The passages of Scripture in which “Ophir” and “Tharshish” are named, bring before us the only maritime commerce which the Hebrews appear to have been engaged in, and which arose from Solomon’s alliance with Hiram, king of Tyre.
Tarshish, or Tharshish, is, on very good grounds, considered to be Tartessus, a very important commercial settlement of the Phœnicians, on the Atlantic coast of Spain, at the mouth of the Bœtis, or Guadalquiver, and not far from the ancient Gades, now Cadiz: in Gen. x. 4; Ps. lxxii. 10; Ezek. xxxiii. 13; Jer. x. 9; Ezek. xxvii. 9; Isa. xxiii. 1, 6, 10; Isa. lxvi. 19, mention is made of this Phœnician trade.
I imagine that the Phœnicians, who doubtless built the ships for this new trade to Ophir, took for their models those vessels which were engaged in their most distant voyages, viz., in the trade to Tartessus, and the isles of the west (Britain); or that they took some of these vessels to pieces, carried them across the Isthmus of Suez (as has been done subsequently by the Sultan of Cairo and others), and put them together in the Red Sea. In either case the name “ships of Tharshish” would be applied to them in the same sense as we should make use of the terms “Indiamen,” or “Australian clippers.” That is to say, first-class merchant vessels. Some have supposed that two fleets were used for this voyage, one in the Mediterranean, and the other in the Red Sea; but it is by no means likely that the Phœnicians, who were not “Free-traders,” would allow Solomon to participate in the Tartessus or Mediterranean trade, although they were perfectly willing to obtain his co-operation and powerful assistance where they required it, by way of Tadmor and in the Red Sea, by both of which routes they had to contend with the Arabs. If the Tarshish in these passages be the Tartessus in the Mediterranean, then we have a certain proof that the ships of Solomon circumnavigated Africa, and that Ophir must have been situated on the east or west coast of Africa in the voyage from Ezion-geber to Tartessus or Tharshish.
The earliest account which we have of Africa having been circumnavigated is certainly by the Phœnicians, under the orders of Necho (Pharo-Necho), king of Egypt, who sent ships on a voyage of discovery down the Red Sea, to proceed along the coast of Africa, and endeavour to return by the Pillars of Hercules.
Herodotus narrates, in a few words, the results of this enterprize, which was undertaken about 604 years before the Christian era. He says, “The Phœnicians, setting sail from the Red Sea, made their way into the Southern Sea; and when autumn approached they drew their vessels to land, sowed a crop, and waited till it was grown, when they reaped it, and again put to sea. Having spent two years in this manner, in the third year they reached the Pillars of Hercules, and returned to Egypt, reporting what does not find belief with me, but may perhaps with some other person; for they said that in passing Africa they had the sun on their right hand. In this manner Libya was first known.” Now, it so happens that the very fact which caused Herodotus to doubt the authenticity of the account of this voyage is to us one of the most convincing proofs of the truth of the narrative, viz., “that in passing Africa (after rounding the Cape of Good Hope) they had the sun on their right hand.” While I am disposed to contend that Africa was circumnavigated from the Red Sea in the reign of Pharo-Necho, I cannot bring myself to believe (without more convincing proof than simply the statement that from Ezion-geber “the king’s ships went to Tharshish”) that the Hebrew-Phœnician fleet circumnavigated Africa 400 years previous to the Egypto-Phœnician fleet of Pharo-Necho; for, if such was the case, the Phœnicians would have been aware of the previous circumnavigation of Libya, and both events would have been handed down by the Phœnicians—for we learn from Josephus that they were in the habit of preserving in their records events of much less importance to them, as a commercial nation, than the circumnavigation of a large continent, rich in the most coveted commodities of the eastern world. I am therefore inclined to think that the Tharshish of Chronicles cannot be the Tartessus of Spain; and will, in the following inquiry, seek only to establish the position of Ophir, as the products of that place were the objects sought by the Hebrew-Phœnician fleet.
Various points on the eastern coast of Africa have been fixed upon, but generally the conclusion is in favour of Sofala, which I am inclined to think is the correct position. João dos Sanctos tells us, as we find it in Purchas:—
“Near to Massapa is a great hill called Fura, whence may be discerned a great part of the kingdom of Monomotapa, for which cause he (the king) will not suffer the Portuguese to go thither, that they should not covet his great country and hidden mines. On the top of that hill are yet standing pieces of old walls and ancient ruins of lime and stone, which testify that there have been strong buildings—a thing not seen in all Caffraria, for even the king’s houses are of wood, daubed with clay, and covered with straw. The natives, and especially the Moors, have a tradition from their ancestors, that those houses belonged to the Queen of Saba, who carried much gold thence down to the Cuama (Zambesi) to the sea, and so along the coast of Ethiopia to the Red Sea. Others say that these ruins were Solomon’s factory, and that this Fura or Afura is no other than Ophir, the name being not much altered in so long a time. This is certain, that round about that hill there is much and find gold. The navigation might, in these times, be longer, for want of so good ships or pilots as are now to be had, and by reason of much time spent in trucking with the Caffres, as even in this time the merchants often spend a year or more in that business, although the Caffres be grown more covetous of our wares, and the mines better known. They are so lazy to gather gold that they will not do it till necessity constrain them. Much time is also spent in the voyage by the rivers, and by that sea which hath differing monsoons, and can be sailed but by two winds, which blow six months from the east, and as many from the west. Solomon’s fleet had, besides those mentioned, this let, that the Red Sea is not safely navigable but by day, by reason of many isles and shoals; likewise it was necessary to put into harbours for fresh water and other provisions”—[“This,” Purchas remarks, “was by reason their ships were small, as that infancy of navigation required”]—“and to take in new pilots and mariners, and to make reparations, which considered”—[adds Purchas, “with their creeping by the shore for want of compass and experience in those seas, and their Sabbath rests, and their truck with the Caffres”]—“might extend the whole voyage, in going, staying, and returning, to three years. Further, the ivory, apes, gems, and precious woods (which grow in the wild places of Tebe within Sofala) whence they make almaidas, or canoes, twenty yards long, of one timber; and much fine black wood (ebony) grows on that coast, and is thence carried to India and Portugal. All these may make the matter probable. As for peacocks, I saw none there, but there must needs be some within land; for I have seen some Caffres wear their plumes on their heads. As there is store of fine gold, so also is there fine silver in Chicona, which are rich mines.”
In addition to the statement of João dos Sanctos, who was a resident at Sofala, it may be asserted that all the circumstances which are against the theories which place Ophir in Arabia, the Persian Gulf, or even India and Ceylon, are in favour of its being fixed on the African coast.
It appears that “every three years” may, with equal or greater propriety, be rendered “every third year,” which may mean any time more than two years, and less than three; and, further, that as the Hebrews counted broken years and days for whole ones, it might not be even two years. Thus, if they left in the year 1, continued away all the year 2, and returned in the spring of the year 3, they would be said to return in the third year, though they had only been absent eighteen months. Thus our Saviour rose “on the third day,” though he had only been one day and two nights in the tomb.—See notes on 2 Chronicles, chap. xx., in the “Pictorial Bible.”