sanctuary of Palestine, Abraham paid the tenth of the recently acquired spoil. 2. What is affirmed by the Gentile tradition with regard to the connection of Gerizim with Melchizedek, is affirmed by the Sacrifice of Samaritan tradition with regard to its connection with the Isaac. sacrifice of Isaac. "Beyond all doubt" (this is the form in which the story is told amongst the Samaritans themselves) "Isaac was offered on Ar-Gerizim. Abraham said, 'Let us go up and sacrifice on the mountain.' He took out a rope to fasten his son; but Isaac said 'No: I will lie still.' Thrice the knife refused to cut. Then God from heaven called to Gabriel, 'Go down and save Isaac, or I will destroy thee from among the Angels.' From the seventh heaven Gabriel called and pointed to the ram. The place of the ram's capture is still shown near the Holy Place." The Jewish tradition, as represented by Josephus, transfers the scene to the hill on which the temple was afterwards erected at Jerusalem, and this belief has been perpetuated in Christian times as attached to a spot in the garden of the Abyssinian Convent, not indeed on Mount Moriah, but immediately to the east of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with the intention of connecting the sacrifice of Isaac with the Crucifixion, An ancient thorn-tree, covered with the rags of pilgrims, is still shown as the thicket in which the ram was caught. But the Samaritan tradition is here again confirmed by the circumstances of the story. Abraham was "in the land of the Philistines." From the south of the plain he would advance, till on the morning of "the third day," in the plain of Sharan, the massive height of Gerizim is visible "afar off," and from thence half a day would bring him to its summit. Exactly such a view is to be had in that plain'; and on the other hand, no such view or impression can fairly be said to exist on the road from the south to Jerusalem, even if what is at most a journey of two days could be extended to three. The towers of Jerusalem are indeed seen from the ridge of Mar Elias, at the distance of three miles; but there is no elevation, nothing corresponding to the "place afar off" to which Abraham "lifted up his eyes." And the special locality which Jewish tradition has assigned for the place, and whose name is the chief guarantee for the tradition-Mount Moriah, the Hill of the Temple-is not visible till the traveller is close upon it, at the southern edge of the valley of Hinnor, from whence he looks down upon it, as on a lower eminence. And when from the circumstances we pass to the name, the argument based upon it in favour of Jerusalem is at least equally balanced by the belief that Jacob's Salem was Shechem itself, though he mentions another near Scythopolis, and also one on the west of Jerusalem. The Samaritan tradition fixes Melchizedek's abode to some spot on the eastward of Nablus. 'See Chapter VI. 2 Barclay (City of the Great King, P, argument which it yields in favour of Gerizim. The name of Moriah, as applied to the Temple hill, refers to the vision of David after the plague. "Solomon began to build the house in the Mount of 'the appearance' (moriah) [of the Lord], where He appeared (nireah) unto David his father'." Some such play on the word is apparent also in Gen. xxii. 8, 14, " God will see "-" in the mountain the Lord shall see," where the Hebrew word employed, (Jehovah jireh,) is from the same root. But in the case of the mountain of Abraham's sacrifice, it was probably in the first instance derived from its conspicuous position as seen from afar off;" and the name was thus applied not merely, to "one of the mountains," but to the whole "land"-an expression entirely inapplicable to the contracted eminence of the Temple. The LXX, moreover, evidently unconscious of its identification with the Mount of Jerusalem, translate it, r fùr tùr vendýr, "the high land,"-a term exactly agreeing with γὴν ὑψηλήν, the appearance which the hills of Ephraim, and especially Gerizim, present to a traveller advancing up the maritime plain, and also with the before mentioned expression of Theodotus-"the mountain of the Most High." It is impossible here not to ask, whether a trace of the name of Moriah, as applied to Gerizim, and its neighbourhood, may not be found in the term "Moreh," applied in Gen. xii. 6, to the grove of terebinths in the same vicinity ? of which the same translation is given by the LXX, as of Moriah-τὴν δρῦν τὴν ὑψηλήν "the high oak." Hebrew scholars must determine how far the difference of the radical letters of and is an insuperable objection to its identification. In Gen. xxii. the Samaritans actually read Moreh for Moriah; and the LXX, Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome, all translate the word by "lofty" or "conspicuous," which would be a just translation of “ Moreh," not of "Moriah." See Bleek, in Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1831, p. 520. Mr. Grove has pointed out to me a probable confirmation of this view in Amos vii. 9, 16, where "the high places of Isaac" and "the house of Isaac are mentioned as amongst the sanctuaries of the northern kingdom. 58) notices a rock in the valley of the Kedron, from which Jerusalem can be seen some miles to the South. But this could never have been on the regular road from the South. 1 2 Chron. iii. 1. 2 Gen. xxii. 2. CHAPTER VI. THE MARITIME PLAIN. Zeph. ii. 5, 6, 7. "Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea coasts, the nation of the Cherethites! the word of the Lord is against you; O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. And the sea coast shall be dwellings and 'cisterns' for shepherds, and folds for flocks. And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall feed thereupon." Judges v. 17. Isaiah lxv. 10. Acts ix. 35. the Lord." Judges v. 17. creeks.' "Why did Dan remain in ships?" "Sharon shall be a fold of flocks." "All that dwelt in Lydda and Saron turned unto ... "Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his Ezek. xxvii. 3, 4. "O Tyrus. . . thy borders are in the midst of the sea." Maritime Plain.-I. The SHEPHELAH : the Philistines: 1. Maritime character -name of PALESTINE; 2. The strongholds-sieges; 3. Corn-fields-contact with Dan; 4. Level plain-contact with Egypt and the Desert. II. PLAIN OF SHARON-pasture-land-Dor-forest-Cæsarea-connection with Apostolic history. III. PLAIN and BAY OF ACRE-Tribe of Asher. IV. PLAIN OF PHOENICIA: 1. Separation from Palestine; 2. Harbours; 3. Security; 4. Rivers. Tyre and Sidon-name of SYRIA. THE MARITIME PLAIN. We have now reached what was in fact the northern frontier of the chief home of the chosen people. All the main historical events of their domestic history passed in the mountains of Ephraim and of Judah. This clump of hills was the focus of the national life. All the parts of Palestine that lay round it to the west, to the north, and to the east were comparatively foreign; the south, as we have seen, ended in the Desert. The point to which we have thus attained, overlooking from the outposts of Manasseh the great battle-field of Esdraelon, compels us to make a retrograde movement and consider the Maritime Plain extending along the western coast, with which the plain of Esdraelon stands in close connection. 'The She Philistia. I. Beginning from the southern Desert, the first division of this plain, which comprised the territory of the ancient Philistines, is uniformly termed in the Old Testament, The Low Country (" Shephelah ")'. The boundaries of their phelah,' or territory, though indefinite, may be measured by their five great cities; of which Ekron is the furthest north, and Gaza the furthest south. Two parallel tracts divide the flat plain the sandy tract (Ramleh), on which stand the maritime cities; and the cultivated tract, which presents for the most part an unbroken mass of corn, out of which rise here and there slight eminences in the midst of gardens and orchards, the seats. of the more inland cities. Gath' has entirely disappeared, but 1 "Shephelah," the Hebrew word, is preserved untranslated in 1 Macc. xii. 38. See Appendix, sub voce. See Porter's Syria and Palestine. |