Buried Cities and Bible Countries

by George St. Clair

It was pointed out that Josephus says the altar was on the east side of Jordan, and that the Scripture narrative makes the tribes to cross the river at “the passage of the Children of Israel,” which is supposed to describe the Jericho ford and not the ford at Damieh. For these reasons Conder now regards his idea as “only a conjecture.”

It may be reasonably questioned, however, whether the identification should be given up. We are told in Joshua xxii. 10, that the altar, so high to look to, was in “the region about Jordan that is in the land of Canaan”—“in the forefront of the land of Canaan, in the region about Jordan, on the side that pertaineth to the Children of Israel.” The historian takes pains to distinguish between the two sides of the river, and if one side pertained to the Children of Israel more than the other, it was surely not the eastern side. Moreover, the altar was in the land of Canaan, and the eastern boundary of Canaan was the Jordan itself (see Gen. x. 19, and page 107 of this volume). The altar was “in the forefront of the land of Canaan,” at the extreme of its eastern side, and therefore close by the Jordan. The Hebrew faced the rising sun, and spoke of the south as the right hand, the north as the left, so that his forehead or forefront was to the east. It was apparently because the supposed idolatrous altar was set up on territory belonging to the western tribes that those tribes felt so insulted. The east of Jordan was unclean, but the western country was “the possession of the Lord.” “Come across”, they said, “into the Lord’s land, if you will; but if you come, do not build rebel altars” (v. 19). Further, the object of the two and a half tribes, according to their apology and explanation, was to have a memorial in that western land from which the Jordan seemed to cut them off.

Two and a half tribes being settled east of Jordan, three tribes north of the Plain of Esdraelon, and one in the Plain itself, the remainder of the country is divided between the remaining five tribes and a half.

In the Book of Joshua the boundaries of the tribes are given with the greatest minuteness, but it was impossible for us to trace them with any accuracy before the topographical survey was carried out. Many of the villages by which the border lines passed were lost, in some cases the sites were displaced; but as soon as these things were rectified the boundaries could again be drawn.

The blessing which Jacob pronounced upon his sons, according to Gen. xlix., was true to the position of the tribes in their several districts; and their position determined in some degree their conduct and their fortunes. When Joshua dismissed the two and a half tribes, they went away to their tents: living on those green hills east of Jordan, they remained for a long time a pastoral people. Reuben, bordering on Arabia, and being “unstable as water,” became hardly distinguishable from an Arab tribe. Gad, of whom Jacob said, “a troop shall press upon him,” was subject to attacks from troops of Bedouin plunderers. Divided from their brethren by the great gorge of the Jordan, the eastern tribes were separated also in their fortunes. The three northern tribes of Asher, Zebulon, and Naphtali were also partially cut off by the great plain of Esdraelon. They got into communication with the northern nations from whom they were less separated geographically, and they entered into alliance with Phœnicia. Solomon gave away twenty of their cities to Hiram, king of Tyre, apparently thinking that the allegiance which was so nearly gone, might as well be parted with altogether. These northern tribes, like those east of Jordan, seldom came to the assistance of their brethren in any great crisis. When Deborah required help from all quarters she had to complain that Asher “sat still at the haven of the sea,” and Reuben “sat among the sheep-folds, to hear the pipings for the flocks.” In the south—in a country half a desert, the lair of wild beasts—Judah “couched as a lion,” and it was dangerous to rouse him up. Ephraim, the most powerful of the tribes, secured to himself the choicest portion of the hill country. Manasseh, with territory on both sides of the Jordan, was “a fruitful bough by a fountain, whose branches run over the wall.” Little Benjamin, situated between the two powerful tribes of Ephraim and Judah, knew not which to be guided by, and was at last torn asunder in the effort to follow both. Yet Benjamin, on whose eastern border we still find a valley, called the Wolf’s Den, was “a wolf that ravineth” and often “devoured the prey.” Issachar “saw the land that it was pleasant”—namely, the fruitful plain of Esdraelon,—and “bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant under task-work,” cultivating the ground.

The tribe of Levi had no district of country assigned to it, but in place thereof forty-eight cities, scattered throughout the tribes. Of these cities two have been identified by the agents of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

The recovery of the site of Gezer we owe to M. Clermont Ganneau. It is in the lowland district, and off the road to the right as one goes up from Jaffa to Jerusalem, about 8 miles past Ramleh. The modern name, Tell Jezer, represents the Hebrew exactly. Gezer had been a royal city of the Canaanites; and it was in a position commanding one of the important passes. The Levitical cities had around them a margin of 1000 cubits. In 1874 M. Ganneau was shown by the peasantry a rude inscription deeply cut in the flat surface of the natural rock. It appears to be in Hebrew letters, and to read “Boundary of Gezer.” He afterwards found a second, similar to it; and from their position he judges that the city lay four-square, and had its angles directed to the cardinal points of the compass. It was this city of Gezer which was reconquered from the Philistines by Pharaoh, and handed over to Solomon as a dowry with his daughter.

We owe to Major Conder the discovery of another of these Levitical cities, namely, the royal city of Debir, south-west of Hebron, together with the “upper and nether springs of water” (at a distance), which Caleb gave to his daughter, on the occasion of her marriage (Judges i. 15). The modern name is Dhâheriyeh, and the place is evidently an ancient site of importance, to which several old roads lead from all sides. Another name for this place was Kirjath-Sepher, which means Book-Town; so that it must have been noted for books or writings of some kind.

In tracing the boundaries of the tribes the surveyors found reason to look upon the Book of Joshua as “the Domesday Book of Palestine.” The towns in a district are all mentioned together, and in such consecutive topographical order that many Scripture sites could be identified from this very circumstance. The tribal boundaries are shown to be almost entirely natural, namely, rivers, ravines, ridges, and the watershed lines of the country. It is a remarkable fact, however, that while the descriptions of tribal boundaries and cities are full and minute in the territory of Judea, and scarcely less so in Galilee, they are fragmentary and meagre within the bounds of Samaria. There is no account of the conquest of Samaria, nor does the list of royal cities include the famous Samaritan towns of Shechem, Thebez, Acrabbi, and others. No list of the cities of Ephraim and Manasseh is included in the topographical chapters of the Book of Joshua, nor any description of the northern limits of Manasseh, and only a very slight one of the southern border, where that tribe marched with Ephraim.

Thus far, in our description of Joshua’s conquest, we have seen how his good generalship secured possession of the hills—the central hills only, and not the plains. The Canaanites still dwelt in the plains round about. The Philistines held the south-west. The Phœnicians were secure in the north. The outlying nations of Edom and Moab were undisturbed. In this condition things remained for a long time; and the Israelites, occupying the hills only, were not likely to become a race of sailors. Nor did they desire it, if we may judge from such notices of the sea as occur in the Bible, for they seem to show the awe with which the writers regarded its rolling waves. And besides, the coast was not suited for it. The principal harbour was Tyre; but that was in Phœnicia, which was hardly to be included in Palestine. South of Tyre we have Accho, Caipha, and Joppa; but these are by no means good and convenient as ports. Accho is the best, but has been the least used, although Napoleon considered it “the key of Palestine.” It was to Joppa that the Phœnicians brought timber in rafts for the building of Solomon’s Temple; and thence it was carried by road to Jerusalem. It was at Joppa that Jonah found a ship going to Tarshish, and took his passage.