I passed forward to select a spot for pitching the tents when they and the food should arrive. The village shaikh of course tendered all the hospitality in his power to offer, but this was
unnecessary beyond a supply of water, milk, and eggs.
We waited, and waited: the sun was down; the stars came out, and the moon shone over us; but at length the mule bells became audible, and our dwellings and supplies came up. Supper and sleep are needless to mention.
Wednesday 2d.—The green hills around were enlivened by the clucking of partridges among the bushes, and the olive-trees by the cooing of doves.
Leaving this position with its extensive prospect, and passing an enormous evergreen oak we crossed a noble valley, and soon reached the hill on which stands Sh’weikeh, (or Shocoh in Hebrew.) This large valley runs east to west, and is the Elah of Scripture, the scene of David’s contest with Goliath—a wide and beautiful plain, confined within two ranges of hills, and having a brook (dry at this season) winding at half distance between them. The modern names for the vale of ’Elah are Musurr, from the N.E. to near Sh’weikeh, and Sunt after that.
The plain was waving with heavy crops of wheat and barley, and the bed of the stream, bordered by old trees of acacia, called Sunt, (in that district called Hharâz.) These are of a brilliant green in summer, but as there are no such trees elsewhere nearer than Egypt, or the Wadi ’Arabah, (for they require water,) the people relate a traditional
account of their origin, and say that once upon a time the country was invaded by a king of Egypt, named Abu Zaid, bringing a prodigious army; but on the occurrence of a sudden alarm, they decamped in such haste that their tent-pegs were left in the ground, which, being made of Sunt wood, struck roots at the next rainy season, and sprung up as we see them. Can this be a confused tradition of the rout of the Philistines to Shaaraim on the fall of Goliath?
The vale or plain (for in Hebrew the word Emek is often applied to the latter also when lying between ranges of hills—sometimes even when they are of considerable breadth, as at Rephaim and elsewhere) is about three hours or twelve miles long, and spacious enough to allow of military occupation and action; hostile armies might of course also occupy the opposite hills. From the direction of Hebron other valleys fall into this wide plain. On another occasion I entered it by that called Wadi ’Arab or Shaikh, descending from ’Ain Dirweh and Bezur or Bait Soor. Wadi ’Arab is commanded at its mouth by Kharâs on the north and Nuba on the south. Near to the latter are the ruins of ’Elah, which I have no doubt gave name to the valley, and not any remarkable terebinth-tree, as is generally guessed by commentators on the Bible, unless, indeed, some remarkable terebinth-tree at first gave name to the village. Neither Robinson nor Porter appears to
have seen or heard of this site of ’Elah, neither do they mention the route by the Wadi ’Arab, which lies to the north of Wadi Soor, which they do mention.
Southwards, but further inland, lies Keelah, which I suppose to be the Keilah of 1 Sam. xxiii. I, the scene of a remarkable incident in David’s early career, before retiring to Ziph. The name is registered four hundred years before that in Josh. xv. 44, among the cities of Judah.