Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

The story of David’s wanderings is one of the most interesting episodes of the Old Testament, and we have now so recovered its topography, that the various scenes seem as vivid as if they had occurred only yesterday. First we have the stronghold of Adullam, to be described later, 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 farther south to the neighbourhood of Ziph (Tell Zîf); and here also our English version speaks of a forest—the “Wood (Choresh) of Ziph,” where David met with Jonathan. A moment’s reflection will, however, convince any traveller that as the dry, porous formation of the plateau must be unchanged since David’s time, no wood of trees could then have flourished over this unwatered and sun-scorched region. The true explanation seems to be that the word Choresh is a proper name with a different signification, and such is the view of the Greek version and of Josephus. We were able considerably to strengthen this theory by the discovery of the ruin of Khoreisa and the Valley of Hiresh (the same word under another form), close to Ziph, the first of which may well be thought to represent the Hebrew Choresh Ziph. Should this word appear as a proper name in the new English Version, a very marked improvement will be made in what might be called the orientalising of the Bible, substituting the actual language of the land, for that essentially English tone which has been imparted to the narrative by the expressions of translators to whom the East was less familiar than their own fair country.

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 sheepcotes 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.

On the south are the wolds of the Negeb plateau, with the plains of Beersheba beyond. On the east is the “Solitude,” with white peaks and cones of chalk, and deep, narrow watercourses, terminated by the great pointed cliff of Ziz, above Engedi, and by the precipices over the Dead Sea, two thousand feet high. Here, among the “rocks of the wild goats,” the herds of ibex may be seen bounding, and the partridge is still chased on the mountains, as David was followed by the stealthy hunter Saul. The blue sea is visible in its deep chasm, and is backed by the dark precipice of Kerak, “scarred with a hundred wintry watercourses.”

The great hump of rock on which Maon—the home of Nabal—stands, is seen to the south, and rather nearer is the Crusading castle at Carmel, where were Nabal’s possessions; the ruined mound of Ziph is to the west, and Juttah among its olives. Thus 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 to recognise in the long ridge called El Kôlah, running out of the Ziph plateau towards the Dead Sea desert, or Jeshimon—a district which, properly speaking, terminates about this line, melting into the Beersheba plains. 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 Sela Ham-mahlekoth, “Cliff of Divisions” (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, 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.

On the 5th of November we moved once more south, and encamped at Dhâherîyeh, a village which, there seems to me to be every reason for supposing to be the ancient Debir, a place not identified before the Survey. The name has the same meaning, derived from its situation on the “back” of a long ridge; and the position between Shochoh (Shuweikeh), Dannah (Idhnah), Anab (’Anâb), and Eshtemoa (Es Semû’a), seems very suitable (Josh. xv. 48). The place, moreover, is evidently an ancient site of importance, to which several old roads lead from all sides. The springs near Debir given to Achsah (Judg. i. 15) might well be the beautiful springs of Dilbeh, about seven miles north of the town, and the identification seems to me to be amongst the most valuable of those due to the Survey.