of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil'."

On the slope of this range-still looking down into the Valley of Jezreel, but commanding also the view of the Jordan -a high spur of rock projects, on which stands the village of Beisân, once the city of Bethshan. It was one of the Canaanite strongholds which had never been taken by the Israelites, and accordingly was at once open to the victorious Philistines. They stripped and dismembered the royal corpse. The head was sent to the great Temple of Dagon, probably at Ashdod; but the armour was dedicated in the Temple of the Canaanite Ashtaroth at Bethshan', and the headless body with the corpses of his three sons fastened to the wall, overhanging the open place in front of the city gate‘. That wall overlooked the valley of the Jordan, into which the Valley of Jezreel

Bethshan

and Jabesh- there opens.

In the hills of Gilead, which are seen

Gilead. rising immediately beyond, was a town which Saul had once saved from a cruel enemy'. The inhabitants of Jabesh. Gilead remembered their benefactor. Their "valiant men" came under cover of the "night," across the Jordan, carried off the bodies, and buried them under the terebinth" of their own city, where they lay till they were disinterred by David to be buried in their ancestral cave at Zelah in Benjamin".

Josiah.

6

4. Two more battles, hardly less mournful than that of Saul, close Defeat of the series. The one fatal to the kingdom of Israel, the other to the kingdom of Judah. The first is but glanced at in the prophetical, without any notice of it in the historical books. When Shalmanezer came up against Hosea, "the bow of Israel," the archery for which the northern tribes were still famous "was broken in the Valley of Jezreel." The particular spot is also indicated. Shalmanezer laid waste Beth-Arbel, and dashed its inhabitants against the stones. This is, most

probably Arbel, described by Eusebius as nine miles from Legio. The second battle is told in greater detail. It was in the last days of the Jewish monarchy, when the northern kingdom had been already destroyed, that Palestine was first exposed to the disastrous fate which involved her in so long a series of troubles from this time forward-that of being the debateable ground between Egypt and the further East; first, under the Pharaohs and the rulers of Babylon; then under the Ptolemies and Seleucidæ. "In the days of Josiah, PharaohNecho king of Egypt, went up against the the king of Assyria to the Euphrates,"-possibly landing his army at Accho, more probably, as the expression seems to indicate, following the track of his predecessor Psammetichus, and advancing up the maritime plain till he turned into the plain of Esdraelon, thence to penetrate into the passes of the Lebanon. "King Josiah," in self-defence, and perhaps as an ally of the Assyrian king, "went against him'." The engagement took place in the central portion of the plain-the scene of Sisera's defeat"the plain of Megiddo." The "Egyptian archers," Battle of in their long array, so well known from their sculp- Megiddo. tured monuments, "shot at King Josiah," as he rode in state in his royal chariot, and "he was sore wounded," and placed in his second chariot" of reserve, and carried to Jerusalem to die. In that one tragical event, all other notices of the battle are absorbed. The exact scene of the encounter is not known. It would seem, however, to have been at a spot called, after the name of a Syrian divinity, "Hadad-Rimmon," that the king fell. On this consecrated place were uttered the lamentations', continued at Jerusalem by one whose strains were only inferior in pathos to those of David over Saul; "and all Judah and Jesusalem mourned for Josiah, and Jeremiah lamented for Josiah; and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the Lamentations".

66

Other battles there have been in later times-in the Crusades, and in the wars of Napoleon, which confirm the ancient celebrity of the Plain of Esdraelon; but of these one only

1 2 Kings xxiii. 29; 2 Chr. xxxv. 20, 22. 2 Bika' ah. 2 Chr. xxxv.22.

3 Ibid. 24.

5

2 Chr. xxxv. 25.

• Zech. xii. 11.

་

deserves to be named in conjunction with those of which I have been speaking-that of Hattin, which will be best considered elsewhere'.

Richness of

III. But there is another aspect under which the Plain of Esdraelon must be considered. Every traveller has remarked on the richness of its soil and the exuberance of its the plain of crops. Once more the palm appears, waving its stately Esdraelon. tresses over the village enclosures. These enclosures are divided each from each by masses of wild artichoke. The very weeds are a sign of what in better hands the vast plain might become. The thoroughfare which it forms for every passage, from east to west, from north to south, made it in peaceful times the most available and eligible possession of Palestine. It was the frontier of Zebulun-" Rejoice, O Zebulun, in thy goings out." But it was the special portion of Issachar; and in its condition, thus exposed to the good and evil fate of Character the beaten highway of Palestine, we read the forof Issachar. tunes of the tribe which, for the sake of this possession, consented to sink into the half-nomadic state of the Bedouins who wandered over it,-into the condition of tributaries to the Canaanite tribes, whose iron chariots drove victoriously through it. "Rejoice, O Issachar, in thy tents . . . they shall suck of the abundance of the seas [from Acre], and of the [glassy] treasures hid in the sands' [of the torrent Belus]. Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two 'troughs' and he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute." In the gathering of the northern tribes against Sisera and the Midianites, the name of Issachar is omitted; and although, in the former crisis, they were not wholly absent, yet it was only "the chiefs' of Issachar" who "were with Deborah"." But still they were looked up to-perhaps on account of this very choice of land-as "men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do ";" and they with the neighbouring tribes, were foremost in sending to David, on his accession, all the good things that their soil produced, "bread, and meat, and meal, cakes of figs, bunches of raisins, and wine, and oil, on

3 Deut. xxxiii. 18, 19.

4 Gen. xlix. 14, 15.

5 Judg. v. 15. Comp. iv. 10, vi. 35. 61 Chron. xii. 32.

asses, and on camels, and on mules, and on oxen,

there was joy in Israel'."

PARK and

PALACE of
JEZREEL.

in accordance with this general character of the plain, were some of its special localities. The park-like aspect which has already been noticed in the hills between Shechem and Samaria, breaks out again in this fertile district. The same luxuriant character which had rendered this whole region the favourite haunt of the four northern tribes, rendered it also the favourite resort of the later kings of Israel. Of all the numerous villages that now rise out of the plain on the gentle swells which break its level surface, the most commanding in situation is the modern Zerin, the ancient "Jezreel," the 'seed' or 'sowing-place of God,'-a name in itself indicative of the richness of the neighbouring soil. As Baasha had chosen Tirzah, as Omri had chosen Samaria, so Ahab chose Jezreel as his regal residence. It never indeed superseded his father's capital at Samaria, as that had superseded Shechem; but it was the chief seat of his dynasty for three successive reigns; and its importance is evident, from the fact that it gave its name to the whole plain, of which it thus became the chief city. It is now a mere collection of hovels. But its situation at the opening of the central eastern valley, so often described, commanding the view towards Carmel on one side, and to the Jordan on the other, still justifies its selection by Ahab and his Queen, as the seat of their court, and its natural features still illustrate the most striking incidents in the scenes in which it appears in the Sacred History, of the overthrow of the house of Ahab. We see how up the valley from the Jordan, Jehu's troop might be seen. advancing from Ramoth-Gilead; how in Naboth's "field" the two sovereigns met the relentless soldier; how, whilst Joram died on the spot, Ahaziah drove down the westward plain, towards the mountain-pass by the beautiful village of Engannim, but was overtaken in the ascent, and died of his wounds at Megiddo; how in the open place, which, as usual in

2

11 Chron. xii. 40.

1 Kings xxi. 1; 2 Kings ix. 30.

3 2 Kings ix. 27. The name Bethgan, translated in the English Version "the garden-house," is rightly preserved in the LXX. It is evidently the same as "En-gannim," 'the spring of the gardens' (Josh. xix. 21; xxi 29); and

as the modern Jenin, well known as the village on which all travellers descend from the hills of Manasseh. The gardenlike character of the spot is still preserved. A copious stream flows into the village, and in the centre, by the mosque, bubbles up the "spring."

Eastern towns, lay before the gates of Jezreel, the body of the Queen was trampled under the hoofs of Jehu's horses; how the dogs gathered round it, as even to this day, in the wretched village now seated on the ruins of the once splendid city of Jezreel, they prowl on the mounds without the walls for the offal and carrion thrown out to them to consume'; how, as he passed on his way to Samaria, he encountered in the plain of Esdraelon the wild figure of the Bedouin Kenite from Jabesh beyond the Jordan-Jehonadab, the son of Rechab.

TABOR.

These characteristics of the plain-perhaps the most secular in sacred history,-are not the only or the highest associations with which its natural features are connected. Two points still remain, the most interesting in its whole expanse. IV. Two mountains, the glory of the tribe of Issachar, stand out among the bare and rugged hills of Palestine, and even among those of their own immediate neighbourhood, remarkable for the verdure which climbs-a rare sight in Eastern scenery-to their very summits. One of these is Tabor. This strange and beautiful mountain is distinguished alike in form and in character from all around it. As seen, where it is usually first seen by the traveller, from the northwest of the plain, it towers like a dome, as seen from the east, like a long arched mound, over the monotonous undulations of the surrounding hills, from which it stands completely isolated, except by a narrow neck of rising ground, uniting it to the mountain-range of Galilee. It is not what Europeans would call a wooded hill, because its trees stand all apart from each other. But it is so thickly studded with them, as to rise from the plain like a mass of verdure, Its sides much resemble the scattered glades in the outskirts of the New Forest. Its summit, a broken oblong, is an alternation of shade and greensward, that seems made for a national festivity; broad and varied, and commanding wide views of the plain from end to end.

This description of itself tells us that it is not that peaked height which we imagine as the scene of the great event with which later traditions have connected it. The Transfiguration,

1 So I chanced to see them there.

2 Kings x. 15; 1 Chr. ii. 55. The exact site of the "pit of the shearing

house," or (as the LXX literally render it) of Beth akad,' where Jehu met Jehonadab, is not known.