On the crest of a high hill two or three hours west from Jerusalem, stands the village of Soba, and it has long been imagined to be Modin, the birth-place and burial-place of the Maccabæan heroes; though I never heard any reason assigned for that identification, except the circumstance of the sea being visible from it, and therefore of its being visible from the sea, which was supposed to tally with the description given in 1 Macc. xiii., 27-30, of the monuments erected there,—“Simon also built a monument upon the sepulchre of his father and his brethren, and raised it aloft to the sight, with hewn stone behind and before. Moreover, he set up seven pyramids, one against another, for his father, and his mother, and his four brethren. And in these he made cunning devices, about the which he set great pillars, and upon the pillars he made all their armour for a perpetual memory; and by the armour ships carved, that they might be seen of all that sail on the sea. This is the
sepulchre which he made at Modin, and it standeth yet unto this day.”
I never was persuaded that the words implied that ships carved on pillars at Soba, could be distinguished from the sea, or even that the columns themselves were visible from ships off the coast; but only this, that the deliverers of their country from the intolerable yoke of the Syrians, having opened up communication with the Grecians and Romans, marine intercourse had become more frequent than before, a matter that the Maccabæan family were proud of; and therefore they had ships carved on the pillars, as might be observed by seafaring people who might go there; yet, whatever the words might signify, they could not prove that Modin was so far inland, and among the hills, as Soba.
However, in 1858, I went with my son and a couple of friends to inspect the place itself, considering it at least worth while to make one’s own observations on the spot.
We passed through ’Ain Carem, the Karem of the Septuagint, to Sattâf, and rested during the heat of the day in a vineyard, near a spring of water and plots of garden vegetables, belonging to the few houses that had been rebuilt after several years of devastation by village warfare.
The approach to the place from any direction is through the very rough torrent bed of the Wadi Bait Hhaneena, and along very narrow ledges
upon the sides of steep hills, quite as perilous as any that are used for travelling in any part of the Lebanon; too dangerous to admit of dismounting and leading the horse after the risk has once begun, by far the safest method of advancing is to hold the reins very loose, and if you wish it, to shut your eyes.
Opposite to Sattâf, directly across the valley, the Latins had lately rebuilt a small chapel of former times, said to have been the prison of John the Baptist; they name it the Chapel of the Hhabees, i.e., the imprisoned one.
Leaving Sattâf we gradually ascended to Soba; at first through lemon and orange plantations near the water, and then through vineyards with a few pomegranate-trees interspersed.
It is noteworthy how, throughout most of the tribe of Judah, small springs of water are found dribbling from the rocks, (besides the larger sources of Urtas, Lifta, Faghoor ’Aroob, Dirweh, and Hebron,) which were doubtless more copious in the ancient times, when the land was more clothed with timber, and there were men, industrious men, aware of their blessings, and ready to prevent the streams from slipping away beneath the seams of limestone formation.