PHYSICAL MAP of PALESTINE
[Authorities and Sources:—“Tent Work in Palestine.” Major Conder, R. E. “Twenty-one Years’ Work in the Holy Land.” P. E. Fund. “Quarterly Statements of the P. E. Fund.”]
8. Israel’s Wars and Worship, considered in connection with the Physical Features of the Country.
The Wars.
Now that we possess a detailed and accurate map of the Holy Land we are in a position to study with advantage the conquest of the country by Joshua, and to appreciate the motives of strategy and policy displayed in the successive phases of Israel’s wars and worship.
The twelve tribes, coming out of the wilderness, encamped in the Plain of the Jordan, opposite Jericho. While they rested there, Balak, king of Moab, alarmed by their numbers, and uncertain as to their intentions, sent to Mesopotamia for Balaam, to come and curse them. Balaam ascended Mount Peor (sacred to Baal Peor, i.e., Baal the Opener) and was constrained to bless them, and speak of them as “a people that dwell alone—not reckoned among the nations” (Num. xxiii. 9).
Under Moses the Israelites conquered the country east of Jordan. The gorge of the Arnon, 2000 feet deep, and with almost perpendicular sides, was a natural boundary for the Moabites. Sometimes, indeed, they possessed territory north of it; but since it would take a traveller several hours to cross at the easiest parts, it was a natural boundary. The district between the Arnon and the Jabbok, Moses wrested from Sihon, king of Heshbon. And then, with the aid of the Ammonites, he conquered the country north of the Jabbok, from Og, the king of Bashan. These lands were not divided among all the tribes of Israel, but were given to Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh as their portion, for it was planned and intended that the country west of the Jordan should be conquered and given to the rest.
The country west of Jordan was occupied by the Amorites and the Canaanites—that is, as some suppose, by the Highlanders of the central hills, and the Lowlanders of the plains around. But these peoples appear to have been subdivided, so that, together with the tribes of the Lebanon, we read of the Jebusite and the Girgashite, the Hivite, the Arkite, and the Sinite, the Arvadite, the Zemarite and the Hamathite, as well as Zidon and Heth (Gen. x. 15); and, in another place, of the Kenite, the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, and the Rephaim (Gen. xv. 19). Of all these “nations” we are told by St Paul that seven were eventually destroyed, and Israel received their land for an inheritance (Acts xiii. 19).
It was not the object of Joshua in the first place to conquer the “nations” in the plains, but rather those in the hills. It is true that the hills were comparatively barren and infertile, while the plains were exceedingly fruitful; but the hill country offered counter-balancing advantages. Compared with the Egyptians, who sometimes invaded Syria, the Israelites were small and weak, and their greatest security would be in the hill fastnesses. More immediately also, they have to consider that they are but a nation of foot soldiers, while the Canaanites of the plains possess chariots and horses. In any case, if they can once gain possession of the hills, it may be easier thence to conquer the plains at their leisure, than it would be for them by-and-bye to conquer the hills, with the plains as their base of operations.
They approach the river opposite Jericho, and prepare to cross. The spot is very well known, and it is where the pilgrims now go to bathe. At this part the Jordan is ordinarily a brown, rapid, swirling stream, some 20 yards across, fringed with a jungle of tamarisk, cane, and willow, in which the leopard and the wolf find their hiding place. The stream often runs low and is easily fordable in two or three places hereabout. When we remember that the spies sent by Joshua had crossed and recrossed without difficulty a few days before, we might suppose that Joshua intended to march the entire army over at the fording places, at low water, were we not told that at this season the Jordan overflowed all its banks, it being the time of barley harvest. The Jordan, it is recorded, was divided—“The waters which came down from above stood and rose up in one heap a great way off from Adam, the city which is beside Zarethan: and those that went down toward the Sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, were wholly cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho” (Josh. iii. 16). Major Conder has discovered the name Zarethan, still in use, applied to a district 3 miles west of Bethshan; and on examining the gorge of the Jordan at this part, a good way north of “Admah” or Damieh, he found that the lower cliffs approach in places so close to one another that a very little would dam up the river. In that event, in place of a shallow stream some 20 yards across, a lake would be formed nearly a mile in width, and the waters would have to rise to a height of 50 feet before they overflowed the barrier and descended again to the south. But whether in this way the bed of the Jordan was rendered dry while the Israelites passed over, is a question upon which, of course, opinions will differ.
When the tribes are safely across they encamp at a place called Gilgal.
An important success in the way of identifying Scripture sites has been the recovery of Gilgal. Robinson had heard the name Jiljûlieh, but had not been able to fix the site. In 1865 a German traveller (Herr Schokke), more fortunate, was shown the place, at a mound about a mile east of the modern Jericho; and Major Conder succeeded in fixing the spot. Just west of the ruins grows a magnificent old tamarisk tree, conspicuous from a distance. South-east of the tamarisk is an oblong tank, measuring about 100 feet by 80 feet; and near this about a dozen small mounds. The mounds are called Telleilât Jiljûlieh (the little hillocks of Gilgal), and the tank is named Birket Jiljûlieh (the Pool of Gilgal). “The Bedawin of the district,” says Conder, “have a well-known tradition regarding the site of Jiljûlieh. Over the coffee and pipes in the evening, after the day’s work was done, they related it to us. By the old tamarisk once stood the City of Brass, which was inhabited by Pagans. When Mohammed’s creed began to spread, Aly, his son-in-law, ‘the lion of God,’ arrived at the city, and rode seven times round it on his horse Maimûn. The brazen walls fell down, destroyed by his breath, and the Pagans fled, pursued by the Faithful toward Kŭrŭntŭl; but the day drew to a close, and darkness threatened to shield the infidels. Then Aly, standing on the hill which lies due east of the Kŭrŭntŭl crag, called out to the sun, ‘Come back, O blessed one!’ And the sun returned in heaven, so that the hill has ever since been called ‘the Ridge of the return.’ Here stands the Mukâm, or sacred station of Aly, and here also is the place where Belâl ibn Rubâh, the Muedhen of the Prophet, called the Faithful to prayer after the victory.”
Such is the legend, in which we see the fall of Jericho mixed up with the battle of Aijalon, and assigned to Mohammedan heroes instead of to Joshua.
Quite apart from the facilities of a ford, there was a good reason why the Israelites should cross the Jordan where they did. The hill country of Western Palestine is much broken by gorges, which serve not only as torrent beds after the rains, but as passes to the central plateau. The principal pass is by that great gorge, the continuation of the Wady Kelt, which runs to the north of Jericho and up to Ai and Bethel. Joshua intends to ascend by this pass. But there is an obstacle in the way. Just at the foot of the hills—where the springs issue forth and make a beautiful oasis—is the city of Jericho, “walled up to heaven.” This is the key to the pass, and it would be bad generalship to rush past the place and leave it in the rear. So Jericho, “the city of palm trees,” was besieged and taken.
Modern Jericho is not a city of palm trees, but a very poor village, of mud huts and black tents, standing amid low vineyards. For the convenience of travellers, indeed, an excellent hotel has lately been opened—the “Jordan Hotel”—but the proprietor has been disappointed in his neighbours; the peasantry will not do a good day’s work for good wages, he cannot even get fruit and garden stuff from them, and every requisite has to be brought down from Jerusalem.
The site of Jericho has shifted considerably since Scripture times, for the Bible city was near the Sultan’s Spring—Elisha’s Fountain—at the foot of the pass, the only natural position, whereas the present village is at a distance from the spring. Some Russian excavations in the neighbourhood have brought to light shafts, columns, and lintels, lamps, jars, rings, and weapons, some indication of former splendour.
The next city in the way of the invaders was Ai. We learn from the narrative that Ai had Bethel on the west of it, and a plain in the front or on the east, while there was a valley on the north side, and low ground on the west between Ai and Bethel. With these particulars it should be possible to identify the site. Sir Charles Wilson examined the district in 1865, and confirmed the opinion of Rev. Canon Williams that there is only one spot which answers to the description. “The description applies in a very complete manner” (says Conder) “to the neighbourhood of the modern village of Deir Diwan, and there are here remains of a large ancient town, bearing the name Haiyan, which approaches closely to Aina, the form under which Ai appears in the writings of Josephus. Rock-cut tombs and ancient cisterns, with three great reservoirs cut in the hard limestone, are sufficient to show this to have been a position of importance. To the west is an open valley called ‘Valley of the City,’ which, gradually curving round eastward, runs close to the old road from Jericho by which Joshua’s army would probably advance. To the north of the site there is also a great valley, and the plain or plateau on which the modern village stands, close to the old site, expands from a narrow and rugged pass leading up towards Bethel, which is 2 miles distant on the watershed.”
Ascending from Jericho the path at one point enters upon the plain in front of Ai, so that no army on its way to Bethel could afford to leave Ai behind. Joshua took the city by stratagem, and we can see every step of the proceeding. Marching troops up the northern valley, he placed an ambush in the depression west of the city. The main body of his troops attacked in front and presently feigned a retreat, drawing the men of Ai after them till the city was empty. Then, at a given signal from Joshua—who had posted himself on the hills to the north and could be seen by both sections of his army—the ambush rose up and fired the city, the men retreating turned back to fight, and the men of Ai, caught “between two fires,” became utterly demoralised.
Bethel itself is now called Beitin. The site is known but with the exception of a church of crusading date, and a tower, there are no ruins of any importance. On a hill to the east is a stone circle, consisting of large and small boulders.
After the victory at Ai a rapid march was made to Shechem, where, upon the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim, the tribes assembled to hear the reading of the Law and to pronounce their “amens” after the blessings and the curses. It has been questioned whether they could hear one another at the distance apart of these two mountain tops; but they would hardly be on the mountain summits, for there is a natural recess in the hills, with natural benches in the limestone rock, an amphitheatre which might seem to have been formed for the purpose. Modern travellers have stood in the midst of that valley and heard their companions on either side reading the Law, and they assure us that those who were reading could hear one another’s voices with sufficient distinctness to take up the verse, each where the other left off.
Shechem is now called Nablous—a corruption of the Roman Neapolis, by which name it was rebaptized—and is a considerable city. The Samaritans, now reduced in numbers to about one hundred and sixty individuals, all told, live in this city, and none are found elsewhere. In their synagogue they preserve several old copies of the Pentateuch, and one of them, which is kept in a silver case and jealously guarded, they declare to have been written by Abishua, the great-grandson of Aaron. On a stone built into a tower near the synagogue is an inscription—the oldest known in the Samaritan character—which it was formerly impossible to read, because the inscription is upside down in its place, and the investigator had to dangle on a rope and hold his head downwards. But here we see the advantage of photography: the picture was obtained in the camera, and the inscription when turned right way up was seen to be the Samaritan version of the Ten Commandments.
After the solemn ceremony of reading the Law at Shechem the Israelites under Joshua returned to the camp at Gilgal. But by this time the news of their victories had spread, the neighbouring cities became alarmed, and all the kings throughout an extensive district gathered together to fight against them. Meantime the wily Gibeonites, wearing “old shoes and clouted,” and pretending to be ambassadors from a far country, came to Joshua and succeeded in making a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive. After three days the deception was found out; but it was held that the covenant must be kept, and when the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon—“the five kings of the Amorites”—went and encamped against Gibeon, Joshua went up from Gilgal all the night to raise the siege. He came upon them suddenly, and a terrible battle took place, which deserves to rank among the decisive battles of the world. The conflict raged before Gibeon, and the defeated kings were pursued, with continued slaughter, to higher ground (the ascent of Beth-horon) and then to lower ground (the going down of Beth-horon), as they vainly sought to escape down the Valley of Aijalon into the Plain of Philistia. According to the poetical book of Jasher,[17] quoted by the historian, “the sun stood still upon Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Aijalon,” and lengthened out the day until Joshua had defeated his foes utterly. The five kings were found hidden in a cave at Makkedah, and were imprisoned there till the pursuit was over and Joshua had leisure to decide their fate.
Makkedah has been identified by Colonel Sir C. Warren as being El Mughar—“the cave”—a little south-west of Ekron. Conder tells us that this is a remarkable place, and one of the most conspicuous sites in the plain. A promontory of brown sandy rock juts out southwards, and at the end is the village climbing up the hill-side. The huts are of mud, and stand in many cases in front of caves; and from these caves the modern name is derived. It is worthy of notice, he says, that this is the only village in the Philistine plain at which he found such caves.
Joshua made his victory complete, by overthrowing Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, and other cities in succession, “utterly destroying all that breathed,” until the centre and the south of the hill country were altogether in his power.
In the spring of 1890, a firman having been obtained, Mr Flinders Petrie went to excavate at Umm Lakis and Ajlan, the supposed sites of Lachish and Eglon, two of the five strongholds of the Amorites (Josh. x. 5). As soon as he arrived and could examine the ground, he saw, from his Egyptian experience, that the two sites named were only of Roman age and unimportant; while Tell Hesy and Nejileh in the same neighbourhood promised better results. Tell Hesy is a mound of ruins 60 feet high and about 200 feet square, and one side of it has been washed away by the stream, so that a clear section is afforded from top to base. The generally early age of it was evident from the fact that nothing later than good Greek pottery was found at the top of it, while near the middle, and from that to three-quarters of the height, was found Phœnician ware, which is known in Egypt to date from 1100 B.C. The foundation seems to date from about 1500 B.C., agreeing nearly with the beginning of the Egyptian raids under Thothmes I.
The actual remains of Tell Hesy consist of a mound which is formed of successive towns, one on the ruins of another, and an enclosure taking in an area to the south and west of it. This enclosure is nearly a quarter of a mile across in each direction, and is bounded by a clay rampart still 7 feet high in parts, and in one place by a brick wall. This area of about 30 acres would suffice to take in a large quantity of cattle in case of a sudden invasion; and such was probably its purpose, as no buildings are found in it, and there is but little depth of soil. The city mound is about 200 feet square, and rests on natural ground 45 to 58 feet above the stream in the wady below. The earliest town here was of great strength and importance, the lowest wall of all being 28 feet 8 inches thick, of clay bricks, unburnt; and over this are two successive patchings of later rebuilding, altogether 21 feet of height remaining. “Such massive work” (says Mr Petrie) “was certainly not that of the oppressed Israelites during the time of the Judges; it cannot be as late as the Kings, since the pottery of about 1100 B.C. is found above its level. It must, therefore, be the Amorite city, and agrees with the account that ‘the cities were walled and very great’ (Num. xiii. 28), ‘great and walled up to heaven’ (Deut. i. 28), and also with the sculptures of the conquests of Rameses II. at Karnak, where the Amorite cities are all massively fortified.”
Mr Petrie feels little doubt that Tell Hesy is Lachish and Tell Nejileh, 6 miles south of it, Eglon. There are no sites in the country around so suited to the importance of Lachish and Eglon as these two tells; they command the only springs and water-course which exist in the whole district, and it is certain that the positions must have been of first-rate importance from the time of the earliest settlements.
Above the Amorite wall at Tell Hesy Mr Petrie finds 5 feet of dust and rolled stones corresponding to the barbaric period of the Judges; then a wall 13 feet thick, probably belonging to Rehoboam’s fortifications of Lachish (2 Chron. xi. 9), and above this successive rebuildings until the city is finally destroyed about 500 B. C. The mound is full of potsherds, and the good fortune of such a grand section as that of the east face from top to bottom, affords at one stroke a series of all the varieties of pottery extending through a thousand years. “We now know for certain,” Mr Petrie says, “the characteristics of Amorite pottery, of earlier Jewish, and later Jewish influenced by Greek trade, and we can trace the importation and the influence of Phœnician pottery. In future all the tells and ruins of the country will at once reveal their age by the potsherds which cover them.”
Lachish, with its wall 28 feet in thickness, is a specimen of the Amorite cities which Joshua overthrew in the south.
But now the kings of the north are alarmed, and Jabin king of Hazor gathers together the tribes of the Lebanon. He calls to his assistance the kings of the Jordan Valley, the kings of the Sharon Plain, with the Jebusites and all who are willing to come. The battle takes place near the Waters of Merom. The Canaanites are furnished with chariots and horses, and the Israelites, being without such helps, are prudently posted on the hills. We read that Joshua “fell upon” the foe, down the slopes, and drove them before him, on the west as far as to Zidon, and on the east to the valley of Mizpeh: he burned their chariots, hamstrung their horses, and again “left none remaining.” So now the north as well as the south of the hill country is subdued; Joshua settles four tribes in these northern districts, and the Sea of Galilee becomes a Hebrew lake.
There is no need any more to come back all the way to Gilgal, for no foe is left to dispute their occupation anywhere, and the armies only return as far as Shiloh, in the centre of the hills, and there set up “the Tent of Meeting.” Nor is there need any longer to detain the two and a half tribes from the east of Jordan who have come across to assist in the conquest. So the soldiers of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh are sent back to their homes. “And when they came to the region about Jordan that is in the land of Canaan” they built there an altar—“a great altar to see to,” and which was afterwards called “Ed” or Witness. Their brethren were so indignant at this action—regarding it as heathen worship, and rebellion against the God of Israel—that they thought of going to war against them. However, they prudently sent envoys to demand an explanation, and the explanation was perfectly satisfactory.
Where was this altar of Ed, so conspicuous from afar? If we stand in the Jordan Valley near Jericho, and look northwards, we cannot fail to see, at a distance of 20 miles, a conical peak called Kurn Surtabeh, standing out like a bastion at the eastern end of a chain of blue hills. This peak is 1500 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, and 2500 feet above the Jordan, near to it. From the top of it one may see the Dead Sea to the south, the Sea of Galilee to the north, the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim in the centre. According to the Jewish Talmud this mountain was a beacon station, where the fires were lighted, in connection with fires on the Mount of Olives, to signify the advent of the new moon. Conder, some years ago, pointed out that this mountain would be in the path which the two and a half tribes should naturally take in going from Shiloh to their home in Gilead, the fords of the Jordan being a little way north of it. On the top of this almost inaccessible peak he found some huge masonry work of ancient character, which he was inclined at the time to regard as remnants of the altar. And when the identification seemed to be thus nearly complete, it appeared to be confirmed by the discovery that the north side of the mountain, the only accessible side is called “the Ascent of Ed.” But the identification was disputed.
It was pointed out that Josephus says the altar was on the east side of Jordan, and that the Scripture narrative makes the tribes to cross the river at “the passage of the Children of Israel,” which is supposed to describe the Jericho ford and not the ford at Damieh. For these reasons Conder now regards his idea as “only a conjecture.”
It may be reasonably questioned, however, whether the identification should be given up. We are told in Joshua xxii. 10, that the altar, so high to look to, was in “the region about Jordan that is in the land of Canaan”—“in the forefront of the land of Canaan, in the region about Jordan, on the side that pertaineth to the Children of Israel.” The historian takes pains to distinguish between the two sides of the river, and if one side pertained to the Children of Israel more than the other, it was surely not the eastern side. Moreover, the altar was in the land of Canaan, and the eastern boundary of Canaan was the Jordan itself (see Gen. x. 19, and page 107 of this volume). The altar was “in the forefront of the land of Canaan,” at the extreme of its eastern side, and therefore close by the Jordan. The Hebrew faced the rising sun, and spoke of the south as the right hand, the north as the left, so that his forehead or forefront was to the east. It was apparently because the supposed idolatrous altar was set up on territory belonging to the western tribes that those tribes felt so insulted. The east of Jordan was unclean, but the western country was “the possession of the Lord.” “Come across”, they said, “into the Lord’s land, if you will; but if you come, do not build rebel altars” (v. 19). Further, the object of the two and a half tribes, according to their apology and explanation, was to have a memorial in that western land from which the Jordan seemed to cut them off.
Two and a half tribes being settled east of Jordan, three tribes north of the Plain of Esdraelon, and one in the Plain itself, the remainder of the country is divided between the remaining five tribes and a half.
In the Book of Joshua the boundaries of the tribes are given with the greatest minuteness, but it was impossible for us to trace them with any accuracy before the topographical survey was carried out. Many of the villages by which the border lines passed were lost, in some cases the sites were displaced; but as soon as these things were rectified the boundaries could again be drawn.
The blessing which Jacob pronounced upon his sons, according to Gen. xlix., was true to the position of the tribes in their several districts; and their position determined in some degree their conduct and their fortunes. When Joshua dismissed the two and a half tribes, they went away to their tents: living on those green hills east of Jordan, they remained for a long time a pastoral people. Reuben, bordering on Arabia, and being “unstable as water,” became hardly distinguishable from an Arab tribe. Gad, of whom Jacob said, “a troop shall press upon him,” was subject to attacks from troops of Bedouin plunderers. Divided from their brethren by the great gorge of the Jordan, the eastern tribes were separated also in their fortunes. The three northern tribes of Asher, Zebulon, and Naphtali were also partially cut off by the great plain of Esdraelon. They got into communication with the northern nations from whom they were less separated geographically, and they entered into alliance with Phœnicia. Solomon gave away twenty of their cities to Hiram, king of Tyre, apparently thinking that the allegiance which was so nearly gone, might as well be parted with altogether. These northern tribes, like those east of Jordan, seldom came to the assistance of their brethren in any great crisis. When Deborah required help from all quarters she had to complain that Asher “sat still at the haven of the sea,” and Reuben “sat among the sheep-folds, to hear the pipings for the flocks.” In the south—in a country half a desert, the lair of wild beasts—Judah “couched as a lion,” and it was dangerous to rouse him up. Ephraim, the most powerful of the tribes, secured to himself the choicest portion of the hill country. Manasseh, with territory on both sides of the Jordan, was “a fruitful bough by a fountain, whose branches run over the wall.” Little Benjamin, situated between the two powerful tribes of Ephraim and Judah, knew not which to be guided by, and was at last torn asunder in the effort to follow both. Yet Benjamin, on whose eastern border we still find a valley, called the Wolf’s Den, was “a wolf that ravineth” and often “devoured the prey.” Issachar “saw the land that it was pleasant”—namely, the fruitful plain of Esdraelon,—and “bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant under task-work,” cultivating the ground.
The tribe of Levi had no district of country assigned to it, but in place thereof forty-eight cities, scattered throughout the tribes. Of these cities two have been identified by the agents of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
The recovery of the site of Gezer we owe to M. Clermont Ganneau. It is in the lowland district, and off the road to the right as one goes up from Jaffa to Jerusalem, about 8 miles past Ramleh. The modern name, Tell Jezer, represents the Hebrew exactly. Gezer had been a royal city of the Canaanites; and it was in a position commanding one of the important passes. The Levitical cities had around them a margin of 1000 cubits. In 1874 M. Ganneau was shown by the peasantry a rude inscription deeply cut in the flat surface of the natural rock. It appears to be in Hebrew letters, and to read “Boundary of Gezer.” He afterwards found a second, similar to it; and from their position he judges that the city lay four-square, and had its angles directed to the cardinal points of the compass. It was this city of Gezer which was reconquered from the Philistines by Pharaoh, and handed over to Solomon as a dowry with his daughter.
We owe to Major Conder the discovery of another of these Levitical cities, namely, the royal city of Debir, south-west of Hebron, together with the “upper and nether springs of water” (at a distance), which Caleb gave to his daughter, on the occasion of her marriage (Judges i. 15). The modern name is Dhâheriyeh, and the place is evidently an ancient site of importance, to which several old roads lead from all sides. Another name for this place was Kirjath-Sepher, which means Book-Town; so that it must have been noted for books or writings of some kind.
In tracing the boundaries of the tribes the surveyors found reason to look upon the Book of Joshua as “the Domesday Book of Palestine.” The towns in a district are all mentioned together, and in such consecutive topographical order that many Scripture sites could be identified from this very circumstance. The tribal boundaries are shown to be almost entirely natural, namely, rivers, ravines, ridges, and the watershed lines of the country. It is a remarkable fact, however, that while the descriptions of tribal boundaries and cities are full and minute in the territory of Judea, and scarcely less so in Galilee, they are fragmentary and meagre within the bounds of Samaria. There is no account of the conquest of Samaria, nor does the list of royal cities include the famous Samaritan towns of Shechem, Thebez, Acrabbi, and others. No list of the cities of Ephraim and Manasseh is included in the topographical chapters of the Book of Joshua, nor any description of the northern limits of Manasseh, and only a very slight one of the southern border, where that tribe marched with Ephraim.
Thus far, in our description of Joshua’s conquest, we have seen how his good generalship secured possession of the hills—the central hills only, and not the plains. The Canaanites still dwelt in the plains round about. The Philistines held the south-west. The Phœnicians were secure in the north. The outlying nations of Edom and Moab were undisturbed. In this condition things remained for a long time; and the Israelites, occupying the hills only, were not likely to become a race of sailors. Nor did they desire it, if we may judge from such notices of the sea as occur in the Bible, for they seem to show the awe with which the writers regarded its rolling waves. And besides, the coast was not suited for it. The principal harbour was Tyre; but that was in Phœnicia, which was hardly to be included in Palestine. South of Tyre we have Accho, Caipha, and Joppa; but these are by no means good and convenient as ports. Accho is the best, but has been the least used, although Napoleon considered it “the key of Palestine.” It was to Joppa that the Phœnicians brought timber in rafts for the building of Solomon’s Temple; and thence it was carried by road to Jerusalem. It was at Joppa that Jonah found a ship going to Tarshish, and took his passage.
If the sea coast was little available for the Israelites, the Jordan was still worse: a narrow, shallow, rocky stream, ending in the Dead Sea, it led to nowhere, and was useless for purposes of commerce.
Naturally the capitals of the country were inland—Jerusalem in the centre of the hills, and afterwards Shechem. The main road of the country ran from south to north, along the watershed, the backbone of highest ground. But since the hills were comparatively unfruitful, the dwellers there suffered more in times of famine than the dwellers in the plains. In times of war they had some advantage, and preferred to fight from the hillsides, as they did not possess chariots and horses, and could have found no use for them. Their enemies said of them,—“their God is a God of the hills; He is not a God of the plains!”
Accordingly, the enemies of Israel sought to entice them to fight in the plains, and sometimes partially succeeded. The Plain of Esdraelon became a great battle field. The Great Plain, as distinguished from the Plain of Acre, the Valley of Jezreel, and others which are continuous with it, measures about 14 miles by 9. It is described by Conder as one of the richest natural fields of cultivation in Palestine, or perhaps in all the world. “The elevation,” he says, “is about 200 to 250 feet above the sea, and a Y-shaped double range of hills bounds it east and west, with an average elevation of 1500 feet above the plain on the north-east. On the north-east are the two detached blocks of Neby Duhy (Little Hermon) and Tabor, and on the north-west a narrow gorge is formed by the river Kishon, which springs from beneath Tabor, and, collecting the whole drainage of this large basin, passes from the Great Plain to that of Acre. On the east of the plain the broad Valley of Jezreel gradually slopes down towards Jordan, and Jezreel itself (the modern Zerin) stands on the side of Gilboa above it. On the west are the scarcely less famous sites of Legis, Taanach, and Joknean, while the picturesque conical hill of Duhy, just north of the Jezreel Valley, has Shunem on its south slope, and Nain and Endor on the north. Thus seven places of interest lie at the foot of the hills east and west; but no important town was ever situated in the plain itself.”
The first great struggle in this plain was against Sisera, captain of the host of Jabin, king of Canaan, who came with nine hundred chariots, and threatened the Israelites near the sources of the Kishon. The topography of the Scriptural episode of the defeat and death of Sisera has been hitherto very little understood. The scene of the battle has often been placed in the south-west of the great Esdraelon plain, and the defeated general has been supposed to have fled a distance of 35 miles over the high mountains of Upper Galilee. But this is contrary to what we know of the general character of the Biblical stories, the scenes of which are always laid in a very confined area. The kings of Canaan assembled in Taanach and by the waters of Megiddo, but it was not at either of these places that the battle was fought. Sisera was drawn to the river Kishon (Judges iv. 7), and the conflict took place in the plain south-west of Mount Tabor.
The forces of the Israelites were posted on the side of Mount Tabor. At a signal from Deborah they rushed down the slope and attacked the foe. At that moment a terrible storm from the east sent sleet and hail full into the face of the enemy. They turned and fled along a line at the base of the northern hills, where a chain of pools and springs, fringed with reeds and rushes, marks, even in the dry season, the course of the Kishon. The rain converted the volcanic dust of the plain into mud, and clogged the wheels of the chariots. The water pouring down from the hills swelled the stream, and “the river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river the river Kishon.” The remainder fled to Harosheth, now only a miserable village (El Harathiyeh), named from the beautiful woods above the Kishon at the point where, through a narrow gorge, the stream, hidden among oleander bushes, enters the Plain of Acre.
The flight of Sisera himself was in an opposite direction—to the Plain of Zaanaim, or rather Bitzaanaim, “the marshes,” i.e., the marshy springs east of Tabor—the neighbourhood of Bessum. The Kedesh of the passage is probably a site so called south of Tiberias; and the tent of Heber the Kenite would thus have been spread on the open plateau within 10 miles of the site of the battle.
The next great struggle in this plain was one upon which the Survey of Palestine has thrown some new light, enabling us to follow the fugitives in their retreat, and to fix some sites which are named in the narrative. The fruitfulness of the Great Plain has been, in our own times and all through the ages, an irresistible attraction to the Bedouin from the east of Jordan. Pressed by war or famine, they have crossed the Jordan at the fords near Beisan, poured up the Valley of Jezreel, and covered the plain with their tents and camels. The peaceful husbandmen have laboured, only to be periodically plundered and oppressed. Thus in 1870 only about a sixth part of the beautiful corn land was tilled, and the plain was black with Arab “houses of hair.” But the Turks wrought a great and sudden change; they armed their cavalry with the Remington breech-loading rifle, and the Bedouin disappeared as if by magic. In 1872 nine-tenths of the plain was cultivated, nearly half with corn, the rest with millet, sesame, cotton, tobacco, and the castor-oil plant. It was, of course, to be expected that when external troubles had weakened the Government, the lawless Nomads would again encroach and levy toll as before. Accordingly, in 1877, Fendi el Fais and the Sukr Arabs once more invaded the plain and levied blackmail on the luckless peasantry. Thus it has ever been; for the history of Palestine seems constantly to repeat itself from the earliest period recorded, in a recurring struggle between the settled population and the Nomads.
Some time after the days of Barak and Deborah, the historian tells us, “the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.” These marauders from the east came across the Jordan, bringing their cattle and their camels, and pitching their black tents. They came as locusts for multitude, eating up the fruitful country and levying tribute on the villages, all the way round to Gaza. The Israelites fled in alarm, taking refuge in the mountains, and existing in dens and caves. No sustenance was left them, either for sheep, or ox, or ass; and “Israel was brought very low because of Midian.” Perhaps they might have borne the oppression longer, only that their lives were not safe from the sword, and they smarted under losses inflicted on their families. In some petty struggle, perhaps it was, in which one brother came to the assistance of another, that seven fine young men, sons of Joash of Abiezer, were put to death by Zeba and Zalmunna the Chiefs of Midian. But there was one son left, whose name was Gideon, and he was a man of valour. He felt this oppression to be insupportable: the spirit of the Lord came upon him, and after destroying the altar of Baal in his native place, he blew a trumpet, and raised a revolt. His own tribesmen (the men of Menasseh) gathered to his standard, and the men of the northern tribes also, even Asher assisting on this occasion.
Gideon “pitched beside the Spring of Harod, and the camp of Midian was on the north side of them, in the valley.” The Bible narrative appears to show that the spring was in the neighbourhood of Gilboa, being towards the south of the Valley of Jezreel. “It is very striking,” says Conder, “to find in this position a large spring with the name ’Ain el Jem’ain,’ or ‘fountain of the two troops’ and there seems no valid objection to the view that this is the Spring of Harod.”
Gideon went down upon the enemy in the midnight darkness, leading three hundred men, who carried concealed torches, as well as trumpets. The sudden sounding of trumpets and flashing of lights spread consternation among the Midianites; they fought suicidally, every man’s hand was against his brother, and they fled down the Valley of Jezreel. It was some 10 miles or more to the fords of the Jordan. At the fords they divided, Zeba and Zalmunna, the sheikhs, passing over, while Oreb and Zeeb, the lesser chiefs, continued their journey on the western side. Presumably they were hoping to get across at the great ford opposite Jericho; but Gideon sent word to the men of Ephraim to intercept them, and they did so. Gideon himself crossed at the northern fords, pursuing Zeba and Zalmunna, as far as Karkor, and when he had captured them he brought them back to Penuel. “Then said he to them, ‘What manner of men were they whom ye slew at Tabor?’ And they answered, ‘As thou art, so were they; each one resembled the children of a king.’ And he said, ‘They were my brethren, the sons of my mother: as the Lord liveth, if ye had saved them alive, I would not slay you.’”
The men of Ephraim “slew Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb.” These two names signify the Raven and the Wolf—not unnatural names for the chiefs of Nomad tribes—and Conder has discovered these names in the Jordan valley, a little north of Jericho. There is a curious conical chalk hill called ’Osh el Ghurab, the “Raven’s Peak,” and near to it a lesser hill with a valley, known as Tuweil edh Dhiab, the “Wolf’s Den.” The executions, if they took place on these elevations, would be in sight of all the people in the plain; and afterwards the heads were carried across to Gideon, who was now beyond Jordan.
But victory was not always given to the Israelites in the Plain of Esdraelon. In the days of King Saul the Philistines, having been twice beaten in the hills, determined to try their fortune in the plains. Under the leadership of Achish, king of Gath, they marched northward, round the promontory of Carmel, and took up their position at Shunem, under “Little Hermon.”[18] Saul was posted on Mount Gilboa, but had no confidence in his strength. In his distress, indeed, he actually paid a night visit to the witch of Endor, although Endor was north of “Little Hermon,” and he had to go past the Philistine camp to reach it. The next morning the battle went against him: the Israelites were positively driven up the slope of Gilboa and slaughtered on the heights, which should have been their natural battle-ground. David, when he heard of it, felt the humiliation of it, or at least the depth of the misfortune, and his dirge for Saul and his son opens with the words, “Thy glory, O Israel, is slain upon thy high places! How are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath” (2 Sam. i.).
The head of Saul was sent round to Ashdod, to the temple of Dagon, the Philistine Fish-god. The armour of Saul was dedicated to the goddess Ashtoreth, in the city of Bethshan, not very far from the scene of the battle. We may judge that Bethshan was still in possession of the Canaanites. The bodies of Saul and his sons were fastened to the wall of Bethshan. But the men of Jabesh Gilead, east of Jordan, a city which Saul had once befriended (1 Sam. xi.), came across in the night and took them away. After burning them in Jabesh, they buried the bones under a tamarisk tree; and thence, at a later opportunity, David fetched them away and buried them in the family tomb in Benjamin.
We read in Scripture of “Bethshan and her daughter towns” as belonging to the tribe of Manasseh (1 Chron. vii. 29). A black mound at the modern Beisan represents the Bethshan or Bethshean of the text. On this natural fortress stood the citadel. The ruins have been planned by Conder; and his drawings will be found in the Memoirs of the Survey. Not far from Beisan are the ruins of a Roman bridge across the Jordan—the highway to Gadara. In the plain of Beisan, as we learn from Mr Trelawney Saunders, are twenty-four tells, scattered all over the upper and lower terraces. They still bear distinctive names; and Mr Saunders feels no doubt that they are the sites of former habitations, scenes of domestic happiness and abundant wealth. Moreover, he surmises that the life and happiness of the district may be restored almost as rapidly as they were obliterated, when once the civilisation and power of the West becomes conscious of the connection between Oriental prosperity and that of its own manufacturing populations. “These tells,” he says, “probably mark the substantial and lordly centres of villages, the latter more or less extensive, and readily levelled with the ground. They denote the populous character of the region, when a strong government restrained the plundering Ishmaelites, and protected instead of robbed people. The tells are more indicative of a large population than the remains of such a ‘splendid’ and ‘noble’ city as Beisan, when it was either Jewish Bethshan or heathen Scythopolis; with its dominating citadel, temples, hippodrome, theatre, baths, monument, and bridge.” If there be any truth in this view of the matter we may expect interesting results from an exploration of these tells. Conder describes the locality as one of the best watered in Palestine, and (in April) literally streaming with rivulets from some fifty springs.
The death of Saul brought David to the throne. But David had previously gone through an adventurous experience, the story of which is intimately connected with localities that are mentioned, and requires a knowledge of the topography fully to appreciate. “The desert of Judah,” says Conder, “was no doubt as much a desert in David’s time as it is now. Here he wandered with his brigand companions as ‘a partridge on the mountains.’ Here he may have learned that the coney makes its dwelling in the hard rocks. Here, in earlier days, he tended the sheep, descending from Bethlehem, as the village shepherds of the present day still come down, by virtue of a compact with the lawless Nomads, and just as Nabal’s sheep came down from the highlands under agreement with the wild followers of the outlaw born to be a king. I do not know any part of the Old Testament more instinct with life than are the early chapters of Samuel which recount the wanderings of David. His life should only be written by one who has followed those wanderings on the spot; and the critic who would imbue himself with a right understanding of that ancient chronicle should first with his own eyes gaze on the ‘rocks of the wild goats’ and the ‘junipers’ of the desert.”
Conder declares that we have now so recovered the topography of David’s wanderings that the various scenes seem as vivid as if they had occurred only yesterday. First, we have the stronghold of Adullam, guarding the rich corn valley of Elah; then Keilah, a few miles south, perched on its steep hill above the same valley. The forest of Hareth lay close by, on the edge of the mountain chain where Kharas now stands, surrounded by the “thickets” which properly represent the Hebrew “Yar”—a word wrongly supposed to mean a woodland of timber trees.
Driven from all these lairs, David went yet further south to the neighbourhood of Ziph.... The treachery of the inhabitants of Ziph, like that of the men of Keilah, appears to have driven David to a yet more desolate district, that of the Jeshimon, or “Solitude,” by which is apparently intended the great desert above the western shores of the Dead Sea, on which the Ziph plateau looks down. As a shepherd-boy at Bethlehem, David may probably have been already familiar with this part of the country, and the caves, still used as sheep-cotes by the peasant herdsmen, extend all along the slopes at the edge of the desert.
East of Ziph is a prominent hill on which is the ruined town called Cain in the Bible. Hence the eye ranges over the theatre of David’s wanderings: the whole scenery of the flight of David, and of Saul’s pursuit, can be viewed from this one hill.
The stronghold chosen by the fugitive was the hill Hachilah, in the wilderness of Ziph, south of Jeshimon. “This, I would propose” (says Conder) “to recognise in the long ridge called El Kôlah.... On the north side of the hill are the ‘Caves of the Dreamers,’ perhaps the actual scene of David’s descent on Saul’s sleeping guards.”
Pursued even to Hachilah, David descended farther south, to a rock or cliff in the wilderness of Maon, which was named “Cliff of Division” (1 Sam. xxiii. 2–8). Here he is represented as being on one side of the mountain, while Saul was on the other. Now, between the ridge of El Kôlah and the neighbourhood of Maon there is a great gorge called “the Valley of Rocks,” a narrow, but deep chasm, impassable except by a detour of many miles, so that Saul might have stood within sight of David, yet quite unable to overtake his enemy; and to this “Cliff of Division” the name Malâky now applies, a word closely approaching the Hebrew Mahlekoth. The neighbourhood is seamed with many torrent-beds, but there is no other place near Maon where cliffs, such as are to be inferred from the word Sela, can be found. “It seems to me pretty safe, therefore” (says Conder) “to look on this gorge as the scene of the wonderful escape of David, due to a sudden Philistine invasion, which terminated the history of his hair-breadth escapes in the South Country.”
To return to Adullam. The famous hold where David collected “every one that was in distress and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented,” was, according to Josephus, at the city called Adullam (Ant. vi. 12, 3). This city was one of the group of fifteen situated in the Shephelah or Lowlands (Josh. xv. 35). The term Shephelah is applied to the low hills of soft limestone which form a distinct district between the maritime plain and the central line of mountains. M. Clermont Ganneau was the first explorer who found the name Adullam still in use; but Major Conder also, on finding it among the names which Corporal Brophy had collected, set out to examine the site.
The great Valley of Elah (Wâdy es Sunt) is the highway from Philistia to Hebron; and divides the low hills of the Shephelah from the rocky mountains of Judah. Eight miles from the valley-head stands Shochoh, and Wâdy es Sunt is here a quarter of a mile across: just north of this ruin it turns round westward, and so runs, growing deeper and deeper, between the rocky hills covered with brushwood, becoming an open vale of rich corn land, flanked by ancient fortresses, and finally debouching at the cliff of Tell es Safi. About 2½ miles south of the great angle near Shochoh there is a very large and ancient terebinth—it is from elah the “terebinth” tree that the valley gets its name—and near it are two ancient wells, with stone water troughs round them. South of the ravine is a high rounded hill, almost isolated by valleys, and covered with ruins, a natural fortress, not unlike the well-known tells which occur lower down the valley of Elah. “This site seems to be ancient” (says Conder), “not only because of the wells, but judging from the caves, the tombs, and the rock quarryings which exist near it.”
Below the hill, and near the well, there are ruins which are called ’Aid el Ma, and this is radically identical with the Hebrew Adullam. “But if this ruined fortress be, as there seems no good reason to doubt it is, the royal city of Adullam, where, we should naturally ask, is the famous cave? The answer is easy, for the cave is on the hill. We must not look for one of the greater caverns, such as the Crusaders fixed upon in the romantic gorge east of Bethlehem, for such caverns are never inhabited in Palestine; we should expect, rather, a moderate-sized cave, or (considering the strength of the band) a succession of ‘hollow-places.’ The site of Adullam is ruinous, but not deserted. The sides of the tributary valley are lined with rows of caves, and these we found inhabited, and full of flocks and herds. But still more interesting was the discovery of a separate cave on the hill itself, a low, smoke-blackened burrow, which was the home of a single family. We could not but suppose, as we entered this gloomy abode, that our feet were standing on the very foot-prints of the Shepherd King, who here, encamped between the Philistines and the Jews, covered the line of advance on the corn fields of Keilah, and was but 3 miles distant from the thickets of Hareth.
“The hill is about 500 feet high.... There is ample room to have accommodated David’s four hundred men in the caves, and they are, as we have seen, still inhabited.
“It is interesting to observe that the scene of David’s victory over Goliath is distant only 8 miles from the cave at ’Aid el Ma.”
When David became king of all Israel, he made it his first great object to capture Jerusalem. There might be several reasons for this. In the first place, his capital hitherto had been Hebron, a city which was not sufficiently central. Secondly, the border line between Judah and Benjamin ran right through Jerusalem; the city was partly in the territory of one tribe, partly in the other; Saul was a man of Benjamin, while David belonged to Judah; so that there were jealousies between these two tribes, which might be healed if David could make the city his capital. Thirdly, Jerusalem had proved itself to be a strong city, well-nigh impregnable. Joshua had not taken it, as he took the other cities of the Gibeonite league—it has defied the arms of Israel for four or five centuries—and therefore, if David can capture it, he will possess a redoubtable stronghold. Jerusalem, therefore, was besieged and taken. Secure in Jerusalem, David extended his conquests on every side, subduing Philistines, Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, and Midianites; placing garrisons in the towns of Syria, and even extending his rule as far as the river Euphrates. Of all these countries Philistia alone comes into the survey of Western Palestine.
Gaza, the capital of Philistia, still exists as an inhabited city, and is very picturesquely situated, having a fine approach down a broad avenue from the north. It rises on an isolated hill, about 100 feet above the plain, and bristles with minarets. The population is given by Conder as eighteen thousand, including sixty or seventy houses of Greek Christians. The town is not walled, but the green mounds traceable round the hill are probably remains of the ancient enclosure. The new mosque, built some forty or fifty years ago, is full of marble fragments, from ancient buildings which were principally found near the sea-shore. East of the Serai is the reputed tomb of Samson; and south-east of the city is a hill called the Watch-tower, to which place, according to tradition, Samson carried the gates of Gaza. A yearly festival of the Moslems is held there.
North-east of Makkedah, Ekron still stands, on low rising ground—a mud hamlet, with gardens fenced with prickly pears. Conder says there is nothing ancient here.