ARABS IN PLAIN OF JERICHO.
Like the Dead Sea, the physical phenomena of the Jordan are absolutely unique. Emerging from the Sea of Galilee at a probable depression of six hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean, it rushes along a narrow fissure of sixty miles in length; but doubling and winding as it goes, its actual course is two hundred miles. Starting from so low a level, its current might be expected to be slow and torpid. So far from this, it plunges over a series of rapids,[[104]] and finally loses itself in the Dead Sea, to emerge no more, at a depth of thirteen hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean. No river famous in history is so unproductive and useless. Like the Upper Rhone, its rapid torrent and its sudden violent floods,[[105]] make it an object rather of dread than delight to the dwellers on its banks. Yet, even in these physical characteristics, we can see its admirable adaptation to the divine purpose. The Israelites were to be cut off from intercourse with the licentious idolaters on the east bank of the Dead Sea. A river easily crossed, with numerous fords and bridges, would have failed to answer this purpose. But the Jordan, though only from twenty to thirty yards wide, offered an almost insuperable barrier to intimate association, the fords being few and dangerous, and the floods rendering bridges almost impossible.
BANKS OF THE JORDAN.
THE JORDAN,
FROM THE SEA OF GALILEE TO THE DEAD SEA.
Crossing the plain in a westerly direction, we reach, in about an hour, a wretched village of mud huts, dominated by a single ruinous tower. Its modern name is Er Riha. Near it was the site of the ancient Gilgal. Here the column of stones, taken from the bed of the Jordan, was piled; here the first camp in the promised land was pitched; here the covenant with God was renewed by the celebration of the passover and the circumcision of the people; here “the manna ceased” and “they did eat of the old corn of the land, unleavened cakes and parched corn on the selfsame day;” and here it was that “the Captain of the Lord’s host,” with “a sword drawn in his hand,” appeared to Joshua to encourage him in the conflicts which yet awaited him.[[106]] It is not to be wondered at that something of sanctity should attach to a spot hallowed with such memories and associations as these. Hence we find that the Tabernacle remained at Gilgal during the stormy period which followed till it was removed to its resting-place in Shiloh.[[107]] And in after ages the people still assembled to offer sacrifices on the spot so memorable in their history.[[108]] As this was in a certain sense the cradle, if not the birth-place, of the national existence, we find that it was at Gilgal that Saul was made king,[[109]] and that the men of Judah assembled to reinstate David upon the throne on his return from exile.[[110]] From the residence of Elijah and Elisha in Gilgal, and from the events which are recorded to have happened there, it is clear that a school of the prophets continued to exist on the site of the ancient sanctuary down to a late period of the monarchy.[[111]]
The sad tendency to apostacy and idolatry which cast so deep a shadow over the history of the Jews, was specially manifest on this sacred spot, for we find Hosea and Amos singling out Gilgal for special censure and denunciation,[[112]] teaching that no sanctity of place, no hallowed memories, no outward influences, can avail to check the corruptions of “an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.”[[113]]
