LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

      The Negeb, or desert of the south, was then, what it still is, the haunt of robbers and marauders. The Beduin of to-day are the Amalekites of Old Testament history; and then, as now, they infested the southern frontier of Judah, wasting and robbing the fields of the husbandman, and allying themselves with every invader who came from the south, Saul, indeed, punished them, as Romans and Turks have punished them since; but the lesson is remembered only for a short while: when the strong hand is removed, the "sons of the desert" return again like the locusts to their prey.

      It is true that the Beduin now range over the loamy plains and encamp among the marshes of Lake Hûleh, where in happier times their presence was unknown. But this is the result of a weak and corrupt government, added to the depopulation of the lowlands. There are traces even in the Old Testament that in periods of anarchy and confusion the Amalekites penetrated far into the country in a similar fashion. In the Song of Deborah and Barak Ephraim is said to have contended against them, and accordingly "Pirathon in the land of Ephraim" is described as being "in the mount of the Amalekites" (Judges xii. 15). In the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna, too, there is frequent mention of the "Plunderers" by whom the Beduin, the Shasu of the Egyptian texts, must be meant, and who seem to have been generally ready at hand to assist a rebellious vassal or take part in a civil feud.

      Lebanon, the "white" mountain, took its name from its cliffs of glistening limestone. In the early days of Canaan it was believed to be the habitation of the gods, and Phoenician inscriptions exist dedicated to Baal-Lebanon, "the Baal of Lebanon." He was the special form of the Sun-god whose seat was in the mountain-ranges that shut in Phoenicia on the east, and whose spirit was supposed to dwell in some mysterious way in the mountains themselves. But there were certain peaks which lifted themselves up prominently to heaven, and in which consequently the sanctity of the whole range was as it were concentrated. It was upon their summits that the worshipper felt himself peculiarly near the God of heaven, and where therefore the altar was built and the sacrifice performed. One of these peaks was Hermon, "the consecrated," whose name the Greeks changed into Harmonia, the wife of Agenor the Phoenician. From its top we can see Palestine spread as it were before us, and stretching southwards to the mountains of Judah. The walls of the temple, which in Greek times took the place of the primitive altar, can still be traced there, and on its slopes, or perched above its ravines, are the ruins of other temples of Baal—at Dêr el-'Ashair, at Rakleh, at Ain Hersha, at Rashêyat el-Fukhâr—all pointing towards the central sanctuary on the summit of the mountain.

      The name of Hermon, "the consecrated," was but an epithet, and the mountain had other and more special names of its own. The Sidonians, we are told (Deut. iii. 9), called it Sirion, and another of its titles was Sion (Deut. iv. 48), unless indeed this is a corrupt reading for Sirion. Its Amorite name was Shenir (Deut. iii. 9), which appears as Saniru in an Assyrian inscription, and goes back to the earliest dawn of history. When the Babylonians first began to make expeditions against the West, long before the birth of Abraham, the name of Sanir was already known. It was then used to denote the whole of Syria, so that its restriction to Mount Hermon alone must have been of later date.

      Another holy peak was Carmel, "the fruitful field," or perhaps originally "the domain of the god." It was in Mount Carmel that the mountain ranges of the north ended finally, and the altar on its summit could be seen from afar by the Phoenician sailors. Here the priests of Baal called in vain upon their god that he might send them rain, and here was "the altar of the Lord" which Elijah repaired.

      The mountains of the south present no striking peak or headland like Hermon and Carmel. Even Tabor belongs to the north. Ebal and Gerizim alone, above Shechem, stand out among their fellows, and were venerated as the abodes of deity from the earliest times. The temple-hill at Jerusalem owed its sanctity rather to the city within the boundaries of which it stood than to its own character. In fact, the neighbouring height of Zion towered above it. The mountains of the south were rather highlands than lofty chains and isolated peaks.

      But on this very account they played an important part in the history of the world. They were not too high to be habitable; they were high enough to protect their inhabitants against invasion and war. "Mount Ephraim," the block of mountainous land of which Shechem and Samaria formed the centre, and at the southern extremity of which the sacred city of Shiloh stood, was the natural nucleus of a kingdom, like the southern block of which Hebron and Jerusalem were similarly the capitals. Here there were valleys and uplands in which sufficient food could be grown for the needs of the population, while the cities with their thick and lofty walls were strongholds difficult to approach and still more difficult to capture. The climate was bracing, though the winters were cold, and it reared a race of hardy warriors and industrious agriculturists. The want of water was the only difficulty; in most cases the people were dependent on rain-water, which they preserved in cisterns cut out of the rock.

      This block of southern mountains was the first and latest stronghold of Israel. It constituted, in fact, the kingdoms of Samaria and Judah. Out of it, at Shechem, came the first attempt to found a monarchy in Israel, and thus unite the Israelitish tribes; out of it also came the second and more successful attempt under Saul the Benjamite and David the Jew. The Israelites never succeeded in establishing themselves on the sea-coast, and their possession of the plain of Megiddo and the southern slopes of the Lebanon was a source of weakness and not of strength. It led eventually to the overthrow of the kingdom of Samaria. The northern tribes in Galilee were absorbed by the older population, and their country became "Galilee of the Gentiles," rather than an integral part of Israel. The plain of Megiddo was long held by the Canaanites, and up to the last was exposed to invasion from the sea-coast. It was, in fact, the battle-field of Palestine. The army of the invader or the conqueror marched along the edge of the sea, not through the rugged paths and dangerous defiles of the mountainous interior, and the plain of Megiddo was the pass which led them into its midst. The possession of the plain cut off the mountaineers of the north from their brethren in the south, and opened the way into the heart of the mountains themselves.

      But to possess the plain was also to possess chariots and horsemen, and a large and disciplined force. The guerilla warfare of the mountaineer was here of no avail. Success lay on the side of the more numerous legions and the wealthier state, on the side of the assailant and not of the assailed.

      Herein lay the advantage of the kingdom of Judah. It was a compact state, with no level plain to defend, no outlying territories to protect. Its capital stood high upon the mountains, strongly fortified by nature and difficult of access. While Samaria fell hopelessly and easily before the armies of Assyria, Jerusalem witnessed the fall of Nineveh itself.

      What was true of the later days of Israelitish history was equally true of the age of the patriarchs. The strength of Palestine lay in its southern highlands; whoever gained possession of these was master of the whole country, and the road lay open before him to Sinai and Egypt. But to gain possession of them was the difficulty, and campaign after campaign was needed before they could be reduced to quiet submission. In the time of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty Jerusalem was already the key to Southern Palestine.

      Geographically, Palestine was thus a country of twofold character, and its population was necessarily twofold as well. It was a land of mountain and plain, of broken highlands and rocky sea-coast. Its people were partly mountaineers, active, patriotic, and poor, with a tendency to asceticism; partly a nation of sailors and merchants, industrious, wealthy, and luxurious, with no sense of country or unity, and accounting riches the supreme end of life. On the one hand, it gave the world its first lessons in maritime exploration and trade; on the other it has been the religious teacher of mankind.

      In both respects its geographical position has aided the work of its people. Situated midway between the two great empires of the ancient Oriental world, it was at once the high road and the meeting-place of the civilizations of Egypt and Babylonia. Long before Abraham migrated to Canaan it had been deeply interpenetrated by Babylonian culture and religious ideas, and long before the Exodus it had become an Egyptian province. It barred the way to Egypt for the invader from Asia; it protected Asia from Egyptian assault. The trade of the world passed through it and met in it; the merchants of Egypt and Ethiopia could traffic in Palestine with the traders of Babylonia and the far East. It was destined by nature to be a land of commerce and trade.

      And

Скачать книгу