Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

This site seems to be ancient, not only because of the wells, but judging from the caves, the tombs, and the rock quarryings which exist near it. The hill is crowned with a little white-domed building, dedicated to “the notable chief” (Sheikh Madhkûr), who seems to have no other name. The ruins round it are named from the Sheikh.

But although to the site itself no name except Sheikh Madhkûr is applied, there are ruins below the hill and near the well, which are called ’Aid el Ma, or ’Aid el Miyeh, “Feast of the Water,” or “Feast of the Hundred.” Both pronunciations are recognised, and either is radically identical with the Hebrew Adullam. The ’Aid represents the Hebrew Ed, “monument,” and the Ma, “water,” reminds one of Jerome’s curious translation of the name Adullam—“Testimonium Aquæ, Monument of Water.”

But if this ruined fortress be, as there seems no good reason to doubt it is, the royal city of Adullam, where, we should naturally ask, is the famous cave? The answer is easy, for the cave is on the hill.

We must not look for one of the greater caverns, such as the Crusaders fixed upon in the romantic gorge east of Bethlehem, for such caverns are rarely inhabited in Palestine; and there is nothing in the Bible narrative to show that anyone except David himself lived in the cave. His four hundred men may have inhabited the “hold” or fortress on the top of the hill.

The site at Adullam is ruinous, but not deserted. The sides of the tributary valley are lined with rows of caves, and these we found inhabited, and full of flocks and herds; but still more interesting was the discovery of a separate cave, on the hill itself, a low, smoke-blackened burrow, which was the home of a single family. We could not but suppose, as we entered this gloomy abode, that our feet were standing on the very footprints of the Shepherd-King, who here, encamped between the Philistines and the Jews, covered the line of advance on the cornfields of Keilah, and was but three miles distant from the thickets of Hareth.

No doubt many travellers will visit the famous site thus recovered, but I saw nothing more to describe than the bare chalky hill, with its black cave, its white dome, and scattered blocks of masonry, the ancient round stone wells below, the magnificent old terebinth, and the cave stables in the opposite hillside.

The hill is about 500 feet high; it commands a fine view eastwards over the broad valley (up which the high-road to Hebron runs), its course dotted with terebinths and rich with corn; in the distance are high rocky mountains, dark with brushwood, and steeply sloping, with a small village, here and there, perched on a great knoll, and gleaming white.

There is ample room to have accommodated David’s four hundred men in the caves, and they are, as we have seen, still inhabited. The meaning of the old name of the site is now quite lost, and there is a confused tradition of a feast of one hundred guests, by which it is generally explained.

It is interesting to observe that the scene of David’s victory over Goliath is distant only eight miles from the cave at ’Aid el Ma. It was in the Valley of Elah, between Shochoh and Azekah, that the Philistines encamped in “Ephes Dammim,” or “the Boundary of Blood.” Saul, coming down by the highway from the Land of Benjamin, encamped by the valley (1 Sam. xvii. 2) on one of the low hills; and between the two hosts was the Gai or “ravine.” Even of the name Ephes Dammim we have perhaps a trace in the modern Beit Fased, or “House of Bleeding,” near Shochoh.

Two points required to be made clear as to the episode of David’s battle with Goliath; one was the meaning of the expression Gai or “ravine;” the other was the source whence David took the “smooth stones.” A visit to the spot explains both. In the middle of the broad open valley we found a deep trench with vertical sides, impassable except at certain places—a valley in a valley, and a natural barrier between the two hosts; the sides and bed of this trench are strewn with rounded and water-worn pebbles, which would have been well fitted for David’s sling.