From Dan to Beersheba / A Description of the Wonderful Land, with Maps and Engravings and a Prologue by the Author Containing the Latest Explorations and Discoveries

by John Philip Newman

Though by common consent they are called the “Tombs of the Kings,” yet there are no sepulchres beyond the walls of Jerusalem as to the origin and founder of which there is such a variety of opinions. On these points the tombs themselves are dumb, as they contain neither device nor inscription; and, with one or two ambiguous exceptions, history is likewise silent. M. de Sauley declares them to be the “Tombs of the Kings of Judah;” Mr. Ferguson pronounces their “architecture to be later than the reign of Constantine;” Mr. Williams asserts them to be the “sepulchral monument of Herod the Great;” Dr. Schultz identifies them as the “Royal Caverns,” mentioned by Josephus as being on a line with the Agrippian Wall; Dr. Robinson ascribes them to Helena, the widow of King Monobazus, of Adiabene, who, with her son Izates, having espoused the Jewish faith, settled in Jerusalem in the reign of Claudius Cæsar,and her son, dying in the Holy City, was here interred;[136] while Dr. Thompson and Dr. Barclay regard them as having been constructed by the Asmonean kings. The latter conclusion is most in harmony with the facts of sacred and profane history. The kings of Judah were interred on Mount Zion; Herod the Great was entombed at Herodium, where there are other vaults for his descendants; other caverns along the Agrippian Wall correspond in location with the words of Josephus better than these; and the thirty loculi within this mausoleum are twenty-eight too many for Helena and her son Izates.

Passing down the Valley of Jehoshaphat to the northeast corner of the city wall, we entered the large olive-groves which cover the bed of the valley and the sides of the adjacent hills. Attended by their Nubian slaves, the women and children of Jerusalem spent the hours of the day here, reclining beneath these trees. Opposite St. Stephen’s Gate is the traditional rock where Stephen was stoned to death. Above it, to the north, is the supposed site of Calvary. Below it, to the east, is the stone bridge which spans the Kidron. It is 140 feet long, and seventeen high from the bottom of the vale to the top of the arch. It is firmly built, and as it has stood for thousandsof years, it will endure for ages to come, if not destroyed by violence. The Brook Kidron is a winter torrent, or the accumulation of streamlets from the hill-sides, formed by the rains of winter. Though not seen in the dry season, the stream continues to flow several feet below the surface of small loose stones, sending up distinctly a low murmuring sound.

A thousand feet below the bridge is “Absalom’s Pillar.” It is of limestone, cut out of the rock, and detached from the base of Olivet by a path excavated in three of its sides. It consists of a square platform, reached by a flight of steps; abasement of solid rock twenty-four feet square, a square attic seven feet high, and a circular attic, surmounted with an inverted funnel-shaped dome, the point spreading out like an opening flower. Though its apparent altitude is less than fifty feet, yet, owing to the accumulation of stones around its base, its actual height is not ascertainable. The exterior of the basement is ornamented with columns and pilasters, on the Ionic capitals of which rests a Doric architrave. Above the first entablature are two courses of large, well-dressed stones, on which is traced a small cornice, and on the dome above is a cornice resembling rope-work. Within are two chambers, reached by the original doorway on the east, and by a breach on the west, which has been made by the inhabitants of the city, who hold the memory of Absalom in profound contempt. Within and around it are heaps of stones, thrown there by Christian, Jew, and Moslem, in condemnation of a son’s rebellion against his father, and, as a more expressive mark of their disapprobation, they spit upon it as they pass.This is probably the pillar which Absalom in his lifetime reared up for himself in the “King’s Dale.”[137] Being a mixture of Grecian, Roman, and Egyptian architecture, the style is against the supposition; but as it was customary in the days of Herod to “garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,” so the admirers of the rebel may have reconstructed his “Pillar” conformably with the architectural taste of the Herodian age.

ABSALOM’S PILLAR (RESTORED).

A little to the north is the reputed tomb of King Jehoshaphat, from whom the valley takes its name. It is a subterranean sepulchre, extending several feet into the mountain. The entrance is through an ornamental portal, consisting of four columns and a pediment, adorned with foliage, cut in the face of the perpendicular rock. Believing it contains a copy of their Law, and other valuable manuscripts, the Jews guard this mansion of the dead with ceaseless vigils.But this can not be the tomb of the king whose memory it bears, as it is distinctly recorded that Jehoshaphat was buried with his fathers in the city of David.[138] The false location of his tomb has given a false name to the valley itself. Both Josephus and the sacred writers call it the “Valley of the Kidron,” which signifies “Vale of Filth,” from the refuse matter that flowed into it from the cess-pool in the rock beneath the Temple.Nor can this be the place to which the prophet alludes when he declares that God will gather all nations into the Valley of Jehoshaphat for judgment.[139] Its limits are not equal to such an assemblage. The name Jehoshaphat meaning “Jehovah judgeth,” the allusion is metaphorical, the royal name being applied to some unknown valley—the rendezvous of the arraigned nations.

A few paces to the south of “Absalom’s Pillar” is the traditional tomb of James the Just, where he concealed himself during the interval between the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord, and where he was finally interred after his martyrdom. It is a cavern fifty feet long, fifteen deep, and ten broad, with an entrance high up in the face of the rock consisting of four Doric columns.

Just south of this apostolic tomb is the monument of Zachariah, who was stoned to death in the reign of Joash,[140]and who is alluded to by the Savior as having perished between the Temple and the altar.[141] Unlike the others, it is solid, designed merely as a sepulchral monument to the memory of the martyr. It is a monolithic, four-sided pyramid, whose height is equal to its base, each side measuring twenty feet. Separated from the parent rock by passage-ways on three sides, it is ornamented with columns and pilasters, each crowned with a plain Ionic capital, and above which is an entablature of acanthus leaves.

From the bed of the Kidron Valley to the Bethany Road on the crest of the hill, and from the “Pillar of Absalom” to the village of Siloam, is the cemetery of the Jews. Each grave is marked with a plain slab imbedded in the earth, and bears a Hebrew inscription. National love and religious superstition induce the descendants of Abraham to seek a place of sepulture within this vale. Expecting the restoration of their kingdom, they desire to sleep in death beneath the sceptre of their posterity. Believing that the final judgment will take place here, and that to have a part in the resurrection of the just they must here be interred, in their old age many come from distant lands to be entombed beside their countrymen. If so unfortunate as to expire in a strange land, they die in the faith that their bodies will burrow their way through the earth to this consecrated spot. Here, morning and evening, venerablemen prostrate themselves upon the ground in anticipation of death, and hither Jewish women come to weep over buried affection.