II. Historical Truth.
To this I turn with deeper interest, because it has been denied. Voltaire, for example, describes Palestine as one of the worst countries of Asia, comparing it to Switzerland, and says it can only be esteemed fertile “when compared with the desert.” (Keith, p. 106.) There cannot be one moment’s doubt that in such statements he exceeded fact. But others have pointed to the desolate hillsides, and asked the question whether such a country could ever have supported a population as dense as that of Norfolk or Suffolk. Now let there be no mistake on this subject; for we are fully prepared most freely to admit that the hill country, as we now see it, could not possibly support a large population, and that there is a dreary, barren desolation about it which is wholly unlike the descriptions of rich fertility which abound through the Scriptures. One of these descriptions will be sufficient; viz., Deut. viii. 7–9: “For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.” Now I am not in the least afraid of saying plainly that such a description as that is not true of modern Palestine. It is not a good land flowing with milk and honey; it is not a land of vines and oil olives; it is not a land from which a large population could eat bread without scarceness. I read that there is not a vine to be seen between Eschol and Beersheba, and that there are very few olives to be found anywhere. What then are we to say? Was the historical description true, or was it not? Were the people deceived, or was God true to His Word? “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” On this point let us ask the stones, and let us take the testimony of the rocks. But in doing this we must not be content with taking a tourist’s ticket, and hurrying as fast as possible along the beaten tracks; but we must accompany our scientific men in their investigations; and if we do so, what shall we find? In the first place we shall find scattered through the country the ruins of an enormous number of villages. The Exploration Fund have actually entered on their map no less than 2,770 names. It is perfectly clear therefore that there was once a very large and densely-packed population. Then in the next place the careful observer will perceive that those hills which are now so barren were once covered with terraces so as to preserve the soil. Dr. Keith says that on one hill he counted no less than sixty-seven such terraces one above another. Then if you examine these terraces you find a countless number of cisterns and water-courses cut in the rocks, proving clearly that there was once a careful system of irrigation; and then, in conclusion, near many of the villages there is found an olive-press, apparently used by the whole village, while up amongst the terraces there are multitudes of smaller wine-presses, apparently cut in the rocks by each proprietor for his own use. In confirmation of this evidence I have been informed by one for many years a resident in Jerusalem, that the inhabitants are dependent for firewood on the roots of the vines and the olives still found on the desolate hillsides. The roots remain, though the trees are gone, and those roots unite in their testimony with the rocks amongst which they are found. The evidence therefore of the rocks is irresistible. The people are scattered through the nations, and the rain has washed down the toil from the broken terraces; but the rocks remain; and the proof is as clear as any proof can be of anything, that there was once a teeming population and a high state of cultivation, that the country was once a land of vines and oil olives, and that it was a land maintaining a prosperous, thriving, and painstaking people. Thus the rocks agree with the Book. Those barren hills themselves supply the evidence of their former fertility, and the stones cry out that the grand old Pentateuch is historically true.