Beneath the Mosque is the sacred cave where rest in peace the remains of the eminent dead, and where to this day may still repose intact the embalmed body of Jacob. Machpelah signifying “double,” the cave consists of two compartments,separated by a wall of native rock. To its sepulchral vaults there are three entrances—one in the northwest corner, close to the western wall; a second in the court, opposite the entrance-gate of the Mosque; and a third near the shrine of Abraham. Believing, like the Catholics, in the intercession of saints,the Moslems throw their petitions to the patriarchs[356] through the latter aperture.
Of the identity of this spot with the cave of Machpelah there can not be a reasonable doubt. In the days of Josephus it was marked by a memorial erected by Abraham himself, and from his time both Jews, Christians, and Moslems have in turn been the faithful guardians of the patriarchal tomb. Its identity is avouched by the belief of the Jews themselves, and around its venerable walls the despised descendant of the illustrious patriarchs now chants his prayers, and laments the departed glory of the once mighty kingdom of his renowned ancestors. Threatened with instant death should his devotion or temerity lead him to cross the threshold, he is only permitted, on certain occasions, to look through an aperture in the massive wall upon the spot where rest in peace those who were mighty in their day and generation, but who, in the helplessness of death, can bring no relief to a posterity who have abandoned their altars, and rejected the long-promised and now exalted Messiah.
There was something touching in the thought that I stood beside the family vault of those who had long lived together in the happy estate of matrimony, and there was even enjoyment in the reflection that God had vindicated the duality and unity of marriage in the grave. Here, side by side, sleep Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah. Hagar and Keturah are not with Sarah, and Rachel is not with her sister Leah. Is this separation in death God’s reproof to Jacob for his dissatisfaction with Leah? Though the reasons that determined him to inter his beautiful Rachel in a common field by the roadside are unknown to us, and though Hebron is less than twenty miles distant from Ephrath, yet it is somewhat remarkable that in after years she was not exhumed and laid in the family tomb of Machpelah. Was Jacob unwilling to divide his grave with the daughters of Laban?or, conscious of the purity and singleness of his affection for Rachel, would he have her alone even in death? By the highway her solitary tomb remains, and, as if impressed with the patriarch’s wish, his descendants have made no interments on the spot.
Inseparably connected with Hebron is Beersheba, which is less than forty miles to the south. The road thither is hilly, and the journey toilsome; but, on approaching the well that Abraham dug, the pasture-fields of the patriarchs stretch out before the eye in all their native beauty and richness. Covering an area half a mile in length and a quarter of a mile in breadth are fragments of pottery, remains of foundations, and traces of a stone wall, the date of which is unknown, called by Moses Beer-sheba, “Well of the Oath,” because of the covenant between Abraham and Abimelech, and by the Arabs Bîr es-Seb’a, “Well of the Seven,” because of the seven ewe-lambs the former gave the latter: the modern name corresponds with the Bible designation. Having a diameter of twelve and a half feet, and a depth of forty-four feet to the surface of the water, this well is excavated in the living rock, and contains an abundance of pure fresh water.
Around this well what thrilling memories cluster! Departing from Hebron after the conflagration of Sodom,Abraham planted here a grove, whose fruit he gathered, and beneath whose shade he worshiped.[357] Here Isaac spent his happy youth, rejoicing in the smiles of honored parents,and here his father received the command to offer the child of promise as a burnt-offering.[358] After the demise of his mother, here Isaac received his bride Rebekah; and Beersheba became the scene of that sad episode in domestic life,the fraud of Jacob in obtaining Esau’s birthright.[359] Here, in manhood, those brothers were estranged by a mother’s folly,and from this ancestral abode Jacob fled to Haran.[360] After the lapse of seventy-five years he was here again, and offered sacrifices prior to his departure into Egypt,whence he was brought back with funeral honors such as only kings receive.[361] Threatened by the infatuated Jezebel,hither Elijah fled, and, sitting beneath the shade of a juniper-tree, requested for himself that he might die.[362] And here was the southern boundary of the Promised Land, whoseuttermost limits, in the earlier history of the nation, were from “Dan to Beersheba.”
In a land where social and domestic customs never change, the scenes of historic associations possess an interest that never fails. The advanced civilization of Europe has there left to the traveler the ruins of renowned cities, without perpetuating the customs of their citizens. The temples, palaces, and dwellings of the Greeks and Romans remain, attesting the genius, elegance, and wealth of their age, but the social habits of the inhabitants of Athens and Rome bear no resemblance to those of their superior ancestors. In Italy and Greece one feels himself in an ancient country surrounded by a modern people, and, to re-live the past, he must forsake the present. But in the East, where a “thousand years are but as one day”—where the stereotyped life of the patriarchs is the every-day life of the Arabs—where intonations of voice, peculiarities of gesture, modes of salutation, styles of dress, habits of business, customs of domestic life, and where the tent, the meal, the fold are the same, the only difference is in the change of the persons who now occupy the homes of those whose memory we cherish, whose examples we imitate, and whose faith we aspire to attain. Accustomed to the slow and regular processes of nature, possessing power rather than capacity, and clinging to experience as something immutable, those who live by the cultivation of the soil look with suspicion upon novelties, regard innovations with dread, and are the last to change. The incoming of Franks into Eastern cities insensibly affects the manners of society; but here, on the patriarchal pasture-fields of Mamre and Beersheba, the domestic life of to-day is the same as it was 4000 years ago.
In crossing the great Plain of Wady esh-Sheikh, in Arabia, en route for Mount Sinai, Sheik Hassan, the chief of a tribe of Tawarahs, invited us to dine at his tent. It was noon when, from the backs of our camels, we espied the encampment to the southward. Nine tents of camel’s hair were arranged in a line, supported by rude poles. Those for the females were impenetrable to the eye of strangers, while those for the males consisted merely of a roof, with the sides and ends open.On reaching the tent prepared for our reception, our camels knelt, we dismounted, and the sheikh’s father, a man of eighty years, rose to greet us, and bowed himself to the ground in an attitudeof profound respect.[363] Mats were spread for us to sit upon,and water was brought to wash our hands and feet.[364] To the east of this tented home Hassan’s daughters were keeping his flocks,as Rachel had kept those of Laban nearly forty centuries ago.[365] A young man was sent to the fold to fetch a kid, tender and good, and, having dressed it, carried it into the tent to Hassan’s wife, who cooked it with milk and rice. The rice and meat were brought on two large wooden plates into our tent, and set before us on a small stool less than a foot high. Without knife, fork, or spoon, we returned to the days before the invention of such instruments, and with our fingers begun to eat,while the sheikh respectfully stood up, attentive to our wants.[366] It being a breach of Arab etiquette to inquire after the health of a wife,we were not permitted to ask for Sarah as the angels did.[367]
Had the dinner Abraham prepared for the three angels on the plains of Mamre been dramatized, the correspondence could hardly have been more exact. The tent-life; this distant field; the pressing invitation to dine; the water for the ablution of our hands and feet; the going to the field for a kid; handing it to a servant to dress it; the meal itself; the sheikh standing up while we ate; the seclusion of the females gave a lifelike reality to the sacred story.
Like the patriarchs of old, these Bedouin sheikhs lead a predatory life, moving their tents from place to place, according to the climate, and the demands of their herds and flocks. But in wealth, in hospitality, in reputation, in purity of character, in devotion, in intellect, in nobility of nature, the modern Arab chief holds no comparison with the exalted nature, the high-toned character, and the Christian-like piety of the prince of the patriarchs.
As in the days of the Hebrew spies, the Vale of Hebron is still famous for the delicious grapes of Eshcol.[368] Extending up the valley for more than a mile, and covering the sloping hills on either side, these celebrated vineyards are cultivated with care, and are a source of considerable revenue to the proprietors. Unlike our vineyards, those of Eshcol have no arbors. The vines are planted in rows, from eight to ten feet apart in each direction. When they attain a height of six feet theyare attached to a stake, placed in a sloping position, and the shoots extending from vine to vine form a long and graceful festoon. Occasionally two opposite rows are purposely inclined toward each other, forming with their branches a natural arbor. After vintage, in late autumn, all the shoots are pruned off, and the stocks are cut down within a few feet of the ground, leaving an ungainly and apparently dead trunk; but the returning spring brings forth again the tender leaf, and the coming summer matures the luscious grape for the autumnal vintage. In each vineyard there is a lodge, or stone tower, from which the watchman keeps guard against the depredations of beasts and the incursions of robbers. During the vintage season the town is deserted;the people retire to these towers, each one sitting beneath his own vine and fig-tree,[369] and dividing the time between the gathering of the fruitage and the enjoyments of the annual festival. As the Moslems, who are the principal proprietors, are not allowed by their Koran to make wine, the grapes are either dried into raisins, or they are first pressed, and the juice is then boiled down into a sirup called dîbs, not unlike molasses, but of a more delightful flavor and delicious taste. It was to these vineyards the spies came, and from them they carried bunches of the grapes to Moses and their brethren as evidence of the fruitfulness of the Promised Land. Their journey was long, fatiguing, and perilous. Leaving Kadesh Barnea, in the Desert of Paran, they entered the Jordan Valley, and followed the river northward to Lake Tiberias, and, winding round its northern shore, entered the upper valley of the Jordan, pursuing their journey as far as Rehob, near Dan, as men come to Hamath; thence returning through the midst of the land by Tabor, across the great plain of Esdraelon, over the hills of Samaria, through the vale of Shechem, by Jacob’s well, over the heights of Benjamin and Judah, by Shiloh, Bethel, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, to Hebron. Here flows the brook Eshcol, from which they drank, and from the vines along its banks they cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes, “and they bare it between two upon a staff.” To those who live in more northern climates, this story of the enormous size and great weight of a single bunch of grapes must seem incredible; but, whatever may be the degeneracy of the Syrian grape, through centuries of neglect,the proof is abundant that in southern latitudes grapes grow to an enormous size. According to Pliny, a bunch of African grapes was larger than an infant. Paul Lucas mentions bunches which he saw in Damascus weighing forty-five pounds each, and in Naples I have eaten grapes each one as large as a plum.The mode, however, adopted by the spies to carry the bunch from Eshcol to Kadesh Barnea was probably not rendered necessary by the size of the cluster so much as by the desire to preserve it entire for the benefit of their brethren.[370] Watched by the keen eye of the vine-dresser, we entered the vineyard, and were impressed with the exact correspondence between the one before us and the one described by our Lord:There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, hedged it round about, digged a wine-press in it, built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen.[371] There were the vines; around them was the hedge; within it was the press; yonder stood the tower, and by my side toiled the husbandman. Within the same vale are groves of olives, and orchards of figs, and apricots, and quinces, and pomegranates. The latter fruit, so frequently referred to in the Bible, is as sweet to the taste as it is pleasant to the eye. In form and size it is not unlike an orange, and in color inclines to a pale yellow, tinged with a red blush. They grow upon a thorny bush, with a tulip-shaped flower of a brilliant red color, and form one of the luxuries of the East both to the native and to the stranger. But the noblest of all the trees of Hebron is the remarkable oak of Abraham. It stands in the midst of the vineyards, in a clean, smooth spot, covered with soft, fresh grass, and near a well of cool water. It is an oak of the evergreen species, measuring twenty-three feet in girth, and its magnificent branches spread out over a circle ninety feet in diameter. Six feet from the ground the trunk separates into four huge branches, and, higher up, these in turn spread out into many more. Standing alone, it appears to greater advantage, and its lengthened arms, loaded with exquisite foliage, affords delightful shade to the weary traveler. Here, on their festive days, the Jewish maidens and the young men of Hebron assemble beneath this ancestral tree to enjoy the rural pleasure of the song and dance. Though of great age, it is still sound and majestic, and with it tradition associates many thrillingmemories. Standing on the Plain of Mamre, it probably marks the spot where Abraham pitched his tent and entertained the angels. Though hardly credible that this terebinth should have remained green and vigorous during the lapse of nearly forty centuries, yet it may be cherished as the last representative of the sacred forest of Mamre. Fond of contrasts, and never happier than when the extremes of fortune and the ends of time meet in the same scene, the Oriental legendaries point to this noble oak as the slave-mart where the descendants of Abraham were sold by their Roman masters into captivity.