Biblical Geography and History

by Charles Foster Kent

Omri's Strong Rule. It was while besieging this Philistine stronghold that Omri, after the death of the adventurer, Zimri, was elected king by his soldiers. He proved to be in many ways the strongest king who ever sat on the throne of Northern Israel. The transference of his capital from Tirzah to the strong central city of Samaria^[(59)] demonstrated his military skill and organizing ability. He also reconquered the territory of the Moabites as far as the Arnon, and, as is recorded on the Moabite stone, established strong garrisons throughout this territory.^[(46)] He was not able, however, to repel the Aramean armies that at this time came marching down through the open highways from the north.

Ahab's Aramean Wars. Omri's son, Ahab, proved an even more able general than his father. In a series of engagements, in which he fought against great odds and against armies equipped far better than his own, he repelled the Arameans, who overran his territory. In the first engagement, which was fought near Samaria, the Hebrews, profiting by the blind overconfidence of the enemy, won through a sudden attack. The decisive battle was fought a year later near Aphek. This city is not the Aphek on the southeastern side of the Plain of Sharon, but is probably to be identified with the modern town of Fîk, beside the important highway which runs from the southern end of the Sea of Galilee northeastward toward Damascus. Ahab's courage was shown in thus going out to meet his foe on the northeastern border of his territory. The town lay on the top of the plateau at the end of a valley that looked down upon the Sea of Galilee on the west. The battle was probably fought on the level plain of the Jaulan, which ran east of the town, and resulted in the complete defeat of the Aramean army and the capture of its king.

Strength and Fatal Weakness of Ahab's Policy. Ahab was contented to make a favorable treaty with his fallen foe. The captured Israelite cities were restored and a trading quarter was set aside in Damascus for the Hebrew merchants. Ahab evidently sought in every way to develop the commercial resources of his kingdom. His marriage with Jezebel, the daughter of the Tyrian king, was intended to cement more closely the relations with this great commercial people on the west. Viewed from the point of view of world politics, Ahab's policy in maintaining the natural boundaries and in developing the commercial resources of his nation was sound. By his contemporaries he was doubtless regarded as a most successful king. His fatal mistake, however, was that of Solomon: in his pursuit of material splendor he disregarded the inherited beliefs and rights of his subjects. The official recognition of the Canaanite worship of his Phœnician queen was even more of a menace to the pure worship of Jehovah in Northern Israel in the days of Ahab than in Jerusalem in the days of Solomon. Northern Israel was pre-eminently Baal's land. Here the Canaanites had been most strongly intrenched and their religious traditions still pervaded the land. Communication with the Canaanites on the Mediterranean coast was exceedingly close and there was much in these ancient Baal cults to attract the prosperous, pleasure-loving, cosmopolitan people of Northern Israel. Ahab's policy did not contemplate a substitution of the worship of the Tyrian god, Baal Melkart, for that of Jehovah, but it did mean obscuring the fundamental characteristics and demands of Israel's God.

Elijah's Home. It was natural that the prophet who was able to analyze the situation and to point out its dangers, should come from the borderland of the desert where Moses had first impressed upon his people the unique character of Jehovah. Tishbe, the town from which Elijah came, will probably never be identified with absolute certainty, but it was somewhere in the land of Gilead. Modern tradition fixes it at Mar Elyas, a village a little north of the modern town of Ajlun in northern Gilead. Amidst this land of deep, rushing river-beds and steep, tree-clad hills, which gradually merge into the desert, was reared this stern champion of Jehovah and foe of the degenerate cults of agricultural Canaan. In one of these wadies, which cut down through the Gileadite hills toward the Jordan, Elijah found a refuge when the drought parched the fields west of the Jordan. His other home was Mount Carmel, whose fertile top and noble vistas resembled his native land across the Jordan.

The Scene on Mount Carmel. Excepting when he found refuge in the Phœnician city of Zarephath, which lay on a promontory about eight miles south of Sidon, and again at Horeb far in the south, Elijah performed his life work almost entirely in the narrow strip of land which lay between Gilead and Carmel. It was somewhere on the eastern end of Mount Carmel,^[(102)] where it jutted out far into the Plain of Esdraelon, that he summoned king and people to the great conference which revealed to them the vital issue between the religion of Jehovah and that of Baal. Modern tradition identifies it with a site called El-Mahrakah, Place of the Burning. A spring a little below favors the conclusion that this was an ancient sanctuary. This retired spot, far away from the distractions of the city life below, was eminently fitted for the delivery of the prophet's brief but searching message. It looked along the western side of the plain to the old stronghold of Megiddo, the centre of the ancient Canaanite kingdoms. Due east lay the battle-field beside the Kishon where Jehovah fought for his people and demonstrated in a language that a child nation could understand, his superiority to the local baals. To the south were the fertile, undulating hills and valleys of Samaria, to the north those of lower and upper Galilee, while eastward across the plain were the hills where lay the prophet's home, and far away in the northeast rose the snowy height of Mount Hermon. It was a scene that spoke clearly and impressively of Jehovah's might and of his tender love and care for his people. When at last, after the great convocation was over, the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled across the plain, none could doubt that Jehovah was still in the midst of his people demanding their undivided loyalty.

Ancient Jezreel. Jezreel, Ahab's northern capital, is ordinarily identified with the present town of Zerin,^[(11)] although the absence of ancient ruins at this point renders the identification exceedingly doubtful. The village lies on a broad elevation rising three hundred feet above the plain and is encircled by fertile fields which extend for miles in almost every direction. The statement in I Samuel 29:1 that "the Israelites encamped by the fountain in Jezreel" implies that the ancient site was either further east near the copious spring now known as 'Ain el-Meiyiteh, or else to the southeast under the northwestern end of Mount Gilboa beside 'Ain Jalûd which is probably the famous Spring of Harod of Judges 7:1. Jezreel was on the central highway from Northern to Southern Israel and guarded the entrance to the Valley of Jezreel. Under royal patronage this fertile land would quickly be transformed into a paradise of gardens and vineyards. Ancient Jezreel, however, was a paradise in which a man listened to the tempting voice of his wife to his undoing. In reaching out and taking with his ruthless hand the vineyard of Naboth, Ahab condemned his family to exile and death. The voice of the dauntless prophet of Gilead pronounced his doom. Near this same vineyard the dogs licked the blood of Ahab, as his body was borne back across the Plain of Jezreel from the scene of his last battle with the Arameans.

Situation of Ramoth-Gilead. Like many of the east-Jordan sites, the identification of the famous city of Ramoth-Gilead, which was the scene of so many battles between the Hebrews and their northern foes, is uncertain. By some it has been identified with Reimun, a few miles west of Jerash, on one of the northern branches of the Jabbok, but this is on no important highway and has neither water nor the ruins of an ancient city. Eusebius apparently identifies Ramoth in Gilead with Es-Salt, fifteen miles west of Rabbath-Ammon, but this is too far south to satisfy fully the biblical references and has no large plain near by where chariots could manœuvre. Possibly the modern Jerash, which lies on a northern confluent of the Jabbok, was the site of the famous stronghold.^[(44)] The name Ramoth implies that it was on a broad height and its prominence as a frontier town in the Aramean wars indicates that it was in northern Gilead. It may have been situated on the site of the modern Remtheh in northeastern Gilead. The modern town is to-day occupied by a Turkish garrison and stands near the point where the main road from Bethshean and the upper Jordan valley joined the great pilgrim highway on the edge of the desert. This identification would be in accord with the statement in I Kings 4:13, that Solomon's prefect, who resided in Ramoth-Gilead, collected taxes not only from the Manassite towns of Jair in Gilead, but also in the region of Argob, which is in Bashan. The latter region probably lay to the north and east of the upper waters of the Yarmuk. The implication in Josephus's Antiquities VIII, 15:4, that Ramoth in Gilead was a three-days' march from the city of Samaria, also favors the conclusion that it was the extreme outpost of the east-Jordan land. The other possible and, on the whole, most probable site is that suggested by Principal Smith, of Aberdeen University. He identifies it with the present city of Gadara. This town lies one thousand one hundred and ninety-four feet above the sea-level, on a bold plateau which runs out from the hills of Gilead. This height, two miles wide and at least four miles in length from east to west, is bounded on the north by the deep valley of the Yarmuk, on the west by the Jordan, four and one-half miles away and over one thousand eight hundred feet below, and on the south by the Wady el-Arab, which cuts a deep gorge into the Gileadite hills. It is due south of Aphek, where was fought the great battle between the Hebrews and the Arameans under Ahab, and is on one of the chief highways which leads up from the Jordan through Arbela to join the pilgrim highway, to Damascus and Arabia. It is, therefore, the chief gateway and at the same time the natural fortress which guards northern Gilead. On the wide level plateaus about there is ample room for the manœuvring of chariots and an important road leads directly from it across the Jordan to Ahab's northern capital.

Elisha's Home. According to Jerome, Abel Meholah, the home of Elisha, was about nine miles south of Bethshean. The name, Meadow of the Dance, or of the Circle, implies that it was a low-lying valley. All these indications point to 'Ain Hel-weh, a ruined mound beside a gushing spring on the western side of the Jordan valley. It was surrounded by fertile fields. Throughout all his work Elisha, in contrast to Elijah, revealed his familiarity and close touch with the agricultural civilization of Northern Israel. The scenes of a greater part of his activity were the Jordan valley and the plains of Jezreel and Esdraelon, which lead into it from the west.

Jehu's Revolution. The culminating act of Elisha's work was to call Jehu to the kingship. The call came to him as he was directing the siege of Ramoth-Gilead. It is easy in imagination to follow his furious ride down the heights from Ramoth-Gilead across the Jordan and along its western side, past Bethshean and up the Valley of Jezreel to the northern capital of Ahab. On the open plain near the city of Jezreel he slew his master and thence rode into the city to complete the slaughter of the house of Ahab. By the sword he not only mounted the throne, but rooted out the Baalism against which Elijah and Elisha had both contended.

Rule of the House of Jehu. The history of Northern Israel for the next two generations is a record of humiliation and disaster. Jehu secured his position on the throne by paying a heavy tribute to the king of Assyria, whose armies were hovering on his northern borders. The active and ruthless Aramean king, Hazael, overran Northern Israel, destroying most of its warriors and extracting heavy tribute. In this hour of Israel's weakness the Philistines made forays into the south, carrying off Hebrews as slaves to foreign markets. It was not until Jehoash, the grandson of Jehu, came to the throne of Israel that the tide turned. Damascus, attacked in the rear by a northern Aramean people, was unable to cope with the Israelite armies. The east-Jordan territory was reconquered by Jehoash's son, Jeroboam II, and the Moabites again laid under tribute. For the first time in Israel's history a prophet arose in the land of Galilee. In the small town of Gath-Hepher, situated on a hill a little west of the highway which runs north from Nazareth, lived Jonah, the son of Amittai. He predicted that Jereboam's kingdom would extend, as it did later, from the southern end of the Dead Sea to the gateway between the Lebanons in the north, that marked the southern boundary of the strong northern Aramean kingdom of which the capital was Hamath. Again Northern Israel touched its widest bounds. Pride and self-confidence took possession of the nation. The military nobles who rallied about the king, enriched by the spoils of war, enslaved their fellow-countrymen whose fortunes had been depleted by the disastrous Aramean wars. Outwardly Northern Israel seemed strong and prosperous, but within were social wrongs which were eating the very vitals of the nation.