moses, while the ravine east of it is called, even to-day, by the Arab name of Moses' father-in-law. Around this mountain lay the tract known as the Wilder- ness of Sinai. It is one thousand feet higher than the level of Wady Feiran ; the air is dry, clear, and bracing. I need not say that this is one of the healthiest districts in the world ; the winds which sweep across these rocks are laden with no impurities, and bring only vigor. There are a few springs of water, and these are sweet and refreshing, for they issue from granite, not from limestone. There are small bits of land moist enough to reward tillage ; and all travelers are enthusiastic about the trees and grass and herbs grown in the garden of the Greek convent. In the western ravine there are the traces of old gardens not quite given up to utter neglect ; the monks go thither every year and take a little care of them, gathering figs 90 THUNDER-STORM ON SINAI. and dates and almonds, and a few other tropical productions, to lay in store, or to send to Cairo. On the mountains there grow a few aromatic shrubs, and in the wadies there are scanty furze-bushes, giving a meagre support to the camels and the goats of the Arabs, and once sustaining the herds of the Is- raelites. The Wilderness of Sinai comprised a large part of Wady Sheikh, the plain Er Rahah, the plain of Sebaiyeh, and Wady Sebaiyeh. It was the Israelites' home for a j^ear ; and here not alone was the Decalogue given, but the whole cere- monial law was perfected, and propounded to the people. As the Bible expressly says that the Decalogue was given duiing a thunder-storm, while the people were filled with fear, it may be remarked incidentally, that one, at least, of the travelers who have given us the record of their wanderings has des- cribed a thunder-storm at Sinai. The play of lightning and the echoes of the thunder he asserts to have been extraordin- arily grand and impressive. The ordinary silence of the des- ert is so appalling that when it is broken in this way the roll of thunder is doubly loud, and the mountains themselves seem to quake. A person sitting on the summit of Ras Sasa- feh, and speaking in ordinary tones, can be understood at the base, for there is not the sound of a bird or an insect or a brook to mingle with his voice. The desert is inhabited by absolute, unbroken silence. It is unnecessary to say that Mo- ses, learned as he was in the arts of the Egyptians, was mas- ter of no magic which would enable him to create a mimic thunder-storm on Sinai ; and it is a paltry way of dealing with the text to degrade that great convulsion of the elements in wliich the law was given, into the legerdemain of a show- man. Whatever more there was, there was a storm of thunder and lightning, not inferred from hints in the Bible, but directly and exphcitly asserted. Among the chapels on Sinai there is one bearing the name of Elijah ; and near it is a small aperture m the rock, which is asserted to have served the prophet as a lodging-place. In the absence of a spot more fit, this is thought, even by the VIEW FROM SINAI. 91 careful Ritter, to be authentic. The pilgrimage of Elijah to Horeb is the only instance recorded in the Bible of ajiy one of the Israehtes going down from Palestine to view the scene where the law was given. How different fi-om the pilgrim spirit of the present and the past few centuries ! It was an easy thing for the Jews to go to Horeb, but its ancient fame appears to have inspu-ed no desire to see it. It throws new light, not more on the spirituaHty of Elijah than upon the worldliness of the nation in whose mind he tried to keep di- vine truth a living thing. And here was the place, so far as the evidence in our possession enables us to go, where Elijah was, after receiving the command to "go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake fn pieces the rocks before the Lord ; but the Lord was not in the wind : and after the wind an earthquake ; but the Lord was not in the earthquake : and after the earth- quake a fii'e ; but the Lord was not in the fire : and after the fire a still, small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out and stood in the entermg in of the cave ; and, behold, there came a voice unto liim, and said. What doest thou here, Elijah?" " The view from the siunmit can not compare," says Ritter, " even under the clearest sky, with that fi-om St. Catherine, and hence travelers who have interested themselves in mak- ing a topographical survey of the whole peninsula have made little account of it. But the very fact that Sinai is so over- topped by loftier peaks gives the view from its summit its own peculiar charms. Shut in, as the observer is, he can better study the strange wildness and sublimity of this Httle cluster of naked moimtains, and get a better conception of the strange elemental forces which produce so haggard a scene, than if upon a loftier summit and with a wider view. Sir Francis Henniker has very truly and finely said that it seemed to him, as he surveyed the wild picture before him, as if it had once 92 VIEW FROM SINAI. been an ocean of boiling lava, cooled and fixed in its present form by a single mandate of the Most High. " Yet, though tlie view from Sinai toward the east, south, and west is comparatively limited, in consequence of the greater hight of the outlying peaks, the view is by no means inconsiderable, nor to be dismissed with a hasty passing word. Both the arms of the Red Sea can be seen, although only in glimpses. ' Close before me,' says Wellsted, ' rose St. Cathe- rine, with its bare, wedge-shaped peak, wearing a snow-cap cone yet upon its head. For many years, in the course of repeated voyages made in all the waters adjacent to this ' re- gion, I had been accustomed to look at all these mountain systems from every point of view ; but the loftiness of the Sinai group gave it at once a special character. Rising in sharp, isolated wedges, enormous masses of rock have detached them- selves from time to time, and have fallen, giving rise to deep clefts, gorges, and ravines, which break through the whole district, and give it the wildest aspect. The highest summits are covered with snow in winter, which, melting in springy fills the channels of countless brooks, and sweeps with mad and devastating violence through all the mountain-passes, carry- ing away whatever little soil may have accumulated. The lofty wedge-shajje brings the peaks of the Sinai group in sharp contrast with those of the other long, low ridges of the penin- sula. No resting-places for man, no villages, no castles, give animation to the scene, as in European mountain regions ; no lake, no clear river, no waterfall, no forest breaks the monot- ony of solitude. Everywhere there is seen only the wide, empty wilderness, — ^gray, dark-brown, black, — in the extreme distance the bright sea of sand. There is nothing to give in- terest to the scene except the mighty recollection of the past : this throws over it all a dark and deep and mysterious charm.' " In the valleys and on the plains which encompass Sinai the Israelites passed nearly a year. At the end of that time, the law being perfected, the people, being hardened by their tent life and open-air duties, were supposed to be ready to move THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE WILDERNESS. 93 on to the promised land without delay. Up to this point we have followed them withoilt great difficulty : after this point their course is much more uncertain, partly in consequence of the obscurity of the language of Scripture, and partly fi-om the want of a thorough examination of the whole country. It is true, every route has been traversed, but no traveler has explored all, compared them with themselves and with the biblical account, and given us the result of liis investigations. Still, there is little need of this. The general character of the country is much the same, whichever way the Israelites chose in their journey northward. It was a great and terri- ble wilderness, relieved with few springs and scanty vegeta- tion, and filled with narrow passes and desolate plains. It is almost a profitless use of time to endeavor to decipher the geography of the thirty-third chapter of Numbers. Those encampments were of so Httle account in leaving any im- press oil the Hebrew character, they were in every sense so temporary, that the scholarship which is worthily directed to the tenth chapter of Genesis is here squandered on an unre- munerative theme. Yet the record of the earlier chapters of Numbers gives us all that we really need, and tells its story with even greater explicitness than does the narrative of Exo- dus relative to the approach to Sinai. There is little doubt that the Israelites took what seemed the most direct course to the land which they sought, passing, as it would seem, up to the great elevated plateau known as the Tih ; and when draw- ing near to the confines of Palestine, delegating forty of their number to go up and explore the land. The main body, meanwhile, passed down into the long trough of the Arabah, between the limestone wall of the Tih on the west and the mountains of Seir, or Edom, on the east, to Kadesh, a district lying, it would seem, in the north-western part of this sunken valley. No trace of the city of Kadesh appears to be remain- ing ; but Kadesh seems to have been a district as well as a city : and of all the locations which have been assigned to it, that given by Robinson appears to be the one best authenti- 94 AN UNIvNOWN REGION. cated. The Desert of Paran, often alluded to in the Bible, is, taken in a general sense, the biolid tract known as the Till Plateau ; while that of Zin seems to be th.e sterile valley of the Arabah. The five deserts of the vrhole peninsula are these : Shur, or Ethani, near the Isthmus of Suez ; Sin, the western plain, embracing not only the tract alluded to as El Murkah, crossed by the Israelites after leaving Elim and the encampment by the sea, but extending down nearly to the southern extremity of the peninsula, and comprising the plain known at the present time as El Kaa ; Sinai, the plains around the mountain of the law-giving ; Paran, the Tih Plateau ; and Zin, the valley of the Arabah. Kadesh lay on the confines and between both the latter ; hence it is sometimes reckoned as belonging to the one, and sometimes to the other. The reader of the Bible history need not be reminded of the hasty and desperate plunge which the Israelites made to seize a moun- tain of the Amalekites, as it is called in the narrative, nor of the signal defeat which they encountered. The region is so little knowm at present, that I dare not attempt to pronounce upon the hypothesis that that mountain was a second small plateau, superimposed upon the north-eastern portion of the great Tih plain. Enough that it appears tenable. At just what time the conflict with the Idng of Arad, one of the walled cities in the south of Palestine, took place, it is diffi- cult to say ; but this is plain : the country which they sought to take was too strong for them. Caleb and Joshua were the only ones of the spies who gave a favorable account of the comparative ease of capturing the land ; and in both assaults the Israelites were- evidently completely routed. AVe see them in both instances, pushed back down the Arabah Valley. Very near them rose the lofty range of Edom, — the moun- tains of Seir. A valley known as Wady Ghaweir runs east- ward from the Arabah, cleaving the range, and allowing, fiee passage across the country once held by the Edomites. This was in the possession of the descendants of Esau ; but if per- mission were granted to the Israehtes to pass through, they SCENE OF Aaron's bueial. 95 might easily march northward, east of the Dead Sea, and enter Palestine by another approach. The south was, as they saw, thoroughly guarded. The " Canaanites and Amalekites dwelt in the valley," meaning the northern part of the Arabah and along the shores of the Dead Sea ; while the Amorites held the high land of the south of Palestine. They had proved themselves more than a match for the Israelites, and now a new way must be sought ; but the Edomites were unwilling that their kinsmen should pass through their territory. Then follows that long period of distressing waiting, — those years while the old generation was dying and being buried, those tliirty-eiglit years of aimless wandering, and of more purpose- less encampments. To all appearance, they did not travel much out of the Arabah Valley, one of the most barren, arid, and frightful portions of the whole desert. Of the many places mentioned in connection with their wanderings, Mt. Hor and Ezion-geber stand out with perfect distinctness. When- ever these names are mentioned we know where we are. Mt. Hor, the place of Aaron's burial, his place of sepulture being marked at the present day by a Mahometan wely^ or tomb, overhangs the eastern edge of the Arabah, not far from its northern extremity, while Ezion-geber lay at the northern end of the Gulf of Akabah. We see the Israelites at this place ; we see them farther north again, at the foot of Hor, and yet again at Kadesh ; in despau', doubtless, disgusted with their provisions, famished for want of water, and dying by thous- ands. Reference has already been made to the journey of the spies northward. Their course is perfectly plain. They passed out of the Desert of Zin by the narrow pass of Sufa, or Zephath, not far from the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, thence to Hebron, and so up the whole line of water-shed along which Abraham and Jacob and Jacob's sons had passed, till they reached Rehob, not far from Dan, a short distance west of Lake Huleh. Just north of Rehob is the opening of the long valley between the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon «■■ llll I ri, ; ,l'!:fl! ,ji!lfiBft*,.t\'VsfSk. THE WONDERFUL GRAPES OF PALESTINE. 97 Mountains, and in that valley lay the ancient city of Hamath. We read, therefore, in the account of the spies' course, that " they searched the land from the wilderness of Zin unto Re- hob, as men come to Hamath." Some have imagined that another Rehob is meant, lying farther north, and nearer the city of Hamath, which was in the narrowest part of the Coele- Syrian Valley, and where, near Antioch, the Orontes breaks through a wild mountain gorge ; but this seems to me a false view. The spies were absent forty days, and, with the going and returning, the time would be entirely consumed in trav- ersing the district between Dan and Beersheba, or, which is .almost identical, between Rehob, close by Dan, and the Des- ert of Zin. . Eshcol, whose grapes have received undying ce- lebrity from their visit, is a valley imder the very shadow of the city of Hebron ; and the grapes of that spot, though 'per- haps not equaling those which the virgin soil once produced - there, are still remarkable both for size and flavor. We get, in the report of the spies, one glimpse of the inhabitants of Hebron, giants in stature compared with the diminutive He- brews. The Israelites were at Kadesh when the spies re- turned. The report was brief, and, notwithstanding the good things which it confirmed to exist in Palestine, was not a little discouraging. They reported to Moses (Num. xiv. 27-30), " We came unto the land wliither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey ; and this [the grapes] is the fruit of it. Nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in that land, ^nd the cities are walled, and very great ; and, more- over, we saw the children of Anak [the giants] there. The Amalekites dwell in that land of the south ; and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the mountains ; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and by the coast of Jor- dan." Of some of these tribes we have already caught glimpses. A portion of the Amalekites we saw in Wady Fei- ran, stopping the way of the Israehtes as they advanced to Sinai, — a widely-scattered tribe, wandering over the Tih Plat- eau, the south country, and the Arabah Valley ; the Jebusites 98 DEAN Stanley's theory. have been referred to as the inhabitants of the rock which be- came the subsequent Jerusalem ; the Hittites we saw dwelUng in the neighborhood of Hebron, and selhng to Abraham the gi*ave of Machpolah ; ' while the Amorites have been referred to as inhabiting the hill country in the southern pai-t of Pales- tine. It is manifest, at a glance, that they all possessed a higher civilization than the wandering Hebrews. Their walled cities, and their culture of the gi'ape, indicate that they were far in advance of the race Avhich had not risen from the estate of slaves to the strength and culture which were only to ac- crue with the lapse of centuries. From the results of this preliminary survey of Palestine, let us come back to the wanderings of the Israelites. • It should not be supposed that they were on the move from day to day ; their course was in all probability not unlike that of the Arabs of the present time. They must advance in obedience to the necessities of pasturage for their flocks, and of water for them- selves. He who hears even the young ravens which cry, would move the pillar of cloud and of fire, so as in ordinary cases to minister to these natural wants. Could they have gone to that romantic rock city of Petra, as Stanley fancies they did, though I think without reason, they would have found shade and water and pasturage, and their thirty-eight years in and near Kadesh would not have been intolerable. It seems to be one of the few weak points in Stanley's admirable work, — this fanciful identification of Kadesh, the place where Miriam died, and where the scarcity of water is expressly ^^luded to, with the profusely-watered city of Petra. And here I cail not refrain from paying a passing tribute to the rare thoroughness as well as to the peculiar beauty of Stanley's " Sinai and Palestine." That tenacious notion that a picturesque, fasci- nating, brilliant work must necessarily be superficial and unre- liable, has caused some to entertain the conviction that because Stanley has the former qualities in an eminent degree, he must be destitute of the sterling qualities which characterize the heavier Robinson. It is not so. His work is in every re- NEAR THE BORDERS OF MOAB. 99 spect a classic. Chateaubriand and Lamartine wrote books on Palestine, whose peculiar, indeed whose only value lay in their style ; but Stanley, while always ornate, rich, picturesque, and yet chaste, betrays the ripest scholarship and a thoroughly- trained judgment. Nor is it to be said that there are no grounds for identifying Kadesh with Petra ; there are some which are entitled to consideration, although the burden of evidence is against them. Not being allowed to pass through the rocky hights of Edom, we see the Israelites, at the end of forty years, move down to the Gulf of Akabah once more, round the lower extremity of the mountains of Seir, and pass up along their eastern base. The Edomites, descendants of Esau, seem to have cherished no ill-will toward their distant kinsmen, notwithstanding then- former refusal, and bring out provisions to them as they pass by. It is a quick march. The narrative makes no halt till it takes them to the borders of Moab. Only two incidents are brought into distinct notice : the one occurring apparently at the outset, the latter while the Israelites were well on their way. The first of these was the death of Aaron, on Mt. Hor ; the second was the fatal bitmg of the serpents. The discov- ery, by Burckhardt, of venomous reptiles near the northern portion of the Gulf of Akabah, seems not only to corroborate the striking veracity of the narrative, but to fix the place where this evil befell the wandering Israelites. CHAPTER VI. THE TRANS-JORDANIC DISTRICT. A New Field — Recapitulation — The Ancient Tribes — The Moabites and the Ammonites — Moab and its Divisions — A Country Little Explored — Who have gone through it — Hindrances made by the Savage Bedouins — Victory over " Sihon, King of Amorites " — Rampage Northward into Og's Region — Porter's Researches — The Houses of Bashan — Argob and its Threescore Cities — Territory Given to Reuben — To Gad — To Half-Manasseh — Hermon and its Various Names — The Midianites — Balaam and the Scene of His Vision — The Theoretical Limits of Palestine — Prominent Objects in the Landscape — Scene of Moses' Death — His Allotment of the " Promised Land." E have now advanced to a new field, a kind of inter- mediate link between the Wilderness and the Land of Promise. That district, east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan, has already come into view once or twice. We have seen the descent of Chedorlaomer and the kings of the East upon it, their onslaught upon the ancient tribe of Emim, east of the Dead Sea, and the Zamzummim, or Zuzim, farther north, east of the lower Jordan ; we have seen Jacob crossing the mountains of Gilead, erecting his memorial pile at Mahanaim, on the Jabbok, and passing thence down the de- file to the Jordan ; but further than this it has not come into any prominence. Nor does it do so in the subsequent Bible story ; for although the territories of Ammon and Moab, of Reuben, Gad, and Half-Manasseh, have some relation to the history of Israel, yet it is only slight and incidental. At the time when the Hebrews entered that district, the land was in a state of convulsion, and the circumstances of "the king of Moab were desperate. Here, as in all our previous studies, history is the best companion of geography ; indeed, the two AN UNEXPLORED COUNTRY. 101 are inseparable if we would view the Holy Land as a living and not a dead thing. Let us glance, then, at the country in the state in wliich the IsraeUtes found it. The ancient tribes of the Rephaim, the Emim, and Zuzuu, had faded out, and the descendants of Lot had taken possession of the whole of the land. The children of one of Lot's daughters held the south- ern region, the district of Moab ; those of the other daughter had gone farther north, and gave their own name of Amnion to the land. Their race was a prolific one ; and, at the tune of the Israelitish invasion, about five hundred years subse^ quent to the time when Abraham and Lot parted upon Bethel, we find the Moabites and Ammonites great nations. Their character was different. Moab was peaceful and inoffensive ; Amnion, warlike and turbulent. The Moabites were quiet herdsmen, possessing admirable grazmg lands, and raising great flocks and herds ; the Ammonites were the Bedouins of the day, a nomadic, fierce, thriftless race. It is, therefore, easy to make out fron> the biblical account the boundaries of Moab ; but Aiiimon shades away northward into the hills, and eastward into the desert, m a manner which defies our at- tempt to establish its limits. ]\Ioab consisted of three divis- ions, each bearing a distinctive name, and each perfectly well to be made out at the present day. The tract lying south of the Wady Mojeb, or Arnon, a stream flowing into the Dead Sea, just north of the well-known peninsula, is alluded to in Scripture as the "field of Moab;" the tract lymg between the Arnon and the Jabbok is called the "land of Moab;" while the low tract close by the Jordan and opj)osite Jericho bears the name of the "plains of Moab." The finest tract for grazing purposes was and still is the second one mentioned, the land of Moab, a fine upland, a broken plateau, bounded on the west by that great mountain-wall which follows the whole course of the Jordan, and broken here and there by hights which rise conspicuously above the elevated plains. It is a country but little known even at the present day ; Burck- hardt, Seetzen, Buckingham, Irby and Mangles, Tristram, and 102 WHO HAVE GONE THEOUGH IT. a few other bold and enterprising travelers only, having trav- ersed it, and brought us what little we know of it : while the country farther north, the territory of Ammon, has been crossed by a fearless few, — Porter, Wetzstein, and Graham, — in addition to those who have brought us what we know of Mcab. Many of the greatest explorers, including such men as Robinson and Stanley, have scarcely set foot upon the land east of the Jordan. The wild character of the Bedouins there, taken in connection with the slight relation of that district to the history of the Jews, has shut it off; and out of the hun- dreds of travelers who go annually to Jerusalem, Hebron, Nazareth, and Jericho, scarcely one passes the Jordan and treads the land of Moab. At the time of the Israelitish invasion, the fierce tribe of the Amorites had sent a portion of their large numbers away from the hill-country north of Hebron across the Jordan, to subdue the rich pasture-lands there. Their strength had made them more than a match for the peacefjid and inoffensive Mo- abites ; and they had easily wrested from the latter their best land, and driven them into the "field of Moab," the tract south of the Arnon. The Israelites did not pass through this terri- tory; but, having crossed the Zared and then the Arnon, they went farther toward the sun-rising, and entered the compara- tively bare and desolate country east of the " land of Moab." The king of the Amorites, Sihon (his name is preserved), had estabhshed his capital at Heshbon, a place which bears the same name even to-day (Hesban), and whose ruins, though not im- portant, display the same cisterns which made the fish-pools of Heshbon noted even in Solomon's time. The war against this Amorite king. Sihon, was short and decisive. The whole of the Belka, or country between the Arnon and the Jabbok, passed into the hands of the Israelites. After the conquest over this formidable " Sihon, king of the Amorites," the Israelites do not appear to have hastened to the Jordan ; but, impressed with the conviction that no en- emies must be left in their rear to follow and harass them. PORTER S RESEARCHES. 103 they marched far northward, past the Gilead range, to that great and fruitful tract of Bashan, south of Damascus and east of the Sea of Gahlee. The capital city, or one of the two capitals, rather, was Edrei, whose ruins, according to Mr. Por- ter, may be seen even now, on a high, isolated bluff at the south-west corner of the Ledja. But whether this place, or Dera on the Hieromax, designates the site of the ancient Ed- rei, the journey was a long one northward. The recent discov STONE DOOR OF AN ANCIENT HOUSE. {Taken from one of Porter's sketches in tJie district east of the fordan^ eries made by Mr. Porter, and announced in his work called "The Giant Cities of Bashan," are of a very great interest. The construction of the houses, and the size of the sarcophagi found there, are such as to convince him that he has really brought to light the very home and tomb of Og, king of Ba- shan. However this may be, there is a striking coincidence between the cities of Bashan, as they are described in Deut. iii. 5, and those cities — they can not be called ruins — which 104 OG, THE GIANT KING OF BASHAN. Prof. Porter has brought to light within the last few y'ears. " All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars." All of these features remain, and, in addition to them, places of sepulture, which appear as if intended for persons of no ordinary stature. Moreover, we are distinctly, though only incidentally, told that Og, king of Bashan, remained, of the race of giants ; and his iron bedstead was long preserved in token of the gigantic stature of the man. The Israelites overran the whole of Bashan, subduing Argob, with its threescore cities, that tract of black rock east of the Sea of Galilee, so little known to us till Mr. Porter brought its distinctive characteristics to light. They were then masters of the whole tract east of the Jordan. From the Arnon on the south to Hermon and the borders of Damas- cus on the north, the land was theirs. It was a tract obvi- ously adapted to pastiurage, and immediately caught the eye of the two tribes which were especially eminent for the num- ber and excellence of their flocks. The tribes of Reuben and Gad requested to have their portions assigned to them on the east side of the Jordan, and their request was granted, on the condition that the fighting men should cross the river with the other tribes, and, after the conquest was effected, should return and live with their flocks. The division was as follows : Moab was allowed to retain the territory south of the Arnon, and at the same time to hold the cities of the tract taken by the Israelites from the Amorite king. Indeed, the fact that Moab was always more highly civilized than the tribe of Reu- ben allowed the two to live side by side in tolerable quietness ; the cities Heshbon, Aroer, Dibon, and the rest being held by the Moabites, while the pastoral Reubenites dwelt in tents, and tended their flocks on that fine, level, pasture-land. The territory distinctively held by Reuben, then, was from the Arnon on the south to a line running east and west through Heshbon. It was bounded by the Dead Sea and the Jordan on the west, while eastward the town of Aroer marked its limits. As the territory of Reuben, it comes into no promi- 106 TERRITORY GIVEN TO REUBEN AND GAD. neiice in the Bible. Long known as Moab, it receives curse on curse ; the subtle idolatries practiced there, and, in es23ecial, the worship of its god, Chemosh, having exercised an irresist- ible charm over the Israelites for many centuries subsequent to the conquest. But Reuben takes an altogether subordinate position. It gives not a hero to Israel, it gives not even a solitary name to the long list of Bible worthies. It sinks into the peaceful occupation of sheep-tending, and gradually dis- ajipears, its sons being merged, to a certain extent, in the primitive tribes of the region. Gad, which took j)Ossession of the lands farther north, was of a different stamp. While agriculture was its chosen call- ing, so that it too wanted to have a share in the rich grazing- lands east of the Jordan, it was tumultuous, wild, martial, and prolific in heroes. While Reuben gave none. Gad gave Elijah and Jephthah, men whose names, in their distinctive way, are among the best remembered in the long procession of Jewish historical characters. The territory of Gad is more indefinitely marked than that of Reuben ; but as it was first assigned, it extended from a hne drawn east and west through Heshbon northward to the Jabbok, embracing the southern half of the mountains of Gilead. Subsequently, the ambitious, pushing spirit of the Gadites made them more than a match for the w^arlike and powerful half-tribe of Manasseh, which occupied Bashan and the northern half of the Gilead range, and we see the more southern tribe thrusting itself northward to the very verge of the Hauran. I should not omit to state that in the original allotment to Gad was the whole of the eastern bank of the Jordan, the fertile valley which lies be- tween the river and the rock-wall on the east, aiKl which ex- tends from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. There ^vas still another tribe, — one which has been alluded to by name, — Half-Manasseh, which shared in the division of the lands east of the Jordan. The cause which prompted Reu- ben and Gad to ask for a tract there was not operative with Half-Manasseh. This powerful tribe, one of the most war- THE "snowy" mount hermon. 107 like and grasping of all, craved the privilege of seizing and possessing that natm-al fastness, the northern half of GQead, and the almost inaccessible rocks of Argob and of Eastern Bashan. It would seem that the conquest of Og had so far subdued the land, that Israel had no further occasion to fear ; yet to enter into it and possess it wholly, required a longer and more stoutly-contested campaign than the speedy one against Og. To accomplish this was the wish, as it was the act, of the powerful half-tribe of Manasseh. This territory, when subdued, comprised that part of Gilead which was north of the Jabbok, and extended north as far as to Hermon. The ancient unportance of that grand, snow-crowned peak is testi- fied by the fact that the Bible gives us, in connection with the story of the Israelitish conquests, four names for Hermon, three in addition to its familiar designation, — Sion, or the ele- vated, the Sidonian name Sirion, and the Amorite name Shenir. Not more marked is it now, as the natural bound- ary of Western Palestine, than it was when the Israelites were capturing the district east of the river. It was then the " snowy " Hermon ; and one of the names by wliich the Arabs designate it at the present day likewise means " the snowy." From the preceding sketch it will be seen that the Israelites broke away at once from the limit which had been set by Abraham when he parted from Lot ; indeed, they wandered so far from it that the circle of the Jordan, that rich intervale which accompanied the winding coirrse of the river, origmally chosen by Lot, was included in the domain of Gad. The only •adherence to the compact between Abraham and Lot is seen in the fact that the Israelites did not attack the Moabites and the Ammonites, both the descendants of Lot by the dark incest of his daughters. The war was against the Amorites and the king of Bashan, not against the distant kinsmen of the invading Israelites. Only one more people comes prominently into view before we see the Israehtes taking their way down into the Jordan Valley opposite Jericho. They are a branch of the Midianites. ^1 ^!i- J MOUNT HERMON FROM NEAR TIBERIAS- BALAAM, THE GREAT HEATHEN PROPHET. -109 We have already seen portions of this tribe in the Sinai Peninsula ; we have alluded too to their main home on the eastern side of the Gulf of Akabah ; but now we discover that they were a tribe very widely scattered, skirting the east- ern border of Seir, Moab, and Ammon, and extending as far as to the Euphrates. Balaam, the great heathen prophet, was a Midianite, yet his home was in Mesopotamia. The influence of this corru2it race was only bad ; the profligacy and licen- tiousness which it engendered being so great as to bring down a plague upon, the people, and make it necessary for Israel to visit them with an almost exterminating war, — a war in which five of the kings of Midian perished, and in which Balaam, the great prophet, also fell by the sword. The exact position of the two mountains, which have been made famous as well as interesting, the one by the ascent of Balaam, the other by that of Moses, remains, and will prob- ably always remain, unknown to us. Among the peaks of Moab are many from which the same commanding view could be had which was gained by both Balaam and Moses ; for al- though, as one looks at the rock-wall of Moab from Palestine, it seems to have no commanding suramits, yet those who have crossed the Jordan, and explored those almost unvisited spaces, report that the mountains have a much more marked individ- uality than would be believed possible. According to the tes- timony of the Englishman Palmer, " When their summits are attained, a wholly new scene bursts upon the view, unlike any thing which could be expected from below, unlike any thing in Western Palestine. A wide table-land appears, tossed about in wild confusion of undulating downs, clothed with rich grasses throughout, and, in the northern parts, with mag- nificent forests of sycamore, beech, terebinth, ilex, and enor- mous fig-trees." While the rich, well-wooded, well-watered districts of Moab, Gilead, and Bashan were to be seen, in all those charms which fascinated the heart of Reuben and Gad, the distant view, that across the Jordan, is not to-day, and could hardly have been then, such as to correspond with the 110 THE BORDERS OF THE "PROMISED LAND." glowing language of the spies who had been sent up from the desert. It may be true, as Stanley suggests, that to one who stands on the bights of Moab and looks westward across the Jordan at the hills of Judah and Ephraim, "their monoto- nous character is lost, and the range when seen as a whole is in the highest degree diversified and imj)ressive ; " yet those brown and treeless hills, and those waterless ravines which could be traced westward from the Jordan Valley, would con- trast most unfavorably with the rich and well-watered land east of the river. Robinson testifies that nowhere in the whole course of his wanderings did he meet such a wealth of springs and running brooks as in the district south-east of the Dead Sea. And most of the territory northward is not unworthy to be ranked far beyond Palestine proper in all the elements which enrich a people. The Bible shows us, in its indirect way, that the trans-Jordanic district had from time immemorial been in the possession of the most powerful tribes in the whole region. Those allusions to the Rephaim, the Emim, and Zamzummim, merely indicate that those races of giants held, by the tenure of their might, the most valuable territory of all Southern Syria. On what grounds, then, do we find Moses straining his sight to look across the river, striving to catch a glimpse of what he was not permitted to enter? Caleb and Joshua, his near and trusted friends, had traversed the whole length of Western Palestine, from Beersheba to Dan: he might have learned from them that what lay beyond was not a rival to that which the valor of the Israelites had already secured. The original promise made to Abraham extended to the Euphrates. Without taking one thing into account, it would appear wonderful that the Hebrew leader should have wished to take further risks, and not have settled down into the quiet and secure pastoral life to which the plains of Moab and the slopes of Gilead invited the wearied tribes. Yet, though the Scripture does not hint at what passed in the mind of Moses, we can not doubt that a man so observant as he would see that the country was without natural means of de- 112 • SCENE OF MOSES" DEATH. fense. At the north, in Bashan, and in parts of Gilead, the rugged ravines and frowning battlements of rock might serve as a partial protection ; yet only a race always in readiness for war, a nation of warrior-shepherds, could hold, with any se- curity, the pasture-lands of the south. As. the Emim and Zamzummim had quailed before Chedorlaomer and the other kings of the East, and had at last been exterminated by the Moabites and the Ammonites ; as the Ammonites had just yielded to Moses, and even Og, in the intrenchments of Ba- shan, had confessed him conqueror, so in turn the Israehtes might be the prey of some stronger and more disciphned race which should sweep through that unprotected land. There- fore it was, as it appears to me, that his eye measured the long line of hills across the Jordan, traversed the steep gorges which run up westward from the Jordan to the great dorsal ridge of Palestine, and felt secure in the thought that the "mountains of the Amorites," as the great line of water-shed is called in the Bible, — the high lands from Hebron to Shechem, — would afford the most secure and undisturbed shelter to his people, age after age. It is not a little curious that the only tradition claiming any value in that country is the Mahometan one that puts the mountain where Moses died on the west bank of the Jordan, and north-west of the Dead Sea. The ruins of a small mosque attest the mountain of the Moslem tradition. Yet the tale is clearly an idle one. Though the place of Moses' sepulture is closely concealed by the Seriptures, and though we do not know which mountain of the rocky tract Pisgah was consecrated to the Moabite god Nebo, and bore his name, still there can be no doubt that it lay on the eastern .side of the Jordan, and confronted the city of Jericho. The spot which has been pointed out with the most probability is a peak a short distance southward of Heshbon, which was ascended by Mr. Porter, and from which a view of surpassing extent could be gained. From that, or any one of the range to which it belongs, Balaam could look across the Dead Sea and see the steep rocks where the Kenites clustered, and which served VIEW FROM THE SUPPOSED PLACE OF MOSES' DEATH. 113 tliem instead of houses ; he could also reach with his eye the south country, and discern the tents of the rovmg Amalekites ; and, in the distance, he could descry the blue line of the Med- iterranean, over which the ships of Chittim should sail ; whde far to the south were the purple hills of Edom. Nor is Moses represented as compassmg an area any less limited. From Dan, at the extreme north, and under the very shadow of Hermon, to the south country, the home of Abraham and Isaac, from the plain of Jericho to the Mediterranean, — aU this is dis- tinctly recorded in the closing verses of Deuteronomy as fall- ing within the scope of his vision. Balaam lived to go down,* and was slam fighting against the nation his tongue was con- strained to bless, while Moses remained in the mountain and died ; " but no man knoweth of his sepulcher to this day." " On these brows," writes Tristram, " overlooking the mouth of the Jordan, over against Jericho, we halted and gazed on a prospect on which it has been permitted to few European eyes to feast. " As the eye tiu'ns southward toward the line of the ridge on which we were elevated, the peak of Jebel Shihan just stood out behind Jebel Attarus, which opened to reveal to us the situation of Kerak, though not its walls. Beyond and behind these, sharply rose Mts. Hor and Seir, and the rosy granite peaks of Arabia faded away into the distance toward Akabah. Stdl turning westward, m fi'ont of us, two or three lines of terraces reduced the hight of the plateau as it de- scended to the Dead Sea, the western outline of which we could trace in its full extent, from Usdum to Feshkah. It lay like a long strip of molten metal, with the sun mirrored on its surface, waving and undulating in its farther edge, unseen in its eastern limits, as though poured from some deep cavern beneath our feet. There, almost in the center of the line, a break in the ridge, and a green spot below, marked Engedi, the nest once of the Kenite, now of the wdd goat. The fortress of Masada and jagged Shukif rose above the moun- tain line, but still far below us, and lower too than the ridge 114 AN ENCHANTING VIEW. of Hebron, which we could trace as it lifted gradually from the south-west, as far as Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The buildings of Jerusalem we could not see,* though all the familiar points in the neighborhood were at once identified. There was the Mount of Olives, with the church at its top, the gap in the hills leading up from Jericho, and the rounded bights of Benjamin on its other side. Still turning northward, the eye was riveted by the deep Ghor [Jordan Valley], with the rich green islets of Ain Sultan and Ain Duk, — bright twins, nestling, as it were, under the wall of Quarantania. There, closer still beneath us, had Israel's last camp extended, in front of the green fringe which peeped forth from under the ter- races in our foreground. The dark, sinuous bed of the Jordan, clearly defined near its mouth, was soon lost in dim haze. Then, looking over it, the eye rested on Gerizim's round- ed top ; and, farther still, opened the plain of Es- draelon, the shoulder of Carmel, or some other in- tervening hight just showing at the right of Gerizim ; while the distant bluish haze beyond it told us that there was the sea, ' the utmost sea.' It seemed as if but a whiff were needed to brush off the haze and reveal it clearly. North- ward, again, rose the distinct outline of unmistakable Tabor, aided by which we could identify Gilboa and Jebel Duhy. Snowy Hermon's top was mantled with clouds, and Lebanon's highest range must have been exactly shut behind it ; but in AIN SULTAN. ♦ " This must have been from a slight haze, or want of power in our glasses, as the point where we stood is certainly visible from the roof of the English church." BALAAM AND THE SCENE OF HIS VISION. 115 front, due north of us, stretched in long line the dark forests of Ajlun, bold and undulating, with the steep sides of moun- tains here and there whitened by cliffs, terminating in Mt. Gilead, behind Es Salt. To the north-east, the vast Hauran stretched beyond, filling in the horizon line to the Belka, between which and the Hauran [Bashan] there seems to be no natural line of separation. The tall range of Jebel Hau- ran, behind Bozrah, was distinctly visible. " We did indeed congratulate each other on the privilege of having gazed on this superb panorama, which will live in memory's eye. ' And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto Zoar.'" (Deut. xxxiv. 1-3.) It was a descent of more than four thousand feet from the summit of those Abarim mountains which witnessed the vision of Balaam and Moses, to the " plains of Moab," the Scripture name for the eastern side of the Jordan Valley at Jericho. From the ordinary level of that table-land was a descent of about two thousand feet. The course of the Israelites may be traced with apparent certainty down the Wady Hesban, a ravine which descends from Heshbon, to the Jordan, and which still retains the name of the ancient city which lay at its head. They came out upon a place where even now may be seen the acacias which gave the place its name of Abel Shittim, " the groves of acacia-trees." " The difference between the upper and lower ground in respect to soil and climate is .as great as can be imagined. In aspect, temperature, and products, the valley is tropical in character, so that the Hebrews passed as if into another zone when they came down into it. In its southern extremity, where it opens on the gloomy, mist-covered waters of the as- phaltic lake, it is not less than twelve miles in width. There, open and level on all sides, it forms a space on which many armies might be encamped. Over its whole extent it was 116 A SPLENDID VIEW. lined and striped by thick belts of verdure, in its numerous groves of acacia and nukb, and of palms. The general du"ec- tion of the valley itself for the sixty miles between Lake Ti- berias and the Dead Sea is tolerably straight ; but deep in its very bottom the river winds — it has been said that it wriggles — along like a gigantic serpent [so that the length of the channel is not sixty, but two hundred miles]. The ground descends steeply all the" way to the southern opening of the valley at the head of the Dead Sea ; and its depth and close- ness, as well as the reflection from the heated rocks on either side, give a tropical character to the climate. The square, monotonous range of hills that support the eastern highlands rises up on that side for nearly a hundred miles, and on the other are the gray, parched hills of Ephraim and Jordan, broken and irregular, and of much smaller altitude. The Israelites had never looked, in one yiew, on such an ample space, so clothed in what would seem to them a boundless profusion of luxuriant vegetation ; and then there was a rapid stream, flowing deep in its low channel through the thickly- clustered trees, under whose cool shades they could stay and rest in voluptuous indulgence. The aged leaders would think less of the Jordan when they remembered the broad waters of the Nile, and the fatness of the Egyptian soil ; but for the mul- titudes, this was the first river that they had seen ; and not even in the fertile and beautiful region above them, whence they had descended, was there more exuberant abundance, especially at the season when they came into the valley, which was the full harvest-time, when it was covered with the richest crops, and when the trees were thick with the blossoming promise of their luscious fruit. The depth of the valley, and the hights on either side reflecting the sun's rays, made the climate hot and relaxing, especially at the season when they encamped in it. But they could bear this the more easily on account of the ample shade which they found in the acacia grove where they were stationed." * *rroni Drew's Scripture Lands. I lllllll'llfe ::'liiii I'lltil! ■:W;L It III" 118 ALLOTMENT OF WESTERN PALESTINE. Before we follow the Israelites across the Jordan, we must glance a moment at that allotment of Western Palestine which was made by Moses, — we know not just how long be- fore his death, — and the details of which he received in part from the report of the spies. The account is "given in the thirty-fourth chapter of Numbers, and, with some slight modi- fications of the eastern boundary, in the forty-seventh of Ezekiel. Though some of the minor places have not as yet been identified with existing sites, still enough remains to show how he marked out the boundaries of the Israelitish territory, and how carefully he adapted himself to the natural frontiers of the country. The southern border he defines to run from the south-eastern extremity of the Dead Sea across the Arabah, taking in Kadesh-barnea, and skirting Edom, to pass on by the steep ascent of Akrabbim, the last pass which led from the desert up to the hill-country, and then to run westward through the towns of Hazar-addar and Azmon (neither identified with certainty) to Wady el Arish, an im- portant ravine which runs from the heart of the Sinai Penin- sula north-eastward, and emerges upon the Mediterranean shore at the old city of Rhinocolura, south-west of Gaza. This ravine bears uniformly in the Bible the name " River of Egypt," it being considered the beginning of the Egyptian domain. The southern border ended naturally at the sea. The western was the Mediterranean coast-line northward to the point where the great Lebanon range runs down almost to the shore. This would be the natural boundary, and this was at once accepted as the place where the northern line would commence. The stations on this northern border were Mt. Hor, the entrance of Hamath, Zedad, Ziphron, and Hazar- enan. Of these we must say that Mt. Hor is probably to be identified with the whole Lebanon range ; no other prominent elevation, or system of elevations, in that region would seem to answer the conditions. By the entrance to Hamath is meant, with much probability, the narrow valley between the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, which was the most striking AQUEDUCT AND PART OF THE TOWN OF HAMAH, (ANCIENT HAMATH.) Frott Laborde. 120 HAMATH AND ITS ANTIQUITIES. feature to a man of Palestine as he went northward, and passed between these great chains on his way to the im2)ortant city of Hamath. From the "entrance of Hamath" the border-hne was drawn north-east toward the city of Hamath, then south-east by Ziphron, Zedad and Hazar-enan. (Num. xxxiv. 8, 9.) *' Hamath," writes Mr. Porter, " is a quaint old city. If one could fancy Pompeii restored and repeopled with men and women, whose moldering bones are now being dug up from its ruins, it would not present a greater contrast to the modern cities of the West than Hamath. For thirty centuries or more, life has been at a stand-still there. Everything is patriarchal, — costumes, manners, salutations, occupations. The venerable elders who, with turbaned heads, flowing beards, and flowing robes, sit daily in the gates, might pass for the elders of the children of Heth, who bargained with Abraham in the gates of Kirjath-arba ; and the Arab sheiks, who ever and anon pass in and out, armed with sword and sj)ear, are no unworthy representatives of the fiery Ishmael. There is no town in the world in which primeval life can be seen in such purity as in Hamath. The people glory in it. No greater insult could be offered to them than to contrast Hamath with the cities of the infidel. The site of Hamath is picturesque. It stands in the deep glen of the Orontes, whose broad, rapid stream divides it through the center. The banks are lined with jDoplars, and queer houses rise like terraces along the steep slopes. Four bridges span the stream and connect the two quarters of the city. The remains of antiquity are nearly all gone ; the citadel is a vast mound of rubbish ; the mosques are falling to ruin ; and the private houses, though in a few cases splendidly decorated within, are shapeless piles of mud and timber. Hamath has still thirty thousand inhabitants." Of the other stations on the northern border, Zedan, Ziph- ron, and Hazar-enan, there is not much to be said, so unfixed is our knowledge regarding those localities. Mr. Porter in his " Five Years in Damascus," and in his later book, " The THE OLD BOKDER LINE. 121 Giant Cities of Bashan," has, it is true, conjecturally identified these places with some Arab villages visited by him ; still, notwithstanding the general sobriety of his judgment, I think that in this case he has allowed his fancy to mislead him. We have not yet the data for laying down with exactness the northern and a part of the eastern boundary-line. The eastern border, gi^fen in the forty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel, differs from that assigned by Moses in the thirty^ fourth chapter of Numbers. The main difference in the two, speaking briefly, is that Moses excluded the kingdom of Da- mascus from the territory which he promised, while Ezekiel represents that kingdom as included in what appeared to him in his vision. According to Moses' assignment, the eastern line was to run southward fi'om Hazar-enan to Riblah ; thence to the sea of Chinnereth, or Galilee ; and so on down the Jordan to the Dead Sea. Neither Shepham nor Riblah, on the eastern border, is known ; Ain, the fountain spoken of in connection with this boundary, has been thought by Porter not to be the great spring of Banias ; but not only does the importance of that fountain indicate the probability that it was the one laid down in the Mosaic narration, but the older authorities agree in assigning the name " Ain," or the foun- tain, to the great Jordan spring of Banias. The exact laying- down of the Mosaic boundary-line is unnecessary ; and we can see enough to enable us to discern how clearly he described the leading geographical features of the land, — how his mmd grasped the truth that the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges must terminate the northern border, and that the eastern one must follow the line which separates the Anti-Lebanon slopes from the great desert on the east. Here was the only place which demanded rigid knowledge and sound judgment; and Moses demonstrated, even in this, the same wonderful com- mand of resources which characterized his whole course. CHAPTER Vn. PASSAGE OF THE JORDAN, AND BEGINNING OF THE CONQUEST. Fording the Jordan — Depth in Summer — In Spring — In Winter — Melting Snows of Hermon — When the Israelites Crossed — Harvest Season — No Bridges then over the Jordan — Comparison with our American Rivers — Giigal, the Place of the First Encampment — What Remains of It — Ruins of Jericho — Palms and Roses of that City — Vices of the Arabs There — The Man who Fell among Thieves — Natural Highway up to the Mountains — Route from Jeri- cho to Ai — Taking of Ai — Ebal and Gerizim — Setting Up of the Law — Visit of the Gibeonites — Their Disguise — The Five Kings — Joshua as a Military Leader — Battle of Beth-horon — The Scene of the Contest — Slaughter of the Kings — "Sun, Stand Still" — The Great Miracle — Battle of Hazor. HE passage of the Jordan by the Israelites brmgs us to the consideration of some of the geographical characteristics of the river. The place was "over against Jericho," and probably not far from that Helu ford which was attempted by Robinson without success, and which has been crossed without swimming by no traveler, so far as I am aware, but the brave and zealous Seetzen, in 1807. The Jordan is not fordable at all at the time of the spring flood; its muddy torrent is both too deep and too swift. Seetzen waited at least a week for the waters to subside so far as to allow him to venture to cross, and the transit, even when he did affect it, was full of peril. In the summer-time, the Jordan can be crossed at countless places ; and the repeated references in the Old Testament to passages across the river must be explained by the ease with which the river could be forded in summer. But in the spring it was and is still dif- ferent. The winter rains fill the wadies with a rushing, im- petuous tide, and the sides of Hermon early begin to pour CROSSING THE JORDAN. 123 down the floods which the heat of March and April calls out from the snow-masses. To ford the river then would be im- possible. Yet it was just then that the Israelites effected the passage. It was the harvest season, the last of March and the first of April ; it was within four days of the feast of the Pass- over, which occurred at the same time. I am as much impressed as one can be with the draughts made upon our faith by the story of the miracle ; yet one is shut up to the necessity of accepting it. We learn the time of the year incidentally ; it is not wrought in as an essential part of the story. Moreover, there is no evidence that any boats or bridges were in use then or in latter times to effect the passage of the Jordan ; the ford was then as now (except where south of the Sea of Galilee some Roman bridges remain) the only method of tran- sit. It is singular how faithfully the Jordan maintains at the present time the same characteristics which it is represented in the Bible as having. It was a larger stream then, for it drained a better-wooded country than it does now ; but the same dark, muddy water which it had then it has now ; and even the same thickets which lined its banks at the time of Elisha are there at the present day. At the time of the spring flood the stream is about one hundred feet in width ; narrow, compared with our American rivers, but deep and swift. We find, on the part of the Israelites, no sign of a desire to wait till the waters should subside. The same willingness to trust to the arm of God which had characterized Moses at the Red Sea now filled the heart of Joshua at the Jordan. - The Israelites wind down to the river from the acacia-groves where they had tarried, the waters part, they go through, and, from the dry bed, they take up twelve stones to set up upon the western bank in me- morial of the great deed which had been wrought in their be- half. Still, while it is impossible to see how the herds and the flocks, the women and the children, the tabernacle and its ser- vice, the embalmed body of Joseph, and the whole mass of household goods and utensils, could be transferred safely to the 124 GILGAL, THE FIRST ENCAMPMENT. western bank of the Jordan without the intervention of mira- cle ; yetat that season able and sure-footed men eould cross either by swimming, or as Seetzen did in the spring of 1807. And thus we know they did do, for the spies entered Jericho and returned to the east bank of the river before the general transit was effected.* Gilgal, the place of the Israelites' first encampment west of the Jordan, lay on the south-east of Jericho, between it and the river. A few shapeless ruins mark the site of what long continued the n'lost sacred locality among the Jews, for here the ark remained till it was transferred to Shiloh, upon the crest of the mountain ridge of Palestine. It lay about three miles from the fords of the Jordan, and from one to two miles from Jericho. There were several places bearing the name of Gilgal ; but this was the one to which the Hebrew * A very accomplished English traveler, Mr. Tristram, crossed the Jordan a few years ago at the time of the spring flood. To do it, made it necessary to ride horses across, while Arabs swam by the side and held the bridle. Mr. Tris- tram's account is so brief and graphic, that I gladly quote it, as it throws light upon the difficulties which beset an army without horses, and accompanied by women, children, and droves of cattle. The place where Mr. Tristram crossed the Jordan was a few miles above the ford of Jericho. He says : " On both sides the space was thronged by about fifty tall, wild-looking Bedouins, all stark naked, swimming and riding a number of bare-backed horses. For a moment my heart beat quick, as two naked men seized my horse, and a third snatched my gun from me. I felt as if set upon by naked savages. C was aliead of me, and I watched him and his horse led into the water by a naked Bedouin, who had taken off" the bridle, and held his steed by the halter, while another hung on to his tail, and a third kept on the lee side of the saddle. The stream, rushing with tremendous force, was about fifteen feet deep. Meantime my saddle-bags were carried off and placed on a man's head ; and, having taken off my outer garment, I committed myself and horse to the torrent, his halter being held by a mounted guide. The ford was very difficult and oblique, but the leader's horse was evi- dently experienced ; while an expert swimmer kept to leeward of my saddle, and held my leg close to my horse. Following a little way with the stream, we landed on the other side. Soon we had all landed ; and now the scene was of the wildest and strangest beauty. It was such as one might expect to see in a picture of Indians crossing an American river, or of the war in New Zealand, graced by the accompaniments of almost tropical vegetation. We agreed that sucli a spectacle was sufficient to repay all the negotiations and trouble of reach- ing the Jordan." JERICHO AND ITS REMAINS. 125 mind turned for ages witli instinctive reverence. The twelve stones which were taken up from the bed of the river were carried to the hill of Gilgal and piled up there; the whole of the Israelites were circumcised there; and in the immedi- ate neighborhood of Gilgal the school of the prophets sat nourishing itself from the halloAved memories of the past. But faint memorials remain at the present day of that opulent, proud, and powerful city of Jericho, with its walls and towers, which confronted the Israelites directly after crossing the Jordan. Near the profuse spring known as that of the Sultan, there are indeed unmistakable marks of the great natural fertility of that truly tropical plain; for, Ij'ing as it does thirteen hundred feet below the level of the sea, and shut in as it is by the bare rock-walls on both sides of the Ghor, the place has almost the temperature of an oven. A single tower, thu'ty feet square and forty feet high, is the most conspicuous object which remains of the Jericho of Herod's tune; but of the primitive Jericho, that of Joshua's day, not a vestige is left. Some of those mounds which dot the plain might be found, if opened, to contain fragments of the ancient walls and towers, yet there will hardly be en- countered a traveler enterprising enough to try to pierce the mystery of those hillocks. Fragments of arches, aqueducts, and paved roads may be seen in the neighborhood of the modern filthy village of Er Riha ; but they are only faint in- dications at best of that city which, although brought to ruins so early in the history of Palestine, yet blossomed up again into such luxuriant life. Not a trace now remains to show why it was called the City of ^ Palms, yet this tree has waved over the site of Jericho since the beginning of the j)resent century. The rose of Jericho has utterly vanished, however, and little that depends upon the aid of man is found in that fertile valley to-da}^ but scanty crops of barley and millet and maize. The same vices which characterized the oldest known cities of the fertile plain, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Zoar, characterize the filthy Arabs who inhabit the huts 126 JERICHO AND ITS REMAINS. of Er Riha ; nor can we be forgetful of the occupation of the woman who gave the spies reception within her own house. Licentiousness, effeminacy, bestiality, have always been the besetting sins of that tropical valley ; and never, from the time of its capture down to the time of the Saviour, does Jericho appear to have fallen so low as at the present time. Yet even in the Saviour's day the narrow pass which leads up to Jerusalem was the favorite resort of robbers, as it is to-day ; and nowhere in Palestine is it more necessary to be on one's guard. The parable of the Good Samaritan has been re-enacted within our own day, an Englishman being the man who " fell among thieves." The site of Jericho is about seven miles from the banks of the Jordan, and the view from the old tower commands a view of the whole extent of intervale. Much of the land is parched and blasted ; that to the south, and lying between Er Riha and the Dead Sea, is a desert. No doubt the whole place has been so changed in its outward aspect, that one of the inhabi- tants of ancient Jericho, could he revisit the scene, would scarcely recognize the fair, fertile tract which the river-bot- toms once were, in the sterile plain of the present day, show- ing only after the heavy rains or near the great Sultan's Spring, what is the natural capacity of the soil. The natural highway from Jericho up to the great water- shed of Palestine is not the precipice-lined gorge which runs from Jerusalem down to the Jordan by way of Bethany. It is the way which follows the broad and well-known Wady Suweinit for a distance, and then, under a changed name, runs on to Bethel. There are, indeed, three minor wadies which radiate from Wady Suweinit ; but the one which emerges at Bethel is the most direct and easy. Strange to say, however, that tract is most inadequately explored ; the great road by which Joshua went up to the summit of the hill-country, and the system of wadies which lies in the im- mediate vicinity of Bethel and Ai, are not known as they ought to be, though the road was one of those most familiar J!//' U I Bii, I TAKING OF AI. 129 to the Israelites. Not only did they take it in their conquer- ing march from Jericho to Ai, but that was the road which they must follow when they went down to offer their sacrifices at Gilgal. Yet the general nature of the pass is known ; we can see the thirty thousand men marching up to Ai, south-east of Bethel and in full sight of it, though its ruins are not identified with certainty ; we can see Joshua cunningly send- ing his select champions into a high, unseen place beyond the city, while he, with the main body, encamped before it, and then withdrawing down the valley toward Jericho as if un- able to take the city. We see the men of Ai, falhng into the snare, passing confidently from the Avails of their city, and pressing rapidly down toward the Jordan in pursuit of the fleeing Israelites. Then we see the delegation, five thousand strong, it would appear, emerging from their ambuscade be- tween Bethel and Ai, and pressmg after the men of Ai. Joshua then turns and stems the descending tide of Canaan- itish mountaineers. Caught between the two forces, the men of Ai are utterly cut off, and their city reduced to ruins. It was, of course, a momentous victory, for it opened the whole line of mountain-land to them, and the Israehtes could press on without hindrance northward or southward. It was in endeavoring to make just such an ascent, south of the Dead Sea, (see p. 145,) and to reach the high land of Southern Pal- estine, that they were driven back to Hormah, in the Arabah, and compelled to spend those thkty-eight hopeless years of wandering. The mihtary genius of Joshua shines out con- spicuously in the first instance where he needed to use it. Moses had lived just as long as a Moses was needed, and when new emergencies rose and new talents were required, God had the right man ready for 'the field. The main camp remained at Gilgal, by Jericho, even after Ai was taken ; but the next move of any importance was the setting-up of the tables of the law on Ebal and Gerizun, the two mountains between which lies that plain of Moreh, or Shechem, where Abraham lingered long enough to erect an 130 SETTING UP THE LAW ON GERIZIM. altar, and where Jacob lived tiU the altercations of his sons with the Canaanites drove him from the place. Under their shadow is to be seen even now Jacob's well and the reputed tomb of Joseph. It was on Ebal that half of the tribes stood and uttered the curses on those Avho should disobey the law ; it was on Gerizim that the other half stood and recited those impressive blessings that are recorded in Deuteronomy. It was on Ebal, that, according to the Jewish reading of the Pentateuch (Deut. xxvii. 4), an altar inscribed with the law was to be set up ; whereas the Samaritan version has Gerizim in the weU-remembered passage. The differences in the two mountains are somewhat marked, although, perhaps, not as much so as the accounts of most travelers would lead us to infer. Ebal is a steep, rocky, bare, and uninteresting peak, and has almost never been ascended : a few shapeless ruins are almost all the human traces which it offers to the curiosity. Its hight has not been closely ascertained, but it is computed to be not much short of thirty-five hundred feet. Gerizim, wliich is about five hundred feet lower, has been spoken of by most travelers as a " smiling " mountain, covered with ver- dure, and showing on its very face why it was chosen as the mount of blessings. Tliis is surely an exaggerated statement of what rests upon a very slight foundation. Indeed, it would not be right to omit saying that some of our most reliable modern tourists deny Gerizim any superiority whatever in charm over Ebal. It has from the remotest period been ac- counted a sacred mountain ; and it is supposed by Stanley to have been the hight to which Abraham brought Isaac for sac- rifice ; though I can not yield assent to this view. Gerizim is the resort of pilgrims every year to witness the celebration of the passover ; and one of the most interesting portions of Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church is that appendix in which he gives his own account, as an eye-witness, of the celebration, in this age, of that ancient feast, with ritualistic observances little changed by the lapse of four thousand years. The law having been set up on Ebal or Gerizim (according HEWEES OF WOOD AND DRAWEES OF WATER. 131 as the Jews or Samaritans are right in their respective read- ings), the next step of the IsraeUtes was to move quickly south- ward along the Palestine water-shed, and then down the ra- vine leading from Bethel to Gilgal and Jericho. It was during the brief pause after theii' return that the memorable visit of the Gibeonites occurred, which led Joshua into a net, not so dangerous as that which he set for the people of Ai, but quite as subtle. I need not remind the reader how the inhabitants of Gibeon and the neighboring cities of Beeroth, Khjath- jearim, and Chephirah took moldy bread and burst wine-sldns, and old clothes and worn-out shoes, and traversed the ten or twelve miles which separated their homes from Gilgal, and pretended to come from a distant country for the pm-pose of testifying their allegiance to the God of the Israelites. The trick was at length discovered, and, although Joshua could not forfeit his word to spare their lives, they were degraded into hewers of wood and drawers of water, and compelled to dis- charge those laborious and menial services for the Israelites age after age. Those jDlaces have all been brought to light by the indefatigable Robinson. Their present names are but ht- tle changed from those they bore in ancient times, Gibeon be- ing Geba, Beeroth Birch, and Chephirah Kefur. Kirjath- jearun has lost its name, however, and is to be identified with Kuryet-el-enab. They lie fi'om six to ten miles north of Je- rusalem, a little west of the line of water-shed,. Kirjath-jearim being at the head of an important wady which leads toward the Mediterranean coast. The anger which was kindled in the hearts of the Canaanite kings against the Gibeonites for not resisting the invaders at the point of the sword, led directly to that great and decisive battle of Beth-horon wdiich put the Israelites in substantial possession of the country. The five kings who conspired to destroy Gibeon for its pusillanimous conduct, were those of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon, — all of them places of unquestionable importance. Of Jerusalem and He- bron I need not speak, except to say that these two cities, 132 BATTLE OF BETH-HORON. which have befoi'e met us only in tiie attitude of peace, here confront us with the stern face of war. Abraham and Jacob were men who passed up and down through Palestine, cher- ishing a promise of future possession, but taking no steps to attain it, and carefully abstaining from coming into conflict with the people, always buying land instead of wresting it, and speaking not imperiously but peaceably to the Canaanites. But when Joshua came, there was a change ; and the chief city of the Jebusites and that of the Hittites arrayed them- selves against the man who came not with flocks and lierds, but at the head of a powerful army, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon lay south-west of Jerusalem and west of Hebron ; the first of them on the western margm of the hill-country, the last two on the rich plain below. Jarmuth is identified be- yond much doubt with the modern village of Jarmu ; Lachish and Eglon, with Um Lakis and Ajlan. It was not at those places, however, that the kings encountered the Israelites. They united their forces and marched up to Gibeon, on the high land north of Jerusalem, the modern Geba, for the pur- pose of destroying it. The people sent a messenger directly to Joshua at Gilgal. The Israelitish army was at once on the move up the rocky defiles which lead from the Valley of the Jordan to the top of the mountain-land ; their first duty being to defend their new and crafty allies, the Gibeonites ; their next, to go forward and capture the countrj^ for themselves. The news reached Joshua in the night, and before it was day the Israelitish host had traversed the ravine, and were before the walls of Gibeon. And then began that memorable battle of Beth-horon, one of the decisive struggles of the world. The Israelites pursued their enemy northward for about four miles, over a tract sufficiently broken, but along the main coast-line of the country. At Upper Beth-horon, its place perfectly marked at the present day by the village of Upper Beit-ur, the Canaanites turned down to the west through the broad and steep pass which led to the village of Lower Beth- horon. It is the same pass which is taken by all the heavy ANCLENT BATTEKINa RAM. ANCIENT AXES. ANCIENT BATTLE-AXES, POLE-AXE; MACES, AND CLUB. 134 BATTLE OF BETH-HORON. travel between Jaffa and Jerusalem. The lighter travel comes up by a pass west of Jerusalem, and more direct ; but the pass of Beit-ur, the ancient Beth-lioron, is one of the most striking features of the country. Mr. Grove says graphically of it, " With the upper village the descent commences ; the road, rough and difficult even for the mountain-paths of Palestine, now over sheets of smooth rock flat as the flagstones of a London pavement, now over the upturned edges of the lime- stone strata, and now amongst the loose rectangular stones so characteristic of the whole of this district. There are, in many TORTOISE SHIELD. places, steps cut, and other marks of the path having been artificially improved.". Near the lower end of the path is the side-valley passing by the low hill on which stood the village of Ajalon, the modern Yalo, and whose name is always re- membered in connection with Joshua's prayer, as he set for- ward that eventful morning. It is plain that the Canaanites were taken by surprise, when, in the cool of the day, they found the Hebrew troops upon them. There was a continual THE GREAT MIEACLE. 135 rout all the way from Gibeou to Upper Beth-horon ; and, to add to all, just as the Canaanites were taking that steep and dangerous pass from Upj)er to Lower Beth-horon, a tremendous hailstorm broke upon them, effecting more slaughter than even the arms of the Israelites. This pitiless storm followed them tni they reached the city of Azekah, identified by Porter with the modern village of Zechariah, on the verge of the high- lands south-west of Jerusalem. It would appear that the Is- raelites did not pass on at once to Azekah, but in the early morning, the victory being complete, left the hailstorm on the western slope of the hill-country to do its devastating work, while they went back to Gilgal. But soon a messenger brought word that the five kings had taken refuge in a cave at Mak- kedah, near Azekah. Up from Gilgal on the same day the Israelites marched, reached the highlands about Gibeon, and, swept down the pass of Beth-horon to Makkedah. The slaughter of the kings, their burial in the cave, and the de- struction of Makkedah, closed that memorable day. It does not need any argument to convince us of the miraculous answer to Joshua's prayer, " Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon." The march up from Gilgal to Gibeon was effected in the night, it is true ; but between the break of the next day and its close, Joshua marched from Gibeon to Upper Beth-horon, some distance down the pass, back to Gilgal, up from Gilgal to Gibeon again, and down the whole length of the pass to Makkedah. These things, being told in a simple, unaffected manner, would seem to shut us up to one of two conclusions : either that the Isra- elites could pass over rough roads and through narrow defiles with supernatural speed, not to speak of the immense draughts on their energy and strength, or that the day was of no com- mon length that could permit them to do all this. The dis- tance traversed can not have been less than forty miles, not to reckon the night march. The nature of the roads is such that to go up from. Gilgal to Gibeon and back in a single day is all that strong travelers can accomplish. The whole route 136 THE GREAT CONFEDERATION. is now, and mnst have been then, one with which hardly any mountain-path that any of us are familiar with can be com- pared. Twenty miles of such toilful marching through the defiles and up the declivities of the White Hills of New Hampshire would task the powers of the strongest man to the utmost ; yet here is a whole army doing a feat of twice that magnitude. I am aware that the miraculous prolonging of the day of that battle is one of the special targets of those who hold the supernatural element of the Bible up to ridi- cule ; but I confess that the power of doing all that Joshua and his men did that day without supernatural help seems just as opposed to all that we know of human possibilities as the prolonging of the day can have been. There remamed after the battle of Beth-horon but one more •task for Joshua to do, and that was to conquer the North. The people of the North seem to have been stronger, and, on the whole, capable of being better united than the people of the South, capable of entering into a confederation. The reason of this lies in the fact that Palestine is open to attack only on the north. On the borders of the waters of Merom, or at a point south- west of Merom (we know not precisely where), lay a city called Hazor, the king of which was Jabin, or the Wise. Jabin appears to have been the' most important man of his age and of that part of the country. Hazor may have been the strongest hold of all the cities at the North, but not necessa- rily ; Jabin, however, appears to have been the ablest man of his time. After Joshua had conquered the South country it was clear that he would push his victorious columns to the North. The king of Hazor made a league with all the kings in the entire north of Palestine. It was an immense confed- eracy that he called together. It extended south as far as Jerusalem, west as far as to the extreme point of Mt. Carmel and the city of Dor, eastward as far as the plains of the shores of the Sea of Gahlee, and north to the valley lying be- tween the Lebanon ^nd Anti-Lebanon mountains, — a strong 138 JOSHUA'S SECOND VICTORY. confederacy of disciplined soldiers under able leaders. It seemed as if that conspiracy must certainly crush the victori- ous Joshua. It was far stronger in every sense than the body that had met him at the South. The host assembled at the waters of Merom, where a new kind of tactics could be brought into the field. The Israelites fought on foot. The different races who lived in the country on the north and the plains north were able to use chariots and horses. We can hardly con- ceive anything more unequal than the contest between Joshua and his undisciplined Israelites on the one hand, and that strong and disciplined army on the other hand, strengthened by chariots and horses. All men not used to war are panic stricken by horses, but when we add to this those chariots which were armed on the side with ii'on scythes, we may well understand that the hearts of the Israelites were appalled. But Joshua seems equal to the occasion, and using the tactics he pursued at the previous battle, he came suddenly upon them at the waters of Merom, and appears to have swept them all from the field. The story of that battle is not told in detail as is the battle of Beth-horon. It appears to have been done at a single stroke ; one great charge, and the whole was over, and the entire north country passed into the hands of Joshua. And thus by these two simple battles, the story of which is told so simply in the Bible, the whole conquest was obtained. We are apt to think that the book of Joshua, unless we read it more than most people do, is a stor}'- of continuous victories. It is not so. There are but two. There was a great battle and victory at the South, which gave them possession of the whole south country, and one at the North giving them pos- session of the country north of Galilee and the plains. We who were a few years since so astonished at the seven days' campaign which made Prussia master of Austria, have reason to be still more surprised at this series of events in the very morning of the world, so quickly achieved, and with such simple means. CHAPTER Vm. ALLOTMENT AMONG THE TWELVE TRIBES. TvlU Description of tlie Allotment in the Bible — Retention of the Ancient Names in the Mouth of the Arabs — Robinson and Smith's Discoveries — The Three Tribes East of the Jordan, Reuben, Gad, and Half-Manasseh — The Beautiful Land of Bashan — The Inequalities in Western Palestine in Respect to Soil — A Wonderful System of Compensations — Only One Tribe Fares Badly — Ter- ritory of Judali — Its Advantages — Benjamin — Its Sacred Localities — Dan — Its Narrowness and Subsequent Emigration — Ephraim — Manasseh, Issa- char, and Zebulon — The Cities of Refuge — Moses' Knowledge of the Land — Site of Shiloh and its Discovery by Robinson. jHE first important event after the completion of the conquest was the division of the country among the twelve tribes. Respecting this apportionment, the Scripture narrative is remarkably full and explicit; it would be the hight of injustice to criticise it, for there is not another existing record of conquest so remarkably detailed as is this ancient book which records the bold and dashing achievements of Joshua. And so wonderful is the preserva- tion in*the mouth of the wandering Arabs who inhabit Pales- tine, of the primitive Hebrew names, that it would be quite practicable, there is httle reason to doubt, to work out quite definitely the limits of each tribe, had travelers' attention been sufficiently directed to this thing. In the South, this has indeed been the case, and two Americans, Robinson and Smith, have discovered so many of the old names still clinging to the villages of the land that it has been possible to desig- nate with much definiteness the boundaries of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Dan. But almost no travelers have carefully explored the hill-country of Gahlee, the territory of 140 NEED OF INVESTIGATION". which was divided among the tribes of Asher, Naphtali and Zebulun, and we can map them only approximately. It is very much to be desired that some acute observer and some careful and thorough Arabic scholar might go through that region as Robinson and Smith went through the district held by the more southern tribes, and endeavor to disinter -the names which are given with such remarkable detail by the author of the book of Joshua, and which almost unquestiona- ])ly lie buried but lightly beneath the Arabic names of towns and villages of the north country. But until that is done, we shall have to confess that our knowledge about the exact boundaries of the northern and middle and eastern tribes is not very exact : still we have enough for all practical pur- poses. We can distinguish, for example, what was the soil, and what the natural resources in the possession of each tribe : and we know the great, salient features of the landscape en- joyed by each. It is only to gratify an antiquarian curiosity that we need to know more : yet that curiosity is strong enough and the need of an exact map of the country parti- tioned among the tribes, great enough to warrant a party of scholars going into that field with a determination to exhaust it. It would seem at least as important as the search for the North Pole, the Antarctic Continent or the sources of the Nile. Three of the tribes, Reuben, Gad and Half-Manasseh, had their domain assigned to them on the east bank of the Jor- dan. They were very rich in flocks and herds, and had no sooner seen that country in their journey towards the prom- ised land, than they longed to possess it. Their desire was met on one condition, namely that their men of war should cross the river with the other tribes, and do good military ser- vice there in the work of conquering the country, and that after that should be ended, they might return and settle down on that fat and fruitful domain. There is little doubt that the former condition of the tract east of the Jordan was then very much as it is at the present time, a rich, well- watered pasture-land, admirably adapted to grazing, covered TERRITORY OF REUBEN. 141 with broad-reaching, noble trees, and altogether delightful. Though it is much too insecure at the present time for safety, and has in consequence been very httle visited, still the few travelers who have explored the district of ancient Moab, and the country north of it, have uniformly testified to its great and luxuriant beauty. Its stately oaks, its numerous rivers and springs, its fine reaches of rich pasture-land, its fertile hill-sides, and its broad, loamy plains, are the admiration of every beholder. It was this beautiful country which fell to Reuben, Gad and Half-Manasseh. I will not try to define their exact limits, although the boundaries are much more easily followed than those of the tribes of Galilee. Any one can if he wishes, look out all the stations, and lo- cate them on the map. But it is sufficient for our pres- ent purpose to say that Reuben's tract was bounded on the south by the river Arnon, a well-known stream which enters the Dead Sea about midway between its northern and southern extremes, and on the north by a line running eastward from the northern end of the Dead Sea, then turn- ing north-eastward, and passing indefinitely on until it was lost in the desert. The wady, running westward from Hesh- bon down to the valley of the Jordan, which was traversed by the Israelites on theh march into Western Palestine, accu- rately enough defines the northern frontier of the territory of Reuben. The tribe although descending from the oldest son, was in no way remarkable, and was chiefly noted, for its bucolic, tranquil disposition. Out of Reuben sprang not a single man who reached any eminence in Israel. The people of this tribe hved in tents, and pursued strictly the employ-' ments of an agricultural folk ; and in the midst of their graz- ing lands they permitted the cities to stand and be occupied by the former inhabitants, who were clearly on a higher plain of civilization than themselves. There is little allusion to the fate of Reuben after the close of the story of the conquest, and they had returned to their wives and little ones, their tents and sheep-folds on the east side of the Jordan. 142 TERRITORY OF GAD AND SIIMEON. Gad, a much more robust and lawless tribe, occupied the territory directly north of Reuben. Their southern boundary was in general terms a line drawn eastward from the north extremity of the Dead Sea, and their northern was at the first the torrent stream of the Jabbok ; but at a subsequent period, the wild, irrepressible nature of the Gadites caused them to make a bold push northward, and win the territory extending up to the border of the great Hauran plain. North of Gad was BEERSHEBA. From an original sketch in Tristram's valuable work, " The Land of IsraeL" Half-Manasseh, a large and fruitful tract, embracing the fer* tile and well-wooded Bashan, and the densely populated Ar- gob with its walled cities. The natural northern limit of East- ern Manasseh was the snow-crowned Hermon, which sets in its majesty and forms the north boundary of the whole country. These three tribes having received their possessions on the east side of the Jordan, there remained all the more to be pos- sessed by the other tribes on the western. And considering TERRITOKY OF JUDAH. 143 the great inequalities of the country, it is wonderful how well Joshua succeeded in apportioning the land so as to satisfy in any measure the various conflicting and eager claims of the tribes. The northern part of Palestine must have been always more fertile and beautiful than the southern : and yet so ad- mirably did he preserve the balance as to cause no complaint to be heard. When there was a deficiency of fertile land, there were solid and manifest advantages adjomed to compensate : and with the single exception of Simeon, it is difficult to see that any tribe fared hardly. The latter tribe was passed over in the first apportionment ; but as Judali had more cities than were necessary for one tribe to possess, there were taken from the southern part of Judah eighteen cities, with their adjacent suburbs, and these were made the part of Simeon. These were in two groups, one of thirteen cities, and the other of five, and were none of them important. Beersheba is the one most generally known, but aside from the connection be- tween this place and the patriarchs, it has no prominence in history, and has never possessed any marked advantages. The most of the cities which fell to Simeon lay south of Hebron. They were in all probability not contiguous, at any rate not necessarily so : and this gave Simeon a peculiarity not enviable, namely that it had no compacted territory which it could de- fend, and in which it could develop a strong tribal feehng. The consequence was that very early Simeon began to lose its importance, and to drop out of sight, and not very late in the Hebrew history disappears altogether, having left its cities and emigrating southward to .the mountains of Edom. Its descendants probably exist among the wild and fierce Arabs who now inhabit that rocky and almost inaccessible tract around Petra. Judah occupied, in general terms, the tract lying between the city of Hebron at the south, and a line drawn westward from the northern end of the Dead Sea, and' passing under the south wall of Jerusalem. Thus this great city did not fall Mdthin its limits, but was in the domain of Benjamin, the tribe 144 TERRITORY OF JUDAH. next north. The territory of Judah, though extensive, can never have rivalled in fertility the more favored regions of the North, although unqucstioual)ly far more productive than at the present time. Still the district embraced not the hill-coun- try alone, which though capable of tillage, yet required an incredible amount of labor and perseverance to make it re- munerative, but that rich plain at the foot of its western slope, in which lay the cities which Joshua conquered, and whose kings he slew in his first brief and decisive campaign; But Judah was well adapted to train up and keep in constant good condition a tribe which should be dominant. Its soil, not fer- tile enough to tempt to sluggishness, its climate, bracing and stimulative, its situation, remote from nations whose arts should be imported and bring all kinds of seductive influences with them, and its naturally strong position as a strategic point of defence, all conspired to make it a leading tribe, and to justify the old projihecy that the sceptre should not ' pass from it till the Promised should come. North of Judah lay Benjamin. It was a little tract which this tribe possessed, only about twelve miles from north to south, and twenty-five from east to west. It was moreover singularly barren and destitute of physical advantages, a mere tangle of rocky passes leading from the hill-country eastward down to the Jordan, and westward to the Plain of Sharon. It was just such a tract as would serve as the home of a wild tribe, given to acts of violence, as the tribe of Benjamin was. If we have any notion that these people, because Israelites, were at all* akin to the j)eople of Em-ope or America, in the arts and refinements of civilized life, it were well to dismiss the idea at once. They were very like what the savage Arabs east of the Jordan now are, fierce, warhke, and vindictive. These were a roving, lawless, undis- ciplined horde, the fear and the scourge of the comitry, and utterly unlike the gentle Sheikh who was their founder. Yet lying, as their domain did, just at the most defenceless part of the south, and exposed, as it was, to invasion on the east, TERRITORY OF BENJAMIN. 145 up the great wadies leading from the Jericho to the top of tlie hill-country, it was indispensable to the perpetuation of the Hebrew domination, that just such a tribe should stand on guard at the portal, and be a barrier against wild invaders. One signal advantage was enjoyed by Benjamin, namely, that within its comparatively contracted domain lay some of the most sacred and important places in all the con- quered land. Of these, Jerusalem was, of course, the most conspicuous, yet to that great name must be added MizjDeh, Bethel, Kirjath-jearun, Ramah, Gibeon, Gibeah, and Gilgal. This was an offset to the barrenness and diminutiveness of its territory, and we do not hear that the Benjamites ever complained of being hardly dealt with in the distribution of the conquered domain. They appear to have enjoyed the military honors which their position thrust upon them, and to- have confined their ambition to the gallant service of resisting attacks, and being always ready for war. In a little corner of Palestine west of Benjamin, and hemmed in between it and the sea, lay the territory which was originally assigned to Dan, The comparative meagreness of Dan's domain was compensated by its remarkable fertility, for it embraced Gaesarea and that wonderfully fruitful plain of Sharon whose productivity has become a proverb understood throughout the world. Yet the domain of Dan early proved to be too small for that large and energetic tribe, and they were empowered by Joshua to go to the extreme northern limits of Palestine proper and win for themselves a tract just where the western fountain springs of the Jordan burst from the sand. The place is known as Tell el Kadi, or the Hill of Judgment, and is visited with much interest by tourists. It is but a few miles west of Baneas, or Csesarea Philippi, the eastern springs of the Jordan, and like the latter is remarkable for the sud- denness with which the waters which are soon to make a not- able river, break and leap from the ground. Here the part of Dan that emigrated from the south took firm root, and gained fresh accessions of population and power, while that part of 1-16 TERRITORY OF DAN AND EPHRAIM. the tribe which remained in the tract originally assigned them, became weaker and weaker. The place was, in fact, very much exposed; for close beside them, on a continuation of the same plain indeed, dwelt the powerful Philistines, with whom the Hebrew nation was engaged in interminable war. Thus Dan, dwelling not in the safe hill-country, but on tlie exposed plain, were constantly at the mercy of their comparatively civ- ilized neighbors on the south, and enjoyed very few of the ad- vantages which their almost incomparable soil would have granted them, could they have preserved a steady, peaceful, agricultural career. North-east of Dan was the tract assigned to the great and kingly tribe of Ephraim. In that territory Avhich embraced the whole width of West Palestine, there is the transition be- tween the extreme fertility of the North and the extreme barrenness of the South. A part of that could be, perhaps, discernible at the time of the conquest ; and in the domain of Ephraim lay some of the loveliest spots in, all the land, while, nevertheless, there was much land in its southern part which was hardly superior to Judah or Benjamin's. In Ephraim 's demesne lay the sanctuary of Shiloh : and in it, too, was the rich plain of Moreh or Shechem, which was a notable feature in the landscape from Abraham down to the Saviour, and is still one of the fairest tracts in the Holy Land. It is impossi- ble to draw the boundary line which separated Ephraim from West Manasseh : the domain which the two tribes occupied is really mcapable of being divided into two different parts, for it is a unit. Still it is easy to make this distinction that while Ephraim occupied the larger part of the block lying between the rocky passes of Benjamin and the fertile, plam of Jezreel or Esdraelon, Manasseh's share comprised the gentle slopes, and the genial valleys which lead from Ebal and Gerizim and the adjacent mountain land, northward, and from the natural roadways into the beautiful plain just mentioned. There is little doubt that the northern slopes of Carrael were in the possession of Manasseh : still the two tribes appear to have Illi.! #:. ■'■'1 11 mm m MANASSEH, ISSACHAR AND ZEBULUN. 149 had a divided possession of the Carmel ridge which was then doubtless, covered with a heavy growth of wood. That there was a clear intermingling of the territory of the two sons of Joseph is clear from the statement in Josh, xvii., where it is not only stated that the " cities of Ephraim are among the cities of Manasseh," but where it is equally clearly intimated that but one lot, or one portion was given to the descendants of Joseph, and that the task was imposed on them both by Joshua, if they wished to increase their domains, to go up into the Carmel range and conquer it for themselves. Of East Manasseh I have already spoken ; to it fell the fertile tract in the northern part of Palestine — beyond Jordan, the fertile Bashan, the populous Argob and the great Hauran plain. Of the other tribes, there need not much be said, for of their special limits we know but little. To Issachar fell, we may say in a word, the extremely fertile plain of Jezreel or Esdra- elon, with the exception of a few cities upon it which were given to Manasseh. To Zebulun was assigned the tract im- mediately north, embracing Nazareth and Cana, and compris- ing the fertile hills of southern Galilee. It stretched across the western part of the great plain of Jezreel, and touched the Carmel range for some miles. Its northern frontier is quite unknown : its neighbors on this side were Naphtali and Asher, whose domains extended to the very foot of Hermon at the north, and to the great Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon on the north-west. These two tribes had a magnificent domain, beautifully uneven, fertile, well-watered and salubrious, but their nearness to their luxurious and craven neighbors on the coast, made them both, and Asher especially, neglectful of their religion, inclined to adopt foreign idolatries, effemiliate and corrupt. They very early lost the fine, high tone of their character, and sank into mere servile dependents on the Phoe- nicians. One of the most marked geographical landmarks in the re- gion given to the three tribes, Issachar, Zebulun and Naphtali is Mt. Tabor, which touched on them all, forming apparently 150 MOUNT TABOR AS A LANDIMARK. the northern boundary of Issachur, the south-western hmit of Naphtah, and the south-eastern hmit of Zebukui. The most of the towns and other landmarks which are given us are quite unknown, and it is in vain that we attempt to decipher the special boundaries of the northern tribes. Further mvestiga- tion would no doubt bring much information to light, and dis- cover in the present names of villages the bibhcal appellations of cities. Until that is gained we must wait : yet there is hardly a single unportant spot in all the land which we can not with certamty ascribe to the tribe that possessed it. In the fertile and beautiful domain of Naphtali, that charming country of hills and plains lying west of the Waters of Merom and the northern portion of the Sea of Galilee, lay Capernaum, the secluded spot which of all, may be called the home of Jesus, Choraszin, Tiberias and Safed, the lofty " city set on a liill " to which Jesus pointed when he taught how con- spicuous the true Christian life ought to be among bad men : in Naj)htali too was the profuse "spring which supplied Banias or Cesarea Philippi with water and made it the garden tract that it has always been. Magdala, too, was then there, wait- ing to give its name to Mary Magdalene, and there too, over- hanging the Waters of Merom was that renowned city of Hazor, whose King Jabin was the most powerful ruler in the whole land at the time of the Hebrew invasion, — the leader of the great northern confederacy which endeavored to strike down the gallant Joshua at a single blow. There remains but one tribe more to be alluded to : that of Levi, wliich had no united territory assigned to it : merely forty-eight cities, in which the Levites were to hve. To these cities which in round numbers were four to each tribe, were added a ring of land aroiuid each city, extending about four thousand feet from the wall, and intended to serve as pasture ground to the cattle. All provisions were taken to prevent this tril^e from taking up the pursuits of agriculture, and also to scatter the people of it up and down the whole country, so that men should be always close at hand to discharge the CITIES OF KEFUGE. 151 duties of sacrifice. Six of the forty-eight cities which were given to the Levites, had a double function : for they were also set apart to be Cities of Refuge, ^'. e. places to which per- sons who had been instrvnnental in causing the accidental death of a man, might fly and be secure from arrest. This w^as one of the most merciful provisions in the Hebrew code, and the choice of the six cities was admirably adapted to the ends in view. Three were on the east, and three were on the west side of the Jordan. On the east, one Bezer (its site now un- known) was m the tribe of Reuben : another farther north, Ramoth-Gilead, now Jelad, the second name slightly changed, lies a little north of es Salt, in the mountain district of Gad : another still, Golan, its site like that of Bezer, now unknown, lay within the wild and romantic country of East Manasseh. West of the Jordan were three others, the well-knoAvn He- bron in the South, Shechem, scarcely less known, under the shadow of Ebal and Gerizim, in the great central tribe of Ephraim, and Kedesh, now Kades, in the hill-country at the North, a short distance west of Lake Huleh^ the Waters of Merom. AU of these must have been prominent and accessi- ble cities, easily protected in case of a siege, and affording per- fect security to those who fled to them that their sanctity was incapable of being invaded. The most striking incident connected with the division of the land among the tribes, was the removal of the tabernacle from Gilgal down by the Jordan, up into the heart of the hill-country of Ephraim. Notwithstanding the general sur- vey of the country by the forty who were sent by Moses up from the Wilderness of Wandering, the land was not fully known, in regard to its general extent, the number of its cities, and its minute geographical features. Moses had com- passed it in that grand, comprehensive mind of his, and had been able to lay down its larger characteristics and to de- pict its general outline, with remarkable fidelity : but for the special work of subdividing the country, and apportioning it among the tribes, a much more intimate knowledge of Pales- 152 SITE OF SHILOH. tine was needed than either Moses or Joshua, or even Caleb, had been able to gain. The first result of this had been that in the allotment of the district first conquered, that south of the plain of Jezreel, and bordered on the north by the Carmel range, much more land had been given to the tribes of Judah and Ephraim than the limits of the whole country wan-anted. And this could not be remedied, for the division by lot was irrevocable ; all that remained was to carefully survey the re- maining district, and apportion it as justly as possible to the seven tribes tliat remained. Judah and the house of Joseph, and the two and a half tribes on the eastern side of the river remained intact, so far as any encroachment on the general tract given to them was concerned, and the remainder was distributed among the remaining seven tribes with as much justness as possible. And such was the fertility of the north country as compared with the south, that smaller limits than Judah and Ephraim possessed were quite reconcilable with equivalent value. It was after this mistake, so to call it, of underestimating the whole extent of Palestine, that the tabernacle was re- moved from Gilgal to Shiloh, and the continuation of the allotment continued. Hardly any place in the whole land was more suitable for a new resting-place for the ark. It was not so eminently striking in its fitness, but it was. eminently retired, so much so, indeed, that during all these past ages, when we have known where Bethlehem, and Nazareth, and Shechem, and Hebron, and some other famous localities lay, we have not been able to define the spot so familiar all through the Scriptures as Shiloh. And this in spite of the fact that the sacred historians took special pains to tell us where it was. In the last chapter of the book of Judges we have words as explicit as these: "Shiloh, which is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah." It would hardly seem possible, that after so complete a description as that, it would be necessary to wait till the year of our Lord, iiililiiiiilliiiiiili;iii!':iiiil;:;i:!lil tf'^^uif!#" 154 ITS DISCOVERY BY ROBINSON. 1838, before an American professor, Dr. Edward Robinson by name, should turn out of his way, on his general journey northward through the country, and discover the site of the* ancient religious head-quarters of the Jewish nation. And yet this was the case. Robinson found the ancient name, merely changed into Seilun, still clinging around the hill on which the ruins of Shiloh remain to the present day. . Near this hill was the well around .which the daughters of Shiloh danced when they were borne away in triumph by the Ben- jamites, as recorded in the closing chapter of Judges, and around on almost every side are the hills, a little higher than the central one on which the tabernacle once stood, and giv- ing to the place its seclusion. It is almost a natural amphi- theatre, and was admirably adapted to its purpose, since it lay almost contiguous to the great road which has always run up and down the hill ridge of Palestine, and yet sufficiently remote from it, to have defied observation down to the very time in which we live. The slight episode connected with Caleb's inheritance re- quires a mere casual reference in this work, since all the world knows where Hebron was, and how rich even to the present day are the valleys which lie hard by the famous old city. Caleb showed good taste in his selection, for he could hardly hit upon any limited tract, one which should be better adapted to the wants of a single family than was Hebron and the .district adjacent. It was there that that vale of Eshcol lay, whose grapes are as large and bountiful even at the present day : and such are the natural advantages of the soil, that even now, amid all the evils which are mcident to a miserable gov- ernment, while neglect is the ruler, and the old and well-nigh perfect agriculture of an ancient day has left but scanty me- morials of what it was, the reason of Caleb's choice can be seen in the quality of the wheat and maize and millet, as well as of the grapes, which are raised in Hebron and its neighbor- hood. Besides, there was evidently a touch of romantic adventure OLD CALEB S ADVENTUROUS SPIRIT. 155 in the mind of old Caleb. He had outlived the years but not the spirit of his youth. He was eighty-five, yet he says in his forcible and simple way, " I am as strong this day, as I was in the day that Moses sent me : as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war. Now, therefore, give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spoke in that day ; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced," The same cause which made Caleb court this possession had drawn thither, long be- fore his day, those tall and powerful men, the primitive tribes of giants, those men whose residence there, as on the east side of the Jordan, antedated the possession by most of the tribes, whose names come into view so frequently in the Old Testament Scriptures. The tract around Hebron was so fer- tile that that city is expressly declared in the Bible to be one of the most ancient places in the world : and the same cause made the Hittites hold it at the time of Abraham ; and subse- quently out of the same reason the Anakim or giants gained possession of it ; Caleb sought it too for its fruitfulness and its interesting connection with the grapes of Eshcol ; and ultimately Kmg David himself chose it for the capital of his ikingdom and reigned there for seven years, induced partly no doubt, by the fact that there lay the bones of his ances- tors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but also, it is probable, by reason of the same fertility that won the eye of its former possessors. Near Hebron, a few miles towards the south-west, lay the city of Debn, which Caleb wished to add to his own city of Hebron, or Kirjath-arba, as it had been called b-efore. The site of Debir was pointed out during the middle ages by Felix Fabri, an Italian traveler, who did not visit it personally, but found the name Debir applied by the Arabs to a place south- west of Hebron, where there was said to be an abundance of springs. The spot has been visited of late years, however, by Mr. Rosen and Dean Stanley, and the springs which Achsah counted are now to be plainly seen. The whole family of 156 MODERN RESEARCHES. Caleb appear to have inherited his adventurous spirit, for it was his own nephew wlio captured Debii-, and it was to his daughter's eager and masculine spirit that he yielded those springs which were worth as much to her future husband, as was the very city of Kirjath-sephir (Debu-), which he con- quered with his own bold hand. CHAPTER IX. TROUBLOUS DAYS — THE JUDGES — DEBORAH. The Subjugation not Perfect as Yet — Adonibezek — His Cruelties — Some very Strong Cities which had not been Taken— A Touch of Humor — The Five Philistine Cities — Gath not to be found — Who were the Canaanites? — Great Invasion from the East — The First of the Judges — The Second Judge— The Scene Changes to the Jordan — Ehud and Eglon — The Great Battle of Debo- rah—Description of the Plain of Jezreel— The Battle Painted— Heroism of Deborah — Geographical Localities Visible at the Present Time — The Vic- tory — Reflections. [HE opening chapter of the book of Judges makes very clear that the conquest by Joshua had not brought about that perfect subjugation of the coun- try which was necessary to bring peace to the Israehtes. The terror of his name had kept the original inhabitants down so long as he lived ; but when the great chieftain had died, and his bones had been laid away in Timnath-serah, to He almost unnoticed, till the site was discovered a few miles north-west of Jerusalem, by our countryman Dr. Eli Smith, there arose those discords that were inevitable, and it was clear that Pal- estine was but half subjugated. The first movement was the rebellion of the king of Bezek, a city whose site is not known to us, but which is said in Samuel to have lain between Gib- eah and Jabesh. This is perhaps enough for practical pur- poses, and makes clear that as one journeys north-eastward from Jerusalem, and reaches the eastern limits of the hill-coun- try before going down into the Valley of the Jordan, he passes near the site of this ancient city. The king appears to have been a monster of cruelty, and to have maimed the chiefs whom he captured, by a device which is said to have been 158 THE STRONGEST PLACES NOT TAKEN. practiced at one time even by the Athenians themselves. The word "kings" which this lord of Bezek is said to have used in summing up his hst of brutalities must be taken with a cer- tain measure of reserve, for of true "kings" there were only thirty-one in the whole land of Palestine, as we know from the complete list given us in the narrative of Joshua's exploits. Adonibezek's "kings" were probably chieftams, men who may possibly have had as much influence and power as an Indian chief, but hardly more. In narrating the list of cities whose inhabitants were not driven out by the Israelites, it is noticeable at a glance that they were among the strongest in all Palestine. Such places as Accho, Sidon, Beth-shean, Dor and the Hke, were very .strong, and it is a fine touch, almost of humor, where the sa- cred penman says, "but the Canaanites would dwell in that land." It is quite wonderful indeed, that after Joshua had died, the primitive inhabitants were so far held in subjection as to pay tribute to their conquerors. No solution for this ex- ists, so far as I know, but one wliich recognizes a direct up- holding of the Jews by a di\'ine hand. According to all hu- man ways of judging and of speaking, the conquerors were much the feebler and less civilized people : and yet even when there was no chieftain like Joshua in command, there was in them that degree of fire, and power and sturdiness, and above all of faith in the Hebrew God, that energized them up to the point of being able to maintain the results of the conquest, at least creditably. Indeed, to a certam extent they went on with the work of overcoming those whom Joshua had not sub- dued, and took the two powerful Philistine cities, Gaza and Ashkelon, close by the sea-coast, and in the fertile plain at the foot of the Judean hills. Yet their results were limited in this direction, for armed as were their enemies in that fruitful tract, with chariots of war, it was quite impossible for the Is- raelites to meet them on equal terms with their rude spears. Indeed Dan, whose allotment had been the northern extremity of the plain, or "valley" as it is called in the books of Joshua j||ljiiii:iP'iKip^5^i!ii5if'^'^|j| :. .lflll!''!|l|!i!illilli!ll IMf^'^ Mm'- iP; \m0'' 10 160 THE PHILISTINE PLAIN. and Judges, was unable to hold its own, and was driven by the rude and hard-handed Amorites out from their domain, and compelled to find such lodgment as might be had in the hill- country of Ephraim at the north. Yet the power of the lat- ter tribe, joined to that of the flying Danites, was equal to the task of successfully encountering the victors on the plain, at least so far as if not to reduce them to absolute subjection, to compel them to pay tribute. The Scripture narrative is very explicit in giving us the names of the tribes which were not brought into absolute sub- jection, and nothing can be more true to what we should ex- pect to find, than is the statement of lands still unsubdued. First Philistia, or the great maritime plain south of Dan and west of Judah ; held by five kings, and belonging to their five important cities, Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekrom. It was a rich tract, and the people who held it, though of a somewhat sluggish temperament, were tolerably well advanced in the arts and refinements of civilization. Though there was no sea-coast capable of being turned to large commercial uses, still Gaza and Ashkelon had, like Athens, their harbors, and maintained some relations with foreign lands. Nearly all these cities are to be seen even at the present day, either in the form of extensive ruins, as Ashkelon, or as a thriving town, as Gaza. Gath alone is not to be found, although Porter and some other recent travelers think that they have discovered its site, in an important strategic position, near the base of the Judean hills. The name of Gath has disappeared, but the names of the other old Philistine cities remain almost unchanged in sound,, down to the present day. The nation has, however, passed away, and the Syrians who now inhabit the Philistine plain, have very little in common with the people whom the Israel- ites found it so difficult, and well-nigh impossible to subdue. Indeed, so strong were they in their chariots, and walled cities, and advanced customs of civilization, that the Hebrews could do little more than imitate them. Shamgar, that notable judge, who slew six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad, I WHO THE CANAANITES WERE. 161 wrought no real deliverance for his countrymen. It was a great feat, and worthy of commemoration, and yet the story which it mainly tells is the entire want of resources in the com- mand of the Israelites, to do anything permanent and effective in bringing such a powerful nation as the Philistines into sub- jection. By the Canaanites, who are alluded to in the third chapter of Judges, as being unsubdued, are meant, in all probability, the dwellers along the Mediterranean shore near Mount Car- mel and northward. The whole country was known as Canaan, yet the name Canaanites was applied only to that portion of the primitive tribes which lived by the sea-shore or on the banks of the Jordan. They were what would be called in Scotland the " lowlanders," while the Amorites and the Perizzites were " highlanders." The Canaanites were to a certain extent a trading folk, and it is probable had some slight foreign commerce; hence they were more powerful than the wild Amorites and Perizzites who lived up among the hiUs, and whereas the latter and the other hill tribes were easily subdued, the Canaanites were not brought under the sway of the invaders. No more were the people of powerful Sidon away to the north, on the Mediterranean and on the extreme western edge of* the Lebanon slope, a very strong position, " careless and secure," and evidently impregnable to a rude and savage horde like the Israelites. Add to this the tract in the possession of the northern branch of the Hivites, the fertile Ccele-Syrian valley, that extremely fertile and well- watered and well-defended tract lying between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon chains, and extending from Hermon and the sources of the Jordan away northward as far as to the "entering in of Hamath," the narrow gorge through which the Orontes stUl breaks and foams as of old, and where stands, even at the present day, and with name but slightly changed, the old Bible city of Hamath. Porter has visited it and des- cribed it graphically in his interesting works on Palestine. All this territory had been promised to the tribes by Moses, 162 AN INVASION FROM THE EAST. but the time when it could be reckoned as belonging to Israel had not then come. At any rate, the nation was unequal to the task of conquering it under the reign of the violent, un- disciplined "judges." It embraced, as the reader will see, some of the very finest districts in the whole country ; the PhiHstine plain, a part of the Sharon plain, its continuation northward, the coast north of Carmel, the western slope of the Lebanon range, and the beautiful and fertile valley be- tween the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon ranges. The first invasion which troubled the Israelites was from the same general region whence had come those four kings who came from the Euphrates in the time of Abraham, and waged war upon the five cities of the plain. The Euphrates' banks and the borders of the Tigris have been from the very morning of the world, the prolific mother of nations. Early in the Bible, indeed in connection with the story of the cre- ation, we have those two rivers mentioned ; and it is but typi- cal of all that was to follow. Mesopotamia has been a kind of a nursing mother to the East. And the conquest of Canaan was hardly past, and the people had just settled down to the quiet possession of the land, when a strong king swept down from the district east of the Euphrates, as if in anticipation of the Assyrian and Babylonish invaders who were afterwards to come, and overran the land, and compelled the Hebrews to pay tribute to him and pass into the same subordinate re- lations to him, which the conquered tribes maintained towards their conquerors. This called out the first achievements which make an individual's name prominent, subsequently to Caleb's and Othniel's achievements in the South. And this first judge, who gained a victory over Cushan-rishathaim, and drove him back from Palestine to Mesopotamia, was the very Othniel, Caleb's nephew, who had in his youth showed that he was worthy to be a son-in-law to the old chieftain, as well as to have, as his nephew, Caleb's family blood in his veins. The next judge's career takes us down to the neighborhood of Gilgal, and revives the recollections of the Israelites' pas- STORY OF EHUD AND EGLON. 163 sage of the Jordan, the taking of Jericho, and the establish- ment of the camp at Gilgal. The Moabites, who when the IsraeHtes passed through their land, had been driven into the south part of their country, that is, into the region east of the Dead Sea, had now rallied, crossed the river and had taken possession of the west bank of the Jordan. Eglon, the king, had built him a summer palace not far from the site of Jericho, and was Uving there in some state. The story of his assassination by Ehud is told so graphically in the Bible, as to need almost no elucidation. The only geographical pomt which may profitably be allowed to it is the verisimilitude, which raises uj) Ehud a Benjamite, one of the very tribe on whose terri- tory he was living, to be the instrument of his death. It ap- pears that the Moabites had crossed the river at that very spot where the Jordan is passed now every summer : only it was not the spring time, when the river is a roaring and turbu- lent flood, but the summer time, when it is a small and quiet stream. The Moabites had called in allies, the Ammonites, descendants of one of Lot's daughters, hving in the country held by the tribe of Gad, and the fierce Amalekites, whose home, so far as they had any, was on the southern confines of Palestine. The slaughter of the Moabites, after Eglon's assassination, took place close by the Jordan ford, not many miles distant from its mouth. The geographical elucidation of the first great decisive bat- tle which the Israelites were compelled to fight, is easy. This was the grand encounter in which the gallant and heroic- hearted Deborah, a woman of the hill-country of Ephxaim, headed the Hebrew host, having Barak, a man of Naphtali, as her right arm. The scene of that encounter was the rich and beautiful plain of Esdraelon, the Jezreel of the Bible. With our -present accurate knowledge of that tract, we can follow the whole course of the battle. We see the forces of Jabin, the northern king, under the command of his lieuten- ant Sisera, come down from Hermon and the rich coast of the Waters of Merom, and take up their post on the southern hm- DEBORAH AND BARAK. 165 its of the plain of Esdraelon, the place where stood then the city of Taanach, and where stands now the village of Taanak, wearing the ancient name almost unchanged. The distance across the plain is about twelve miles, from the place where Sisera's army was drawn up, with its nine hundred iron chari- ots, for battle, to the slopes of Tabor, on which beautiful moun- tain, were Barak and Deborah, and ten thousand eager men. These had come together from the hills of Naphtali, in the north, the district in which lay Hazar, the capital of the en- emy, for since the time when Joshua gained his second splen- did victory, the Hazar which he burned had been rebuilt, and the Jabin whom he overthrew and put to the sword had been followed by another prince of the same name, and no less powerful and energetic than had been his ancestor. The home of Barak was at Kedesh, a short distance south, in all proba- bility of Hazar, though, as has already been remarked in this work, it is impossible to point out with certainty, the place where Hazar stood, Kedesh is, however, well known : it bears the old name, only changed into Kades, and is at the west- ern margin of the rich plain which borders Lake Huleh, the Waters of Merom, on the west. The Israelite army was made up chiiefly of warriors from the northern tribes of Naphtali, and Zebulon, directly south of it : yet Issachar, which filled the plain, and West Manasseh, and Ephraim, gave not only the great leader, Deborah, and some of the commanding princes, but a not inconsiderable number of soldiers. Asher, lying on the western slope of the hills of Galilee, and on the sea-coast north of Garmel, felt that it had little at stake in the contest, and so ingloriously stayed away from the field, while Dan, Judah, and Simeon at the South, were so far removed from the scene of action, as to make no appearance on the eventful day of the great battle. Imagine the scene. Here lies, on the northern edge of the plain, the beautiful, cone-like Tabor, and on its sides are gathered the ten thousand bold men under the command of Barak. At the summit, Deborah, the real leader and hero 166 THE SCKNE OF THE BATTLE. of the day, is scanning with her scorching, impassioned glance, the whole plain. Southward, at the distance of twelve or thirteen miles, lies the low, bare range, which at its western extremity, where it overlooks the sea, bears the well-known name of Carmel, but which" at that point was called the mountains of Mogiddo, from a little city thus designated, at the base of then- northern slope. Near Me- giddo was the city of Taanach. Both of the places had never been fairly subdued ; they were still in the hands of the Canaanites, as well as the other important points in the valley of Jezreel. Between Megiddo and Taanach, Deborah's eye discerns the crowded hosts of Sisera, with their hundreds of chariots. It was, of course, that these might come into play that the Canaanites had chosen this spot. Elsewhere they might be at the mercy of the impetuous Hebrews, but here, they might well count themselves certain of the day. Flow- ins: between the two armies, Deborah could see the waters of the Kishon, slowly winding its extremely tortuous way through the rich, black soil of the plain. It is a torrent after heavy winter rains, but near Megiddo, it must have ordinarily been, what it is now, almost a dry water-course. Across it, it would be easy for an army to pass. Near Megiddo, indeed it seems to have gathered in little pools, and so to have given rise to an expression, otherwise unintelligible, the " waters of Me- giddo," but the stream itself was quite insignificant. The plan of the attack was for the Hebrew host to dart down the mountain side, sweep across the plain, and without weapons, for they were almost defenceless, to turn the horses upon" the very host that used them, and so to transform the chariots into engines of wholesale destruction among the Canaanites themselves. The well known war cry of the Israelites would have been very effective in doing this, and at the same time in striking terror into the hearts of their enemies. The plan was carried into effect, and had a wonderfully efficient ally in a violent storm of hail and rain that came up from the east, benumbing the Canaanites, and causing them to become an THE GREAT VICTORY. 1^7 easy prey. The storm which effected such results, did the Israelites a no less signal service in flooding the Kishon, and converting the whole district into a morass, in which the horses and the men wallowed and perished. The Hebrew victory was complete. Sisera leaped from his chariot and es- caped to the hills which bound Esdi-aelon on the north, his hope being to fly to Harosheth, his home. But tarrying at a Bedouin village on the way, he was betrayed in a manner which is inconsistent with any principles of Arab honor now, and which was equally, so then ; and which can only be de- fended by recourse to a line of reasoning which made the late American war a righteous one, and which, therefore, throws upon God the responsibility for all acts of cruelty which in the course of his Providence are sure to be instrumental in ushering in the events which He plainly ordains. CHAPTER X. GIDEON AND HIS GREAT DELIVERANCE. A Difficult Theme — Some Localities Unknown — Who were the MiJianite Iti- vaders? — The Bedouin of That Day — Tlieir Costume and Manners — Where They Crossed the Jordan — The Plain of Esdraelon — Its Physical Conforma- tion — The Order of the Midianite Invasion — Who Entered into the Alliance Against Them — The Character of Gideon — His Call as a Deliverer — His Brothers — The "Spring of Trembling" — The Sifting of His Men — How he got rid of the Cowards — The Night Attack — The Victory — The Pursuit into the High Lands East of the Jordan — Death of the " Raven " and the " Woir' — Ciiange in Gideon's Character. E advance in our efforts to localize the .scenes of the Judges, to the great and splendid transactions in which Gideon, the greatest of them all, was the chief figure. It is impossible to portray the theater of his exploits with the perfect fidehty with which we can present the battle-field in which Barak and Deborah won such a bril- liant success. Still although we do not know where some of the minor localities were, with which Avere connected the ca- reer of Gideon, we have enough to make perfectly clear, the whole course and conduct of his memorable campaign. The Midianites who invaded Palestine subsequently to Deborah's day, occupied in a general sense, the whole country east and south-east of the Jordan, as far as any population extended. Their true home was east of the Sinaitic peninsula, in Arabia proper, but they were a wandering race, and often overran and held temporary possession of the tract east of the Jordan, subjecting to their sway the tribes whose true home was therel At the time of Gideon this was the case ; and they had strengthened themselves by forming an alliance with the fierce CAPTURE OF THE RAVEN AND THE WOLF. 169 and savage Amalekites, whose true home was on the southern margin of Palestine. We must not imagine that these tribes were at all different from the Bedouins of the present day. They were in fact the same Arabs whom we now encounter east of the Jordan ; and the very names of the Midianite princes Oreb and Zeeb, the Wolf and the Raven, are in strik- ing analogy with the present fierce chieftain east of the Jor- dan, who bears the name of the Leopard. And besides the names, the very dress and ornaments described in the book of Judges, are exactly those which the Arabs wear at the pres- ent day, especially those who drift up thither from the more sunny and fertile regions of Arabia. The bright, gay robes which the Midianite princes wore, and their ear-rings and bracelets and nose-rings of gold, are just what Arab chieftains love now : and no better picture of Arab manners, bravery, fortitude, and desolating warfare could be given in our time, than this in the Bible, which pictures the Arabs so many gen- erations before Christ. They crossed the Jordan at some of the fords near the eastern edge of the plain of Jezreel, or Esdraelon. That fer- tile tract has always been the prize first aimed at by invading hordes from the east side of the Jordan, and the great reason why it is not a perfect garden at the present time, is because no sooner is the harvest-time almost come, than a swarm of fierce Bedouins from beyond the river, come in and overcome the cul- tivators of the soil, and carry away the new harvest. One of the first advantages which would accrue from a reformed gov- ernment in Syria, would be the giving security to the people who till the fertile lands of that country, to harvest their grain. And nowhere would this gain be more quickly or more gen- erally felt than in Esdraelon, for there is where the exposure is the greatest. The reader will bear in mind that this plain extends in ef- fect from the Mediterranean to the Jordan : not in its full width indeed, but still in a contracted form. South of Tabor there is a kind of isthmus of plain, so to speak, lying between 170 THE PLAIN OF JEZREEL. that graceful mountain and Jebel Duhy, or Little Hermon (the Hill of Moreh apparently, in the biblical account of Gideon). South of this mountain, too, there is stiU another isthmus, lying between it and the low Gilboa ridge. These two isthmuses, if I may apply that term to land that lies be- tween mountains, are but eastern tongues or arms of the plain'' of Jezreel. A railway might run from the Mediterranean to the Jordan without difficulty, although the plain reaches a height of about five hundred feet at the point where it con- tracts into the tongues which form its eastern portion. By imderstanding this region, we gain the best insight into the operations of Gideon, and can easily follow him through his rapid and decisive campaign. The event which was exhibited in connection with Deborah was a less splendid achievement than the series of Gideon's victories, and although in a certain colossal massiveness and strength, Deborah has no equal in the Bible history, still in the combination of qualities which make up a great hero, Gideon was conspicuously her superior. In Deborah we have clearly the inspiration of a heroine : there is a certain afflatus which supplies the place of those cool and practical features which ought to be found in a great soldier. In Gideon there is less of the prophetic fire and force than in Deborah ; but there is greater military skiU even than Joshua exhibits. The Midianites had crossed the Jordan, flooded the plain of Jezreel, poured over the hills of West Manasseh and Eph- raim, and had even traversed the Philistine plain, and con- sumed every product of the earth as far even as Gaza. The whole number was very great, about one hundred and thirty- five thousand. To the eye of the Israelites this was a mighty host, and the language which describes these Arab savages, and the space occupied by their slumbering camels, is hardly to be called hyperbolical. They apparently so completely overawed the tribe of Issachar, whose home was on the plain of Jezreel, that they were unable to assist at aU in expelling the foreigners from the land. Just as in the deliverance 'Ak'M'M.li'lMWi^l'J..,", if'f'smsB^, ^l|l|l|fl!lli :Mi WVf 172 SOLDIERLY QUALITIES OF GIDEON. under Borak and Deborah, the tribes which enlisted most heartily in the work of achieving independence, were those which Hved in the immediate neighborhood, so in this case Manasseh, Naphtali, and Zebiilon, are the most eager. Asher on the north-western hills, and also on the very coast Une of the great plain, came to the rescue now, although she had not done so when Jabin had attacked Israel. Ephraim came into the alliance, but not promptly. Gideon was himself a Man- nassite, but just where his native town of Ophrah lay, we do not know. I have already alluded to the great qualities which distinguished Gideon. A great soldier of our time might study his character with profit. He had the same qualities which make generals both victorious and famous, caution, decision, acuteness, rapidity of movement, and courage. There is not a step that he takes which is not deliberation itself, and yet when the campaign opens, he sweeps on with resistless speed and en- ergy. Those acts of his which are commonly passed over unre- flectively in reading the Bible narrative, are full of instruction respecting the nature of the man. Notice how slow he is to accept his call to the chief command : how he turns it and turns it, to see that there is no mistake. Distrustful of the comparatively humble place which his family holds in Israel, and even in his own tribe, he is not content with a simple in- timation that he is wanted, but must prove the truth so to speak, out of the very mouth of the angel. The narrative incidentally lets much light fall upon the manners of the time. We see in Gideon's threshing of the wheat, in order to hide it from the Midianites, how thoroughly fear-stricken was the whole land ; while in the introduction of Baal worship by Gideon's father, we learn how far the old Jehovah worship had yielded to the false and blasphemous rites of the primi- tive Canaanites. But convinced at length that he is called to a high and solemn mission, he takes command of the armies of Israel. His own brothers, men of princely bearing, as was Gideon himself, had been slain by the Midianites on the sides of Tabor, and no doubt this inhuman butchery had its injflu- THE PROVING OF HIS MEN. 173 ence in Imrrjdng on the newly appointed general. The main body gathered at the eastern part of the plain of Jezreel, in the defile between the Gilboa range and the solitary peak of little Hermon, the hill of Moreh, as it is called in the Scrip- tural narrative. Near the base of the former heights was a spring, to be seen at the present day, where Gideon was to sift his army, and reserve only those on whom he might im- plicitly rely. His trial of them by watching them drink, was exceedingly shrewd, and indicates his thorough knowledge of men. Those who in their great thirst buried their mouths in the water of the spring, Gideon rejected as too precipitate, and did not dare to trust them as soldiers, but he reserved as fully trustworthy those who took up the water with their fingers in a deliberate and orderly fashion. The causing the cowards to withdraw from the scene of battle, after due proc- lamation, was in accordance with the old custom of the nation. This proclamation^ " Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from mount Gilead, (Gilboa,") re- duced the number from twenty-two thousand to ten thousand. The trial at the well, (or spring) of Harod, diminished the number down to three hundred. God seems able to effect more by a few resolute and valiant ones, than by a host of the timid and hasty, and undisciplined. After all was ready for the battle, Gideon with his three hundred wound down the pass between the hill of Moreh, (little Hermon, Jebel Duhy), on the north, and the mountains of Gilboa on the south. It was a tongue, as I have elsewhere showed, of the plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon, and led directly down to the Jordan. In the valley of this river was the vast Midianite camp. Before making the attack, which was to be done in the night, while the enemy lay and slept, Gideon crept down among the tents of the sleepers, to spy into the position and learn the best mode of attack. He accidentally passed near an Arab who was telling his dream : how a thin cake of barley bread rolled into the Midianite camp, and overturned his tent. His companion answered, this is nothing but the 174 THE STRATEGY OF GIDEON. sword of Gideon. The answer convinced the unseen Israelite leader that there was a wholesome fear of his name among his enemies, and toned him up to just the spu-it requisite for a bold stroke. For a bold stroke it unquestionably was : a question of life or death to the attacking party; one in which the chances were enormously unequal. On the one side were three hundred men ; on the other, one' hundred and thirty-five thousand. The Midianites were probably the best equipped, but the Israelites were desperate. The device of hiding the torches in pitchers might have been seen till very lately in the streets of Cairo, where until a few years ago, it was the custom for the night police to patrol the streets with torches thrust into pitchers, from which they drew them when- ever it was necessary. The strategy employed by Gideon was triumphantly successful. The sound of the cow horns blown by the Israelites in the darkness of the night, the glare of the torches, the shouting of the Hebrew warriors, always a terri- ble sound, but now especially so, as they raised their deafenmg war-cry, " The sword of the Lord and of Gideon," completely bewildered the Arab hordes : they sprang up suddenly, their camels were doubtless terrified and carried death wherever they ran, the men turned against each other, and of the whole number but fifteen thousand escaped, while one hundred and twenty thousand fell at one anothers' hands. This ended the battle, but the remaining troops of the en- emy fled towards the nortliern fords of the Jordan. Gideon had however anticipated them, and had ordered the Ephraim- ites, east of whose territory lay the fords of Beth-bara, to come down and intercept the retreating foe. Here another rout took place ; the Ephraimites captured two Arab sheiks, Oreb and Zeeb, the Raven and the Wolf, and put them to death, the former on a rack, and the latter on a wine-press, which thenceforth bore their respective names. Meantime the remnant of the Midianites had crossed the Jordan at the fords of Succoth, a little further south, and thence plunged up the vaUey of the Jabbok into the mountains of Gilead, passing on THE CLOSE OF THE BATTLE. 173 their way the tower of Penuel, the site of Jacob's victorious wrestling. Still eastward, into the very fastnesses of the Gil- ead range, the Arabs pursued their hurried retreat, while Gideon followed, "faint, yet pursuing." The third battle took place near Karkor, a place now unknown, but unques- tionably one of those rock strongholds, where an army might hold a large number at bay, but where the Midianites were signally unable to resist the flushed and eager conquerors. The two kings were taken and slain : and thus that invasion, one of the most formidable that could occur, was brought to an end. Gideon was urged to assume kingly power, but like Cromwell, he refused the name, while he was willing to ac- cept the state of a king. As with Solomon, his great successes wrought mischief in his character: he became voluptuous and profligate ; and in the Gideon to whom the gold earrings, and collars and chains, and purple raiment, taken from the enemy, became a snare, we have few traces of the brave and able general, to whose great skill and trustful loyalty to God, his nation was indebted for a grand deliverance. There is no question that this victory over the Midianites at once took its place, as an event of transcendent moment in the history of the Israelites. David refers to it with great enthusiasm, in connection with the conquest of Sihon and Og, the passage of the Red Sea, and the victory of Deborah over Sisera. 11 CHAPTER XI. ABIMELECH THE TYRANT AND JEPHTHAH THE FREEBOOTER. A Tragic Tale — The Fertile Vale of Shechem — Its Conformation and Ancient Landmarks — The Scene of Jotham's Parable — Other Important Sites — Jephthah's Home East of the Jordan — A Wild, Rugged Character — How Jephthah Resembles Elijah — The Wildest of the Arabs — The First Move- ment of the Freebooter — The Territory of Ammon — The Crisis for which Jephthah was Raised Up — The Brief Campaign Against the Ammonites — The Scene of the World famous Vow — The Daughter's Fate. f . • . . j HE tragic story of Abimelecli transfers us to a familiar spot, the same beautiful and fertile vale of Shechem which attracted our attention first in the story of Abraham, and then in the career of Jacob. It seems proba- ble that the city of Shechem had attained no inconsiderable prominence among the other large towns of Palestine : but in the lifetime of Abimelecli it assumed at once the state and name of a capital. The reader is probably quite familiar with the general aspect of the vale of Shechem, still the story of Abimelech will not be quite intelligible without looking over the landscape in which it was enacted. Between the moun- tains of Gerizim and Ebal, the valley is narrow, in some places but a few hundred feet wide, and near the western extremity of this lovely vale, lies the comparatively modern city of Nablous, the continuation of the Sychar of Jesus' time. Tlie ancient Shechem and the well of Jacob near it, were about two miles further east, near the eastern roots of Gerizim. Here the valley has begun to tunnel out and curve around towards the south, to merge into the extremely beautiful plain known at the present time as El Mukhna. From one extrem- ity of this larger plain, which is integrally one with the nar- BEAUTY OF THE VALE OF SHECHEM. 177 row vale of Shechera, to the other, is a distance of about seven miles. The whole tract is delightful, but growingly so as one approaches the two sacred mountains of Ebal and Ger- izim. Over the hills which skirt the northern edge of the plain can be seen the grand snowy top of Hermon, eighty miles away, and towering more than ten thousand feet above the ocean level. The vale is well-watered : springs and brooks may be seen at every turn, and even the air is filled with the exhalations from so abundant supplies. The spot is not only the most beautiful in Central Palestine, but the only beautiful one. The vale of Shechem is still well furnished with all the growths which give coloring and point to the parable of Jotham. The thick mass of corn which waves over the whole valley, is dotted to-day with picturesque olive trees, while around the white houses of Nablous may be seen the fig tree, laden with its good fruit. Interlacing these, may be descried the festoons of the vine, while on the sides of Ebal and Ger- izim still grows the bramble, useless except to be gathered and burned : from it coming in our time the same hot and de- vouring flame which Jotham ascribed to it in that early day. Towering over the plain, on the south, are the precipitous sides of Gerizim, and those projecting spurs of rock on one of which Jotham appeared and narrated his striking and beauti- ful parable. In the immediate neighborhood of this spot were the other places which are connected with the story of Abim- elech, Moimt Zalmon, where he procured the boughs which were used in burning the tower of Shechem, and Arumah, the city Avhich Abimelech chose for his residence, but we are not ajjle to identify them with certainty. Thebez, the place where he was killed, has been discovered. It bears its ancient name, slightly changed, and is on the road from Nablous to Beisan, the ancient Beth-shean, near the scene of Gideon's first and second victories. The reader of the Bible who is endeavoring to set its pic- tures before himself in a geographical light, is called in fol- lowing the story of Jephthah, to the district east of the 178 BIRTHPLACE AND HOME OF JEPHTHAH. •Jordan, exclusively. It is interesting to mark how we are compelled to note, as we go on in our development of our subject, the various districts of Palestine, to enter into them in detail, and so to work the whole field up in its various parts, till at last we shall find that we are completely in mas- tery of it. We have had occasion on previous pages to study Eastern Palestine and to become, to a certain extent, familiar with it ; but we must go over it again in tracing the destiny of the immortal freebooter, Jephthah. He was a native of the mountains of Gilead, the same wild district which gave birth to Elijah, and imparted to him some of that roughness which is so conspicuous a trait in his character. But far more rough and wild than Elijah, was Jephthah. And it is a fact that has been too much overlooked, that the fierce qualities which appear in him, are largely to be accounted for on the ground of his transjordanic origin. At the present day all travelers in Palestine know that the Arabs on the east side of the river are far more wild and savage than those on the west side. It is extremely dangerous to travel on the east side of the Jordan, even in our time ; and there is little room for be- lieving that the tribe of Gad was much more gentle than are the Bedouins of the present day. Because they were He- brews, and had the rudiments of a true worship, we must not forget that in matters of feeling, and sentiment, and culture, they were not much above the level of savages. The first movement of Jephthah was his flight out of the true range of Gilead, on the east bank of the Jordan, into the land of Tob, whose location we do not know, but which it is safe to infer, lay in the eastern part of the mountainous country. The territory of Ammon was in a general sense what lay north and north-east of the torrent stream, the Jab* bok ; unlike Moab, which had regularly defined limits, Am- mon had none, but being the possession of a most warlike and nomadic i-ace, it faded away indefinitely on the side towards the desert. A most formidable race of savages were these Ammonites, the descendants of Lot by his incest with one of I 180 THE SCENE OF HIS FREEBOOTER LIFE. his daughters, and when they came into conflict with the Is- raelites, the event was one of coui'se which demanded a first- rate leader, and tried and valiant men. At just this juncture, Jephthah was raised up to meet the crisis. Sprung as he was from an irregular connection, and having a harlot for his mother, his whole hfe was spent in the wild deeds of a free- booter. His own half-brothers di'ove him forth : and he led his marauding career in the eastern part of the Gilead range. It was in that district that he was living, when his clansmen needed his vigorous and efficient services. The occasion of the war was the claim of the Ammonites to the territory east of the Jordan, which the Israelites occupied by the right of conquest. It was, of course, impossible to come to an under- standing, and both armies appealed respectively to the decision of arms, and of the gods in which they respectively believed. Jephthah was put at the head of the Israelites on the single condition that, if he should be victorious, he should be set over his tribe. It was granted, and the campaign began. The vow which has made Jephthah's name a household word, I need not allude to. The course of his victorious march is not given with any minuteness of detail, but enough is re- corded to enable us to follow liim with tolerable precision. He passed eastward at the head of his bands, to the old watch tower of Mizpeh, which commemorated Jacob's parting from Laban, and which was erected on one of the most eastern of all the Gilead hills. Thence he bore southward into the heart of the Ammonite country, destroying twenty cities of the enemy, and bringing desolation as far towards the south as Aroer, which was almost unquestionably on the banks of the Arnon. The precise location of Minnith and the " valley of the vineyards," is unknown to us. But enough is given to make it clear that he swept through a wide tract, the whole land unquestionably over which the Ammonites had any con- trol, and brought them into absolute subjection, and inflicted upon them very severe slaughter. And " thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel." SCENE OP HIS daughter's DEATH. 181 There is nothing further in the story of Jephthah which re- quires geographical elucidation. The mountains over which his daughter wandered for two months, bewailing the hardest fate that could befall a Hebrew maiden, that her name and family should perish in her, are unquestionably the rocky hills of Gilead, amid which Jephthah and his tribe lived, and which were filled with quiet and sheltered nooks where a young girl might be alone or with a few companions, and deplore her coming fate. The fords wliich the Gileadites intercepted, and where they subjected the Ephraimites to the trial of pronounc- mg the word Shibboleth, were the well-known place of cross- ing near the mouth of the Jabbok, which has often come un- der our view, and which did so last in connection with the fiery and gallant Gideon. CHAPTER Xn. SAMSON THE GREAT HUMORIST. Scene Transferred to the Hill-Country of Dan — Samson a Danite — Character of the Country where he was Reared — The Philistines and their Domain — Whence They Came — How They Surpassed the Israelites in Arts — The Gradual Increase of the Philistines' Power — Their Use of Horses and Chari- ots — The Rudeness of the Arts of War Among the Israelites — The Name Palestine Derived from Philistine — The Chief Cities — Their Ruins at the Present Day — Ashkelon, Ekron, Ashdod — The Physical Character of the Philistine Territory. N dealing with the interesting story of Samson, we are transferred to a district with which we have thus far had little to do : namely the hill-country of Dan, and the extensive and fruitful Philistine plain. I have indeed in a general way, alluded to the territory allotted to Dan : but there has not come before us till now, any necessity for speaking of that tribe and its domain, with any detail. Samson was, however, a Danite : and the whole story of his career carries us to that limited territory shut in between the hills held by Ephraim and Judah, and the "low country," or Shefelah, lying along by the sea. It was a tiny tract, and one of the episodes which follow the story of Samson, relates to the emigration of a considerable number of families of the tribe of Dan, which went far to the north and secured new territory there. As one goes down from Jerusalem to the port of Joppa, he passes through the hills and valleys, wliich at the time of allotment, were given to Dan : hills and valleys of no special fruitfulness, and not eminent in any way by rea- son of natural attractions. It was in the village of Zorah on one of these hills, that Samson was born, and the village ORIGIN OF THE PHILISTINES. 183 of Timnath, the home of his wife, lay down in the valley to the south-westward. Both of the places are now marked by unimportant villages which bear in slightly changed form, the ancient names. The Philistines occupied the plain from Joppa on the north, to Gaza on the south. The race was an immigrant one. They were "strangers" as then- name itself unplies, and from all the information we can gather, slight enough indeed, yet so far as it goes, trustworthy, they came fi'om the island of Crete, which was almost in sight from the northern part of Pales- tine, and from the shores of Asia Minor. The Scriptures specify another tribe, bearing the name of Avites or Avims, as occupying PhiHstia in the old, patriarchal times : but these had faded away, and been supplanted by- the Philistines. During the lifetime of Joshua, the latter do not appear to have been or seemed formidable. We get no hint of their rising and dangerous power tUl we come to the time of the Judges, when they were evidently a troublesome race. In arts they appear to have been a long way in advance of the Israelites, but in cunning and quickness, to have been far behind them. In all matters of warfare they had an immense advantage, for living as they did on the sea-side plain, they were able to use horses and chariots more effectively than was possible in any other part of Palestine. It is in this thing that we find the key to the long protracted wars between the Israelites and Philistines. They each lived in a different element, so to speak : one nation in the hill-country, the other on the plain ; and so in battle they were almost as much removed from each other, and as little able to come into e^ctive collision, as is a regi- ment of infantry with a man-of-war. The Israelites were un- questionably most rudely equipped: and in course of time the arts ran to so low a pitch among the Hebrews, that the people were obliged even to carry their ploughshares down to the Philistine cities to have them sharpened. The one race dwelt in large and important cities : their civilization, of a somewhat effeminate type, was at least far in advance of 184 THE PHILISTINE CITIES. that of the Israelites, and in all the future, down to David's time, the Philistines had the upper hand. All that Samson and others could do, was to annoy the Philistines, the He- brew leaders were unable to confer any real harm on them. It is a fact that should not be omitted in our account, that the name of Palestine is derived from Philistine : and was imposed on the whole country by the Europeans, who did not look further into the population of the country than to see who were the j)eople who lived on the coast, and gave the general name accordingly. The country under the direct control of the Philistines ran hard up to the promontory of Carmel, although at this time it is difficult to decide with cer- tainty what was the northern boundary of their territory. They were, however, a race allied in character and religion to the Phoenicians who held the northern coast : yet the latter occupied this country much earlier than did the Philistines, and were a far more energetic and powerful people. The Philistines had the capacity to develop commercial interests : but they did not do so, and allowed the two ports of Joppa and Gaza to lie quite unused, so far as any extensive com- merce was concerned. Their most important cities were Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, Ekron and Ashdod. Joppa, although under their control, was, strictly speaking, not in their possession, but contained the property of the tribe of Dan. But the five cities named together just above, formed the Philistine con- federacy, and were not only collectively powerful, but were strong even alone. The solitary ruins of Ashkelon, which stand hard by the sea, bear witness in their mournful grand- eur, to the strength of th* ancient city whose name they bear even to the present day ; while Gaza remains, not a mass of deserted ruins, but a town of from five to seven thou- sand inhabitants, surrounded by orange groves, and keeping up active commercial relations with the Arabs of the desert and the caravans which pass through, on their way to Damas- cus or to Egypt. Ekron and Ashdod still exist, or rather very fragmentary ruins of them are found : and Arab villages mark 186 THE PHILISTINE TERRITORY. the site of ancient Philistine cities : but of Gath not a trace remains. Many have been the inquuies for it : and although I am strongly inclined to think that the white rock which may be seen across the plain, lying at the base of the Judean hills, and which bore in the Crusader's time the name Blanche Garde, marks its site, still this is a mere conjecture : and it is overset by that of Stanley who conjectures that this white rock was the site of the ancient city of Lebonah, which played an important role during the great Assyrian invasion. All the Philistine cities with the exception of Gath of course, bear the ancient names very slightly changed, — Gaza becom- ing Ghazzeh, Ashkelon being Askelon, Ashdod, Esdud, and Ekron Akir. The Philistine territory was divided into two longitudinal sections, a sandy strip, running along the sea-shore and par- allel with it, and the other a strip of fertile land, extending to the very base of the hills of Judah and Dan. It was in the sandy strip that the cities stood. But the whole of the ex- tensive resources which made that tract what it was to those Philistine cities lay in the great fruitfulness of the fertile strip. Even at the present day, left in the neglected state in wliich it now lies, it manifests in its rank luxuriance what it must have been when subjected to thorough culture. In the height of midsummer the eye rests, even in our day, on a broad reach of grain fields, shaded here and there by olive and orange trees, and making the district beautiful as a garden. Nothing is wanted but a good, stable government to convert tliis whole plain into one of the finest regions oh the globe. Nature has done munificently for it, it is only man who has defrauded it. CHAPTER Xm. MICAH AND THE LEVITE— THE WAR OF EXTER\nNATION ON BENJAMIN— THE PASTORAL OF RUTH. The Close of the Book of Judges — The Scene of Sacred Story Moves to the Neighborhood of Jerusalem and then to the Extreme North of Palestine — Tell el Kadi, the Mound of the Judge — The Profuse Jordan Spring Found There — Its Waters, Whence Obtained — The Course Taken by the Spies — Their Report — The Capture of Laish and its Fate — Tristam's Account of the Conquered Region — The Great War of Extermination — The Site of Gibeah — Mizpeh, Whence Named — The Old and the New Place which Bore That Name — The Sacredness of Mizpeh — The Battle which Surged Around that Hallowed Place — The Course of the Battle — The Structure and Contents of the Book of Ruth. [jHE book of Judges closes with those episodes which do not follow in chronological order the story of the spirited leaders whose lives we have passed in geographical review. They have a great interest theologi- cally, and are not inferior in value to any part of the book. Yet strictly from a geographical point of view, they need not detain ns long. They bring no new part of the country un- der observation : although their specific field may make us look a little more closely than heretofore into the special to- pography of particular districts. The story of Micah and the Levite carries- us from the tribe of Dan, past Kirjath-jearim, a town known now as Kirjet-el-enab, about twelve miles north-west of Jerusalem, into the mountain district of Eph- raim, which has been already quite fully described. We leap over the passes of Manasseh, the plain of Esdraelon, the hills of Zebulon and Naphtali, and find ourselves at the ancient city of Laish, thenceforward to bear the name of Dan, and in connection with Beersheba, to become the northern and SOURCES OF THE JORDAN. 189 southern landmarks of Palestine. A few miles west of the ancient city of Hazor, and the more modern city of Cesarea Philippi, and those springs of Banaias which have been gen- erally celebrated as the fountain head of the Jordan, is the hill known now as Tell el Kadi, or the Mound of the Judge, at the base of which well up from the ground immense vol- umes of water, which flows away in a brook of no insio-nifi- cant dimensions, joining the one which runs southward from the more eastern springs, a short distance north of Lake el Huleh, the ancient Waters of Merom. Almost overhanging both of these profuse and never failing springs, towers the gigantic and snow-crowned Hermon, which makes the natural northern frontier of the Holy Land. Close* by the Hill of the Judge, and very near the western fountain-head of the Jordan, stood that ancient city of Laish, which at the time of the conquest was held by a peaceful and prosperous people, having some affiliation with Zidon or Sidon, but not near enough to that rich and powerful city to be of special ad- vantage in case of an invasion. " Quiet and secure " are the terms which describe the condition of the people of Laish. The five spies who went northward to discover a fresh field to supply the wants of the tribe of Dan, discovered this city and the beautiful country in the neighborhood, one of the loveliest regions in all Palestine. Their report was favorable, and after their return to the true territory of Dan, down in its little sea-side corner, an expedition of six hundred men was organized and sent northward for the purpose of con- quering the city of Laish. The result was immediately and unequivocally favorable ; the city was taken at the point of the sword, and the people put to death. The name was changed to Dan in commemoration of the freedom of the tribe, and most people, in view of the proverb from " Dan to Beersheba," have fallen into the notion that the true tribal limits of Dan lay in the north of Palestine. Tristam, the most recent and at the same time one of the freshest of scientific travelers who have explored the Holy 190 SOURCES OF THE JORDAN. Land, has given us the following graphic description of the region conquered and settled by the Danites :* " A ride of three miles from the bridge brought us to Tell Kadi, the 'Mound of the Judge,' which thus in the significance of its name still preserves the ancient Dan 'Judge.' On the higher part of the mound, to the south, tradition places the temple of the golden calf, and ruined foundations can still be traced. Nature's gifts are here poured forth in lavish profusion, but man has deserted it. Yet it would be difficult to find a more lovely situation than this, where the 'men of Laish dwelt quiet and secure.' 'We have seen the land, and behold it is very good a place where there is no want of any thing that is in the earth' (Jud. xviii. 9,' 10). At the edge of the wide plain, below a long succession of olive-yards and oak-glades which slope down from Banias, rises an artificial looking mound of limestone rock, flat-topped, eighty feet high, and half a mile in diameter. Its western side is covered with an almost impenetrable thicket of reeds, oaks and oleanders, which entirely conceal the shapeless ruins, and are nurtured by the 'lower springs ' of Jordan. A wonderful fountain, like a large bubbling basin, the largest spring in Sj^ria, and said to be the largest single fountain in the world, where the drain- age of the southern side of Hermon, pent up between a soft and a hard stratum, seems to have found a collective exit. Full-grown at birth, at once larger than the Hasbany which it joins, the river dashes through an oleander thicket." The great war of extermination which was waged against Benjamin carries us to the uumediate neighborhood of Jerusa- lem. Gibeah, around which the events revolve, was a place about four miles north of the ancient Jebus, now Jerusalem, and occupied the place, in all probability, where now stands the Arab village known as Tuleil el Ful. The place where the leaders of the tribes were summoned to take counsel respect- ing the outrage done to a woman, was Mizpeh, a well-known and frequently-repeated biblical name. Most travelers and ♦Tristam, Land of Israel, p. 585. I 'I' THE WAR AGAINST BENJAMIN. 193 wiiters on Hebrew history have supposed that this Mizpeh was the prominent eminence a few miles north of Jerusalem, now known as Neby Samwil, whence is had the most exten- sive prospect to be gained in all southern Palestine. And without much doubt, this notable eminence which almost every tourist of our day ascends, was known during the time of the kingdom as Mizpeh ; but the Mizpeh where the tribes came together to discuss what should be done in regard to Benja- min, was no other, in my judgment, than that ancient watch tower on one of the easternmost hills of the Gilead range, where Jacob parted from Laban, where Jephthah entered upon his signal service of deliverance, and which was the one spot most hallowed of all. Not even Gilgal down in the Jordan valley, or secluded Shiloh up in the mountains of Ephraim, could vie with Mizpeh, beyond the river, for sacred emi- nence. There it was, I cannot help thinking, that the war- riors came together and into covenant that they would not return to their homes until they had revenged the dreadful and unparalleled indignity offered to the Levites' companion. It is true the other Mizpeh was but two and a half miles west of Gibeah, but even that does not appear to help the argu- ment. The event was so fearful, the crime so great, that a journey to the place where it was thought God might most surely be met, was not thought of ; in a crisis which nearly involved the extermination of a tribe, distance was of but httle account. But if it be thought open to question whether Mizpeh was the hight east of the Jordan or northward of Jerusalem, there is none resting upon the place where the Benjamites commit- ted their act of dastardly violence and lewdness, and where their deed was avenged upon their tribe. Around the hill known as Tuleil el Ful, or the "Hill of Beans," surged that three days' battle, where the odds were so fearfully against the Benjamites, but where in the first two days' contest they were unequivocally victorious. Away towards the north-east, at the right of the dark peak of Ophrah, may be seen the 194 GEOGRAPHICAL SITES. whitish conical hill, on the summit of which the remnant of the tribe of Benjamin assembled, as a last resort ; and the Tillage seen there in our time, still bears the name Rimmon which was given to the hill, or "rock Rimmon" in that early- day. Away across the Jordan, among the heights of Gilead, was that city of Jabesh, its site not yet ascertained with cer- EASTERN WOMAN WITH VEIL. Illustrating the style of dress which doubtless was in vogue in Ruth's time.- tainty, between whose inhabitants and the tribe of Benjamin there was some kind of understanding, which caused the for- mer to absent themselves from the great assembly at Mizpeh. Away northward amid the hills of Ephraim was the secluded nest of Shiloh, where the Benjamites won by a ruse not unlike that once resorted to at Rome, wives to restock, in conjunc- tion with the maidens of Jabesh-gilead, the almost annihilated population of Benjamin. THE PASTORAL OF RUTH. 195 The beautiful pastoral of Ruth revolves around Bethlehem. There in that rolling country a few miles south of Jerusalem, we see the simple and touching procession of events which even then made Bethlehem a notable place in Hebrew history. Away in the distance, between the Dead Sea could be seen then and can be seen now, from the region where Boaz lived, the blue line of the Moabite mountains ; so little known to us in detail, but so rich for this one precious association, that among them the great- grandmother of Da- vid had her birth, and that she there drank in that rich, soulful and affectionate na- ture which makes the book that bears her name so peculiarly de- lightful. Yet the great simplicity of Ruth, and its freedom from geographical al- lusions, makes my task a mere momentary one. Not far from the grave of Rachel, and in the tribe of Judah, this beautiful woman lived ; and she whose descendants were to populate the line of the Messiah, had her home in that same town of Bethlehem whose name is now immortal. It may not be aside from the purpose of these pages to call attention to the remarkable manner in which the pastoral life and customs presented to us in the book of Ruth, are to be seen in slightly changed form, in Palestine at the present day. The gleaning in the fields, the habit of the owner of the corn EASTERN WOMAN WITH VEIL. PLOUGHING, HOEING, AND SOWING. - f Wheat-field with OLI^'ES. — (Surenhusitis.) ■WOMEN GRINDING GRAIN WITH THE HAND- MILL OF MODERN SYRIA. — {Ayre.) ANCIENT HOES. — ( Wilkinson.) Showing how the "t** n wa^ p it i ai d that the doors a, I were inlepded for taking it out.- •( IVilHiuon.) ANCIENT SALUTATIONS. 197 to sleep on the threshing-floor to prevent the grain being stolen, the parching of wheat and barley ears, the subsequent beating-out of the kernels by sticks, and the dipping of them into vinegar; the habit still prevalent among the Jews of Barbary of throwing a shoe in the face, and found even with us in the modified form of casting a slipper after a newly mar- ried bride ; the bearing of grain in the large and coarse ori- ental veil ; all these features of the book of Ruth are still found. So too is the transacting of all important business in the gate of the city, the calling in of the elders and the pass- ers by as witnesses, the dignified and courteous salutations when Boaz and the simple reapers met in the field. In the East these allusions to God, on meeting and parting, are much more common than they are with us. With us the good-by, a contraction for " God be with you," is about the only phrase which we have that carries us back to the words of the He- brew dignitary and the reapers, " Jehovah be with you," and "Jehovah bless thee." This shows us not the inspiration, but the authenticity of the book of Ruth. Indeed, the whole of that beautiful pastoral breathes the spirit of the East, and brings before us, in the most marked manner, the life of an- cient Palestine. CHAPTER XIV. SAMUEL THE PRINCELY. The First Book of Samuel a Real Continuation of Judges — Samuel a True Member of the Line of Men who Judged Israel — Contrast Between Samson and Samuel — The Religious Degeneracy of tiie Hebrews — The Profligacy of Eli's Sons a Symptom of the Age — The First Battle With the Philistines — Vic- tory at Eben-ezer — The Ark and its Use During the Battle — The Death of Hophni and Phinehas — Its Eflfect on Eli — The Ark Passes Into the Hands of the Philistines — They get Rid of It — Another Battle With the Pliilistines. B*^ phi HE first book of Samuel is a real continuation of B^ W&i *^^ book of Judges, although it no sooner opens ^^J^^J than we discover that we are entering upon a new period, that there is a craving for a new and more settled form of government; and that the people will not' be con- tent till they, like the nations around them, have a king to reign over them. Yet we open the books of Samuel, and find ourselves still under the regime of the Judges, although in Eli first and then in Samuel, the character of Judge is con- siderably modified by the priestly and prophetical fimction. At the time of Samuel's advent we are about eleven hundred years before Christ, fairly entering the general historical period of the world. Samuel was a cotemporary of Samson, and in the one we see the natural counterpart of the other. In Samson we see the impersonation of the highest physical strength, and we also know how impotent is this quality if divorced from the spirit of religion. Samson spends a life- time of conquest with the Philistines, inflicting some annoy- ance upon them, but no real loss ; irritating them severely, but never weakening them. He left them at his death, just as strong as ever, and just as determined in their opposition to SAMUEL AND SAMSON CONTRASTED. 199 Israel. In Samuel we see the triumph of prayer ; like Sam- son a Nazarite ; both wearing unshorn locks ; both abstemious so far as strong drink is concerned ; both given to the Lord by their mothers ; both brought into personal conflict with the PhiUstines ; but the latter full of power, and overcoming them, and making good the words uttered by his mother Han- nah in her beautiful Magnificat, " by strength shall no man prevail." At the time of Samuel's advent it is very clear that the re- ligious degeneracy of the Hebrews had touched its lowest point ; the rearing of such sons as Hophni and Phinehas in the house of a high priest, the neglect of religious service, the abuse of the rites of religion by the servants of the altar, all show that the old heart of the Hebrew's faith had been eaten out. The book of Judges shows failures on every page ; reveals clearly that in that lawless age God was forgotten, his tabernacle neglected, his rites scorned, his worship abused. At the beginning of Samuel we see that the cup was full, and are made ready to hear of the destruction of all worship at Shiloh, and the overthrow of the Israelites at the hand of the Philistines. The special symptom of that wicked age, is the extreme greed and profligacy of Eli's sons. Eli, himself, seems to have been negatively a good man, that is, amiable, devout, and faithful to his duties within the tabernacle, and yet weak and indulgent. His sons are types of the evils which always infest a corrupt church, and their two sins, the grasping of temporal good and the indulgence of unlawful passion, still remain the sins of every degenerate priesthood. Not content with the breast and shoulder which were due to the priest, they plunged a three-pronged fork into the pot and seized what they could ; and breaking over the rule that the fat should be first cut off from raw meat and off'ered to the Lord, they demanded the fat for themselves, and threatened to take it even by force. To this must be added the gross offence of committing fornication at the very door of the tabernacle. Such things could only be permitted in an age 200 PHILISTINE VICTORY OVER THE ISRAELITES. of great wickedness, — an age in which Elkanah's and Han- nah's piety was altogether exceptional. Subsequently to the call of the little Samuel, through whose lips the doom of Eli's house was to be pronounced, occurred the first battle with the Philistines recorded in the books which bear the name of Samuel. We are led to suppose that this battle followed in strict sequence upon the death of Sam- son, and was the outgrowth of the anger of the Philistines at the death of three thousand of their number. They collected their army and marched north-eastward into the hill-country, halting at a place called Aphek, whose location, though now unknown to us, was just on the outermost confines of Dan, and near the spot where the hUls melt into the Philistine plain. The Israelites pitched at Eben-ezer, a place afterward to be more noted than it was then, but whose precise location re- mains unknown to the present day. The result of the con- flict was disastrous to the Israelites, who lost four thousand men. So signal a reverse called for decisive action. The Hebrew army rallied, and thinking that the presence of the ark would bring unquestionable success to them, they sent up into the hill-country of Ephraim, and brought it down from its seclusion at Shiloh. The presence of the sacred article on the field of battle was made known by a portentous shouting " so that the earth rang again." The Philistines interpreted quite correctly the reason of the exultation, and were sure that the time had now come for a decisive battle. " Wo unto us ! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods ? These are the gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness." They clearly had some acquaint- ance with Hebrew history although their notion of " plagues in the wilderness" was a little mixed. The result of the second battle was more disastrous to the Israelites than the first had been. Not only were they beaten, but they lost thirty thousand men and the ark of God. This last loss was what completed the dismay. The Scripture narrative gives us a beautifully explicit account of the effect of this event on THE ARK FALLS INTO PHELISTLNE BA.NDS. 201 Eli. His sons had been slain, and a messenger from the nim- ble race of Benjamin had run from the battle-field up into the hill-country of Ephraim, and onward to Shiloh. Eli was sit- ting on the gate, aged, infirm, but still most anxious to hear the news of the battle. The messenger brought the tidings that there had been a battle and that Israel had been defeated. Eli could bear up under that and was ready to hear on. The young man told him that his sons Hophni and Phinehas had been slain, Eli bore even that, the loss of his own children did not crush him ; there remained one thing more to hear, more dreadful still. The man went on : " and the ark of God is taken." That sentence struck the fatal blow. " Then burst his mighty heart," and gathering up his mantle he fell backward to the ground and killed himself in the fall. The ark passed into the hands of the Philistines, but it proved a most troublesome and fatal guest. Carried first to Ashdod and placed in the temple of Dagon, the first god of that city, it brought the reign of that tutelary divinity to destruction. Sent thence to Gath, as too dangerous an object to be harbored, it brought upon the people of that city a more grievous trouble, if possible, than the loss of their god. An incursion of mice and a prevalence of boUs followed, and the people of Gath were as anxious to send away the ark as had been the people of Ashdod. Thence it was carried to Ekron, a city near the Danite frontier, and but seven miles away from the border town of Beth-shemeth. The lords of the Philistines hit upon the device mentioned in the Scrip- ture record, and the two cows, harnessed to a new cart on which the ark was placed, left their young behind them, con- trary to the instincts of nature, and took the road running north-eastward, " lowing as they went," till they reached Beth- shemeth two miles beyond the point where the plain ceased and the hills commenced. The great outbreak of divine wrath on the people assem- bled in great numbers to receive the ark back, is to be inter- preted simply in the light of the extreme familiary implied in GETTING RID OF THE ARK. 203 H looking into the ark. If the time had come when the most sacred emblem of religion could be subjected to the curiosity of an idle multitude, it were not^ strange that God should renew the impressive signs of his being which he had showed when the chosen people entered the promised land. I Glad to be rid of so dangerous an object, which appeared to them to bring a curse to friend and foe alike, they allowed it to go farther up into the hill-country, and to be deposited at the city of Kirjath-jearim, the present Kurjet-el-enab, a village about ten miles north-west of Jerusalem. There it remained for twenty years, long wearisome years, as we plainly see. "And it came to pass, while the ark abode in Kirjath- jearim that the time was long." It was during this long interval that a third battle was fought with the Philistines. Samuel had begun the work of reform, and led the way zealously by the puinty of his own life, and the solemn attention which he paid to the duties of re- ligion. The third battle was fought near the scene of the first, and resulted in a decisive victory. Then it was that the stone Eben-ezer was set up, a name of memorial not only then, but down even to our time a name indicative of the favor of the Lord. And after the rout of the Philistines, Samuel contin- ued to prosecute the duties of a judge, passing in turn to Bethel, Gilgal and Mizpeh, and Ramah, an unknown spot where was his home. By this time Mizpeh, which in the earlier time had only indicated that frontier point in the east- ern Gilead hills where Jacob and Laban parted, and where Jephthah ratified his vow, had been transfen-ed to a conspic- uous height a little north of Jerusalem, and which is identi- fied by most travelers with the Neby Samwil. Respecting this we can not be quite certain : yet that Mizpeh was in that immediate vicinity is almost certain. Of the situation of Ra- mah, Samuel's home, the less that is said here the better. The subject is enveloped in the greatest obscurity, and in the present state of our knowledge regarding Palestine, we can hardly expect to ascertain where it lay. CHAPTER XV. FAILUHE of the commonwealth— choice of a king— SAUL. Moses' Policy Precluded Forever the Establishing of a King Over the Jews — Yet he Feared a Degeneracy which should sometime Result in Having a King — Provision Made to This End — Failure of the Commonwealth — En- croachment of the Philistines on the West — Of Arab Barbarians on the East ' —No Smith in Israel — All Repairing of Tools Done by the Philistines- Feelings of Weakness — Saul's Search for his Asses — Geographical Difficult- ies — Unsolved Questions of Location — Across the Jordan to Jabesh-gilead — Its Deliverance — Saul's Wonderful Alacrity — The Battle at Michmash —Other Advantages which Followed — The Slaughter of Agag — The Re- jection of Saul. [HERE is not the slightest question that the idea of the Hebrew Commonwealth, as it lay in the mind of Moses, precluded forever the placing of a king over the Jews. The whole stress of his injunctions lay upon the keeping up of a personal relation between, each man and his God ; and the state, so far as it had to exist as an institution in and of itself, was to be without any head, save Jehovah alone. Yet he did recognize the probability, that when the Jews should become the acknowledged masters of Palestine, they should want to copy the ways of the nations around them ; and like those nations, should insist on having a king. Moses closed that loop-hole, and in the seventeenth chapter of Deu- teronomy he laid down, once for all, his instructions respect- ing the choice of a king, in case the nation should in the course of time, become so infatuated as to desire one. He was to be a man taken from the Hebrews themselves; he was not to encourage the importation or breeding of horses, lest his peo- ple should lose their simple, bucolic character, and cultivate NO SMITH IN ISRAEL. 205 the manners of those warlike neighbors of theirs who used the horse as a prime medium of carnage ; he also enjoined that the king should not take a plurality of wives, nor encourage . the importation of silver and gold. How strikingly all these provisions were set at naught by Solomon, no reader will need to be reminded ; and the wisdom of Moses in making these was best seen when Solomon's fall had shown to what evils an oriental despotism is always exposed. But at the close of the epoch of the judges, nothing is plainer than that the commonwealth had failed, and the out- burst of national feeling in demanding a stronger and more secure government was only natural. On the west the Phil- istines had so far broken over the old lines which used to bound their territory, as to have planted themselves not only in the very heart of the hills of Benjamin, but also in the valley of the Jordan ; while on the east side of that river the wild, and powerful, and ferocious tribes were meditating in- vasion and destruction. The Hebrew nation had touched its lowest point. " There was no smith found in Israel ; and when the people wanted their very garden tools repaired, they were forced to carry them to the Philistines cities, since their enemy, now again having the upper hand, would not suffer the Hebrews to have artisans, lest they should make weapons for the people. The whole Jewish population was unarmed. In case of war, they had no means of defence save ox-goads and clubs, and were utterly unable to cope with the well-armed and well-disciplined Philistines. All these causes combined made the people feel their weak- ness, and constrained them to cry out for a king. The office had been almost established in the time of Gideon and Abim- elech, but the time was not ripe then ^ the evils and weak- ness of the commonwealth had not been duly felt, and no change was made till the time of Samuel. But then all was ripe for a change ; and the strength of the popular demand can be measured by the utter want of effect which followed Samuel's vivid and truthful delineation of the brutal excesses 206 SAMUEL'S WARNING AGAINST HAVING A KING. committed by all oriental despots, and the brutal exactions which they made upon the property of their subjects. " And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner^ of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen ; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties ; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instru- ments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive-yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. Aiid he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and yoiu' goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep : and ye shall be his ser- vants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you ; and the Lord will not hear you in that day. Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel ; and they said, nay ; but we will have a king over us. That we also may be like all the nations ; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, hearken unto their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, go ye every man unto his city." (I. Sam. viii. 10-22.) The search of Saul for his asses takes us over a tract which we must conjecture, for as we do not know the situation of Ramah, Samuel's home, and cannot ascertain with certainty where lay Shalim and Shalisha, it is idle to attempt to follow the tall, young man and his servant as they wander over the country in search of the missing cattle. This is almost the EGYPTIAN ASSES, SADDLED— ANCIENT. EGYPTIAN ASSES, SADDLED-MODERN. The Ass was the only beast of burden which was in general use. This still remains the case. 208 DIFFICULTY OF LOCATING RAMAH. only real geographical difficulty which we encounter in the Bible : elsewhere we have data which guide us, but here we have so many contradictions that our investigations are baffled at every turn. I can not help thinking, however, that Ramah lay near Hebron, as both Dr. Wolcott and Mr. Van der Velde have conjectured, and that the region over which the search for the missing army was prosecuted, lay between the hills of Ephraim, north of Jerusalem, and the neighborhood of Heb- ron. But the matter is not at all of first class importance ; it is a secondary matter, and were all difficulties solved, there would be no special light thrown thereby on any difficulties of the Bible. Were this the place for a learned disquisition we might enter upon the various theories which have been framed respecting the location of Zuph, Ramah, Shalim and Shalisha. But in a general way the reader can see the course of Saul and his companions first southward almost to the southern confines of Palestine, and then after the interview with Samuel and the service of anointing, the retracing of the way past the tomb of Rachel, which is still to be seen near the line of Bethlehem, and back to the home of Saul a few miles north of Jerusalem. The first event of Saul's reign carries us across the Jordan to Jabesh-gilead, a city which has already come before us in connection with the Benjamite war of extermination. Just what connection there was between the tribe of Benjamin and that trans-jordanic city, can not now be discovered, but it is clear that there was some, because at the time of the great gathering at Mizpeh, to punish the Benjamites for upholding the sin in the matter of the Levite's wife, Jabesh-gilead was, the only city that was not represented. Here in the time of Saul the city comes into view again : this time there was an army of fierce Ammonite Arabs at its gates, demanding the surrender of the city. A compact was entered into that in case the people of Jabesh should not have succor in seven days they would open their gates and submit to have their right eyes put out. The promptness of Saul to come to their 13 210 THE BATTLE OF MICHMASH. rescue must always be set to the credit of that impulsive chief- tain. Here his character does flash out for an instant with a beautiful light. There have been few things in all mihtary history like the rallying of forces which followed Saul's call, and an army of three hundred and thirty thousand men never came together in less time. Their rendezvous was at Bezek, about fourteen miles south-west of the Succoth ford of the Jor- dan. Jabesh-gilead lay eight or ten miles from the Jordan, on the brink of a ravine which ran eastward from the deep valley of the river. That last day's march, after the promise had been given, "to-morrow by that time the sun be hot" he would succor them, is one of the most brilliant day's works in all the records of quick marches. But the whole world knows that he reached the eagerly expecting city, and brought the relief which they needed. This act was never forgotten. Long afterward the people of that city stole across the river, and when the body of Saul was hanging in disgrace on the walls of Beth-shean, they bore him away and gave him de- cent burial, and not only so, but they and they alone gave hos- pitable entertainment to the descendants of Saul, when all others neglected and despised them. The battle at Michmash is very fully told in the Bible, more so even than many others which really have more intrinsic in- terest. Yet it was a notable contest, and in it the character of Saul comes very clearly to the light. Like so many other battles which have already passed under our review, this one took place in the ravines north of Jerusalem, and its scene may now be studied with much ease'. It was in or near the same wady up which Joshua advanced from Gilgal to the re- lief of Gibeon, and Gibeah the home of Saul, was but a few miles east of the city which Joshua relieved. The great "Wady Snweinit in one of its subdivisions narrows into a gorge about a mile wide, on the south side of which was Gibeah, where were Saul and Jonathan his son. The Philistines had intrenched themselves at Michmash, across the ravine and in full sight. Between the two, though not in a direct line, were THE BATTLE OF MICHMASH. 211 the two tooth-like crags Bozez and Seneh, which played an important part at the opening of the battle, hiding the two Hebrew warriors as they issued out in the dim twilight of the morning. Standing below in the gorge they were espied by the Philistines aloft, and were defied in language which to our ears seems like the threats of boys in the streets. But Jona- than and his armor bearer accepted the challenge, and, sure that the Philistines were afraid to venture down and attack them, they slowly crept up on their hands and knees. The Phihstines were apprehensive that the Hebrews had issued fi'om the holes and caves where they were skulking, and when Jonathan and his companion burst upon their astonished sight they were received, not as if two men, but as if a host. The Philistines were thrown into instant confusion, and Saul who was standing in Gibeah about a mile away, and passing through the gray twilight of the morning, was unable to make out the cause of the movement in the Pliilistine camp. But detecting very soon the absence of his son and the armor bearer, he divined the cause at once, and boldly struck across the ravine, followed by the few hundred men who were with liim. The Philistines were instantly put to flight. The rout was com- plete ; the Israelites followed them down the same pass over which Joshua drove the defeated Canaanites, the descent of Bethoron, and the victory was so complete that the Philistines were dislodged and compelled to fall back into their own ter- ritory. This decisive advantage was followed up by others, not fully recounted in the Scriptures, over the kings of Syria, Edom, Moab and Ammon, as well as by the utter overthrow of the Amalekites who occupied the desert tract just south of Palestine. These were among the fiercest of all the wild Arab tribes in the region, and the hostility which they showed to the Jews as they came through the wilderness, in the time of Moses, was made the pretext for just as thorough an onslaught on them as has often been meditated and attempted by us, on the Indian tribes along the western frontier. In the story 212 THE SLAUGHTER OF AGAG. Saul seems to be more humane than Samuel in the attempt to spare the huge barbarian king, but inasmuch as almost beyond question his clemency was exerted simply that Agag might grace his tri- umph, Sam- uel's wrath was kindled, and the un- re liab 1 e, impulsive, moody king was rejected by Samuel as unworthy to wear the crown of a great nation. That scene at the close of the fifteenth chapter of first Samuel is one of the most d r a- matic in the whole Bible. Saul fiercely rejected by the prophet, and in his despair and disgrace, clinging so to Samuel's mantle as to tear it apart; the great prophet causing the huge Agag to approach, who coming slowly and tremblingly near, and reading his certain doom in the stern WARRIOR WITH HELMET AND SHIELD, A FENB SCENE FOR A PAINTER. 213 and inexorable features of Saul, exclaiming, "the bitterness of death is past;" and the closing act in which, while the gigantic Saul was crouching in his crushed and broken pride, Samuel hewed the great Amalekite chieftam in pieces ; aU this is worthy of commemoration by the noblest pencil that human skill has ever wielded CHAPTER XVI DAVID AND SAUL. The Anointing of David — Not Followed by his Immediate Accession to Power — David had a Reputation Even in His Youth — The Rare Qualities Which a Shepherd was Compelled to Have — David's Additional Accomplishments — His Exploits — The Psalms Written During his Shepherd Life — Saul's Mad- ness — Similar in Character to That of Theodore the Late Emperor of Abyssinia — The Contest With Goliath — The Geographical Situation — The Friendship With Jonathan — David Hunted Before Saul — The Refuge Places Where w(? Find Him — He Even Seeks Shelter Among the Philistines — The Cave of Adullam — Moab — Retutn to his Native Heath — Keilah and its Deliverance — Recent Identifications of David's Haunts — Physical Character of Southern Palestine — David's Wild, Wretched, Wander- Years — Grand Attack on Saul — The Philistines at Jezreel — The Death of Saul and Jonathan. HE rejection of Saul was followed by the anointing of David as King : and yet it was many years before the former ceased to be, and the latter began to be, the actual ruler. The selection and appointment of Da- vid was for some time kept secret ; it is doubtful whether even his brethren knew of it ; for although Samuel caused all the sons of Jesse to pass before him, the youngest was in all proba- bility anointed, as Saul had been before him, in great privacy. At any rate, his brothers appear not to have known for some time that this signal honor had been conferred uj)on David. And yet it would seem that the youngest of that family was a man who had a reputation even then ; that he was a man known not only in Bethlehem and its immediate vicinity, but throughout the land. When Saul fell into his attack of madness, and some minstrel was needed to minister to him and soothe his dark and moody spirit, David is spoken of as if well-known for his skill as a player, and as a man of ANCIENT HARPS. From Nineveh Marbles {jltfre.} ANCIENT HARP. From the Tomb at Thebes, called Belzo- ni's — l»4yre.) ANCIENT SIGNET RINGS, WITH IMPRESSIONS TAB "TIJIBREL" OR " TABRET " OF A. T. FROM THEM. (Fin.) (Lane's Modern Eeyptiani.) ANCIENT SHEEP-FOLD. 216 THE SHEPHERD USUALLY UNDERRATED. general mark. The verse in which his gifts are described set- tles this matter, and makes him out as a personage of note. He is recommended as " cunning in playing, a mighty, valiant man, a man of war, prudent in matters, and a comely person." By playing is meant not only mechanical skill on the lute, but the art of minstrelsy as it was practised by David's great cotera- porary, blind old Homer. Besides this, to be a shepherd then, in the rocky fastnesses of Judea was not to lead that simple, inoffensive life which has generally thought to be characteris- tic of a shepherd. The country was then infested with bears and lions, and it required great vigilance and courage to keep them off. Besides, the wealth of the people in those days lay in their cattle ; and David was in reality the custodian of his father's property, and in general trustfulness took precedence over his older bretlu-en. His great strength and capacity as a shepherd are well attested by the incident which he related to Saul : " Thy servant kejDt his father's sheep, and there came a lion and a bear and took a lamb out of the flock : and I went out after him and smote him, and dehvered it out of his mouth : and when he arose against me, I caught him by the beard, [mane], and smote him and slew him." In my own mind there does not exist the faintest doubt that David was already well-known as a man of great mark, and that when the necessity arose of finding a man who should be worthy to minister to the diseased mind of the king, David was at once recognized to be the one. In this case the divine intima- tions made to Samuel appear to have exactly coincided with human judgment, and here as so often in the Bible divine sovereignty and human freedom seem to have been at one. Of David's shepherd life we really know but little ; yet in such psalms as he then wrote, the eighth, nineteenth, twenty- ninth, and above all the incomparable twenty-third, we have a clear indication that his minstrelsy was even then all that it was when an older and a wiser man. Indeed the songs which were "pressed out of" him during those wild and stormy days of his youth, when he was hunted down by Saul, are among saul's madness. 217 his finest efforts, and in them the extremity to which he was di'iven, brought him to such a perfect sense of dependence on God, as to cause the sweetest and noblest things he ever wrote to take the form which they wear. The madness into which Saul fell after his rejection by Sam- uel is one to which oriental despots have always been pecul- iarly subject ; all men placed in circumstances where their will has no law, their temper no restraint, almost always degener- ate into moody creatures of caprice, and then' boundless jeal- ousy, passion and turbulence often land them in lunacy. Music in these cases is almost the only solace ; and even in lunacy as it exists among us, music is the best alleviation. The madness of Saul was very like that to which Theodore, the late emperor of Abyssinia, was subject, indeed I have of- ten been reminded of the really strong likeness which exists between the two men in more respects than this. Both were the semi-barbarian princes of semi-barbarous peoples ; both were men of talents, will, despotic mind, ungovernable temper, ambition, jealousy and dark, morbid, brooding spirit ; and in the hurling of javelins at David, and the occasional flashes of sunshine which j^layed over the sullen fits of Saul's anger, we have the exact image of the outbreaks of Theodore's anger at the English captives, and the intermittent acts of kind- ness which he showed them at times. With David's contest with Goliath we come to an epoch in the history of the shepherd boy. The Philistines, those in- veterate enemies, had again been opening hostilities, and were pressing hard on the western frontier. They had crept up into the lulls south-west of Bethlehem, and were on the south- ern border of the important wady then known as Elah, or the Valley of the Terebinth, but now as Wady Sumt. On the southern side of this gorge stood the cities of Shocoh and Azekah, the former of which still bears its ancient name but shghtly changed. Between these cities was the Philistine army, how well equipped we can judge from the full details given us respecting 218 DAVID HUNTED BY SAUL. the elaborate armor worn by Goliath. On the northern side of the gorge was the Hebrew army, doubtless unarmed and most imperfectly prepared for a contest. Down in the gorge be- tween was where the single combat between David and the nine-foot-high giant, took place. The result was immediately decisive, and the Philistine army fled after the fall of their huge champion, straight down the valley, whose general course is north-west, to the cities of Gath and Ekron on the Philis- tine plain. It was after that battle that, according to Light- foot, the ninth psalm was written. The story of David and Jonathan's friendship needs little comment in this work ; it is the great friendsliip of history. It was complicated with conditions which would have des- troyed any compact less noble, and heroic, and tender, but which caused this to be cemented all the closer. The Greek and Roman literatures give us nothing as a match picture to the mutual love of David and Jonathan ; and nothing in modern times comes near it. It is, in one word, peerless. Beginning in warm regard, it mounted, after they became brothers-in-law, up to the most wondrous heights of self- denial, and of heroic devotion. But its story need not be told here. We come now to the painful narrative of David's wanderings when hunted like a partridge by Saul. We have a clear pic- ture of his flight by night when aided by his wife, and date from that epoch the eleventh and fifty-ninth psalms. We get a glimpse of him at Naioth, near Ramah, where Samuel was living in company with a colony of prophets, but we see him not long in safety there, being followed thither at once by the crafty Saul. Flying from his imperfect shelter with the great Prophet, we see him seeking refuge with the High Priest of the nation, the cautious Abimelech, and witness the hungry David, reaching Nob on the Sabbath, craving to have the cere- monial law respecting shew-bread waived, in his behalf, that he might stay his fainting strength. Among the company shel- tered there, we mark the sinister eye of the crafty Edomite, DAVID HUNTED LIKE A PARTRIDGE. ' 219 Doeg, a chief servant of Saul, and we, like David, feel sure that he is the man who will betray the young refugee. Nob, the place where Abimelech lived, suiTounded by his colony of priests, was on the north-western slope of the Mount of Olives, in full sight of Jerusalem, then not a Jewish city, but in the possession of the Jebusites. Betrayed by Doeg, a heathen from the mountains of Idumea, David had no longer a friend in his own country, and was compelled to fly to a foreign land. His choice of Gath was a strange one ; we can hardly see why he placed himself among a people so hostile as the Phil- istines were ; and least of all, why he selected the very home of Goliath. But he did so, only to find that the place was too hot for him, and that he must shield hhnself fi'om personal injury by taking refuge in a pretense of madness. After his escape from Gath he wrote the fifty-sixth and the thirty-fourth psalms. His next place of shelter was at the cave of Adullam, on the border of the Philistine territory and not far fi'om Gath. The legend which makes AduUam identical with the cave of Kheiretun, south-east of Bethlehem, dates only from the cru- sades. The town of Adullam was south-west of Bethlehem, ^nd in its vicinity, beyond doubt, was the cave that bore the same name. There it was that David assembled his four hun- dred outlaws, and began to be a power in the land. It was at this time that he composed the one hundi-ed and forty- second psalm. Finding the quarters too hot for him, even in that limestone district, where caves were so numerous, he crossed over into Moab, and lived for some time in the country of his great- grandparents. He had a cordial reception, for his father'was grandson of Ruth, and doubtless the poor, hunted, youthful king was welcomed for Ruth's sake. Where he stayed we know not ; only that it was at INIizpeh, a " high place whence there was doubtless a good outlook over the Dead Sea into the mountains of Judah." There it was that he composed the fifty-second, one hundred and ninth, seventeenth, one hundred and fortieth, thirty-fifth, and sixty-fourth psalms. 220 SCENE OP HIS WANDERINGS. We know not why David returned from Moab to his own native hills, but apparently his love of home was too strong for his prudence, and although beyond the Dead Sea he was safe, yet he preferred to be in his own land, even at risk to himself, rather than to be an exile in the land of his great- grandparents. We find him next at Keilah, relieving a gar- rison which had been attacked by the Philistines. Here his band of six hundred valiant men brought immediate relief, and the Philistines were dislodged. Keilah, the city thus suc- cored, was a strong fortress town, having "gates and bars" to defend it, and was a place of some note. It is not identified with certainty, although there is a place of ruins bearing the name of Kila and found on the road westward from Hebron down into the Philistine plain. We know that this was its general situation, and that it was on or near the Philistine frontier. The rescue of Keilah by David was attended by this sad feature, that the men to whom he thus brought relief pro- posed to surrender him into the hands of Saul. The poor man had a most unhappy fate. There were hardly any that remained true to him. The people of Ziph, among whom he next took refuge, proved treacherous, and he was compelled to hide himself in the "wilderness" outside the town. It were to little purpose that I dwell on each of the retreats to which David fled. They were after this, all in the territory of Judah, with the exception of Gath, where he found refuge a second time. Most of the towns mentioned in connection with his wanderings are well known to us, having been dis- covered by Dr. Robinson and other recent travelers. Most of theni bear their ancient names, slightly changed. Carmel, for example, is Karmul, Engedi is Ainjidy, Maon is Maan, and Ziph is Zif. The towns of Maon, Ziph and Carmel display ruins of more or less extent, and are a few miles south of Hebron. The district in which they lie is tolerably fertile, and no one wonders at the wealth of Nabal, who notes the ex- treme fertility of the soil in all tracts where water abounds, and where the ground is carefully tilled. But the wilderness THE SECLUSION OF ENGEDI. 221 lying northward and north-eastward is sterile and desolate. Rough hills, dry and destitute of soU, extend away in the dis- tance as far as to the Dead Sea, and although wild in the ex- treme, still are too savage to be called romantic. Very rare among them are tracts of any beauty, and the "charming seclu- sion of Engedi (Ainjidy) makes almost the only exception to the desolation of the whole scene. This wild tract reaches northward nearly as far as Bethlehem, and was doubtless crossed and recrossed by David during his years of flight, while hunted as a partridge, and followed by Saul with his tliree thousand picked men, like a " solitary flea," leaping from rock to rock. The psalms, written during these years, display the desperate character of his flight, and his supreme trust in God. They are, so far as we can make them out, the thirty- first, written after the deliverance of KeUah, the fifty-fourth, written while in the wilderness of Ziph, the fifty-seventh, fif- ty-eighth and sixty-third which bear the marks of Engedi, the fortieth, eighteenth and one hundred and forty -first which also are closely connected with this time of persecution and wan- dering. Perhaps it is the seclusion of Engedi which more than any other has engaged human hearts, at this most inter- esting stage in David's life. The place is one of no little charm : certainly a marked exception to the prevailing steril- ity of that whole region. A spring breaks from the ground many feet above the level of the Dead Sea and finds its way down the rocks to a plain about one thousand feet square, which in crossing it transforms into an oasis of verdure, and then runs down the almost precipitous shores of the Dead Sea in an irregular line, leaving a track of foliage to show its course. It was near this favorite spot that the cave lay where David spared Saul's life, and not far away, beyond question, was the place where Saul lay and slept while David secretly approached and stole the spear and water-cruse from the very side of the slumbering king. After this persecution had been most- wearisome, David THE VERDURE OF ENGEDl, Where brooks and the shade of trees make a miniature Paradise. THE APPROACH OF THE PHILISTINES. 223 takes his large body of men and again goes down to Gath and proffers his services to Achish. Before, he had been repelled, and been obliged to save his life by taking refuge in the guise of madness. But now he is received as an ally. Having been so long persecuted by Saul, it was supposed that he would have little inducement to return to his own land, and having six hundred able-bodied men with him, he might be a valuable helper in time of war. Achish, the king of Gath, gave him the city of Zildag, the precise situation of which is not known, but which lay south of Gath, and near the border line which divided the rich territory of the Philistines from the desert. After becoming the lord of this city, David began to give his men something to do by waging an exterminating war upon the barbarous tribes which lived toward the south. How great extenuation may be urged for him in this I know not : but perhaps as much as for us in our Indian policy. Appar- ently these savages were such dangerous foes that it was thought to be the only true protection to society to be rid of them altogether. While David was engaged in his wars with the wild Arabs of the south, the Philistines were meditating a grand assault on Saul, and at length they moved northward accompanied by David and his six hundred men, and entered the plain of Jezreel. But David was compelled to withdraw, owing to the suspicion of most of the Philistine chiefs that he would desert on the field of battle and make his peace with Saul by going over to his help. It was just at tliat juncture, too, that David heard of the capture of Ziklag by the Amalekites ; and has- tening away with his band, he soon overtook the victorious Arabs, rescued his two wives, regained all the spoil, and re- turned to his own city. The Philistines crossed the plain of Jezreel and pitched their camp on the southern slope of Jebel Duhy, or little Hermon, as it is often called. It has already come under our view in connection with Gideon the great Judge, and then it bore the name, "Hill of Moreh." The hills of Gilboa, he 224 SAUL KCLIiED AT* GILBOA. south of this eminence, separated from it by a tongue of the plain, which here runs down to the Jordan valley. Between the mount on which the Philistines were encamped, and Tabor, still farther north, is another tongue of land, connect- ing the plain of Jezreel with the Jordan valley. But with this one we have now nothing to do. Saul was with his army ^ on the heights of Gilboa, a low wooded range, (though bare in our time) stretching away to the south-east from the great plain. The king could easily look across the level strip at the foot of Gilboa and see the Philistine camp on the south face of little Hermon. The village of Endor lay on this slope, and was in close contiguity to the Philistine army. Saul's midnight visit to the witch was therefore filled with danger. The village where this woman lived still remains, wearing the old name, slightly changed. The next day the fatal battle took place between the Hebrew and Philistine armies, and Saul and his three sons (including Jonathan) were left dead on the field of battle. The head and armor of the tall monarch were sent by the Philistines down to their own cities, and his body was hung upon the walls of Beth-shan, a city in the Jordan valley. The visit of the men of Jabesh-gilead is a touching monument of the affection which they bore to Saul, and the gratitude which they felt to him for the act of kind- ness which he showed them at the commencement of his reign. The manner in which David received the intelligence of Saul's death heightens, if possible, our admiration of the man, and there fell from his hps then that grand and sweet dirge, than which no finer funeral strain was ever penned. CHAPTER XVIL. DAVID AS KING— CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM— ALLIANCE WITH PHCENICIA. The Career and Misfortunes of Saul's Son — Site of Mahanaira — The Princely Abner — A State of Anarchy and Civil War — David at Hebron — The Region Around that City — The Cliange of the Capital — The Natural Seat of Got- ernment was at Shechem — Zion — Millo — The City of David — Insignificant Size of the Jerusalem of that Day — Great War with the Philistines — A Speedy and Brilliant Campaign — David's False Policy Regarding Philistia — The Alliance with the Phoenicians and What it Meant — The Northern Tribes and their Relations with Pliceuicia — David's Palace. HE separation between the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, which is usually thought to be introduced during the reigns of Rehoboam and Jeroboam, really began du-ectly after the death of Saul. His son Ishbosh- eth, a man of feeble and irresolute nature, immediately as- sumed the title of king, and established his capital on the east side of the Jordan, at Mahanaim, among the hills of Gilead. The whole region round about Jabesh-gilead always remained faithful to the house of Saul ; and Mahanaim could not have been far from the city which had begged for the body of the dead king. Ishbosheth was supported by the princely and powerful Abner; and so long as this able man commanded the army, Saul's son was in secure possession of the throne. Abner swept over the whole northern part of Palestine as far as to the bor- ders of Phoenicia ; and returning victorious, it would almost seem as if there were no question about the continuance of the old power in his hand, and that of his royal master. But in an unguarded hour Ishbosheth insulted the high-spirited Abner, who at once deserted him, and proposed to join his fortunes 14 226 DAVID KING AT HEBRON. to those of King David. The assassination of Abner by Joab, and of King Ishbosheth by two captains of his own army, brought all contention to an end, and instantly put David on the throne of a united nation. The confused state of anarchy and civil war lasted for sev- eral years. During this time David lived at Hebron, the na- tional capital of Judah, and the most sacred spot then in all the land. Here was the cave of Machpelah ; and within it were the bones of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ; and the place where tiiey were buried had paramount claims to be taken as the capital. Besides, Hebron was in a fertile region ; the vale of __ Eshcol was hard by, and 't ^^^ the adjacent hills were all terraced to the top and cultivated with rare skill and patience. It w^as a much finer capi- tal than the rocky hight of Mahanaim, east of the Jordan, which Ish- bosheth had chosen ; and in the peaceful Hebron, David reigned for seven years and six months. It was in He- bron that Abner was killed and buried, and over his bier David sung that brief but beautiful dirge, which has become immortal. The change which transferred David from being king of Judah to being king of all Israel, made it evidently necessary for him to choose a new capital. Hebron was altogether out of the question, for although admirably adapted to meet the wants of the minor, southern kingdom, when it had been merged in the united and consolidated nation, it was much too far southward. So indeed was Jerusalem, which was selected by David as the seat of government ; and had he gone farther THE SO-CALLED GOLDEN GATE OF JERU- SALEM. •228 CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. north, and taken the spot which of all others was the best adapted to the end hi view, the place chosen would have been no other than the fertile vale of Shecheni. Had David es- tablished his capital there, the whole future history of the country would doubtless have been radically different from what it was. But Jerusalem had certain claims to attention. It was a fortress, even then in the possession of the Jebusites, and con- sidered unconquerable. Joshua had but partially taken it, and during Khe five hundred years of the Judges, it was a much INTERIOR OF THE GOLDEN GATE. Front a view by Catherwood, coveted, but never enjoyed thing. On the rocky height of Zion the Jebusite stronghold reared its head, and frowned down defiance on all who assayed to capture it. It was, moreover, in the very heart of the conquered country, not on one side, as was the Philistine plain ; and no wonder that David desired to gain it. The Jebusite stronghold occupied but a small part of what we are accustomed to think of in connection with the name Je- rusalem : it embraced but one hill out of the four on which the subsequent city was to stand: Zion alone was peopled then : Moriah, Acra and Bezetha were mere eminences, having 230 FORTIFICATIONS OF JERUSALEM. little to give them eminence or character, save the tradition that on Moriah, Abraham once raised an altar for his son Isaac. The hill of Zion has a deep natural fosse on three sides: the Vale of Hinnom on the south and east, and the Tyropoeon, or Valley of the Cheesemongers, which intervened between it and Moriah. On these three sides it was consid- ered impregnable, and could be held by a small force. On the western side Zion sloped gently away to the shallow vale which lay between it and Acra, the gentle elevation on which now stands the Church of the Holy Sepulcher : and this side was no doubt very strongly fortified. The word Millo, used often in connection with Zion and the city of David, I consider to mean the fortress, or strongly fortified wall which ran across from the Tyropseon to the Vale of Hinnom. The city of Da- vid was therefore, as will be seen at a glance, of very insig- nificant dimensions, and embraced but a small part of the Je- rusalem of this day. It was rather a castle than a town or city, and was chosen rather as a military stronghold than as a metropolis. An old ruin hke Heidelburg, which once con- tained space enough to harbor some thousands of people, can give us a not unworthy idea of what Zion was when David conquered it. After the young king, then a little under forty years of age, had gained possession of the Jebusite tower, the Philistines made a great bid for continued sovereignty over Israel. The taking of Jerusalem must have been a complete surprise to them, as to all the nation, for the Jebusites had such confidejice in their power to hold the hill on which they Hved, as to ven- ture on the insolent step of putting blind and lame men on the walls, as a sufficient garrison. But after the gallant Joab had climbed the rocky hights and taken the place by storm, the Philistines swarmed up from their fruitful plain, bringing their idols with them, as the Israelites had once carried their ark with them, when they ventured down into the Philistine's country. Twice the Philistines assayed to take Mt. Zion, the new " City of David ; " they swarmed over the valley of Rep- 232 ONE OF David's mistakes. haira, a locality not certainly known to us, and twice they were repelled, the first time with the loss of their gods, and the second time, completely routed and broken up. All at- tacks on the Philistines previously to this had effected but little beyond annoying them ; but this was a positive and de- cided victory. And yet it was not what it ought to have been. Among the few mistakes which we can see were com- mitted by David was his stopj)ing as he did, after merely driv- ing the Philistines back to their own fortress ; he ought to have then marched victoriously into their cities, and reduced them to subjection, and utterly broken up the nation. For Philistia was a most important part of the whole land. Ly- ing almost contiguous to Egypt as it did, and being largely depended upon for supplies of grain when Egyptian monarchs marched into Asia for warlike purposes, it was a matter of real military necessity for the Israelites to hold that fertile region. We shall see in the sequel, when weaker men than David came to the throne, how grievous had been the over- sight, in suffering the Philistines to retain a slu'ed of their old power. The rise of David is indicated by no surer test than the alliance which the Phoenicians now sought with him. This nation living on the western slopes of the Lebanon chain, and on the contiguous sea-shore, was one of the most powerful in the world. Tyre was to Palestine much more than Paris is to us to-day ; for the difference between French art and polish and our own is not so wide as that which separated the rude people of Israel from their opulent, powerful, and civilized neighbors on the north-west. Tyre and Sidon had been great cities for centuries, and had unquestionably begun to exert a deep influence on the northern tribes. We have to deal so largely with events which cluster around Jerusalem that we fail to get any clear and full insight into the close relation between Asher, Naphtali, and Zebulun, and the Phcenician nation ; but we can clearly see that a growing ease, and luxury, an increasing tendency to idolatry, among the north- David's palace. 233 ern tribes, are a sure indication that as we are rapidly becom- ing Europeanized, so the northern Israelites were rapidly- becoming Phoinicianized. From Hiram the king of Tyre, came by way of Joppa,*the cedars of Lebanon for a palace to be built on Mt. Zion ; and with the cedars came masons and carpenters. Such artificers were unknown in Israel then, they had to come from abroad, as do our best artists in almost all departments. What kind of a " house," or palace David built for himself we can not tell ; doubtless very simple and insignificant, compared with modern palaces, but an immense advance, doubtless, upon the rude simplicity of former days. But David has now taken his place among the great monarchs of the world. He has swung up into the view of the rulers of mighty empires, as Frederick the Great did when he began to attract to himself the eyes of Europe ; he is, as we see him now, not a petty prince whose name was unknown even in Egypt, but a great and successful ruler, living in state, pow- erful in war, and more powerful in the arts of peace. CHAPTER XVm. REMOVAL OF THE ARK— MILITARY CONQUESTS. The Place where the Ark had Lain for Twenty Years — Its Removal to Gibeah— The Pomp of that Removal — The Twenty-fourth Psalm — Tlie Acme of David's Career — David's Conquests — His Eminence as a Poet, Contrasted with his Fame as a Warrior — The Extent of David's Victories — Campaign Against the Philistines — Mistaken Policy Regarding Tiiem — War Against Moab^ Improvement on the Old Carnage of Joshua's Time — Wrong to Judge the Ethics of the Old Testament by those of the New — War Against the King of Zobah — The Riches Gained by this Campaign — The Frontier Lines as now Drawn by David — Master now of nearly all the "Promised Land" — Petra and its Subjugation — Full Description of Petra from Ritter — Subjugation of Ammon — Size of Palestine Contrasted with that of Other Great Nations of that Age. HE next step in his career indicates the leading ten- dency of David's nature, and reveals the crowning act of his life. The ark, and the tabernacle, and all the sacred implements of worship had been neglected for many years, and were almost forgotten. For twenty years they had lain in the city of Kirjath-jearim, about ten miles north-west of Jerusalem ; they had subsequently been removed to Gibeah, and were there when David made his preparations to remove them to his citadel. The pomp of that removal is very sUghtly hinted at in the narrative, as given both in II. Samuel and in I. Chronicles but it is clear that it was the supreme day and act of David's whole life. The psalms which were composed for that occasion are among the grandest in the Bible. Foremost among them is the one contained in I. Chron- icles, xvii., and the noble twenty-fourth psalm. We need not recount here the ceremony of that induction ; the concourse of people, the players on instruments, the king at the head, his royal mantle laid aside lest it impede his movements, and 236 DAVID AS A POET AND AS A WARRIOR. his agile body given with perfect enthusiasm to the dance, which in that day as now, was one of the highest of rehgious exercises. The estabhshing of the tabernacle in David's city may be said to be the acme of his career. True there were great triumphs after this ; but the next step was a disappoint- ment, for his desire to build a temple to his God was refused him. His son was to do what the father was not permitted to do. We can in this place, perhaps better than elsewhere, speak of David's conquests ; of those military campaigns which no doubt were the best token of his greatness in the age in which he lived. Doubtless to us, and to all who shall come after us, the most convincing proof of David's claim to be all that the Jews asserted that he was, must rest upon the wonderful char- acter of his psalms ; those immortal compositions which rose so much above the spirit of the age which produced them, that we can only account for them by granting that in some special and peculiar sense they were " inspired " by the spirit of God. Responding as they do to the religious feeling of man in every land and in every age, they compel us to admit their transcendent character ; and yet to the men who lived in David's almost barbarous age, the surest token of his great- ness lay in his remarkable career as a warrior. * We have already seen some tokens of his military skill in his quick and decisive victory over the rude and savage Amal- ekites south of Palestine, as well as in his single-handed vic- tory over the huge Goliath, but now we see him enter upon a large field, and wage war with far more powerful enemies. Never yet had Palestine became the land which INIoses and Abraham had looked forward to ; that great domain which they had descried with the eye of faith, and which was to ex- tend from the " River of Egypt " to the Euphrates, had never been subdued by Joshua or by any of the Judges, and even the rock fortress of the Jebusites, had only yielded to the powerful arm of David. The territory of the Hebrews was limited to a mere south-western corner of the domain which HIS MISTAKE IN SPARING THE PHn.ISTINES. 237 had been promised by the great founders of their nation ; and when David ascended the throne of Hebron, it seemed as if the promised history of the people was to be a failure. And when David took his crown, it was as master of a very insig- nificant tract, the petty realm of Judah in the south of Pales- tine ; and when at last Saul's family had lost its power and place, and David had become the master of Jerusalem and the whole country from Dan to Beersheba, it was but a little part of what the king of his nation had a right to expect. He entered upon his career of conquest, therefore, with unques- tioning confidence in the help of Jehovah. He felt that all the nations round about were to be subdued and the whole promised tract given to his one " peculiar people." His wars opened with a speedy campaign against the Phil- istines, from whom he took their stronghold of Gath, the old home of Goliath, and the city with which David had already become so familiar in the days of Achish, its king. It is to be regretted as a matter of human policy that his subjection of the Philistines was not more complete than it was : for occu- pying the rich tract between the mountain land and Egypt, it was of the highest moment that they should not be able to give their corn to an Egyptian king who might undertake to invade Palestine. Had David made their country his in the absolute sense of the word, it would have been far different for his descendants, and the encroachments of Egypt in the time of Josiah might have never occurred. But this he did not see, and contented himself with merely making the Phil- istines his vassals. And this not because he was not equal to the occasion. David was equal to any work he ever under- took, but he did not see the need of thoroughly conquering Philistia, and throwing the people of his own nation into it in such a way as to reorganize its policy, and make it homo- geneous with that of the hill-country. He next turned eastward to Moab. What alienation had occurred between him and the people of his great-grandmother, the beautiful Ruth, we do not know. We saw David, at the 238 David's great clemency. time of his flight before Saul, taking refuge in the land of Moab, and receiving hospitable entertainment there, but why- he returned to the perils of his own country is left unexplained in the sacred record. Still there appears to be a connection between that return and his campaign against the Moabites, which was so short and decisive. We have a very scanty rec- ord of it. We only know that he "smote Moab," and des- troyed two-thirds of the inhabitants with sword, saving only one-third alive. This has often, and perhaps most generally, been cited as an instance of brutal cruelty ; and measured by the standard of our age it may perhaps be so regarded, but we have no right to measure David by any other standard than his own age. His sparing a full thii-d alive was a great improvement on the old Jewish usage with regard to captives of war, whom it had been considered right to put to death without regard to age or sex. In the time of David we see that we have passed beyond the cruelty of the time of Joshua and the earlier Judges. Still we have not the slightest right to judge David by the standard of our time. There are a great many people in our time who persist in the wrong course of judging the men of the Old Testament by the ethics of the New: of supposing that they to whom it was "counted for righteousness " simply to apprehend a little of God's will and way, and follow him so far as they could see, can by any pos- sibility be supposed to have been illumined by the clear and powerful light which Jesus brought into the world. Worse than idle are such fancies ; they are the prolific mother of in- fidelity, and cause thousands to doubt about the truth of the Bible, who if they would but see in that Book a progressive revelation, very dim at the first, very full at the last, would find the Scriptures a great help instead of hindrance. In deal- ing, therefore, with David's treatment of Moab, we are not to jump at the hasty conclusion that he was wonderfully vindictive and cruel, but that he was wonderfully lenient and merciful ; that oriental princes in his place have always pursued the cold- blooded policy of putting all prisoners of war to death, and that f DAVIDS CONQUESTS. 239 David's sparing a full third, indicates his greater magnanimity than almost all other potentates who have been in his position. After conquering Moab, David turned his course far to the north, and waged war against the king of Zobah. This land is not known to us in all its boundaries, but it probably ex- tended from the northern part of the Lebanon range, thence, due eastward to the river Euphrates. Its southern boundary was contiguous to the city of Damascus ; its northern boundary would probably touch a line running eastward from the city of Hamath. That it was an important kingdom, is indicated by the great wealth which accrued to David after the camj)aign. The horses which were gained were hamstrung, and thus rendered useless, David reserving just enough to grace his triumphal return to Jerusalem. The conquest of Zobah made him master of all the territory lying between Palestine and the Euphrates ; and as his victories over the Philistines had extended his domain to the " River of Egypt," this later campaign gave him for his eastern frontier, the very river which had been promised to Abraham and Moses. On the south the natural and unchangeable boundary remained what it had been from the beginning, the limit of the great desert of the Peninsula. On only one side now did there remain a work to be done to complete the limits originally laid out. This was on the north. The source of the Jordan at the base of Hermon was now the northernmost point to which the actual power of the Israelites advanced, although it had been promised them that they should possess the territory as far northward as to the " entering in of Hamath." This included of course the beautiful and fertile valley of Ccele-Syria, lying between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges, and having its northern limit at the narrow pass where the ranges ap- proach very closely to each other, and where lay the city of Hamath on the banks of the impetuous Orontes. This of course was the natural termination of the Coele-Syrian valley, and as such it had been included in the original conception of Palestine, as laid down by Abraham and Moses. The king HIS CAPTURE OF PETRA. 241 of this tract who bore the name of Toi did not wait to be subjugated by David's armies, but entered into a voluntary alliance, or rather into a voluntary estate of vassalage, send- ing his son to Jerusalem with valuable presents of gold, silver, and brass. This made David the real master of the whole "Promised Land," with the exception of the territory of Am- mon, north of Moab. Of that I will speak presently, touch- ing first, however, upon a conquest in the far south, of a na- tion, remotely allied by blood to the IsraeUtes. The descendants of the red-haired Esau had taken posses- sion of the mountain chain, running from the Dead Sea to the eastern arm of the Red Sea : a tract very broken, romantic, picturesque, and almost inaccessible. The capital of the na- tion was Petra, " the strong city," whose wonderful remains were discovered by the German-English traveler Burckhardt, early in the present century, having been for centuries lost to the knowledge of mankind. What was the occasion of the war with Edom we do not know ; whether it was offensive or defensive is disputed ; but at any rate it was conducted by the implacable Joab with really savage cruelty. After Petra had been stormed and taken, the Hebrew general spent no less than six months in putting the population to death, and was hardly able to bury the people as fast as they were slain. But cruel as was this campaign, it made David master of the whole territory down to the Red Sea, and prepared the way for the use which Solomon made of that important maritime thoroughfare. So much interest hovers around the mysterious mountains of Edom, and the wonderful ruins of Petra, that I feel sure that it will greatly add to the interest and value of this work if I cite here some pages from the learned and exhaustive work of Carl Ritter on Palestine and the Sinaitic Peninsula. " Before closing this account of the Sinai Peninsula, it is necessary to devote some pages to the discussion of the re- markable labjrrinth of tombs in Wadi Musa, whose sculpture has retained so much of its ancient freshness, despite the vandal rudeness to which it has been subjected during the 15 242 WORKS ON PETRA. }ast centuries. And yet our account must be gathered from the narratives of travelers who have been compelled, in every instance to make hasty visits, and to feel constrained on every side if they attempted to enter into a thorough investigation of the place. It is true the city has been visited by men admira- bly skilled in the art of observing, and it is only to be won- dered that, with the limited time at their disposal, they have succeeded so well as they have in depicting the place and its monuments ; and yet up to the present time no plan has been drawn up of the city, no topographical survey made, and no detailed description given of the topography of the region ; even those which have been •given us contradict each other often, or are highly incomplete. Yet there is no lack of artistic material to illustrate the remarkable architecture of Petra. Of these, Laborde's classic work, the Voyage de V Arahie Petree^ is one of the most celebrated ; yet it is in a manner vitiated by the sacrifice of truth to artistic effect. In all that relates to architecture and to the surrounding mountains, Mr. Rob- ert's work* is to be called a masterpiece, uniting tone with beauty to a very high degree ; nor are Bartlett's Sketches f devoid of elegance, or incapable of affording authentic infor- mation regarding the scenery of Petra. And yet, while we must confess that, since Burckhardt's dis- covery of these ruins, very much has been done towards the work of exploring them and ascertaining their character, it must be acknowledged that much still remains to be done. But this can not be attempted till the region in which Petra lies shall be brought under control, and the wild hordes which make it so dangerous to travelers shall be reduced to subjec- tion. In view of the disturbed state of the region, since the time of its discovery, our obligations to the travelers who have penetrated it can not be too thankfully expressed. Burckhardt^ was only able to reach Petra clad in rags, and * David Roberts, Views in the Holy Land, London, 1842-6. t W. H. Bartlett, The Christian in Palestine, or Scenes of Sacred History; with explanatory descriptions by H. Stebbing, London. jBurckhardt, Travels^. 433. \ TRAVELERS WHO HAVE VISITED PETRA. 243 could make a stay of merely twenty-four hours there, exposed all that time to suspicion if he made any inquiries, or mani- fested any Curiosity. Lahorde * remained eight days in Petra ; but although able to make his sketches in that time, he was compelled to fly before he felt that he was prepared to go. Bankes, Irb}^, and Mangles f could spend but two days there ; and just after they had found how much remained to be dis- covered, they Avere compelled to leave the spot. Lord Lind- say:}: could spend but a few hoiu^s at Petra, for fear of his life ; Von Schubert did not dare to pass twenty-four hours there, nor did Robinson venture to tany longer tlian a day. Lord Prudhoe tarried but a night at Wadi Musa ; Kinnear and Rob- erts spent several days there, but were repeatedly robbed, and compelled to Ry sooner than they wished. The fear of incuiTing the vengeance of Mohammed Ali was for a long time powerful in keeping the savage Arabs of this region m check ; but an expedition of his being once sent against them, proved itself utterly unable to cope with them, and withdrew, leaving them masters of the ground. Each night the Arabs came out from their hiding-places, and stole the arms and the valuables of the Eg}^tians, and withdrew before they could be discovered. Nor was it possible to fol- low them into their rock-bound retreats. The result was, that the Arabs have become more emboldened than ever, and the difficulties in the way of examining Petra have been largely increased.§ The Entrance to Petra from the East hy the Wadi es Syk. Burckhardt, the discoverer of Petra, entered the city by the eastern route, the avenue which even to the present day is *L. de Laborde, Voy. de V Arabic Pitree p. 60. tlrby and Mangles, Trav. pp. 440 to 442. I Lord Lindsay, Letters pp. 30, 40 et seq. § Of late the dangers and difficulties have so much increased, that within the last few years Stanley's party is almost the only one which has reached this cel- ebrated place. The authorities which Ritter quotes remain (with Stanley's qual- ifications,) the only authentic guides to this region. — Ed. 244 THE ENTRANCE TO PETRA FROM THE EAST. the most imposing feature of the place. Passing the source of the brook which watered the ancient cajntal, he followed the stream as it winds past the Arab village of Eljy, and soon after entered the Wadi es Syk. Not long after he passed three tombs on the right, and one on the left, which is orna- mented with four slight pyramids or obelisks. These are mentioned by Robinson. Passing on through the ravine, he was surprised at discovering a fine arch held by Letronne * to be the remains of a former gate to the city. This spanned the whole gorge, and greatly impressed Burckhardt Avith the elegance which it displayed in its construction, and the ad- mirable manner in which it had been preserved. Robinson was able to examine it more at length and has given us some details regarding it. The arch spans the entire gorge, and at each extremity is decorated with pillars, between which are niches in the wall, apparently for the reception of statues. It presents the appearance of a triumphal arch, according to both Robinson and Laborde,f and forms a truly imposing portal to the wonders of Petra. The width of .the gorge is here but about twelve feet, and nowhere through- out the whole avenue is it more than three or four times that width. From the arch onwards there is a constant succession of inscriptions, tombs, niches, and traces of aqueducts, once intended, doubtless, to convey the waters of the brook. On both sides the walls rise to a great height, ranging from eighty to two hundred and fifty feet ; yet owing to the narrowness of the gorge, most travelers have over-rated the altitude of the sides, one writer having gone so far as to state that they are a thousand feet high. Through this gorge the brook flows, watering a thick growth of oleanders by the way, while wild figs and tamarisks spring from clefts in the walls, and ivy droops in graceful festoons from the cliffs. The winding cleft, which owes its origin apparently to volcanic action, has been widened in some places, and beautified everywhere by art, and ♦Letronne in Joum des Savans, i. p., 534. i"Arc de Triomphe," Petra, in Voy de I' Arabia pitrie. THE VALLEY-ENTRANCE. 246 has become one of the most romantic and one of the most re- markable rock-galleries on the earth. Aloft the wild fig trees can be seen swayed to and fro by the wind, while below, in the deep shade, absolute silence reigns.* As the brook which runs through this gorge was of the ut- most importance to the welfare of the ancient inhabitants of this ancient Nabathaean capital, the greatest pains were taken to regulate and direct the supply of water. Its bed appears to have been entirely walled up, and even arched over for a part of the way, in order to make the approach to the city more stately, and at the same time more convenient for the crowds of caravans which streamed to Petra at the time of its power and pride. Stone-walls are even now to be seen not only in the Sik avenue, but after the city has been reached, which once served to direct the course of the stream, and to break its force. Besides this, on both sides of the gouge, channels f seem to have been cut at a higher level than the true bed, to supply the place with water at all seasons, and to prevent the absorption of water, during the summer season, in the ground. All the varied remains which decorate the place, the niches, the polished tablets, the excavations, the busts and mutilated statues, the traces of inscriptions — show what value the an- cient Nabathaean capital placed upon the noble and unique avenue through which it is approached. It is no matter for wonder that the Bedouins ascribe this all to the work of de- mons, and believe that the place is a secret repository of un- told treasures. After forty minutes' walk through the continually changing scenes of this wonderful yet beautiful chasm, for whose decor- ation, as Roberts, the artist remarks, a whole race of scupl- tors must have been required, and after passing other fissures which lead into it, which have not yet been explored, the gorge deepens still more than before, and bends sharply towards the north-west, at once opening upon a new and striking scene. * J. Kinnear, Cairo, Petra, etc., p. 139. tBurckhardt, Trav. p, 423. 246 THE KIIASNEH OR TREAStTRY. At the angle and confronting the grand approach, stands the gorgeous fayade of the chief structure of Petra — the Khasneh, or Treasury. All travelers agree that the first view of this structure is one of the most imposing that they have ever seen ; it seems, appearing in this wild and savage desert, like the work of fairy hands alone ; it is moreover, perhaps the best preserved work that has come down to us from antiquity. Even the careful Robinson does not hesitate to speak as strongly as Lord Lindsay, and to declare that the first impression was more overpowering to him than all that he had seen in Rome, Athens, or Thebes ; that in picturesqueness of situation, fine- ness and exactness in the use of the chisel, elegance and sym- metry in the combination of the parts, and harmony in the whole, the structure is unique in its perfection, even if there be not perfect •purity in the style in which it is executed. The beautiful rosy color of the sandstone, when lighted up by the rays of the morning sun, all unite in asserting, contributes no little share towards the general effect * ; and the situation, Bankes, a most competent judge, declares to be the finest conceivable. Burckhardt, pronounces it to be a work of im- mense labor, being made not out of separate blocks of stone, but the whole structure, from the apex to the base, being hewn out of the solid sandstone rock of which it forms a part. Owing to the peculiar dryness of the climate, it has under- gone the least possible injury from . the weather, and stands almost as perfect as when it came from the hand of the artist. Laborde speaks of it as the most colossal relief existing, in which symmetry, art, and elegance are united in the most striking contrast with the surrounding wildness of nature. It stands as if in a colossal niche, surmounted so perfectly by *.The reader will remember that Stanley carefully, yet delicately, tones down what the older travelers have written regarding the colors at Petra. He admits their gorgeousness, though he protests their being supposed so conspicuous and glaring as they have been too often represented. It is possible that he may have gone with expectations too highly raised, the earlier visitors not enough so, and that both were equally surprised. — Ed. THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE TREASURY. 247 the overhanging stone, as to protect it entirely from the action of storms. Built in the form of a temple facade, and with a front rest- ing upon four columns, all upon the largest and most admirable scale, the main interior apartment is a room merely sixteen paces square, and twenty-five feet high, the whole being ex- cavated out of the solid rock. All the walls are smooth, and destitute of ornament, not only in this main chamber, but in the three minor ones, which lie at the sides and farther back, and which, as they are lighted only from the front, and have but a single entrance, appear to have been used as tombs. In the two side rooms which flank the main portal, the same naked simplicity prevails. The main entrance passes beneath this portal, which is nobly ornamented on the exterior, by an ascent of five high steps ; and the facade on each side of the pillars of the portico is profusely ornamented with figures whose original meaning is in great part lost, as they have been injured probably by Moslems. Those which are higher up remain almost intact. The four main pillars of the front, of which only one is broken, are each three feet in diameter, and rise to a height of thu'ty-five feet, terminating in fine Corinthian capitals. The entu'e front rises twice as high as the pillars, Burckliardt estimating it at sixty-five feet, while Robinson set it at a hun- dred, and Laborde at a hundred and twenty. Far above the lower story there rises a second, with an unbroken achitrave which rests upon pillars, above the top of which the gables approach ; and the whole is crowned with a slender, round, temple-like tower, closing with a cupola and an immense stone urn. All the niches, and the walls of the upper portion are filled with representations of female figiu-es, two of o^hich are winged, while the gable end is decorated with Roman eagles, more or less mutilated. The urn which crowns the whole is the object of the Bedouin's greatest greed, and it has been the mark of countless arrow-shots, the Arabs believing that in tills urn Pharaoh concealed his treasures, (hence the name 248 MYSTERIOUS USES OF THE BUILDINO. Khasneh Faroun.) It has not been broken, however, and every Ai-ab discharges his shot at it and turns away grum- bling about the great giant Faroun, who has put his treasures beyond reach. To cHnib to that height would be a task which not even Bedouins would dare attempt. Travelers have perplexed themselves with the question why this structure was built, and what purpose it subserved. Even the conjecture that it was a place of sepulture does not satisfy all minds ; for it is in striking contrast with the cata- combs of Egypt, whose interior, instead of being left naked and desolate, was most richly adorned. The theory has been advanced that it was a temple, and yet Bankes remarks that none of the figures carved upon it suggest that any divine attributes were ascribed to them. No conjecture has been made which seems tenable. Nor is the time when it was con- structed beyond doubt. Bankes drew the conclusion from the Roman eagles, and the general style of the architecture, that it dates from the epoch of Trajan, whose taste ran so strongly in tliis direction. Schubert thought that it was built even subsequently to that epoch, and concluded that it was left in an incomplete state. Roberts, whose judgment is very valuable, does not pronounce upon the date of the structure, but thinks that it was a comparatively small object to care for the interior; that the whole researches of the artist were called mto requisition to give the exterior an imposing effect, and to this everything else is sacrificed. Roberts pays the strongest tribute to the purity of the style, the elegance and symmetry of the facade, and beauty of the coloring, yet not even he is able to conjecture satisfactorily what purpose the whole was intended to serve. A broad area before the Khasneh, fifty paces wide and three times as broad, ends at the south in a steep crag : north- ward, it opens out into a still broader fissure, which extends on for several hundred paces, with tombs on both sides. On the left the rock amphitheater comes suddenly into view, its seats and arena being in a perfect state of preservation. It is THE TOMBS OF PETRA. 249 only after reaching that spot that there is a full prospect over the whole city, with its thousands of tombs. In many places they rise one above another from the bottom to the very top of the cliffs, and the highest and smallest ones look not unlike the houses of swallows and doves. They may be seen every- where ; * not only in the main fissure where the city proper is, but in all the subordinate wadis or seams which enter the main one on every side. The Syk is but one out of many approaches, although the largest, the most profusely decorated, and the most imposing. They show, although but few of them have as yet been explored, that the population of Petra must have been very large. Bvu'ckhardt noticed that the tombs on the way from the Khasneh to the amphitheater, on both sides of the gorge, were generally high facades with a flat roof, but sometimes attain- ing a collossal size. They often have several small, and some- times tolerably large, inner apartments, like the Khasneh ; but in all cases, as there, these rooms are naked and devoid of all ornament. They could, he thinks, have served no other purpose than the reception of the dead. In one he counted twelve of these rooms, seemingly the possession of a numer- ous family. Many of the more simple tombs present the ap- pearance of truncated pyramids, with two pilasters at the side, and with the entrance in the middle, reminding • one of the Palmyra tombs ; yet differing from them in this respect, that at Petra they are cut from the primitive rock, while at PalmjTa they are made of sej)arate stones. This is due to the natiu*e of the place, and finds its parallel in the sandstone structures of Egypt, some of the marble ones of Greece, as well as some in India, which are hewn out of a single rock, Where the cliffs are high enough to permit it, these tombs rise one above another, as I have already remarked. The open- ings to them are generally filled with sand and rubbish, and ♦Stanley says, however, that in the most populous part that he could select, he could numlier up in one view no more than fifty, and generally much fewer. Yet he admits that the aggregate number is very large, —Ed. 250 THE THEATER OF PETRA. very few have as yet been examined. The variety in the forms of the tombs is very great, owing to the fact that it has been necessary to adapt them to the peculiarities of the differ- ent parts of the rock where they have been excavated ; indeed, it has been said that no two can be found which are precisely alike. It is impossible, therefore, to speak of a common ar- chitectural style, although the whole can be summed up as one great Necropolis. The theater, wholly hewn out of rock,* has thirty-three rows of benches, each one of which is capable of accommo- dating a hundred persons. This makes the entire capacity to have been about three thousand sittings. It does not differ from other works of the same class, excepting in this, that above the uppermost rows of seats, and in the cliffs on both sides, there are the same tombs which fill the remamder of the valley. The place built for mirth is brought into the closest proximity with the high places of death, and thoughts of sport alternated with those of eternity. The eye of the spectator wandered from the scene where pleasure presided, to those which testified of grief; and never has there been known a place where such a contrast as this has been dis- played, for even Paris places the burial-places of her dead without her walls, and other places have made them the com- panions of churches. The decoration of these tombs, as well as of the others, indicates the prominent part which vanity played at Petra, as well as at other places. It is impossible to assign any authentic date to the construction of the theater. It may be a monument of the time of Hadrian, or, as some think, still more recent ; but whenever it was constructed, it is a work which contrasts strongly in respect of size with the titanic vastness of the objects around it. So grand is the scale of all the objects around, so peculiar the architecture, and so rich the colors displayed on every hand, that the theater sinks into insignificance. In the diversity of archi- tectural forms which are found, there are the representatives * Von Schubert, ii. p. 428. SCRIPTURE ALLUSIONS OF PETRA. 253 of all ages, and artists of all tendencies appear to have free scope to work out their various fancies. Here are found traces of the ancient architecture of the place which is re- ferred to by Jeremiah (xlix. 16) : ' Thy terribleuess hath de- ceived thee, and the pride of thy heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the hight of the hill ; though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down fi'om thence, saith the Lord. Also Edom shall be a desolation ; ' and by Obadiah (3 and 4) : ' The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, though thou dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high ; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground ? ' and from that time, down to the epoch when the commerce of the Nabathaeans with Babjdon, Tadmor, Egypt, and the shores of the Mediterranean, introduced the Egyptian pyramidal, and the Syrian styles, as well as those of Greece and Rome. Taste^ less though grandiose tombs are to be seen there, which owe their origin to the epoch between Hadrian and Antonius ; and even the rise of Christianity finds its witness there, some of the ancient halls having evidently been transformed into churches. All these things bear witness to the influence of many different nations upon this rich and commercial Nabath- sean people, which reached out its arms to the ends of the earth. The broad space which comes into view when one has ad- vanced as far as the amphitheater, is not a true valley, as Pliny termed it, nor a plain, as Strabo asserted, but a deep rolling tract shut in by the crags, and with two prominent knolls or hills, occuj)ying the central part. These hills were once cov- ered with edifices, as the immense masses of rubbish, and hewn stones of every size and form, still show. Here was unques- tionably the city of the living^ surrounded on every side by the city of the dead. The brook continues its north-westerly course through this rolling tract, and between these hills, here and there disap- pearing beneath the rubbish, and then appearing anon. For a considerable part of the way, this brook appears to have 254 ARCHITECTURAL REMAINS. been arched over, as at Philadelphia and other cities. Robin- son discovered several remains of bridges which once passed* over it, and traces of paved paths or roads which once ran along its side. In the low grounds upon the left bank of this stream, ruins are still to be seeUj which appear to have once belonged to the most important building in Petra. These ruins are sufficient to show that the opulence of this old Na- bathaian capital did not consist solely in magnificently deco- rating the abodes of its dead. Laborde has given among his thirty beautiful views of the architectural remains of Petra, four of those which are found in this spot, two of which he conceived to have been a temple, and two others a triumphal arch. Their exact purpose is not known with certainty ; yet the richness of their decorations, although belonging to a late and sunken period of art, reminds one of the splended struc- tures of Palmyra and Baalbec. Their pillars, portals, tri- glyphs, friezes, and festoons of flowers, are like those wrought in the Syrian Decapolis in the third and fourth centuries. The temple called by the Bedouins, Serai Farouns, is the only struc- ture still standing which is at all complete, and which stands without any support from the crags around. Burckhardt heard this place called the Kaszr Bent Faroun, or the Palace of Pharaoh's daughter. He was very anxious to visit it, but the suspicions of his guides were aroused, that his object was to secure buried treasure, and he was unable to enter it. He dis- covered, however, on the same side of the brook, which he says pursues a subterranean course here of a quarter of an hour's distance, a soHtary pillar thirty feet in height, and com- posed of a dozen pieces of stone. It was called Zob Faroun, (Jiasta virilis Pharaonis.^ Laborde has given a view of it. According to Robinson, it forms a part of a temple, whose broken columns and fragments strew the earth around. The main ruins, which lie on the left bank of the brook, have been largely washed away and undermined by the brook at its times of flood ; and the water may be seen here and there standing in pools, which are in some cases surrounded THE JVIAUSOLEUM. 255 by masses of rubbish, towering high up the sides of the cliffs. These have not yet been examined and described with any minuteness. On the right side of the brook there is another mass of ruins, but the original forms, of which they once formed a part, are more indistinguishable than those on the eastern side. It is still manifest, however, that it was on this side that the main body of the city lay, and that, extending a good way northward as it did, its area could scarcely have been less than an hour's circuit. On the east side of the brook the tombs still continue, cut out of the sides of the crags ; in one place Burckhardt counted fifty of these ranged side by side. He remarks, moreover, that the finest sepulchres in Wadi Musa, are in the eastern cliff, and that high up he noticed one large tomb with Corinthian pilasters. Laborde has given views of some of the most remarkable sepulchres on this side ; and Irby and Mangles have described some of them in con- siderable detail. One of these, perhaps the largest, is three stories in height, the lower one of which is entered by four portals. The two upper stories are ornamented with eighteen Ionic pillars each, while a part of the structure, which once evidently towered above the crag, was made of hewn stones, but had fallen into ruin. In the interior they discovered apart- ments furnished with marble, and bearing the traces of luxury. Another Mausoleum, seventy or eighty feet in height, and of great extent, having a central part and two wings, the whole hewn out of the rock, and provided even with cellars, is remarkable not only for the number and size of its apartments, but also from the fact that it bears traces of having been transferred from its original purpose into a Christian- church, the only monument of its kind in the entire city. In three niches yet to be seen are remains of altars ; the places where tap- estry and pictures were suspended are to be seen on the walls ; and in one corner is an inscription executed in red, giving the date when the place was consecrated. Unfortunately the latter is one of the interesting facts which Mr. Bankes' refusal to pub- lish the results of his explorations withholds from the world. 256 THE WESTERN WALL. The western wall of the Wadi is higher than the eastera, attaining an altitude of three or four hundred feet ; and from the bottom to the top it is perforated with tombs, although they are not so elaborately construeted or so numerous as in the eastern cliff. This part was therefore considered by Irby and Mangles as a kind of suburb of the place. On this side lies the unfinished tomb, copied by Laborde, in which it is per- fectly easy to see that the method of working pursued by the Nabathffian architects was to smooth the face of the rock, and then to commence at the top and to work downward, first ex- ecuting the roof, then the frieze, then the capitals of the pillars, then the pillars themselves, and so on till the whole work was finished. This explains the circumstance, that so many tombs which are elaborately wrought in the upper part, have been left in a rude state below ; for the scale laid out may have been necessarily abandoned, in consequence of the failure of the means which had been reckoned upon at the outset. This, too, solves a mystery which perplexed' Mr. Bankes, namely, that in some cases the facade is wrought in one arcliitectural style in the upper story, while the lower one is in another. Laborde noticed the same fact, and was perplexed by it. But the union, not only of the various Greek orders of architecture in the same structure, but of others, even of the Egj^tian and other oriental styles, shows that in those instances the time of build- ing was not confined to a few years, but was distributed over many ; and that the thread which was dropped by the older architects was taken up by the subsequent ones, until the whole work was completed. Sometimes, too, there is great irregularity in the exterior appearance of the structure ; and where this is the case, and pillars and doors have been set in such fanciful positions as to mar the architectural effect, it has been found owing to some necessity growing fi'om the config- uration of the apartments within. Most of these structures in the rock walls which surround Petra were unquestionably intended to serve as tombs, but Bankes satisfied himself that there were exceptions to this. In THE BROOK AT PETRA. 257 one he discovered four front windows, and a hall sixty feet long, and of proportionate breadth and height, which had evidently been built to serve as a dwelUng. It differed from the tombs, however, in the entire absence of ornament in the exterior. Nor was this the only instance of the kind. The entrance to this house was not from the level ground, but from a project- ing ledge of . rock, recalling the words of Isaiah, xxii. 16 : ' What hast thou here, and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, as he that heweth him out a sepulchre on high, and that graveth an habitation for himself in a rock.' It remains up to the present day a mys- tery how the people who inhabited those lofty abodes were able to reach them ; and Schubert in his perplexity asks, ' Did the builders of those* places have wings like the eagle, to en- able them to soar to those lofty heights ? ' Robinson wdio followed the course of the brook down to this point, says that the water was not abundant, but excel- lent. It flows westward from this spot, entering a gorge which resembles in general character the Syk, but which is broader and more irregular in shape than that. The brook is so thickly shaded with oleanders that it is difficult to follow its course. The walls of this gorge are also full of tombs, but they are smaller than the others and destitute of external dec- orations. A high rock on the left Laborde held to be the Acropolis of Petra, though Robinson doubts it: Irby and Man- gles make no allusion to it. Formy who visited Petra in 1840, is the only traveler who has made any detailed allusions to it ; and his narrative is so confused and inexact as to be of much less value than could be wished. He has, however, brought some interesting facts to light. He alludes to a tomb there as being the only one which he saw whose interior is ornamented. Laborde speaks of it as now used mainly by the herdsmen as a sheep-fold. From this spot Formy climbed to an adjacent elevation, on which he found a cistern constructed with ex- cellent cement, and a little way higher two bastions with walls in. a state of ruin : what purpose they had served remained a 258 THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF PETRA. mystery to him. South of this species of fort he came to a platform hewn out of the rock, sustaining two stone obelisks, bearing the name Zob Faroun, which seemed to be applied with a different meaning than to the pillar of which Burck- hardt speaks under the same name. Every step which he took from that spot to his tent, revealed to him new winding stairs and paths in the rock, with traces here and th^re of gardens which he thinks must at one time have imparted a paradisaical air to the place. Robinson ■ sought to find an opening in the narrow gorge running westward which would lead him to the ruin called the Deir. He found many narrow wadis, but they did not guide him to the object of his search ; and the shepherds as- sured him that it is inaccessible from thi» point. Farther west the gorge has never been penetrated, and not even the Arab guides could tell in what direction the waters of the brook force their way through the mountains. Yet Robinson sat- isfied himself that Wadi Musa does not run under this name into the great Araba, and that the course which Laborde has given on his map has no real existence. Irby and Mangles followed the course of the brook but for a little distance, but long enough to be filled with surprise at the profuse luxuri- ance of the oleander thickets which follow its course, as well as at the other growths which accompany it. They discovered carobs, figs, mulberries, grapes, pomegranates, and a beautiful variety of aloe. In this neighborhood, too, there was no lack of sculptured recesses in the rock walls, although they were <)ften low and irregular. The skill displayed here was far in- ferior to that seen in other parts of Petra. Above the rubbish heaps of the ruined city, and above the colossal walls which hem it in, rises the lofty double peak of Hor, towering up in solitude, a jagged, massive, and naked mass of rock. It was Burckliardt's wish to ascend to the summit ; but this he was unable to accomplish, and only suc- ceeded in reaching a platform from which the traditional tomb of Aaron can be seen. Here his Arab companions offered a THE TOMB OF AABON. 259 sheep, in sacrifice to the great high priest. They soon with- drew again, to the valley below, with the more satisfaction to Burckhardt, as he heard from the Arabs that the tomb above contained nothing whatever which would repay him for the toil of ascending the mountain farther. He afterwards re- gretted not making the effort, as he heard that within th^- tomb are three interesting copper vessels which were once in use in sacrificing. No subsequent traveler has confirmed the existence of these copper vessels, and it seems probable that Burckhardt was incorrectly informed. The first Europeans who reached the summit, and visited the so-called tomb of Aaron, were Bankes, and his compan- ions, Irby and Mangles.* They describe the ascent as very difficult, although there were many places where the path had been smoothed away apparently for the accommodation of the great numbers of pilgrims who ascended it. The time required to reach the top was an hour. The rocks were not entirely destitute of verdure ; and even at the summit the travelers found some shrubs which were new to them, particu- larly some thorny ones, and an unknown kind of juniper. The building which bears the name of Aaron's tomb does not differ at all from the ordinary structures which cover the remains of the Arab sheikhs, and holy men. It is apparently composed, in part at least, of fragments of stone which had been used in a previous structure on the same spot. At pres- ent the only noticeable objects in the building are some rags, bits of yarn, false pearls and para coins, all of the least possi- ble value. Some steps below the chapel there is an arched vault, in whose rear there is a couple of chains, which guard the entrance to what purports to be the real burial-place of the saint ; the door is also guarded with a ragged cloth. The dim light of the lamp did not allow many objects to be seen ; and as the travelers were obliged to enter the place barefoot, on account of its reputed sanctity, they did not remain within it long, but soon withdrew, for fear of snakes or scorpions. The *lrby and Mangles, pp. 433-439; Legh, pp. 230-232. 16 260 BURIAL-PLACE OF AARON. view in all directions from the summit of Mount Hor is very extensive and grand, although very few of the details which make it up are known by name, and the distance is too great to distinguish many of the objects in the range of vision. Still we cannot wholly pass over a prospect so interesting. From the southern shores of the Dead Sea a chain of mountains may Ije seen, extending far away into the south, but diminishing in hight, until in the distant horizon they seem to be unimport- ant hills. Legh insists that from the summit of Hor he dis- tinctly discerned Mount Sinai. At the foot, the long, sandy plain of the Araba can be traced, its surface seamed with the courses of wadis and brooks, and as it nears the immediate base, displaying scattered hills, which in their isolation have the appearance of islands. Towards the south-west the sight wanders away indefinitely, without falling upon any promi- nent object. Towards the south-east the vision is bounded by the near Arabian chain, and from that the eye comes back to Hor itself, with its steep, jagged sides, its gorges and preci- pices, and its labyrinthine valleys. The most striking single object to be discerned from the summit, is the colossal struct- ure known as the ed-Deir, or the convent. It is in a north- easterly direction from the tomb of Aaron, and even there is seen to be larger than the Khasneh, although of similar style ; and, like that, it is crowned with a colossal urn. Petra is entirely concealed from view as one stands on the summit of Hor. Laborde * is the first European traveler who has succeeded in reaching the Deir. The way is an intricate one, and can not be found without a guide. The ascent from the valley is rapid and steep, and the brooks fall in pleasant little cascades, as they find their way down to the bottom. Later travelers estimate the entire altitude of the " Convent " as about a thousand feet above Wadi Musa. The building, although * Laborde, Voy. p. 59, and Plan de la ville de Petra et de ses environs, levisur les Ueux, p. L. de Laborde ; Irb/ and Mangles, Sketch of the ground plan of Pen a in Trav. p. 419. 262 Robinson's visit. colossal in proportions is executed in the debased style of the third and fourth centuries, and recalls to one's mind th« de- cline of the renaissance style of the fifteenth. The general appearance is similar to the Khasneh,- there being two stories, with colonnades and pilasters, ten below and six above. There is less detail in the finish and all is more coarsely executed, — a deficiency which was explained away by subsequent travel- ers, however, who showed the structui-e had never been brought to a state of completion. Robinson subsequently visited ed-Deir, and has left a good account of it, and of its general situation. From the steps, Mount Hor can be seen at the south-west, throned in solitary majesty, while the eye runs far away over the savage sand- stone crags, and down the steep defile which forms the ascent. The building itself, despite its overladen style, makes a very strong impression upon the mind. That it is now only a part of what it once was, is shown by the stairways which are seen in the neighborhood, the tombs near by, and the ruins of a palace just confronting it. The latter was not visited till Roberts and Kinnear explored the place thoroughly. The in- terior of ed-Deir, like that of the Khasneh does not corre- spond to its exterior richness ; Robinson saw nothing but a bare room hewn out of the rock, and in the rear a recess slightly elevated, and approached by flights of steps at the ends, — an arrangement which reminded him of the altars in many Greek churches. He thought he also saw traces indicating that a curtain had once hung there ; and the impression was strongly made on his mind, that the place was originally erected as a heathen temple, but had been converted into a Christian church. Roberts the distinguished artist, who subsequently visited the place and sketched it, was made more certain, if possible, than Robinson had been : he discovered a cross painted on the wall in the rear of the altar. The dimensions of the main apartment are fifty feet by fifty, and thirty high. The eleva- tion of the urn is thought by the latest travelers to be a hui?* dred feet higher than that of el-Khazneh. Roberts was the CONQUEST OF AJVIMON. 265 first to discover that the rudeness of the architecture, which had been spoken of by Laborde and Robinson, results from the fact that the work was never completed. It is a work so modern in its date, that many of the capitals of the columns and other architectural details have never been begun." There remained the territory of Ammon north of Moab. The Ammonites were a fierce, a powerful, and had now grown to be a rich nation, and it was important to utterly break them WELL OF JOAB. This well which lies near the lower extremity of the Valley of Jehoshaphat bears the name of Joab. It is often improperly called the Well of Job. From a Photograph by Frith. down. The conflict with Zobah had been prefaced by a pre- liminary war with the Ammonites, but the real struggle was to come now at the close of David's campaigns. The strong- hold of the tribe was at Rabbath Ammon, a place about twenty miles east of the Jordan, and bearing at the present day the name of Amman. It was divided into two parts, an upper and a lower town. The lower was well supplied with water from a profuse spring and brook. The upper town was dependent upon the lower, and if- the latter should be taken and the sup- 266 END OF DAVID'S WATIS. ply of water cut off, the former must inevitably fall. To the capture of Rabbath Ammon, Joab was sent, David remaining self-indulgently in Jerusalem. Under the masterly general- ship of Joab, the lower city at length yielded, and the com- mander sent back word to the king, that if he would have the glory of taking the city he must come over and be present in person when the upper tower should surrender. Although the real contest was past, and what remained was purely a work of pageantry, David went and was present when the city capitulated, and had the sole glory of the conquest. And thus ended the wars of David. I have but touched upon them ; with less completeness even than the Bible gives the account ; but there is little doubt that were the story of David's military exploits fully told, his name would stand by the side of the greatest generals. The narrative we find in the Bible is a mere outline ; and the means of filling it in have now all passed away. Yet the change which David wrought in the extent of his domain show how great a con- queror he was. Egypt then had an area of only ten thousand square miles; Assyria, that great empire whose name is so conspicuous, reached but eighty thousand square miles ; but the empire of Israel under David, touched no less a figure than sixty thousand square miles ; an extent six times as great as was that of Egypt. It was a wonderful change, and shows the power of no ordinary man. It is very clear that David was encountered by very formidable combinations of armies, and by a most lavish use of resources ; yet the vigor and merit, and above all, the trust which he had in God, were so re- markable, that he swept on without any hindrance, to the accompUshment of his vast designs. 1 as 1 CHAPTER XIX. DAVID'S SIN— ABSALOM'S REVOLT. The Fall of David — A Turning-point in His Life — Bathsheba Descried from the Palace — Her Husband a Foreigner — Uriah's Wonderful Fidelity — David's Sin must not be Measured by the Standard of Our Day — The Fifty-first Psalm — An Autobiographical Confession — David's Star on the Wane — The Story of Absalom Minutely Told in the Bible — Stanley's Account — Absalom's Beauty — Eastern Family Customs — David's Love for Absalom — The Flight of the King — The Insults which were Offered Him — Ahithopel's Counsel — The Psalms which Grew Out of this Event — David in Security East of the Jor- dan — Death of Absalom — Effect on the King — David's Return. T was while he was engaged in the siege of Rabbath Ammon, through his deputy Joab, that the moral fall of David occurred, that great catastrophe which proved to be a turning-point in his life. The triumphant entry into Jerusalem with the ark, was the event which signalizes his reaching the height of his career, and during the long course of his wars, he did not leave the pinnacle of greatness to which he had risen. But the plunge down was sudden and decisive. He never rose from it, and it involved the loss of all he held dear. From the roof of his palace on Mt. Zion, he beheld the form of a very beautiful woman, who on in- quiry, he found bore the name of Bathsheba, and who was the wife of one of the leading officers in David's army. Her hus- band was not of Israelite birth, but was connected by Hneage with one of the conquered tribes of the land, the same Hit- tites of whom Abraham had in a far earlier age bought the cave of Machpelah. Uriah was then away with the army, en- gaged in the siege of Rabbath Ammon. The wife yielded to David's guilty passion, and became with child. The King, ^^^ DAVID'S GREAT SIN. anxious to hide the parentage of the infant, when it should be born sent to Uriah, and gave him a furlough. But nothing would induce the brave soldier to sleep at his own house He felt that while in the King's service he must sleep at the palace ; and although David sought to break him down with wine, and in other ways to place him where he might yield to domestic indulgence, it was all in vain. Finding that Uriah's simple and stern fidelity was obstinately in his way, he sent the soldier back to Joab, with a sealed letter, commanding that the bearer be exposed at an advanced post where he must in- evitably faU. The ruse was successful. Joab gave Uriah the command of a body which was to come close to the walls of the besieged city; an arrow came down from above, and the noble man fell. Everything about Uriah is noble and disinterested • everythmg about Bathsheba is selfish, self-indulgent, and wicked. The result of the base intrigue was that after a month of formal mourning, the woman went to the palace as David s wife, and became the mother of a cluld which never lived to grow up. The fall of David was a very great one, but it should not be measured with the stern severity with which it would be condemned in our time, and with the Hght of our day. Still It needed only the faithful dealing of Nathan to lead him to see the degradation into which he had faUen, and to wring from him that wonderful fifty-first Psalm. He had fallen, not with one single act of sin and shame, but into a complex of dastardly and mfamous acts ; but he was not to stay there. His better natui-e leaped up when it was touched by the tender and faith- ful words of Nathan ; and to the stern "Thou art the man," there went forth in answer the sorrowful and plaintive "I nave sinned." The fifty-first Psalm stands easily the first of all the strains ot David. For in it he has expressed the language of con- trition for every man and every age. His own great soul, trembling with a sense of sin and shame, clove a way to the throne of God, through which all sinners have always loved ANCIENT WAR. A city taken by assault, and the inhabitants led away captive. From KouTfunjik. - (Layard't Ninewh, ii., !85.) 270 THE PSALMS WHICH RECORD DAVID's SIN. to come ; and under the sense of just condemnation there was revealed to him a sense of the love and mercy of God, which convinced him that he must find grace at the throne, when coming with such sorrow and such contrition. The whole Psalm is autobiographical, as is the thirty-second, which is as- signed to the same epoch. In the fifty-first, he seeks a shelter, and cries for pardon ; in the thirty-second he finds it and rests tranquilly on the bosom of the Father. After the period of David's adultery we discover that his star is on the wane. The whole closing years of his reign are filled with rebellions and disasters. I shall not be able to nar- rate the story of them all, but that of Absalom is the most striking, and merits some degree of careful consideration. The story of David's many marriages is closely connected with that of Absalom's revolt ; and indeed the Old Testament, which is cited by some as the divine support of the institution of polyg- amy, is at the same time the best witness of the weakness which is inherent in the system of a plurality of wives. Nearly all the events which built the closing years of David, grew out of his pol3^gamy, and pass the severest sentence of con- demnation on it. The story of Absalom's revolt is told with great minute- ness in the Bible ; indeed, as Ewald has noticed, and Stanley following Ewald, with' more particularity than any other event recorded in Holy Writ. Why this is so were a hard question to answer ; but the development of David's character in its various phases, as displayed in the rebellion, is so rich, and to a great degree so beautiful, that I do not wonder that it caught the mind of the Hebrew historian, and was thought worthy of being recorded with great detail. It has been well said that in that revolt were exhibited all the qualities of David, bis tenderness, mercy, prudence, caution, judgment ; and that only one conspicuous trait, his courage, fails to appear. Dean Stanley has given so pictiu^esquely and with such fullness of detail the story of Absalom's revolt, that I tran- scribe from the glowing pages of his " Jewish Church," the Absalom's revolt. 271 narrative of this memorable transaction. Stanley weaves to- gether the details of the Scripture story, and out of the whole constructs a tale, which is perfectly simple, artistic and beau- tiful : " The eldest of the Princes was Amnon, the son of Ahi- noam, whom the King cherished as the heir to the throne, with an affection amounting almost to awe. His intimate friend in the family was his cousin Jonadab, one of those characters who in great houses pride themselves on being ac- quainted and on dealing with all the secrets of the family. This was one group in the royal circle. Another consisted of the two children of Maacah, the princess of Geshur, — Absa- lom and his sister Tamar, the only two of purely royal de- scent. In all of them the beauty for which the house of Jesse was renowned — David's brothers, David himself, Ado- nijah, Solomon — seemed to be concentrated. Absalom espe- cially was in this respect the very flower and pride of the whole nation. ' In all Israel there was none to be praised for his beauty,' like him. ' From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot there was no blemish in him.' The magnifi- cence of his hair was something wonderful. Year by year or month by month its weight was known and counted. He had a sheep-farm near Ephraim or Ephron, a few miles to the north-east of Jerusalem, and another property near the Jor- dan Valley, where he had erected a monument to keep alive the remembrance of his name, from the melancholy feeling that the three sons who should have preserved his race had died before hun. He had, however, one daughter, who after- wards carried on the royal line in her child, called, after her grandmother, Maacah, and destined to play a conspicuous part in the history of the divided kingdom. This daughter was named Tamar, after her aunt. The elder Tamar, like her brother and her niece, was remarkable for her extraordinary beauty, whence perhaps she derived her name, ' the palm-tree,* the most graceful of oriental trees. For this, and for the homely art of making a peculiar kind of cakes, the Princess 272 THE BEGINNING OF THE BEVOLT. had acquired a renown which reached beyond the seclusion of her brother's house to all the circle of the royal family. There had been no cloud to disturb the serene relations of these different groups till the fatal day when Aranon, who had long wasted away, grown ' morning by morning paler and paler, leaner and leaner,' from a desperate passion for his half- sister Tamar, — at last contrived, through the management of Jonadab, to accomplish his evil design. It was a moment long remembered as ' the beginning of woes,' when on his brutal hatred succeeding to his brutal passion, she found herself driven out of the house, and in a frenzy of grief and indignation tore off the sleeves from her royal robes, and, with her bare arms, clasped on her head the handfuls of ashes which she had snatched from the ground, and rushed to and fro through the streets screaming aloud, till she encountered her brother Ab- salom, and by him was taken into his own house. The King, was afraid or unwilling to punish the crime of the heir to the throne. But on Absalom, as her brother, devolved, accord- ing to Eastern notions, the dreadful duty, the frightful pleas- ure, of avenging his sister's wrong. All the Princes were in- vited by him to a pastoral festival at his country-house, and there Amnon was slain by his brother's retainers. There was a general alarm. It would seem as if there was something desperate in Absalom's character which made those around him feel that there was an immeasurable vista of vengeance opened. The other Princes rushed to their mules and gal- loped back to Jerusalem. The exaggerated news had already reached their father that all had perished. Jonadab reassured him. Still, the truth was dark enough ; and in the presence of a loss which appears to have been deeply felt, not only by the King, but by the whole family, Absalom was forced to re- tire to exile beyond the limits of Palestine, to his father-in- law's court at Geshur. But much as the King had loved Amnon, he loved Absa- lom more : Joab, always loyal, always ready, saw that he only needed an excuse to recall the absent son, and by a succession ABSALOM AT THE GATE. 273 of devices, Absalom was brought back first to his country property, and then to Jerusalem itself. But meanwhile, he himself had been alienated from David by his long exile. He found himself virtually chief of the King's sons. That strength and violence of will which made him terrible among his brethren was now to vent it- self against his father. He courted popular- ity by constantly appearing in the royal seat of judgment, in the gateway of Je- rusalem. He af- fected royal state by the unusual display of chari- ots and war-hor- ses, and runners to precede him. Under pretext of a pilgrimage to Hebron, possibly as the Patriarch- al sanctuary, perhaps only as his own birth- place, he there set up his claims to the throne, and became suddenly the head of a formidable revolt. In that ancient capital of the tribe of Judah, he would find adherents jealous of their own elected king's ab- sorption into the nation at large. And not far off, amongst the southern hills, in Giloh, dwelt the renowned Ahithophel, ORIENTAL GATE OR DOOR. Such as that where Absalom sat. It was the favorite place for heaf ing charges and giving judgment 274 DAVID FLEES FOR JERUSALEM. wisest of all the Israelite statesmen. According to the tra- ditional interpretation of several of the Psalms, he was in the closest confidence with David, though, if we may trust the indications of the history, he had, through the wrongs of his grand-daughter Bathsheba, the deepest personal reasons for enmity. It was apparently early on the morning of the day after he had received the news of the rebellion that the King left the city of Jerusalem. There is no single day in the Jewish his- tory of which so elaborate an account remains as of this mem- orable flight. There is none, we may add, that combines so many of David's characteristics, — his patience, his high-spir- ited religion, his generosity, his calculation : we miss only his daring courage. Was it crushed, for the moment, by the weight of parental grief, or of bitter remorse ? Every stage of the mournful procession was marked by some peculiar incident. He left the city, accompanied by his whole court. None of his household remained, except ten of the women of the harem, whom he sent back, apparently to occupy the palace. The usual array of mules and asses was left behind. They were all on foot. The first halt was at a spot on the outskirts of the city, known as " the Far House." The second was by a solitary olive-tree that stood by the road to the wilderness of the Jordan. Here the long procession formed itself. The body-guard of Philistines moved at the head ; then followed the great mass of the regular soldiery ; next came the high officers of the court ; and last, immedi- ately before the King himself, the six hundred warriors, his ancient companions, with their wives and children. Amongst these David observed Ittai of Gath, and with the true noble- ness of his character entreated the Philistine chief not to peril his own or his countrymen's lives in the service of a fallen and a stranger sovereign. But Ittai declared his resolution (with a fervor which almost inevitably recalls a like profession made almost on the same spot to the Great Descendant of David centuries afterwards) to follow him in life and in death. The \ 276 David's flight. King accepted his faithful service ; and calling him to his side, they advanced to the head of the march, and passed over the deep ravine of the Kidron, very closely followed by the guards and their children. It was the signal that he was de- termined on flight ; and a wail of grief rose from the whole pro- cession, which seemed to be echoed back by mountain and val- ley, as if ' the whole land wept with a loud voice.' At this point they were overtaken by another procession, consisting of the Levites and the two Priests, Zadok and Abiathar, bringing the ark from its place on the hill of Zion to accompany the King in his flight. There is a difference in the conduct of the rival Priests which seems to indicate thek different shades of loyalty. Zadok remained by the ark ; Abiathar went apart on the mountain side, apparently waiting to watch the stream of followers as it flowed past. With a spirit worthy of the King who was Prophet as well as Priest, David refused this new aid. He would not use the ark as a charni ; he had too much reverence for it to risk it in his personal peril. He re- minded Zadok that he too by his prophetic insight ought to have known better. ' Thou a seer ! ' It was a case where the agility of their two sons was likely to be of more avail than the officious zeal of the chief Priests. To them he left the charge of bringing him tidings from the capital, and passed onwards to the Jordan. Another burst of wild lament broke out as the procession turned up the mountain pathway ; the King leading the long dirge, which was taken up all down the slope of Olivet. The King drew his cloak over his head, and the rest did the same ; he only distinguished by his un- sandaled feet. At the top of the mountain, consecrated by one of the altars in that age common on the hill-tops of Pal- estine, and apparently used habitually by David, they were met by Hushai the Archite, ' the friend,' as he was officially called, of the King. The priestly garment, which he wore after the fashion, as it would seem, of David's chief officers, was torn, and his head was smeared with dust, in the agony of his grief. In him David saw his first gleam of hope. For TWO NEW CHARACTERS. 277 warlike purposes he was useless ; but of political stratagem he was a master. A moment before, the tidings had come of the treason of Ahithophel. To frustrate his designs, Hushai was sent back, just in time to meet Absalom arriving from Hebron. . It was noon when David passed over the mountain top, and now, as Jerusalem was left behind, and the new prospect DIFFERENT MODES OF OBEISANCE, The attitude with which ancient monarchs received homage. opened before him, two new characters appeared, both in con- nection with the hostile tribe of Benjamin, whose territory they were entering. One of them was Ziba, slave of Mephib- osheth, taking advantage of the civil war to make his own fortunes, and bringing the story that Mephibosheth had gone over to the rebels, in the hope of a restoration of the dynasty of his grandfather Saul. The King gratefully accepted his 17 278 INSULTS OB'FERED TO DAVID. oifering-, (ook the stores of bread, dates, grapes, and wine for his followers, and, in a moment of indignation, granted to Ziba the whole pro[)erty of Mephibosheth. At Bahurim, also on the downward pass, he encountered another member of the fallen dynasty, Shimei, the son of Gera. His house was just within the borders of Benjamin on the spot where — appar- ently for this reason — Michal, the princess of that. same house, had left her husband, rhaltiel. All the fury of the rival dynasties, with all the foul names which long feuds had engen- dered, burst forth as the two parties here came into collision. On the one side the fierce Benjamite saw 'the Man of Blood, 'stained, as it must have seemed to him, with the slaughter of Abner and Ishbosheth, and the seven princes whose cruel death at Gibeon was fresh in the national rec- ollection. On the other side the wild sons of Ze- ruiah saw in Shimei one of the ' dead dogs,' or ' dogs' heads,' according to the offensive language bandied to and fro amongst the political rivals of that age. A deep ravine parted the King's march from the house of the furious Benjamite. But along the ridge he ran, throwing stones as if for the adulterer's punishment, or when he came to a patch of dust on the dry hill-side, taking it up, and scat- tering it over the royal party below, with the elaborate curses of which only eastern partisans are fully masters, — curses which David never forgot, and of which, according to the Jewish tradition, every letter was significant. The compan- ions of David, who felt an insult to their master as an injury DIFFERENT MODES OF OBEISANCE. BOLD STEPS OF ABSALOM. 279 to themselves, could hardly restrain themselves. Abishai — with a fiery zeal, which reminds us of the sons of Thunder centuries later — would fain have rushed across the defile, and cut off the head of the blaspheming rebel. One alone re- tained his calmness. The King, with a depth of feeling un- disturbed by any political animosities, bade them remember tliat after the desertion of his favorite son anything was toler- able, and (with the turn of thought so natural to an Oriental) that the curses of the Benjamite might divert some portion of the Divine anger from himself, and that they were in a certain sense the direct words of God Himself. The exiles passed on, and in a state of deep exhaustion reached the Jordan val- ley, and there rested after the long eventful day, at the ford or bridge of the river. Amongst the thickets of the Jordan, the asses of Ziba were unladen, and the weary travelers re- freshed themselves, and waited for tidings from Jerusalem. It must have been long after nightfall, that the joyful sound was heard of the two youths, sons of the High Priests, bursting in upon the encampment with the news from the capital. Absalom had arrived from Hebron almost immediately after David's departure ; and, by the advice of Ahithophel, took the desperate step — the decisive assumption, according to Oriental usage, of royal rights — of seizing what remained of the royal harem in the most public and offensive manner. The next advice was equally bold. The aged counselor of- fered, himself, that very night, to pursue and cut off the King before he had crossed the Jordan. That single death would close the civil war. The nation would return to her legiti- mate Prince, as a bride to her husband. But now another ad- viser had appeared on the stage, — Hushai, fresh from the top of OUvet, with his false professions of rebellion, with his ingenious scheme for saving his royal master. He drew a picture of the extreme difficulty of following Ahithophel's counsel, and sketched the scheme of a general campaign. It shows how deeply seated was the dread of David's activity and courage, even in this dechne of his fortunes, that such a 280 THE KING REACHES A PLACE OF SAFETr. counsel should have swayed the mind of the rebel Prince. It ■was urged with all the force of Eastern poetry. The she-bear in the open field robbed of her whelps, the wild boar in the Jordan valley, would not be fiercer than the old King and- his faithful followers. David, as of old, would be concealed in some deep cave, or on some inaccessible hill, and all pursuit would be as vain as that of Saul on the crags of Engedi. An army- must be got together capable of submerging him as in a shower of dew, or of dragging the fortress in which he may have been entrenched, stone by stone, into the valley. Absa- lom gave way to the false counselor, and Hushai immediately sent off his emissaries to David. Near, if not close under- neath the eastern walls of Jerusalem, was a spring, known as the ' fullers' spring,' where the two sons of Zadok and Abiathar lay ensconced, waiting for their orders for the King. Thither, like the women at Jerusalem now, came, probably as if to wash or to draw water, the female slave of their fathers' house, with the secret tidings which they were to convey, urging the King to immediate flight. They crossed as fast as their swift feet could carry them over Mount Olivet. Ab- salom had already caught scent of them, and his runners were hard upon their track. Aside, even into the village of Bahu- rim, the hostile village of Shimei and Phaltiel, they darted. In it was a friendly house which they sought. In its court, they climbed down a well, over the mouth of which their host's wife spread a cloth with a heap of corn, and with an equivocal reply turned aside the pursuers. The youths hasted on down the pass, woke up the King from his sleep, called upon him to cross ' the water,' and before the break of day, the whole party were in safety on the farther side. It has been conjectured with much probability that as the first sleep of that evening was commemorated in the fourth Psalm, so in the third is expressed the feeling of David's thank- fulness at the final close of those twenty-four hours of which every detail has been handed down, as if with the conscious- ness of their importance at the time. He had 'laid him down FATE OP AHITHOPHEL. 281 in peace ' that night ' and slept ;' for in that great defection of man, 'the Lord alone had caused him to dwell in safety. He had laid down and slept and awaked, for the Lord 'had sus- tained him.' The tradition of the Septuagint ascribes the one hundred and forty-third Psalm to the time ' when his son was pursuing him.' Some at least of its contents might well belong to that night. 'Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight shall no man living be justi- fied.' 'Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust : cause me to know the way wherein I should walk ; for I lift up my soul unto thee.' There is another group of Psalms — the forty-first, fifty- fifth, sixty-ninth, and one hundred and ninth — in which a long popular belief has seen an amplification of David's bit- ter cry, ' O Lord, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolish- ness.' Many of the circumstances agree. The dreadful im- precations in those Psalms — unequalled for vehemence in any other part of the sacred writings — correspond with the passion of David's own expressions. The greatness, too, of Ahitho- phel himself in the history is worthy of the importance as- cribed to the object of those awful maledictions. That orac- ular wisdom, which made his house a kind of shrine, seems to move the spirit of the sacred writer with an involuntary ad- miration. Everywhere he is treated with a touch of awful reverence. When he dies, the interest of the plot ceases, and his death is given with a stately grandeur, quite unlike the mixture of the terrible and the contemptible which has some- times gathered round the end of those whom the religious sentiment of mankind has placed under its ban. ' When he saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass' — the ass, on which he, like all the magnates of Israel except the royal family, made his journeys, — he mounted the south- ern hills, in which his native city lay — ' and put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried,' not like an excommunicated outcast, but like a venerable Patri- arch, ' in the sepulchre of his father.' 282 SECUKITY OF DAVID. With the close of that eventful day, a cloud rests on the subsequent history of the rebellion. Por three months longer it seems to have lasted. Absalom was formally anointed King. Amasa — his cousin, but by his father's side of wild Arabian Ijlood — took the command of the army, which, according to Hushai's counsel, had been raised from the whole country, and with this he crossed the Jordan in pursuit of the King. David meantime was secure in the fortress of Mahanaim, the ancient trans-jordanic sanctuary, which had formerly shel- tered the rival house of Saul. Three potentates of that pas- toral district came forward at once to his support. Shobi, the son of David's ancient friend Nahash, King of Ammon, perhaps put by David in his brother Hanun's place ; Machir, the son of Ammiel, the former protector of Mephibosheth ; BarzUlai, an aged chief of vast wealth and influence, perhaps the father of Adriel, the husband of Merab. Their connec- tion with David's enemies, whether of the house of Saul or of Ammon, was overbalanced by earlier alliances with David, or by their respect for himself personally. They brought, with the profuse liberality of Arabs, the butter, cheese, wheat, barley, flour, parched corn, beans, lentiles, pulse, honey, sheep, with which the forests and pastures of Gilead abounded, and on which the historian dwells as if he had been himself one of ' the hungry and weary and thirsty ' who had revelled in the delightful stores thus placed before them. ' The fearful- ness and trembling' which had been upon David were now over. He had fled ' on the wings of a dove far away into the wilderness,' and was at rest. His spmt revived within him. He arranged his army into three divisions. Joab and Abishai commanded two. The third, where we might have expected to find Benaiah, was under the faithful Ittai. For a mo- ment, the King wished to place himself at their head. But his life was worth ' ten thousand men,' and he accordingly remained behind in the fortress. The first battle took place in the ' forest of Ephraim.' The exact spot of the conflict, the origin of the name, so strange on the east of the Jordan, DEATH OF ABSALOM. 283 the details of the engagement, are alike unknown. We see only the close, which has evidently been preserved from the mournfid interest which it awakened in the national mind. In the interlacing thickets, so unusual on the west of the Jordan, so abundant on the east, which the Ammonite wars had made familiar to David's veterans, the host of Absalom lost its way. Absalom riding at full speed on his royal mule, suddenly met a detachment of David's army, and darting aside through the wood, was caught by "the head — possibly entangled by his long hair — between the thick boughs of an overhanging tree, known by the name of ' The Great Tere- binth,' swept off the animal, and there remained suspended. None of the ordinary soldiers ventured to attack the helpless Prince. Joab alone took upon himself the responsibility of breaking David's orders. He and his ten attendants formed a circle round the gigantic tree, enclosing its precious victim, and first by his three pikes, then by their swords, accom- plished the bloody work. Hard by was a well-known ditch or pit, of vast dimensions. Into this the corpse was thrown, and covered by a huge mound of stones. Mussulman legends represent hell as yawning at the moment of his death beneath the feet of the unhappy Prince. The modern Jews, as they pass the monument in the valley of the Kidron, to which they have given his name, have buried its sides deep in the stones which they throw against it in execration. Au- gustine dooms him to perdition, as a type of the Donatists. But the sacred writer is moved only to deep compassion. The thought of that sad death of the childless Prince, of the desolate cairn in the forest instead of the honored grave that he had designed for himself in the King's dale, — probably beside his beloved sheep-walks on the hills of Ephraim, — blots out the remembrance of the treason and rebellion, and every detail is given to enhance the pathos of the scene which follows. The King sate waiting for tidings between the two gates which connected the double city of the ' Two Camps ' of Ma- 284 EFFECT OF ABSALOM'S DEATH ON DAVID. hanaim. In the tower above the gates, as afterwards at Jez- reel, stood a watchman, to give notice of what he saw. Two messengers, each endeavoring to outstrip the other, were seen running from the forest. The first who arrived was Ahimaaz, the fleet son of Zadok, whose peculiar mode of running was known far and wide through the country. He had been in- structed by Joab not to make himself the bearer of tidings so mournful, and — eager as he had been to fulfil his character of a good messenger, and dexterously as he had outstripped his forerunner by the choice of his route — when it came to the point his heart failed, and he spoke only of the strange con- fusion in which he had left the army. At this moment the other messenger, a stranger, — probably an Ethiopian slave, perhaps one of Joab's ten attendants, — ^burst in, and abruptly revealed the fatal news. The passionate burst of grief which followed is one ot the best proofs of the deep and genuine affection of David's character. He rushed into the watch- man's chamber over the gateway, and eight times over re- peated the wail of grief for Absalom his son. It was the belief of the more merciful of the Jewish doctors that at each cry, one of the seven gates of hell rolled back, and that with the eighth, the lost, spirit of Absalom was received into the place of Paradise. It was a sorrow which did not confine itself to words. He could not forget the hand which had slain his son. The immediate effect of his indignation was a solemn vow to supersede Joab by Amasa, and in this was laid the last- ing breach between himself and his nephew, which neither the one nor the other ever forgave. The memorial of his grief was the response which it awakened in the heart of his sub- jects, — the lament over the winning and beautiful creature, whose charm outlived the shock even of ungrateful, ungener- ous, and unsuccessful rebellion. But stronger even, than his tenderness for Absalom, was the love of David for his people, and of his people for David. He acknowledged the force of Joab's entreaty to show himself once more in public. He sent to Jerusalem to invoke the ABSALOM'S TOMB. B»;:t by Herod the Great, but bearing the name of Absalom and an object of special execration =«""n« tV J'-s. 286 DAVID'S EESTOEATION. sympathy of his native tribe through the two chief Priests. He came down from the eastern hills to the banks of the Jordan. A ferry-boat, or a bridge of boats, was in readiness to convey the King across the river. On that bridge, fore- most in his professions of loyalty, was the savage Shimei of Bahiirim, ' first of the house of Joseph,' grovelling in peni- tence, and there, in spite of Abishai's ever-recurring anger, won from David the oath of protection, which, in word at least, the King kept sacred to the end of his life. Next came the unfortunate Mephibosheth, squalid with the squalor of his • untrimmed moustache, his clothes unwashed, his nails un- pared, his long hair flowing unshorn, and his lame feet un- tended, since he had wrapt himself in deep mourning on the day of his benefactor's fall. By the judgment — fau' or unfair — between him and Ziba, was concluded the final amnesty with the house of Saul. There, as he turned away from the wild and hospitable chiefs who had befriended him in his exile, the King parted reluctantly from the aged Gileadite Barzillai, whom he vainly tried to tempt from his native forests to the business and the pleasures of the court of Jerusalem. Chim- ham the son of Barzillai took his father's place, and, with hh descendants, long remained in Western Palestine a witness of the loyalty of the Eastern tribes. On the other side the river stood in order the chiefs of Judah, summoned by Zadok and Abiathar, to welcome back the ' flesh of their flesh and bone of their bones,' whom they had basely deserted. With them, the King entered his capital, and the Restoration of David was accomplished." CHAPTER XX. CLOSING EVENTS OF DAVID'S REIGN — PREPARATIONS FOR THE TEMPLE. Two Minor Rebellions — David Falls into the Usual Ways of an Oriental Despot — Introduction of a Strict Military Discipline — Heavy Taxes Laid on the People — The King's Favorites — Popular Discontent — Sheba's Rebellion — . The Conscription under Joab — The Penalty Laid on David — Pestilence — Its Limits — The Threshing-floor of Araunah — Mount Moriah — David's Pur- chase — Its Consecration to a New Use — The Present Aspect of that Thresh- ing-floor — Mosque of Omar — Access to it — The Cavern Beneath the Dome — Adonijah's Rebellion — David an Old Man — The Royal Succesaion — Death of David — His Burial — His Sepulchre. j HE close of David's reign was embittered by two other rebellions, neither of them to be compared with that of Absalom, yet both of them formidable, and indicative of the relaxed hold of the King upon the affec- tions of his subjects. There are hints enough in both 11. Samuel and I. Chronicles, that David in his old age adopted many of the habits and customs of oriental princes in general ; that the people were no longer permitted to live in a state of tranquillity and pursue the avocations of simple pastoral life ; that heavy taxes were laid upon them ; that a strict mili- tary discipline was introduced, and the condition of the inhab- itants of the remote country towns and villages was but little removed from an estate of servitude. The King was sur- rounded by favorites who drank up the hard won earnings of the people like water ; and the capital was no doubt the reser- voir, always filling up, but never full, whither all the resources of the land were flowing. Out of such a state of things dis- content must have sprung, and David must have been greatly 288 PRErARATION FOR A CONSCRIPTION. changed from the simple Shepherd King, before even as at-| tractive a personage as Absalom, could have stolen the hearts] of the people so quickly. It probably grew worse and worse, because even this undescribed Sheba, of whom we merelj know that he was the son of Bichri, drew the whole nation" to him at once. His journey northward from Jerusalem to Abel, under the shadow of Hermon and close to the springs of the Jordan, was like a conqueror's ovation. Under the stern hand of Joab, the passing rebellion was at once crushed, and the head of the leader brought back in triumph to the capital. No one thing shows the growth of the despotic spirit in the heart of David more than the numbering of the people by Joab. It is evident that this was not a census ; it was not taken, as the census had previously been, by the priests, but by a military commission, of which Joab was the head. It was probably to be followed by a conscription and the en- rolling of a standing army, a measure absolutely forbidden, tiot only by the spirit but by the letter of the Mosaic code. But the spirit of Joab, stern and even cruel as he was by nature, was in this thing more loyal to God than was David. He did not dare to refuse to obey, but he carried the King's command into effect very unwillingly, and even went so far as to entirely pass by two conspicuous tribes, and not to enroll those who were under twenty years of age. The re- sult of the enrollment, (which was effected in nine months and twenty days,) is given differently in II. Samuel and I. Chronicles, but taking the smallest estimate, it is clear that David was lord of a mighty domain. The course of Joab is given in the record ; and we can clearly trace him, beginning at Aroer in Moab, east of the Jordan, and then passing northward through the hills of Gilead, westward across the country near the sources of the Jordan, up to the Coele Syrian valley, and thence southward till he reached Beersheba. But no sooner was the result ascertained and made known to the King, when his faithful chaplain, the oft-mentioned Gad, charged his fault upon him, and threat- DAVID S CHOICE OF A PENALTY. 289 ened him with his well deserved penalty. David was to choose between three years of famine, three months of de- feat at the hands of his enemies, and three days of pesti- lence. He seems to have feared the second condition more than the first or third, and under that feeling to have uttered his oft quoted words, " I am in a great strait ; let us fall now into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great ; and let me not fall into the hands of man." The evil which did be- fall him was a grievous pestilence which did not cease its A,NC[ENT COINS. Such as those paid by David to Araunah. (See also p. 324 — 327.) ravages till it had carried away seventy thousand men. It did not enter the city however, but was stayed just on the edge, after advancing as far as the hill of Moriah, east of Mt. Zion, and separated from it by a valley afterwards known as the Tyropoean or the Yale of the Cheesemongers. This hill, anciently consecrated by the attempted sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, was then in the possession of the Jebusites and their King Araanah, or Oman. This chieftain, while acknowl- 290 PURCHASE OF ARAUNAH's THRESHING-FLOOR. edging himself a vassal of David, lived on excellent terms with his master, and showed a fine spirit of kindness and loyalty in the transaction which has made his name immortal. The plague was stayed close by the threshing-floor of Araunah, on the summit of Mount Moriah. This threshing-floor was not made of clay or hard baked soil thrown up in a gentle mound, as was and still is often the case in Palestine, but was of rock, slightly smoothed down and left in a convex form, rising above the neighboring earth. Near it or under it was a cave in which Araunah used to deposit the grain after it had been SHEKELS. • threshed out from the straw. David, with that fine mingling of courtesy and religion which characterized him, while anxious to secure this threshing-floor to build an altar on, was unwilling to accept it as a gift, and paid for it a sum, which although dif- ferently told in II. Samuel and I. Chronicles was clearly a good, round sum. On that threshing-floor David erected his altar, and sacrificed to God in commemoration of the close of the pesti- lence ; and the spot was so naturally adapted to religious uses, that Solomon erected his temple upon and around this same THE TEMPLES BUILT UPON IT. 291 threshing-floor, and placed the great altar just where David had set his. The cavern underneath, where Araunah, the politic Jebusite chief had deposited his grain, was transformed into a conduit for conveying away the blood of the sacrifices, and an outlet was excavated which led down to one of the deep ravines which surround Jerusalem. After Solomon's temple had passed away, Zerubbabel erected his temple on the same spot; subsequently Herod reared his magnifi- cent structure on the same site ; afterwards Omar erected the noble mosque which bears his name, over the ancient thresh- ing-floor of Araunah , and beneath that beautiful dome which appears in every view of Jerusalem, and which is familiar to almost every child in this country, there can still be seen the ancient stone, little changed in all proba- bility, from the form which it bore in the time of Arau- nah and David. It is now surrounded by a strong iron fence ; and no Chris- tian is permitted to do more than reach through the hand and touch it. Even the Jews, who have the deepest interest in it, can do no more than Chris- tians ; and it is one of the latest results of English power and diplomacy, that even this boon has been granted to any but Mahometans. Down to the time of the Prince of Wales' visit to Palestine, the noble building, the Dome of the Rock (Kub- PIECES OF SILVER, HALF SHEKELS. 292 THE THRESHING-FLOOR AS IT NOW IS. bit es Sakrah) was absolutely closed to Europeans : from the crest of Olivet people were allowed to look down upon it, and admire the beautiful pavement ; but the half concealed dag- gers of the swarthy and scowling guard at the gates, hinted very plainly at the fate which would meet any one who should attempt to enter without professing the Moslem faith. But since the triumph of General Bruce's diplomacy, and the en- trance of the Prince of Wales' party, there has been no diffi- culty, and now the payment of an English sovereign (five dollars) will secure entrance for any well-dressed Christian. It is one of the most interesting spots in the Holy Land ; and what is remarkable, it is equally hallowed in the eyes of Ma- hometan, Jew and Christian. It is about sixty feet by forty, and rises in a mound-like form above the marble pavement. At the edge it is about a foot above the surrounding-floor ; in the middle it is about five feet above the pavement. Over it is the beautiful dome which is so conspicuous in all views of Jerusalem, and through thousands upon thousands of panes of brilliantly colored glass, the light breaks upon the rough, plain, and ancient threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite. One can go down into the cavern beneath it ; and a country- man of ours. Dr. Barclay, has crawled through the conduit and found that it led him to the Fountain of the Virgin in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The revolt of Adonijah never arose to the dignity of Absa- lom's, or even Sheba's rebellion. He was the oldest surviving son of David, a man of fine presence and of an ambitious nature. He was aided by the invaluable alliance of Joab and Abiathar, the high priest. Why Joab deserted his master at last, is not told : but I can not help thinking that at last the King's military and despotic tendencies had gone too far for even the loyal and well tried Joab, and drove even him into the service of the son. Besides, David was now an old man, and would not long hold out; the question of a successor could not be greatly deferred, and it seems probable that Joab wished to cast the scale in favor of Adonijah, and against 18 294 THE DEATH OF DAVID. the youthful and aspiring Solomon, by throwing his own in- fluence in favor of the former. But Nathan was siill faithful to the King, and Batlisheba, a pushing, crafty, and aspiring woman, under the influence, also, of fear that in case of Adonijah's success, both she and her son would be put to death, joined with Nathan in endeavoring to get the move on Adonijah, and have Solomon made king. The thing was laid before David in a shrewd manner, and the King showed a vigor and decision worthy of his best days. The proclama- tion of Solomon down in the valley of Gihon, brought the ambitious project of Adonijah to grief, and placed Solomon without a rival at the head of the kingdom. The death of David followed shortly after. The old King passed away at the age of seventy, completely worn out. The decrepitude of his last years is clearly hinted at in the opening of I. Kings, yet his closing words, are full of his old power, trust in God and deep feeling. We have as the rec- ord of his spiritual activity at that time, the glorious strain recorded in II. Samuel, chapter twenty-second, and repeated almost word for word in the eighteenth Psalm ; one of the no- blest poems in the world. The brief parting strain in II. Samuel, twenty-third chapter, is very beautiful, tender and thoughtful, and blends together well the lofty aspirations and the imperfect attainment of David's character. The seventy- second Psalm, which is declared to be the last that David wrote, is one of the finest, if not the very finest of all the Psalms, and shows that his poetic fire was unquenched to the last. Yet more tender and touching are the words recorded in the closing chapters of I. Chronicles, in -which David addresses his son Solomon, and prays for his weal ; and even those who are not sensible of the grandeur of the eighteenth and seventy-second Psalms, can not fail to be struck by the pathos and beauty of his parting words to Solomon. David was buried in the very city which he had conquered and re-erected ; on the summit of Mt. Zion. The tomb, which was also the resting-place of Solomon and several subsequent HIS BUKIAL-PLACE. 295 kings, was in perfect condition in New Testament times, and is referred to by the apostle Peter. Its site is still pointed out, on the southern part of Mt. Zion, outside of the modern wall of the city, and in close proximity to the Armenian, the English, and the American burying-ground. The room over the reputed tomb of David is of great antiquity ; and an old tradition asserts that in it the Apostles met and celebrated tjie Lord's Supper ; hence the name of the room, the Coenaou- lum ; hence also, the old name of the whole building, the Church of the Apostles. There seems to be but little doubt that in a cavern beneath that ancient Christian church, lie the remains of David. It is ardently to be wished that in our day thorough investigations might be made there, and that we might learn whether the mighty founder of Jerusalem lies just there or not. There is not the slightest doubt that a thorough search would bring to light the tombs of the kings ; for the so-called " Tombs of the Kings " lying a mile or so north of the city, are known to be of comparatively modern date. CHAPTER XXI. SOLOMON'S CHARACTER AND EARLIER ACTS. The Reign of Solomon a Contrast to that of David — Change in the Public Tastes — Not Much of Shepherd Life Left in the Royal Home — David's Pal- ace a Simple House Judged by Solomon's Stan