Their

Naphtali was to be like a 'spreading terebinth' of the uplands of Lebanon', "he 'putteth out' goodly 'boughs'." He is to be "satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord" They were to have also their openings to wealth and power by traffic on sea and land. "Zebulun shall dwell at the shore' of the sea, and shall be for a wealth. 'shore' of ships, and his border shall be unto Zidon '.” “Asher abode in his ' creeks'; Zebulun and Issachar are to "suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand "." Naphtali was "to possess the 'sea on the south," that is, the thoroughfare and traffic of the Sea of Galilee.

All these points of contact with the surrounding nations tended to confirm their isolation from the rest of their countrymen. Ephraim and Judah were separated from the Their isolaworld by the Jordan-valley on one side, and the tion. hostile Philistines on another; but the northern tribes were in the direct highway of all the invaders from the north, in unbroken communication with the promiscuous races who have always occupied the heights of Lebanon, and in close and peaceful alliance with the most commercial and enterprising nation of the ancient world, the Phoenicians. From a very

early period, their joint territory acquired the name which it bore under a slightly altered form in the distribution of the country into a Roman province-"Galil, Galilah, Galilæa"." It would seem to be merely another mode of expressing what is indicated by the word "Ciccar" in the case of the Jordanvalley-a "circle" or or "region;" and as such implies the separation of the district from the more regularly organised tribes or kingdoms of Samaria and Judæa. Gradually, too, it came to be regarded as the frontier between "the Holy Land,"

1 Gen. xlix. 21. Mistranslated "a hind let loose; he giveth goodly words." M. Van de Velde (ii. 418) speaks of the wooded basins-gardens "surrounded by dark-leaved oak-woods, whilst, here and there, thick tufted branches of the Carob might be seen rising aloft,"-"a garden that has no end," - bushes and trees "infinite in number," between Nazareth and Safed (Ib.). Josephus (Bell. Jud. III. iii. 2) describes Galilee, as "planted

thick with all kinds of trees." And I can bear witness to the same between ShefaOmar, and Seffûrieh.

2 Deut. xxxiii. 23.

3 Gen. xlix. 13. See Appendix, Choph. 4 Deut. xxxiii. 19. See Chapters VI. and IX.

5 So Deut. xxxiii. 23 may be translated. 6 Joshua xx. 7, Hebrew, Galil, 2 Kings xv. 29, ha-Galilah.

and the external world, "Galilee of the Gentiles';" a situation curiously illustrating, if it did not suggest, the use of the word in ecclesiastical architecture-the "Galilee" or Porch of the Cathedral of Palestine. Twenty of its cities were actually annexed by Solomon to the adjacent kingdom of Tyre; and formed with their territory the "boundary" or "offscouring" ("Gebul" or "Cabul"") of the two dominions, at a later time still known by the general name of "the boundaries' (" coasts," or" borders") of Tyre and Sidon"." Another district of the same character on the east, as Cabul on the west, was Decapolis, a district of ten cities, mostly inhabited by Gentiles. Of these cities one was on the eastern side of the Jordan, at the point where the plain of Esdraelon branches down into the Jordan valley. It has been already mentioned, under the name of Bethshan, as having alone of all the northern fortresses remained in the hands of the Canaanites. It was thus, as it were, a northern Jebus; but, unlike Jebus, it remained a Gentile settlement to the very close of the Jewish history, known by the Greek name of Scythopolis, and celebrated on Grecian coins as the City of Bacchus. In the first great deportation of the Jewish population, "Naphtali and Galilee" suffered the same fate as the trans-Jordanic tribes before Ephraim or Judah had been molested. In the time of the Christian era this original disadvantage of their position was still felt; the "speech of Galileans" "bewrayed" them by its uncouth pronunciation'; and their distance from the seats of government and civilisation at Jerusalem and Cæsarea gave them their character for turbulence or independence, according as it was viewed by their friends or their enemies.

Isai. ix. 1; Matt. iv. 15.

2 Such seems to be the play of the words of Hiram. "What cities are these which thou hast given me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabul unto this day." 1 Kings ix. 12, 13.

3 Matt. xv. 21; Mark vii. 24, 31; Luke vi. 17.

4 With the exception of Bethshan, they were all on the eastern side of the Jordan (Pliny H. N., v. 16, 18). But from the way in which the word is introduced in the Gospel narrative (Matt. iv. 25;

Mark v. 20; vii. 31), it would seem that they were regarded as offsets, not of Perma, but of Galilee.

5 For the history of Bethshan, see p. 340, 407; and compare Jos. Ant. XIII. xiii. 2; B. J. II. xviii. 3; Palästina, Raumer in voce.

62 Kings xv. 29.

7 Matt. xxvi. 73. For the difference of Galilean customs and dialect, see Lightfoot (ii. 77, 78), Renan's Langues Semitiques (i. 213).

This isolation, which renders the history of Galilee an almost entire blank in the Old Testament, is the cause of its sudden glory in the New.

Galilee in the New Testament.

I. It is one peculiarity of the Galilean hills, as distinct from those of Ephraim or Judah, that they contain or

sustain green basins of table-land just below their NAZARETH. topmost ridges; forming marked features in any view

from the summit of Tabor, or further north from the slopes of Hermon. Such apparently was that ancient sanctuary, the birth-place of Barak, Kedesh-Naphtali, 'the Holy Place of Naphtali,' known only by its significant name, and its selection. as the northern city of refuge, corresponding to Shechem in central, and Hebron in southern Palestine. Such, too, although less elevated, was the Roman capital of Galilee-Dio-Cæsarea, or Sepphoris', situated in the green plain of Buttauf in the hills immediately above Acre.

But such above all is NAZARETH. Fifteen gently rounded hills " seem as if they had met to form an enclosure Its upland for this peaceful basin; they' rise round it like the basin; edge of a shell to guard it from intrusion. It is " a rich and beautiful field" in the midst of these green hills-abounding in gay flowers, in fig-trees, small gardens, hedges of the prickly pear; and the dense rich grass affords an abundant pasture. The expression of the old topographer, Quaresmius, was as happy as it is poetical; "Nazareth is a rose, and, like a rose, has the same rounded form, enclosed by mountains as the flower by its leaves." The village stands on the steep slope of the southwestern side of the valley; its chief object, the great Franciscan Convent of the Annunciation with its white campanile and brown enclosure".

1 Josephus, Ant. XVIII. ii. 1. The fullest account of Sepphorieh is given by Dr. Clarke, iv. 134. The plain of Buttauf is called by Josephus "The great plain of Asochis." See Vita §§ 41, 45, 68 (Robinson, Later Researches, 110).

2 This account is partly from my own recollections, partly in the words of Dr. Richardson, whose description of Nazareth is unusually faithful and vivid. (See Modern Traveller, p. 304.)

3 Richardson speaks of them as barren, and Quaresmius (ii. 818), as barren, white, chalky hills, and says the town

thence derives its name of Medina Abiad, "the white city." This confirms Schwarz's remark (p. 178), who says that he has ascertained from ancient documents that the town of Nazareth was called the White Town "-"Laban."

4 Hence possibly its name, according to the old interpretation of it as "Flowery." (See von Raumer, Palästina, p. 119. The Abbé Michon, speaking as a botanist (Voy. Religieuse, ii. 26), says of Nazareth, "C'est la contrée de tout la Judée où j'ai vu le plus de fleurs."

See Chapter XIV.

From the crest of the hills which thus screen it, especially from that called Nebi-Said, or Ismail, on the western side, is one of the most striking views in Palestine; Tabor with its rounded dome, on the south-east; Hermon's white top in the distant north, Carmel and the Mediterranean Sea to the west; a conjunction of those three famous mountains probably unique in the views of Palestine: and in the nearer prospect, the uplands in which Nazareth itself stands, its own circular basin behind it; on the west, enclosed by similar hills, overhanging the plain of Acre, lies the town of Sepphorieh, just noticed as the Roman capital, and brought into close, and as far as its situation is concerned, not improbable connection with Nazareth, as the traditional residence of the Virgin's parents. On the south, and south-east, lies the broad plain of Esdraelon, overhung by the high pyramidal hill, which, as the highest point of the Nazareth range, and thus the most conspicuous to travellers approaching from the plain, has received, though without any historical ground, the name of the "Mount of Precipitation." These are the natural features which for nearly thirty years met the almost daily view of Him who "increased in wisdom and stature" within this beautiful seclusion. It is the seclusion which constitutes its peculiarity and its fitness for these scenes of the Gospel history. Unknown and unnamed in the Old Testament, Nazareth first appears as the retired abode of the humble carpenter. Its separation from the busy world may be the ground, as it certainly is an illustration, of the Evangelist's play on the word "He shall be called a Nazarene." Its wild character high up in the Galilean hills may account both for the roughness of its population, unable to appreciate their own Prophet, and for the evil reputation which it had acquired even in the neighbouring villages, one of whose inhabitants, Nathanael of Cana, said: "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" There, secured within the natural barrier of the hills, was passed that youth, of which the most remarkable characteristic is its absolute obscurity; and thence came the name of NAZARENE, used of old by the Jews, and used still by Mussulmans, as the appellation of that despised sect which has now embraced the civilised world.

and its seclusion.

It was not to be expected that any local reminiscences should

be preserved of a period so studiously, as it would appear, withdrawn from our knowledge. Two natural features, however, may still be identified, connected, the one by tradition, the other by the Gospel narrative, with the events which The Spring

nunciation.

have made Nazareth immortal. The first is the of the Anspring or well in the green open space', at the northeast extremity of the town; a spot well known as the general encampment of such travellers as do not take up their quarters in the Franciscan convent. This well-which must always have been frequented, as it is now, by the women of Nazarethis probably that which the earliest local traditions of Palestine claimed to be the scene of the Angelic Salutation to Mary, as she, after the manner of her countrywomen, went thither to draw water. The tradition may be groundless, but there can be little question that the locality to which it is attached exists, and that it must have existed at the time of the alleged scene. The second is indicated in the Gospel history by one of those slight touches which serve as a testimony to the truth of the description, by nearly approaching but yet not crossing the verge of inaccuracy. "They rose," it is said of the infuriated inhabitants," and cast Him out of the city, and brought Him to 'a brow of the mountain' (ews oppúos Tоû opovs) on which the city was built, so as to 'cast Him down the cliff'" (σTE Katakpημvíσai avtóv). Most readers probably from these words imagine a town built on the summit of a mountain, from which summit the intended precipitation was to take place. This, as I have said, is not the situation of Nazareth. Yet, its position is still in accordance with the narrative. It is built " upon," that is, on the side of, “a mountain," but the "brow" is not beneath but over the town, and such a cliff (îpηuvòs), as is here implied, is to be found, as all modern travellers describe, in the abrupt face of the limestone rock, about thirty or forty feet high, overhanging the Maronite convent at the south-west corner of the town, and another at a little further distance.

The "Rock

of the Precipitation."

It is needless to dwell in detail on the other lesser scenes of our Lord's ministrations in the neighbourhood of his early home. Nain, at two or three hours' distance, in the Plain of

1 For this and the other "Holy Places" of Nazareth see Chap. XIV.