Part 3 / Book 11 — Footnotes.

1 – The Edition of Dr Robinson’s Biblical Researches referred to is the second American Edition, 3 Vols. 1860; that of Dean Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine, the 3rd, 1856.

2 – Hence the idea of an envious and jealous God so common in heathenism, as in Herodotus, I. 32, III. 40, VII. 46.

3 – The Ninth Article of the Church of England.

4 – Kurtz’s History of the Old Covenant, I. 49: “However weakened and darkened by sin, the divine image in man is not wholly destroyed (Gen. ix. 6, James iii. 9), and even after the Fall man continues the offspring of God (Acts xvii. 28).”

5 – Kurtz’s Sacred History, p. 48.

6 – Davison, On Prophecy, p. 55.

7 – This seems to be the true meaning of the expression, the Lord set a mark upon Cain. Compare the sign given to Noah (Gen. ix. 13), to Moses (Ex. iii. 2, 12), to Elijah (1 Kings xix. 11), to Hezekiah (Isai. xxxviii. 7, 8).

8 – Smith’s Bibl. Dict. Art. Noah.

9 – The traditions of many nations preserve the recollection of the Flood. They may be found in the Chaldæan and Phœnician mythology, among the Persian, Indian, Chinese, and American nations. The Greeks had their tradition of Deucalion and Pyrrha. Among the Phrygians was a legend of a King Annakos or Nannakos in Iconium, who lived to the age of 400 years, foretold the Flood, and in prospect of the destruction awaiting them, wept and prayed for his people. As late as the time of Septimius Severus, a medal was struck at Apamea commemorating this event. On it is the representation of a square vessel floating on the water, and through an opening in it two persons, a man and a woman, are visible. On the top a bird is perched, while another is flying towards it carrying a branch between its feet. In front of the vessel the same pair stand as though they had just landed on dry ground. On some specimens the letters ΝΩ or ΝΩΕ have been found. See Kurtz’s Sacred History, p. 56.

10 – This prediction that Canaan should become the servant of Shem is thought to have been primarily fulfilled, when the nations of Palestine were conquered by Joshua (Josh. xviii. 10; xxiii. 4; 2 Chron. viii. 7, 8), when Tyre fell before the arms of Alexander, and, again, when the Carthaginians were subdued by the Romans.

11 – The words he shall dwell in the tents of Shem are somewhat obscure. If they denote that God would dwell in his tents, they probably refer to the fact that the “promised Seed” was restricted to this line, and the special presence of God with the Jews (Rom. ix. 4, 5); if they mean that Japheth should dwell in his tents, they probably point to the occupation of Palestine and the surrounding countries by the Romans, and in a spiritual sense to the adoption of the Gentiles into the Church of God (Eph. iii. 6).

12 – An approximate indication of the Time when this Dispersion took place is afforded in Gen. x. 25, where we find one of the descendants of Shem named Peleg (“Division”), for in his days was the earth divided.

13 – Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Article Nimrod.

14 – Jemima = day or a dove, Kezia = cassia, a sweet aromatic plant, and Keren-Happuch = either horn of antimony, the pigment used by Eastern ladies to colour the eye-lashes, or, according to the LXX., horn of plenty.

15 – Called by the Greeks Edessa, and Callirrhoe, “the Beautiful Spring,” from a “pool of transparent clearness” hard by. Others place Ur at Mugheir, much further to the south, and on the right bank of the Euphrates, about six miles from the present course of the stream.

16 – Haran, or Charræ, now Harrán, in N.W. Mesopotamia, situated “on the point of divergence between the great caravan routes towards the various fords of the Euphrates and the Tigris,” was afterwards celebrated for its temple of Luna, the Moon-goddess, and still more as the scene of the famous defeat of Crassus by the Parthian general Suræna. Here the descendants of Abraham’s brother Nahor settled, so that Haran is called the city of Nahor (Gen. xxiv. 10; xxvii. 43).

17 – The distance from London to York or Exeter. The limits here taken are the parallels of 31° and 33½° north latitude, and the meridian of 34° to that of 36° east longitude. “In Palestine, as in Greece, every traveller is struck with the smallness of the territory. He is surprised, even after all that he has heard, at passing, in one long day, from the capital of Judea to that of Samaria; or at seeing within 8 hours, three such spots as Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem.” Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, 114; see Note 337.

18 – Stanley’s S. and P. p. 113.

19 – Kurtz’s History of the Old Covenant, I. 147, 8.

20 – “All the routes—both by land and water—which connected the three parts of the ancient world, passed through Palestine. The commerce between Asia on the one, and Europe and Africa on the other hand, had its centre in the great mercantile cities of Phœnicia and Philistia. Towards the South the Arabah led to the Gulf of Elath, and the Shephelah to that of Heroopolis, while toward the East the ordinary caravan road led to the neighbouring Euphrates, to the Persian Gulf, and thence to the important countries of Southern Asia. Even the highways which connected Asia and Africa touched Palestine. A much frequented commercial route led from Egypt to Gaza, and from Damascus over the plain of Jezreel to the Phœnician coast.” Kurtz, I. 149.

21 – Hence the cities of Judah are higher than the summits of many mountains of Samaria and Galilee. Thus while Tabor is 1865 feet above the sea-level, and Carmel 1800, as high as the Peak in Derbyshire, Jerusalem is 2610 feet, or higher than Plynlimmon, and Hebron 3029 feet, or nearly as high as Helvellyn.

22 – While the lake of Cinneroth (or as it is called in the New Testament Tiberias), is only 653 feet below the same level. The two principal features in the course of the Jordan are its descent and its sinuosity. From its fountain-head it rushes down one continuous plane, only broken by a series of rapids or precipitous falls, traversing, in a space of 60 miles of latitude and 4 or 5 miles of longitude, at least 200 miles. See Smith’s Bib. Dict. Article Jordan.

23 – “Shechem” (now Nablous) = “shoulder,” “ridge,” like dorsum in Latin, was situated on the “saddle” or “shoulder” of the heights which divide the waters there that flow to the Mediterranean on the west and the Jordan on the east.

24 – “Here there are no impetuous torrents, yet there is water; water, too, in more copious supplies than any where else in the land; and it is just to its many fountains, rills, water-courses, that the valley owes its exquisite beauty.” Van de Velde, I. 386. Stanley, S. and P. 142, 235. “The whole valley,” writes Dr Robinson, “was filled with gardens of vegetables, and orchards of all kinds of fruits, watered by fountains, which burst forth in various parts and flow westwards in refreshing streams,” Bibl. Res. II. 275.

25 – “The Canaanite was then in the land,” Gen. xii. 6. Of these seven Canaanitish nations, descended from Canaan the son of Ham (Gen. x. 15–19), (i) the Jebusites inhabited Jerusalem (Jebus) and its neighbourhood (Num. xiii. 29; Josh. xi. 3; xv. 8, 63); (ii) the Hittites, Hebron and its vicinity (Gen. xxiii. 7, 10; Num. xiii. 29); (iii) the Hivites were located (a) north of the Jebusites about Gibeon and Bethel (Josh. xi. 19) and Shechem (Gen. xxxiv. 2), (b) in the neighbourhood of Hermon (Josh. xi. 3; Judg. iii. 3); (iv) the Amorites, or “highlanders,” the most powerful and warlike tribe, occupied the country (a) between the Hittites and the Dead Sea (Gen. xiv. 7, 13; Judg. i. 34–36); (b) at a later period, the east of Jordan, where they founded two great kingdoms, that of Og in Bashan and Sihon in S. Gilead (Num. xxi. 13–26; Deut. iii. 8; Judg. xi. 13, &c.); (v) the Canaanites, “lowlanders,” were distributed along the sea-coast (Gen. xv. 21; Exod. xxiii. 23; Josh. xi. 3) and the valley of the Jordan (Num. xiii. 29), thus encircling (vi) the Perizzites, who probably inhabited the high plains of the west country under the range of Carmel (Gen. xiii. 7; Josh. xi. 3); the position of (vii) the Girgashites (Gen. x. 16; Deut. vii. 1) is uncertain.

26 – Stanley’s S. and P. 218.

27 – See Article Oak, in Smith’s Bibl. Dict.

28 – For other notices of Melchisedec see Heb. vii. 1–21; Psalm cx. 4. His relation to Christ, as type and antitype, consists in the fact that each was a priest, (i) not of the tribe of Levi, (ii) superior to Abraham, (iii) whose beginning and end are unknown, (iv) and not only a priest, but a priest-king, of righteousness and peace.

29 – Corresponding to Padishah (father-king) the title of the Persian kings, and Atâlîh (father) the title of the Khans of Bucharia. Smith’s Bibl. Dict. Art. Abimelech.

30 – Either, (1) according to the prevailing belief, the hill at Jerusalem on which the Temple was afterwards built, or (2) Mount Gerizim, near Sychem. See Stanley’s S. and P. 251; and compare Thomson’s Land and the Book, 474, 475.

31 – “The tomb of Machpelah is a proof, standing to this day, of the long predetermined assurance that the children of Abraham should inherit the land in which this was their ancestor’s sole, but most precious possession. It is like the purchase of the site of Hannibal’s Camp by the strong faith and hope of the besieged senators of Rome.” Stanley, Lectures on the Jewish Church, p. 40.

32 – On the consistent insignificance of Bethuel in this affair, see Blunt’s Coincidences, p. 32.

33 – On Abraham’s character, see p. 76.

34 – The red lentile is still a favourite article of food in the East. “I can testify,” writes Dr Thomson, “that when cooking, it diffuses far and wide an odour extremely grateful to a hungry man. It was, therefore, no slight temptation to Esau, returning weary and famished from an unsuccessful hunt in this burning climate.” Land and the Book, p. 587. See also Robinson, Bib. Res. I. 246.

35 – From this transaction Esau acquired the name of Edom, or “Red,” though the name is more usually applied to the land of his descendants. “The ruddy hue of the mountain-range given to Esau would at once suggest the word Edom, and cause it to be preferred to the better known Esau.” Comp. Obad. 8, 9, 21.

36 – For the fulfilment compare 2 Kings viii. 20–22; 2 Chron. xxi. 8–10, and see p. 327.

37 – Bethel lay in the direct thoroughfare of Palestine. “... The track of this thoroughfare winds through an uneven valley, covered, as with gravestones, by large sheets of bare rock; some few here and there standing up like the cromlechs of Druidical monuments.”—Stanley, S. and P. 219.

38 – Mount Seir (“rough” or “rugged,” see Jer. xlix. 16, Obad. 4) extended along the east side of the Arabah, from the Dead Sea to the Elanitic gulf, and “was originally inhabited by the Horites, or ‘troglodytes,’ who were doubtless the excavators of those singular rock-dwellings found in such numbers in the ravines and cliffs around Petra.” These Horites were dispossessed by the descendants of Esau, who gave to the country the name of Edom, and were divided into tribes under a sheikh or duke (Gen. xxxvi. 15–19).

39 – See Smith’s Bib. Dict. I. 452 b.

40 – Dothan has been discovered by Van de Velde and Dr Robinson, “still bearing its ancient name, and situated at the S. end of a plain of the richest pasturage, 4 or 5 miles S. W. of En-gannim or Jenîn, and separated only by a swell or two of hills from the plain of Esdraelon.”—Smith’s Bib. Dict.

41 – Close to the large mound, on which Dothan stood, “is an ancient road running N. and S., the remains of the massive pavement of which are still visible. The great road from Beisân to Egypt also passes near Dothân.” Rob. III. 122. The caravan coming from the spice-district of Gilead would cross the Jordan below the Sea of Galilee, pass over the plain of Jezreel, and thence proceed along the sea-shore to Egypt. Thomson’s Land and the Book, 466.

42 – Also written Potipherah = the Egyptian PET-P-RA or PET-PH-RA, “belonging to the sun.” Compare Pharaoh = P-RA or PH-RA, “the sun,” as the representative on earth of the god RA, “the sun.”

43 – The Greek translation of the Septuagint, which was made in Egypt, has here the word “Psonthomphanech” = “the preserver of the world” or “of the land.”

44 – Asenath, interpreted by some “the servant of Neith,” the Egyptian Minerva. Others take it to be a Hebrew word, denoting “storehouse.”

45 – Divining out of cups was practised in Egypt. “The soothsayer drew his auguries either from the rays of light which played upon the water in the cup, or threw in pieces of gold and silver with jewels, and then pretended to see signs of future events from the figures which appeared on the surface, after an incantation had been pronounced.” For instances of a similar mode of divination in the South Sea Islands, see Kitto’s Daily Biblical Illustrations, I. 424.

46 – Comp. Is. ix. 6. Others, not understanding the word to have a personal reference, translate it “Rest.”

47 – “The reason of this may be attributed to political circumstances, with which we are unacquainted. So large a procession, attended by an armed guard, would probably have met with difficulties from the contentious Philistines. It is a remarkable coincidence, however, that Jacob’s corpse should have taken, or have been compelled to take the same road, which his descendants were afterwards obliged to follow in their journey to the Promised Land.” Kurtz, History of the Old Covenant, II. 91. Abel-Mizraim is placed by some on the east, by some on the west of the Jordan.

48 – See Kurtz, History of the Old Covenant, II. 115.

49 – Blunt’s Scriptural Coincidences, Pt. I. 1.

50 – Smith’s Bibl. Dict. I. 1140 b.

51 – This, with the keepers of his flocks and herds, would make the adult males in his service certainly not less than 500 or 600, “implying a household of about 2000.” See Kurtz, II. 149.

52 – Kurtz’s History of the Old Covenant, II. 156–161.

53 – Stanley’s Jewish Church, p. 90.

54 – Josephus tells us that he became a distinguished military commander, and led an expedition against Meroe, and married an Egyptian princess. Ant. Lib. II. 10. 1.

55 – Called also Jether “excellence,” Ex. iv. 18 (marg.), Hobab “beloved,” Num. x. 29, and Reuel or Raguel, Ex. ii. 18.

56 – “The wild acacia (Mimosa Nilotica) under the name of ‘sont,’ everywhere represents the ‘seneh’ or ‘senna’ of the Burning Bush.”—Stanley’s S. and P. p. 20.

57 – On account, however, of the incident related in Ex. iv. 24–26, Zipporah and her sons returned to Midian.

58 – Their names are given in 2 Tim. iii. 8, as Jannes and Jambres. The same names are also found in the Targum and the Talmud.

59 – As Oceanus, or the “Watery Element,” the Nile was a member of the first Ogdood of the Egyptian theology, and the opponent of Phtah or the “Element of Fire;” its sacred emblem was the “tame crocodile.” On the monuments it is still called the god Nile, “the life-giving Father of all that exists,” “the Father of the Gods,” &c. “What the heart is to the body,” says an Egyptian, “the Nile is to Egypt; it is one with Osiris and the Supreme God.” Herodotus (II. 90) speaks of priests of the Nile, and at Nilopolis there was a temple to it. “Flowing, as it did, between sand and rock, the sole giver and sustainer of life in that valley of death, it was both in its increment and its decrease, in its course through vast solitudes and thronged populations alternately, the most expressive and suggestive of emblems for a religion which represented in such marked contrast the realms of creation and destruction, of Osiris and Typhon.”—See Kurtz, II. 273, 4, and Article Nile in Smith’s Bibl. Dict.

60 – Frogs were regarded as sacred by the Egyptians; like the crocodile they were included in the second class of objects of worship. Smith’s Bibl. Dict. Article, Plagues of Egypt.

61 – The meaning of the Hebrew word is doubtful. The LXX. has σκῖφες, and the Vulgate sciniphes, mosquitos; which Herodotus (II. 95) mentions as an intolerable plague in Egypt. Josephus (Ant. II. 14. 3) makes them lice; if so, this would have been especially humiliating to the priests, who regarded cleanliness as a religious duty.

62 – The exact meaning of the Hebrew word is here also unknown: 1. Some, as the English Version, understand it to denote swarms of flies, but see Margin at Ex. viii. 21; 2. Others, as the LXX., take it to be the dog-fly; 3. Others, the beetle.

63 – Stanley’s Lectures, p. 119. Smith’s Bibl. Dict. II. 885.

64 – Hail and thunderstorms are by no means of rare occurrence in Egypt, but by the concurrent testimony of all travellers mild and harmless in their effects.

65 – For a wonderfully vivid description of the ravages of the locust see Joel ii. 1–11.

66 – The horrors of the Egyptian Samoom or Chamsîn, which is regarded by some as the basis of this Plague, has been described by many travellers. See Robinson’s Bib. Res. I. 207. Kurtz, II. 287. Smith’s Bib. Dict. II. 888.

67 – Moses had already before the tenth day of Nisan (Ex. xi. 1–3) notified to the elders (xii. 21) what was to be done respecting the Departure, and, therefore, ample preparations had doubtless been made.

68 – The triangular peninsula of Sinai, bounded on the west by the Gulf of Suez, and on the east by the Gulf of Akaba, consists of three main divisions. (i) The northern part, the desert of Et-Tîh, or “the Wanderings,” is a high table-land of limestone, of which the western portion is called in Scripture the wilderness of Shur (Ex. xvi. 22), and the eastern, the wilderness of Paran. (ii) To this succeeds a range called Jebel-et-Tîh, which extends in a curved direction from the upper end of the Gulf of Suez to that of the Gulf of Akaba, and skirts the sea for some distance on either side. (iii) South of this ridge, and separated from it by “a narrow plain or belt of sand” is the great triangular mass of red granite mountains called the Tôr (rock), the approach to which from its three sides is through rugged passes leading upwards to the cliffs and mountains, “beginning in a gradual, but terminating usually in a very steep ascent—almost a staircase of rock.” Of this mountain-mass the chief heights are (a) on the N.W. Jebel-Serbâl, overlooking Wady Feirân = Rephidim; (b) in the centre, Jebel Katherin (5705 ft.) and Jebel Mousa (7560 ft.); (c) on the S. Um Shômer (8850 ft.). On which summit the Law was given is uncertain, but not improbably it was the majestic height of Ras Sasâfeh at the N.W. end of Jebel Mousa, which overlooks the plain of Er-Raheh. The country between the Jebel-et-Tîh and the Gulf of Suez is called in Scripture the wilderness of Etham (Num. xxxiii. 8); that between the Gulf and the western base of the Tôr the wilderness of Sin (Num. xxxiii. 11, 12) = the N. portion of the present plain of El-Kâa, which must be carefully distinguished from the wilderness of Zin (Num. xx. 1; xxxiii. 36), a desert tract between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Akaba, now the Arabah.

69 – See note 68.

70 – “If I were to make a model of the end of the world, it would be from the valley of the convent of Mount Sinai.” Quoted in Stanley, S. and P. 43, n.

71 – Stanley, S. and P. 14; Lectures, p. 140.

72 – Probably, if it was a laminated figure, he destroyed the wooden portion of it with fire, reduced the gold to dust, and then strewed it upon the water. Kurtz, III. 162.

73 – See the LXX. Version of Exod. xxxiv. 30–35, and Alford’s and Wordsworth’s Notes on 2 Cor. iii. 13.

74 – The ordinary cubit was = 18¼ English inches; there was a shorter one = 15 inches; the Babylonian cubit was = 21 inches.

75 – It seems probable that the Tabernacle did not stand in the centre of the area, but 20 cubits from N., S., and W., so that there was a square of 50 cubits in front, where the sacrifices were offered, and the worshippers assembled.

76 – The position of the altar of Burnt-offering was very striking. It was the first object that confronted the worshipper on his entrance. The High-priest could not go into the sanctuary to burn incense before the Lord without taking live coals from this altar, nor could he enter and perform his holy functions without being himself sprinkled with the blood of the victims slain thereon. See Fairbairn’s Typology, II. 282.

77 – Seals were numerous on the shores of the Sinaitic peninsula. Pliny mentions the use of the skins of seals as a covering for tents, and as a protection from lightning. The exact meaning, however, of the Hebrew word tachash is very uncertain. See Smith’s Bib. Dict. III. 21; article Badger.

78 – Comp. Matt. xii. 4; Mark ii. 26; Heb. ix. 2; and, for the importance of the Shewbread, the words of Abijah (2 Chron. xiii. 11)

79 – In Heb. ix. 4, it is mentioned among the objects within the second veil, and in 1 Kings vi. 22 is said to belong to the Oracle or Holy of Holies. Possibly, from its position and great typical importance, it was considered to belong to the “second Tabernacle.”

80 – From Heb. xi. 4 it appears that the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod that budded were also laid up before the Ark.

81 – Hardwick’s Religions of Egypt, p. 114.

82 – See Art. Tabernacle in Smith’s Bib. Dict.

83 – See p. 75.

84 – Kurtz, Sacrificial Worship of the Old Testament, 341.

85 – Nadab and Abihu, his two elder sons, having been suddenly struck dead for presuming to burn incense with common or strange fire (Levit. x. 1–11).

86 – (i) Stacte (Heb. drops), probably the gum from the storax tree, a plant about twelve feet high, like the quince; (ii) Onycha, the name of the covering of a shell-fish, met with in the Red Sea, yielding a scent not pleasant in itself, but giving strength and continuance to other perfumes; (iii) Galbanum, resin from a shrub growing on the Syrian mountains, with a strong and disagreeable odour, but when mixed with other perfumes, increasing their sweetness; (iv) Frankincense, the highly prized resin of a small shrub, about ten feet high, growing in Arabia (Is. lx. 6; Jer. vi. 20), especially Saba and India. Successive incisions were made in the bark of the tree, the first yielded the purest and whitest kind, the succeeding incisions yielding the same, but spotted with yellow. For the comparison of prayer to incense, see Ps. cxli. 1, 2; Rev. v. 8; viii. 3, 4.

87 – The animals offered by the Greeks and Romans were generally of the domestic kind, but also included pigs, dogs, horses, and sometimes even fish, which are mentioned as pleasing to certain gods. The Hebrew sacrificial system, therefore, which rejected all animals caught in the chase, as stags, gazelles, antelopes, could never have contemplated such a sacrifice as that of the Roman emperors, who not unfrequently slaughtered for their hecatombs a hundred lions, and as many eagles. See Hengstenberg, On the Sacrifices of Holy Script. p. 377; Kurtz, p. 59; Michaelis’ Laws of Moses, III. 95.

88 – Kurtz’s Sacrificial Worship, p. 250.

89 – The chief public burnt-offerings were presented at (i) the daily morning and evening service; (ii) on the Sabbath, which was double that of every day, with a double meat- and drink-offering (Num. xxviii. 9, 10); (iii) at the New Moon, the three great Festivals, the great Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Trumpets (Num. xxviii. 11). Private burnt-offerings were appointed (i) for the consecration of the priests (Ex. xxix. 15); (ii) the purification of women (Lev. xii. 6–8); (iii) the cleansing of the leper (Lev. xiv. 10); (iv) removal of any ceremonial uncleanness (Lev. xv. 15, 30); (v) any accidental breach, and the conclusion of the Nazarite vow (Num. vi. 10, 14; and comp. Acts xxi. 26).

90 – Bähr’s Symbolik quoted in Kurtz’s Sacrif. Worship, p. 163.

91 – From this circumstance also arises the fact that Peace-offerings were offered on the most magnificent scale at seasons of great solemnity and rejoicing; e.g. at the inauguration of the Covenant (Ex. xxiv. 5); the consecration of Aaron and the Tabernacle (Lev. ix. 18); the solemn reading of the Law on Ebal and Gerizim (Josh. viii. 31); at the accession of Saul (1 Sam. xi. 15); at the introduction of the Ark by David into Mt. Zion (2 Sam. vi. 17); at the dedication of the Temple by Solomon (1 Kin. viii. 63; ix. 25); at the great Passover of Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxx. 22); while on two occasions only do we find them connected with national sorrow (Judg. xx. 26; 2 Sam. xxiv. 25).

92 – See Kurtz’s Sacrificial Worship, p. 192; Fairbairn’s Typology, II. 348; Browne’s Hebrew Antiquities, 114, 115.

93 – Von Gerlach, On the Pentateuch. After the return from the Captivity the observance of the Sabbath was fenced about by a multitude of petty prohibitions. Not only was marketing prohibited (Neh. x. 31; xiii. 15–19), but travelling beyond a Sabbath-day’s journey, i.e. 2000 paces or about 6 furlongs, bearing arms even in time of war (1 Macc. ii. 36), plucking ears of corn, healing the sick, carrying a bed (comp. Matt. xii. 10; Mk. iii. 2; Lk. vi. 7; Jn. ix. 14, 16).

94 – Of these there were two at the Passover, one at Pentecost, one at the feast of Trumpets, one on the Day of Atonement, and two at the feast of Tabernacles.

95 – The tendency of the Eastern nations to worship the Moon was inveterate. In Egypt this luminary, under the name of Isis, was one of the only two deities which commanded the reverence of all the Egyptians (Herodotus, II. 42, 47); in Syria she was worshipped under the name of Ashtaroth Karnaim, the horned Astarte; in Babylonia under the name of Sin, and called Lord of the Month. We see, therefore, how necessary it was that the Israelites should have, besides a penal prohibition, some positive preservative against such worship, and by the blast of the sacred trumpets and the additional sacrifices be taught to pay honour to the Eternal One, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, who appointed the moon for seasons (Ps. civ. 19).

96 – Both Alexander and Julius Cæsar exempted the Jews from tribute during it. Comp. Joseph. Ant. XIV. 10, § 6. See article Sabbatical Year, in Smith’s Bib. Dict. At first sight, it is there observed, the provisions of this enactment seem impracticable. But it is to be remembered (i) that the land would actually derive much benefit from lying fallow at a time when the rotation of crops was unknown; (ii) in no year was the owner allowed to reap the whole harvest (Lev. xix. 9; xxiii. 22); and the remainder would in the fertile soil of Palestine resow itself and produce a considerable result; (iii) the vines and olives would naturally yield their fruit; (iv) owners of land were expected to lay in provision during previous years (Lev. xxv. 20–22).

97 – Von Gerlach, On the Pentateuch.

98 – This most difficult word is variously explained, as a designation (i) of the goat itself, and = the goat sent away, or let loose, the scape-goat; (ii) of the place to which it was sent, and = desert places, or the name of a mountain near Sinai; (iii) of a personal being to whom the goat was sent, and = the apostate, the unclean, an evil demon, or the devil himself; (iv) of the lot cast upon it, = for complete sending away, or removal of sin. Of these explanations, No. i. has in its favour the most ancient authorities; No. ii. the largest majority of the latest commentators, who compare Isai. xiii. 22; xxxiv. 14; Lev. xvii. 7; Matt. xii. 43; Lk. viii. 27; Rev. xviii. 2.

99 – And, according to Num. xxix. 7–11, other sacrifices with the usual meat-offering.

100 – The Passover was eminently an Historical Festival. Year after year, from generation to generation, it was to recall, as in “a living drama,” the great facts of the national deliverance, the awful night when there was not a house in Egypt where there was not one dead, when the Destroying Angel passed over the houses of the Israelites, and the people were delivered, not by their own might or by their own strength, but by the uplifted hand of Jehovah. It was the nation’s annual Birth-day Feast, the Festival of Redemption. Its chief features were (i) the offering of a single victim for each Paschal company; (ii) the Paschal Meal with which the Festival began; (iii) the eating of unleavened bread during the whole time it lasted. No other Festival was so full of typical meaning, or pointed so clearly to good things to come (Heb. x. 1). (i) It was a Feast of Redemption foreshadowing a future and greater Redemption (Gal. iv. 4, 5); (ii) The Victim, a lamb without blemish and without spot, was a striking type of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world (Jn. i. 29; 1 Cor. v. 7; 1 Pet. i. 19); (iii) Slain not by the priest but by the head of the Paschal company, its blood shed and sprinkled on the Altar, roasted whole without the breaking of a bone, it symbolized Him who was put to death by the people (Acts ii. 23), whose Blood during a Paschal Festival was shed on the Altar of His Cross, whose side the soldier pierced, but brake not His legs (Jn. xix. 32–36); (iv) Eaten at the sacrificial meal (peculiar to the peace-offering) with bitter herbs and unleavened bread (the symbol of purity) it pointed to that one Oblation of Himself once offered, whereby Christ has made us at peace with God (Eph. ii. 14, 15), in which whosoever truly believes must walk in repentance, and sincerity and truth (1 Cor. v. 7, 8); (v) It was at a Paschal Supper that its Antitype the Christian Eucharist was instituted by our Lord. (Matt. xxvi. 17; Mark xiv. 12.)

101 – Though nowhere mentioned in Scripture, the later Jews saw in this Festival a commemoration of the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai, which is made out from Ex. xix. to have taken place on the fiftieth day after the departure from Egypt, and may possibly be hinted at in Deut. xvi. 12. Certainly Christians in the early ages of the Church observed the coincidence between the bestowal of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles at Pentecost (Acts ii. 1), and the giving of the Law on the same day. “It may have been on this account that Pentecost was the last Jewish Festival (as far as we know) which St Paul was anxious to observe (Acts xx. 16; 1 Cor. xvi. 8), and that Whitsunday came to be the first annual Festival instituted in the Christian Church.”—Art. Pentecost in Smith’s Bib. Dict.

102 – Other customs are alluded to in the New Testament in connexion with this Feast. (a) On the evening of the first day the Court of the Women at the Temple was illuminated with golden candelabra (Jn. viii. 12), accompanied by the chanting of eleven Psalms, cxx–cxxxi, and the same joyous ceremony was renewed on each of the seven days. (b) Every day, at the time of morning sacrifice, the Israelites in festive attire, and bearing branches in their hands, repaired to the Temple, and the priest having drawn water in a golden vessel from the fountain of Siloam, advanced to the Brazen Altar amidst the sound of trumpets, and poured it into a vessel on the western side furnished with small openings at the bottom, and wine into a similar vessel at the eastern side, whence by pipes it was conveyed to the Kidron (comp. Jn. vii. 37–39 with Isai. xii. 3).

103 – Browne’s Hebrew Antiquities.

104 – Æschylus, Choeph. 271.

105 – Archbp. Trench On the Miracles, pp. 210–214.

106 – See p. 74.

107 – Milman’s History of the Jews, I. 171.

108 – The same respect for the sacredness of human life marked other regulations. If an ox gored a man to death, it was to be killed, and if its owner, conscious of its ferocity, did not keep it in, he was also liable to death, but in this case a compensation was allowed to be assessed by the Avenger (Ex. xxi. 29–32). For other offences, such as cutting, maiming, wounding, assault, the lex talionis, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, was enforced, and, in certain cases, compensation for loss of time, and the expenses of the cure (Ex. xxi. 24, &c. Lev. xxiv. 19, 20; Deut. xix. 21).

109 – For subsequent traces of the descendants of Hobab in connection with the Israelites, see Judg. i. 16; iv. 11; 1 Chron. ii. 55; 2 Kings x. 15; Jer. xxxv. 2. See Blunt’s Coincidences, Pt. I. xxii.

110 – See note 68.

111 – See Robinson, II. 175; Stanley, S. and P. 81, 82; Article Hazer in Smith’s Bib. Dict.

112 – See Article Kadesh in Bib. Dict. See Map.

113 – See Calendar, p. 155.

114 – See p. 30, and note 21.

115 – See pp. 115, 116.

116 – Kurtz, History of the Old Covenant, p. 293. See Blunt’s Coincidences, Pt. I. 75–79.

117 – See Kurtz’s History of the Old Covenant, III. 310.

118 – A recurrence also to idolatry was not uncommon, and especially the worship of the heavenly bodies. (Comp. Ezek. xx. 16, with Amos v. 25–29, and Acts vii. 42, 43.)

119 – Even now called Jebel Nebi-Haroûn, the “Mount of the prophet Aaron.” Robinson, Bib. Res. II. 125.

120 – Drew’s Scripture Lands, p. 84.

121 – “The snakes against which the Brazen Serpent was originally raised as a protection, were peculiar to the eastern portion of the Sinaitic desert. There and nowhere else, and in no other moment of their history, could this symbol have originated.”—Stanley, Lectures, 182. “The sand on the shore (of the Gulf of Akaba) showed traces of snakes on every hand. They had crowded there in various directions. Some of the marks appeared to have been made by animals which could not have been less than two inches in diameter. My guide told me that snakes were very common in these regions, and that the fishermen were very much afraid of them, and put out their fires at night before going to sleep, because the light was known to attract them.”—Burckhardt’s Travels, II. 814, quoted in Kurtz, History of the Old Covenant, III. 343.

122 – Comp. Deut. ii. 13, 18; Isai. xv. 7; Amos vi. 14.

123 – “The well of the Hebrew and the Arab is carefully distinguished from the spring. The spring (ain) is the bright, open source—the eye of the landscape, such as bubbles up among the crags of Sinai, or rushes forth in a copious stream from En-gedi or from Jericho. But the well (beer) is the deep hole bored far under the rocky surface by the art of man.... Such wells were the scenes of the earliest contentions of the shepherd-patriarchs with the inhabitants of the land; the places of meeting with the women who came to draw water, ... the natural halting-places of great caravans, or wayfaring men, as when Moses gathered together the people to the well of Moab, which the princes dug with their sceptered staves.”—Stanley, S. and P. 147.

124 – See p. 32, note.

125 – Porter’s Syria and Damascus, II. 220; Handbook, II. 506; Article Argob, Dictionary of the Bible, p. 42.

126 – Article Edrei, Smith’s Bib. Dict. “Ibrahim Pasha, flushed with victory, and maddened by the obstinacy of a handful of Druzes, attempted to follow them into the Lejah, but scarcely a soldier who entered it returned. Every rock concealed an enemy. From inaccessible nooks death was dealt out; and thousands of the bravest of the Egyptian troops left their bones amid the defiles of the Lejah. The Turks were still less successful in 1852.”—Porter’s Handbook, p. 504.

127 – Probably one of the common flat beds used at times on the housetops in Eastern countries, and made of bars of iron instead of the usual palm-sticks, Kitto’s Bib. Illustrations, II. 210. Others, however, suppose it was “sarcophagus of black basalt.”—Smith’s Bib. Dict. Stanley’s Lectures on Jewish History, p. 216.

128 – Stanley, S. and P. p. 298. Porter’s Handbook, I. 198.

129 – “Even at the present day the pagan Orientals, in their wars, have always their magicians with them to curse their enemies, and to mutter incantations for their ruin. In our own war with the Burmese, the generals of the nation had several magicians with them, who were much engaged in cursing our troops; but as they did not succeed, a number of witches were brought for the same purpose.”—Kitto’s Bible Illust. II. 214, where he also quotes such a formula of imprecation from Macrobius. Comp. also Butler’s Sermon on the Character of Balaam. Blunt’s Script. Coincidences, Pt. I. xxiv.

130 – Article Kirjath-huzoth, in Smith’s Bib. Dict.

131 – Porter’s Handbook, p. 300.

132 – Keble’s Christian Year, 2nd Sunday after Easter; Stanley’s S. and P. p. 299.

133 – Num. xxiv. 17 Margin.

134 – Article Sheth in Smith’s Bib. Dict.

135 – For the version here adopted, and on this early prophecy of the future rise of the power of Greece and of Europe, see Dr Pusey’s Lectures on the Prophet Daniel, pp. 58, 59.

136 – Stanley, S. and P. p. 324. “It is still the favourite tract of the Bedouin shepherds.”

137 – See p. 78.

138 – “And the eastern side of the Jordan valley up to the lake of Chinnereth, or Gennesareth” (Num. xxxii. 34–38), Article Gad in Bib. Dictionary.

139 – Article Manasseh in Smith’s Bib. Dict.; Stanley, S. and P. p. 327.

140 – Milman’s History of the Jews, p. 211.

141 – On the expressive figure of the Rock, as applied to God six times in this Song, xxxii. 4, 15, 18, 30, 31, 37, see Stanley, Lectures, 198.

142 – Stanley’s Lectures on Jewish History, pp. 199, 200; Comp. also S. and P. p. 301.

143 – See p. 32, note.

144 – Stanley, S. and P. p. 307; Lectures, p. 235. Its modern name is Erîha, or, as it is more commonly pronounced, Rîha, “a degenerate shoot, both in name and character, of the ancient Jericho.” One single solitary palm now timidly rears its head where once stood the renowned “City of Palm-trees,” Deut. xxxiv. 3; Judg. i. 16; Rob. Bib. Res. I. 552.

145 – Stanley, S. and P. p. 307. Comp. 2 Kings ii. 7.

146 – See the Calendar, p. 155.

147 – By some the Captain of the Lord’s Host is supposed to have been a created being, by others an uncreated Angel, the Son of God.

148 – Never again did Jericho become a fortified city: as a town, it was assigned to the tribe of Benjamin (Josh. xviii. 21), and as such was inhabited (Judg. iii. 13; 2 Sam. x. 5); but not till the time of Ahab was the attempt made by the Bethelite Hiel (1 Kings xvi. 34), to make it once more a fortified city. In his case the curse of Joshua was fulfilled: his eldest son Abiram died at its foundation, and his youngest, Segub, when the gates were set up.

149 – Probably a stiff embroidered robe, made in the loom with the needle and of several colours. See Layard’s Nineveh, II. 319, quoted by Kitto, Bib. Illustrations, II. 204. This seems to indicate the existence of a trade between Canaan and Mesopotamia.

150 – See Keil’s Commentary on Joshua, p. 208. And for the situation of Ai, Smith’s Bib. Dict., Article Ai.

151 – Stanley’s S. and P. p. 203.

152 – See p. 196.

153 – “Such writing was common in ancient times: I have seen numerous specimens of it certainly more than two thousand years old, and still as distinct as when they were first inscribed on the plaster.” Thomson’s Land and the Book, p. 471, Mill’s Modern Samaritans.

154 – The acoustic properties of this valley are interesting, the more so that several times they are incidentally brought to our notice in Holy Writ (comp. Josh. viii. 33; Judg. ix. 7). It is impossible to conceive a spot more admirably adapted for Joshua’s purpose than this one, in the very centre of the newly acquired land, nor one which could more exactly fulfil all the required conditions.... A single voice might be heard by many thousands, shut in and conveyed up and down by the enclosing hills. In the early morning we could not only see from Gerizim a man driving his ass down a path on Mount Ebal, but could hear every word he uttered as he urged it on; and in order to test the matter more certainly, on a subsequent occasion two of our party stationed themselves on opposite sides of the valley, and with perfect ease recited the commandments antiphonally.” Tristram’s Land of Israel, pp. 149, 150.

155 – It was probably on this occasion that the Egyptian coffin containing the embalmed body of their great ancestor was laid by the two tribes of the house of Joseph in the parcel of ground near Shechem, which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor (Gen. xxxiii. 19; l. 25).

156 – Or another place of the same name now called Jilgilia, situated near Bethel in the direct route from Shechem to Ai.

157 – They became “slaves of the Sanctuary,” = Deo donati. Comp. Ezra viii. 20; 1 Chron. ix. 2; Num. viii. 16, 19. On the subsequent breaking of this compact by Saul, see 2 Sam. xxi. 1–5.

158 – In this same locality Judas Maccabæus won his first great victory over the forces of Syria (1 Macc. iii. 16–24), and later the Roman army under Cestius Gallus was totally cut up by the insurgent Jews (Joseph. B. J. II. 19, 8, 9). See Stanley’s S. and P. p. 212; Smith’s Bib. Dict., Article Beth-horon.

159 – See Keil on Joshua, p. 219; and Article Makkedah in Smith’s Bib. Dictionary.

160 – “As the British chiefs were driven to the Land’s End before the advance of the Saxon, so at this Land’s End of Palestine the kings were gathered for this last struggle.” S. and P. p. 391.

161 – See Keil on Joshua, x. 39. The etymology, however, is not certain. It was also called Kirjath-sannah, city of palms (Josh. xv. 49). See Wilton’s Negeb, 212 n.

162 – The position of Shiloh is very definitely described in Judg. xxi. 19, as on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah. Exactly in the position here indicated, Dr Robinson found a ruin called Seilûn. “We were,” he says, “on the east of the great road between Bethel and Shechem, and in passing on towards the latter place we came, after half-an-hour, to the village of Lebonah, now El-Lubban.” Bib. Res. II. 269. “The selection of the site for the Tabernacle belongs to this period, and could belong to no other. The place of the sanctuary was naturally fixed by the place of the Ark. This was, in the first instance, at Gilgal. But as the conquerors advanced into the interior, a more central situation became necessary. This was found in a spot unmarked by any natural features of strength or beauty, or by any ancient recollections, recommended only by its comparative seclusion, near the central thoroughfare of Palestine, yet not actually upon it.” Stanley, Lectures on Jewish History, p. 278.

163 – Gibeon, Gibeah, Geba and Gaba, all mean hill; Ramah and Ramathaim, eminence; Mizpah, a watch-tower.

164 – Article Ephraim in Smith’s Bib. Dict.

165 – It has been compared to the plain of Stirling, situated in like manner at the opening of the Scottish Highlands, and in like manner the scene of almost all the decisive battles of Scottish history. Stanley’s S. and P. p. 337 n.

166 – Porter’s Handbook of Syria and Palestine, II. 352.

167 – By some derived from Cinnoor (κινύρα, cithara, a “harp”), as if in allusion to the oval shape of the lake.

168 – Porter’s Handbook of Syria and Palestine, II. 363; Pusey’s Lectures on Daniel, p. 294.

169 – Keil on Josh. xxiv. 26–28.

170 – Holy Scripture itself suggests (Heb. iv. 8) the consideration of Joshua as a type of Christ. The following amongst many other typical resemblances may be pointed out: (1) the name common to both; (2) Joshua brings the people of God into the land of Promise, and divides it among the tribes; Jesus brings His people into the presence of God, and assigns to them their mansions; (3) as Joshua succeeded Moses and completed his work, so the Gospel of Christ succeeded the Law, announced One by whom all that believe are justified from all things from which we could not be justified by the Law of Moses (Acts xiii. 39). See Article Joshua in Smith’s Dictionary; Pearson on the Creed, Art. II.

171 – See p. 35.

172 – Such is the explanation of Josephus, Ant. V. ii. § 2, who adds that the siege lasted some time.

173 – See the marginal date at Judges, chap. xvii. It is to be observed that (i) Dan was not yet settled, Judg. xviii. 1; (ii) Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, was living (Judg. xx. 28), as also the grandson of Moses; (iii) the iniquity of Gibeah is mentioned, Hos. x. 9, as the first open sin of Israel in Canaan. See Angus’ Bible Handbook, 460 n.

174 – Kitto’s Bibl. Illus. II. 447.

175 – See p. 218.

176 – Mr Thomson compares it with the soil of the lower portion of the Mississippi; “even now the region produces large crops of wheat, barley, maize, sesame, rice, and other plants, with very little labour ... while horses, cattle, and sheep fatten on the rich pastures, and large herds of black buffaloes luxuriate in the streams and in the deep mire of the marshes.” Thomson’s Land and the Book, p. 214; Robinson, Bib. Res. III. 396; Blunt’s Coincidences, Pt. II. 108–110.

177 – In the English version the reading is the son of Manasseh (Judg. xviii. 30), a name probably substituted out of respect for the great Lawgiver, whose name is preserved in several Hebrew MSS. and the Vulgate. See Articles Micah, Jonathan, Manasseh, and Laish in Smith’s Bib. Dict.

178 – Comp. Livy, XXX. 7; XXVIII. 37; in XXXIII. 46, XXXIV. 61 they are called judices. Stanley’s Lectures, p. 292.

179 – See p. 216.

180 – See Blunt’s Coincidences, Pt. II. v. 114–117.

181 – Stanley’s Lectures on Jewish History, p. 317.

182 – “The ploughman still carries his goad—a weapon apparently more fitted for the hand of the soldier than the peaceful husbandman. The one I saw was of the ‘oak of Bashan,’ and measured upwards of 10 feet in length. At one end was an iron spear, and at the other a piece of the same metal flattened. One can well understand how a warrior might use such a weapon with effect in the battle-field.” Porter’s Syria and Damascus, II. 35. Comp. Homer, Il. VI. 135.

183 – Identified by Thomson with Harothieh, the Arabic form of the Hebrew Harosheth, an enormous double mound about 8 miles from Megiddo, exactly in the line of the retreat of the Canaanites, at the entrance of the pass to Esdraelon from the plain of Acre. “It was,” he writes, “probably called Harosheth of the Gentiles, or nations, because it belonged to those Gentiles of Acre and the neighbouring plains whom we know from Judg. i. 31 the Hebrews could not subdue.” The Land and the Book, p. 437.

184 – Compare the family name of Hannibal, Barca = fulmen belli. See Barak in Smith’s Bib. Dict.; Joseph. Ant. V. 5, § 2.

185 – Probably = height, “rising abruptly to a height of about 1000 ft. from the north-eastern arm of the plain of Esdraelon, and standing entirely insulated, except on the W., where a narrow ridge connects it with the hills of Nazareth.” See Robinson, Bib. Res. II. 352.

186 – See pp. 78, 194.

187 – See note 109.

188 – Or the “Oak of the Unloading of Tents,” Stanley’s Lectures, p. 326. “The black tents of the Turkman and Kurds, strangers like the Kenites, may still be seen pitched among the oaks and terebinths that encompass the little plain of Kedesh; proving that after the lapse of more than 3000 years the state of society in the country is but little changed.” Porter’s Handbook of Syria and Palestine, II. 444. For the forests of Naphtali, see p. 219.

189 – See p. 226.

190 – Thomson, Land and the Book, p. 435.

191 – Josephus, Ant. V. 5, § 4. See Thomson, p. 436.

192 – “As in like case in the battle of Cressy.” Stanley’s Lectures, p. 324.

193 – “I have seen this stream swollen and rapid, after heavy rains, when the winter torrents of Galilee and Carmel flow into it; then it is a river ‘with waters to swim in, a river that cannot be passed over;’ and I can well imagine the hosts of Sisera, his chariots and horses, struggling there.” Domestic Life in Palestine, pp. 111, 112. “When largely swollen during the great rains of winter it is spongy enough—much easier to find than to get over—I once crossed through the lower part of Esdraelon ... and had no little trouble with its bottomless mire and tangled grass.” Thomson, L. and B., p. 435; and compare Van de Velde, I. p. 289. Some of the results of this battle were nearly reproduced in the battle of Mount Tabor, April 16, 1799, when many of the fugitive Turks were drowned in the Kishon. See Smith’s Bib. Dict., Article Kishon.

194 – See Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 441.

195 – See p. 194.

196 – “In precisely the same manner do the Bedawîn Arabs, these modern Midianites, come up the Wady of Jezreel and Wady Sherrar, after the people have sown, and destroy the increase of the earth; and not only destroy the increase of the field, but commit wholesale murder, as these did upon the brethren of Gideon at Tabor.... Both these valleys are now swarming with these children of the East, come over Jordan to consume the land.” Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 448; Domestic Life in Palestine, pp. 178, 179. “This is one of the chief causes of the present poverty of the country.”

197 – Stanley, S. and P. p. 151; Smith’s Dict., Article Caves.

198 – “The summer threshing-floors are in the open country, and on an elevated position, to catch the wind when winnowing the grain, and of course they would be altogether unsafe at such a time, while the vineyards are hid away in the wadies and out on the wooded hills, and thus adapted for concealment. Indeed, I myself have seen grain thus concealed in this same country, during the lawless days of civil war.” Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 448.

199 – “It is worthy of remark that the men of Issachar are not mentioned, and we can from this point readily imagine the reason. The people of Issachar lived here on this great plain (Esdraelon), and were, of course, altogether surrounded by and at the mercy of the Midianites, as these villages of Sulan, Shŭtta, Zer’in, &c., now are in the power of these Bedawîn. They therefore could not join the army of Gideon.” Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 449; Stanley’s Lectures, p. 344.

200 – Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 449.

201 – The Zabit or Agha of the police at Cairo carries with him at night “a torch which burns soon after it is lighted, without a flame, excepting when it is waved through the air, when it suddenly blazes forth: it therefore answers the same purpose as our dark lantern. The burning end is sometimes concealed in a small pot or jar, or covered with something else, where not required to give light.” Lane’s Modern Egyptians, I. ch. iv.; Smith’s Bib. Dict.

202 – For similar stratagems, see Liv. xxii. 16; Sall. de Bell. Jug. ch. 99.

203 – See p. 55.

204 – See Article Zebah, in Smith’s Bib. Dict.; Josephus, Ant. V. 6, § 5.

205 – Rendered in Isai. xvii. 13 a “rolling thing.” Probably the allusion is to the wild artichoke which “in growing throws out numerous branches of equal size and length in all directions, forming a sort of sphere or globe, a foot or more in diameter. When ripe and dry in autumn, these branches become light and dry as a feather, the parent stem breaks off at the ground, and the wind carries these vegetable globes whithersoever it pleaseth.... The Arabs derive one of their many forms of cursing from this plant; ‘May you be whirled like the ’akkûb (wild artichoke), before the wind, until you are caught in the thorns, or plunged into the sea.’” Thomson, Land and the Book, p. 564.

206 – For subsequent mention of this deliverance, see 1 Sam. xii. 11; Ps. lxxxiii. 11; Isai. ix. 4, x. 26; Heb. xi. 32.

207 – See pp. 31, 55.

208 – See p. 209.

209 – “Several lofty precipices of Gerizim literally overhang the city, any one of which would answer Jotham’s purpose. Nor would it be difficult to be heard, as everybody knows who has listened to the public crier of villages on Lebanon. In the stillness of the evening, after the people have returned home from their distant fields, he ascends the mountain-side above the place, or to the roof of some prominent house, and then lifts up his voice and cries as Jotham did. Indeed, the people in these mountainous countries are able, from long practice, so to pitch their voices as to be heard distinctly at distances almost incredible. They talk with persons across enormous wadies, and give the most minute directions, which are perfectly understood; and in doing this they seem to speak very little louder than their usual tone of conversation. Jotham, therefore, might easily be heard by the greater part of the inhabitants of Shechem.... The very trees which most abound at Nablous (Shechem) are the olive, the fig, the vine, and the bramble.” Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 474; Stanley’s Lectures, p. 350; Tristram, p. 150.

210 – See Calendar, p. 155.

211 – “Situated 13 Roman miles from Shechem, on the road to Scythopolis. There it still is; its name—Tubâs—hardly changed; the village on a rising ground to the left of the road, a thriving, compact, and strong-looking place, surrounded by immense woods of olives.” See Robinson, Bib. Res. III. p. 305; Smith’s Bib. Dict., Article Thebez.

212 – See 2 Sam. xi. 21.

213 – Lev. xviii. 21; Deut. xii. 31.

214 – Signifying 1st an ear of corn, and 2ndly a stream or flood.

215 – The Philistines, a race of “strangers,” appear to have made three immigrations into the fertile south-western Lowland of Palestine, just as there were different immigrations of Saxons and Danes into England. (i) The first came from the Casluhim (Gen. x. 14); (ii) the second and chief from the Caphtorim (Deut. ii. 23; Jer. xlvii. 4; Am. ix. 7), either from some part of Egypt, or of Asia Minor and its adjacent islands, probably Crete; (iii) the third from the Cherethim (1 Sam. xxx. 14). The earliest immigrants having expelled the Avim (Deut. ii. 23) had in the time of Abraham and Isaac established a kingdom, the capital of which was at Gerar, and possessed a standing army (Gen. xxi. 22; xxvi. 26). After the Exodus, Gerar disappears from history, and the power of Philistia is concentrated in five new towns, Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, Ekron, each raised on its slight eminence above the maritime plain, each possessing its dependent or “daughter towns” and villages (Josh. xv. 45–47; 1 Ch. xviii. 1), and each having its own king or prince, who all consulted and acted as one. “The third immigration of the Cherethim would account for the sudden increase of the strength of the Philistines at this period.” See Pusey, Comment. on Amos ix. 7.

216 – See pp. 158, 159.

217 – See p. 229.

218 – Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 566.

219 – Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 552. “So great is the dread of fire in harvest-time, that the Arabs punish with death any one who sets fire to a wheat-field, even though done by accident.” Ibid. p. 553.

220 – “The five cities of the Philistines divided, as it were, their idolatry between them; Ashdod being the chief seat of the worship of Dagon; Ashkelon of Derceto; Ekron of Baal-zebub; Gaza of the god Marna (‘nature’).” Pusey, Comment. on Amos i. 8.

221 – Kurtz’s Sacred History, p. 171.

222 – Some think during the judgeship of Ehud, others during that of Gideon. Kurtz, p. 164.

223 – See Calendar, p. 155.

224 – For David’s subsequent connection with Moab, see p. 303.

225 – The situation of Ramathaim = double eminence, is uncertain. “But the place long pointed out as Samuel’s tomb, and therefore the site of his birth, 1 Sam. xxv. 1, is the height, most conspicuous of all in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, immediately above the town of Gibeon, known to the Crusaders as ‘Montjoye,’ being the spot from whence they first saw Jerusalem, now called Neby Samwil, ‘the Prophet Samuel.’” Smith’s Bib. Dict., Article Ramah, No. 2.

226 – See Smith’s Bib. Dict., Article Mantle.

227 – According to some, it was now that Shiloh was destroyed. See Ps. lxxviii. 60 sq., and Jer. vii. 12.

228 – “Ashdod, as well as Ekron, have their name from their strength; Ashdod = the mighty, like Valentia; Ekron = the firm-rooted.” Pusey, Comment. on Amos i. 8.

229 – A name which suggests an early worship of the Sun there. In Josh. xix. 41, it is called Ir-shemesh. It is now called ’Ain es-Shems, about 2 miles from the great Philistine plain, and 7 from Ekron. Thomson, Land and Book, p. 535.

230 – For subsequent notices of such schools at Bethel and Jericho see 2 Kings ii. 3, 5; at Gilgal, iv. 38; vi. 1; on Mount Carmel, 1 Kings xviii. 30–42; 2 Kings ii. 25; iv. 25.

231 – See also Judg. vi. 8; 1 Sam. ii. 27.

232 – See Kurtz’s Sacred History, p. 176.

233 – It is to be remembered that God had promised to Abraham that kings should come from him (Gen. xvii. 6); Jacob had prophesied that the Sceptre should not depart from Judah till Shiloh came (Gen. xlix. 10); and Moses had distinctly anticipated, nay, provided for the election of a king by laying down specific directions concerning the kingdom (Deut. xvii. 14–20). The elders, therefore, of Israel might well have inferred that it was the Divine intention ultimately to give the nation a monarchical constitution, and consequently that it was their duty patiently to await the development of the Divine counsels. See Kurtz’s Sacred History, p. 177.

234 – According to the law as laid down in the above quotation from Deuteronomy, (i) The nomination of any Israelite king rested with Jehovah, whose Will would be made known through the High-priest, or the voice of a Prophet, or the sacred lot, a provision which could not fail to remind him that he was not an irresponsible autocrat, but the representative and viceroy of Jehovah: (ii) The monarch must be a native Israelite, not a foreigner, or even a proselyte: (iii) On his accession he must transcribe a copy of the Law, that he might know it and keep its Statutes: (iv) He was forbidden to maintain any large body of cavalry with a view to aggressive warfare: (v) He was to eschew the usual accompaniment of Oriental despotism, a numerous Harem, and the excessive accumulation of gold and silver, which could only be acquired by oppressive exactions from his subjects. Jahn’s Heb. Comm. 64, 65.

235 – See p. 232.

236 – See Calendar, p. 155.

237 – Now Jeb’a, see 1 Sam. xiii. 16 (margin); Robinson, Bib. Res. I. 441, n.; Porter’s Handbook, p. 214.

238 – “East, and west, and north, through the three valleys which radiate from the uplands of Michmash—to Ophrah on the north, through the pass of Beth-horon on the west, and down the ravine of the hyenas, ‘toward the wilderness of the Jordan on the East.’” Stanley’s S. and P. 204; Robinson, Bib. Res. I. 441.

239 – The deep gorge of the Wâdy-Suweinît, or Harith. “Immediately on leaving Jeb’a we descend by a rugged, zigzag track, apparently intended only for goats, into Wâdy-es-Suweinît, here tolerably wide, though deep and rocky. A few hundred yards to the right it contracts to a narrow ravine, shut in by high, almost perpendicular cliffs, above which on each side the ground is tolerably level. This is doubtless the scene of Jonathan’s adventure.” Porter’s Handbook, I. 215; Robinson, I. 440, 441.

240 – Smith’s Bib. Dict., Article Jonathan; Stanley’s S. and P. p. 205.

241 – See p. 156.

242 – See p. 132.

243 – Comp. (i.) Num. xiv. 45; (ii.) Judg. iii. 13; (iii.) Judg. vi. 3.

244 – The family belonged to the greatest house in Judah, the descent being as follows: Judah, Pharez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon (Num. i. 7), Salmon, who married Rahab the Canaanite, Boaz, Obed, Jesse. (Ruth iv. 18–22; 1 Chr. ii. 5–12.) Jesse. ┌────────┴────────┐ Eliab. Abinadab. Shammah. Zeruiah. ┌ ┤ └ Abishai. Joab. Asahel. Nethaneel. Raddai. Abigail. ─ Amasa. Ozem. [One not given. 1 Chr. ii. 15.] David. [Comp. 1 Sam. xvi. 7–10 with 1 Chr. ii. 13–17.]

245 – Article David in Smith’s Bibl. Dict.

246 – Identified by Robinson with the Wady es-Sŭmt. “It took its name Elah of old from the terebinth, of which the largest specimen we saw in Palestine still stands in the vicinity; just as now it takes its name es-Sumt from the acacias which are scattered in it.”—Bibl. Dict. II. 21.

247 – In all ages the favourite weapon of the shepherds of Syria. See Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 572.

248 – “We do not know how long a period intervened between the return of David to his father’s house and his appearance before the king on the morning of the duel with Goliath. If it were two or three years, it is possible that David had, in the meanwhile, suddenly shot up from boyhood to youth, tall and robust, and his personal appearance might have so changed as to bear little resemblance to the ruddy lad who played skilfully on the harp. It is a fact that lads of this country, particularly of the higher classes, are often very fair, fullfaced, and handsome, until about fourteen years of age, but during the next two or three years a surprising change takes place. They not only spring into fullgrown manhood as if by magic, but all their former beauty disappears; their complexion becomes dark, their features harsh and angular, and the whole expression of countenance stern, and even disagreeable. I have often been accosted by such persons, formerly intimate acquaintances, but who had suddenly grown entirely out of my knowledge, nor could I, without difficulty, recognize them.” Thomson’s Land and the Book, p. 569.

249 – Used as a protection from gnats.

250 – See Naioth in Smith’s Bib. Dict. It was now, probably, that he became acquainted with the prophets Nathan and Gad.

251 – See Matt. xii. 3; Mark ii. 23; Luke vi. 3, 4.

252 – Compare the histories of Coriolanus and Themistocles.

253 – See titles of Psalms xxxiv. and lvi.

254 – Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 148.

255 – See Robinson, I. 481, 2; Van de Velde, II. 156.

256 – Comp. the story of Alexander in the Desert of Gedrosia.

257 – Compare Psalms cxl., cxlii.

258 – Robinson, Bib. Res. I. 492.

259 – See Psalm liv.

260 – Its original name was Hazazon-Tamar (the pruning of the palm), on account of the palm-groves which surrounded it (Gen. xiv. 7; 2 Chr. xx. 2). Wilton’s Negeb, 120. “We were now in the ‘wilderness of Engedi,’ where David and his men lived among ‘the rocks of the wild goats’.... The whole scene is drawn to the life. On all sides the country is full of caverns, which might then serve as lurking-places for David and his men, as they do for outlaws at the present day.”—Robinson, Bib. Res. I. p. 500.

261 – See Psalm lvii.

262 – Psalms liv., lvii., lxiii. by their titles relate to this period, and it has been remarked that “probably these Psalms made the Psalter so dear to Alfred and to Wallace during their like wanderings.”—Smith’s Bib. Dict., Art. David.

263 – See Smith’s Bib. Dict., Article Hachilah.

264 – “I noticed, at all the encampments which we passed, that the sheikh’s tent was distinguished from the rest by a tall spear stuck upright in the ground in front of it; and it is the custom, when a party is out on an excursion for robbery or for war, that when they halt to rest, the spot where the chief reclines is thus designated.... The cruse of water is in exact accordance with the customs of the people at this day. No one ventures to travel over these deserts without his cruse of water, and it is very common to place one at the ‘bolster,’ so that the owner can reach it during the night. The Arabs eat their dinner in the evening, and it is generally of such a nature as to create thirst, and the quantity of water which they drink is enormous. The cruse is, therefore, in perpetual demand.”—Thomson’s L. and B. 367.

265 – Compare the story of the Persian king and Themistocles.

266 – Wilton’s Negeb, p. 207.

267 – “A lasting memorial of this battle was the law, which traced its origin to the arrangement made by David, formerly in the attack on Nabal (1 Sam. xxv. 13), and now again more completely, for the equal division of the plunder amongst the two-thirds who followed to the field, and the one-third who remained to guard the baggage” (1 Sam. xxx. 21–25). Smith’s Bib. Dict.

268 – See Robinson, Bib. Res. II. 325. “Shunem (Sulem) afforded an admirable camping-ground for a large army, Jebel ed Dûhy rising abruptly behind, and the top of it commanding a perfect view of the great plain in every direction, so that there could be no surprise, nor could their march be impeded, or their retreat cut off.”—Thomson’s Land and the Book, 451.

269 – Probably the same as the Spring of Harod or Trembling, at which Gideon’s three hundred lapped (see p. 247), and “identical with the fountain of Jalûd, a few miles to the east of the modern village of Jezreel.” Hewitt’s Scripture Geography, p. 33.

270 – “The rock on which Endor is built has been hollowed out by the hand of nature into large caverns, whose dark and gloomy entrances brought involuntarily to my mind the witch of the days of Saul.” Van de Velde, II. 383.

271 – Beth-shan (now Beisan) was one of the Canaanite strongholds which the Israelites had never taken. (See p. 225.) Situated on a tell or hill, about 200 ft. high, on the slope of the range of Gilboa, it was a very strong position, with nearly perpendicular sides, and was abundantly supplied with water. Thomson, 455. Stanley, S. and P. 346.

272 – Jabesh-gilead “was on the mountain-range east of the Jordan, in full view of Beth-shan, and these brave men would creep up to the tell, without being seen, while the deafening roar of the noisy cascades leaping through the deep ravines dividing the city would render it impossible for them to be heard.” Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 445. Van de Velde, II. p. 360.

273 – See pp. 283, 284.

274 – See p. 44.

275 – See p. 215.

276 – See p. 53.

277 – Compare the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii. Livy, I. xxiv., xxv.

278 – See p. 210, and Art. Ishbosheth in Smith’s Bib. Dict.

279 – See p. 219.

280 – “The situation of Jerusalem is in several respects singular amongst the cities of Palestine. Its elevation is remarkable, occasioned, not from its being on the summit of one of the numerous hills of Judæa, like most of the towns and villages, but because it is on the edge of one of the highest table-lands of the country. Hebron, indeed, is higher still, by some hundred feet; and from the south, accordingly, the approach to Jerusalem is by a slight descent. But from every other side, the ascent is perpetual; and, to the traveller approaching Jerusalem from the west or east, it must always have presented the appearance, beyond any other capital of the then known world—we may add, beyond any important city that has ever existed on the earth—of a mountain city, enthroned on a mountain fastness.” (Comp. Ps. lxviii. 15, 16; lxxxvii. 1; cxxv. 1; lxxvi. 1, 2; lxvi. 4.) But besides being thus elevated, Jerusalem was separated from the rocky plateau of which it forms a part by deep and precipitous ravines on its south-eastern, southern, and western sides, out of which the rocky slopes of the city “rose like the walls of a fortress out of its ditches, so that from them it must have appeared quite impregnable.” “Something of the same effect is produced by those vast rents which, under the name of ‘Tago,’ surround or divide Ronda, Alhama, and Granada, on the table-lands which crown the summits of the Spanish mountains. But in Palestine, Jerusalem alone is so entrenched, and from this cause derived, in great measure, her early strength and subsequent greatness.” Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine, p. 172. Robinson’s Bib. Res. I. 258–260.

281 – Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine, p. 176.

282 – See p. 225, and Kitto’s Daily Bible Illustr. III. 340.

283 – Joseph. Ant. VII. 3. § 1. See Article Jerusalem in Smith’s Bib. Dict. Kurtz’s Sacred History, p. 183.

284 – “It was necessary for the commerce of Phœnicia that she should enjoy the friendship of whatever power commanded the great lines of inland traffic, which ran through Cœle-Syria and Damascus, by Hamath and Tadmor, to the Euphrates.” Rawlinson’s Bampton Lectures, p. 97. Kenrick’s Phœnicia, pp. 201–205. Heeren’s Researches, II. pp. 116, 117.

285 – See p. 124. Blunt’s Coincidences, p. 130.

286 – i. The Army. In early times all males above twenty and under fifty years of age were required to serve in the wars, and formed a kind of national militia (Deut. xx. 5–9). A standing army, as we have already seen, was first formed at the early part of Saul’s reign (1 Sam. xiii. 2; xiv. 52). Under David the national forces were divided into twelve divisions of 24,000 men, each division commanded by its own officer, and liable to be called on to serve in their respective months (1 Chr. xxvii. 1–15). Unlike the armies of the surrounding nations, that of the Israelites was composed only of infantry, and but few chariots were as yet introduced (2 Sam. viii. 4). Over the entire force of the nation Joab was commander-in-chief by right of his services before Jebus, and whenever the king was absent, he led the troops to battle. ii. The Royal Body-guard, or the Cherethites and Pelethites. To defend the person of the king a force was now for the first time organized, consisting of foreign mercenaries, the command of which was entrusted to the Levite Benaiah, the son of the high-priest Jehoiada. (For whose exploits, see 2 Sam. xxiii. 20, 21; 1 Chr. xi. 22–25.) iii. The Heroes or Mighty Men. Round the king when a fugitive in the cave of Adullam had gathered, as we have seen, a body of six hundred men. This number David always preserved, but elevated it to a sort of military Order, with the special title of the Gibborim, Heroes or Mighty Men. This body was divided into 3 divisions of 200 each, and 30 divisions of 20 each. The lowest rank in this order consisted of the captains of the 30 divisions, who were known as the Thirty; then came the captains of the three larger divisions, who were known as the Three; and lastly, the commander of the whole force, who was known as the Captain of the Mighty Men, and was at this time Abishai, David’s nephew (2 Sam. xxiii. 8–39; 1 Chr. xi. 9–47). See Articles David and Army in Smith’s Bibl. Dict. Kitto’s Bibl. Illustr. III. pp. 301–304.

287 – See note 215.

288 – See pp. 49, 50.

289 – See p. 304.

290 – See p. 192.

291 – See p. 256.

292 – Already mentioned as the place where the bedstead of the giant Og was deposited (see p. 186). It was on the road between Heshbon and Bosra, on the edge of the desert, near one of the sources of the Jabbok. Afterwards from Ptolemy Philadelphus (B.C. 285–247) it received the name of Philadelphia, and in the Christian era became the seat of a bishop and one of the 19 sees of “Palestina Tertia.” Smith’s Bib. Dict., Article Rabbah.

293 – See p. 271.

294 – See p. 165.

295 – To this sad period belong Psalms xxxii. li.

296 – “The ruins which now adorn the ‘royal city’ are of a later Roman date; but the commanding position of the citadel remains, and the unusual sight of a living stream, abounding in fish, marks the significance of Joab’s song of victory—I have fought against Rabbah, and have taken the city of waters.” Sinai and Palestine, p. 323.

297 – See Kitto’s Daily Bibl. Illustr. III. 395.

298 – A village about six miles to the south of Bethlehem, the birthplace of the prophet Amos (Am. i. 1).

299 – See p. 238.

300 – See the dates in margin, 2 Sam. xv.

301 – What was Ahithophel’s motive for this defection is not stated; but it is to be remembered that he was the grandfather of Bath-sheba (Comp. 2 Sam. xx. 3 and xxiii. 34), and was doubtless well aware of the sad fate of Uriah, his son Eliam’s brother-officer. See Blunt’s Coincidences, p. II. x. pp. 136, 137. Art. Ahithophel, Smith’s Bib. Dict.

302 – See Ps. xli. 9; lv. 12, 13, 20.

303 – Probably an inhabitant of Erech, a place of uncertain site. See Smith’s Bib. Dict.

304 – Compare the account of Abner and Rizpah, p. 320.

305 – To this period belong Psalms iii., iv., xlii.

306 – Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 490.

307 – Ibid.

308 – “Now for the first time called Israel, as distinct from Judah. But it is likely that, although it now first appears, this distinction had actually grown up while David reigned over Judah only, and Ishbosheth over the other tribes.” Kitto, Bibl. Illustr. III. 424.

309 – Sometimes called Abel-maim, Abel on the waters (2 Chr. xvi. 4). “Taking advantage of an oblong knoll of natural rock that rises above the surrounding plain, the original inhabitants raised a high mound sufficiently large for their city. With a deep ‘trench’ (2 Sam. xx. 15) and strong wall, it must have been almost impregnable. The country on every side is most lovely, well watered, and very fertile. The neighbouring fountains and brooks would convert any part of this country into a paradise of fruits and flowers; and such, no doubt, was Abel, when she was called a ‘mother in Israel.’” (2 Sam. xx. 19.) Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 217.

310 – See Calendar, p. 155, and Article Rizpah, in Smith’s Bib. Dict.

311 – See Rawlinson’s Five Great Monarchies, II. 333, n.

312 – Jahn’s Hebrew Commonwealth, p. 76.

313 – The life of David admits of a fivefold division. (i) His shepherd life at Bethlehem; (ii) His courtier life with Saul at Gibeah; (iii) His life as an outlaw; (iv) His Kingly life at Hebron during 7½ years, and (v) at Jerusalem during 33 years, in all 40. His history will be ever memorable, whether we regard the work he achieved, or his own personal character. (i) His work. “He had succeeded to a kingdom distracted with civil dissension, environed on every side, or occupied by powerful and victorious enemies, without a capital, almost without an army, without any bond of union between the tribes. He left a compact and united state, stretching from the frontier of Egypt to the foot of Lebanon, from the Euphrates to the sea. He had crushed the power of the Philistines, subdued or curbed all the adjacent kingdoms; he had formed a lasting and important alliance with the great city of Tyre. He had organized an immense disposable force: every month 24,000 men, furnished in rotation by the tribes, appeared in arms, and were trained as the standing militia of the country. At the head of his army were officers of consummate experience, and, what was more highly esteemed in the warfare of the time, of extraordinary personal activity, strength, and valour314.” He had also given especial attention to the management of public worship, as the most efficacious means of promoting religion and morality, and, consequently, obedience to the Invisible, Supreme Monarch. The solemn transfer of the Ark of the Covenant, at which almost all the people were present, had made a deep impression on their minds, and had awakened them to a sincere adoration of Jehovah. These favourable dispositions he had upheld and strengthened by suitable regulations in the service of the priests and Levites, and especially by the instructive and animating Psalms, which were composed partly by himself, and partly by other poets and prophets315. “In comparison with the hymns of David, the sacred poetry of all other nations sinks into mediocrity. They have embodied so exquisitely the universal language of religious emotion that they have entered, with unquestioned propriety, into the ritual of the holier and more perfect religion of Christ. The songs which cheered the solitudes of the desert caves of Engedi, or resounded from the voice of the Hebrew people as they wound along the glens or the hill-sides of Judea, have been repeated for ages in almost every part of the habitable world, in the remotest islands of the ocean, among the forests of America or the sands of Africa316.” (ii) His character. Obedience to the Divine commands was ever with David the axiom of his life, and in every step he took he shewed the greatest anxiety to act as God’s servant (2 Sam. ii. 1; 1 Sam. xxiii. 2, 4). All deliverance from danger, and all victories from first to last, he ascribed to the Divine aid, and neither in the hour of danger, nor the more trying hour of prosperity, did he go after “strange gods,” or introduce any idolatrous rites. It was, probably, to this feature of his administration that God referred, when He described him as a man after His own heart (1 Sam. xiii. 14, Comp. Acts xiii. 22), rather than to his private virtues. And yet these were of no mean order. “Shepherd, soldier, poet, king, the romantic friend, the chivalrous leader, the devoted father,” he was eminent alike for his exalted piety, and his noble patriotism. “During a war of seven years he never lifted his sword against a subject, and at the end of it he punished no rebels, and remembered no offence but the murder of his rival (2 Sam. iv. 10–12).” The adultery with Bath-sheba, the murder of Uriah, the numbering of the people, with a view, probably, to foreign conquests, are the deep blots on his fame, and the chief instances in which he forgot alike himself and his God. “And yet when we look at the piety of his youth, the depth of his contrition, the strength of his faith, the fervour of his devotion, the loftiness and variety of his genius, the largeness and warmth of his heart, his eminent valour in any age of warriors, his justice and wisdom as a ruler, and, above all, his adherence to the worship and will of God, we may well regard him as a model of kingly authority and spiritual obedience317.” Moreover, not only was he the ancestor of Christ after the flesh, not only was the blessing of the Promise expressly transferred to his family, but in his humiliation and exaltation, as the king of the people of God, and as the vanquisher of heathen nations, he was a type of Him whose coming he foretold in many of the Psalms, and who is not called the son of Abraham, or of Jacob, or of Moses, but the “Son of David.” Kurtz’s Sacred History, p. 189; Article David, in Smith’s Bib. Dict.

314 – Milman’s History of the Jews, I. 305.

315 – Jahn’s Hebrew Commonwealth, p. 75.

316 – Milman’s History of the Jews, I. 307.

317 – Angus, Bible Handbook, p. 437; Jahn’s Hebrew Commonwealth, p. 76; Chandler’s Life of David, pp. 582–587.

318 – See Table of Weights and Measures in the Appendix, pp. 492, 493. “Each country needed what the other could supply. The wheat of the plains of Galilee and the oil of the hill-country of Judah maintained the royal household of Hiram (Comp. Acts xii. 20); the skill of the Phœnician artists supplied the want of it among the Israelites.”—Kenrick’s Phœnicia, p. 355.

319 – See p. 346. Milman’s History of the Jews, I. 311.

320 – Milman’s History of the Jews, I. 315.

321 – “These successive terraces were an imitation of the Assyrian style of architecture, which at this time prevailed more or less all over Syria, and particularly at Tyre.” Lewin’s Jerusalem, p. 255; Art. Palace in Smith’s Bib. Dict.

322 – The chief architect of the Temple was Hiram (1 K. vii. 13, 40), called also Huram in 2 Chr. ii. 13; iv. 11, 16, an Israelite on his mother’s side, of the tribe of Dan or Naphtali, by birth a Tyrian.

323 – In 2 Chron. iii. 4, the height is said to have been 120 cubits. See Milman’s History of the Jews, I. p. 313.

324 – See p. 122.

325 – “Such a copious use of gold was a practice known to the Phœnicians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians.” Rawlinson’s Bampton Lectures, p. 107.

326 – The functions of the priests and Levites had already been duly arranged by David. (i) The Priests were divided into 24 courses (1 Chr. xxiv. 1–19; 2 Chr. xxiii. 8; Luke i. 5), each of which served in rotation for one week, the special services of the week being assigned by lot (Luke i. 9). (ii) Of the Levites 24,000 were over the work of the temple; 6,000 were officers and judges; 4,000 were porters or sentries, and as such bore arms (1 Chr. ix. 19; 2 Chr. xxxi. 2); 4,000 formed the choir of singers and musicians. See Arts. Priests and Levites in Smith’s Bib. Dict.

327 – Comp. Psalms xxiv, xlvii, xcvii, xcviii, cvi.

328 – See p. 153.

329 – So called from its cedar pillars. Similarly the halls of the Nimroud palace “were supported by rows of pillars, not of stone, but of wood, and the Hall of Lebanon was supported by 3 rows of cedar pillars, 15 in a row, making 45 in the whole.” Lewin’s Jerusalem, p. 270. Rawlinson’s Bampton Lectures, p. 106.

330 – Baalath was a town of Dan near the Philistine plain. For the two Beth-horons, see p. 212. “The importance of the road on which the two Beth-horons are situated, the main approach to the interior of the country from the hostile districts on both sides of Palestine—Philistia and Egypt on the west, Moab and Ammon on the east—at once explains and justifies the frequent fortification of these towns at different periods of the history. This road is still, as in ancient times, the great road of communication and heavy transport between Jerusalem and the sea-coast.” Robinson’s Bibl. Res. II. 252. Smith’s Bib. Dict., Art. Beth-horon.

331 – The exact site of Gezer has not been found, but it must have been between the lower Beth-horon and the sea, on the regular coast-road of communication with Egypt. Smith’s Bibl. Dict.

332 – For Hazor see pp. 201, 214. For Megiddo (now el-Lejjûn), see p. 240. It was a principal station on the caravan route from Egypt to Damascus, “and for a long while possessed a large khan, mentioned by Maundrell and many travellers after him.” Van de Velde, I. 353.

333 – Tiphsah (= πόρος, “a ford”), the Thapsacus of the Greeks and Romans, “must have been a place of considerable trade, the land-traffic between the East and West passing through it, first on account of its fordway (which was the lowest upon the Euphrates), and then on account of its bridge, while it was likewise the point where goods were both embarked for transport down the stream, and also disembarked from boats which had come up to it, to be conveyed on to their final destination by land.” Smith’s Bib. Dict.

334 – “A region variously identified with (i) the south of Arabia, (ii) Sofala on the coast of Africa opposite to Madagascar, and (iii) India; the first was probably its locality, though the Jewish fleets may also have visited India.” Kenrick’s Phœnicia, p. 357.

335 – Milman’s History of the Jews, I. 322. “Notwithstanding the long export of silver from the mines of Tartessus by the Phœnicians, who drew from them the wealth by which they founded so many powerful colonies, the Carthaginians, who succeeded the Phœnicians in their possession, derived from them the revenues by which they were enabled to pay their mercenary armies. Even in the Roman times 40,000 men were employed as miners within a circuit of 400 stadia near Carthagena, and the workings yielded a revenue to the republic of 20,500 drachmas daily.” Kenrick’s Phœnicia, p. 211.

336 – “The Palace of Solomon was below the Temple Platform, and in laying the solid foundations of Millo, provision had been made for a double passage from the Palace to the Temple, about 250 ft. long and 42 ft. wide, formed of bevelled stones, and rising by a gentle incline to one of the gates of the Inner Temple. This marvellous subterranean approach, impregnable from its nature to the ravages of time, still remains, though painfully disfigured; it is called to this day the Temple of Solomon.” Lewin’s Jerusalem, p. 270.

337 – See Milman’s History of the Jews, I. 326–328; Art. Solomon in Smith’s Bib. Dict.; Jahn’s Hebrew Commonwealth, 78, 79; Kitto’s Daily Bible Illustrations, IV. 127–132.

338 – See p. 254.

339 – The disunion of the kingdom of Solomon, though apparently sudden, had been brought about by many pre-disposing causes. From the earliest period there had been a jealous rivalry between the powerful tribes of Ephraim and Judah, like that between the houses of York and Lancaster in our own history. For upwards of 400 years the leadership of the nation had been practically in the hands of Ephraim. From this tribe had come the great hero Joshua; to it belonged, at least by his place of birth, the great prophet Samuel; and though from “little Benjamin” had come the first king, yet hereditary ties as well as geographical position had united it to the house of Joseph. Within the boundaries, moreover, of Ephraim had been the sanctuaries of Shechem and Shiloh, which would naturally make it the resort of numbers from all parts of the country. Hence the spirit of jealousy this tribe was ever ready to evince if any exploit was performed or advantage gained in which it had not the lion’s share. Hence its complaints against Gideon340, against Jephthah341, against David342. But its influence, hitherto so great, began to wane when the victories of the latter prince exalted the tribe of Judah to its proud pre-eminence. For seven years Ephraim supported Ishbosheth’s rival throne at Mahanaim, but when he died, and David captured Jebus, gave to the nation a fortress and a capital, and transferred thither the Tabernacle, the glories of Shechem and of Shiloh began to vanish away. For a time David’s personal influence preserved the semblance of union, and many Ephraimites were in high favour about his person (1 Chr. xii. 30; xxvii. 10, 14), but the restoration of the king after the rebellion of Absalom was the signal for an outburst of the old rivalry, which well-nigh precipitated a disruption (2 Sam. xx. 1), and when the smouldering feelings of jealousy were fanned into exasperation by the oppressive taxation of Solomon and the insane folly of his son, a leader only was required, like Jeroboam, to make the separation complete. See Blunt’s Script. Coincid. 164–175.

340 – See p. 249.

341 – See p. 257.

342 – See p. 342.

343 – “The whole area of Palestine was nearly equal to that of the kingdom of Holland (13,610 sq. m.), or rather more than that of the 6 northern counties of England (13,136 sq. m.). The kingdom of Judah was rather less than Northumberland, Durham, and Westmoreland (3,683 sq. m.); the kingdom of Israel was very nearly as large as Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Cumberland (9,453 sq. m.).” See Smith’s Bib. Dict., Article Kingdom of Israel.

344 – See p. 250.

345 – See p. 358, n.

346 – The month of the Vintage in Northern Palestine. See the Calendar, p. 155.

347 – “This success is found to have been commemorated by Shishak on the outside of the great temple of Karnak; and here in a long list of captured towns and districts, which Shishak boasts of having added to his dominions, occurs the ‘Melchi Yuda,’ or kingdom of Judah, the conquest of which by this king is thus distinctly noticed in the Egyptian records.” Rawlinson’s Bampton Lectures, p. 126; Herod. II. p. 376.

348 – Rawlinson’s Bampton Lectures, p. 127.

349 – Hadad or Adad was a Syrian god, probably the sun, still worshipped at Damascus in the time of Josephus (Ant. IX. 4, 6), and from it several Syrian names are derived, as Hadadezer, i.e. Hadad has helped, Ben-Hadad, worshipper of Hadad.

350 – “In the territory of Ephraim, the fertile plains and to a certain extent wooded hills, which have been often noticed as its characteristic ornaments, at once gave an opening to the formation of parks and pleasure-grounds similar to those which were the ‘Paradises’ of Assyrian and Persian monarchs. One of these was Tirzah (Tellûzah?) of unknown site, but evidently near Shechem, and of proverbial beauty,” Cant. vi. 4. Stanley’s S. and P. 243. It “was to Shechem what Windsor is to London, and had been the seat of a Canaanitish king before the conquest of the country by the Israelites” (Josh. xii. 24). Porter’s Handbk. II. 348.

351 – “No better site for a capital could have been selected in the length and breadth of Palestine, combining a strong position, rich environs, central situation, and an elevation sufficient to catch the cool healthy breezes from the sea.” Porter’s Handbook, II. 345. “Situated on its steep height, in a plain itself girt in by hills, it was enabled, not less promptly than Jerusalem, to resist the successive assaults made upon it by the Syrian and Assyrian armies. The first were baffled altogether, the second took it only after a three years’ siege, that is three times as long as that which reduced Jerusalem” (2 Kings xviii. 10). Stanley, S. and P. 244.

352 – The meaning of the expression “making streets in Samaria,” 1 Kings xx. 34.

353 – Ithobalus = Baal with him, Ethbaal = with Baal.

354 – Kenrick’s Phœnicia, p. 362. The date of Ethbaal’s reign may be given at about B.C. 940–908. Smith’s Bib. Dict.

355 – See p. 219.

356 – See p. 256.

357 – That is, for 3 years and 6 months (Comp. Lk. iv. 25). “The annals of Tyre record a drought of a year’s duration in the reign of Ithobaal, who continued to reign at Tyre during a considerable portion of Ahab’s reign in Israel.” Kenrick’s Phœnicia, 362; Rawlinson’s Bampton Lectures, 128, 129.

358 – Carmel, nearly always found with the definite article, = the park, or the well-wooded place, and is famous even now for its “impenetrable brushwood of evergreens and oaks.” (See Isai. xxxiii. 9, xxxv. 2; Mic. vii. 14; Amos i. 2.) This well-known ridge, rising at the west end about 600, and the east about 1600 feet above the sea, stretches from the Mediterranean inland a little more than 12 miles, and separates the plain of Esdraelon from the plain of Sharon.

359 – Stanley’s S. & P. 353. “We descended to the Mohrakah, or ‘place of sacrifice.’ It is a glade overlooking the plain, somewhat in the shape of an amphitheatre, and completely shut in on the north by the well-wooded cliffs down which we had come. No place could be conceived more adapted by nature to be that wondrous battle-field of truth. In front of the principal actors in the scene, with the king and his courtiers by their side, the thousands of Israel might have been gathered on the lower slopes, witnesses of the whole struggle to its stupendous result.” Tristram’s Holy Land, p. 117.

360 – Obtained from a neighbouring fountain, Josephus Ant. VIII. 13, § 5, which even now is found close beneath el-Mohrakah (“the burning”), the spot pointed out as the scene of this event. “In the upper part of the amphitheatre to the left is an ancient fountain, overhung by a few magnificent trees, among them a noble specimen of the Turkey oak. The reservoir of the spring is stone-built and square, about 8 ft. deep, and the old steps which once descended to it may still be traced. The water is of some depth, and is perennial. This was corroborated by the existence of molluscs attached to the stones within the cistern. In that three years’ drought, when all the wells were dry, and the Kishon had first sunk to a string of pools, and then finally was lost altogether, this deep and shaded spring fed from the roots of Carmel remained.” Tristram’s Holy Land, pp. 117, 118.