A word should be said as to the names “Hebrew,” “Israelite,” and “Jew,” which are so often used synonymously. Etymologically, a Hebrew is a descendant of Heber, a great grandson of Shem; an Israelite is a descendant of Israel, a name given to Jacob after he had proved himself what the name implies, a “warrior of God”; while a Jew is a descendant of the kingdom of Judah. The fact that the northern branch of the divided kingdom took the specific name of Israel, in contradistinction to the kingdom of Judah, has led to the restricted application of the name Israel. Nevertheless, it is customary to apply the word in its wider or original sense, and the more recent historians generally make the name “Israelite” synonymous with “Hebrew,” as applying to the entire race from earliest times. It is customary, however, for careful writers to use the name “Jew” only in reference to the later period of racial history, as it was the descendants of the kingdom of Judah alone that maintained racial existence after the Babylonian captivity.[a]
THE LAND
Palestine is the southern portion of Syria. It extends from Mount Hermon to the desert of Arabia Petræa, between the thirty-first and thirty-second degree north latitude. The inhabitants of the country called it Canaan, and its borders are thus defined in the Book of Genesis: “The border of the Canaanites was from Sidon as thou camest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.” Its eastern boundary, of which Genesis makes no mention, was probably the Jordan. To the seacoast the Greeks gave the name of Phœnicia; as for that of Palestine, it originally denoted only the southwestern part, which was inhabited by the Pelesheth or Philistines. After the Hebrew conquest, the country of Canaan, now become the land of Israel, stretched beyond the right bank of Jordan towards the desert. After the division of the Israelite tribes into two kingdoms, the southern portion, west of the Dead Sea, became the land of Judah, whence comes the name of Judea. Under the Maccabees, the name of Judea included the whole region which, in earlier days, had been the land of Israel. The Romans divided the country into four provinces; the first three, on the western bank of Jordan, being—Galilee, in the north, next Samaria, and then Judea; the fourth, Peræa, was on the eastern bank. This division corresponds roughly with the character of the country; and is that which we meet with in Greek and Latin authors, in the New Testament, and in the Fathers of the Church.
Two ranges of mountains, with the Jordan flowing between, traverse Palestine from north to south and connect Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon with Horeb and Sinai. They are intersected by valleys and plains, and the principal peaks bear names hallowed by historical associations or mythological traditions. The most famous are the hills about Jerusalem—Zion, Moriah, and the Mount of Olives. Proceeding northwards, we come to Mount Gerizim, where stood a rival sanctuary to that at Jerusalem; Carmel, the abode of Elijah the prophet; Tabor, where St. Jerome places the scene of the Transfiguration; and, east of Jordan, to Mount Nebo, whence Moses viewed the Promised Land before he died. To the north the mountains are clothed with trees and vegetation; to the south, in Judea proper, they are barren rocks; even the plains on the shore of the Dead Sea are untilled and waste. The contrast becomes even more marked when we pass beyond the borders of Palestine; to the south, rugged Idumæa, the country of Job, and beyond it the sandy deserts where reigns the burning simoon, the wrath whereof is a devouring fire; and the holy mountain of Sinai, where the One God revealed himself in tempest and lightnings. To the north, the deep gorges of Lebanon, whence spring the sources of the Jordan; and those gardens of God, the hollow of Syria and the plain of Damascus; and the snowy peaks of Mount Hermon, whence the sons of God came down to join themselves, under the shade of the great cedars, with the daughters of men. After the lapse of many centuries, this marriage of heaven and earth was destined to be renewed in a chaster form, and Eden and Galilee to see bloom, like a lily under green palm trees, the new Eve, the Virgin who should bear a God.
The Jordan first traverses a small lake, which is almost dry in summer, and then flows into the lake of Gennesareth or Tiberias, also called the Sea of Galilee, and famous in Christian tradition. The shape of this lake is an irregular oval, twenty kilometres in length by about nine in breadth. The water is fresh and fit for drinking, but the volcanic nature of the soil is indicated by springs of hot water in the vicinity, and by the basaltic rocks that cover its shores. Its level is two hundred and thirty metres below that of the sea. This low level has been found constant throughout the whole valley of the Jordan, which, leaving the lake of Gennesareth, continues its course southwards, and, at a distance of twenty-five leagues from it, falls into the Dead Sea. The mouth is four hundred metres below the level of the Mediterranean. The Dead Sea, also called Lake Asphaltites, because of the bitumen which floats upon its surface, is a lake with no outlet, and loses by evaporation about the same amount of water that it receives from the Jordan and its other affluents. It is sixty-four kilometres in length, its breadth varies from eight to thirteen kilometres, its greatest depth is about four hundred metres. Its basin is the bottom of the great valley which extends from Mount Hermon to the Gulf of Akabah on the Red Sea. This basin is in all likelihood due to the giving way of a vast crater formed by the great volcanic eruption which swallowed up the cities of Pentapolis. Genesis has preserved the memory of this cataclysm, which it calls a rain of fire and brimstone. In the neighbourhood we find deposits of lava, pumice-stone, sulphur, and bitumen. The saltness and causticity of the water of the Dead Sea explain why no fish nor any sort of animal can live in it; it contains twenty-four to twenty-six and a quarter per cent. of saline matter, in place of the four per cent. of other seas. Its specific gravity is greater by a fifth than that of the water of the ocean, and it is consequently impossible to drown in it. The saline concretions met with in such regions as this may have given rise to the fable of Lot’s wife, who was changed into a pillar of salt.
The sacred writers frequently extol the fertility of Palestine, “a country of wheat, of barley, of vines, of fig trees, and pomegranate trees, a country of olive trees, of oil, and of honey.” It is true that the soil about Jerusalem is barren and stony, a fact which caused Strabo to say that the people led by Moses had had no trouble in conquering a country that did not deserve to be defended; but the whole of Palestine is not like the environs of Jerusalem. Latin authors confirm the testimony of the Bible as to the fertility of Judea. “The soil,” says Tacitus, “yields in abundance the products of our country, and balm and the palm tree beside.” According to Justin, the balm of Judea, which was grown chiefly in the plain of Jericho, was the principal source of the wealth of the country. Ammianus Marcellinus speaks in the same way of the rich husbandry of Palestine. To this day, in spite of Turkish misgovernment and Arab raids, it retains—in the north more especially—many traces of its ancient fertility. The valley of Jordan is rich in pastures. The olives of Palestine are said to be preferable to those of Provence. Judea itself, though on the whole barren, has some districts which yield good harvests, and, above all, excellent wine. But the scourge of the country, according to the Turks and Arabs, is locusts. “The number of these insects,” says Volney, “is incredible to any one who has not seen it with his own eyes: the ground is covered with them for the space of several leagues. The noise they make, browsing on the trees and herbs, can be heard from afar, like an army pillaging by stealth. It is better to have to do with Tartars than with these destructive little creatures, it is as though fire followed in their wake. Wherever their legions repair, verdure disappears from the land like a curtain rolled up; trees and plants, stripped of their leaves and reduced to mere branches and stalks, make the hideous aspect of winter succeed, in the twinkling of an eye, to the bounteous scenes of spring. When these clouds of locusts rise on the wing, to surmount some obstacle or to cross some desert place more rapidly, it is literally true to say that they darken the sky.”[b]
Ancient Joppa
THE PEOPLE
The inhabitants of the country just described have each and all (with exceptions so small as to count for nothing in the mass) belonged to a race which we are in the habit of calling “Semitic,” or the “nations of the Semitic tongue.” The term has been so much abused, in scientific works no less than in public life, that we must first determine its real significance. The name of “Semite” is derived from “Shem,” who appears in the tenth chapter of Genesis (in the language of the genealogising historiographer) as the ancestor of the Hebrews and a number of neighbouring tribes.