George St. Clair

“ 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. ”

“ How could he guess that when the empire was passed away, its [376] kings forgotten, its gods put aside as mythical inventions, there would come scholars from beyond the pillars of Hercules and learn to decipher its records?
How disappointing is it, then, to all lovers of knowledge, as well as to all students of Bible antiquities, to know that, now, when the existence of these treasures is known, there is too little enterprise in our people to go and reap the harvest of them; and while we wait they are being carelessly or wantonly destroyed! ”

“ 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. ”

“ We know something of the religion of the Hittites from their invocation of the gods in their treaty with Rameses II. They adored the sun and moon, the mountains, rivers, clouds, and the sea. But their chief deity was Sutekh, “king of heaven, protector of this treaty,” supposed by Brugsch to be a form of Baal, but who is more likely to have been allied to Set or to Dagon. We cannot suppose that their worship was purer than that of the nations round about them; but it may not have been less pure, nor their life less moral. ”

“ Descending a flight of steps at the south-east corner of the rock we enter a cave, in the rocky floor of which is a circular slab of marble, which returns a hollow sound when struck, but which is never uplifted. The Arabs appear to regard it as the mouth of Hell, for they call it the Well of Souls, and have a dread of the consequences if any evil spirit should escape. It is a tradition that in the Temple the ark of the covenant used to stand over this cave, and that it was afterwards concealed in the cave, or below it, by Jeremiah, and still lies hidden beneath the sacred rock. ”

“ You have the arctic climate of the north on the tops of the mountains, and a tropical climate in the Jordan Valley, where, in the month of January, I have been glad to sleep in the open air, the thermometer never being below 80° at midnight. At the east and south you have the dry sandy desert; so that you have four distinct climates within view of each other. I can stand on any of the hills of Judea and see the snow-capped tops of Hermon and Lebanon, and look over this vast desert eastward and down to the seething tropical valley of the Dead Sea. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have seen how well the general political circumstances in Egypt and Palestine, in the centuries before the Exodus, supplement the Bible narrative, explaining on the one hand why the Israelites were oppressed, and showing on the other how Canaan was prepared for their easy conquest. But while the fact that Rameses II. was the Pharaoh for whom Israel built “treasure cities” is demonstrated beyond reasonable contradiction, it is remarkable that the inscriptions do not say anything about the Israelites. ”

“ But there are no Jews in Nazareth, and so there is no need of a synagogue now. The Greek Catholics, indeed, tell us that their chapel, in the main street, occupies the very site of the synagogue; but we find no remains of synagogue architecture. It occurs to us that there is one site, at all events, the features of which could hardly be destroyed or altered, namely, the “brow of the hill on which the city stood,” and from which the Nazarenes intended to precipitate the great Teacher after that scene in the Synagogue. ”

“ The laws of the country resembled in many respects those of Israel: a father was supreme in his household, and a husband had the power of divorcing his wife. Slavery was in vogue, and whole families were sometimes sold together. Various trades were practised, including weaving, dyeing, manufacture of iron goods, copper, and bronze goods, sculpture, and building, &c. But the most remarkable feature of Assyrian civilisation was their literature and libraries of clay tablets, and it is to these that we owe most of our present knowledge of this great people. ”

“ Nearly in the centre of the line along which stretches the village of Siloam there exists a rocky plateau surrounded by Arab buildings, which mask its true form and extent: the western face, cut perpendicularly, slightly overhangs the valley. Steps rudely cut in the rock enable one to climb it, not without difficulty, and so to penetrate directly from the valley to the midst of the village. By this road, troublesome, and even dangerous, pass habitually the women of Siloam, who come to fill their vessels at the so-called Virgin’s Fountain. ”

“ Jesus says to his disciples, “Say not ye, there are yet four months and then cometh the harvest.” We judge that he is pointing to the rich cornfield, where the valley opens out into the Plain of Mukhnah; he remarks that the corn is not ripe yet, and the harvest is not due. Yet he says, “Behold! Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white already unto harvest. He that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal.” ”

“ Stooping to enter, we pass into the vestibule or Chapel of the Angel, walled with marble slabs, and thence into the inner Chapel of the Sepulchre itself, where the darkness is only relieved by the glowing lamps over the altar on the tomb. The most impressive portion of the church is, however, the nave east of the rotunda, belonging to the Greeks, with its great screen in front of the three eastern apses. The floor is unoccupied, save by the short column marking the “centre of the world.” The dome above is poor, rudely whitewashed, and painted in fresco ”

“ Forced to go forth, the “heretic king” built a new capital on the edge of the desert to the north. Here he assumed the name of Khu-en-Aten, “the glory of the solar disk,” while his architects and sculptors consecrated a new and peculiar style of art to the new religion, and even the potters decorated the vases they modelled with new colours and patterns.
“The archives of the empire were transferred from Thebes to the new residence of the king, and there stored in the royal palace, which stood among its gardens at the northern extremity of the city. ”

“ If Egypt is invaded by some other enemy, and Pharaoh sends to Kheta for help, the Grand-Duke is to go, or at least to send his infantry and cavalry; and he is, of course, to look for reciprocal aid. If emigrants or fugitives pass from one country to the other they are not to find service and favour, but to be given up; nevertheless, when taken back, they are not to be punished as criminals. In support of the provisions of the treaty the parties thereunto invoke “the thousand gods of the land of Kheta, in concert with the thousand gods of the land of Egypt.” ”

“ Looking about in the town we notice some traces of its former grandeur; here a magnificent block of polished granite from Upper Egypt, there a hunting scene carved on the surface of a hard black lintel of basalt, besides old buildings, and broken shafts and columns half buried in rubbish.
From Tiberias we go north, and after a ride of 3 miles reach Medjel, which represents the Magdala of Christ’s time, and is known wherever the New Testament is read as the home of Mary Magdalene. The village is insignificant, being only a collection of huts and hovels ”

“ Now such abundance is found almost in the heart of Samaria. The traveller who rides across from the town of Samaria, passing behind Ebal, or who follows the stony road in the magnificent gorge east of the same mountain, finds himself gradually descending to the springs which lie at the head of the great Far’ah valley, the open highway from Shechem to the Damieh ford of the Jordan. It was up this valley that Jacob drove his flocks and herds from Succoth to Shalem near Shechem. ”

“ I have seen the date palm absolutely dipping its fronds into the Dead Sea as it hung over—for on the east side the date palm is very luxuriant. On the eastern shores there is as wonderful an exuberance of vegetable life as will be found anywhere on the face of the earth. The plants are like hot-house plants growing wild. In the warm waters entering to the sea there are small fishes of various species. We found thirteen new kinds of fishes in the Jordan and its affluents. ”

“ The sculptors of Thebes and Abydos did not flatter this Pharaoh when they gave him that delicate, sweet, smiling profile which is known to travellers. After a lapse of thirty-two centuries the mummy retains the same expression which characterised the features of the living man. Seti I. must have died at an advanced age. The head is shaven, the eyebrows are white, the condition of the body points to more than three-score years of life; thus confirming the opinion of the learned, who have attributed a long reign to this king. ”

“ It is remarked by Professor Edward Hull that the mild patient character of the Egyptian cultivator befits the nature of that wide alluvial tract of fertile land which is watered by the Nile. The mountainous tracts of the Sinaitic peninsula, formed of the oldest crystalline rocks of that part of the world, have become the abode of the Bedouin Arab, the hardy child of nature, who has adapted himself to a life in keeping with his wild surroundings. ”

“ Next, perhaps, follows a regiment of sturdy infantry marching back to the Castle, with a colonel on a prancing grey—men who have shown their mettle since then, and fat, unwieldy officers, who have perhaps broken down under the strain of campaigning. Their bugles blow a monotonous tune, to which the drums keep time, and the men tread, not in step, but in good cadence to the music. ”

“ Dra’a ought to be a rich field for excavations, because at least three cities exist there, one beneath another. The present Arab buildings and heaps of filth are, for the most part, on the top of a Greek or Roman city, as is evident from the walls which are exposed in a multitude of places, and the masons’ marks which appear on them. And the Roman town appears to rest on one still older, in which bevelled stones were used. But whether there are two or three cities above ground, there is certainly a large one beneath them, entirely excavated in the rock on which the upper cities stand. ”

“ The Bible history of Abraham implies that when he visited Egypt, driven thither by famine, that country was already under a settled government, having a king, and princes who acted as the king’s subordinates. It requires us to believe that the king was called Pharaoh, or by some name or title which conveyed that sound to Hebrew ears. And further, it assumes that Egypt was so fruitful and so prosperous, as to be a granary for surrounding nations in years of famine. ”

“ In later ages Assyria and Egypt were frequently at war with one another. The hostile armies were obliged to march through Palestine; and it became very difficult for the kings of Israel and Judah to look on with equanimity and preserve a strictly neutral attitude. Yet if they favoured one of the great powers they of course gave umbrage to the other; besides which, Assyria, in the days of its power, could hardly brook to leave any small kingdom independent. At length Samaria was conquered, and its inhabitants deported, by Shalmaneser or by Sargon; and afterwards Judea also, by Nebuchadnezzar. ”

“ We observe on Conder’s plan of the rock site that a narrow ridge runs north and south, immediately east of the Tower of David, and separates as a shed the broad head of the Tyropœon from the western valley. The Tyropœon deepens very suddenly, and any wall carried across it would of necessity be commanded by the ridge to the west of it. The only sensible course for the builders was to carry the wall along the ridge itself, on ground commanding all without it. Exactly along this ridge, at its western side, a wall was discovered in the year 1885, during the rebuilding of the Greek Bazaar. ”

“ But we have seen already that the northern cloister of the Temple would strike the east wall of the Haram a little north of the Golden Gate, and consequently here would be the corner of the Temple courts. We have also seen that the rock now shelves down to the north, for the valley from Herod’s Gate came out here, and at 300 feet north of Golden Gate the rubbish is 125 feet in depth, so that from this low ground there would be an ascent in turning west. The wall itself would go up, ascending toward the ridge of the hill. ”

“ The hills of Western Palestine consisted of grey rock, and were comparatively bare and infertile; the plains were gorgeous with flowers, and rich with corn-fields. Beyond the plain of Esdraelon was wild scenery of mountain and forest. The eastern hills were green with forest and pasture; in the central region were the forests of Gilead; north of Gilead was rich pasturage for wild herds of cattle—the “bulls of Bashan;” in the south was rich pasturage too, and the king of Moab at one time was a sheep-master, paying as tribute the wool of 100,000 lambs and 100,000 rams (2 Kings iii. 4) . ”

“ We may now walk about in Pompeii, observing how its houses were built, and how its streets were paved. We see the ruts worn by the wheels of chariots, we note the public fountains, the temples, the theatre, which would seat 10,000 people. We notice the corn-mills in the bakers’ shops, the vats in the dyers’ shops, and in private houses we observe with interest the many articles of domestic use. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ About 200 yards west of the Grotto, Conder made the interesting discovery of an indisputably Jewish tomb judged to belong to the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era. It would be bold to hazard the suggestion that this is the very tomb in which the body of Christ was laid—the new tomb in the garden belonging to Joseph of Arimathea—yet its position so near the old place of execution is certainly remarkable. “Thus,” says Conder, “to ‘a green hill far away, beside a city wall,’ [339] we turn from the artificial rocks and marble slabs of the monkish chapel of Calvary.” ”