1 a good courage, for the Lord had delivered their enemies into their hands." They fled down the western pass, and the Lord discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Beth-horon." This was the first stage of the flight-in the long ascent which I have described from Gibeon up to Beth-horon the Upper. “And it came to pass as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down of Beth-horon, that the Lord cast great stones from Heaven upon them unto Azekah."3 This was the second stage of the flight. The fugitives had outstripped the pursuers, they had crossed the high ridge of Beth-horon the Upper; they were in full flight down the descent to Beth-horon the Nether; when, as afterwards in the fight of Barak against Sisera, one of the fearful tempests which from time to time sweep over the hills of Palestine, burst upon the disordered army, and "they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword." 4 It is at this point that "the Book of Jasher" presents us with that sublime picture, which however variously it always has been and perhaps always will be interpreted, we may here take as we find it there expressed.5 On the summit of the pass-looking far down the deep descent of all the westward valleys, with the broad green vale of Ajalon unfolding in the distance into the open plain, with the yet wider expanse of the Mediterranean Sea beyond,-stood the Israelite chief. Below him was rushing down in wild confusion the Amorite host. Around him were "all his people of war and all his mighty men of valour." Behind him were the hills 6 which hid Gibeonthe now rescued Gibeon-from his sight. But the sun stood high above those hills," in the midst of Heaven;" for 7 Gibeon itself is not visible, nor is there any spot on these hills whence Gibeon and Ajalon can both be seen at once. Schwarze (141) incorrectly says "From this peak one can see Gibeon on the east and Ajalon on the west." 7 The emphatic expression (v. 13) not simply "in the midst" but "in the bisection of the heavens," seems intended to indicate noonday. the day had now far advanced since he had emerged from his night march through the passes of Ai, and in front, over the western vale of Ajalon, was the faint figure of the crescent moon visible above the hailstorm, which was fast driving up from the sea in the valleys below. Was the enemy to escape in safety, or was the speed with which Joshua had "come quickly and saved and helped" his defenceless allies to be still rewarded before the close of that day by a signal and decisive victory? Doubtless with outstretched hand and spear, "the hand that he drew not back, when he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed the inhabitants of Ai," "then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, 'Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; 'And thou Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. "And the sun stood still and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies." 1 So ended the second stage of the flight. The third is less distinct, from a variation in the text of the narrative.2 But following what seems the most probable reading, the pursuit still continued; "and the Lord smote them to Azekah and unto Makkedah, and these five kings fled and hid themselves in a cave at Makkedah." But Joshua halted not when he was told; the same speed was still required, the victory was not yet won. "Roll great stones," he said " upon the mouth of the cave, and set men by it for to keep them, and stay ye not, but pursue after your enemies and smite the hindmost of them; suffer them not to enter into their cities; for the Lord hath delivered them into your hands." We know not precisely the position of Makkedah, but it must have been probably 1 The Mussulmans' version of this event is that it was the battle which conquered Jericho, and that the day was Friday, and was lengthened in order to avoid the violation of the Sabbath, which would have begun at sunset; hence it was said the sacredness of the Mussulman Friday. Buckingham heard this story from the Arabs at Jericho (p. 302.) 2 The LXX omits Joshua x. 15, which probably has been inserted from x. 43-or, if genuine, must be taken as part of the extract from the Book of Jasher, winding up the whole account of the war in the same manner as 1 Sam. xvii. 54. (See Keil's Joshua, p. 179.) Battle of under at the point where the mountains sink into the plain! that this last struggle took place; and thither at last to the camp at Makkedah "all the people of Israel returned in peace; none moved his tongue against any of the people of Israel." There was enacted, as it would seem, the last act of the same eventful day; the five kings were brought out and slain, and hanged on five trees until the evening, when at last that memorable Sun went down. "It came to pass at the time of the going down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down from off the trees, and cast them into the cave wherein they had been hid, and laid great stones in the cave's mouth. . . . And that day Joshua took Makkedah, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof he utterly destroyed, them, and all the souls that were therein; he let none remain."2 And then followed the rapid succession of victory and extermination which swept the whole of southern Palestine into the hands of Israel. The possession of every place, sacred for them and for all future ages, from the plain of Esdraelon to the southern Desert,-Shechem, Shiloh, Gibeon, Bethlehem, Hebron,-was, with the one exception of Jerusalem, involved in the issue of that conflict. "And all those kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel. And Joshua returned and all Israel with him to the camp to Gilgal." 3 In comparison with this scene, to which "there was no Beth-horon day like, before or after it," it seems trivial to descend to Maccabeus. any lesser events which illustrate the same points. Yet the recollection of that first victory of their race may well have inspirited Judas Maccabæus, who, himself a native of the neighbouring hills, won his earliest fame in this same going up and coming down of Beth-horon," where in like manner "the residue" of the defeated army fled This follows from its being mentioned among the cities of the Philistine plain (Shefela), on the one hand (Joshua xv. 41), and from the mention of the large cave, only to be found in the mountains, on the other hand (Joshua x. 17). The position assigned to it by Eusebius, eight miles east of Eleuthero polis, is hardly compatible with this narrative. 2 Jos. x. 22-28. 3 Jos. x. 42, 43. into "the plain," "into the land of the Philistines." 1 Over this same pass was carried the great Roman road Against from Cæsarea to Jerusalem, up which Cestius advanced Cestius. at the first onset of the Roman armies on the capital of Judæa, and down which he and his whole force were driven by the insurgent Jews.2 By a singular coincidence the same scene thus witnessed the first and the last great victory that crowned the Jewish arms at the interval of nearly fifteen hundred years. From their camp at Gibeon, the Romans, as the Canaanites before them, were dislodged; they fled in similar confusion down the ravine to Beth-horon, the steep cliffs and the rugged road rendering their cavalry unavailable against the merciless fury of their pursuers; they were only saved, as the Canaanites. were not saved,-by the too rapid descent of the shades of night over the mountains, and under the cover of those shades they escaped to Antipatris in the plain below. Ages afterwards the Crusading armies, in the vain hope of reaching Jerusalem, advanced up the same valleys from their quarters at Ascalon and Jaffa, and the last eastern point at which Richard encamped was at Beit-Nuba, in the wide vale of Ajalon. A well near the village of Ajalon bears the name of Bir-el-Khebir, "the well of the hero." It is a strange complexity of associations which renders it doubtful whether "the hero" so handed down by tradition be the great leader of the hosts of Israel, or the flower of English chivalry. II. From the passes of the tribe of Benjamin we turn by Heights of a natural connection to those remarkable heights which Benjamin. guard their entrance into the table-land, and which diversify with their pointed summits that table-land itself. The very names of the towns of Benjamin indicate how eminently they partook of this general characteristic of the position of Judæan cities-Gibeah-Geba-Gibeon—all signifying "hill,”-Ramah, "a high place,"-Mizpeh, "the watch-tower." And it has been already observed how from these heights, to the north of Jerusalem, is in all likelihood derived the ancient image of "God standing about 11 Macc. iii. 16, 24. 2 Josephus, Bell. Jud. II. xix. P Nebi- his people." On most of these it is needless to enlarge. El-Bireh, the ancient Beeroth, is remarkable as the first halting-place of caravans on the northern road from Jerusalem, and therefore, not improbably, the scene of the event to which its monastic tradition lays claim,-the place where the "parents" of Jesus "sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance, and when they found him not, turned back again to Jerusalem." Er-Ram, marked by the village and green patch on its summit, first seen by the traveller on his approach to Jerusalem from the south, is certainly "Ramah of Benjamin." Tel-el-Fulil, distinguished by its curiously knobbed and double top, is in all probability Gibeah, the birth-place of Saul, and during his reign, the capital of his tribe and kingdom, and from him deriving the name of "Gibeah of Saul,"1 as before "of Benjamin ;" "the hill of Benjamin," or "of Saul." Just out of sight of Jerusalem, Anathoth, the birth-place of Jeremiah, looks down on the Dead Sea. Jeba, on the wild hills between Gibeah and Michmash, is clearly "Geba,” famous as the scene of Jonathan's first exploit against the Philistines. From its summit is seen northward the white chalky height of Rûmmon, the "cliff' Rimmon" overhanging the Jordan "wilderness," where the remnant of the Benjamites maintained themselves in the general ruin of their tribe. Further still, the dark conical hill of Tayibeh, with its village perched aloft, like those of the Apennines, the probable representative of Ophrah of Benjamin, in later times "the city called Ephraim," to which our Lord retired, "near to the wilderness," after the raising of Lazarus.7 3 5 1. But two of these heights, in historical importance, stand out from all the rest. Of all the points of interest about Jerusalem, none perhaps gains so much from an actual visit to Palestine as the lofty peaked eminence 1 1 Sam. x. 26; xi. 4; xv. 34; 2 Sam. xxi. 6; Isa. x. 29. 21 Sam. xiii. 2, 15, 16; xiv. 16; 2 Sam. xxiii. 29. 31 Sam. xiii. 3. In xiii. 16; xiv. 5, "Geba" is wrongly rendered "Gibeah;' Saul and Jonathan having evidently seized the stronghold from which they had dispossessed the Philistines. In 2 Kings xxiii. 8; Zech. xiv. 10; it is spoken of as the northern boundary of the kingdom of Judah. 4 Jud. xx. 47. 5 See Robinson, ii. 124. 6 Josh. xviii. 23; 1 Sam. xiii. 17. 7 John xi. 54. |