I rose before the sun, and wrote two letters to friends in England by morning twilight.
The mist disappeared as the glorious sun came forth; and we walked about to survey the place. The wide plain around was disused arable land, showing in some places some stubble from a recent harvest, but only in small patches, which in the early spring must have been cheerful to the sight.
Near us was a pretty water-course of a winter torrent, shallow and comparatively wide, but then quite dry.
The great well has an internal diameter at the
mouth of twelve feet six inches, or a circumference of nearly forty feet. The shaft is formed of excellent masonry to a great depth until it reaches the rock, and at this juncture a spring trickles perpetually. Around the mouth of the well is a circular course of masonry, topped by a circular parapet of about a foot high. And at a distance of ten or twelve feet are stone troughs placed in a concentric circle with the well, the sides of which have deep indentions made by the wear of ropes on the upper edges.
The second well, about 200 yards farther south, is not more than five feet in diameter, but is formed of equally good masonry, and furnishes equally good water. This is the most common size of ancient wells throughout Palestine.
Two other wells of proportions about equal to the first well were shown us, but they are filled to the brim with earth and stones; and Shaikh Ayân told us of two others. The barbarous practice of filling up wells from motives of hostility was adopted at this place very soon after Abraham had dug them. (Gen. xxvi. 15, etc.) Who can tell how often these have been opened, closed and opened again?
All Arab-speaking people wish to count neither more nor less than seven wells here, and so create the name Seba; but even in this way the etymology would not hold good, for the term seven wells would be Seba Bear, not Beer-es-Seba. From the
Hebrew history, however, we know how the designation was first given. Gen. xxi. 31, “Wherefore he called that place Beersheba, because there they sware both of them,” i.e., Abraham and Abimelech. Yet it deserves notice that the verb to swear is identical with the numeral seven; and in the three preceding verses we find Abraham ratifying the oath by a sacrifice of seven ewe-lambs as a public guarantee for the fulfilment of the conditions; the killing of lambs with this view is a usage which still obtains in the country.
On a rising ground near the wells are scattered lines of houses, covering a considerable space; but all that now appears is of inferior construction, and of no importance.