Leaving Sebasta, we passed in half an hour by Sherack, and in another half hour by Barseba, two villages on the right hand; and then entering into a narrow valley lying east and west, and watered with a fine rivulet, we arrived in one hour at Naplosa.
Naplosa is the ancient Sychem, or Sychar, as it is termed in the New Testament. It stands in a narrow valley between Mount Gerizim on the south and Ebal on the north, being built at the foot of the former; for so the situation both of the city and mountains is laid down by Josephus[553]. "Gerizim," says he, "hangeth over Sychem;" and "Moses commanded to erect an altar toward the east, not far from Sychem, between Mount Gerizim on the right hand (that is to one looking eastward, on the south), and Hebal on the left[554]" (that is on the north); which so plainly assigns the position of these two mountains, that it may be wondered, how geographers should come to differ so much about it, or for what reason Adrichomius should place them both on the same side of the valley of Sychem. From Mount Gerizim it was that God commanded the blessings to be pronounced upon the children of Israel, and from Mount Ebal the curses[555]. Upon the former, the Samaritans, whose chief residence is here at Sychem, have a small temple or place of worship, to which they are still wont to repair at certain seasons, for performance of the rites of their religion. What these rites are, I could not certainly learn; but that their religion consists in the adoration of a calf, as the Jews give out, seems to have more of spite than of truth in it.
Upon one of these mountains also it was that God commanded the children of Israel to set up great stones, plastered over and inscribed with the body of their law; and to erect an altar and to offer sacrifices, feasting and rejoicing before the Lord[556]. But now, whether Gerizim or Ebal was the place appointed for this solemnity, there is some cause to doubt. The Hebrew Pentateuch, and ours from it, assigns Mount Ebal for the use, but the Samaritan asserts it to be Gerizim.
Our company halting a little while at Naplosa, I had an opportunity to go and visit the chief priest of the Samaritans, in order to discourse with him, about this and some other difficulties occurring in the Pentateuch, which were recommended to me to be inquired about, by the learned Monsieur Job Ludolphus, author of the Æthiopic History, when I visited him at Frankford, in my passage through Germany.
As for the difference between the Hebrew and Samaritan copy, before cited, the priest pretended the Jews had maliciously altered their text, out of odium to the Samaritans; putting for Gerizim Ebal, upon no other account, but only because the Samaritans worshipped in the former mountain, which they would have, for that reason, not to be the true place appointed by God for his worship and sacrifice. To confirm this, he pleaded that Ebal was the mountain of cursing[557], and in its own nature an unpleasant place; but on the contrary Gerizim was the mountain of blessing by God's own appointment, and also in itself fertile and delightful, from whence he inferred a probability that this latter must have been the true mountain, appointed for those religious festivals, and not (as the Jews have corruptly written it) Ebal. We observed that to be in some measure true which he pleaded concerning the nature of both mountains; for, though neither of the mountains has much to boast of as to their pleasantness, yet, as one passes between them, Gerizim seems to discover a somewhat more verdant fruitful aspect than Ebal. The reason of which may be, because, fronting towards the north, it is sheltered from the heat of the sun by its own shade; whereas, Ebal looking southward, and receiving the sun that comes directly upon it, must, by consequence, be rendered more scorched and unfruitful. The Samaritan priest could not say that any of those great stones which God directed Joshua to set up were now to be seen in Mount Gerizim, which, were they now extant, would determine the question clearly on his side.
I inquired of him next what sort of animal he thought those selavæ might be, which the children of Israel were so long fed with in the wilderness[558]. He answered they were a sort of fowls; and, by the description which he gave of them, I perceived he meant the same kind with our quails. I asked him what he thought of locusts[559], and whether the history might not be better accounted for, supposing them to be the winged creatures that fell so thick about the camp of Israel? But by his answer it appeared he had never heard of any such hypothesis. Then I demanded of him what sort of plant or fruit the dudaim or (as we translate it) mandrakes[560] were, which Leah gave to Rachel for the purchase of her husband's embraces? He said they were plants of a large leaf, bearing a certain sort of fruit, in shape resembling an apple growing ripe in harvest, but of an ill savour, and not wholesome. But the virtue of them was to help conception, being laid under the genial bed. That the women were often wont so to apply it at this day, out of an opinion of its prolific virtue. Of these plants I saw several afterwards in the way to Jerusalem; and, if they were so common in Mesopotamia as we saw them hereabout, one must either conclude that these could not be the true mandrakes (dudaim), or else it would puzzle a good critic to give a reason why Rachel should purchase such vulgar things at so beloved and contested a price.
This priest showed me a copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch, but would not be persuaded to part with it upon any consideration. He had likewise the first volume of the English Polyglot, which he seemed to esteem equally with his own manuscript.
Naplosa is at present in a very mean condition, in comparison of what it is represented to have been anciently. It consists chiefly of two streets, lying parallel, under Mount Gerizim; but it is full of people, and the seat of a pasha.
Having paid our caphar here, we set forward again in the evening, and, proceeding in the same narrow valley between Gerizim and Ebal (not above a furlong broad), we saw on our right hand, just without the city, a small mosque, said to have been built over the sepulchre purchased by Jacob of Emmor, the father of Shechem[561]. It goes by the name of Joseph's Sepulchre, his bones having been here interred after their transportation out of Egypt[562].