Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

The Crusaders had other traditions connected with this neighbourhood. The grave of Abner was then shown within a church in Hebron, probably the same place now found in the house of a Moslem. The grave of Esau was fixed in a suburb of the town, as also those of Adam and Judah, which have now disappeared. The open green, west of the town, was known as the “Field of Damascus,” apparently because owned by the Sultan of Damascus. The place where Cain killed Abel was a little farther south, and on the north was the cave in which Adam and Eve lived for a century, which appears to have been the modern rock-hewn spring called ’Ain-el-Judeideh, “the excavated fountain,” which is covered by an arch and reached by steps. Here Adam mourned for Abel, and hence the spot is called by some chroniclers the Vale of Tears; here also Adam was made of the red earth of the place. Hebron was considered to have obtained its name Kirjath-Arba, “city of four,” from the four patriarchs, including Adam—an explanation derived from the Rabbinical commentators, but not in accordance with the reason given in the Bible, “And the name of Hebron before was Kirjath-Arba, which Arba was a great man among the Anakim” (Josh. xiv. 15).

On our last visit to Hebron we were shown an ancient Jewish tomb with nine graves, or kokim, close to ’Ain-el-Judeideh, and to this we obtained the curious name Kabr Hebrûn, “the grave of Hebron.” We did not, however, learn the origin of the title, or the source of the tradition. A little higher up the hill is a ruined monastery, in a corner of which the tomb of Jesse is shown.

The Oak (or plain, as our version renders it) of Mamre has been shown at various times in different directions. Jerome places it at the modern Râmeh, where is a fine unfinished stone enclosure with a large well. The walls measure 162 feet north and south by 214 east and west, and one stone is fifteen feet long. A little farther east the remains of Constantine’s basilica are distinguishable, and the great enclosure may perhaps be the market where the Jews were sold by Hadrian, after the fall of Bether.

The present site of the Oak is farther south, and the magnificent tree stands among the vineyards north-west of Hebron. It is called Ballûtet Sebta, “the oak of rest,” and has branches fifty feet long, one of which was broken by the snow in 1857. This Oak is thought to be more than two hundred years old, but cannot be the one seen by Sir John Maundeville, for it is covered with leaves, whereas that which was shown to Sir John he calls “the dry tree.” “They say,” he continues, “that it has been there since the beginning of the world, and that it was once green, and bore leaves till the time that Our Lord died on the Cross, and then it dried, and so did all the trees that were then in the world.” Jerome, however, is more moderate in his assertions, and speaking of the northern site of Mamre at Râmeh, distant two miles from modern Hebron, and now called “Abraham’s House” by the Jews, he says that the Oak was still visible, and worshipped by the peasantry in the days of Hadrian, but disappeared during his own time. We have thus no certainty as to the position of Mamre or of the Oak, which Josephus places only six furlongs from Hebron (B. J. iv. 9, 7).

There are two other springs near Hebron which deserve notice; one is east of the “Oak of Rest,” and is called ’Ain Kheir ed Dîn, “Spring of the chosen of the faith,” perhaps in connection with Abraham’s history. The second is more important, because almost undoubtedly a Biblical site.

After his interview with David, Abner set out on his way to Jerusalem, and had gone as far as the Spring of Sirah, when Joab’s messengers overtook him and brought him back to Hebron, where he was murdered in the gate (2 Sam. iii. 26). Now on approaching the modern town by the old paved road to the north, the first spring beside the way is called Sârah. Like the Hebrew Sirah, the word means “withdrawn,” and the title is, no doubt, due to the fact that the spring is under a stone arch, at the end of a little alley with drystone walls, and is thus withdrawn from the high-road. This place may therefore be considered as one of the few genuine sites in the neighbourhood of Hebron.

On the 22nd of October we marched south, to camp at Yuttah, the ancient Levitical town of Juttah, five miles south of Hebron.

We were now entering on a new district, differing in character from the rest of the Judean hills. In the neighbourhood of Yuttah, Dûra, and Yekîn, the country descends by a sudden step, and forms a kind of plateau, divided into two by the great valley which runs from north of Hebron to Beersheba, and thence west, to Gerar, and the sea. The plateau is about 2600 feet above sea-level, and 500 feet below the general level of the Hebron watershed. It consists of open wolds and arable land, the soil being a white soft chalk, geologically a later formation than the hard limestone of the hills. There are no springs in this region, but the water, where not contained in tanks and cisterns, sinks through the porous rocks, and runs in the valleys below the surface of the ground. On the south another step leads down to the white marl desert of Beersheba; on the west are the Philistine plains; on the east, 300 feet below, is the dreary Jeshimon, or “solitude.” The plateau has only two inhabited villages on it, but is covered with ruins. It is dry and treeless, but rich in flocks and herds. It seems to have been the country of the Horites, for the place is riddled with caves intended for habitations, and the name of this troglodytic race is preserved in the titles of two of the ruined towns.

The plateau formed part of the district called Negeb, or “dry land,” in the Bible; and here, in the southern part of the possessions of Caleb we should seek for Debir, which he gave to his daughter; for the Choresh Ziph, where David and Jonathan met; and for the hill of Hachilah, where David hid from Saul.

One is at once struck with the fitness which the plateau presents for the adventures of the fugitive bandit chief who was destined to become the king of Israel. The inhabitants, like Nabal of Carmel, are rich in sheep and oxen. The villagers of Yuttah owned 1700 sheep, of which 250 belonged to the Sheikh. All along the borders of the Jeshimon and Beersheba deserts there is fine pasturage, to which the peasants descend in spring-time, having made some sort of agreement with the neighbouring Bedawîn to protect them from other tribes. Thus we find perpetuated the old system under which David’s band protected the cattle of Nabal.