Chapter II: Palestine (3)

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.

At Azotus, or Ashdod, one of the Philistine cities, is a large mound, with columns cropping up out of the ground on the outskirts of it. Mr Trelawney Saunders, the geographer, has described the site in his “Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.” Ashdod, on a hillock (alt. 140 feet), at the western end of the plain of Zeita, is now separated from all that remains of its port, by sand-downs 3 miles in breadth. The site is occupied by the present village of Esdud, with eighteen hundred people, but the remains of this primeval city, once so strong and mighty, are so few and insignificant that one is tempted to suppose the greater part of the city may be buried beneath the sands. If so, they may be in a superior state of preservation, and would perhaps repay for digging out.

Gath, the birth-place of Goliath, has long been a lost city, but is now reasonably identified with _Tell es Sufi_ at the mouth of the _Wady_ or water-course which runs from near Hebron, past Adullam and Shochoh, and westward towards Ashdod. It is the site of the Crusading fortress of Blanche Garde, which was built in 1144 A.D. as an outpost for defence against the people of Ascalon. It is now a mud village with olives beneath it, standing on a cliff 300 feet high, which is burrowed with caves. The Rev. Henry George Tomkins takes _Tell es Sufi_ to be the “mound of Safi,” and regards Safi as a personal name. In a learned paper in the _Quarterly Statement_, October 1886, he argues that Safi was a brother of Goliath’s, and if so this is an additional reason for regarding _Tell es Sufi_ as Gath.

Ascalon, “the bride of Syria,” is still called Askalon. The fortifications and walls are in ruins, and the site of the city is a garden planted with fruit trees and vegetables. The walls are the ruins of battlements, erected by Richard Lionheart in 1191 A.D., in place of those destroyed by Saladin, and doubtless with the same materials. They are half buried by the great dunes of rolling sand which are ever being blown up by the sea breeze from the southward. The whole interior of the site is covered with rich soil, to a depth of about 10 feet, and the natives find fragments of fine masonry, shafts, capitals, and other remains of the old city, by digging into it. Of Herod’s beautiful colonnades nothing now remains. The Crusaders had little respect for antiquities, and the innumerable granite pillar shafts which are built horizontally into the walls are no doubt those originally brought to the town by Herod.

Conder says, “We heard a curious tradition at Ascalon. A tomb had been opened by the peasantry, near the ruin, some thirty years ago. Under a great slab, in the eastern cemetery, they found a perfectly preserved body, with a sword by its side, and a ring on its finger. The dead eyes glared so fiercely on the intruders that they let fall the slab; and as one of the party soon after died, they came to the conclusion that it was a _Nebi_ or Prophet whom they had disturbed, and the place has thus become surrounded with a mysterious sanctity.”

In the days of David’s grandson the kingdom of the Israelites divided in two, and began the new phase of its existence as the parallel monarchies of Israel and Judah. The disruption, it may be said, was owing to the fact that Ephraim envied Judah, and Judah vexed Ephraim. Naturally, the split, when it came, took place along a line between these two powerful tribes and right athwart the tribe of Benjamin. Benjamin was torn asunder--Jericho and Bethel going to the northern kingdom, while other towns went to the south. Jerusalem continued to be a capital, but it was now the capital of the kingdom of Judah only; and Shechem was chosen as the capital of the northern kingdom, which was called Israel.

But these northern monarchs had their pleasant summer residences as well, corresponding to Windsor or Versailles. One of these was Samaria, another was Tirzah, a third was Jezreel.

The Samaria of the present day is a large and flourishing village of stone and mud houses, standing on the hill of the ancient Samaria. The most interesting ruins now to be seen there are those of Herod’s colonnade to the west of the modern village. The colonnade seems to have surrounded the whole city with a kind of cloister, which was 60 feet wide, and the pillars 16 feet high. The city of Samaria of the Old Testament has disappeared. But the kings of Israel were buried here, and the ancient tombs may yet perhaps come to light.

Tirzah, famous for its beauty, is the only Samaritan town mentioned among the royal cities taken by Joshua. Conder finds it in the present mud hamlet of Teiasir. It was delightfully situated on a plateau where the valleys begin to dip suddenly towards Jordan.

Conder found numerous rock-cut sepulchres burrowing under the houses; and he thinks that some of them are probably those of the early kings of Israel, before the royal family began to be buried in Samaria.

Jezreel is now called Zerin, and the site of Ahab’s palace is now a village, surrounded by heaps of rubbish. The position of Zerin is remarkable. On the south the ground slopes gently upwards towards the site, and on the west also the place is accessible. But on the north the ground is extremely rugged and falls rapidly, and on the east occurs a saddle separating the high point on which the town stands from the Gilboa chain, the road ascending from the valley and the neighbourhood of ’Ain Jalud. The top of the hill is 284 feet above this spring, which is visible beneath. Thus the site is naturally strong, except on the south-west. It is conspicuous from the plain, and it commands a view down the valley to Beisan and the trans-Jordanic ranges. Major Conder, climbing up to the village, was struck by the absence of any traces of antiquity. But the houses stand on a mound of rubbish, and in this a great number of ruined cisterns exist.

Ahab from his palace in Jezreel looked down upon Naboth’s vineyard. There seem to be no vineyards in the neighbourhood now; but on the east and south-east there are rock-cut wine-presses on the rugged hills, where no doubt the “portion of the field of Naboth” and his vineyard are to be placed. The commanding position of the place would also enable Joram’s watchmen, looking down the Valley of Jezreel, to observe the two horsemen sent forward by Jehu coming up from Bethshan--the dust raised, the gleam of their armour--and Jehu himself following and “driving furiously.” It was by “the fountain which is in Jezreel” that Saul had pitched before the fatal battle of Gilboa.

Here at Jezreel, with Mount Carmel in the distance, we are reminded that the sacrifice which Elijah offered did not take place on the point of Mount Carmel nearest the sea, as commonly imagined, but much nearer to Jezreel, on a part of the range where our explorers discovered a perennial spring, that would supply the prophet with water when the rest of the country was dry. Stationed at this spot, he might see the palace of Jezebel in the city of Jezreel. From this position he sent his servant a few minutes’ distance, to the highest point of the range, where he could overlook the sea and perceive the little cloud rising. Then said Elijah, “Get thee down, Ahab, there is a sound of abundance of rain”--get thee down Ahab, or the river of Kishon will sweep thee away! Elijah himself, amidst the rushing storm, ran before the chariot of the monarch, down the slope, and as far as the entrance of Jezreel. And soon thereafter, fearing Jezebel’s threats, he journeyed swiftly by the north and south road, nor stopped till he got to Beersheba. This is the extremity of Judah, and here he leaves his servant behind him and plunges into the wilderness, for he is going to “Horeb, the Mount of God,” to seek a revelation.

Elijah was commissioned to call Elisha to be his successor; and Elisha in his turn made frequent resort to Mount Carmel. When the Shunamite woman came to him there, her journey lay across the plain, and he could see her approaching (2 Kings iv. 24). Shunem, now called _Sulem_, stands on the southern slope of _Neby Duhy_ (Little Hermon), and is only a mud hamlet, with cactus hedges and a spring. West of the houses there is a beautiful garden, cool and shady, of lemon trees, watered by a little rivulet, and in the village is a fountain and trough. Westward the view extends as far as Carmel, 15 miles away. Thus the whole extent of the ride of the Shunamite woman, under the burning noon-tide sun of harvest-time, is visible. Conder remarks that if the houses of that time were no larger than the mud-cabins of the modern village, it was not a great architectural undertaking to build a little chamber for the prophet; and the enumeration of the simple furniture of that chamber--the bed (perhaps only a straw mat), the table, the stool, and the lamp--seems to indicate that it was only a little hut that was intended. Another point may be noted: how came it that Elisha so constantly passed by Shunem? The answer seems simple; he lived habitually on Carmel, but he was a native of Abel Meholah, “the Meadow of Circles,” a place now called _’Ain Helweh_, in the Jordan Valley, to which the direct road led past Shunem down the Valley of Jezreel.

Before we leave the Plain of Esdraelon, which is also called the Plain of Megiddo--and because of its typical character as the field of great battles, is used in the Apocalypse as the scene of the great final struggle, _Ar-Mageddon-_--let us glance at the fruitless effort of Josiah, king of Judah, to stop the march of Pharaoh Necho. It was in the last days of the Jewish monarchy, when the northern kingdom had been already destroyed, that Palestine was first exposed to the disastrous fate which involved her in so long a series of troubles from this time forward--that of being the debatable ground between Egypt and the further East; first under the Pharaohs and the rulers of Babylon; then under the Ptolemies and Seleucidae. “In the days of Josiah, Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates” (2 Kings xxiii. 29), possibly landing his army at Accho (says Dean Stanley), more probably, as the expression seems to indicate, following the track of his predecessor Psammetichus, and advancing up the maritime plain till he turned into the plain of Esdraelon, thence to penetrate into the passes of the Lebanon. King Josiah, in self-defence, and perhaps as an ally of the Assyrian king, went against him. Josiah would march by the watershed road, northward from Jerusalem, and descend into the plain, perhaps by Dothan. The engagement took place in “the Valley of Megiddo” (2 Chron. xxxv. 22). The Egyptian archers in their long array, so well known from their sculptured monuments, shot at King Josiah, as he rode in state in his royal chariot, and he was sore wounded, and placed in his reserve chariot, and carried to Jerusalem to die. Dean Stanley remarks that all other notices of the battle are absorbed in this one tragical event, and the exact scene of the encounter is not known.

The position of Megiddo is not fixed very definitely in the Bible narrative. But a broad valley (as we see above) was named from the city, and the “waters of Megiddo” are also spoken of. Major Conder believes he has found the place and the name, in the large ruined site of Mujedda, at the foot of Gilboa--a mound from which fine springs burst out, with the broad valley of the Jalud river to the north. Otherwise Megiddo has been located on the _Mukuttà_, near _Lejjun_. Mr Trelawney Saunders considers it an objection to Conder’s site that it is separated from the river Kishon and the town of Taanach, and cannot be made to fit in with the account of Ahaziah’s flight from Jezreel (2 Kings ix. 27). The king, having been smitten at “the going up to Gur,” near Ibleam, fled to Megiddo, where he died. But if Megiddo were in the Plain of Bethshean he would hardly be likely to do this, seeing that Jehu his enemy made his furious advance upon Jezreel through that plain. Besides, he fled by the way of the “garden house,” En-gannim (the modern _Jenin_); the garden-like character of which spot is still preserved--and _Jenin_ would not be on the route between _Zerin_ and _Mujedda_.

[_Authorities and Sources_:--“Tent Work in Palestine.” Major
Conder. “Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.” By
Trelawney Saunders. “Survey of Western Palestine.” P. E. Fund.
“Twenty-one Years’ Work in the Holy Land.” P. E. Fund.]

9. _Sacred Sites of the Hebrews._

In order to pass in review the sites selected by the Israelites for places of worship, it will be convenient to go back to the time when we find the tribes encamped at Gilgal, on their first entrance into the country.

That Mount Sinai should remain sacred after the giving of the Law was to be expected; and we have just now seen that its sacredness could attract Elijah after many centuries. The Israelites, when they left the wilderness, and came to sojourn in the outskirts of Moab, were attracted by the shrine of Baal-Peor; but they were made to feel that this was wrong, and the ambassadors of the western tribes refer to it as a warning when they expostulate with their brethren about the altar called Ed (Joshua xxii. 17). In passing over into Canaan, they carried the Lord’s tabernacle with them; where that rested was holy ground, and it was not intended that any rival site should be tolerated.

The ark of the covenant--the chest which contained the agreement or treaty between Jehovah and his people--was set down at Gilgal, the tabernacle or holy tent was erected over it, and Gilgal became a sacred place. Afterwards, when the hill country had been conquered, the ark and tabernacle were brought to Shiloh, and then Shiloh became a sacred place. Shiloh is now called _Seilun_, and here the ruins of a modern village occupy a sort of _tell_ or mound. The position of the place is remarkably retired, shut in between high, bare mountains. A deep valley runs behind the town on the north, and in its sides are many rock-cut sepulchres. “The site being so certainly known,” says Conder, “it becomes of interest to speculate as to the exact position of the tabernacle. Below the top of the hill, on the north of the ruins, there is a sort of irregular quadrangle, sloping rather to the west, and perched above terraces made for agricultural purposes. The rock has here been rudely hewn in two parallel scarps for over 400 feet, with a court between, 77 feet wide and sunk 5 feet below the outer surface. Thus there would be sufficient room for the court of the tabernacle in this area. From the Mishna we learn that the lower part of the tabernacle erected at Shiloh was of stone, with a tent above. There are, however, two other places which demand attention as possible sites, one being, perhaps, a synagogue, the other a little building called the ‘Mosque of the Servants of God.’”

According to the Jews, the ark and tabernacle remained at Shiloh three hundred and sixty-nine years--so long that Shiloh was regarded as only second to Jerusalem in sanctity. In the disastrous days of Eli the ark was sent into the battlefield and captured by the Philistines, who carried it to Ashdod, to the temple of Dagon. When Dagon fell down before it they sent it away again, and it was, after some adventures, recovered by the men of Kirjath Jearim. Eventually David brought it to Mount Zion, and then Zion became a sacred place. Solomon said, “the places are holy whereunto the ark of the Lord hath come” (2 Chron. viii. 11), and on that account he brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the City of David (which is Zion, 1 Kings viii. 1), unto the house that he had built for her. The ark never went back to Shiloh after Eli sent it away. The tabernacle, however, appears to have remained there for some time, and so Shiloh remained sacred in some degree.

Soon, however, even the tabernacle would appear to have been removed from Shiloh, for although we have no direct mention of its removal, we seem to find it in other places. Samuel, the successor of Eli, judged the people, and on important occasions called the solemn assembly and offered sacrifices. He was accustomed to do this at three different places, which in his day were revered as sacred. One of these was Gilgal, rendered sacred by the first resting of the ark: and although the ark and tabernacle had been removed, and sanctity was to be transferred along with them, yet it is not easy to obliterate the sanctity of a place from the tradition and practice of the people. Another of these three places was Bethel, where Jacob had seen his vision of the ladder with angels ascending and descending, and had been constrained to say, “This is the house of God and the gate of Heaven.” The third place at which Samuel called assemblies and offered sacrifices was not Shiloh, as we might suppose it would be, but one of the many places called Mizpeh. We do not know where this Mizpeh was. Conder is inclined to identify it with _Neby Samwil_--the Mount of the Prophet Samuel, a conspicuous conical hill, 4 or 5 miles north of Jerusalem; and as Mizpeh means a watch-tower, there is plausibility in this suggestion. We do not know whether the tabernacle was pitched at either of these three places in Samuel’s day: we do not know why Samuel should be content to regard three different places as holy; but it is not altogether impossible that the tabernacle was carried from one meeting-place to another, and made each one holy in turn.

A little later we seem to find the tabernacle nearer to Jerusalem. When David is fleeing from King Saul, and taking the road from Rama in Benjamin to Gath in the land of the Philistines, he comes to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest, and is permitted to eat the shewbread (the holy bread exhibited before the Lord in the sanctuary), and to carry off the sword of Goliath, which had been laid up as a trophy. So here we have the priests, the shewbread, and the tabernacle at Nob. As to the locality of Nob, Dean Stanley follows Mr Thrupp in fixing it on the northern summit of the Mount of Olives, and Mr Thrupp reminds us that David brought the head of Goliath to Jerusalem, before the city itself was captured (1 Sam. xvii. 54). David, in fleeing from Rama to Gath, could hardly find a shorter or more convenient route than that which took him past Jerusalem.

This position for Nob is confirmed by Isaiah’s graphic and detailed description of the advance of the Assyrian invader (Isaiah x. 28):--

He comes to Ai, passes through Migron,
At Michmash deposits his baggage;
They cross the pass, Geba is our night station:
Terrified is Ramah, Gibeah of Saul flees.
Shriek with thy voice, daughter of Gallim;
Listen, O Laish! Ah! poor Anathoth!
Madmeneh escapes, dwellers in Gebim take flight.
Yet this day he halts at Nob:
He shakes his hand against the mount, daughter of Sion,
The hill of Jerusalem.

“In this passage” (says Sir Charles Wilson), “if it has a meaning--and I cannot suppose that it has not--the prophet describes, in such detail that it is difficult to believe he is not describing an actual event, the march of an Assyrian army upon Jerusalem; and we may be quite certain that, with his knowledge of the country, and writing as he did for those who were equally well acquainted with it, he would describe a line of march, which, under certain conditions, an army would naturally follow if its special object were the capture of Jerusalem. The conditions to which I allude are the passage of the great ravine at Michmash, and encampment for the night at Geba; why this route was selected in preference to the easier road along the line of water-parting we have no means of ascertaining, and it does not affect the question.”

“Of the places mentioned by Isaiah, we know, with a considerable degree of certainty, the positions of Michmash, Geba, Ramah, Gibeah, and Anathoth; of the others nothing is known. From Geba to Nob was evidently a day’s march in the progress of the army; and the order in which the villages are mentioned leads us in the direction of Jerusalem. If, as I believe, the passage means that the Assyrian warrior was leading an army from Geba against Jerusalem, and that his progress was suddenly arrested at Nob, we must seek a site for Nob on the road between these two places, and I cannot imagine a more natural one than some place in the vicinity of that Scopus whence, in later years, Titus and his legions looked down upon the Holy City.”

Doeg, the Edomite, who happened to be present when Ahimelech gave David the sword, informed Saul, and Saul, who was mad with suspicion, slew all the priests and utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Nob. But even after the destruction of the sanctuary by his violence the sanctity of the summit of Olivet was still respected. It was necessary, however, to remove the tabernacle from the scene of so much bloodshed, and perhaps it was immediately removed to the high-place of Gibeon, where we find it in the early part of Solomon’s reign.

The state of things at the beginning of the reign of Solomon is described in 1 Kings iii.--“The people sacrificed in the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days. And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place.” We learn from 2 Chron. i. that at Gibeon was the Tent of Meeting (the tabernacle) which Moses had made in the wilderness. Moreover, the brazen altar made by the inspired artist in the wilderness was there before the tabernacle, and Solomon and the congregation sought unto it, and offered a thousand burnt offerings upon it.

Thus far, then, we have at least half a dozen sacred places, venerated in turn, and more or less acknowledged simultaneously,--namely, Gilgal, Bethel, Shiloh, Mizpeh, Nob, and Gibeon. To these we must add Zion, to which David brought the ark, setting it up in the tent which he had prepared for it, though _the_ tent, time-honoured and sacred, was at Gibeon (2 Sam. vi. 17; 1 Chron. i. 4-6).

The ark, however, did not remain in “the city of David, which is Zion;” for when the temple was built upon Mount Moriah, the ark was brought up into the oracle of the house, with much sacrificing of sheep and oxen, and the Tent of Meeting was brought along with it (1 Kings viii.). Mount Moriah was now God’s holy mountain, and it was intended to concentrate all public worship at the Temple. Even previously it had been the law that the high places of the heathen should be discarded, and irresponsible sacrifice in the open field should be discountenanced, and that every man who had sacrifices to offer should bring them to the tabernacle, wherever the tabernacle might be located at the time (Levit. xvii. 1-6; Deut. xii. 1-6). So, now that the permanent temple had superseded the wandering tent, it was ordered, of course, that all sacrifices and public worship should take place on Mount Moriah. “For in my holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them, serve Me in the land: there will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings, and the first fruits of your oblations, with all your holy things” (Ezek. xx. 40).

Nevertheless, during the years of David’s reign, and until the temple was built, the ark resting on Zion conferred sanctity on that mountain. Psalms of David, and others written at that time, would of course make reference to Zion and not yet to Moriah.

“In Salem also is his tabernacle,
And his dwelling-place in Zion.”
Psalm lxxvi. 2.

And even after the ark had been carried up to the Temple, Mount Zion would retain its sanctity by tradition; or perhaps the name Zion would be extended so as to include Moriah, as they may in truth be related as the slope and the summit of the same hill.[19]

His foundation is in the holy mountains,

“The Lord loveth the gates of Zion
More than all the dwellings of Jacob.”
Psalm lxxxvii. 1.

So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. (Joel iii. 17 and Zech. viii. 3).

Human nature would not be what it is if theory and practice always went hand in hand. Laws may be good, but universal obedience to them cannot always be secured. Solomon himself, who had built the temple, and by bringing the Tent of Meeting into it, had disestablished Gibeon, set the example, in his later years, of recognising afresh other high places and the gods of the heathen. Having married “women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites,” besides the daughter of Pharaoh, he doubtless thought it only an enlightened toleration to let them worship in their own way, and as a logical consequence he supplied them with the means, and perhaps occasionally accompanied them to their respective places of worship. “For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians,” and “did build a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the mount that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And so did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods” (1 Kings xi.).

We see in this passage that the site selected as the high place for Chemosh was on the Mount of Olives--perhaps the place where Nob had stood, a site which had the tradition of sanctity already.

Many later kings imitated Solomon, and declined to regard Jehovah as the only God, or the holy mountain at Jerusalem as the only high place possessing sanctity. It was hardly to be expected that the people should be more faithful than their kings; and the after history furnishes many examples of lapses into heathen worship, and periodical reforms attempted by such kings as Josiah and Hezekiah. It was not convenient for the more distant tribes north of Esdraelon or east of Jordan to come up to Jerusalem to worship. Added to this consideration there was the local shrine, and time-honoured tradition in its favour. Just as in our own country Ripon cathedral is built over St Wilfrid’s Saxon church, and St Paul’s cathedral on the site of a heathen temple, so on the part of the Israelites there was a disposition to keep to the old spots. What wonder if there was, besides, a frequent adherence to the old forms of worship?

The tribes east of Jordan worshipped eastern gods--Peor, Chemosh, Milcom. Gad worshipped the god of Fortune (Isaiah lxv. 11), and was named after that deity. Josephus spells the name of Reuben as _Reubel_ (Ρουβελος), and Bel was one of the eastern gods. Manasseh had a sanctuary in the city of Golan. From the east of Jordan came Jephthah, who made a rash vow like a heathen, and kept it, although it involved human sacrifice.

Beyond Esdraelon we have Kadesh Naphtali, a heathen sanctuary adopted by the Israelites as a city of refuge, but apparently without any entire suppression of the original worship. The place is now called _Kedes_, and among the ruins found by the explorers are those of a temple with a figure of an eagle on the lintel, besides richly executed scroll-work of vine-leaves, bunches of grapes, a stag, and a bust (possibly of Baal). There were also places called Beth-shemesh (House of the Sun) scattered up and down the country.

At the disruption of the kingdom, Jeroboam, fearing that his subjects would be attracted to the religious festivals at Jerusalem, established two other centres. One of these was Bethel, convenient for the southern part of his kingdom, and sacred already, because there Abram had builded an altar, and Jacob had seen his vision, and Samuel had called solemn assemblies. The other was Dan, convenient for the northern part of his kingdom, and sacred again, already, for here, in the time of the Judges some colonists from the tribe of Dan had set up a graven image and established a priesthood. Besides, it was probably a sanctuary of the Phœnician inhabitants whom the Danites displaced; and, as we have seen in a previous chapter, the heathen god Pan came to be worshipped here. Thus we see that Jeroboam selected religious centres which combined traditional sanctity with geographical convenience.

When the tribes of the northern kingdom were carried into captivity, and the Assyrian conquerors brought people from Babylon, from Cuthah, and from Avva, and from Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria (2 Kings xvii. 24), the foreigners, or the mixed population which sprung up, fixed upon Mount Gerizim as their sacred high place. But Mount Gerizim already possessed a traditional sanctity, for the ark and tabernacle had accompanied Joshua to Shechem; the tribes had assembled on the twin mountains to hear the reading of the Law; and in earlier time Abram had builded an altar hereabout, the first altar to Jehovah in all the Holy Land.