historical Palestine to be of importance. The few streams which flow westward into the Mediterranean, such as the Belus, the Kishon, and those of the Plain of Sharon, are too insignificant ever to have attracted attention, in comparison of the full volume of water poured by the Jordan in an unfailing supply through the whole length of the country. As such it was emphatically The River of Palestine; and its name is thus used in the Book of Job as the synonym of a perennial stream'. But on the other hand, in contrast to the rivers of other countries, the Jordan from its leaving the Sea of Galilee to its end, adds hardly a single element of civilisation to the long tract through which it rushes. Whilst Damascus, whilst Antioch, whilst Egypt, derive their very existence from their respective rivers, the Jordan presents the singular spectacle of a river almost wholly useless, so far as civilised man is concerned, through the long ages of its history. It is, indeed, still the "Sheriat el-Khebir," the "great watering-place" of the Bedouin tribes; and so it must always have been. But it is the river of a Desert. "The Desert," as we have seen, is the ordinary name by which its valley was known; hardly a single city or village rose upon its actual banks. Within the narrow range of its own bed it produces a rank mass of vegetation, but this luxuriant line of verdure only sets off more completely the contrast of life with death, which is its characteristic feature. This singular fate of the Jordan is the direct result of the depression of its channel. The depth of the valley in the bottom of which it flows, prevents its waters from escaping, like those of the Nile, to fertilise anything beyond its own immediate bed; but the tropical temperature to which its whole plain is thus exposed, whilst calling out into almost unnatural vigour whatever vegetation receives the life-giving touch of its waters, withers up every particle of verdure that is found beyond their reach. As a separation of Israel from the 1 In the description of the Behemoth, or hippopotamus, in Job xl. 23, it is said, "He trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth." As the hippopotamus is not a native of Syria, it is clear that the word is used as a general term for any river. This single expres sion is a strong indication that the Book of Job, or at least this portion of it, must have been composed by an inhabitant of Palestine. See Appendix, Jarden. surrounding country, as a boundary between the two main divisions of the tribes, as an image of water in a Historical dry and thirsty soil, it played an important part; scenes conbut not as the scene of great events, or the seat of nected with great cities'. Its contact with the history of the people is exceptional, not ordinary, confined to rare and remote occasions, the more remarkable from their very rarity. it. of Siddim. I. These instances we may now proceed to examine. The earliest is one which at first might seem to militate The Vale against what has just been said. There was once a time in the far distance of patriarchal ages, when the Jordan was not thus isolated. At the time of the first migration of the herdsmen of Chaldæa into the hills of Palestine, when Abraham and Lot looked down from the mountain of Bethel on the deep descent beneath them, and Lot chose for himself the 'round' of the Jordan, that 'round' was different from anything that we now see. It was "well watered everywhere as the garden of the Lord, and like the land of Egypt." And this description is filled out in detail by subsequent allusions. It is described as a deep "valley," distinguished from the surrounding "desert" by its fertile "fields"." If any credence is to be attached to the geological conclusions of the last fifty years, there must have been already a lake at its extremity, such as that which terminates the course of the Barada at Damascus, or of the Kowik at Aleppo. Then, as now, it must have received in some form or other the fresh streams of the Jordan, of the Arnon, of En-gedi, of Callirrhoe; and, at the southern end, as Dr. Robinson has observed, more living brooks than are to be found so near together in all the rest of Palestine'. On the banks of one or some of these streams there would seem to have been an oasis or collection of oases, like that which is still from the same causes to be found on a smaller scale in the groves of En-gedi and of Jericho', and in the Plain of Gennesareth', or, on a larger scale, in the Paradise of Damascus. Along the edge of this lake or valley, Gentile and Jewish 1 Plin. H. N. v. 15. "Accolis invitum se præbet." 2 Emek, Arabah, and Siddim. Appendix. See 3 Robinson, B. R. ii. p. 602. 5 See Chapter X. 6 See Chapter XII. records combine in placing the earliest seat of Phoenician civilisation. "The Tyrians," such is the account of Justin', "first dwelt by the Assyrian [or Syrian] lake before they removed to Sidon." Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, with Lasha (probably Laish by the sources of the Jordan), are mentioned as the first settlements of the Canaanites' on the east of Palestine, as Sidon and the maritime cities on the west. When Lot descended from Bethel, "the cities of the 'round' of the Jordan formed a nucleus of civilised life, before any city except Hebron had sprung up in Central Palestine. 1. On those cities, as on the most promising spoil, the kings Battle of of the remote East descended; as Damascus on the the Kings. north of Palestine, so were these on the south. For twelve years they were subject to Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and in the thirteenth they rebelled. Then took place the first recorded invasion of Palestine by Assyria', embracing in its sweep the whole range of mountains east of the Jordan down to Petra on the south, and the wilderness of Amalek on the west. The final struggle was in the Vale of Siddim. In that "Valley of the Fields" was fought the first battle of Palestine, two of the five kings were slain in the conflict, and the routed army fled up the steep passes of the enclosing hills. The victors carried off their spoil and captives, and retreated up the long valley of the Jordan on their homeward march. Far up the valley, at the very source of its river, just as they were on the point of crossing the range of Hermon, they were overtaken by the avenger. "Abram the Hebrew," with his three hundred and eighteen armed slaves, and his ally Mamre of Hebron, was upon their track; at that point, then the Sidonian Laish, but afterwards the Israelite Dan, he attacked them by night, and chased them over the mountain-ridge far into the plain of Damascus. 1 Justin. Histor. xviii. 3, 2 (See Kenrick's Phoenicia, 47). Josephus, Bell. Jud. IX., places all the cities in what he calls "the Sodomite district," i. e. at the south end. 2 Gen. x. 19. 3 Gen. xiv. Tuch, in an article in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gessellschaft, (translated in Journal of Sacred Literature, i. 84,) argues with Overthrow of Sodom and Go morrah. 2. This is the earliest authentic record of Canaanite history, and exhibits the vale of the Jordan as it was never exhibited again. Even that record contains indications, like the earthquake at Pompeii which preceded the volcano of Vesuvius, of a change close at hand. Pits of bitumen are there described as existing in the vale of Siddim'. The name of Sodom (burning), if it be not derived from the subsequent catastrophe, shows, like the "Phlegræan" fields of Campania, that the marks of fire had already passed over the doomed valley. The name of Bela, the old name of Zoar', was understood by Jewish tradition-perhaps fancifully, yet certainly in accordance with probability-to allude to the fact of its frequent subversion by earthquakes. In what precise manner the Lord overthrew the cities" is not clearly indicated in the records either of Scripture or of natural remains. The great difference of level between the bottoms of the northern and the southern ends of the lake, the former being a depth of thirteen hundred, the latter only of thirteen feet, below the surface, confirms the theory that the southern end is of recent formation, and, if so, was submerged at the time of the fall of the cities; and that the vale of Siddim included the whole of the bay south of the promontory which now almost closes up its northern portion'. But, as Reland' long ago pointed out, there is no reason, either in Scripture or history, for supposing that the cities themselves were destroyed by submersion, or were submerged at all; and the mode of the catastrophe is emphatically and repeatedly described to be not water, but fire. It is possible that M. de Sauley may have expression which seems to imply that the rise of the Dead Sea was within historical times, is that contained in Gen. xiv. 3, "the vale of Siddim, which is the Salt Sea." But this phrase may merely mean that the region in question bore both names; as in the similar expressions (verses 7 and 17) "En-Mishpat, which is Kadesh;" "Shaveh, which is the King's Dale." It should, however, be observed that the word emek, translated "vale," is usually employed for a long, broad valley, such as in this connection would naturally mean the whole length of the Dead Sea. See Appendix. U exaggerated in some instances the traces of sites and of names along the shores; but there is nothing incredible in the fact that he should have discovered the spots which were believed in the time of Josephus, Strabo, Tacitus, and the writers of the New Testament, to contain the vestiges of the devoted cities, "set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire'," not beneath the waters of the lake, but on its barren shores. And if the salt mountain' at the southern extremity could be conceived to have been thrown up within historical times, there is nothing impossible in the supposition that this eruption may have accompanied the catastrophe of Sodom, and have borne its part in the consequences expressly ascribed to that event. More than this cannot be determined without more exact knowledge than we now possess. A great mass of legend and exaggeration, partly the effect, partly the cause of the old belief that the cities were buried under the Dead Sea, has been gradually removed in recent years. The glittering surface of the lake, with the thin mist of its own evaporations floating over its surface, will now no more be taken for a gloomy sea, sending forth sulphureous exhalations. The birds which pass over it without injury have long ago destroyed the belief that no living creature could survive the baneful atmosphere which hung upon its waters. But it has still its manifold interest, both physical and SEA. historical. Viewed merely in a scientific point of view, THE DEAD it is one of the most remarkable spots of the world. First, it may be regarded as one of the most curious of inland seas. It is thirteen hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean Sea, and thus the most depressed sheet of water in the world; as the Lake Sir-i-kol', where the Oxus rises "In his high mountain cradle in Pamere," -is the most elevated. Its basin is a steaming cauldron,-a Josephus, Bell. Jud. IV. viii. 4; Strabo, xvi.; Tacit. Hist. v. 7. St. Jude 7. This is confirmed by the mention of salt in connection with Lot's wife (Gen. xix. 26), and of the sterility following on all "which grew upon the ground" (Ib. 26). 3 The Lake Sirikol is 15,600 feet above the level of the sea- that is, nearly as high as Mont Blanc-and is a sheet of water fourteen miles long and one mile broad, on the high table-land called by the natives "Bam-i-duniah," "the roof of the world,"-a name not unfitly applied to the water-shed of the Indus and Oxus. (Milner, in Petermann's Physical Atlas, p. 14.) |