CHAPTER VI.
Effects of Geographical Conditions Upon the Hebrews.
Certain natural effects of the physical conditions upon the people in Palestine have been apparent as we traced the general land formation. It is evident that in an age when easy communication was essential to union, there could be no political unity among a people dwelling in a country so divided by mountains, plains, and valleys. Again, we would expect tribes settling the plateaus of the Central Range to develop differently from those peopling the fertile plain of Sharon. Indeed, within this range itself we have found that the inhabitants of austere Judaea led a life unlike that of more accessible Samaria. Other effects of natural conditions upon the Hebrews are evident, as we shall see.
The very climate of Palestine seems to have had its influence in molding the religious thought of Israel. "The climate of Palestine is regular enough to provoke men to methodical labour for its fruits, but the regularity is often interrupted. The early rains or the latter rains fail, drought comes occasionally for two years in succession, and that means famine and pestilence. There are too, the visitations of the locust, which are said to be bad every fifth or sixth year, and there are earthquakes, also periodical in Syria. Thus a purely mechanical conception of nature as something certain and inevitable, whose processes are more or less under man's control, is impossible; and the imagination is roused to feel the presence of a will behind nature, in face of whose interruptions of the fruitfulness or stability of the land man is absolutely helpless. To such a climate, then, is partly due Israel's doctrine of Providence."[1] In Deuteronomy the contrast between Egypt, the land just left, and Palestine, to which Israel was then passing, is drawn, and the price of prosperity definitely given.
"But the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: but the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven. A land which Jehovah thy God careth for: the eyes of Jehovah thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.
"And it shall come to pass, if ye shall harken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love Jehovah your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayst eat and be full. Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; and then Jehovah's wrath be kindled against you and he shut up the heaven, that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which Jehovah giveth you."[2]
The productivity of the soil had two important results in the development of the Hebrews. The first affected the very nature of their being, for it changed them from desert nomads into herders and small farmers. In place of the tent, they adopted the house, the fixed habitation. Instead of wandering from pasture to pasture with their cattle and families, as they had done for generation upon generation before their sojourn in Egypt, they cultivated the land and found it overflowing with "milk and honey." In the Song of Moses this great transformation is pictured with vividness and beauty:
"Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of generation on generation.
Ask thy father and he will show thee,
Thine elders and they will tell thee.
When the highest gave nations their heritage,
When he sundered the children of men.
He set the border of the tribes,
By the number of the children of Israel.
For the portion of Jehovah is his people,
Jacob the measure of his heritage.
He found him in a land of the desert,
In a waste, in a howling wilderness.
He encompassed him, He distinguished him,
He watched him as the apple of His eye.
As an eagle stirreth his nest,
Fluttereth over his young,
Spreadeth abroad his wings, taketh them,
Beareth them up on his pinions,
Jehovah alone led him
And no strange god was with him.
He made him to ride on the Land's high places,
And to eat of the growth of the field.
He gave him to suck honey from the cliff,
And oil from the flinty rock.
Cream of kine and milk of sheep,
With lambs' fat and rams'
Breed of Bashan and he-goats,
With fat of the kidneys of wheat;
And the blood of the grape thou drankest in foam!"
While settlement in Palestine produced an advancement in civilization, it brought at the same time a lower plane of religious life and thought. With sudden plenty and no longer enforced abstinence of the desert, came a certain confusion and riot. The desert tends to inspire monotheistic ideas and conceptions; lands of varied aspect, such as Greece or Palestine, inspire polytheistic conceptions—divided power rather than unity.
"The creed of the desert nomad is simple and austere—for nature about him is monotonous, silent, and illiberal. But Syria is a land of lavish gifts and oracles—where woods are full of mysterious speech, and rivers burst suddenly from the ground, where the freedom of nature excites, and seems to sanction, the passions of the human body, where food is rich, and men drink wine. The spirit and the senses are equally taken by surprise. No one can tell how many voices a tree has who has not come up to it from the silence of the great desert....
"But with the awe comes the sense of indulgence, and the starved instincts of the body break riotously forth.... All this is said to have happened to Israel from almost their first encampment in Canaan."
"They moved him to jealousy with strange gods,
With abominations provoked him to anger.
They sacrificed to monsters undivine,
Gods they had known not,
New things, lately come in,
Their fathers never had them in awe."
One more effect of physical conditions may be noted here, leaving the rest to appear in connection with Israel's story—namely, the effect of the picturesqueness of the land upon these former desert nomads. For one who has made himself familiar with the beautiful places of earth, Palestine has its charm, but to people journeying thither from the wastes of desert, the land possesses matchless beauty. Before calling attention to the reflection of scenery to be found in ancient Hebrew writings, let us read the description of certain aspects of the country, as given by one who knows every foot of the land and has watched it in and out of season.
"There is the coast-line from the headland of Carmel—northwards the Gulf of Haifa, with its yellow sands and palms, ... southwards Sharon with her scattered forest, her coast of sand and grass: westwards the green sea and the wonderful shadows of the clouds upon it—grey when you look at them with your face to the sun, but, with the sun behind you, purple, and more like Homer's 'wine-colored' water than anything I have seen on the Mediterranean. There is the excellency of Carmel itself: wheat-fields climbing from Esdraelon to the first bare rocks, then thick bush and scrub, young ilex, wild olives and pines, with undergrowth of large purple thistles, mallows with blossoms like pelargoniums, stocks of hollyhocks, golden broom, honeysuckle, and convolvulus—then, between the shoulders of the mountain, olive-groves, their dull green mass banked by the lighter forest trees, and on the flanks the broad lawns, where in the shadow of great oaks you look far out to sea. There is the Lake of Galilee as you see it from Gadara, with the hills of Naphtali above it, and Hermon filling all the north. There, is the prospective of the Jordan Valley as you look up from over Jericho, between the bare ranges of Gilead and Ephraim, with the winding ribbon of the river's jungle, and the top of Hermon like a white cloud in the infinite distance. There is the forest of Gilead, where you ride, two thousand feet high, under the boughs of great trees creaking and rustling in the wind, with all Western Palestine before you. There is the moonlight view out of the bush on the northern flank of Tabor, the leap of the sun over the edge of Bashan, summer morning in the Shephelah, and sunset over the Mediterranean, when you see it from the gateway of the ruins on Samaria down the glistening Vale of Barley. Even in the barest provinces you get many a little picture that lives with you for life—a chocolate-coloured bank with red poppies against the green of the prickly pear hedge above it, and a yellow lizard darting across; a river-bed of pink oleanders flush with the plain; a gorge in Judaea, where you look up between limestone walls picked out with tufts of grass and black-and-tan goats cropping at them, the deep blue sky over all, and, on the edge of the only shadow, a well, a trough, and a solitary herdsman.
"And then there are those prospects in which no other country can match Palestine, for no other has a valley like the Ghor, or a desert like that which falls from Judaea to the Dead Sea. There is the view from the Mount of Olives, down twenty miles of desert hill-tops to the deep blue waters, with the wall of Moab glowing on the further side like burnished copper, and staining the blue sea red with its light. There is the view of the Dead Sea through the hazy afternoon, when across the yellow foreground of Jeshimon the white Lisan rises like a pack of Greenland ice from the blue waters, and beyond it the Moab range, misty, silent and weird. There are the precipices of Masada and Engedi sheer from the salt coast. And, above all, there is the view from Engedi under the full moon, when the sea is bridged with gold, and the eastern mountains are black with a border of opal."[3]
The literature of no other people has more vividly reflected a landscape than has that of the ancient Hebrews. Without some understanding of Palestine, one would fail to appreciate much that is beautiful in Hebrew poetry. While we shall touch upon this again in the consideration of Hebrew literature, some examples will sufficiently illustrate this point. Take, for example, a portion of the Hundred and Fourth Psalm:
He sendeth forth springs into the valleys;
They run among the mountains:
They give drink to every beast of the field;
The wild asses quench their thirst.
By them the fowl of the heaven have their habitation,
They sing around the branches.
He watereth the mountains from his chambers:
The earth is satisfied with the fruits of thy work.
He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle,
And herb for the service of man:
That he may bring forth food out of the earth,
And wine that maketh glad the heart of man,
And oil to make his face to shine,
And bread that strengtheneth man's heart.
The trees of Jehovah are satisfied;
The cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted;
Where the birds make their nests:
As for the stork, the fir trees are her house;
The high mountains are for the wild goats;
The rocks are a refuge for the conies.
O Jehovah, how manifold are thy works!
In wisdom hast thou made them all:
The earth is full of thy riches.
Yonder is the sea, great and wide,
Wherein are things creeping innumerable,
Both small and great beasts.
There go the ships;
There is leviathan, whom thou hast formed to take his pastime therein.
These wait all upon thee,
That thou mayest give them their meat in due season.
This poem reflects general characteristics of the land. The next is a pastoral poem which could have been written only in Judaea. Its figures are pastoral throughout, and lack of acquaintance with the land wherein it was produced often causes one to miss the successive pictures it portrays. Reference is made to the Twenty-third Psalm, wherein the comparison of the shepherd with his sheep is maintained.
"The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want."
Only a good faithful shepherd could lead his sheep in Judaea so that at no time would they want for care or food.
"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:"
Pasturage was often scanty, and to lie always in green pastures was the greatest boon that could befall the sheep.
"He leadeth me beside the still waters."
Not lakes, but cisterns or pools, constructed to hold the rains of winter for use in the dry months of summer. Unless these were carefully sought out in each new pasture, the sheep would suffer from thirst.
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For thou art with me:
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."
When one pasture was exhausted, it was necessary to journey to another. Danger lurked on every side. Did the sheep wander away, they were sure to be attacked by fierce animals, or stolen by other herders. The shepherd led the way amid all dangers, and his rod and staff gave assurance to the sheep some distance from him.
"Thou preparest a table before me
In the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil;
My cup runneth over."
The figure is not changed here, as some have supposed, and a banquet introduced. Quite on the contrary. In that land grew many poisonous herbs, likely to be unnoticed by the sheep. The shepherd watched to see that his flock found food free from these enemies. Then at last, when the night fell, and the flock was gathered into the fold, the shepherd stood by the door with a cup of oil in his hand ready to pour on the heads of weary, exhausted lambs, thus to refresh and revive them. Only a little could be spared for each one. To have a cup filled to overflowing was a wonderful blessing. So is the figure carried on to the end of the beautiful song, and only goodness and mercy could possibly attend one so protected.
[1] Smith: Historical Geography of Holy Land, 73.
[2] Deuteronomy 11, 10.
[3] Smith: Historical Geography, 94.