SOUTHERN PALESTINE.
FROM DAN TO BEERSHEBA.
CHAPTER I.
The two Boundaries.—The parallel Mountains.—The great Valley.—Inspired Eulogies.—Sterile Soil.—Gibbon’s Comparison.—Natural and miraculous Causes of present Sterility.—Testimonies of pagan Authors on the ancient Productions of Palestine.—Land coveted by the great Nations of Antiquity.—A Land of Ruins.—Present Fertility and Fruits.—Richness of the North.—Volney on the Variety of the Climate of Palestine.—Beauties of Spring in the Promised Land.—Flowers.—Magnificent Scenery.—Standard of Landscape Beauty.—Palestine is a World in Miniature.—Illustrations.—Prophetical Descriptions of the twelve Tribeships.—Wonderful Correspondence.
The boundaries of Palestine are defined by the sacred writers according to the Land of Possession and the Land of Promise. The extreme length of the former is 180 miles from north to south, the average breadth 50 miles from east to west, and it has a superficial area of 14,000 square miles. The latter is 360 miles long, 100 broad, and contains 28,000 square miles, being three and a half times larger than New Jersey, twice as large as Maryland, of equal extent with South Carolina, and of exact proportion to New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont combined. The limits of the lesser area are from “Dan to Beersheba” north and south, and from the Jordan to the Mediterranean east and west.The boundaries of the greater area are from the “Waters of Strife, in Kadesh,” on the south, to the “entrance of Hamath” on the north, and from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean to the western border of the Arabian Desert.[1]Moses describes the Land of Promise;[2] Samuel, the Land of Possession;[3] the former, what was included in the original grant; the latter, what was actuallypossessed by the “chosen people.”And although the twelve tribeships remained substantially the same as surveyed by Joshua, yet both David and Solomon held dominion from the Nile to the Euphrates, and in them was fulfilled God’s promise to Abraham.[4]
It is the remark of an eminent writer that “there is no district on the face of the globe containing so many and such sudden transitions as Palestine, being at once a land of mountains, plains, and valleys.”[5] Far to the north, at the “entering of Hamath,” commence two parallel ranges of limestone mountains, extending southward to the Desert of Tîh and Arabia Petræa, which are branches of the ancient Taurus chain, and a continuation of that mountain tract stretching from the Bay of Issus to the Desert of Arabia, called Lebanon. The western ridge attains its greatest altitude, opposite Ba’albek, in Jebel Mukhmel, whose summit rises 13,000 feet above the level of the sea. Continuing southward to the point opposite Tyre, the chain is broken by the River Leontes flowing through a sublime gorge into the Mediterranean. Decreasing in height, but expanding in breadth, the ridge continues south of the ravine to the hills of Nazareth and the wooded cone of Tabor, where it is broken again by the great plain of Esdraelon, through which the Kishon flows to the sea, separating the hills of Galilee from the mountains of Samaria. Coming up from the Bay of ’Akka in a southeasterly direction is Mount Carmel, immediately to the south of which are the hills of Samaria. Rising from the southern border of Esdraelon, and stretching southward thirty-three miles, they terminate in Ebal and Gerizim, where the chain is broken for the third time by the Plain of Mukhnah. Beyond this vale are the mountains of Ephraim, extending to Bethel, where the Heights of Benjamin begin, which extend to the valley of the Kedron. Here the ridge takes the name of the “Hill Country of Judea,” running in a wide, low, irregular mountain tract to the southern limit of Palestine. Excepting the promontory of Carmel, the southern section of the Lebanon range is farther removed from the sea, leaving at its base a maritime plain more than 150 miles long, embracing the beautiful Sharon on the north, and the Land of Philistia on the south.
Twenty miles to the east of the Lebanon, and at the “enteringof Hamath,” the anti-Lebanon chain begins, running parallel to the former in a southwestern direction. Though of less general altitude than its companion ridge, it includes Mount Hermon, 10,000 feet high, and rivaling in the grandeur of its form and the sublimity of its scenery the loftiest peaks of Syria. Thirty-three miles south of Hermon the eastern range sweeps round the Sea of Galilee, taking the name of the Mountains of Gilead along the east bank of the Jordan, and the names of Ammon and Moab along the shore of the Dead Sea, and finally terminating with the hills of Arabia Petra at the head of the Bay of Akabah.
Next to these mountain chains, the most remarkable feature in the physical geography of Palestine is the great valley, which, commencing amid the ruins of ancient Antioch, runs southward between the two parallel ridges of Lebanon and anti-Lebanon. Measuring more than 300 miles in length, and being from seven to ten miles broad, it serves as the bed of the Orontes, the Litâny, and the Jordan. Bearing the name of Cœlesyria, its southern section has an elevation of 2300 feet above the sea; but from its westerly branch, through which the Leontes flows to the village of Hasbeiya, it rapidly descends, and at its intersection with the Plain of el-Hûleh, a distance of less than twenty miles, it is on a level with the sea. At the Lake of Tiberias it has a depression of 653 feet, and reaches its greatest depth in the chasm of the Dead Sea, the surface of whose waters is 1312 feet below the level of the Mediterranean.
To the cursory observer there is an air of extravagance in the inspired descriptions of the Promised Land. Dwelling with delight upon the fruits of the soil, the pleasures of the climate, and the grandeur of the scenery, the poets and historians of the Bible ascribe to it a marvelous fertility, and in their glowing encomiums other lands sink into insignificance when compared to the favored inheritance of Jacob,and even the rich valley of the Nile is to be cheerfully exchanged for the rich hills and valleys of Palestine.[6]Such was to be its richness, that from the “cattle on a thousand hills,” and from the thymy shrubs and the numberless bees inhabiting its venerable forests, it was to be “a land flowing with milk and honey.”[7]Such was to be its fruitfulness, that the “threshingwas to reach unto the vintage, and the vintage reach unto the sowing-time.”[8]